Film Festival reviews – second week
Double Take
A strange little film. It mashed up footage of Alfred Hitchcock with news reels, clips from his movies, adverts for coffee from the same time and new footage shot with Hitchcock lookalikes. I enjoyed it very much, but Lee was bored.
It was a kind of potted history of the cold war, but mostly it was about Hitch and it also told a story about what Hitch would do if he met his exact double. Hard to explain, really, but good.
The Black Pirate
A restored print of the 1926 Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckling action movie, accompanied by Neil Brand playing live on a grand piano. It was an awesome performance.
The movie itself was amazing, completely over the top and fun with impressive stunts and some incredibly camp moments from nowhere. Although I guess we might have brought that to it, with our modern sensibilities and knowledge of fan fiction.
Info.
Dogtooth.
How do you describe a movie like this? It’s about a weirdly controlling family where the three 20-something ‘children’ aren’t allowed to leave the house or grow up at all. It was light and funny but also very dark and strange. There were some moments of shocking violence and some touching moments where the family showed real togetherness. I was surprised about how many people walked out of this movie, I mean, it was nasty, but it was no Piano Teacher
I’m glad I saw it, just because it was an experience. I’m glad that Lee didn’t choose to go, because he would have hated it.
info
Animation for Kids
I enjoy seeing this animation collection because you know the shorts will have a story line to them, because otherwise the kids will get bored. Overall it was a great collection this year, and I really enjoyed several of them.
Here are my highlights that I could find on Youtube…
Catchy They Might Be Giants song (embedded in a podcast). “Oh no no, I never go to work!”
This is a sweet little song about how hard it can be to get a present for someone, gorgeously animated with paper and collage.
And the trailer for the 25 minute ‘Lost and Found’ about a boy who has his life invaded by a penguin. It was gorgeous.
The Artist’s Life
A French film about trying to make it in a creative career. There was a young girl trying to make it as a singer, an English teacher struggling with writer’s block for his second book and an actress who has become type cast after a stint voice acting for a long running anime. It was gentle and funny, with most of the frustration coming from the characters doing themselves exactly no favours. Lesson learned from this movie? You take any opportunity that comes your way and you run with it!
I love watching movies about the creative process though, it’s always so inspiring.
The Sky Crawlers
An anime movie about an alternate world where there’s a constant war going on. Over the course of the movie some strange truths were revealed, and it was very beautifully animated but overall I have to say it dragged. I was bored. Nothing much actually changed after two hours. Disappointing, but pretty.
Film Festival reviews – Wednesday – Sunday
Best Worst Movie
A documentary about Troll 2, 20-ish years after the film was made. The documentarian was the child star of the movie and managed to track down all the other actors. The star of the documentary was George Hardy, the guy who played the father. George is a dentist and full of life and humour. He was a great centre point for the story, watching him as he discovered the cult following and signed autographs for the fans he didn’t know he had was a joy. Generously peppered with excerpts from Troll 2 and interviews with the writer and director made me and Lee rather desperate to see the movie. I have since bought it on DVD off Trade Me. Watch this space for a review, not sure it will ever beat out Manos: the hands of fate for my favourite worst film, but I’ll let you know.
A Christmas Tale
Our first disappointing movie, this was a french drama about a family reuniting at Christmas following the news that the matriarch has a rare disease and needs a bone marrow transplant. Kind of reminiscent of The Royal Tenenbaums but not as quirky, it gave us background on most of the characters. I was disappointed that the black sheep, Henri, was the default star of the movie, because I found him unsympathetic. Sure, it sucked that his sister caused him to be banished from family gatherings for five years, but it’s hard to be on his side when the first thing he does when reunited with her is to verbally abuse her. That said, it was a great film; beautifully shot and with plenty of humour, it was just very long.
The Secret of Kells
An Irish animated feature set in medieval times and following Brendan a boy monk. The Northmen are terrorising Ireland and the Abbot, Brendan’s uncle, is preoccupied with building a stronger wall around the settlement. Brendan is more interested in illuminating manuscripts and becomes involved in creating the Book Of Kells. The story is highly mythical, with him befriending Aisling, a fairy, quite early in the movie. The best thing about this film though was the design, it’s highly stylised and beautiful. The snowflakes are shown as Irish knots, the smoke is curled and braided, the characters are extreme caricatures.
