MIFF Sold Out/Selling Fast Sessions

Bookmark this page. This is MIFF's information that is buried deep in their website, and available here in the one compact list. These are the film titles listed by MIFF as sold out or selling fast. Updated when I can, at least twice a day. Last updated 9/8/08 11:50pm.

The data is set out with session date and time, venue, session ID and title:

SELLING FAST

• Sun 10-Aug 11:00 AM - GU 4 - 4091 - The Pleasure of Being Robbed
• Sun 10-Aug 1:00 PM - GU 6 - 2092 - Ashes of Time Redux
• Sun 10-Aug 1:00 PM - GU 5 - 3092 - The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice
• Sun 10-Aug 1:00 PM - GU 4 - 4092 - Waltz with Bashir
• Sun 10-Aug 1:00 PM - Capitol - 6092 - Asterix at the Olympic Games
• Sun 10-Aug 3:15 PM - ACMI - 5093 - Roadgames
• Sun 10-Aug 5:15 PM - GU 5 - 3094 - Wild Combination - a Portrait of Arthur Russell
• Sun 10-Aug 5:15 PM - GU 4 - 4094 - Wendy and Lucy
• Sun 10-Aug 8:00 PM - GU 5 - 3095 - REC

SOLD OUT

• Sun 10-Aug 1:00 PM - Forum - 1092 - Three Monkeys
• Sun 10-Aug 3:15 PM - Forum - 1093 - Johnny Mad Dog
• Sun 10-Aug 5:15 PM - Forum - 1094 - Lorna's Silence
• Sun 10-Aug 8:00 PM - GU 6 - 2095 - REC

MIFF 2008 Day 1: Opening Night (Not Quite Hollywood)

Just got home from Opening Night. I've gotta say, I don't enjoy this event as much as the rest of the festival. It's a different crowd (it's more of a social event than a film event), it's is a very big crowd (and I'm not fond of big crowds). Traffic was terrible getting in with football events at both ends of the city. It would have been quicker to walk the last two kilometres. Memo to self: never, ever, ever use Flinders St. as access to the city on a Friday evening. Hamer Hall at the Arts Centre is a nice enough venue for a live audience, but it doesn't come close to the Regent for a film screening. Unfortunately that venue is not available due to Wicked's current season run.

Not Quite Hollywood
I enjoyed the Mark Hartley's new documentary and expect it will be well-received. It's certainly fun and entertaining, grabbing all the best bits of Ozploitation cinema from the 70's and early 80's. The interview with Quentin Tarantino is a real coup and adds much colour and perspective to this period of Australian cinema. Many of the players were interviewed and turned up on stage along with the director and crew after the screening - I counted at least 26 of them. The film is a warm homage to a little appreciated era of Australian cinema. I'd only seen two of the films it featured: Alvin Rides Again and Stone. The former I saw as a teenager in the mid-70s. I distinctly remember it was rated M, which meant I could see it, whereas the original Alvin Purple was rated R and I couldn't. It was very, very raunchy and would probably get an R-rating today, such is the conservative contemporary climate. The latter I saw at ACMI in January.

Personally, I found the film a little on the long side. I found myself looking at my watch a couple of times. About 15 minutes could have been shaved off without too much impact on content. I'd have liked more in-depth and incisive interviews, rather than the 5 to 20 second grabs that were frenetically cut and edited. I realise the point was to replicate the mad energy of the original films, but I'm not a big fan of this style. The film does assist

Tarantino reveals that an early scene in Kill Bill 1 is a direct homage to Richard Franklin's Patrick, when the main character wakes from a coma-like condition and spits (in Kill Bill, this was performed by Uma Thurman).

All-in-all, I had a good time and gained some appreciation for the Ozploitation genre. I'm also planning to see Richard Franklin's Road Games and possibly Colin Eggleston's The Long Weekend.

Not Quite Hollywood screens again at MIFF on Mon 28 July 9.15pm and is being released on 28 August.

Images: Dead End Drive-In; MIFF artistic director, Richard Moore (with flowers), Not Quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley, and crew.

