debbieann

I had forgotten just how all consuming the festival is - just getting the NYT xword puzzle done is a huge challenge
(don't want to break my 40 day streak!). I get to the end of a film and I have to decide which has priority - the bathroom, getting something to drink, getting something to eat, or getting to the next place to get in a queue to get a decent seat, ok, to get my favorite seat, which also happens to be the favorite seat of some other people. You get to know the people that like to sit in the same basic area. I have seen 46 films so far. Some of my current favorites- lots of documentaries

Snow Monkey - a documentary about making a film w the children of Jalalabad, I think George Gittoes
is amazing, must try to see more of his films, and learn more about what he is doing, he is
sort of an artist without borders.

The Pearl Button - about the coastline of Chile, the indigenous people of Chile, the water, the sea, also about modern
Chile history and how the sea was used to bury victims of state murders

Peggy Guggenheim - Art Addict - now I need to go to Venice to visit her museum. What a fascinating woman.
what a great eye she has for art. Married to Max Ernst! lovers w Samuel Beckett. And recognized the art of Jackson Pollack and many others

The Look of Silence - somehow I missed the first film in the theatre (Act of Killing) and this is a companion piece,
but also stands on its own. About the killings in Indonesia of a million "communists" in 1965, about how those men are still in power, about the US involvement in those killings.

Mavis - wow, Mavis Staples, what a woman, what a voice! it was good to have a lighter doc.

In the meantime, I was also looking for housing and we found another temp place, this time until Sept 12. So I can stop looking for a little bit. This time we are at Rathdowne and Park, basically North Carlton. There is a library nearby, though I don't have the right card for it, but I will still go there and read books and newspapers. Melbourne might be about to have a transit strike. We are also still freezing cold. There are a lot of cafes in this town, but it is somehow a challenge to find really warm cafes.

Finished All the Light We Cannot See. It was good. Also read Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast, which was very good. Have been seeing Japanese films on Weds night by Mikio Naruse and on Monday I saw Woman in Gold and Wild Tales. I'm back in my Melbourne routine of 3 water aerobics classes, cheap movies on Monday and art house films on Weds night. And the rest of the time running errands, doing chores and reading books. Saw a NT Live (filmed in London) play - Man and Superman by GB Shaw, I thought it was great and Ralph Fiennes was amazing.

I finally restored my back up of the stolen laptop and the Time Machine backup program worked great. So happy to see all my photos. Charles and I are now sharing one laptop. He is back to going to work on a short term job until October. We have been living in the downtown/cbd/free tram district for a month and on Monday we move to Northcote. Also seeing Jessica Hopper being interviewed Monday night.

Melbourne is still freezing cold. I picked my 40 films for the film festival which starts July 31 and goes until Aug 16.

still seeing lots of films-

Ex Machina- eh, I was unimpressed. Liked it better than Interstellar, but that isn't saying much.

Clouds of Sils Maria - I really liked this, but I am quite smitten w Juliette Binoche and so is this film, so no real surprise that I liked it.

Melbourne Cinematheque showed a series a films by the director Mathias Pineiro and I tried hard to like them, but they didn't really work - it was mostly Shakespeare plays being rehearsed by the same group of people and it did remind me of Rivette, but it just didn't come together for me.

I saw Salt of the Earth again so that Charles could see it and I really loved it, though it is depressing, it ends on a hopeful note.

Antarctica- A Year on the Ice - this was great, I will never spend a year there and this film really showed what it is like, especially the winter, which very few people get to experience.

Expedition to the End of the World - a film from Denmark, a very engaging film, from different perspectives you get to see men explore the arctic

Boyhood - I enjoyed it so much I went and saw it again while it was still showing on a big screen

Tonight I will see Do The Right Thing and The Great Flood. Melbourne is so fantastic for films. I see the same people over and over at the films I like, so I have developed a couple of film friendships that I really enjoy. I think I could see films I really want to see 7 days a week. Charles will go see the new Avengers film without me, I think. I wanted to see The Tribe, but it came and went so fast, that I missed it.

I'm already signed up to see all the films I can possibly see at the Melbourne Intl Film Fest in July/Aug.

This city is so good for movies - and on top of that I have access to netflix streaming - so I am seeing lots of movies. My favorite film this week was The Great Beauty - just a good film at the right time for me - an older gentleman looking back on his life in Rome. Things happen, but the film isn't really about the things happening, it is more about the city of Rome, his life, his choices, his friends. You see his parties, lots of dancing, lots of characters.

I also saw Tracks, about a woman who journeys from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean w 4 camels. I read the book 30 years ago, or so, but now it has been made into a film. I enjoyed it.

