blog interrupted

The Mountain Goats were so great. Really great. Astonishingly great. Just as much storytellers as musicians. Chatting between songs. I laughed a great deal. Music reviewers are funny people. I met one of them last night. There was another music reviewer there that we were laughing at. I'm not naming names. I drank more than I should and today has been a bit rough. But it was worth it. Had lots of fun and caught up with a few friends. One thing I didn't point out is that the Mountain Goats featured on the soundtrack of Campbell Walker's film Little Bits of Light which I raved on about in another blog post. In fact, they were the soundtrack. And it was a perfect match to the film.

Anyway - heading off in the morning so won't be posting for a while.

Got to remember to:
charge the camera
charge the phone
make a thermos of coffee for the trip
collect together phone numbers of southern friends
make sure I've got the hotel info
get up in time for the ferry
make sure there's enough food so the teenagers don't starve (yes, I'm escaping sans enfants)

Later.

Smoke and Mirrors

SOD's brother Ben has a major show of his work at Aratoi Museum, and the opening is tonight. We've timed our holiday rather badly - we don't have time to head over the hill to Masterton to get to it as we are booked for the early ferry in the morning. How disorganised is that? Anyway, I designed his catalogue for the show and thought I'd get it up online. Here's the link. It's about 1Mb. The cover looks great. The title in the printed version is done in UV overgloss (printing/design geeks will get this). Looks pretty cool. Hopefully we'll get to check out the show the weekend we get back.

O O O I'm so Excited!

Yes indeed I am. I've been dabbling in the downloading lately. Just picking up a bit of new music here and there. I was doing a search for Dntel (essentially Jimmy Tamborello, who put out the fantastic Life is Full of Possibilities a few years back and who is also half of Postal Service together with Death Cab for Cutie's Benjamin Gibbard) and found an album with a Dntel mix. It's called Monika Force. Celebrates 40 releases under the german label of the same name. This is the first time in ages I've listened to something and just immediately loved it. It's got some chocolatey smooth synth but with that slightly dark germanic edge at times. Nice electronica, slightly glitchy. European sensibilities. What fucking topped it all off with a cherry was a cover of Brian Eno's "I'll Come Running" off Another Green World. In a German accent. Loving it. Hey, and there's a song called "Burka Blue" by an Afghani all-girl band. First listen only so far, but I can see this being on heavy rotation for a few weeks at least.

And I was right about my "Masochistic Tendencies" post. Three hits a day at least for specific searches. I wonder if many of them stick around.

holiday highlight

One of the highlights of our little southern tour is the opening of Matt Couper's show Arbroath Devotional in Christchurch on the night before we head home. Looking good, Mr Couper!

bloc party

Got my ticket for Mountain Goats. Picked up a ticket for Fly My Pretties while I was there. And, of course, there had to be the obligatory CD purchase while I was there. Picked up Bloc Party, Silent Alarm. Not bad. Still on the first listen. Very Brit-pop.

Holiday countdown: five days to go.

Polanksi No. 2

Listening to: Department of Eagles, Whitey on the Moon UK LP

I just LOVE these guys. Favourite song on the album: Piano in the Bathtub.

Here's a nice little quote about them.

***"A curiously charming, genre-jumping music that carries trace echoes of the Beta Band, Beck, and (on occasion) Blur at their most whimsical. Eclecticism can often seem forced, but Department of Eagles' magpie instincts are waggish, beguiling, and natural." - Record Collector

Okay, we watched Repulsion this afternoon and I was suitably impressed. I'm glad we saw it soon after his first film – I could spot a few recurring character traits in his characters that I wouldn't have noticed if I'd left more time between viewing. His detached women. His nervous strained men. The cigarettes smoked when under duress. The draped bodies. He likes to film women undressing. The casual disrobing. The only thing that annoyed me was her false eyelashes. Really Roman, they just don't stay on after a rough night of insomnia. And your hair doesn't stay that pretty. But hey, it's only recently that we have come to expect some naturalistic fashioning to our films. But fuck, I loved it. The shot composition was something to be wondered at. You just don't get that nowadays.

Polanski trio

Went to the vid store last night and got out three Polanski films: Knife in the Water, Repulsion, and Cul-de-sac.

I realised that I've only seen one Polanski film. Good lord. I've only seen Rosemary's Baby. How slack of me.

