Thursday was a hit and miss movie day. First up was The Return, a Russian film about two brothers whose father returns after a 12 year absence. He takes them fishing. The older one is desperate for his Father's approval and fiercely loyal to his brother. The younger is cold towards his father and yet desperate for his approval. It was a wonderful film and said a lot about father/son relationships.
Of course, being neither a father nor a son I am not sure if the things it said were true, but I like to think so.
After that I saw the Python which had a promising premise about a snake loose in a school and the first half was very funny and silly but the second half kind of lost me. Too much was going on, too many characters and then it just got boring. Bits of it were very very good, on the whole I got bored.
Then I played some civ3 (yay yay) and went to Zephfi's tupperware mini-partette which was very nice. I sat practically on the heater and had a good time chatting and drooling over the tuppergoodness.
At 10.30pm we went to Tamala 2010: Punk cat in space. I think the people in the audience (sudden urge to spell it ord-ee-ants) who were high really enjoyed this movie. I found it a bit poorly constructed. It was like watching a very long music video, which was OK for a while and some of the music was very very good. On the other hand it didn't seem to want to be all serious or all funny. The funny stuff was very funny, but there was some pretty upsetting stuff too. Tamala was very cute. (See title quote.)
Zaitoichi is a fantastic old-school samurai movie that felt a bit like a musical heist film. Very very cool and funny and stylish. My favourite bits were the farmers making music while working in the fields...
Then we went to Farenheit 9/11 which is having preview screenings this weekend at the Rialto. Go and check it out, Wellingtonians. It was moving and very well made. Michael has figured out that he's a better screen presence when he's just a voice over and letting the interviewees speak for themselves.
I've never seen an old man cry before, but there was one crying in Farenheit. I was crying right from the very start when they showed Bush's car being pelted with eggs by protesters on his inaugration day. How did he get away with it?
Yeah. I felt pretty melancholy after that so I went and put some Alias comics on layby. (That's superhero drama written by Brian Michael Bendis not the annoying spy chick off TV.)
Then we saw the French film Intimate Strangers, which was also very good. It was a kind of almost-romance about a woman who mistakes a tax attorney for a shrink. The music was a bit ominous for the subject matter but it was otherwise beautifully shot. Crisp and charming.
Posted by jenni at July 23, 2004 09:12 PMAh, F911... The delays in this getting here so infuriated my entire flat that we went to great lengths to get a downloaded copy just so we could see the blasted thing. It was hand-filmed at Cannes, with part of the picture missing (which sucked during the bits they had subtitles), but it was well worth it. Look forward to it FINALLY hitting theatres in a week so I can properly see it, with good sound too.
Found my favourite IRC quote for the week from bash.org
>>what can you say to the ex that killed a part of you that you'll never get back ... with out sounding bitter?
Heh. :) Just me? Maybe.
Alias is great - I think I have all of them now (may be missing an early one, but that's what Ebay's for). Ends around issue 15 or 18, but turns into The Pulse. Much the same, just not R18, and early issues are a bit less Jessica focussed as the story is set up. I think that's why Alias ended as the audience was limited by the (unneeded)rating.
I originally picked it up because I couldn't believe they'd made a comic of such a crappy TV show, and was utterly charmed - it was one of the middle ones where she's on a blind date, and the excellent dialogue was a nice change from lots of comics out there. I'm also getting Rex Mundi, which is very slow paced and only bi-monthly, so quite hard to get into. Good concepts though.
Posted by: Rachel at July 24, 2004 10:22 AMI have the first six issues of Alias. I didn't get into it really, not as much as Powers anyway and it wasn't what I was looking for in a comic. I don't know if it was split into two series or I just finished getting it after the first story arc. Anyway if you are missing some I could help maybe.
As for F9/11. It has become so overhyped now unfortunately. The delay is a cause of it I guess but also the fact that it is political propaganda film. I did love the trailer for the movie I saw a couple of weeks ago but I find myself asking, do I need to see this film?
Zatoichi was cool - Favourite bit was the training sequence with the sticksm :)
Posted by: jarratt at July 26, 2004 02:16 PMThe Return is a very interesting film, if somewhat unconventional.
Have you seen Night Watch? or Russian Ark?