You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Not quite a FF entry.

Seems to be my Day for Doing Stuff. I've just paid my credit cards and done my GST online, I dealt with the letter from the ominous collections company (which turned out to be for someone related to the previous owners), I've finished all of yesterday's work email, and I've booked a visit to the dentist. (I've been putting this off for a while, mostly because I don't like the whole "being jabbed in the mouth" thing, and find that the local anasthetic doesn't seem to completely block sensation for me; but I woke up this morning with an aching tooth, so I figure I better get it treated. Bah, it'll probably be another root canal, which is exactly what I want to spend my money on. :( ) Anyway, I've just got to pop out to the garage and pay for the tune-up, and I'll be pretty much squared away.

Next step - the dishes, and general house cleaning!

***

Have had an excellent run of films in the last two day, but it looks like I won't have time to write about it now - I finish fairly early today, so I'll get something up tonight. But while I'm here, I'll note that Banana in a Nutshell has a screening at the Paramount on the Tuesday evening after the Festival; I liked it, and I'll explain why in my next post.

FF Day 12

Weird. I just logged into my MCS account, and there was no spam - not on my blog, not in my inbox. Am I dead?

***

One of the things I've noticed while going to the Festival is that there are some weird gaps in the sweet aisle. For example, I've yet to run across a supermarket that stocks Tangy Fruits. And boiled sweets are remarkably absent - there are a few sugar-free varieties, and Heards, and there might be the occasional hard outside/chewy center, but no pulled-sugar ones with the satin sheen or striped ones. And you don't seem to be able to get Clinkers (those chocolate-covered crunchy candies) except in the Guidedog Appeal snackbox.

I'm tempted to go into Moore Wilsons solely to find out if they have Tangy Fruits, but I suppose I don't really need more candy. :)

***

I nearly went into work today, but in the end flaked and stayed in bed reading for an hour or so, then rang Mum to see if she wanted to have lunch (she didn't), and meandered slowly into town in time for my first movie, Birth. This movie was about a ten year-old boy who tells a widow of ten years that he's her reincarnated husband, and that she shouldn't marry the new man in her life. This had a number of recognisable Hollywood faces, including Nicole Kidman, Anne Heche and Lauren Bacall; but it certainly wasn't a straightforward movie. For example, we only hear the husband in voiceover, and only see him from a distance, either from the back or in shadow. I liked it a lot, and think I could probably learn a lot from it, but I don't think I'll be buying it. One thing that I was thinking while watching it was that it would be a lot creepier and harder to empathise if the sexes were reversed.

Next up was a great big break, where I wandered around town and bought a bunch of stuff (like a few Kurosawa films, another old Latin textbook I used to have, and the fifth season of The West Wing). It's probably good that I don't normally have enough spare time between movies to go wandering into shops - well, good in a "shouldn't be spending money" way. ;)

Finally, I started my "Terrorist Tuesday" - Omagh, followed by Paradise Now. The first is a dramatisation of the 1998 "Real IRA" bombing a Northern Ireland border town (and the aftermath), while the second follows two Palestinians who've been chosen to be suicide bombers. These made an interesting pair, looking at terror bombings from the different sides in two quite different but well-established conflicts, one in the final throes of winding down (I sincerely pray), and one that's much less... mature?

Omagh is really all about the families of those who lost someone in the bomb blast, more than anything else - their quest to see those responsible bought to justice. It's said that there's strong evidence that the respective governments knew that a bombing was going to take place, and did nothing to stop it - it's even suggested (by a character, not the movie) that the government allowed the bombing to go ahead, in order to discredit the Real IRA and bring them to the negotiating table in a weaker position, and that the Real IRA's subsequent declaration of a ceasefire was bought with an agreement on the part of the governments not to pursue those responsible. While I'm hesitant to see conspiracy where incompetence would suffice, I'd be massively undersurprised to find the first part true; I suspect that the second part is more to do with the difficulty in finding hard evidence than anything else. But the piece of the movie where the ombudsman's report is read out is still quite true - the villains in the piece are those that phoned in warnings that herded shoppers into the blast zone, and then attempted to kill as many of them as possible. This was a good movie, and made me think a lot about at what stage people should go unpunished for their crimes in order to make it possible to find peace.

The second movie had, to me at least, a bit of a mixed message. It was certainly sympathetic to the Palestinians, and its portrayal of those who arm the "matyrs" and send them off was not flattering... but it shows the young men who are wired up as human bombs as being motivated by despair, and the belief that no other action will make a difference. I wonder how true that is? People have volunteered for wars without feeling that the situation at home is hopeless - witness the eagerness with which NZ sent its young men to fight in South Africa and the world wars - and I could easily believe that some of them go with a great hatred of Israel, but not because they're tired of and defeated by life. The situation in Israel/Palestine saddens me, and I don't think that the Israelis have handled things well; but killing civilians by either group just strengthens hardliners on both sides.

Oh yeah, the film - very well made, good film, even though I feel a little ambiguous about some parts of the message. There was no sound as the credits rolled - no-one talked, and very few people left immediately. It got applause, too, though even that was subdued.

***

Full plate tomorrow, but I've got a break from 7:40pm-9pm to have dinner, if anyone is in town at that time - I'll be leaving a movie from the Paramount. I merely mention it on the off-chance... :) I'll turn my phone on between movies, so text me if I should hang around.

It took me two hours to get through my work email. I think I need another end for this candle that I'm trying to burn. :) Goodnight, all!

FF Days 9-11

Those of you who remember Connie - she's written to say hi, and that she's working as a waitress in Switzerland, gradually regaining her French and being cut off from the internet because it's so expensive. :) I can give her address to those who want it.

***

Someone described this as "Coolest. Keyboard. Ever." And even if it is a hoax, I'm not inclined to disagree; though as someone pointed out, it'd be even cooler if the keys were slightly concave. ;)

And while I'm not sure that I agree with how they make them, these turtle-created paintings are kind of cool.