MIFF 2008 Films With a Release

[Update 24/7/08: I've noticed that Waltz With Bashir is on Cinema Nova's Coming Soon schedule, so have amended list below accordingly. BTW, this is a title that looks very interesting and I had made a point to see it at the festival. My current list is running at 53 titles, and I'm trying to get it down to 40, so this is one title I've dropped from my list. I'll see it at the Nova in September... unless it screens from digiBeta or DVD... I better check].

[Update 30/7/08: As informed by Syms, Men's Group is getting a release. Cinema Nova have confirmed that Waltz With Bashir will screen from a 35mm print].

[Update 11/8/08]: Aztec have confirmed that O' Horten will get a release, probably early 2009, so that they can capitalise on the press coverage from the film's release in the US. This is a great little film, by the director of Factotum, and I highly recommend it.

[Update 11/8/08]: Kino Cinema has confirmed that Sukiyaki Western Django will screen there from 4/9/08, ahead of its DVD release on 16/10/08 (thanks John for the tip).

As promised, I've compiled a list of films screening at MIFF that are expected to get a local release. These can be divided into several categories:

• Films with a confirmed theatrical release date
  
• Films with a confirmed DVD-only release date
• Films attached to a distributor, but it's unclear what release, if any, will be given
  

Anything with a confirmed release date you can be reasonably sure will be released, even though sometimes dates change. Sometimes a film slated for release is inexplicably withdrawn. Anyway, the point of the list is not to be prescriptive but to arm you with a little knowledge to assist in the decision-making process. For me, if there's two conflicting films and one is likely to get a release, I'd rather see the one that won't be seen beyond the festival.

If anyone has any further info on any of these releases, please post or otherwise let me know and I'll update the details.

Films with a confirmed theatrical release date: (title, director, distributor, classification if known and expected release date).

• The Bank Job (Roger Donaldson, Paramount, 31/7/08)
  
• The Visitor (Thomas McCarthy, Rialto, 14/8/08)
• Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? (Morgan Spurlock, Icon, 14/8/08)
• Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud, Roadshow, 21/8/08)
• Son of a Lion (Benjamin Gilmour, Gil Saine, PG, 21/8/08)
• Not Quite Hollywood (Mark Hartley, Madman, 28/8/08)
• In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, Icon, 4/9/08)
• Son of Rambow (Garth Jennings, Paramount, 4/9/08)
• Welcome to the Sticks (Dany Boon, Hopscotch, 4/9/08)
• Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike, Hopscotch, 4/9/08 at Kino, DVD on 16/10/08)
• Empties (Jan Sverák, Icon, M, 6/9/08)
• Funny Games (Michael Haneke, Madman, 11/9/08)
• Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, Sharmill, MA, 11/9/08)
• Caramel (Nadine Labaki, Hopscotch, M, 18/9/08)
• Hunger (Steve McQueen, Icon, 18/9/08)
• Men's Group (Michael Joy, Titan View, 18/9/08)
  
• Fighter (Natasha Arthy, Hopscotch, 9/10/08)
• Lemon Tree (Eran Riklis, Potential, 9/10/08)
• Man on Wire (James Marsh, Madman, 16/10/08)
• Young@Heart (Stephen Walker, Rialto, 16/10/08)
• Strangers (Guy Nattiv, Madman, 13/11/08)
• Evangelion - 1.0 You Are Not Alone (Masayuki Kazuya Tsurumaki, Rialto, 11/12/08)
• Celebrity: Dominick Dunne (Kirsty de Garis, Kojo, 30/6/05)
• Donkey Punch (Olly Blackburn, Madman, early 2009)
• O' Horten (Bent Hamer, Aztec, early 2009)
• A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (Chris Waitt, Madman, Feb/Mar 2009)
  

Films with a confirmed DVD-only release date:

• The Wackness (Jonathan Levine, Madman, Undated 2008)
• Salt of This Sea (Eran Riklis, Potential, DVD (if at all))
• Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike, Hopscotch, DVD, 16/10/08)
• Global Metal (Sam Dunn, Hopscotch, DVD, 4/9/08)

Films attached to a distributor. They may get a theatrical or DVD release or neither.