We've decided to watch the films chronologically, so we watched Knife in the Water (1963) last night. This was his feature debut, made in his native Poland. The next two films made were UK productions: Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac.

I enjoyed Knife in the Water. It's great to see a psychological drama that doesn't stoop to sensational plot devices. Set on a yacht over a period of two days, with only three characters, it was still totally engaging. I'm looking forward to watching the other two films.

Goats

Hey hey! The Mountain Goats are coming to Wellington. Thursday 8 Sept at Bodega. Gonna be there. Woohoo.

nostalgia

A night of red wine and an old friend = nostalgia.

First the music. We remember the two records (vinyl, of course) that SOD and I had in common when we got together (1997). The Fall, I Am Curious Oranj and the 12" of New Order's Blue Monday. Actually not that inidicative of our musical tastes, but an interesting cross-section nonetheless.

We are right now listening to our pick of the bunch, and presently we are listening to one of my Cilla Black records (whom I adore). Paul has fixed our turntable connection. Listening to What the World Needs Now (Bacharach). Romantic childhood music.

Have also been trawling through some old digital snaps. Bought my first digital camera in December 2001 just before heading off to East Timor on a three-month contract for the UN.

Going to Timor was pretty mind blowing. The only time I had been overseas before this was going to Brisbane, Australia with my Nana at age 13. Doesn't really count, eh? So heading off to war-torn East Timor was a bit of a shock. Here are some pics. Beautiful country. Beautiful people. I met some people I will never forget.. Viva Timor Lorosae!

Here's some pics. Maubisse at dawn (the most magnificent view I've seen in my life - the pic doesn't do it justice).



Timorese family at Maubisse.




Grave sites at Maubisse. There are many pre-1999 grave sites. Casualties during the Indonesian occupation were large.




I really want to go back to Timor one day. I know I haven't travelled much, so don't have much to go by. But hey, they is one beautiful country.

Indoctrination at an early age

Listening to: Autechre, Draft



If you're going to indoctrinate your kids you've got to start at 'em early. So say these lovely folk who have put out such a useful book. If you vote don't like paying taxes to look after the poor and disadvantaged then here's the book to convince your kids in a really simplistic way that being greedy and self-centred is not just okay, but admirable. "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed combines an ingenious story with hilarious illustrations to teach kids about the value of hard work and the threat that taxes pose to the American Dream." – Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform.

It just wrong!

tripping around in the red rover

Had a nice afternoon up the coast today. I had organised a photo shoot up in Otaki so most of the afternoon was spent kicking around on the sand. Warm and sunny and made me want summer to hurry the fuck up. Heres' a photo of the beach. Otaki Beach.



Headed over the big hill to Masterton in the weekend. It was so sunny over there - not like cloudy old Wellington. Shiny sun. Kids in the car. Off to see their dad. Caught up with Ben and Ang on the way home and checked out their kitchen-supreme and newly painted Persimmon Lounge. They are my DIY heros. Did the usual buy-up of fresh veg and some yummy manuka honey. Blah blah, boring incidentals.

It's nice to get out of Welly - just don't do it often enough. I love to drive the red rover. Can't wait for my trip down south in a couple of weeks. vroom vroom go red rover.

Kicking around home tonight. Should be doing some work - I'm such a slavedriver of a boss to myself. Always making myself work weekends and evenings. I'm a crap boss. Although I did just let myself lay around on the couch watching John Safran vs God on DVD. The final episode devoted to his exorcism was creepy. John was making some scary demon noises. John, I didn't think you were that kind of boy. Anyway, it was a great series. I just hope the next series he makes isn't him teaming up with that freaking exorcist roaming around Australia casting out the devil. But really, he did seem to be taking the casting-out-satan thing a bit seriously. And so did the camera guys.

Okay, on to the work now. Sadly so.

My Big Fat Film List

Okay, I said I was gonna do it, so here it is: all the movies I saw at this year's film festival. No links - feeling lazy. Some ratings added where I can remember if I really liked the film or really hated it.