***

Went into work in the morning on Saturday... it's weird, people always seem to have something urgent for me to do, or want to get into an intense discussion, just as I'm heading out the door. I did get a fair amount done, including wrapping up all the email that I needed to; now the trick will be to stay on top of it.

The first movie of the day, which I managed to get to on time despite ambushes, was A Common Thread, the French story of a girl hiding her pregnancy and becoming friends with a embroiderer who has just lost her son. It was nice - low-key, but engaging.

Unemployment seems to be a popular touchstone in cinema, presumably because we as adults are so often defined by our jobs. Bombon - El Perro has a man living with his daughter because the service station he's worked in all his life has been sold. He helps a young woman with car trouble, and her mother gives him a dog... and suddenly all sorts of possibilities open up for him. The lead actor, who is apparently new at this, is wonderfully rumpled with a comfortable, lived-in face. He gives the impression of a good, amicable, slightly naive man, suddenly in the company of an assertive, fast-talking crowd. I enjoyed this film, but it's not one I need to own.

The makers of Three Dollars were at the screening, and said that they had set out to make a political film, because they were pissed off at the Australian government and the myth that they were trying to create - the illusion of comfortableness and that nothing is wrong. The story is basically about a nice guy with a white-collar job having to cope with problems at home and ethical dilemmas, counterpointed with flashbacks (often with neat faux-authentic footage which they created with the old tech). The makers had some really interesting things to say about the lack of films looking at the middle class - there is a tendency to focus of the very rich or the dirt-poor - and how difficult it was writing a film about a Jimmy Stewart-style decent man. And how tricky it was to find funding for the project, too. Also, they've apparently found this film to be a lot more polarizing than their previous films (like The Bank), and people have differed sharply as to whether the ending is an uplifting or depressing one. (I personally found it uplifting.) I'm not sure whether I'll pick this one up on DVD; I'd certainly seriously consider it.

***

Sunday was interesting because I popped into work briefly, and found a request to investigate a database problem. I found the likely source relatively quickly, but since it had been happening for a few days without any real impact on the wider facility, and I had run out of time to fix it properly, I noted what the problem was and left it for Monday.

Of course, this meant when I came in Monday morning it had broken things horribly. :p

I spotted Jenni & Lee in the queue for A Decent Factory, and said, "Hi." And then we found out we were sitting next to each other. Very weird. This was a documentary of Nokia trying to be a more ethical company, and trying to make sure their suppliers were also ethical - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because of the growth of investment funds who are making the ethical and environmental standards of the companies they consider for investment to be key issues. There was lots of fascinating stuff - especially once they got to the Chinese factory, and some of the management staff apparently not realizing that what they said might be translated afterwards. And the head manager trying to say that they couldn't use the footage outside of Nokia, while saying as little as possible that could be pinned to him later - hilarious. :) The life of a factory worker is still pretty horrendous - they had a maternity policy, but no provision for married couples in the dormitories, nor any child-care, so no-one had ever used it. Good documentary, and showed both ethical and... questionably ethical managers.

Next was Mondovino, all about the wine industry. Three things that I learned by watching this film -- first, the success of a winery, and the price that wines can command, is very much dependent on one man (or a few men), and there are wine consultants who travel between producers to help them mould their wines to this palate, often to the detriment of their individuality, and coincidentally to the advantage of American producers. Secondly, many of the people who determine how wine should taste are smokers, which must affect things somewhat. (I remember that my Mum went right off Tim-Tams when she stopped smoking and started being able to taste them. ;) And thirdly, dogs seem to be a big part of the lives of wine producers, for no obvious reason. This was a relatively subtle film against the evils of homogenization that can be the result of globalization - the big wine producers weren't demonised (though their "we're good friends with our Hispanic farm workers and appreciate their quaint folkways" attitude was noted), and the small producers were shown to often be prickily and opinionated. I liked this film a lot.

I don't think I'd have ever thought that a tambourine solo was a good idea - but as it turns out, I should forget the fact that it's a drum at heart... Basileirinho, which was a documentary about Brazil's "cholo" music, had one section where three tambourinists compared different techniques, and had a jam session. I don't think I got as much of a feel for the culture as with, say, The Buena Vista Social Club, but I think I saw a lot more of how the community of musicians interacts with itself. It was a neat documentary, and reminded me that I should try and learn more about musical styles like the samba. :) Plus, I liked the way they showed them having a real mix of instruments - two acoustic guitars, a mandolin, a clarinet, three tambourines, and a trombone, say. Now that is a cool band. It was also interesting how much instrument playing seemed to be a male domain, though not exclusively so - we did have an interview with one female non-vocalist. Women seemed to dominate vocally, though... I wonder what cultural strands produced that split.

Speaking of music, Wavelength.05 was a collection of music videos, ranging from average to really good. One excellent one had a guy working at a car factory, with big industrial robots cutting and welding... and then he starts to see them around town, out of the corner of his eye, and then more and more blatantly. Some quite spooky images, and a number of videos I'd love to see again, but I'm not really big on buying music DVDs. :) There was discussion afterwards, but I was tired, and went pretty much straight home.

***

As I implied, Monday started off with a bang. Work wasn't too bad, though I did end up having to come back late in the evening when I really just wanted to go to bed. However, as compensation you get this lovely blog entry. :)

The Yuri Norstein Retrospective was a collection of animated Russian folktales, only some of which were subtitled. Most of the time that didn't matter - it was fairly obvious what was going on - but I think I might have gotten more out of the last one (which seemed to be commenting on WWII) if I'd had a better idea of what various newspapers said. I found it interesting that I could feel my brain trying to read Russian - unlike, say, Korean, their characters look almost like ours... but not quite. Anyway, cute, good, I may end up stealing some of the stories at some point. :)

And finally, The World - set in a "visit the world without leaving Bejing" theme park, this is another slightly slow-moving slice-of-lifer. I found it more engaging than Pinboy, possibly because more happened, but it was still a little slow. Not bad, though, and the introduction of some Russian girls (and the friendship that resulted) made an interesting counterpoint. I'm not sure I would have watched to the end if it had been on TV, but I didn't dislike it.