• Bob Marley: Freedom Road (Sonia Anderson, Rialto)
• Boy A (John Crowley, Roadshow)
• Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (Hana Makhmalbaf, Hopscotch)
• CSNY Déjà Vu (Bernard Shakey, Madman)
• DaiNipponjin (Hitoshi Matsumoto, ?)
• Derek (Isaac Julien, Madman)
• Diary of the Dead (George A. Romero, Madman)
• The Drummer (Kenneth Bi, Rialto)
• The English Surgeon (Geoffrey Smith, Madman)
• Frozen River (Courtney Hunt, Sony)
• Gardens of the Night (Damian Harris, Kojo)
• Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Alex Gibney, Madman)
• The Guitar (Amy Redford, Kojo)
• Inside (Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo, Roadshow)
• It's a Free World (Ken Loach, Roadshow)
• Jar City (Baltasa Kormákur, Madman)
• Kate Bush: Under Review (?, Umbrella)
• Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, Rialto)
• Lionel (Edward Martin, Siren)
• Lorna's Silence (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Madman)
• Lou Reed's Berlin (Julian Schnabel, Madman)
• My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Madman)
• Otto; Or, Up with Dead People (Bruce La Bruce, Kojo)
• Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (Jim Brown, Roadshow)
• Planet B-Boy (Benson Lee, Madman)
• Rain of the Children (Vincent Ward, Rialto)
• Redacted (Brian De Palma, Madman)
• Rock n Roll Nerd (Rhian Skirving, Madman)
• Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Marina Zenovich, Roadshow)
• Salvation (Paul Cox, Hopscotch)
• Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Kojo)
• Somers Town (Shane Meadows, Madman)
• The Story of Richard O (Damien Odoul, Kojo)
• Terror's Advocate (Barbet Schroeder, Hopscotch)
• Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Accent)
• Trumbo (Peter Askin, ?)
• The Wave (Dennis Gansel, Madman)
• Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, Potential)
• Wonderful Town (Aditya Assarat, Aztec)
• [REC.] (Jaume Balaguero, Rialto)

How this list was compiled: first, several titles have already been slated for release by local distributors and the dates have been published. Next, a scan of each film's info provided by MIFF reveals the respective distributor. I have contacted each distributor for confirmation of release details. So far I have received responses from Potential, Accent, Sony, Paramount, Hopscotch, Icon, Kojo and Rialto. I am still awaiting responses from Gil Saine, Madman, Palace, Roadshow and Sharmill.

The Dark Knight

OK, it's Wednesday, my Melbourne Cinémathèque night. Feeling run-down, I decided to give tonight's program a miss (I normally get home close to midnight) and took the missus and kid to an opening day screening of the latest big blockbuster, The Dark Knight. Straight after work was a good strategy as I aimed to beat the masses that are going to pour into the cinemas come Friday night. In fact, there was a huge crowd lined up to go in at 8pm at the Sun Theatre, while we only had about 20 in our audience. I just got back and decided to brain dump the following words without too much review.

By the way, I've been flat out getting organised for MIFF. I've nearly finished my first compilation of what I plan to see, but I need to rework and refine it. I probably have about 50 films circled, and I just don't think I can absorb that much cinema over 17 days. I've already dropped about 20-30 titles that I'd like to see but won't. I probably have to cull another 10 or more.

I've also collated a list of the films that are getting a local release. I know this list was very popular last year, and some readers may be keenly awaiting it. I'll get it up in the next day or so. Now, to Batman.

There's a lot to like about the latest Batman instalment and, no doubt, we’ll be hearing a whole lot of glorification about the best Batman film yet and other superlatives. I liked it a lot also, with some really extraordinary elements, but despite the hype, it’s by no means flawless. Nor will it be universally lauded.

Is Heath Ledger the best comic super-villain of all time? I think so. If there’s someone that’s done a better screen villain rendition, I don’t remember it. His character is perhaps the best thing about the film and Nolan must take at least half of the credit for that. This is a really dark and warped re-imagination of the Joker that leaves all other Jokers way behind. Ledger deserves all the applause he gets. Even though we can see it’s his face and (especially) his hair, his inhabiting of the character, his voice transformation and his mannerisms are really inspirational.

I think Ledger's performance is for The Dark Knight what Javier Bardem's was for No Country For Old Men. But while I found No Country a flawless film, I can't say the same about this one. I'd compare it to say, There Will Be Blood, which divided audiences: some called it the best film ever, others hated it. I was somewhere in between with both that and The Dark Knight.

