No entry on Thursday because I started at 7:30am, finished at 8:50pm, and still didn't quite get everything done. No entries post-Thursday because I'm still without an Interweb connection at home. I nearly went to an internet cafe yesterday, but I figured that I had to pop to the parents place anyway, and I didn't have anything so important to say that it couldn't wait. ;)
(The keyboard I'm using is very annoying - every now and then I get four or five spaces where I only want one. Gah.)
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My initial impressions of the films I've seen so far:
I thought Hero was very beautiful. I can see why people might compare it to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I think it was a lot more accessible than that film, and in some ways cleverer. Lovely, lovely colour. As far as actual content goes - it does bring up a dilemma for me; I'd like to be able to say that I thought that peace doesn't justify an unjust ruler, but on the other hand I've got a big problem with harming or bringing harm to innocents... and in my day-to-day life, I'm aware that I tend to be more interested in getting on with people than seeking justice.
Rhythm Is It! was pretty cool, and I think that any of my teacher friends would have gotten a lot out of it. The way that the teachers from the working-class schools were prepared to excuse the kids' lack of progress (compared to the dance academy that some of the kids had visited), and the kids' responses - "No, the difference is that they're quiet, they listen and the want to do it." Obviously, it's a documentary, so who knows how the dynamics actually worked; but the impression was that the teachers didn't want to push the kids, either because they didn't want the kids to be disappointed when they failed, or they didn't want to be disappointed themselves...
Best of British was okay, but nothing outstanding. The Aardman short was funny, there were a few shorts that were annoying, and there was an interesting version of a British folk song that I wouldn't mind watching again.
Supersize Me was interesting, but not particularly challenging. I didn't realise how big the portions had become in America, but I don't tend to find the 'stunt' documentary style particularly compelling - this may be a reason I don't find Michael Moore as interesting as some people do. One thing I liked was that the documentary maker acknowledged that it was a bit of a stunt - that you weren't meant to eat McD's three times a day. And I thought that it was startling how quickly and how badly he was affected. It reminded me of the weight-gain experiement that some readers may remember from the stupid-stuff mailing list - I'll find a link to it when I have slightly more time.
Huh, speaking of time, it looks like I'm running out of it. I haven't even finished commenting on the films I saw the first day, let alone about the fact that I can hear parties in the flat across the driveway as clearly as if I had the window open in my bedroom (I may have to invest in some earplugs, and possibly learn the number of noise control :), or that there's a possibility that I'll be able to get a cable modem in 3-4 working days. So... hopefully, sometime in the near future updates will become a bit more regular.
In the meantime, I'm off to my eleventh through fifteenth films in three days. On the whole, I have to say I'm enjoying myself, though I'm a little worried about how much I'm spending on food in town. Then again, I've been tending to buy my lunch anyway, so it's not that big a change - and I'm hardly thinking about how much there's still to do at work at all. :)
Hope to see some of you at the festival.
Posted by svend at July 18, 2004 10:12 AM