Old muppet routines that I love:
The long drawn out joke from the title.
the "Telephone pole" bit.
The French guest star who sings "inch worm"
I also love the man who makes the dog blog. because he also does this kind of thing.
and Tori
and bad drinks. Well, you get the idea. The man makes me want to make postcards.
Footloose is actually a very good movie. I am considering buying it on DVD (since it's like, $20). But not right now, because right now I am saving for the film festival.
I liked how Kevin Bacon tried to fit in, but couldn't. I liked how the girl was completely insane (actually, I wanted Kevin to end up with Sarah Jessica Parker, who seemed much sweeter). I liked how the dancing had gymnastics and tumbling built into it. I especially loved the soundtrack, because my sister had the soundtrack on record when we were kids and I knew all the songs.
I want to buy things to make myself happier but I know I shouldn't. Material things do give me pleasure and I do get a bit of a buzz from spending money. Stoopid consumer-driven-conditioning.
Movies I am looking forward to in the film festival:
An Inconvenient Truth. A documentary about Global Warming featuring Al Gore. I'm sure I'll come out of it frightened for my life, but hey. Looks fun!
C.R.A.Z.Y. A coming of age film about a gay teenage boy (and you know how much I love that..) in the 70s and 80s.
White Planet. Documentary about the Arctic circle. Bound to have cute polar bear cubs, now that I come to think of it. Anyhoo, I just love nature documentaries and I *think* this one has a giant squid in it! Scary!
A Scanner Darkly. Ok, so I don't like Dazed and Confused, but even still I consider myself a bit of a Linklater fangirl. This is using his rotoscope animation which I loved in Waking Life and also looks like a good, paranoid sci-fi to boot.
I've made a psuedo-schedule, although I suspect I've left some stuff out because I started with Lee's list and went from there. I just realised I haven't made a time to see the Van Gogh biopic...and I really want to see it!
Pof: grey and black stripes and renovated skirt
CO: films and the future.
Same disclaimer as the other day; if you don't like what I say, fine. It's just one person's opinion after all :)
The finals for the 48 hour film competition were broadcast last Friday on C4, Giffy kindly opened up her house for us Jenni's Angels teamsters who were able to make it out.
Arthaus by Dueling Tiger Stand
I really, really enjoyed this movie. I was tossing up between this and Baby Farmer for my vote...It was a pretentious art film but done as a Reality TV show where conceptual modern artists had to compete and every week one would get voted off. Hilarious stuff and really, very well done.
Jake and Angel Whiskers by Masonic Pictures
Cute as Hell road movie acted by mice. It was pretty funny watching the mice swear and the rat on a motorcycle chasing the leads was great too. Nice use of sets...dollhouses and rat mazes and metal running wheels. The Barbie car they escaped in was a main feature. I guess I felt like they'd counted on getting Cute Animal Film and then made a road movie around it? Meh. It was still great.
Slade in Full by White Tiger
You remember what I thought about this one right? I really don't think it should have come second, it's just not that good!
Baby Farmer by Clean Slate
This is very rewatchable and stands up well each time. I realised I hadn't seen the first ghost sighting the first time I watched it...spoooooky! I voted for this film.
Brown Peril: The Tim Porch Story by The Down Low Concept
This was a mockumentary about a man who wants to be the first Tongan badminton champion. It was well made, and had some very funny moments (favourite: the guy in the backround of an interview coming out of the R18 booth, seeing the camera and going straight back in again). It was very much influenced by the Christopher Guest type mockos and it was a great example of that. I just...don't think it was the best movie in competition.
Time Tourist by Dance Donkee Dance
Nicely made retro scientist film, nice use of filters and props but the story wasn't very clear. There was a bit much wandering around...it didn't do a lot for me.
The Escort by FR7835
This film was a bit too ambiguous. I *think* I know what happened, but I needed a little more explanation to be sure. It reminded me of an Australian short film I saw a few years back and loved. Norm was very impressed by the green screen and I was impressed by the high shots. They must've had a ladder or something...
Action at Both Ends by Daddy Cool
This was very funny, and pretty clever too. A good example of Based on a True Story. It was very Dunedin and very Studenty, but that was really appropriate to the story. Again, some funny moments but the whole was a bit meh.
Zephfi, this one's for you: The Superted official website!
and for everyone who loves nostalgia combined with tshirts: 80stees.
Personally I want the "Usual Suspects" one with the pacman ghosts. (and the "Just one more level" one.