9 Songs (yep, it was okay really)
Hidden
Cinévardaphoto (excellent)
Délamu
Le Pont des Arts (gorgeous)
Decasia (excellent)
Little Sky
Little Bits of Light (yay, so good)
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse
The Future of Food
It's All Gone Pete Tong (good for a laugh)
World Mirror Cinema (made me fall asleep - and I like slow films...)
Tony Takitani (stylish and beautiful)
3-Iron
Pin Boy
Mysterious Skin
Late Bloomer (one of the very best)
Fiction Artists (up there with Decasia for experimental film)
Bombón - El Perro
2046 (over-rated - I never really got In The Mood for Love either)
Godzilla Final Wars (crazy and fun)
A Decent Factory
Grizzly Man (excellent)
In the Realms of the Unreal
Yes
Sorceress of the New Piano
The White Diamond (excellent)
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (excellent)
Forty Shades of Blue
Kings and Queen
The Wayward Cloud (I did not enjoy this much at all, but can't say it's a bad film - I just found it disturbing)
Czech Dream (excellent)
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (excellent)
Occupation: Dreamland (great)
Rize (woohoo! loved it so much)
Bill Morrison Short Films (very cool)
Inside\Out (great)
Broken Flowers (not Jarmucsh's best, but good)
Duck Season (beautiful and funny)
Dig! (good music doco)
The Edukators (great)
Look Both Ways
Darwin's Nightmare (great but frightening doco)
Monster Road
Tarnation (great! but a little morally repugnant in a way)

taking the piss out of art

Got sent links to some extremely funny piss-take songs by The Histrionics.

Check out:

From their album Never Mind the Pollocks (I just love that title)
Hip to Paint Squares
Me and My Third Hand

From their album The Histrionics
Tracey (as in Tracey Emin)
I Shot Andy Warhol (I imagined this was going to be to the tune of I Shot the Sheriff, but no, it's to I Love Rock'n'Roll)

Thanks for the links Ben and Ange!

masochistic tendencies

Not only did I join WeightWatchers today, I also joined the fricking gym. I already had the idea of joining the gym but it became a little more obvious that I needed it when I did the weigh-in at WeightWatchers - I hadn't weighed myself in ages and it was a little alarming. Soooo, I'm off to the gym tomorrow for the first time. Need to get some of those silly gym clothes. I don't have any of that kind of stuff cos I'm just not that kind of person. I think my body is in for a rude shock. I'm not going to divulge my weight here, but I will update the blog on how much I lose.

I wonder how many hits I'll get for people searching for "masochistic tendencies". Well they won't find much of interest here unless they have a strange fetish for weight loss and excercise...

blogger block

Listening to: Elliot Smith from a basement on the hill

Haven't blogged for a while and all my most recent blogs have been about films. Seeing shitloads of films all in one go does something weird to my brain. I still haven't quite recovered. It's like my brain got all filled up with images and ideas from the films and my grey matter is still sorting and deciphering on the fly and there isn't any room for anything else yet. I get mental images from the films every now and then jumping into other thoughts. Sometimes when I try to think about some of the films they get jumbled up with other ones. I'm thinking that something about the way my brain works now is not as sharp as it used to be. I used to have a real sharp brain (I like to think) but at times I go to pluck for a word from my brain and I get a blank. Like, I don't even smoke weed so I can't used that as an excuse, so I guess I have to put it down to being over 40 now. It all sucks. And then there's the effect of ageing on my body which I don't want to think about at all. I noticed the other day that I have the beginnings of an "old lady neck" where gravity is starting to do it's nasty nasty work and there's no holding it back. Fuck I hate it. I don't feel at all like a 41-year-old but I'm sure starting to look it. The old metabolism is slowing down and I'm even sending myself off to Weightwatchers next week. Yuck yuck yuck! It makes me feel shabby and it's such a boring thing to be doing. I have way better things to do with my time.

Anyway, cheered myself up with some music purchases. First a big bunch of stuff at Real Groovy along with some new CD shelves to replace the big messy piles of CDs that my office usually full of. Which made me realise how few CDs I actually have - they looked a lot more impressive in their wonky piles, but a bit hard to sift through. So of course I had to buy more so I went off to the Big Smoke sale at Smoke CDs. Was served my lovely friend Jules which was very nice. My favourite buy was Venetian Snares.

I'm really procrastinating right now cos I'm meant to be doing stinky old work. I have a couple of deadlines at the moment. Also, I can't invoice these jobs till they are done and I need the money rolling in. SOD and I are off to the South Island for a short road trip. Taking the little Red Rover rather than flying. Will be down in Christchurch for the opening of Mr Couper's show so hanging with Matt and Jo that night will be sweet. BUT we are going to miss Ben's show at Aratoi in Masterton. Most annoyed, but just didn't check the goddamn dates before organising our trip.

