Review - Hanna Montana (Series 3, part 2)

A concern for many parents of growing children is the selection of appropriate television and DVDs. With increasing laxity in classification standards violence and questionable moral themes have begun to creep into the PG bands; making many parents wary of modern reality style shows depicting tweenage children and their daily lives.   With television one of the major influences for young people, its important, therefore to be careful with the selection of role models.

Unless you have been living under rock at the back of a distant cave, you will have been exposed at some point to the Empire of Hannah Montana, complete with its huge merchandising range and DVDs.  Unike some television personalities and shows which appeal to the tweenage market, the concepts and themes presented in Hannah Montana  remain clean, ethical and inspiring; despite its longevity.  August 4th marks the release of Series 3 part 2 of the DVD range and is certain not to disappoint.

For those who may have escaped her marketing and shows, Hannah Montana is a world famous pop star who hides her real identity behind Miley Stewart - a normal teenage girl.  The formula for episodes revolve around issues in the lives of Miley and her best friend Lilly; interspersed with  the girls' gawky other friend, Oliver. Mileys real life father - Billy Ray Cryrus, plays her father, lending his experience and knowledge as he advises her through her challenges in her split lifestyle.

Disney continues a popular plotline made famous with shows such as Superman or Bewitched where the main characters real identity must be kept a secret.  Girls in particular identify strongly with the clumsy goofy Miley and dream about being the confident and popular Hannah.

After three series, it's become a little hazy on who's ‘in’ on the teenager's huge, unlikely, impractical secret, but since it's basically become perfect fodder for most of the  jokes, it doesn't ultimately matter.

Every episode generally packs a life lesson where characters learn not to lie, learn about forgiveness, and humility. Overall, the series itself is about not forgetting your roots, which can be an important lesson for anyone to learn. As its often taught in a series of humorous events, viewers do not feel that they are being preached at.

Series 3 sees Miley juggle the challenges of growing-up such as getting her driver's license, sticking her foot in her mouth on a radio talk show and dealing with secret crushes.  As always, with the help of her father and timely reality checks from best friends Lilly and Oliver, Miley learns valuable lessons in trusting her instincts and ways to make decisions which are right for her.  Series 3 part 2 also resolves the cliffhanger "What Will Miley Ultimately Decide?” left from part 1.

Disney is usually reluctant to allow most of their shows continue past 50 episodes, siting that the original ingredients cannot be reproduced over a lengthy period of time, that creativity dries up and fans become more demanding and specific about what they want and need to see their icons do and say.  In the case of Hanna Montana, they have made an exception.  With over 70 episodes now made, the Hanna Montana empire appears as strong and robust as it has ever been. Whilst the script may never make the Nobel Prize, its filled with fun and delivered with a freshness which is envied throughout Hollywood.  For die hard Hannah Fans, this is a must buy and see.  For those looking for entertainment for their tweenagers which will uphold a strong social basis, you could do alot worse than investing in the entire stock of Hannah Montana DVDs.

IMAGE via Wiki

Miss Lilly fights a fence

a little blood... humm no ALOT of Blood.

Once again I earn mother of the year… or not.  *SIGH* Seem to be doing that a fair bit lately….

Thought I’d pop down what happened on Wednesday last week.. in case you missed it on Facebook.

We’ve recently changed studios with the dance classes Morgan and Lilly do. Its much further out - but Morgan was desperate to do hip hop and this studio was the only one on the southside who accommodated kids as young as he. ( he loves it by the way - so much better he says than dumb jazz ballet...he might be right)

Anyway - its so far out of town there are fields of cows beside the studio - which my two city born kids are endlessey delighted with.  After class Lilly and two little friends went up to the barbed wire fence and patted the very calm heifers.  Squeels of delight from them all and they began to puck out long grass to feed them.

I had the dog so we went for a walk around the huge paddock.  Suddenly I hear running feet and one of the girls shrieking that Lilly had blood on her head.

Mother of the Year here shrugs and thinks whatever.. but ambles over anyway.

