Our Top Two Favourite Quotes From Looking For Alibrandi (movie)

‘Two things happened to me yesterday. The first was I received all this shit about voting for the first time, which I chucked in the bin, cos I reckon all politicians are a bunch of dickheads. And the other thing was my old man was watching a documentary about insects rooting on fig leaves, so I caught the end of the world news. And I saw this guy who was being chased by his own government, and I didn’t understand anything about it except that he was wearing a Nick Cave t-shirt. And then I wondered how a guy my age, with my taste in music, had gotten himself into a situation where his own government was trying to have him shot, just because he had something to say. And I realised I’m lucky because in this country, I can rant and rave and call the Prime Minister a dickhead without the army coming in and shooting me, and stopping you all from listening. And I figured that in this country, we don’t vote to keep the best party in – cos there’s no such thing – but we vote to keep the worst party out. Because I don’t want to end up being watched by some bloke at the other end of the world who thinks that this can’t happen to him.’ – Jacob Coote

‘If I could be anything but what I am, I would be tomorrow. If I could be what my father wants me to be, then maybe I could stay for that, too. If I could be what you want me to be, I’d want to stay. But I am what I am, and all I want is freedom.’ – John Barton

Looking For Alibrandi (movie) – The Soundtrack

Tintarella Di Luna – Mina

With Or Without You – U2

Teenager Of The Year – Lo-tel

Miss You Love – Silverchair

Obviously, this isn’t the full soundtrack for the movie, but as some of the songs were simply background, traditional or choir music, we decided to pick and choose what songs we wanted on the movie playlist. These four were the only ones that made the cut.

 

(Full soundtrack posted on our playlists page).

Looking For Alibrandi (movie) – The Places We Couldn’t Go

As with the book, there were some places that we couldn’t find despite watching the movie many times, google maps street viewing our hearts out and consulting my aunty and her partner, Martyn (Sydney-ites).  The field where Josie’s cousin, Robert, is playing soccer was un-locatable.  Martyn thought that it may be a school or university field. Similarly, we couldn’t find the bridge where they have muck up day and he thought that, too, might be within school grounds (possibly KRB’s). We googled the cafe where Josie and Michael Andretti have a coffee and found some vague references, but nothing concrete. It’s possible that it doesn’t exist, or has closed down.  We tried to locate the Opporto where Josie works by using our amazing investigative skills as we noticed that there was a Civic video store in the same location (we also watched the deleted scene on the DVD to get a better reference) and we tried cross referencing addresses for Opportos and Civic video stores but we couldn’t find the right one.  We didn’t visit the workplace of Michael Andretti, we later found out this address is online so clearly we didn’t try hard enough on that front. Oops. Probably most disappointing of all, we couldn’t find Jacob’s house.  We did manage to narrow down a street number and by the look of the house, Martyn thought it was possibly in Glebe, but we couldn’t lock down an address. Lastly, there is still a cinema where Josie and Jacob go for their date, however it is no longer a Village cinema and is now an Event cinema.

There may be other locations that we missed and we encourage you to point these out.  Also, if you know where some of the locations we have mentioned are, please let us know!

– Annette

17. Bondi Skate Park – LFA (movie)

A Josie-Anna-Sera conversation location!

We’ve previously mentioned our experiences with certain locations having changed appearance or no longer existing/being in the same place. Bondi skate park is one of these locations. Back when the movie was made in 1999, the skate park was simply one half-pipe. It was extensively renovated in 2004 and has since become much bigger. When we went to check it out, it was pretty busy and we couldn’t see any resemblance to the skate park in the movie so I just decided to take a quick pic of the front because I really liked the graffiti sign

– Rachel

16. St. Patrick’s Seminary – LFA (movie)

Many years ago in a land far, far away, (by which of course I mean about 2 months ago on this same blog you are now reading) we shared a story about a lost train ticket – which you can read read here – with the promise of a follow up story. Here it is;

We didn’t have the best weather when we went to Sydney, but the day we visited St. Patrick’s seminary in Manly (where they filmed the funeral scene) was the hottest day of our trip. As we caught the ferry to Manly, we had to rely on our trusty feet to get us around. St. Patrick’s is up a massive hill. So with the combination of it being hot and us being incredibly unfit, it was an ideal situation for hilarity to ensue.

Before I continue, it is critical that you read the following; As previously noted, we have a fondness for funny YouTube clips; in particular, quoting them. If you haven’t seen our most recent post, please put your reading on pause and go here to watch this clip.

So you’ve seen it? Good. You may continue reading.

So on our walk, we may or may not have been quoting this very loudly and then laughing hysterically. It took us a while to notice, but there was an older gentleman walking a short distance behind us quietly laughing to himself (we like to think he was laughing with us, not at us, but either could have been possible). Despite being 30+ years older, he was clearly much healthier than us because he caught up to us quite easily (which only made us laugh more) and then proceeded to stop us briefly by putting a hand on on each of our arms while saying “I’m just going to stop you there,” walked between the two of us to get in front and then kept going. We never did work out exactly why he wanted to stop us, but we can only assume it was because our endless laughter was making it difficult for him to make the long trek up the hill and he needed to be somewhere in a hurry.

We eventually got to St. Patrick’s seminary and had to wait in the hot sun for about 15 minutes because there was a group of people standing on the stairs and we didn’t want them in our photo. We could have avoided that wait but in the time the steps were clear, Rachel felt that it was absolutely critical that she check us in on Facebook instead, giving said group of people the time to firmly establish their territory on the steps.

