Sting weekend

You know how I like reporting movie-related coincidences I experience. Well, here's another.

I hadn't been thinking much about Sting recently. In fact, I can't remember the last time I devoted some portion of my brain to him, but it could have been more than a year ago. That's how long it's been since I had a Sting-related incident of any kind.

This past weekend, I had three.

The first was when the former Police lead singer did a handful of songs before the AFL (Australian Football League) grand final. I didn't know what Sting's connection to Australia was, but then again, Bryan Adams had no connection to Australia when he fulfilled a similar role last year. It's a big enough event to woo A-list talent, albeit A-list talent past their prime.

But is Sting really past his prime?

I marveled not only at how fit he looked, but how good his voice sounded. The high notes are not a problem for him or anything, and he's still trim with impressive muscles. Looks more like a 45-year-old than a 65-year-old (his milestone birthday was also this past weekend). I'll hope to look that good when I turn 45 in two years, and will surely fail.

The second Sting event was not really an event at all, but pondered me to first consider the coincidence. It was seeing his name among my trending topics on Facebook. The reason he was trending had to do with some viral video on Jimmy Fallon. I didn't watch the video, but I did wonder how he managed to get to Jimmy Fallon so soon after being in Melbourne on Saturday. (He must have been in New York first and come to Melbourne after that, unless maybe he did it remotely.)

It was by Sunday night that I started to wonder if someone was punking me.

Sting has something a bit larger than a cameo in Zoolander 2, which I watched Sunday night. It's important to emphasize this because there are about 173 others who have what would more legitimately be described as a cameo. Sting appears in the movie twice, in a consequential role, so he almost reaches the level of, like, a co-star. It was nice to see him on screen again. He was funny.

And you know what? Zoolander 2 was funny. I may have just lost all credibility with you, but the movie was so much funnier than I had any reason to believe it would be. The word of mouth about this movie has been awful, and even as a fan of most Ben Stiller movies, I figured I'd be in synch with those opinions.

But after 15 amusing minutes in which I didn't laugh much but appreciated what they were going for, I started bursting out laughing periodically, maybe once per five minutes. That's not bad at all in a 100-minute movie. It all started with the hilariously unexpected appearance of Benedict Cumberbatch as the androgynous transgender supermodel called "All" and it just went from there. (The only person I didn't really like, in fact, was a usual favorite, Kristen Wiig.)

Where will I see Sting next?

Wherever it is, it will be welcome.

Long time no ... zed?

Saw this poster for Zoolander 2 the other day, and it struck me as a particularly bad advertisement to hang in an Australian movie theater.

A poster with a tagline that reads "Long time no Z" is actually saying "Long time no Zed" if you read it out loud in these here parts.

Just another way that Australia fails to conform to the "correct" way of doing things. Don't even get me started on the whole "starting seasons on the first day of the month" thing.

Or does it fail to conform?

I had a weird experience at work the other day where I was training a new starter, and during the training he had the occasion to pronounce the acronym ZZZ as part of our work. He was talking to a client on the phone, and instead of saying "Zed Zed Zed" he said "Zee Zee Zee."

I was a bit gobsmacked, as this is a native Australian -- one who is probably 15 years younger than I am, but that still means he's been around speaking Australian for something like 25 years. The weird thing was that he wasn't saying it to appeal to me or my American ways. He was saying it because that's how he was taught to say it growing up. Making him the only Australian child I'm aware of who was taught that way.

The even weirder thing was that he thought it was weird that I thought it was weird.

So is Zed dead, baby? Is Zed dead?

Not yet, I don't think. In fact, as far as I can tell this is a total aberration. However, it does give me hope. Maybe if they start saying the letter Z like Americans, the next step will be figuring out how to release movies according to American release dates.

What I'm really curious about is who will win the battle of the zoos at the multiplexes in early 2016. There's Zoolander 2, of course -- and it has been a long time, as the original came out 15 years ago -- but there's also Zootopia, which figures to be the next movie I see in theaters with my son. He loves the bit about the sloths talking slowly in the trailer. Which is pretty much the whole trailer.

Given that they're aimed at completely different audiences, it could very easily be a tie.

Z you then.