PoF: retro tee and good butt
CO: movies and chat
Okay, so this is super late. Basically I was weirded out by several aspects of Finals night. Here are some: everyone there was terribly terribly cool. This was a bit intimidating for me, who had dressed warmly and not very chicly.
Everyone was very hyped up, which I can totally understand if your own film had made it through, but it did feel a little like everyone but me was on drugs. Some things just aren't that funny!
I was very pleased at how well organised it was this year and how smoothly everything was run. Some very very good movies were shown. Here are my opinions on the ones we watched.
Clean Slate "The Baby Farmer"
Amazing movie. Just so professionally shot, well written and actually very terrifying. This one the best of Wellington, which I was very happy about because seriously? It rocked. The only gripe I have with it is that technically it's a Ghost movie, not a Monster movie. But then a ghost is a kind of monster sometimes so my gripe is very small.
Hydra Productions "16 Bullets"
A coming of age movie which dealt with a girl turning 16, being introduced to the family business (hitmen) and given her first gun and contract. I loved this one for the acting I think, the family had a real feeling of love and togetherness going on and the use of Robin Slade was great. Very mean girls, with back handed compliments delivered smoothly. Very true to genre, which it turns out, is important to me.
Long Live Megatron "Optimistic Prime"
Yay Heat Five! I was really looking forward to seeing this one again, and the jokes played just as well the second time. Love the use of the Barbershop quartet. The audience was pissing themselves in this one.
Open Book "Robin Slade: The Actor's Actor"
I have a lot of love for mockumentaries and this one was very well pulled off. I think everyone had a feared getting "puppet" as a genre but this team did really well to cast their muppety puppet as a renowned actor working on a two man show with a doting director. Some great jokes and the best actor award went to the puppet's jealous offsider.
Northside Steelers "Emotional Rescue"
For me, this movie was too disjointed. It set up a really touching and very dark storyline of a man trying to kill himself and then sort of jumped the shark, had a bunch of different set ups for stories and didn't follow them through. Really, I was disappointed that it abandoned the quite moving emotional stuff for confusing fluff.
Pancake "Faery Disenchanted"
Quite a clever idea this one, fairies in a support group. Surprisingly dark ending! Brilliant acting by a teeny wee girl and some very good jokes. It was maybe a bit too predictable (apart from the very end!).
Prime Rib "Gunther & Me"
I really liked this one. (Go the monster genre!) It was a kind of coming of age story about a boy who's imaginary friend is a bit too real and not really relevant to his life anymore. This team won the teen award and I think they did really well. I especially liked the Father's lines: "Aw, you little wanker".
SE7 "Seven in Seven"
I've never seen Se7en, but I know enough about it to participate in conversations about it. This parody was pretty good, although I didn't get one whole section of it because I don't watch enough TV! Overall sort of disappointing after it had so much build up on the forums.
Traces Of Nut "Monster"
(Go the monster genre!) I have mixed feelings about this film, it was pretty funny and the fight scene was well choreographed but I dunno, the premise didn't really do it for me I think. I may have just been jealous that they had a better monster movie than us? Suffice to say I didn't enjoy it as much as the rest of my group did.
Ufo Film "That Fateful Day In April"
Uhm. Yeah. One joke isn't really enough to sustain four minutes of confusing images and annoying soundtrack. It's true that the joke is good, but....I think this one should have been Pretentious Art Film. Then I would have forgiven it.
Unproductive But Optimistic "This Thing Called Hate"
Very nice Monster movie about a monster who just isn't evil. Beautifully acted and some good jokes. I especially liked the use of "That's what I'm talking about" in this one. It was well shot, but perhaps went on a little too long. Kudos for filming in and around the police station though.
White Tiger "Slade In Full"
What can I say here? I don't like it. My theory is that it's a "boy film" and therefore the jokes aren't that funny to me. A lot of people have been saying "oh wow, he made it all on his own" but...well, he did a film two years ago with just him and one other person. Personally I don't think it's particularly clever to watch the same guy die over and over again but then what do I know? The audience at the Embassy was roaring with laughter and the teenagers from Prime Rib were stomping their feet they were laughing so hard.
I guess I'm just not the target audience.
Later....the Grand, National Finals.
Please don't flame me about what I've said here. If you've googled your team name and don't like what I've said remember: I am just one person. It doesn't really matter what I think. My team didn't even get to the finals!
PoF: Batman
CO: getting stuff done
I was bored, because no one loves me and I checked my old email address. You know. The one with my *old* name.
