living in the reel world... not me.

okay, so you'd think i'd have enough of watching screens - big or small, but no. i've been playing catch up the last couple of days with tv shows from around the globe, torchwood (jury is still out on the move to the US - sniff), true blood, eureka (heard the series just got cancelled), warehouse 13, spirited and just finished watched first season of falling skies. but there's a new one on the horizon, from the UK, the hour. it's set in the mid 50s, early tv news room with some sort of conspiracy to be uncovered by an investigative reporter. well, that's what i got out of the first episode. stay tuned.


also rewatching harry potter and the deathly hallows - part 1 in preparation for the second part over the weekend. yes, i'm a glutton.

34, 35, 36

film 34: life in movement


a beautiful doco on the life and works of tanja liedtke - a dancer and choreographer who in 2007 had been appointed as director of the sydney dance company but before she could take up the reins was killed in a road accident. would love to see the pieces she choreographed on stage, must keep an eye out.

film 35: another earth


so not a scifi - i was promised a sci-fi, i needed one. it was interesting but slow and i could've lived had i not seen it. a second earth is found and earth 1 (that's us) realises that they are a mirror image to us. another you is out there. but we don't see evidence of this until the last frame. what does your imagination tell you comes next?

film 36: autoluminescent: rowland s. howard


another richard lowenstein (with genevieve mcguckin and mick harvey) production that covers the time of late 70s-80s in melbourne music. focussed obviously on rowland s. howard it illustrates his life and work - which is both fantastical and vivid. a little bit long but it gives the audience intriguing glimpses of the enigmatic man and his love of music.

32, 33

film 32: innocent saturday


i didn't like this. the blurb in imdb says a group of friends and bandmates look to escape from the chernobyl disaster. what a load of tosh. starts of with handheld camera running after someone in the dark, though scrub, through broken buildings, you work out something is really wrong but there doesn't seem to be anyone wanting to leave anytime soon. an aborted attempt to board the train and then it's back to a saturday wedding and the same old pettiness. perhaps it was a remark about humanity sticking their head in the ground at bad tidings, but come one. bah!

film 33: on borrowed time


david bradbury's documentary on the filmmaker paul cox, who has made 25 feature films since moving to melbourne in the late 60s.

30, 31

film 30: melbourne on film shorts 2


6 short films from the 50s to early 70s illustrating the importance of city planning, and showing the streets of melbourne.

film 31: beats, rhymes and life: the travels of a tribe called quest


enjoyed the doco put together by michael rapaport (a man mostly known for his acting), talking to people from the 20 years of the band. this is the sort of hiphop music i like.

28, 29

film 28: being elmo


this was AWESOME. i love sesame street and whilst i'm not a huge fan of elmo (he's not old school enough for me) i loved this documentary about a boy who loved puppets and grew into a man who's life is muppetry. the fabulous kevin clash and his elmo. the audience were terrific, gasping when kevin was offered place on the dark crystal film then all laughing at our collective gasp. i love how these shows make us feel, sesame street, the muppet show, fraggle rock, labrynth - i blame you, jim henson. these are the types of stories i want to be part of, that kind of magic.

film 29: shut up little man! an audio misadventure


a strange tale of two housemates in the late 80s, who happen to live next door to two men who yell at each other when drunk. they are recorded for a couple of years and these tapes are sent out into the world. first through friends then through mail order. as sad as peter and raymond were in yelling at each other, going over the same old, same old - it seemed that the two guys who taped them were in the same time loop, reliving old glories over and again and not moving on, just as sad.

museum & films 26, 27

a shared brunch with gail on degraves street before wandering a little more of the city.




then it was onto the tutankhamun exhibition at the melbourne museum. it really just made me want to go back and visit egypt again. it's such a beautiful country and culture and history. i will return one day.



then back to the screen for me.

***

film 26: wasted youth


wasted time? perhaps. a greek film that had two parallel stories that didn't meet until the last 3 minutes of the film. one hot summer day, two lives that seemed to be going no where.

film 27: swerve


i couldn't work out if this was a genuine thriller or it was a spoof of itself. honestly it took the conventions expected in the thriller genre just a little too far and i found myself laughing time and again at the absurdity of the cliched lines and actions. come on, we can do so much better.

24, 25

film 24: how to die in oregon


one of my favourites. dignified and touching and everyone in the audience shared similar reactions. i even offered the guy next to me a tissue once the lights came up. well worth tracking this one down - allowing people the control to end their own lives once they were told there was no hope left for them medically. it really was an amazing film.

film 25: neds


scary and sad and not fun. glasgow in the early 70s and one boy's slide into gangland. non-educated delinquents. there were moments i thought he might escape the world but relentlessly he was beat down and took the easy way out, of doing just what was expected of him. as i said, sad.