Anyway, I'm going to give this a quick proofread, and then it's off home to bed for me. :)

FF Days 7 & 8

Ok, just a quick note to say I'm single again -- C & I are on good terms, and I dealt with being miserable about it near the beginning of the week. :) (It seems quicker and less awkward to mention something here.)

Oh, while I'm on non-FF notes - Anne, my brother's blog is Superlate over in LiveJournal land - nice, meaty entries.

Also, I was walking home tonight, and as I was coming out of the bus tunnel, "Misty Frequencies" by Che Fu started on my mp3 player. I kept walking, and noticed the big fern that's growing out of the hill on the Hataitai side, and then crossed the road, where there's a cabbage tree. And I was really happy I was in Wellington, wandering home, and that it felt... safe. I think I'll probably still end up working overseas for a while at some point, but I don't think I want to live anywhere else.

Oh, and then I got something by Ernest Ranglin, from his Below the Baseline album -- I think it was "54-46 (was my number)". This is one of my favourite albums, probably one of my top five, instumental ska from one of the originators of the form. And in the track "Surfin'", out of nowhere comes this little trill from.. I think it's the opera Carmen, maybe four bars in the middle of the track that just slot right in there. Just thinking about that album makes me happy.

(Other albums I really like are the first, self-titled Elastica album; and the Everything But The Girl album Eden, to pick one; and Cornerstone Roots' Soul Revolution; and Minuit's The Eighty-Eight. Oh, and Chungking's We Travel Fast. Actually, there's a lot of music I really, really like, so I better stop heading down this road. :)

***

Thursday was made rather more exciting than it needed to be because I managed to leave my schedule behind. But I knew I was starting at 10:30, so I was able to work out what my first film was, and I already had a ticket for my last film; and I remembered mentioning that I was going to a classic, which had to be On Dangerous Ground, which let me deduce the other one fairly quickly. :)

If people went to 2046 hoping for a sci-fi flick, they would have been bitterly disappointed. The author/narrator did write a science fiction story, but it only appeared as a framing device for his relationships with various women in Singapore and Hong Kong in the 60s and 70s. (From what we saw, I don't think I'd have enjoyed the novel anyway. :) It was an okay "playboy writer learning about relationships" movie, but not outstanding.

Moolaade, my next movie, centered around a North African village where a woman declares her protection over four girls who've run away from their circumcision ceremony. The acting was uneven, though there were some good performances; if nothing else, it was interesting for what it showed about the vocabulary of movies in that region -- what makes sense as a story in this medium there. There was one excellent sequence of a woman singing of her grief for her child, while the story of what happened is shown in flashback. The impression that I got was this was a film where this culture was talking to itself, more than one aimed at talking to outsiders.

Then it was off to the slightly less comfortable seats of Te Papa for a film noir cop story, On Dangerous Ground. Some great lines here, including an exchange between two detectives about seeing the worst kind of people in police work, and the importance of still maintaining human contact: "How do you live with yourself?" "I don't -- I live with other people." I liked it, even though parts of it were dreadfully corny - I could easily imagine owning it.

Finally, Pinboy, a Latin film about a man who gets a job setting up pins in a bowling alley. This was quite a slow-moving film, and I left a little dissatisfied... though I think that's because I kept on waiting for them to explore the history of the guy, to give some sort of context as to why he chose this job when everyone is telling him that it is terrible, dangerous work that won't develop transferable skills and has awful hours. I might have enjoyed the film more if I'd watched it on its own terms; but it's too late now, since I definitely wouldn't sit through it again. :)

***

I was going to go to five films today, starting with Howl's Moving Castle with Jenni & C; however, even though I got there more than half an hour early, they sold out the theater when I was only one person away from the ticket counter. So I bought a ticket to my next movie, and met up with C (who was behind me in the queue), and we went to stand in the sun in case Jenni hadn't managed to get a ticket either. (I tried calling Jenni, but unsurprisingly she had her phone turned off.) So instead, C & I wandered down to Oriental Bay in the nice warm sun and had hot chocolate and doughnuts, and developed theories of moppetry based on the example moppets in the general area. :)

Next was The Ax, a film about an unemployed man who decides to find a job by wiping out the other possible candidates, and then knocking off the person whose job he wants. It was slightly unnerving how much you found yourself rooting for this guy, especially since the filmmakers did a fairly good job of making his rivals likable people. It was one of the better films I've seen at the festival, and one I'd happily watch again.

I don't think I can say the same about Mysterious Skin. I'm happy to say it was a good film; in fact, I think it's an excellent film. But I also found it quite a harrowing film, much more so than, say, The Woodsman. This was much more graphic and... well, awful. I felt similarly ill in parts of this as I did in Dumplings, and that's a film about eating babies. Maybe it's the whole "sex as a loathful need" thing that I found hard to deal with, and the mixing of sex, violence and contempt. The child actors were very good, and the gay friend was a good counterpoint to the whole "young guy being paid by older men for sex" thing (in terms of emphasising that this wasn't about sexual orientation). But yeah, I'm not going to watch again -- not for a good, long time, at least.

Next up was Morgue's recommendation, The Zoo, about a Palestinian zoo in a city completely surrounded by the Israeli's security wall. I thought this was a really, really good documentary. The filmmaker said that he wasn't setting out to make a political film, and I think that in a very true sense, he succeeded. For example, the main story follows the zoo's vet trying to retrieve a couple of baboons from a closed amusement park, so we see a lot of the checkpoint soldiers: what impressed me was the evenhandedness which he displayed in showing these soldiers. Even more than that, in fact -- rather than getting the feeling that he was showing us the Bad Soldier, and then the Good Soldier (to show balance), you felt like he was just showing who they ran into: some of them happened to be dicks, and some of them were indifferent, and some were sympathetic, and all of them were young. What struck me most about it was that the general mood wasn't hopeless. Even though there were so many crappy things about their situation, there was a feeling of "this won't be forever", people finding ways to manage, and there being hope for the future. The filmmaker mentioned meeting a guy who was learning five languages -- he didn't think he'd ever be able to travel, but he wanted to be able to teach his children for when they were free to go.