I loved the cinematography. There’s a really nice blend of warm colours, darkness and light. The editing is good, but inconsistent. Some cutting is designed to instil a sense of chaos, but it also seems a bit lazy.

I found the film too long. In fact, I looked at my watch just after the one hour mark (itself not a good sign) and found it a bit daunting that we had another hour and a half to go. Nolan simply tries to fit too much into one film.

The casting is good. I generally don’t like either Heath Ledger or Aaron Eckhardt, but found them both perfect for their respective roles. Bale is always good value, but I don’t think his part was not as well-written as it could have been. The pained and reluctant hero feels a bit laboured, and perhaps borrows too much from the Spider Man franchise. And talking about borrowing, there’s a scene that’s pure James Bond. The film seems to borrow from a number of other franchises, giving it an inconsistent feel, especially over such a long run time.

While this is a comic book rendition, Nolan has, starting with the previous instalment, done a good job of injecting a more three-dimensional psychology and believability than previous directors. It’s smart, but sometimes too smart. It is very busy at times, demanding too much attention of the target audience. I like intelligent cinema, but I found the story-line not always as coherent as it could or should be.

As for the action, there’s some really great looking stunts, and some great twists, while others are fairly standard for this kind of film. They’re mostly good fun and spectacular to watch, and fortunately they don’t dominate the film (it’d get to boring if they did). Batman seems omnipotent at times, more powerful than I remember him from the comics, while at others he seemed unnecessarily powerless (I was frustrated at times thinking why doesn’t he just shoot one of his bloody bat-thingys????).

His outfit is stunning. I love the way his eyes were blackened and his lower face was disguised by the mask. That, and his gravelly voice counters the old complaint people had with Bruce Wayne and Batman being so recognisable, one as the other. And while I didn't completely like the gravelly voice, I like that it just was, without it having to be explained as a disguising device. We, the audience, are smart enough to work that out for ourselves. Thanks, Nolan for that kind of respect.

The cape is fantastic. I love the look of it when he jumps off a building and when he's on his motor-sickle. The humour is very good too. Really restrained, not campy at all as is usual with the genre. There is some difficulty in following all the dialogue which may enrich people's DVD experience. You'll need to watch this 2, 3, 4, maybe more times to grasp everything. That can be both a good or a bad thing, depending on your taste and perspective.

Overall, this is an event film worth seeing (which is a rarity). No film can live up to the kind of hype this one is receiving, so don’t go in with your expectations too high and you should have a good time. I don’t know if I’d say it was the best comic book film made, but it is certainly one of the better ones.

MIFF 2008 Program is out

Well, I picked up my advance copy of the MIFF program today. You can get yours in The Age tomorrow (Friday). Checking my records, I got a non-final list (soft copy) late June last year, but no such luck this year. Needless to say, I'm poring over the list and trying to work out how to extract 30-40 films to see from a list of nearly 300. I'll post later which ones I'm going to focus on. It's always a job and a half trying to see everything one wants to (which is impossible - I'd like to see nearly all of them), so it gets down to what's on when, what doesn't conflict.

Like last year, I'll also post a list of which films will get a local release. There's about a dozen or so that I know of, but if anyone has the full list, please post it here or send it to me and I'll post it. Also, any tips of films to see, let me know.

Don't Talk Back

ACMI's Australian Perspectives screenings are a terrific way to catch up on the history of Australian cinema. Screening most Saturdays at 4pm, they afford a rare opportunity to see films both well-known and obscure. Often they are accompanied by Q&A sessions.

In recent months, ACMI has partnered with the Australian Film Critics Association (AFCA, of which I am a member) to present selected films of local significance. The next AFCA/ACMI screening is Yakkety Yak by Dave Jones, screening at 4pm on Sat 12 July 2008. From ACMI's website:

Inspired by films such as Fellini's 8 1/2 and Truffaut's Day for Night, Dave Jones' Yakkety Yak (1974) follows a filmmaker and university lecturer (played by the director himself) as he attempts to make a film in the basement of a building. It's literally a classic underground comedy in which a group of people fight over the logistics of making a truly collective, revolutionary and existential movie. When original intentions get sidetracked, all attempts to set things straight result in a different - but strangely similar - script. Also starring John Flaus.

Followed by a panel discussion hosted by AFCA.