Okay gotta do some stinky work.

I'm pooped

It's all over. I saw 43 films this year. Yay! Will post a list soon. But for now, it catching-up-on-work time. Boo hiss.

Almost halfway

It's just after 11.00pm and I just got back from Late Bloomer. I bet there'll be a few people doing searches for world's end girlfriend when they get home. They did the freakily sublime soundtrack. This is a bit of an outsider debut for Shibata Go, who was a guest of the festival and who stayed after the screening for a Q&A, assisted by a translator. It was the story of a handicapped guy in a wheelchair who turned mean when his crush on his cute new college girl caregiver turned sour - firstly killing his other (male) caregiver (who was started to cosy up to his colleague), and then going on to knife total strangers in the street. It was shot in grainy black and white digital and was edited with mad genius, sometimes with sudden explosive frenzies of chopped up images echoed by mad rushes of distorted electronic music, courtesy of the aforementioned soundtrack artists. This has been one of the highlights. What a shame the audience wasn't bigger.

I can't say the same for the film I saw last night - Pin Boy. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was no good - for what it was, it was quite lovely. It's just that what it was wasn't really very much! A quiet, sparse story teamed with some authentic characters with little dialogue and long long shots. A young man from the sticks who has moved to the city to stay with his cousin and work as a "pin boy" in a blowling alley. SOD slept through it and really I could have missed this one. Still, as I say, I didn't really dislike it, it just didn't move me much.

Wednesday night was 3-Iron, a Korean film about a young guy who broke into people's houses while they were on holiday, ate their food, watched their TVs and generally made himself at home for a day or two and... washed their clothes, tidied up and fixed broken appliances. One of the houses isn't empty though and he meets a young battered wife of a rich bastard of a husband... and we have a quirky little love story. I enjoyed the quiet humour of this film and the minimal use of dialogue. Nice.

Today I went to see Mysterious Skin. I feel uncomfortable about this film. I guess it's thhe one that David Lane (Society for the Promotion of Community Standards) should have gone for if he had any brains. 9 Songs may have included explicit sex, but it was straightforward sex between consenting adults, unlike Mysterious Skin which included descriptions of a paedophile instructing an 8-year-old to fist him. I get what the filmmaker is trying to say. There are two kids, each sexually abused at the age of 8 by their Little League coach. One is a sensitive little guy who is emotionally scarred by the event, the other is a sexually precocious little boy who is already finding something attractive about grown-up men and who looks back with a strange fondness towards the man who abused him. He sees the summer of his abuse as a defining time in his life, and in a positive way. The other boy blanks out his experience and concludes from the bits he can recall that he was abducted by aliens. The film culminates in his realisation of the truth. So, different people are affected differently by their childhood experiences. But what bothers me by this film is that when a paedophile sees it they may feel somehow vindicated by it - that maybe their victims really enjoy it and that an 8-year-old can participate willingly and enjoy the experience. I don't know the statistics, but I can't imagine that very many 8-year-old molestation victims would fit into this category. I dunno, I have to think about that one some more. It was a good film, and having had conversations in the past with gay guys, I know that they came to the realisation of their sexuality early, and also had sexual feelings really early, but I just feel uncomfortable about the message that the film could be giving to sexual predators.

Well, that's me for now. I'm off to four films tomorrow. Still nine days to go!

Six days in...

Well, it was the sixth day of the Film Festival today and I only managed one film, although I had planned for three. I missed the Uruguyan sock factory movie, Whisky, and that's a damned shame. And I was meant to see Claire Denis' L'intrus (The Intruder), but after sitting through ninety minutes of very repetitive found footage going under the name of World Mirror Cinema, I just flagged. What I had thought was going to be captivating cutting edge cinema turned out to be a sadly miscontrued effort at reconstruction with a thematic approach. I was pretty bummed and ended up sleeping through long spells. It was just not worth the effort of trying to stay awake (although embarassingly I woke myself twice with the sound of my own snoring).