This film was made pretty much entirely by one guy - he had a camera which he chose because the audio was good and he knew he wouldn't have a boom-man, and the filming was all done in one brief flurry - I want to say ten days, but it might have been only three. He talked about the frustration and worry that no-one will want to see the film while he was sitting in his mother-in-law's lounge with his laptop and a crappy old TV, editing together his footage; and he talked about the difficulties with distribution, and how he could only afford to send his movie to festivals that didn't require a fee for the film to be submitted. He also talked about wishing that he could grade the film properly and so on; I wish I had more clout within Digital, because it would be awesome to be able to say, "Yeah, come on over and we'll do some stuff while things aren't busy." (Of course, the other problem with that is the fact that things are busy, but nevermind.) I guess it can't hurt to ask...

The final film I saw today was Crash. I liked it a lot, and I could easily imagine picking this up on DVD. An ensemble cast of really good actors, and some excellent portrayals of the racial politics of LA. I can't talk too much about what I liked about the film without entering spoiler territory, but yeah, good, and it'll probably come back. One of the things that it made me realize is that I really don't worry about being killed by random violence. I mean, I can imagine being robbed, or beaten up badly, or maybe being in a fatal car accident - but shot, or even fatally stabbed? I mean, I'm sure it happens, but it's not something I'd even consider if I'm thinking about walking home late at night. And the racial politics, too -- it is there, but nothing like as deep as it appears to be in the States. I mean, I'd be really surprised to hear about police flagging down a well-dressed young Maori driving a luxury car, for example.

Hmm. I realise that I've been saying quite a few negative things about the US, so I want to emphasise that I know many awesome Americans, and that there are many admirable things about America; the scary aspects don't make the good ones go away.

***

Okay, it's way later than I intended, so I'll leave you with a quote from bash.org:

<Tscully> Gimme a C!
<Lich> C!
<MikeB> C
<A_Flayer> C!!
<Tscully> Gimme a H!
<Lich> H!
<MikeB> H
<A_Flayer> H!
<Tscully> Gimme a EESE!
<Lich> EESE...
<MikeB> EESE!
<A_Flayer> EESE
<Tscully> Gimme a CAKE!
<Lich> CAKE!
<MikeB> CAKE
<A_Flayer> CAKE!!
*Tscully runs off with the three cakes
<Tscully> Suckers.

Goodnight, everyone.

Film Festival, Days 4-6

One of the nice things about going to a bunch of movies at the same time is that you sometimes get weird synchronicities and parallels in the movies you're seeing. For example, It's All Gone Pete Tong, which was the only thing I saw on Monday, made an interesting contrast to Touching the Sound, in terms of the "deaf musicians" motif. Huh, that's weird -- I've just realised that neither film mentioned Beethoven that I recall. (Just by the by, he had the legs removed from the pianos that he used, so he could feel the vibrations in the floor more fully.) Anyway, while there was a little bit "stupid people and snot are funny" humour, I enjoyed the film -- one of the best uses of a slavering anthropomorphic badger in an apron to symbolise cocaine addiction that I've seen. :)

Monday was also the day I had the car serviced -- it had been stalling when idle, though it always started up with no trouble. I took it to our garage in the morning, and they fiddled with it, but were unable to reproduce the problem; so I picked it up before going in for the movie, and it stalled three or four times between there and Kent Terrace. I took it back to the garage and parked it there, because I thought it might only happen if it had been sitting for a while in the cold... and then I started fretting.

You see, I use the garage attached to the BP in Berhampore. Apart from this time, they've always been fine; they're who my parents go to, my brother worked there once, and my grandfather used to take my car there, so I'm prepared to put up with the inconvenience of the location. However, they are on the same block as a gang house, who have a nice flood-lit gate and high stone wall to deter the nosy. In fact, there was a gang member, patch prominently displayed, standing on the street near the lights and drinking a glass of beer when I parked the car. He asked where I was going, in a friendly fashion; I told him, politely, that I was walking home (which seemed simpler than saying "to my parents house to borrow a car to drive home"). And off I walked to Island Bay to get the van, all the while slightly worried whether I'd come back to find the car in one piece, or at all. Of course, no harm actually came to it, and the garage seem to have fixed the problem, though I'm not driving very much during the Festival. (I prefer to bus in, and then walk home; I'm not normally in a hurry on the way back, it's good exercise, and gives me a chance to listen to music and wind down. ;)

***

Tuesday started with Mad Hot Ballroom, which I liked a lot for, among other things, showing some of the kids dealing with losing. The inevitable comparison is with Spellbound, and I think that Spellbound is a better movie, perhaps because we got to know the kids as people better; but in this one, we got to know the adults a lot more. Plus the music was better. :)

Animation for Kids was okay, but nothing that has me scouring the Net to see again. I did bump into another of my Festival buddies, who was taking her seven year-old niece to it, and had a nice chat to both of them.

Then another of my Socially Conscious films -- in this case, Machucha, about Chile in the time of Allende, and a rich boy making friends with a poor kid from the slums just before the fascists take over and socialist priests and their initiatives "disappear". Lots of stuff to consider about how easy it is to be a liberal in easy times, and what choices we make when the shooting starts.

Then there was The Edukators -- a couple of guys who break in, rearrange the furniture and belongings, and leave a note telling you that you have too much money and too many things, and this won't last long. Now, I must say that I find the idea of someone breaking into my house and going through my stuff really, really creepy. A friend at work talked about hating having an alarm anywhere he lives -- he says he feels "caged" -- but I totally don't feel that. Do I have more stuff than I need? Probably... no, certainly. I have DVDs and books I haven't even looked at yet. Even so... I don't think I've got very much in the way of status symbol objects -- you know, things that serve no purpose except to show how very rich you are, like Name Artist sculpture. And I really want to read the books and watch the DVDs I have. Actually, I'm managing to read a novel every day or two, so that's not so bad...