Several of the frames were so stunning I wanted big prints of them to put up on my wall.
Movie website pretty pretty.
Departures
We were a little late for Departures because I wanted real food for dinner and it wasn’t quite quick enough in the half hour in between Kells and this. The food was great though, stuffed chicken breast, winter veges and beans. Nom.
Anyway, the movie was lovely. It’s a Japanese film about a cellist whose orchestra is shut down. He and his wife move back to his home town and he accidentally gets a job at a casketers, who are the people who prepare the body and put them into the coffin, working for the undertaker. It was very beautiful and moving, and perhaps hit a little close to home with the funeral we attended on Tuesday, but I loved it.
Departures movie website. I also found out today that it won the Academy award for best foreign language film. Well deserved.
Dead Snow
It’s a movie about zombie Nazis. Do I need to say any more?
I was a bit worried at the start that it was actually going to be scary, and I wasn’t ready to cope with that at 11.15pm after a long and hard week. However, it was just as funny and silly and hilarious as a Norwegian zombie Nazi movie should be. I laughed my ass off, fell in love with the bad-ass characters and can quite thoroughly recommend it.
In fact, go and watch the trailer now!!!!!
Coco Avant Chanel
Lee bailed on this one to audition for another community theatre production, so I took the Lovely Chelle with me instead. We had a good time, although the movie was quite sad. Audrey Tautou was her usual graceful and charismatic self, the other actors were also very good. Pretty fashions, pretty locations. I’ll watch it again I think.
Adventureland
Written by the guy who wrote Superbad (which I haven’t seen), this is the story of one summer, after finishing college James is set to go on to post-grad study at Colombia, but it turns out his father has been transferred to a lower paying job. James takes the only job he can get, working the sideshow games as a carnie at Adventureland. There he immediately makes geeky male friends and falls in love with Kristen Stewart.
It was a gentle, funny film with some real heart to it. It kind of reminded me of watching Garden State, except the characters were younger and dumber. I really enjoyed it overall and would recommend you seek it out when it comes back. I did feel sorry for the lead though, since it seemed like James was written for Michael Cera and he was directed to act like Michael Cera.
Film Festival Reviews
Wellington Film Festival, movies I’ve seen Sunday – Tuesday of the first week.
The September Issue
A documentary about how the September Issue of 2007 is made at Vogue. Focussing in on Anna Wintour, who The Devil Wears Prada was based on, and the people around her. This was pretty much perfect documentary making – funny, entertaining, interesting.
I also liked how they made Anna seem like a real human being, in addition to being completely terrifying.
Trailer.
Ponyo
The new Haoyo Miyazaki film based on The Little Mermaid. Ponyo is a goldfish who is fascinated by the world of humans, she meets a little boy and decides to become human. For those who have seen Miyazaki films, this was more Totoro than Earthsea, which was a relief in a lot of ways. I didn’t enjoy Earthsea that much. Ponyo was lovely, funny and sweet and sad but overall very beautiful. Highly recommended.
Japanese trailer, no subs, but you can see the pretty.
My Year Without Sex
An Australian film about a family, told in chapters for each of the months of the year. The mother has a brain anyeurism at the start and the rest of the film is about her healing and the family coming to terms with the way their lives have changed. It was pretty gentle, given the subject matter. Not nearly as depressing as say, Muriel’s Wedding. I loved the way they showed the emotions of all of the characters, it was very real without being cloying. I loved the humour and the fake-outs.
Trailer
Kisses
Two Irish ten year olds run away from their troubled family lives and spend the night in Dublin. It was a film where I was expecting terrible terrible things to happen, but it was actually pretty lovely. The child actors were superlative, especially cheeky, outgoing Kylie. The boy’s role was more understated but equally moving. It’s a bit sad and a bit lovely and a bit scary. Overall I enjoyed it a great deal.
Actually, this trailer is a bit spoilerific. I wouldn’t recommend you click on it unless you’ve already seen it…
Moon
Lee didn’t come to this, and I am very sad about that, because it was a fantastic film. It’s about Sam Bell, who has been working alone in a station on the moon for three years with only a robot for company. The robot is voiced by Kevin Spacey. Sam is about to go home, but the time alone has begun to tell on him. To say anything more (or indeed to link to the trailer) would give too much away. It’s a well paced movie, a character study more than an actioner, but with plenty of strange things and mysteries. Steve said the plot was too inevitable but I was too invested in the atmosphere to mind.
