Blog
Postbox next to Central is good
Wow, the postbox outside Central Station gets fast delivery. I popped the DVD we watched on Saturday night into its Quickflix envelope and dropped it into the postbox yesterday. Quickflix have just emailed me saying they received it. Wow!
The film itself was Blood Simple, the Coen brothers' first film, which I've been trying to get for years. Brilliant film, with many of their hallmarks already in there, including the fat private dick driving a Volkswagon Beetle that popped up in The Big Lebowski.
We also went along to see Erskineville Stories on Saturday night. Shown on a big screen in Erskineville Park, it featured a bunch of old timers telling their stories about Erskineville. It's one of my favourite parts of Sydney, and we would have bought a house there if the prices hadn't been so ridiculous. The stories were great, with lots of humour and interesting tales of this suburbs' past as working class housing.
My grandmother was born in the slums of Forest Lodge and grey up in slummy Annandale, now two of Sydney's more expensive inner city suburbs. I always enjoyed hearing her stories of growing up through the Depression, with periodic epidemics, crowded housing and grinding poverty. As soon as she and my grandfather were able, they moved to the then-outskirts of Sydney to the garden suburb of Concord West. Last year we sold her house for nearly a million dollars!
10 Mar 2008 10:51 [category: /film] #
Children of Men
I signed up to Quickflix recently on their free trial. The service is good, but I don't think we get through enough movies to make keeping it worthwhile.
However, one of the movies we got was Children of Men. I remember reading rave reviews of this when it first came out and had long meant to catch it, but hadn't got around to it. Now I see why the reviews were so positive. It's a brilliant film.
Sci-fi has to balance an interesting premise with a well-told story. Far too often, a great premise isn't enough to hold your attention without good storytelling (I'm looking at you, Philip K Dick). This film gets the balance about perfect, with a really interesting premise and a masterful texture. The story itself is suspenseful enough to keep you hooked.
The most exciting part of this film was its textures, the background of a decaying society and dark forces swirling. I've always been a fan of distopian near-future, and there are plenty of elements of Max Headroom and Mad Max in this movie, along with some modern twists of refugees to accompany the societal collapse.
Loved this film and if you haven't seen it, I'd strongly recommend you get it out and watch it.
25 Feb 2008 12:11 [category: /film] #
Hanesy's film wins at Queens Film Festival
Hanesy's film, The Truth About Weapons of Mass Destruction, just won in the Best International Documentary category at the Queens International Film Festival. Congratulations Hanesy!
14 Nov 2007 11:06 [category: /film] #
Black Sheep
We just got back from seeing this great film. In the great Kiwi splatter tradition that brought us Derek (Dereks don't run), it's a zombie flick. With sheep. There's even a lawnmower homage. And Weta did the effects.
Utter brilliance. Go see it if you can.
29 Aug 2007 23:41 [category: /film] #
The Truth About Weapons of Mass Destruction
I've built a web site for my mate Hanesy's film, The Truth About Weapons of Mass Destruction. Check it out. I'm still working on getting the blog embedded inside the design properly. And Hanesy hasn't yet put the film itself online, but it will be soon.