Just to go off on even more of a tangent, I've decided that reading during the Film Festival is really useful -- it's much less stand-offish than listening to music, so friends feel much less like they're disturbing you, and it's not as lonely as simply sitting and waiting. Of course, since it's likely to be a point of conversation if someone starts talking to you, choosing what to read is moderately tricky -- Foucault's Pendulum sends one message, Starship Troopers sends another, and The Princess Diaries yet another. (Yes, yes, why should I let the opinion of complete strangers dictate my reading material? Well, it doesn't dictate -- it merely colours it, and I have no particular axe to grind, so why not go with books that seem like they'd serve more than one purpose?) Something like Snow Falling Over Cedars is an excellent Festival book, approachable but slightly; but at the moment, I'm working my way through Anne Perry's Inspector Pitt series, which is rather low on the "worthiness" stakes, but has the cache of being a set of murder mysteries written by one of the girls involved in the events depicted in Heavenly Creatures. ;)

Um... where was I? Oh yes, The Edukators. I liked the film, and found the characters to be interesting; but again, not one that I think I'll be seeing twice.

***

Wednesday was a bit of an odd day. Due to a bit of a miscalculation with the buses, I arrived in Courtney Place too late to make it to Tony Takitani, so I had three options: wait until 3:45pm for Election, go to the documentary on the porn movie Deep Throat, or go to the Godzilla movie. I was kind of tempted by the documentary, since the Blaxplotation one had been so interesting last year, but decided to go with the giant lizard instead. And I was rewarded for my decision by bumping into Jenni & Lee!

I kinda wish I had been sitting next to Lee during the movie, rather than behind both of them, because it would have been so much fun to mock the movie while it was going on -- not in a nasty way, because it was obviously very aware of what it was doing, but in a "they obviously intend us to make fun of that guy's mustache" kind of way. But that might have annoyed Jenni, so it was probably good I didn't. :) Anyway, it was the "terrible in a good way" that I was hoping for, so hurrah that I got to see it.

Election was my "Asian gangster" flick -- I've seen some excellent movies in this area at previous festivals, and this was... about average. Some cool stuff about the origins of the Triad secret societies as resistance against the Mongol invaders (who became the Manchu dynasty), and on the politics within them, but nothing truely stand-out.

Next was another documentary -- The Take, whose tagline is "Fire the Boss", and had Naomi Kline as one of the makers. The other filmmaker was there, and he explained that they had two target audiences -- the mainstream festival movie-goer, and activist groups. It was also interesting that he talked about a showing where half the people were workers shown in the film, and the other half were "black-clad culture vultures" (or words very similar) who gave them a standing ovation -- I guess no-one thinks of themselves as a culture vulture, but given Wellingtonians' perchant for black, especially the esspresso socialist set, it seems an interesting observation to make. Anyhoo, the film was about workers who, owed wages and made redundant by owners who've pocketed state handouts and bankrupted their companies, have occupied the factories and started working for themselves as a collective. Interestingly, in the examples we saw, the backpay owed was comparable to the amount the factories were estimated to be worth, so the workers were working through the judicial system to have their ownership legally recognised. In the case of the factory they were focusing on (an autoparts factory), they'd decided that everyone would be paid the same wage; but they mentioned that in other collective factories, the set-ups could be quite different. There are apparently about 200 businesses like this in Argentina now, and the idea is popular in other parts of South America too. There was some background on the disasterous Rogernomic-like "reforms" that led to the collapse of Argentinean manufacturing and flight of capital, and the IMF came in for quite a bashing. In the questions afterwards, it was obvious that the guy had done his homework, since he knew some basics about NZ's experiences, and talked derisively about tax cuts being a solution to anything. Well, actually I guess they're a solution to having a continuing budget surplus. ;) Anyway, a very impressive film, and worth watching.

The final film I went to on Wednesday was 3-Iron - another "breaking in but not stealing" movie, with the twist that he cleans the house and fixes their appliances, rather than exhorting them to change their Capitalist ways. The hero ascertains which houses are occupied by sticking flyers on the doorhandles, and seeing which ones aren't removed the next day -- I really hope that this practice doesn't catch on here, since I find it hard to imagine a more annoying form of advertising, short of someone driving around with a loudspeaker mounted on a car. He meets a woman by accident, who ends up tagging along; he doesn't speak through the entire film, and she speaks only a little.

I liked this film a lot. There was some violence that felt violent (some of the worst relating to golf balls), but nothing particularly graphic, and there were some excellent sequences. Also, I sat one seat along from where I was meant to be sitting -- and it turned out that the seat I'd taken belonged to someone I'd known at college, who I'd bumped into back when I was looking at that house that looked like it had last been decorated in the 70s (with piles that looked like they had been built with more hope than skill). He and his partner are still looking for a place, as it turns out, which makes me feel quite good about the house.

***

10:30am start tomorrow; or rather, this morning, so I'm wrapping this up. Sorry if it got a bit rambley in places, but it's nice to get some of these thoughts down on a page. :)

Film Fesitval, Day 3

A good day today - I didn't go into work at all. :)

***

I don't know what you can do about someone who does wrong, but has convinced themself that they haven't. I think that you could definitely see that happening in some of the people interviewed in the Enron documentary, and you could see it again in Sisters In Law, a documentary about various women in the Cameroon legal system and the first successfully prosecuted case of spousal abuse. There was one man who raped a ten year-old, and first claimed the she'd asked him for sex, but he'd been studying his bible and sent her away; and then, that she had solicited sex for money; and then, when the court found him guilty, admitted that he needed to be punished, but asked the court to be merciful because he was an orphan and had no-one. (He was sentenced to ten years hard labour, and then to be deported back to Nigeria, from whence he had illegally immigrated.)