It should be coming back, and I urge you to see it and to avoid spoilers as much as you can.
Last day of the Film Festival
I really wish I had put the word around and encouraged more of my friends to come to see Mechanical Love. It is a documentary about the advent of robots, specifically about whether you can give an android human presence. It was all very Chobits-ish. It was weird and sad and cool and I liked it a lot.
Svend had managed to double book himself, so Lee got the extra ticket to The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, kind of against his will. It was a strange film. Imagine a not-so-good writer trying to write a Shakespearian romantic comedy, they have the basic stuff: misunderstandings, cross dressing, people thinking someone is dead,etc. But they leave out the stuff that makes it make sense. Ok, you with me? Now imagine that play being put on by a bunch of not-very-talented actors.
Yeah. It was pretty funny actually, in that This Movie is so Bad it’s Good way.
Final movie of the festival was Evanaglion 1.0: You are Not Alone which we had four friends accompany us to and then met four more friends at the screening! I really enjoyed this movie, Lee got annoyed at Shinji being such a whiney bitch but I thought it made sense in context. The battle scenes were incredibly exciting (although way too loud, had to plug my ears) and the story was good enough that I want to watch the next two movies. I suspect it’s better for me to watch the anime in the movie format rather than all the episodes.
Grand Total of movies seen = 27 plus The Dark Knight
My picks for best movies of the festival, that people should definitely seek out when they come back to cinemas or out on DVD are:
In Bruges
Ben X (difficult to watch but well worth it)
The Complete History of my Sexual Failures (penis content may offend)
Max and Co (if it ever comes back…I’m still yearning to see U again.)
The Savages
And When Did You Last See Your Father? (This is bound to return, it stars Colin Firth after all.)
The Escapist (For everyone who liked Shawshank redemption
Jar City
Let the Right One In. (Scary. Disturbing. Awesome.)
CJ7
….so yeah, good festival.
PoF: not quite warm enough
CO: all I want to do is play Rock Band
Monster!
So, you might have seen this already because it is meant to be doing the internet rounds, but Cleolinda’s been keeping me updated. The Montauk Monster. Awesome. Most especially awesome is this article (also from gawker) about why we care about the monster which pretty much hits every reason I care right smack on the head.
Yesterday I went to see my folks on the train. I looked at pretty waves in the sea and flooded fields and swollen creeks. I also got lots of new writing for my chicklit done so yay, although I managed to make myself sad by writing a sad scene which wasn’t quite what I had thought would happen.
Last night we had dinner at Arashi, which we also did two weeks ago and I have to say I love it there. I much prefer their chicken kiraage to the one you get a Kazu bar, it’s less greasy and more…peppery? But it’s not that peppery. It’s just better ok? Plus, they do takoyaki which I adore.
Then we saw The Escapist which is a prison escape movie made of awesome. None of the important characters were guards, none of the characters told yarns about why they were in jail, it was just a very tight, exciting action thriller with characters you care about and Joseph Fiennes doing a damn good Vin Diesel impression. He really didn’t look that tall in Shakespeare in Love.(If you click the movie title link he’s the one in the hoodie. Or it’s slightly bigger here and wow, that picture makes the pretty boy look like a frog. Weird.)
This movie did make me wonder though, why the bad guys in prison movies (Shawshank, American History X) are always so rapey, but I guess it ties into the commonly held idea of what happens in prison. I mean, you do get those jokes about big men and their bitches all the time in all kinds of media, so if you want to make a scary prison movie it makes sense to use that stereotype and show just how scary that situation is.
Overnight my neck started hurting like crazy, so I didn’t sleep in today. I shall now go and do some typing up of stuff I’ve written.
Oh and The Dog Blog has updated. So many awesome dogs. I especially love pitch black enthusiasm dog.
On Wednesday I saw…
Svend at the Film Archive, where together we watched a short documentary about an old Swedish couple called Swedish Tango. It was very nice and sweet and it made me want to dance and it made me very happy to be in a loving relationship and everything.
Then I met up with my Angel-in-Law and purchased silky polyester in brown with green and cream spots all overlapping on each other. Then we came back and Lee and I saw The Dark Knight which, at the risk of being terribly unhip I have to say I didn’t love.