I found some neat stuff! Lots of email updates from Elric in Japan (because he's forgotten that my ordinary email address exists obviously) and a link or two.
First: cosplay extremis with this guy who's made a Fantastic Four Thing costume out of actual rocks and detailed the process here. (Careful of pop-ups.)
Second: uh, no other links. But the dogblog has updated! Check the dogblog!
Lee and I watched Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang last night and I gotta say, it's awesome. See, I can still watch action movies! They just have to be clever, funny, self-referential, ironic and fun. I went into it having very little idea of what it was about other than everyone seems to love it.
Essentially it's a film noir, but it's a sort of parody Hollywood as well. It was very very funny and seriously, some of the jokes had Lee and I laughing for about five minutes. My only complaint would be about the female characters... uhm, completely two dimensional apart from the main girl who was seriously kick-ass but was kind of a ho. But then that was addressed quite well by the main guy, so it's a pretty minor complaint.
Steve must watch this film, if he hasn't already. The rest of you should definitely see it too, but I kept thinking "Steve will love this" as the movie progressed.
Other than that I have finished the Uglies trilogy, and very good it was too. I know own them so if people want to borrow them let me know. C has the first one just now. I'm now onto Rainbow Road which is the third charming gay teenager book. Aaah so sweet. I have a huge stack of things to read at home, so hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow between the cleaning, the moving stuff and the cooking.
I'm less sore in the neck/shoulder area today, but my jaw aches a bit. I have to keep relaxing it and stretching it because its default seems to be clenched.
PoF: wool and layers
CO: new clothing storage
Following a rather busy few days at work I woke up this morning an hour and a half before my alarm in hideous pain. My neck and my right shoulder were just solid rocks of owie and eventually I braved the cold and heated up my wheat bag. With the warm I was able to nod off again but I didn't want to aggravate anything so I have stayed at home.
I have been watching old episodes of the Muppet Show and chatting online all morning. In the afternoon I plan to get off the laptop and I dunno. Maybe do some Yoga?
We watched Flashdance last night and it's really pretty bad. I mean, I had no particular fond memories for it, given that it was one of those films my older sister would watch over and over again, so I'm alright with saying it was awful.
My goodness but it's cold. Snow overnight, rain alternating with hail today, high predicted of 8 degrees. *Hates winter*
PoF: very warm layers
CO: h_h
I found a fun new website, a sort of where are they now thing. The Bubble Burst
Rainbow! Bros! Michael Barrymore!
to anyone else, or am I a total spaz?
You're pulling on the sleeve of the other arm with one hand, lose your grip, the hand goes flying and you bash yourself in your own boobie.
Man, it hurts, but I don't seem to stop doing it. It's like I can't learn to have a better grip on my gorram sleeve!
Rain, thunder, wind, cold.
Time to anchor The Temporary Hedonist and pile into my luxury cabin's bed with all the blankets. That's right, I get *all* the blankets on the ship. If you have a problem with that you'll just have to bundle in too.
Last night I saw Anthony Browne last night, he's a famous children's book author. His most well known books are Gorilla, Piggybook and the Will the Wimp series. I really like his work so it was quite exciting to see him and he really was charming to listen to.
He talked about how in his early work, he had no confidence in his textual storytelling, so he packed the backgrounds of the pictures with weird surreal stuff going on. (e.g. Santa kicking a plum pudding like a soccer ball, walls with ears, man walking a pig.) People asked him why he put them in there, and he didn't want to tell the truth so he said it was a sort of echo of childhood imaginary worlds...
I got him to sign two books for me Look What I've Got! which is the first book of his that I fell in love with, and The Shape Game which is one of his picture books about fine art. He drew pictures in the books, like Neil Gaiman does! I got a gorilla in the first book and a shape in the second one. The Shape Game is a game you play with a friend, one person draws a random shape, a squiggle or whatever, and then passes it to the second person. The second person makes the shape into a picture. Anthony asked me if I'd ever played the game and I said 'yes' so he gave me a shape.
Thing is, I can't do anything with it, because that would ruin the autograph....oh, what to do...I'm actually thinking of making a photocopy of it and playing around...
The best thing about meeting him last night was I didn't do my usual "OMG! I'm meeting a famous published author!" freakout. I was quite cool and calm (possibly because I had to wait in line so long) and I told him the story about how I know Look What I've got! and he chuckled and said it was a nice story and when he finished he said it was nice to meet me.