In the words of the director, the film was "produced on a $4000-and-change budget, shot in a week, directed by someone who wasn't sure what he was doing, and starring a pudgy guy who'd never acted before (or since)." See the director's notes on the film.

Happy-Go-Lucky

We know right from the start that Happy-Go-Lucky is a very different Mike Leigh film. The cue from the almost clichéd opening credits suggests a light-hearted comedy. And metaphorically, Leigh gives us a cheeky wink when in the first scene, the protagonist, Poppy, walks into a bookshop, picks up a book called “The Road to Reality” and says with a laugh “we don’t want to be going there!”

In a sense, Happy-Go-Lucky is a tale of three very different but inter-related teachers and their pupils. There’s a passionate Spanish flamenco dance teacher (Karina Fernandez), there’s Scott (Eddie Marsan), a depressive driving instructor, but mostly it’s about Poppy (Sally Hawkins), an impossibly exuberant primary school teacher.

Poppy is 30, single and sharing a flat with her long-time friend, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), also a teacher. Nothing seems to get Poppy down, and she always sees the bright side of things. When she takes up driving, she gets Scott, her polar opposite and the instructor from hell. He always finds something to complain about: an earlier student, traffic cameras, multiculturalism, anything. He does have one thing in common with Poppy – he declares that he’s never given up on a student, and she doesn’t want to give up on him.

While Poppy could be dismissed as loony, and Scott could never survive as an instructor, Leigh has imbued his characters with so much grounded reality that we can believe in them. The dialogue is superb, with long takes that highlight the actors’ impressive performances. It’s easy to single out Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan, however the support actors are all excellent as well. We get a good sense of each character even if we see little of them, like the flamenco teacher, a chiropractor, a homeless man and Poppy’s friends and family.

Happy-Go-Lucky is quite an accomplishment by Leigh. Normally a master of bleakness, he has crafted a colourful story that will appeal to mainstream audiences who wouldn’t get within a stone’s throw of many of his films, yet should satisfy his loyal fans.

And colourful it certainly is. The visuals are a feast for the eyes, akin to the films of Almodóvar. Poppy’s clothing, décor, workplace and hangouts are all full of bright hues. The music is light and at times carnivalesque. Poppy is drawn to the light, so to speak. She trampolines weekly, takes up flamenco (the teacher is used to great comic effect) and socialises with her friends.

The comedy works well because it has a basis in reality. Even the bleak characters are funny. But unlike Hollywood, laughs are not had at their expense. Leigh imbues his characters with complexity and shows a genuine compassion even for the most miserable. Scott is revealed as a vile racist yet he shows some insights. Poppy is an optimist to the max but perhaps all is not what it seems.

The film doesn’t shy away from social issues we’ve come to expect from the director, like racism, mental illness, childhood development and more. Yet Leigh doesn’t preach and these themes are always in the background. As he says in a Q&A about the film:

“The one thing I shouldn’t do (and you wouldn’t want me to do) is patronise the audience and to start over-explaining things that can quite happily sit implicitly and have their sense of being real and meaningful without explanations.”

This is one of the many strengths of the film. It allows a viewer to take it on whatever level one chooses. Leigh doesn’t try to answer any social questions, but doesn’t shy from them either. After I first saw the film (I’ve seen it twice), I asked the projectionist what he thought of the film. He couldn’t understand what the message of the film was about. Ultimately, the film is about this one character, Poppy, and her uplifting and perhaps (for some) annoyingly happy personality. I found it both a very enjoyable comedy and also rich in drama.

Happy-Go-Lucky opens today.

---

Links

Official website / IMDB / Mike Leigh interview / The Age article

Interview with Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins

..

Sally Hawkins interview

. .

Several Weeks in Review

It's been a while since I recorded my weekly film viewing. My last post was up to the end of March. Here's what I've seen since, though I'm not going to summarise them all.

31 March - 6 April
FILMS:

• Muere de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, Juan Antonio Bardem, Spain/Italy, 1955)
• Los Tarantos (Francisco Rovira Beleta, Spain, 1963)
• La leyenda del tiempo (The Legend of Time, Isaki Lacuesta, Spain, 2006) + Q&A with the director
  

This weeks was all La Mirada - Jewels of Spanish Cinema. My focus was on the classics, though I snuck in The Legend of Time, an extraordinary film and talking with the director was great. All three of these films was well worth seeing.