I can’t quite yet put my finger on why I didn’t love it, it’s partly because it was such a very bleak movie that it wasn’t much fun to watch, and it’s partly because I didn’t feel like it was a story about Batman at all, more a movie about the GCPD and Harvey Dent, and although I really thought Heath was a very good Joker I just….meh. Plus, it really needed an edit.
So, after that we had Nando’s for dinner, and played some kick-ass Rock Band and then I met up with Mr Svend again for The Man From London, which really, re-reading the write up, I should have known better. Svend has already mentioned that it was slow. I was going to do with an understatement of ‘it’s not pacey’. In fact, I was so tempted to leave when I realised that the opening shot of a boat was in fact going to last five minutes.
It was very artfully made, to be sure, and there was an interesting story in there, but I think that if it was up to me it would be roughly an hour shorter. I was pleased that Lee had not fallen for my madness and got a ticket, because he would have complained
Thursday I just saw one movie at the cinema, and I very nearly didn’t go, but I’m glad I did. It was The Universe of Keith Haring and it was upbeat and fun and cool, and I remembered just how much I love his work. He seemed like a good person. The doco was pieced together from interviews with his friends and family and footage of Keith himself. Yoko Ono was very cool, she talked about his funeral. It made me want to paint and to alter tshirts and to make things for the people I love. And take photos, and sew stuff.
I did some shopping and then came home to type. My superhero chicklit is up to 46, 238 words, so yay me.
Then it was some more Rock Band and people came over and we watched another movie for movie night.
PoF: Gala
CO: Now to look at the goodies on the online Keith Haring account.
Tuesday movie
Another movie that made me sad, thematically very similar to The Savages was And when did you last see your father?
This movie is bound to come back, seeing as how it stars Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Juliet Stevenson and Gina McKee (who was in Notting Hill). It’s a movie about living with an overwhelmingly blustering, loud, embarrassing, overbearing Father and coming to terms with losing someone you both love and hate.
Jim Broadbent is diagnosed with terminal cancer in the start of the movie, and son Colin Firth moves in to help his mum care for him. Much of the movie is flashbacks to childhood and the various good and bad moments that make up a life. Family secrets are explored also.
As you would expect from the cast, it is very well acted and really a fantastic movie. Mostly lighthearted, the theme of death is still present most of the time and it becomes very emotional indeed.
Highly recommended.
Then I came home and we borrowed Rock Band and started a new band called Daddy Issues 2.0 in honour of Veronica Mars and the movies from the past few days. And since we’re unlocking songs for our PS3 we played a lot of low tier songs incredibly well. I drum with Jenni Talula, an anime fairy and Lee made another guitarist called Lee Clapton. Fun times.
I have the next few days off work, and although the weather is shockingly bad I intend to enjoy them very much.
To do: Tshirt surgeries for Trade Me
Rock Band practice, working on getting to expert level on drums
Lots of writing of novel
Visiting parents
Blogging
Writing up some roleplaying stuff
Visit Te Papa?
Attend Film festival day time screenings
See The Dark Knight
Lee has my cold. It is affecting him pretty badly…I won’t say he’s malingering just yet though, because I remember that Thursday and Friday last week I wasn’t feeling that crash hot.
PoF: not up
CO: fun time holiday!
Monday night movies
Lee bought a Playstation 3 on the way home from work yesterday. We weren’t able to mess around with it for too long though, we had to go to Brooklyn for a couple of film festival movies at the Penthouse.
How best to explain Fighter?
Ways in which Fighter is exactly the same as Bend it Like Beckham.
- Asian teenage girl loves a sport and is forbidden to play it by her family.
- Father wants teenage girl to
be a doctor.excel academically. - Teenage girl has an older sibling who is getting engaged, but the fiance’s family is very strict and teenage girl’s playing of forbidden sport destroys engagement.
- Teenage girl falls in love with a boy connected to the sport who is not of a race her parents will approve of.
- Teenage girl excels at forbidden sport and shows her worth that way.
- Teenage girl is dramatically torn between her culture and her passion for forbidden sport
Ways in which Fighter differs from Bend it Like Beckham.
- Lead girl is Turkish, not Indian and the movie is set in Denmark, not England, her family is Muslim instead of
Sheik.Sikh. - The forbidden sport is Kung Fu
- Older sibling is a brother
- White boy connected to sport is not as hot as Jonathan Rhys Meyers
- Rather than getting her family to approve of her excellence in sport, Aicha ‘won’ by losing to the Turkish boy who is mean to her.