*bliss*
I really enjoy going and looking at art. My years of Art History and Practical Art at high school have given me a good background for understanding modern art and I don't think I go out and look quite enough.
The exhibition I saw yesterday was Patricia Piccinini's Another Life which is a kind of meditation on Genetic Engineering and all the complex emotions that are tied into it. The website I linked to yesterday has pictures of all the aspects of the exhibition and also has soundbites of the artist explaining how the works came about and what they mean to her. Well worth listening to, it takes about 15 minutes. Click here.
My favourite things were the cyclepups; little infantile motorcycles, all the same base but customised in different colours, with different details. They have the look of a small puppy who hopes you'll take it home in real life. Quite, quite adorable.
Installation art as a rule is scary to me, and I think I've worked out why. It's because you go into this space and you never quite know what will happen. Is the sculpture motion activated? Will it speak to you? Will it move? More often than not there isn't movement but you just never know.
The beasties in Another Life looked so very real, human eyes, veins in their translucent ears, folds of skin and fingernails. I found I was waiting for them to shift positions, or to blink. It was a deeply moving exhibition and I'm really glad I managed to get to it before it closed.
I bought some postcards from the gallery, some of Patricia's work, some of Peter Peryer's photography (I remember seeing his stuff in a class field trip in about 1996) and another random picture with Marilyn Monroe in it.
I *heart* art.
PoF: Black and white and warm skirt
CO: sockses.
Went to the art gallery today, it was the final day of the Piccinini exhibition "Another Life". I'll write more about it tomorrow, but for now take a look through her site.
City Gallery. Click through to her bit to hear her talking about the beasties.
Tomorrow: introspection and Why Installation Art scares me.
PoF: Honey sweatshirt
CO: OOS hand from online chatting
Busy day at work again, so won't be long here.
It was lucky that I didn't have movie night last night because I was in a super-foul Leave Me Alone sort of mood. Lee was quite concerned, which kind of made it worse. On the up side, I finished Deep Fried and started Pretties, which is totally bubbly.
Deep Fried was really very good, exciting and not too far fetched. I guess I was a bit disappointed with the ending, but I'm not sure what I wanted to happen instead. Recommended.
We watched two more episodes of the Mighty Boosh and today I have the theme song stuck in my head. I do quite like it, although some eps seem to be stronger than others. Lee isn't hating it. I think we'll get through it. I have some more favourite bits but I don't remember them right now.
48 hours Wellington Finals tonight. A very small contingent of Jenni's Angels will be there. Personally, I'm looking forward to eating pizza for dinner beforehand.
I had a wardrobe meltdown this morning and went for a safe jeans and hoodie combo. I wish I'd worn more layers; Northerlies or not it's still freaking freezing.
We're getting a new projector lamp on Saturday. On Sunday: either a new heater or clothing storage for me. I think a heater is more pressing, although I am really hanging out for the clothing.
PoF: nothing interesting
CO: throat phlegm
Last night our roleplaying group played a game of Inspectres. It was a crazed, bizarre tale of weirdness, which should come as a surprise to no one.
We used our existing characters (including my beloved Petrova, she of the no social skills) and attempted to do a 100 dice mission. We got through about 45 I think....
We were trying to "solve" a case, which was essentially a haunted map of great occult power which turned people into zombies and pulled a demon dimension into Wellington. In the course of the evening: C's character became a zombie and ate part of our boss's brain; my hippy night-shift character hypnotised Svend's stoner character into thinking he was a Golden Tamarin (hilarity ensued); Seraph said to Elric "You're living, dumbass!" and we all metaphorically wet our pants laughing.
I particularly enjoyed Svend's pontificating Boss having an encounter with his Even More Pompous Father, regarding the massive damage our Inspectres team did to the family mansion the last time we played.
Gerald "Father, I love and honour you in my heart, but I will fight you on the beaches! I will fight you in the courtroom!"
We left the adventure on a cliff-hanger, the zombies have been magically "paused" so they aren't causing havoc, but the demon dimension has in fact risen and melded with Wellington. Petrova is injured, but she has five cool points so she isn't fazed by any of it.
I'm not sure if Jared A. Sorenson regularly checks my blog now or not, so I will mention his name all gratuitous-like so he finds me again when he googles himself. Hi Jared!
Continuing in my sock-based obsession, I awoke at four in the morning and thought about things I might purchase from sock-dreams. I was awake about an hour. Today I'm wearing the grey and black striped super stripes, but the wide knit shows my leg colour through and the grey looks sort of yellowy/green. Maybe it's just this light.