What do you do with people who ask forgiveness merely to evade punishment, rather than because they acknowledge that they have done wrong? Those that are so self-involved that they don't seem to understand that other people can feel pain, let alone that they're the cause of other people's pain? That it's not okay to beat your wife if you're angry, or lash out at those around you?

Even more insidious - what about the people who have genuinely convinced themselves that what is good for the wealthy is good for the country? That if they don't see people starving on their doorstep, that no-one is going hungry? That work-for-welfare schemes work, because they give grounds for disqualifying people from welfare, and so it can be said that they cause welfare numbers to fall? There were plenty of people in the documentary Guilani Time who seemed quite honest in their belief that randomly stopping black youths and searching them for guns, then finding a reason to have searched them after the fact, was a good idea, regardless of the number of innocent citizens who were harrassed, and the damage of trust in that community that was created, or the fact that this policy was directly responsible for an unarmed man to be shot 41 times by four officers.

Or take the Rogernomics advocates who, it was stated by a former employee, have left the Treasury and are now in the Ministry of Fisheries. If they provide advice for the Minister that tends to be favourable to the commercial fishing concerns at the expense of locals and sustainability, the Minister opens himself up to personal attack through the courts if he chooses not to take that advice - and the commercial interests certainly have both the motivation and the bankroll to do that if they feel their interests are at stake. However, for all the sense that big money and the national and local government are failing Kaipara, there is a feeling of hope in The Kaipara Affair - the way that the different parts of the community have come together, and the respect that even those who disagree on approach and detail have for each other, is quite special.

One thing that I'm not sure how I feel about that was brought up in this documentary was the encroachment of Auckland suburbia/holiday homes into the area. It feels weird to me to think of gated communities with their own private helicopter landing pad, pool and gym in NZ. I mean, the kind of disparity of wealth that I'd imagine drives gated communities seems kind of alien, and the idea that it has it's own "private beach"... well, isn't that what all red-blooded patriotic NZer's are meant to despise? I guess it's okay if someone paid cash money for it, rather than inherited it... argh.

Anyway, to back up a bit - I enjoyed Sisters in Law, and while some of the situations they showed were quite worrying, the overall tone was funny and hopeful. I thought Guiliani Time was excellently made, and reinforced my intention not to live in the US. (They opened with Guiliani talking about how, immediately after he heard about the planes hitting the Twin Towers, he turned to his chief of police, clutched his arm, and said, "Thank God Bush is our President." Funny, yes; but very, very scary too.) The Kaipara Affair was slightly oddly structured, but it worked quite well; I felt like I had a better understanding of the issues, as the locals saw them, and while I don't think I'd like to know the most radical of the guys they focused on, I did get a feeling for his point of view.

The other movie I saw today was Look At Me, a French drama about a self-absorbed writer/publisher and his only slightly less self-absorbed daughter. It was quite a bit lighter in subject than most of what I've seen so far, and I think I liked it for that reason; it was good, but not startlingly so.

***

I'm starting the old "bump into the people you see at the Film Festival", though disappointingly, I haven't seen Morgue's mum and dad yet. Ah well, only the third day. I'm back to work tomorrow, since I don't have a film until 9pm; I've also got to get the car to the garage for a tune-up, so tomorrow is promising to be pretty busy, even sans movies. :)

Film Festival, Days 1 & 2

Is there anything more annoying than coming back to find your blog filled with spam comments? Of course there is, what kind of stupid question is that. But it's still pretty annoying right? Yes, yes it is.

Speaking of annoying, having your Palm spaz out on you so that you not only can't tell the time, but can't find out the address of a friend's birthday dinner, and so can't give her the present that you very carefully chose out that day between movies is pretty high up on the list. I'm really sorry, Amphigorey, and I hope you'll agree to meet me for lunch or something at some point during the Festival. :)

Which allows me to gracefully segue into my Film Festival experience. But first, a little griping. I have taken leave, which in most jobs would mean that I wasn't working; but I went into work for a meeting Friday morning out of a misguided sense of duty, and was called at half-past three to be asked a question that anyone in Systems should have been able to either handle or pass on, and then later in the evening someone from work left a message that something had gone wrong, and could I call them back. (I couldn't, as it happens, as I didn't have any appropriate numbers.) As a consequence of that last call I went in this morning to do a bit of work, and I may end up popping in tomorrow morning as well. (I would have gone in yesterday evening, but I decided I was too tired to safely do anything tricky.)

Anyway, enough griping - on to the movies!

***

The first film I saw was Double Dare, a documentary on stuntwomen, focusing on an American woman who had been working in the field all her life (and came from a large family of stuntpeople), and a Kiwi who had been a Lucy Lawless stunt double on Xena, and was just starting out in the industry. The people were charming and real, and the documentary itself was quite interesting, and the director was there... I'm always a bit wary about sticking around for questions. Sometimes you get some really interesting anecdotes and trivia, but sometimes people use their question as an opportunity to address a large and fairly captive audience about whatever pet peeve they happen to have. This, luckily, was one of the interesting ones.

The director talked about the main difficulty they faced on the film being access - none of the production companies wanted them on the sets, and the director talked about the frustration of watching Entertainment Tonight being ushered in to do a puff piece while they languished behind the barracades. In fact, one of the reasons they went with the NZ side of the story was because the Xena people were actually willing to give them access. Stories like this, as well as follow-up on what has happened after the end of the documentary, made this film an excellent start to the Festival. Oh, and it's apparently got lots of cool DVD extras, so I might end up picking this up at some point.

One random observation that I feel like sharing - I don't know what the distinctive characteristics are that make a NZ house so obviously and distinctly NZ, rather than American, but when we cut to the younger stuntwoman's family home, it was blindingly obvious that it was from somewhere around here. I wonder what our houses look like to American eyes.