- Fighter had ninjas in it.
- Fighter was neither as fun or uplifting as Bend it Like Beckham.
Following a dinner of UpandGo and cheezels, we saw The Savages.
This movie wasn’t as funny and lighthearted as the write up and the first 20 minutes implied it would be. It was actually a very sad, introspective look at what it’s like when your parents grow old and senile. Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were fantastic, utterly believable as siblings. Both sweet, damaged, neurotic characters.
I loved this movie, it’s really fantastic, but yeah, sadder than the black comedy we had thought we were in for.
PoF: hyperactive
CO: salad?
The weekend’s movies
Animation for Kids. This is the first year in forever, maybe ten years, where I have made the decision not to see Animation Now! There’s just too many boring annoying wanky ones. On the other hand, the kids collection is always fun, vibrant and story oriented. Therefore much better viewing.
I enjoyed this collection a lot actually, there was a very cool one called ‘The Goat Who Ate Time’, I liked ‘Animatou’ with all the different animal styles, the gorgeous look of ‘T�t ou tard’ about a squirrel and a bat and the fun of ‘A Sunny Day’.
I also really liked Homage to the grip (actual video!) Because it is fun and cute and colourful and has drama and neat music.
Max & Co is a Swiss/French stop motion animation feature about a city of animals and a corrupt corporation. There are also themes about genetic engineering, love, and the redemption of a deadbeat father.
It was very stylish and coherent, the whole thing just looked great and all the characters were so very cool. Plus, the feline lady Cat looked a lot like Giffy.
Robin Hood. I don’t think I had ever seen an Errol Flynn movie before this, I liked it. It was very OTT and campy and silly but great fun. I liked realising that they cast someone not as pretty as Errol Flynn to play Will Scarlet, and the kind of random reactions people had at various times. My favourite bit was when Prince John, Guy of Gisborne and an evil bishop are conspiring to kill King Richard, they finish up and see a skirt corner disappear – Lady Marian has been eavesdropping! They follow her a little way. Prince John says “She might have heard us.”
The others agree, they all stare after her ominously, then as one, turn and go back the way they came.
Yeah, because if someone overhears you plotting treason, it’s probably fine, right?
After that I met Svend, Amphigori and Lamprey and we saw Mongol . The story of the childhood and adolescence of Genghis Khan and his rise to power. It’s the first of a projected trilogy and I will want to see the next ones. It was a bit slow, but the actors all had a lot of charisma and were very engaging. Very very pretty Mongolian landscapes.
Let the Right One in is the story of a 12 year old boy who is being bullied at school, who makes friends with the girl who moves in next door. The girl is a vampire. As you can imagine, it was dark and scary and vicious, she was a very hungry 12 year old vampire. It was exceptionally well made, creepy and dark and shocking, and very disturbing as their relationship developed. It also had some very tender moments to balance it out.
I’m not in a hurry to see it again, but I definitely recommend it to horror fans.
glurk
My throat is full of gunk. My brain is still fluff, my nose continues to run.
On the upside, it is now the weekend, and all I have planned for today is to sit in darkened theatres and be entertained.
From Cleolinda, the terrifying behaviour of Twilight fans is collected here. I especially recommend the video of Robert Pattinson’s reaction to the panel he appeared in.
Empties is the story of an old teacher who retires after wringing out a smelly sponge on an annoying student’s head. For the fourth time. Unable to remain still (or at home with his wife) he tries doing other jobs. It’s good and funny and warm and the lead’s machinations with those around him (match-making and subtle steering) were nicely done.
I liked it a lot.
After we saw that Lee and I had an antipasto platter at Stellar, which was nice. I especially liked the garlic bread and the artichoke.
Work yesterday was hard, not because of work, but because of my state of brain fuzz. I know I was busy all day but I don’t know what I actually got done. Didn’t make it to the wrestling like I had wanted to, because all day I was fighting not to just fall asleep. Well, I’ll go to the next one.
I read the second book of the Boston Jane series, which was much more satisfying because she wasn’t as whiney. She also talks about craft and baking, therefore I think Giffy should read them. I have the third one ready to read but the second Monster Blood Tattoo book is due back at the library first, so I am reading that now.
Vicks remains my friend.
PoF: in bed
CO: can I get stuff done today or should I take it easy?