7 - 13 April
FILMS:

• El desencanto (Disenchantment, Jaime Chávarri, Spain, 1976)
• Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, Mexico/Spain, 1961)
• Placido (Luis García Berlanga, Spain, 1961)
• El pisito (The Little Flat, Marco Ferreri & Isidoro M. Ferry, Spain, 1959)
• La vida por delante (Life Ahead, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Spain, 1958)
• Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, USA, 2008)

I liked Viridiana, which was a surprise film, but most of the other films at La Mirada were so-so. Viridiana was selected by Paul Auster and the other classics were selected by Pedro Almodóvar. Many of the classics watched this week were fairly insipid dramas or melodramas with the qualities of Almodóvar's films that I don't like. Note to myself: be more selective with Almodóvar's picks next year.

14 - 20 April
FILMS:

• La nuit américaine (Day For Night, François Truffaut, France/Italy, 1973)
• La mariée était en noir (The Bride Wore Black, François Truffaut, France/Italy, 1968)
• Vesyolye rebyata (Jolly Fellows, Grigori Aleksandrov, USSR, 1934)
• Alexander Nevsky (Sergei M. Eisenstein & Dmitri Vasilyev, USSR, 1938)
• Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes Are Flying, Mikhail Kalatozov, USSR, 1957)
• Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 1979)
• Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven, Fatih Akin, Germany/Turkey/Italy, 2007)

Day For Night is great, and joins Catherine Breillat's Sex is Comedy among others (that I can't think of) that is a great behind the scenes of film-making. ACMI had its Focus on a Century of Russian Cinema; it was great to see Stalker, which I liked a lot. The other highlight was The Edge of Heaven, a film I found flawed but with such strengths that overshadowed them that it didn't matter. The film ends at Trabizon, the ancestral home of my partner.

21 - 27 April
FILMS:

• Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim, François Truffaut, France, 1961)
• La sirène du Mississipi (Mississipi Mermaid, François Truffaut, Italy/France, 1960)
• Transylvania (Tony Gatif, France/Romania/UK/Hungary/Italy, 2006)
• Dyadya Vanya (Uncle Vanya, Andrei Konchalovsky, USSR, 1970)
• Molière (Laurent Tirard, France, 2007)
• Voskhozhdeniye (The Ascent, Larisa Shepitko, USSR, 1976)
• Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin, Sergei M. Eisenstein, USSR, 1925)

More of Truffaut at Melbourne Cinémathèque, but not as impressive this week. Transylvania is absolutely sensational and I've since ordered the DVD from Europe. With Paranoid Park, it is my favourite film of the year so far. The music, dance, story and visuals are all mind-boggling moving.

28 April - 4 May
FILMS:

• Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, François Truffaut, France, 1959)
• Les deux anglaises et le continent (Two English Girls, François Truffaut, France, 1971)
• Nine Lives (Rodrigo Garciá, USA, 2005)
  

DVD:

• Dekalog: 6 (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988)

Truffaut was good and I think I need to see 400 Blows again. I started watching Dekalog late last year and decided it was time to finish it.

5 - 11 May
FILMS:

• Kanal (Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1957)
• Czlowiek z marmuru (only watched 90 mins) (Man of Marble, Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1977)
• Iron Man (Jon Favreau, USA, 2008)
• Demonstrator (Warwick Freeman, Australia, 1971) +Q&A

DVD:

• Dekalog: 7 (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988)

I was very sick this week and shouldn't have gone to Cinémathèque, but did. Kanal was gripping and I wanted to see a few minutes of Man of Marble to get a sense of what it was like. I had to get home to bed but couldn't pull myself away, staying for 90 minutes. I have to see it in full.

12 - 18 May
FILMS:

• Wesele (The Wedding, Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1973)
• Panny z Wilka (The Maids of Wilko, Andrzej Wajda, Poland/France, 1979)
• Shadows (John Cassavetes, USA, 1959)
• Faces (John Cassavetes, USA, 1968)
• The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes, USA, 1976)
• A Constant Forge - The Life and Art of John Cassavetes (Charles Kiselyak, USA, 2000)

DVD:

• Streetsweeper (Neil Mansfield, Australia, 2007)

ACMI had its Focus on John Cassavetes and all the above films were sensational. Shadows is a remarkable debut and an extraordinary film for its day. Faces has amazing performances and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie was a great vehicle for Ben Gazzara, putting his charismatic performance centre-stage. Mansfield's Streetsweeper hasn't been distributed yet - I received a DVD screener. I loved it and hope to write on it. It has many elements that resonate with me, particularly its observational nature and its ambiguity. The cinematography and sound are great, though it's hard to describe its unconventional narrative.

