12 Months of Movies 2007: June

June! June! Home of the Sydney Film Festival 2007! It was an amazing event providing somewhere in the vicinity of 290 movies, I believe … if not 375. I saw about ten of them! I only liked … less than half of those ten! This was my penultimate month. Not only was it miserable, it was filled with miserable movies with no end in sight. Yet I shall cover them, because I love you. Besides, it wasn’t a total bust.
Warning: My language gets a bit vitriolic in this one. Some of these movies were incredibly ill advised.

12 Months of Movies 2007: March

I realised at some point that I came to expect every month to provide bountiful riches. While I want to punch anyone who subscribes to Sturgeon’s Law in the face (I mean, what are the chances you’re ever going to witness 90% of everything anyway? Way to be King of the Cynics!), I accept that not everything can be so superlative that I vomit out sparkles of appreciation for it. March was not a month of greatness, but it had some gems.

12 Months of Movies 2007: February

Around this time you, and by you I mean me, start to realise that a lot of the highlights of my year in film were actually made in 2006. I’m not sure if I said it last year, but the “Twelve Months of Movies” feature is about my twelve months of movies, so that’s my work around, my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. So February had some grand stuff in it, refugees though they may have been.

12 Months of Movies 2007: January

It’s another year in cinema! I don’t think I did quite as much as last year, considering that there were some barren weeks, I missed a few things at the indie places that I really wanted to see. Still, it’s always an interesting and thrilling adventure, particularly as I had the site the whole year but didn’t write about everything I saw. I call 2007 “Year of the Sad Sack”. 2008 is going to be the year of amazement and wonder! Or double my money back, damnit.

Beowulf

“I Wiw Kiw Your Monstah.”

Beowulf: movie of the century? I think so. It’s like a parade of fun and adventure and an incredibly ugly monster, coupled with an incredibly Angelina Jolie-like Angelina Jolie in gold body paint. Then there’s a dragon. It’s kind of like how 300 might have been if 300 was any good. It’s the sort of movie that you despair of people thinking that Beowulf himself is legitimately “badass”. It’s essentially a movie that doesn’t want you to take it too seriously, because that’s not the great oral tradition: the great oral tradition is heart ripping, arbitrary stone falling action!

Turtles All The Way

December 31st, 1997: My father tells me “Alexander, for your crimes against humanity, you shall not be permitted to play Nintendo for a week.” No Nintendo, thought I. That means no GoldenEye. Searching for something else to keep my twelve year old self otherwise entertained, I located a book entitled Soul Music and somehow managed to devour it in the space of a day – no small feat for twelve year old boy who had struggled with Lord of the Rings for about eight months.

I managed to read all of the Discworld books in whatever order I could find them over the course of my first year of high school, a feat that was rendered easier by the fact that I almost never showed up at school. When The Last Continent was released, so too was Terry into Australia. I went and met him, had my book signed “Nullus Anxietas Sanguinae”, and went forth and read. I own each book released since then in hardcover, and have had four of them signed. The other two times (my mother got one book signed, you see, as she is a fan as well), Terry spoke out and was highly entertaining, but I was sadly towards the back of the signing lines, by which time he was understandably irritable. For some reason, he never insists on signing only one book, so some people feel free to bring a bag. When you’ve published in excess of thirty works, it’s not unreasonable to place a limit on the abuse of your hand.

In 2004, I began full time employment. For whatever reason, I chose this juncture to begin reading the Discworld series again, this time in order. About eight books in, I realised that maybe it’s not the greatest idea to exclusively read the books of one author, so I moderated myself: for every Pratchett book I read, I would read a book by someone who wasn’t Pratchett. It took me roughly a year.

When I reread The Bromeliad in 2006, there were tears in my eyes at the end. Terry Pratchett and Amy Tan, among others, taught me the importance of profundity in a conclusion. Last week I saw The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld on the shelves of Borders and thought “Maybe it’s time to start again”. Certainly I haven’t been the biggest fan of the Wee Free Men or the likes of Thud!, where nothing seemed to happen until the last few pages, but I like to see things as an adventure. This has been in the back of my mind, particularly as I chose to reread The Ninja, which is incredibly worse than I remembered it.

So I am not very happy to discover that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. I am, in fact, incredibly displeased. I had thought I had somehow missed it until today, but it was in fact only announced today.
Going back through the archives of the news indexes for the year on the Paul Kidby site, it’s warming to see Terry posing with Brian May and mentioning his great admiration for him. Pratchett and Queen are inextricably linked in my mind as I spent a great deal of my Reading Summer of ’98 listening to A Night At The Opera (the rest of it was spent listening to Roxette, but their work isn’t quite so in tune with Discworld for me), and “’39” in particular has always struck me. I’m glad that my link wasn’t as tenuous as I thought.