PoF: Purple floofy skirt, Jenni's Angels, black armwarmers, grey and black super stripes, biker boots.
CO: well, it's socks.
Got my new sock-dreams socks today. Very very happy.
I'm hanging out for getting new clothing storage. I've been buying new stuff like crazy lately and my existing clothes storage is packed to overflowing. I could throw some stuff out obviously, but I feel like I did a really big weed back at the end of summer.
We watched the first two episodes of the Mighty Boosh last night. It's totally cracksmoking and weird, so I like it quite a lot and Lee is struggling. My favourite thing so far?
Sung:"Nicey nicey zoo zoo!
For him and her and me and you!"
If I had to compare it to something, I think I'd go with the Goodies. But it's a bit of a stretch.
I thought I had other news, but I have forgotten it. I may remember later and then I'll let you know. Oh yeah. I know! We didn't get into the Wellington Finals of the 48 hour film comp. I'm not very surprised, although I think our film was quite strong it wasn't y'know, ground breaking. The one I voted second from our heat has gone through though, which is nice. I sort of want to go and see the finals anyway.
PoF: so cute!
CO: socks.
Does anyone else get this? I read Uglies the other week and it was really, really, really good. I'm hanging out for the sequel (I'm second in the reserve queue) and in the meantime reading other stuff is really hard.
Partially this'll be sick/cold= no attention span but I pick stuff up and in comparison to the book I *want* to read it can't compare.
Abby Hayes (kid's book) = boring. Poorly written.
Gunslinger Girls book one = sad, depressing, bleak.
Storyteller's Handbook = too practical, boring, irrelevant.
Fairytale collections = read 'em all before, boring.
So, I'm re reading Necklace of Kisses, and loving it, because it's lovely. I think I'm going to return all the library books I'm not actually *excited* about tomorrow and just cope with what I have left. I have a vampire novel byt he guy who wrote Uglies, so maybe that's my next thing.
The "vicious" Southerly front that was predicted has lived up to it's name. Lee and I put the heater on today and neither of us can get further than a metre away from it. It's like crack. Warm, cosy crack.
Oh and it's confirmed. I can't scrapbook with people who are doing other crafts. I work best on my own or with my Mum also scrapbooking. Presumably I'd be alright with anyone else also scrapbooking but I've only ever done it with my Mum (and my sister once).
Today I finished what I can on my wedding album. I need some more photos to finish it properly, but I'm pleased and I moved on to some other scrapbooking. It's nice to be able to finish a page and stick it into teh album and say "It's done."
PoF: trackies
CO: the heater
The results for audience choice appear to be up on the 48hours websites discussion forum. I'm a bit pissed off because I feel like if the presenter at our heat hadn't kept going on about how big our team was *at the screening* we would have got more votes.
As it was he pretty much said "Don't vote for them because they're all going to vote for themselves and it's not fair." Bullshit it isn't fair. It's not hard to get people to come to a movie, any of the other teams could have brought people along and besides, aren't we supposed to be voting for the movie we like the best regardless?
Tall poppy syndrome. I'm perfectly willing to admit that Optimus Prime should get the audience choice award. I was pissing myself laughing and I voted it to be second after my own. (Let's assume everyone on a team is voting for their own film, in that case the thing worth fighting for is actually to be so outstanding as to get the second vote.)
Obviously this is going to read like "I want to win the prize" but what I'm really complaining about is the presenter encouraging tall poppy syndrome. I think our film was pretty good, it's hard to compare it with the second place getter because the genre and outlooks were so different, and there's was also a very good film. I loved the use of the line "That's what I'm talking about" for example.
I just wonder how the votes would have come out if the presenter hadn't said anything about us rocking the vote. We are only 34 votes behind the second place people. I am pissed off.
[/rant]
This is the recipe for the cookies I made for fuelling 48 hour weekend. Since I got lots of compliments I figured people might want to try making them for themselves.
Soften 100g butter with 1/4cup brown sugar and a 1/4 white sugar.
Add an egg and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.
Stri in 1 1/2 cups rolled oats (wholesome oats if you're shopping at New World)
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup coconut
optional: 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons dried fruit (I used apricots)
Mis it all up and once it's kinda seized into a dough, put spoonfuls on a greased baking tray, flatten with a floured fork and bake for about 15 minutes on 180 degrees.
It's a recipe I learned in Form One Technicraft and it's always come out yummy. I think I'll make it again for Sunday.