19 - 25 May
FILMS:

• Popiól i diament (Ashes and Diamonds, Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1958)
• Krajobraz po bitwie (Landscape After Battle, Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1970)
• A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, USA, 1974)
• Love Streams (John Cassavetes, USA, 1984)

DVD:

• Dekalog: 8 (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988)

Dekalog is arguably the best cinema made for television. It is technically amazing, but more importantly it is full of depth, profound, and explores all kinds of moral dilemmas with various subtle subtexts in the background. #8 is perhaps my favourite of the ten, and for me it is clearly revelatory of Kieslowski's personal philosophy. The elderly female lecturer enunciates a belief system that I had presumed to be Kieslowski's. Both Cassavetes films are fantastic.

26 May - 1 June
FILMS:

• Man bo nu lang (Mambo Girl, Yi Wen, Hong Kong, 1957)
• Flight of the Red Balloon (La voyage du ballon rouge, Hou Hsiao-hsien , France, 2007)

DVD:

• Dekalog: 9 (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988)
• Dekalog: 10 (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988)

Thank god for DVD and thanks also for Kieslowski, possibly my favourite film-maker. Flight of the Red Balloon totally fails. How can you have a tribute to the original by using a red balloon that is barely seen and has none of the original's personality? Bland, bland, bland and all the more so because both Nova and Como cinemas are screening from a digiBeta. Apparently Sydney got 35mm, but even that wouldn't save it for me. I usually love Binoche, but she was also bland.

2 - 8 June
FILMS:

• Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, UK, 2008)
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Andrew Adamson, UK/USA, 2008)

DVD:

• Blizna (The Scar, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1976)
• Przypadek (Blind Chance, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1981)
• Bez końca (No End, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1984)
• Krzysztof Kieslowski: I'm So-So… (Krzysztof Wierzbicki, Poland/Denmark, 1995)
• Krótki film o zabijaniu (A Short Story About Killing, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988)

Mike Leigh has crafted a magnificent film, a comedy that really works, and I intend to write more on this shortly. It opens at the end of the month and hopefully word will get out how funny, moving and intelligent this film is. It's as good as anything I've seen by Leigh (starting with Secrets and Lies up to Vera Drake). The thought of Leigh making a film about an impossibly happy woman sounds almost unbelievable. This is my third favourite cinema release of the year. And more Kieslowski - a great week. I picked up many subtle details I missed in my first viewing of Blind Chance and I think all his films deserve multiple viewings. No End and A Short Story About Killing are both extraordinary.


I've had health issues lately. I have a condition - I've forgotten it's name - and I've had to give more priority to getting sufficient sleep and exercise, something I've neglected of late. My current job is also more demanding than previous contracts I've had. I'm still doing French classes at Alliance Française and that's coming along slowly but steadily. I also have conversation classes on the weekend with a French national staying here until the end of the year.

I've taken up bike-riding as a means of forcing myself to include exercise into my (near) daily routine. It's half an hour in the morning and evening and I'm loving it. I started just before Easter, which was just after that really late heat wave in Autumn when the weather reached the mid-high 30's. I've lost about 4 kilograms of weight so far, though I'm more interested in losing flab than weight. And more important than both is getting fit and strong. I'm slowly getting there. I'm hoping to lose another 10kg over the next year, then I should be my optimum weight.

I've had something like ten close shaves with death in my life, though none for about 12 years or so. I've been involved in four car accidents where the vehicle rolled over, 3 of them at high speed. I emerged from each seemingly unscratched, yet a dozen or so years later it came out that I had a neck injury that hadn't been detected. That's also causing me some problems that have forced me to make more effort to get fit.