In the days when my brother and I did not get along so well, and soon after Douglas Adams died, he claimed that no one would care if Terry Pratchett were to die (I’m pretty sure that Philip, in his mellowed older age, no longer believes this to be the case). Well, Terry’s not yet dead – I’m predicting thirty more years of peak mental performance, which will not see his work degenerate into increasingly depraved sex scenes (I’m looking at you, the remainder of the fantasy writing world) – so I say keep on rocking, and I will embark on that rereading jaunt after all, if only between books.

11th Japanese Film Festival Day One: Maiko Haaaan!

That’s right, folks, it’s my fifth Japanese Film Festival! Why, it seems like only a year ago that I was seeing a similar amount of Japanese films, many of which had exactly the same actors as those on display this year! Seriously, this opening movie showcased several of the stars of last year’s festival. I’m coming to see the Japanese Film Festival as a means of seeing friends I haven’t seen for a year.

Maiko Haaaan! is one of those very strange movies that jumps all over the place and at the end you’ve got no idea what’s just happened, except you’ve seen people from Go, A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth and La Maison De Himiko, so it surely can’t all be bad. And it’s far from all bad, but it’s nowhere near all good. The changes in tone and story are so frequent that, despite being only about two hours, the movie is interminable.

Onizuka Kimihiko, after a traumatic experience in his childhood, is obsessed with maiko, apprentice geisha. He gets demoted to the Kyoto branch of his cup ramen company, but sees it as a blessing because he gets to live in the land of geisha! After managing to worm his way into the okiya, Onizuka enters a fierce competition with Naito Kiichiro – who used to flame Onizuka on his maiko blog.

Yeah, uh … what? I really don’t know what to say to you, because Onizuka goes on a long and winding journey to … nowhere? There’s a lot of funny jokes, and the characters are nice – and the inevitably happy ending and redemptions are indeed happy and redeeming – but it’s too scattershot. Onizuka realises an insane amount of latent potential and develops relationships and … I don’t know. Basically you end up siding with Naito because he doesn’t look as weird and, come on, he’s Tstusumi Shinichi.

So am I recommending this movie? Well, I’m not exactly rejecting it. The beauty of film festival movies is that, unless you go to this particular movie next Saturday, you’re not really in any danger of seeing it. Were it not for featuring all of my old friends, I doubt I’d remember Maiko Haaaan! next year.

Field observations from a three time veteran of the Clubs

On the weekend, I made only my third pilgrimage to Oxford Street and the Midnight Shift. Along the way, I saw someone I recognised through work, wearing checked pants and a sort of emo style of makeup – he gave me a look of joyful recognition, but I can’t for the life of me remember where he works.
This much exposure to the buzzing scene of which I will only ever be an observer has obviously rendered me an expert, and I can share my findings with you. Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed (Rob Liefield flashback!).

Even if the crowd hates the song that is playing, the individual members will almost certainly have their own specific moves for that song mapped out.

For example, when Madonna’s “Sorry” played on Friday, one of my friends booed … and then launched into his own routine. This also proves that not everyone loves Madonna.

Songs that suck or you never pay attention to are magically transformed by the atmosphere.

Gwen Stefani’s “What you waiting for” and, presumably, her entire bizarre Japanophile/Alice in Wonderland fusion oeuvre, are the most meaningful pieces of musical entertainment in human history. The works of the Pussycat Dolls are rendered into epic tales of desire. “Push Up” is … okay, it’s not that great. Fine. And Bob Sinclair is still pretty repetitive dependent on the song. But on the plus side, the audiences are totally oblivious to the objectification and exploitation of women prevalent in the music videos projected on the walls (besides which, the worst culprits are the kinds of music that would never seek play in such establishments).

Take your friends or get eaten alive.

One of the hazards of the scene is Creepy Old Men. It’s not so much an age as it is a state of mind, but they’re really scary and they will try to ingratiate themselves with you. Fortunately if you have friends, they can close the circle. Creepy Old Men aren’t exactly stupid, however, and they can grow abusive when they realise you’re ignoring them – even if they’re not quite clever enough to also realise that they are the reason you have ceased all movement and would be praying for the sweet release of death were it not for the fear that they would manhandle your rapidly decaying corpse.

Some people will feel compelled to remove their shirts.

These people are frequently the kind that you emphatically do not want to see shirtless. See also: Creepy Old Men.

Drag performers are extremely tall, even without heels, and have been known to use shorter people’s shoulders as arm rests.

Okay, maybe that one was just me.

Even if your friends are on the verge of drunkenness and are totally ready to go home, “You Can’t Stop The Beat” will give them a second wind and send them running for the dance floor.

This one is emphatically, if perhaps specifically, true.

What the fuck.

Two weeks ago, a more regular (and legitimate) veteran than myself was hugged by multiple strangers who commended his bravery in wearing glasses.

Next Time: Tropical fish in a bar: what’s up with that? Plus! With smoking banned inside all pubs, clubs and bars, where am I going to get my cancer from?

Disclaimers: Some of the music that is played is indeed valid outside of the context of the clubs; not all Old Men are Creepy; it’s inconceivable that all people think of glasses as an impediment.