Next up was The Woodsman, the "Kevin Bacon as a paroled pedophile film". This was a good movie, but not a great one. I have mixed feelings about musicians trying their hand at acting - Mos Def worked well as the policeman checking up on Bacon's character, but Eve's character didn't gel for me. The "bird" symbolism could have used a little lighter touch sometimes, but how can I fault a film that has a Parliment funk track? :) It's a movie I might watch again.

Turtles Can Fly, on the other hand, I don't think I'll rewatch, although I enjoyed it. Set in Iraq just before the American invasion, all the children were excellent - one of the many kids crippled by a land mine using his mained leg as a mock-gun to shoot at the Turkish guard across the the border was perfect. But it certainly wasn't twee - in fact, bits of it were quite harrowing.

Whisky was okay, with a slightly unexpected ending, but intentionally low-key. The owner of a slightly run-down sock factory asks his right-hand woman to pretend to be his wife while his brother comes to visit, but is not really prepared for the small adjustments that have to be made when you allow others into your life. For example, he's showing the woman around his apartment, but he repeated turns the light off as soon as he's out of the room, leaving her standing in the dark. Fairly funny, but I won't be running out to own it.

And finally on Friday, Dumplings. I was chatting to a friend of mine who works at the festival, and she apparently counted 18 people leaving during the showing. I thought it was well done, disturbing, and made me feel mildly ill. Echoing a post Jenni made recently, I find some things very hard to watch, and apparently the chopping up and eating of aborted babies is one of them. Which is a good thing, I think.

Moving on to Saturday, Touch the Sound was a documentary about a deaf woman who is an acclaimed percussionist. The style of the film was quite interesting - there was no narration, and the only way the film-makers came into the film were with titles telling you where you were and what was happening. The focus on "found" instruments, using chopsticks on plates and beercans, playing on the big brass studs holding the drumskin in place, playing electric guitars as percussion instruments - it was the sort of thing that encourages you to sit back and consider both your ambient noise, and the potential for noise that surrounds you.

I think that the thing that sold me on Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (apart from the fact that it was a story I was interested in learning more about) was that they started off the documentary by using Tom Wait's "What's He Building In There?". This was the story of the biggest scandal, the biggest scam in Corporate America that has been dragged into the light of day. Actually, one of the things that struck me was how much music they used - used very well, I should add, but that's not what struck me. One of the things that I learned in preparing for the 48-hour film competition was just how much using other people's music and media can cost. (That was another thing mentioned as a big hassle for Double Dare, by the way - getting clips to demonstrate stuff.) Someone had obviously put a lot of effort and a lot of cash into making this documentary... which made me wonder how much the interests of those bankrolling the film influenced how the film was presented. That aside, there was a lot to like about the film, including the fact that they had interviews with two former traders - one of whom appeared quite remorseful about how he had acted, and one who was google-eyed and kinda scary, and appeared to be slightly regretful that he wasn't still setting up fake outages and driving electricity prices through the roof. I'd watch this one again.

As usual, Homegrown: Works on Film was a bit of a mixed bag. The two I liked most were "The Little Things" (a neglected girl on her 14th birthday and young boy neighbor), and "Tama Tu". The second, done almost entirely without dialogue, was one of the funniest and most touching things I've seen so far - a group of young soldiers from the Maori Batallion are working their way through a bombed-out city, and briefly go to ground. It was filmed in the grounds of Wellington Hospital while they were pulling down the old front buildings, which is why the ruins looked so hauntingly familiar when I watched it, and Peter Jackson lent them the weapons from his extensive cache.

My final Saturday film was Look Both Ways, an Austrailian film about death, birth and relationships. I really liked it. The writer (who was there) had previously focused on short films, including animated shorts, and so the small bits of animation where one of the leads imagines terrible things happening work quite well - in fact, it turned into a really interesting device to examine the different internal mindscapes of a couple of the key characters. This was very much an ensemble movie - in fact, the writer said she did this quite consciously, since she felt that she was essentially making five intertwined short films, and she knew she could sustain the story of a short film.

***

I've kind of realised that I'm much happier to push my boundaries during the Film Festival - I'll go to movies that I'd probably never go to see during the rest of the year, and probably wouldn't sit and watch if they came on TV. Since I almost always enjoy the films I see during the Festival, I'm not sure why that is.

Okay, that's nine down - about fifty-five to go. :)

Civ3, S&S, Yes Minister

"Willie Nelson's long-awaited reggae album, "Countryman," comes out Tuesday

"Produced by Don Was, the album includes reggae versions of Nelson songs such as "Darkness On the Face of the Earth" and "One in a Row." There also are covers of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" and "Sitting in Limbo," and a song called "I'm a Worried Man" by Johnny and June Carter Cash that Nelson recorded as a duet with Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals."

Huh.

***

I actually like working on the weekends and late at night. I mean, I'd also like to do other stuff, but it feels like I'm really accomplishing stuff when I'm not interrupted every ten minutes - though I'll admit that at least some of the interruptions are self-generated. :) However, I guess that's a dangerous path to wander down...

Speaking of dangerous paths - I installed Civ3 on my laptop, which may have been a tactical error on my part. I mean, I wanted something I could play in-between films, but I suspect that Civ is the sort of game that can cause me to accidentally miss movies. :) Luckily, Mum has asked to borrow the laptop for a week during the Festival, so I'm saved during that week. Maybe all I need to do is get it out of my system - just play until I'm sick of it? No, actually, I think that's a terrible idea - down that path lies pressure-sores, kidney stones and exhaustion. I'll just have to moderate myself.

And Civ4 is coming out soon. Please, whatever patron saint is in charge of game development, can you delay release until after our work on the film is complete? :)

***

Saw Sense and Sensibility and liked it, as expected. Nice to see Alan Rickman in a non-villiainous role, though I did annoy C by saying "Eeeevil!" the first few times he turned up. (C reciprocated by hissing at the Lucy Steele character when she arrived, long before this poor viewer had any reason to believe her to be a manipulating minx. ;) Emma Thompson is, as always, teh lovely.