As the year has progressed, there's been a number of cinema releases that I wouldn't mind seeing, but haven't been big priorities. Consequently, a number of films have come and gone before I got the chance to see them. I suppose I'm becoming more selective about which films I go to. I do get invites to media screenings, but as many of these are during business hours, I haven't been able to get to as many as I'd like to.

I'm planning to take two and a half weeks off work for MIFF again this year. I expect to average 2 films a day with a focus on writing on everything I see (as I did last year).

That pretty much brings me up-to-date, though there's a zillion details that I don't care to go into. My film-going has been regular if my writing hasn't. C'est la vie !

One last thing: I have a number of film titles that are on my list to see. Any feedback on what to see and what to avoid is appreciated. They are:

• A Secret
• The Orphanage
• Gone Baby Gone
• Heya Fawda
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• Rats and Cats

Michelangelo Antonioni Retrospective

I have just received a bulletin with details of the world premiere of the complete restoration of all the films by Michelangelo Antonioni, screening at the Cinema Nova from 23 - 29 March. The films are screening as part of the Melbourne Italian Festival (22 March - 8 June). Readers may recall that Antonioni passed away last year, on the same day as that other cinema great, Ingmar Bergman.

I've only seen Antonioni's The Passenger, which screened on The Astor's mighty screen a couple of years ago. I liked aspects of it, but not completely, but am keen to catch up with some of his other films. All 18 features and 17 shorts are screening (that's impressive, and it's a helluva lot of films to squeeze into 7 days!). Any recommendations as to which films I should try to see are appreciated.

The full schedule is as follows:

Fri 23 May
7.00 Official Opening: Blow Up (110m) – Invite Only
9.30 Chronicle of Love (110m)

Sat 24 May
11.00 The Girlfriends (90m)
1.30 The Eclipse (125m)
4.00 Identification of a Woman (128m)
7.00 The Adventure (145m)
9.30 Blow Up (110m)

Sun 25 May
12.00 The Cry (102m)
2.30 The Red Desert (120m)
5.00 Shorts and documentaries (1943 – 1953) - Prog 1 (80m) - see below
7.00 The Passenger (124m) & The Last Sequence of the Passenger (12m)
9.30 The Night (121m)

Mon 26 May
5.15 The Lady Without Camelias (105m)
7.30 Chung Kuo China (240m total)

Tues 27 May
7.00 Love in the City (Suicide Attempt) 20m & The Vanquished (110m)
9.30 Beyond the Clouds (113m)

Wed 28 May
5.15 Shorts and documentaries (1978 – 1997) Prog 2 (88m) - see below
7.00 The Oberwald Mystery (123m)
9.30 Making a film for me is to live (60m) & The gaze that changed Cinema (60m)

Thurs 29 May
5.00 (By Popular Demand Session) & With Michelangelo (15m)
7.30 Official Closing: Zabriskie Point (110m) and The Gaze of Michelangelo (15m)

PROGRAM 1 (Shorts) 80m
(Suicide Attempt) Love In The City
The Funicular of Mt Faloria (Vertigo)
The Villa Of Monsters
Seven Reeds, One Suit
Superstition
People Of The Po Valley
Waste Collection
The Loving Lie

PROGRAM 2 (Shorts) 88m
Returning to Lisca Island
Fotoromanza
Kumbha Mela
Roma ‘90
Noto, Mandorli, Vulcano, Stromboli, Carnevale
Sicily
Antonioni Seen By Antonioni (TBC)

Upcoming events

This weeks sees another conflict in film events: Palace is hosting the 2008 Spanish Film Festival at the Como and Westgarth cinemas. I like Spanish cinema. Like cinema from any other country, one often has to be selective, but there's two things that appeal to me about Spanish cinema: they're generally comfortable with transgression and they're not afraid to tackle political issues.

Unfortunately, I'm going to struggle to see more than a couple of films at this year's festival as it conflicts with ACMI's Focus on John Cassavetes. I've only ever seen Opening Night, which impressed me sufficiently to want to see more. It's always great to get to a retrospective of a significant director. There's so much more you pick up on in terms of common themes and styles, as well as observing the evolution of an artist's work. So I'm giving Cassavetes priority over SFF, even though at a glance, the latter's program looks good.

The Spanish Film Festival screens from 14-25 May at Palace Como and Palace Westgarth. The Focus on John Cassavetes screens 15-25 May at ACMI.