My heart stopped as Lilly walked over the hill towards me.  She wasn’t crying - which is a bad sign.  Her face was streaming with blood. Her shirt soaked and it was dripping onto her dance shoes so bad her white socks were red.

I ripped her dance top off - which of course was made of non absorbent lycra and walked her calmly up to the studio. The blood soaked through her shirt and was gushing through my fingers. That scared me a bit. Poor little thing was fine till she looked down and saw the streaming blood and then asked me if she was going to die.

I think I said not today sweety…

The excitement was all on when I arrived. Although the girls up there were keen to get an ambo, I knew face and scalp wounds bled alot and it was probably pretty minor.  Eventhough my heart was pounding and panicing...

It took alot longer to stem the flow of blood and Lilly to her credit remained very calm and didn’t cry.  A lent jacket got soaked in blood as well. I knew she was taking cues from me - so I kept up some sort of stupid banter.

The cuts were in her hair and its matted with blood and I left it like that for a few days.  Its pretty amazing how quickly it healed.

I had two buckets of cold water which were rich and red with blood, trying to soak out all the stains for a few days.. niiiiice.

so - thats the excitement here at the moment…  hows your week been?

I recorded my reaction on Audio Boo here.

Last Night in Longreach

My last night here in Longreach. Its bitterly cold and the wind, in Julies eloquent words, is described as smelling of penguin shit…. or polar bear arseholes…. humm classy - thanks Jules!!

 The rain has made it over from Bedourie, where one of Dougals crushing plants is currently…. Which means that things will halt and hunker down till it stops raining… again... 

I’d love to go and see the channel country now and compare it with the thick dusty roads we drove through for thousands of miles last year.  I caught up briefly with my brother Geordie who’d flown in from Birdsville on the weekend.  He reckons the countryside is incredible, transformed into huge lakes, vegetation and flowers. seems almost impossible to me - having see those long read expanses.  It was like driving on the moon. Not a stick, not a blade of grass for thousands of Miles. Poor old Bourke and Wills.

Having been here a number of times theres only so many times you can do the touristy stuff.  I’ve really come out here to see Jules and the kids - so that my kids can continue to get know their cousins and to experience some real Australian bush life.  Julie and her gang drive to mum and dads for Christmas every year and we generally spend two weeks with each other a year.  Its really not enough.  Every time we part I cry. I know I’ll cry tomorrow.  Distance kind of makes you forget how nice it is to have  a sister.  Someone who knows you so well that you don’t really have to talk. Boy and I am lucky,,, or unlucky.  I have three sisters all thousands of miles away from me in far flung dusty country towns. And its times like this I really really miss them. 

Poor Lilly has been crying alot tonight. She has had such a wonderful time with her cousins. 

and I totally understand. When I was growing up, we had cousins who lived in Mackay who we only saw once a year.  We adored those times and were so close to them as we grew up.  you know its crazy too. We didnt’ grow up in a luvy huggy kissy family.  But you knew where  you stood and that your family was always going to be there; you just have to say the word and you know they will travel thousands of miles to be there.

We’ve already begun planning our next trip out here. Julie and Dougal both turn 40 next year - so its got to be a big shin ding!  Morgan has committed to mastering riding his push bike so that at Easter next year, he can learn to ride a motorcycle. We will all get a bit better at our fishing skills ( like the tying of knots) so we can go fishing in the boat next time as well.

I’ve been posting photos up of our trip onto facebook - so go over there and check them out.. with my new Iphone - I’ve gotten very lazy with all of this - its so easy to upload to facebook I just don't do my blog much.. 

I've done this as an Audio Boo here   and there was a quick one done when I was in Roma on the way home here. 

My Audio Boos get posted directly onto my Facebook  - all you need to do is click on them while you are scrolling down and checking out what other people are doing and it will play in the background... otherwise just go to my AudioBoo site and follow me from there.  Every Sunday I will be reading one of my short stories - first drafts of them at least.

cheers!!