Now, all I have to do is get around to watching Pride & Predjudice. :)

***

It's unnerving how relevant Yes, Minister still is; and I wonder whether the fact the nearest American equivalent I can think of is The West Wing is symbolic of the difference between the attitude towards government in Britain and the US. Or it may simply mean that I'm not familiar enough with US television. ;) I don't know that we've had any similar indigenous shows, though I'm not sure why... McPhail & Gadsby imitating Rob Muldoon (or more recent Shippley/Clarke imitators) isn't quite the same. Admittedly, it's hard to imagine how you'd do it... maybe our political parties and public servants aren't demonised enough in the public mind? I'd be tempted to either fictionalize the parties, or have a fictional party unexpectedly gain power. :)

See, I'm now tempted to work out an alternate NZ timeline where the Greens are in power... I suspect that this would involve the Greens being very different than they are in our current history.

Suits, Showers, MLP, FimFest

It seems that a Russian astrologer is worried that NASA's Deep Impact mission has altered the comet while she was under its astrological influence, and she is suing them for $300 million in Moscow. She also wants to know whether anyone had trouble with their telephone reception at the time the experiment occurred.

In other ridiculous litigation news, NTK pointed at a lawsuit filed by Jeffrey Merkey against a variety of targets, including those well-known bastion of right-wing politics, Slashdot and Groklaw, and their socialist anti-intellectual property agenda that is aimed at preventing him from earning money by overthrowing the government. Or something. He's also made claims that Bruce Perens has made death threats against him, because Mr Perens said, "He belongs on every person's email kill file." - though when Mr Merkey quotes him, he replaces the word "email" with an ellipsis, and claims that it's sinister that Perens said that *he* should be placed in a kill file, not his email address. And there's no possibility that he doesn't know what a killfile is, since someone found a quote from him talking about learning how to use one that predates the suit. There's an interesting thread about it on LWN.

***

Just this morning, I was thinking, "It's weird owning your own house, but at least nothing major has gone wrong that I've needed to fix." And then I turned on the shower, and the shower-head fell to pieces.

Stupid brain, thinking thoughts that cause my house to disintergrate.

On the more positive side, I finally got around to doing my taxes yesterday, and it turns out that the provisional tax that I had paid was more than $1k over what I actually ended up owing - so that I only had to give them an extra $35 or so, and I was all paid up for my first installment of provisional tax for this year. Of course, that means that the government has had a bunch of interest that I could have used, but meh, I'm not super worried. :)

(I think I know why my actual income was so much lower than estimated - two years ago, I was quite worried that I wasn't going to have a job, and so did ridiculous amounts of overtime. Last year I was paid better, but had a month or more earning no money while I was on holiday/Film Festival, and didn't do very much overtime at all - so I may have actually earned less.)

So - while I should have done it a long time ago, at least it's done now. :) Of course, next year I'll have to worry about the rents I receive and so on, whereas for this tax year I only had one rent payment to worry about. Hopefully I'll have an accountant by then. :)

***

When someone says, "Run a 'My Little Ponies' game," I'm not sure that the correct response is, "Can I use the InSpectres ruleset?" :) It turned out okay, but I think I would have done better with a setting that I actually knew... okay, I can feel myself critiquing my performance while running a "My Little Ponies" game. I don't think I'll continue down that path. ;)

Jenni ran a fun game of Wuthering Heights subsequently. Good fun - though my character plummeted to a flaming doom, at least he was afire with his beloved Irish whiskey. It's games like this that make me increasingly think that random generation of important traits is actually kind of cool, at least for one-off games. :)

***

Current Film Festival schedule:

Friday 15 July
P 12:30pm- 1:55pm Double Dare
E 3:45pm- 5:15pm The Woodsman
E 5:45pm- 7:25pm Turtles Can Fly
TP 8:15pm- 9:50pm Whisky
P 10:15pm-11:50pm Dumplings

Sunday 31 July
P 11:00am-12:25pm Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues
P 3:00pm- 4:35pm Animation Now!
P 6:00pm- 7:35pm The Lost World
E 9:00pm-10:50pm Broken Flowers

Faces, Links, WotW

The picture on the right is part of an exhibit Mooney Faces, based on the work of psychologist Craig Mooney. It's part of a larger gallery produced from Princeton University's "Art of Science" competition. There's some pretty interesting stuff there.

***

A supervillan called Mensa? Cross-country croquet? Photo-comics? These seem to be all good things. Also, copier monkeys!

In other random linkage, I'm not sure why this simulation of ragdoll physics is so morbidly compelling.

Oh yeah, and the Kong trailer is out, so we're already getting analyses of Kong's expressions.

***

Saw War of the Worlds, which overall I liked - especially, as others have said, Dakota Fanning's performance. Very mild spoilers below.

Things that other people have complained about, like the camcorder that worked after all electrical devices failed, didn't bother me - I figured it was simply a effective filmic conceit. And I was happy to say that explanations that didn't make any sense (like the machines being already buried) were the result of the people speaking not knowing what they're talking about. ;) And having aliens be advanced in materials science and energy manipulation, but not that great at biology, did not bother me either - after all, we can create viruses from scratch from mail-order chemicals, but have no flying cars. ;) And I thought that the looting of the airplane food was excellent. :)

However... something felt wrong, and I'm not sure what it was. I mean, I don't think it was the fact that Tim Robbins got a laugh when he first appeared - I initially thought it would have been better if he'd been a less recognisable "face", but I thought the creepiness of his interaction with Fanning's character was really well done. I think that it might have something to do with the same thing that led the top review on IMDB to call it "a cross between Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow" - it's essentially a Disaster Movie, but it keeps wanting to be an Action Movie. Compare the ferry scene to the grenade scene, for example - I felt much more affected by the first than the second.

Anyway - good movie, and the effects were pretty stunning. I'd certainly pick it over Revenge of the Sith for the Effects Oscar, and it's set a good standard to aim for.

***

I'll be putting up my festival programme soon - no Nine Songs, but a fair few documentaries.