Fabulous though, was much of my Sunday viewing. I started the day with the marvellous Decasia by Bill Morrison. He takes found footage, but not just any old stuff, it has to be decaying. It's amazing the forms this took - from milky opalescence to crackling edged eye-popping bacterial scourges. There were pulsating shimmering halos around dark black shadows. From the midst of the decay were the remnants of the original images, at times emerging from amorphous blobs, at others being swallowed up by melting milkyness. The old footage in itself was gratifyingly gorgeous - a whirling dervish spins into decay; two nuns stand with their backs to us like forboding black sentinels while little children run in a line (at an orphange?) while the film decay causes apocalyptic light effects; a kimono-clad Japanese woman merges in and out of intricate organic blobs; planes fly through a decaying sky dropping little parachutists. This was a gorgeous eye-fest and anyone who can only handle narrative should go along to film like this and think "art gallery" - this isn't a story, don;t expect a story, just love the images. Meditate upon the beauty. This is the stuff that feeds my soul.

My next film on Sunday was Little Sky. Had quite a cry at this one. Delicately shot social realism in Argentina. Harrowing but inevitable ending.

Oh, and then Campbell Walker's latest, Little Bits of Light. I understand people walking out - I heard a few behind me not too far into the film - as this is not fare for the everyday festival-goer. It's not an easy experience: it's not entertaining, it's discomforting, it makes you feel claustrophobic in its closeness to the characters. Just one couple, just one weekend, and we're up close and personal with them all the way. 9 Songs has the intimacy of a quiet afternoon tea next to this, and I'm not talking sex. Helen is depressed and Alex tries all he can to help her through the darkness of it all - the days are bad but the nights are hellish. Now, I've been in the place she findshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif herself, and I must commend Nia Robyn on her amazing portrayal of the depressed pysche. It was a rewarding and emotionally satisfying film and the soundtrack of the Mountain Goats went so well with the Taranaki landscape.

To top off the day I got along to League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. Light relief it was, which is just what I was after since it had been a full-on day.

Monday was good too - The Future of Food - made by Gerry Garcia's wife, nonetheless. US patenting laws are totally scary. Anyone who saw The Corporation last year should get along to this. I sincerely hope this gets general release. People need to know about this shit. Then a bit of fun - - what I would call a Spinal Tap movie for the rave generation. Some great moments and a total pisstake of the Ibiza scene.

Got to try to make it to Tony Takitani in the morning. Let's see if I can get up early and get all my work done!

Le Pont des Arts

It's 11.30pm and I just got back from Les Pont des Arts. I'm glad I took my daughter Chloe to this rather than SOD as I'm not sure he would have enjoyed it at all. The final scene was a little on the metaphysical side and some of the acting was a little theatrically inclined. Anyway, I rather liked it. The only thing I found a bit pissy was the way the gay men were portrayed, but it was fairly integral to the story and also gave some light relief. I'm gonna have to go out and get some baroque music now. The main piece of music in the film was sublime - Monteverdi's Lamento della ninfa.

Spending all day at the movies

The Film Festival has started. I'm about to exhaust myself with a two-and-a-half week movie marathon. Fun. Thursday night was Gala Opening with then copius amounts of bubbly and beer. Movie was okay. Anime not really my thing.

Next day had 9 Songs on a hangover. Too many grotty old pervy men who didn't look like they belonged at a festival film. Managed to block their presence out for most of the film. The sex scenes to Michael Nyman's piano was by turns erotic and sweet. It was better than I expected. I had read a bit about it and knew it was essentially sex interspersed by rock gigs all the way through, but the sex marked points in the relationship until the end when she left. You could see the relationship faltering towards the end when they started getting into sex toys and domination. At the beginning all they needed was each other. Interesting film. I can see why some people don't like it, but my thinking is that sex is mostly portrayed in our cullture through pornography, and it was enlightening to see a mature film deal with it as pure subject matter instead of titillation. In the context of the film I didn't find the explicit portrayal of intercourse at all degrading or offputting. I wonder if the raincoat brigade got anything out of it?

Last night was the public opening with Hidden, a film that still has me thinking.

Today started with Cinevardaphoto, three films by Agnes Varda. Exquisite. Had moments of overwhelming sense of wonder and joy contemplating how much humans can express with their art. I know there will be films I will see during the festival that will have me crying tears for the other end of the spectrum of life as a human being. That's what the festival is all about.

Now off to Delamu, then tonight to Les Pont des Arts. Four films tommorrow!