On TV here (which seems better than US non-cable TV) I saw a series of films based on stories written by Tim Winton - called The Turning -
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/theturning/
It reminded me a little of The Decalogue. It was good.

I also recently saw Philomena, but while it was ok, I do not think it is a rush to the theater to see sort of film, but it is good to see Judi Dench.

The local museum also shows films, and I got to see a hard to find film called Manila in the claws of Light - thoroughly depressing, but still great to see Manila in the 1970s, directed by Lino Brocka. I hope to go to more films at the museum - a great setting, and free! and really obscure films or ones that are hard to see on a big screen anymore - we went to see the Princess Bride, but every seat was taken, and we gave ours up since we had both seen it so many times. It is easy to get to the museum by bus from our house.

Via streaming I watched A Band Called Death, which was an interesting documentary, almost a Searching for Sugarman tale, of an African-American Detroit punk band that was way ahead of its time.

Saw a few SA films over the last week or so - Africa Shafted - about living in Africa's tallest residential building - Ponte Tower. It was a good documentary, just interviewing people in the lift, people coming from a variety of African countries. Afterwards there was a QA w a journalist that lives in the building and he offered to take people on a tour - I hope we can go.

We also saw Man On Ground - a straight forward narrative film, made in Johannesburg - I thought it was good, both a universal story and a very SA story. I saw Rebirth at a free film screening held at a film studio. It was a collage, mostly about a part of town called Brixton.

We also saw a play called The Line, which was put together from interviews of people after the xenophobic violence in 2008. We have tickets to see a play tomorrow called Red, about Mark Rothko.

We have our tickets for China in October - very excited.

I finished reading Complications by Atul Gawande. It was good, though a little scary. Found it at the local thrift store for $1. I'm reading the last book in the Mike Nicol trilogy.

We spent Saturday wandering around Parkhurst, eating at the Leopard and getting pedicures. We spent Sunday on the internet.

There is a four day wkend coming up, and we are thinking of driving to Port Elizabeth.

I have been pleasantly surprised by how many films that were at the Melbourne Film Festival have actually made it to Hobart.
The State Cinema here in Hobart has 15 different films on at a time, which means they can show a lot of the less mainstream films.

Today I saw El Bulli: Cooking in Progress and the only other person in the theatre was our friend that we met because we go
to the same place for coffee every day. I sort of get it now - if you hang out in a certain part of Hobart you can spot when someone new appears. And you see the same people SO often that you become sort of casual acquaintances. I have seen Alex from our new coffee
place in 5 different places around town - there is sort of a craft beer-third wave coffee-indy film-art gallery set! It didn't happen in
Melbourne, probably because there are hundreds of people in that set, or thousands, but here, it is all smaller. I should ask Alex where she doesn't see me, because I'd probably like to be there too. Today I went to two films and a talk by an artist. And had good coffee in the morning, went to the Salamanca markets and had pad thai for dinner. With a pecan sticky bun from Sweet Envy in the middle. Charles is in the US, enjoying the delights of SF.

here are the films I've seen recently-

El Bulli - well, this might be best if you have eaten there. I liked it. I think Gordon was a little bored. It was mostly about the creation
of the menu. It was not the menu that we had there, but you could see elements. the theme of this menu was water! they were very
creative with water in many different ways.

Project Nim - so SAD, in a way, it is about what happens when the experiment is over, and really how what happened hurt so many.
I felt very sad for Nim the chimp, and the people that really cared about Nim. I like this style of documentary - the very stark interview w old footage and photos mixed in.

The Whistleblower - about women being trafficked in Bosnia by private corporations and by the 'peacekeeping' forces. based on true events. hard to watch, and yet such an important story. I felt like it was a little squashed in to the time frame. It needed more time. reminded me of Silkwood in a way.

I also saw Eyeof the Storm, which I did not love, despite the fact that I do love Charlotte Rampling (and was pleased she mentioned
Night Porter as one of her key films in an interview, she is great in this film, but the rest of the film wasn't as great). Also saw
Jane Eyre, Red Dog, The Guard.

Triangle Wars - I had been really sad to miss this at the festival - all about a group fighting off developers in St Kilda. A wonderful, inspiring documentary, maybe better for me since I know Melbourne. the power of the people!

Still on my to see list at the state theatre - Senna (will wait til Charles gets back, unless it is about to leave)
Viva Riva! - a congonese crime thriller - really looking forward to this
The Hunter- filmed in TASMANIA and Willem Dafoe came down for the opening. tassie is very proud of this.

Films are expensive here - $16.50! except on Tues it is the low price of $12.50.