After we had finally gotten our photo, it was time to head back. On the hike down the hill, I distinctly remember seeing a train ticket on the ground and thinking “some poor sap has lost their train ticket.” It was also very close to the spot where we had stopped to put on some sunscreen on the way up (there’s nothing healthy about a tan. Plus… I’m pasty and Rachel is a redhead). We then got to the ferry where I discovered that I had lost my train ticket. I am 99 percent sure that the poor sap was me.

– Annette

15. Central Train Station – LFA (movie)

Josie uses public transport to commute to and from school and, like a large majority of Sydney commuters, this trip takes her to Central station. For those of you that have seen the movie, there are two notable scenes where Central station is shown; first when she sees John on another platform and they then meet up and write their ‘Catholic Therapy’ letters to each other. The other scene is where Josie sees someone who she thinks is John but, when she looks closer, realises it isn’t. Interestingly, we met a guy on our trip who is friends with the actor who played this John look-alike! We were extremely excited about this because, really, what are the chances? This was even more exciting considering the reason WHY we met this guy and what he was doing to us at the time…. Get your mind out of the gutter! Unfortunately, we can’t fully disclose this story yet, but stayed tuned for part 2 of this epic saga.  (** Update; click here for part 2)

– Annette

14. The Quadrangle (the University of Sydney) – LFA (movie)

Third time lucky, we get the right side of the Quadrangle but not with either of us in it. Fail again.

– Rachel

14. The Quadrangle (the University of Sydney) – LFA (movie)

I’ll be honest, it was me that decided we should sit on the right side for the picture. When we couldn’t find the scene on YouTube, we relied on my freakish memory for detail and I was wrong. Fail.

– Rachel

14. The Quadrangle (the University of Sydney) – LFA (movie)

Believe it or not, there were some locations that we didn’t actually struggle with locating and parking. Sydney University is not one of them. Sure, you can park within the Uni, but it was SUPER expensive and we were pretty sure you actually had to be a student. Eventually we found parking, although we only had an hour to do what we had to do.

The first problem we encountered was that Sydney University is HUGE. The second problem is that we weren’t sure exactly where in the Uni we needed to get to. There were a few different possibilities, including ‘The Square’ and ‘The Quadrangle’. We chose ‘The Quadrangle’ and we were, thankfully, right (winning). The third problem we encountered was that we couldn’t remember what side of the archway John was sitting on when Josie arrives. We tried to find the scene on YouTube but had no luck. So we chose the right side. We were wrong (not winning). We would have made up for it by having a race to the arch like John and Josie, but there was a ‘new students’ tour group and the sight of us running toward them probably would’ve scared them off.

Despite this particular location visit not being 100% successful, it was still fun to see it in real life and Sydney University is pretty awesome.

– Annette

13. East Street – LFA (movie)

Katia Alibrandi’s place of residence!

Now I have to say, most of the locations from the Looking For Alibrandi movie were all fairly easy to identify, research and locate due to various internet sites. So this photo, Annette and I are immensely proud of ourselves for getting because the only thing we had to go off was a suburb. A link we were using to find locations directed us via street view to 110 Great North Road, Five Dock. After looking, we found that the house wasn’t on this road so we assumed it must be in the area. We decided to watch the movie to see if we could (A) get a house number and (B) recognise any surrounding buildings. In the scene where Josie is stomping down the street to confront Katia at her house, we noticed a building with the sign SUPERMARKET facing onto the street from behind in the background. Of course, we turned to google to see if we could obtain a street address, but unfortunately had no luck. However, we did manage to get a house number: 15. Google maps became our best friend as we then street-viewed house number 15 on all streets, avenues and roads near Great North Road. And to our great surprise, we found it! This was our greatest location investigative achievement and we gave ourselves many a pat on the back and maybe a few comparisons to Veronica Mars were made….

When we visited the house the next day, getting a photo of it turned out to be nearly as difficult as finding it. Incredibly, TomTom directed us there with no problems and we managed to park directly opposite it, which, with our many navigation and parking problems, was a complete miracle. I jumped out of the car in a very excited state, (still on a high from finding the house, which actually used to be Melina’s grandparent’s house) all ready to take a bajillion photos, and a car pulled up directly in front of it. This completely ruined my chances of getting a good photo so I jumped back in the car to wait for this car to leave. But as the woman inside proceeded to alternate between talking on the phone and absolutely bawling her eyes out over her steering wheel, this seemed unlikely. Now, we’re not completely heartless and we thought about going up to see if she was OK, but we figured she probably just wanted to be alone. Luckily, we had bought some lunch before venturing out so we ate while we waited it out. After about half an hour, she drove off, leaving my photo taking opportunities endless once again. BUT THEN, the family that lived there arrived home. Once they had traipsed inside, I only felt comfortable taking a few quick photos, and although we really wanted to, we just didn’t have the guts to knock on the door and ask if we could have a quick look at the backyard and/or get them to film us dancing to Tintarella Di Luna in the driveway

Originally we weren’t going to include the address in this post, but after googling the house tonight, I found 2 links that listed the address directly so we have included the street name in the title and it turns out our hard core investigative skills weren’t really needed, had I done my research a little more thoroughly. But it’s good to know we’ve got it in us.

– Rachel