You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Movies: Day 6

Today, I decided, would be another “bring my laptop in” day, as I don't have any dashing between venues to do. :)

In further proof that there are only about 400 people in the world, the guy who very patiently served me while I bought about three meters worth of tickets from the MFC was behind the desk at the Embassy today. He said hi, and then asked whether I was from Island Bay? Had I gone to St Francis de Sales School? And was I related to the other Andersens there? So... Erik, despite not seeing you for fifteen years, Tim McDonald says hi, and congratulations on your engagement. :)

I was up until about 1am dealing with work mail; I'm going to have to set up some filters, since otherwise I'm not going to manage to make it these two weeks. On the upside, it feels like it's been two weeks since I left work, rather than four working days; I'm pretty sure it's because life has been full of novelty, rather than because life has been empty of sleep. :)

I'm now sitting in the Paramount, waiting for the start of Struggle No More. I knew the daughter of one of the members, and have an album by The Windy City Strugglers, so it should be good fun; but the crowd definitely seems skewed towards the older end of the spectrum. Maybe that just reflects who can take a Wednesday morning off to see a documentary about a local folk/blues band?

Huh. If I were a better writer, I daresay I'd be able to draw something profound out of these experiences about the importance of place – bumping into people from your old school, hearing people singing about the Desert Road or Courtney Place, being part of where you grow up. But instead, I'll drink my Fair Trade English breakfast tea, listen to “Red Right Hand” playing on the stereo in the Paramount foyer, and worry in a low-key way about work.

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Okay, quickly again, because it's 11:30pm and I still have to go through my work mail, and see if there's anything broken that I need to fix.

Struggle No More was pretty cool, although I'm perhaps biased by liking the music beforehand. I found it interesting that Costa Botes, the filmmaker, didn't really know their music before he started making the documentary; he was just intrigued about this group that has basically been around for thirty years, and has a following, and yet never really went anywhere. (Though their latest album has been picked up overseas, and they just did a tour of twenty dates in Europe, staying, as they put it, “in youth hostels and retirement villages”.) It was cool to see how different members were connected to the NZ music scene (one of them was a member of Blerta, for example), and I like the 1920s jug band blues sound. And there's one song... about loving you when you're smiling, and loving you when you're frowning, and loving you when you roll your eyes at me... Maybe it's just C has just cause to roll her eyes at me an awful lot. ;)

My next was my first noir-fu of the season, Bittersweet Life, about an enforcer who makes a choice and has to live with the consequences. I don't think it's anything super-remarkable, but it was fun and bloody (or bloody and fun, depending on your tolerance for blood), and did pretty much everything right; certainly in the top quartile of violence-filled honour-torn Asian gangster films, and there are a lot of contenders in that genre. I thought, right at the end, they might be implying a twist; but I'm pretty sure it was metaphorical. (I think my glut of slow-moving Asian films made me appreciate it even more.) Oh, and I bumped into Beerman there, which was a pleasant surprise.

Then it was off to The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, which had no “cool” characters, a plethora of unfortunate haircuts, and a minor female character named “Blondene”. It was fun, not at all dark, and though for a while there I was feeling an uncomfortable resonance for the geeky main characters, I then remembered how awesome I am, and the uncomfortable feeling went away while I nestled in my comfortable cloud of self-delusion. :) I saw it with Jenni and Lee – did you know Jenni, when not restrained, may actually dance in her seat to the end-credit music? I leave this as a warning to others!

Then what? Oh, I popped in and said hi to... uh, I can't remember what he calls himself online, so let's just say I popped my head into his place of work on my way to the Embassy, and had a quick chat about his recent cycling trip to Japan. And then I got to the theatre just as Pearce, Morgue and Hix were leaving their session of Dave Chappelle's Block Party, and had a brief chat with them. (They enjoyed it.)

I was at the Embassy for Offside, an Iranian film about a group of girls who try to sneak into the Iran/Bahrain match that determined whether Iran would be going to the World Cup. Some of the key scenes were filmed during the match itself; the filmmaker was there, and when asked how the story would have gone if Iran had lost the match, admitted that he didn't know. As it was, it was a very cool film, and the girl actors did a really good job of conveying the excitement and eagerness that their characters had for the game. It was good fun to watch, and the Q&A session afterwards was interesting, too. (The film, unsurprisingly, is banned in Iran, though the filmmaker and all the actors continue to live there.)

And then finally, The Method, a Spanish film about a group of candidates for a executive job that get locked in a room, and then through a series of psychological tests get eliminated one by one. I liked it a lot – all the voyerism of a show like The Apprentice or Survivor with none of the waiting, and a bit more of an edge, since you know that the psychologists are deliberately messing with them. Oh, and it was set with the backdrop of the protests against the IMF and World Bank, which gave it a nice context, and a really good ending shot.

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So, that's it. I've just got to knock off my mail, and then it's back for another five movies tomorrow – including Vampires Vs Sheep-Man. Should be good.

Posted by svend at July 27, 2006 12:10 AM