We flew from Hobart to Melbourne on Weds and I did not even come home, but went directly to ACMI
to see the films in the Cinematheque series. The theme on Weds night seemed to be unusual documentaries-

Hotel Diaries by John Smith - I missed the first 15 min, and usually I do not go in late,
but I am glad I just went in, because what I saw was great in an odd quirky sort of way.
I am really surprised at how Smith managed to be intensely local - all filmed in his
different hotel rooms around the world - and yet intensely global too. Having been in many
hotel rooms over the last 5 years, it really spoke to me, about how you are somewhere and
nowhere and everywhere. Deeply personal, and yet universal.

Steven Ball - seven short documentaries - these just did not work for me, but I'm glad I stayed for the
last documentary

Of Time and the City by Terence Davies - a love poem
film ode to Liverpool over time. I hope I get to read the script. It was
breathtakingly beautiful, so glad I stayed to see it, even though it started
at 945 pm, now I can't wait to see it again.
http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs35/int_anderson_davies.html
If you ever get a chance to see this film, it is well worth it.

then the next day I went to two films at Nova -

Kaboom - very Araki if you have seen his other films. The plot was silly, but the characters
and dialogue is great and it was fun to watch. A little Donnie Darko.

Last Train Home - so sad, so hard - about people in China who work in the city, but leave
children w grandparents and travel 2000 km home once a year at New Year and how the trains
are all sold out, and even if you eventually get a ticket, it is a very hard journey from train, to boat
to bus, to get home to a kid that doesn't even know you, even though you are sacrificing
everything so that the child has a better life.heartbreaking. the city work is at a garment factory
and it sure did look like LS jeans. who knows, but whatever garments, the work day is long and hard
and the living conditions are very hard.


I am reading Country Driving by Peter Hessler about driving across China, following the great wall.
I am missing the end of the murder trial I was attending in Hobart. I'll check when I get back, maybe
it won't finish on time and I will get to see more of it. I am thinking of maybe doing a little
zine about it.

oh also. it has been raining a lot here. often and with a lot of water. The gay film festival opening night party was flooded.

I liked In the Loop a lot - sort of Fawlty Towers meets politics with extremely inventive insults. I thought it was funny, many reviewers, that I usually agree with did not like it. I didn't like Avatar, ok interesting special effects, and the 3d glasses worked well, but not a plot that interests me. The Japanese film - Scenes by the Sea - was excellent. The new series of films coming up at the art gallery are all Japanese. For some reason I have not made it back to my Chauvel series that I used to go to every week.

Back to seeing films! Saw Savage Innocents with Anthony Quinn and Peter O'Toole
and "Anna May Wong", but not the AMW I was thinking of, at least per imdb.
Anyway, it is a film made in 1960 and it certainly seemed like a very outsider
view of another culture and I think it is likely it gets a lot wrong. One of the themes is that
you lend out your sled it comes back cracked, you lend out dogs, they come back tired, you
lend out your knife it comes back dull, but if you lend out your wife, she comes back
happier. Quinn the Eskimo song came from this film supposedly.

The next film in this series is Birth of a Nation, and I'm thinking there is a racism
in film theme going on. I've never seen Birth of a Nation.

Coming up this Saturday at AGNSW is Sunday Too Far Away. I have a friend I met at the films
at her ex-husband is in the film. Last Saturday we saw Paradise and Highway both at AGNSW -
films from 1996 and 1999 by a Kazakhstan director -Dvotsevoy - who also directed Tulpan, which will
be coming up later.

Also on our list Ponyo in Japanese, this week sometime. I also want to see Blessed and The
Girlfriend Experience.

It was about five weeks of no films! Glad to be back in it.

Also reading Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich and loving it.

The ravens are busy eating and I think there are babies in the nest, can't wait to meet them.

some very short movie reviews-

Mother - this director is my new favorite Korean director, he did Memories of Murder and The Host, if you have seen those, then see this one. It was playing at Reading Cinema, which was not on my radar for foreign/art films, but now it will be. Anyway, definitely violence in this one, if that bothers you. It is about the love a mother has for her child, but perhaps she takes it a little too far.

Stroszek - Herzog is just brilliant, this film feels strange, doesn't follow movie conventions exactly, and really it wasn't until the end that it really came together for me.

Last Ride - beautiful scenic Australia - Flinders Range is the star, ok with Hugo Weaving - father son bonding on a road trip. sort of.

other Australian films seen recently: Beautiful Kate, Mary and Max, Wake in Fright - all well worth seeing, hope they make it out of Australia.

I'm seeing Lucky Country tonight. Next week at Chauvel is Mouchette by Bresson, which I have never seen.

I would like to see some Ivan Sen films, hope they show up somewhere.