Former Publicists do good things

you will start a band.
you will start a magazine.
you will start a family.
you will finish nothing.
--Nicole Blackman

Alec and Yves

THIRTY-THREE THEATERS AND A FUNERAL HOME - Alec Soth





PS how amazing is this The Things Yves Loved and The Treasures of Yves. How is that for inspirational home decorating?

Fruits of the Summer - PT 1

When its hot in Melbourne we go to the movies or at least I do. I'm well accustomed to the self devised double header just to stay in that sweet, sweet air conditioning. Last year was quite a fruitful one for crap indie movies and amazing blockbusters - this year looks a bit more promising on the art house front anyway. Here's my pick of the up and coming flicks - I've seen most of them on tvokay already though - shame.

The Wrestler - saw this in a freebie sneak preview thingie - thanks Hopscotch - they've done about 5 I wonder what the marketing tactics behind that is? Anyway this is Aronofsky's return to form and Mickey Rourkes. Stop thinking about The Fountain and start thinking how about the NW spread on Mickey Rourke - Wrestler diet, losing and gain and tanning for the Wrestler etc etc. So its pretty cliched story wise but this is really an actors vehicle and Mickey Rourke lives up to that thus it works. I know its no excuse but look no one complains that Rocky was cliched right?
Thu, Jan 15, 2009

Revolutionary Road - haven't seen this yet but am currently reading the book 3/4s of the way (its long OK?), and its incredible (seriously amazing). I'm currently getting Mad Men the movie vibes in anticipation of this flick - but maybe thats because I've been watching too much Mad Men lately. The (unholy) re-uniting of Kate and Leo (i grew up on that couple) post-Titanic with the (holy) Sam Mendes - whose track record is pretty amazing - i think will actually make a great flick. Adaptions are hard though - ask Charlie Kaufman!
Thu, Jan 22, 2009

Vicky Cristina Barcelona - I love Woody Allen I really do. Lately I've also been loving Penelope Cruz - it took a while to get over Cruise and Vanilla Sky. Its got 81 on Rotten Tomatoes - not that it matters because everyone will see it and love it anyway.
26 December 2008

Milk - yes so I hate Sean Penn - but uh, Emile Hirsch, James Franco and Diego Luna - well done Gus Van Sant! Good looking and talented? Incredible! It manages to combine the romance of Brokeback with the politics of Philidelphia and yes it is mainstream Oscar bait but its still a really good film and Josh Brolin is incredible that man has been been doing well lately!
29 January 2009

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

A slight detour from my movie men cataloguing - I was catching up on my reading over at Onion AV Club and I discovered to my delight they've coined a term for annoying female movie character: The MPDG - Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

DEFINITION - MPDG has no inner life of her own and her sole purpose is to bring out the best in her brooding mon amour. She exists simply as a muse through which her object of affection discovers his own dreams and sense of self. Aided through her non threatening good looks and not quite crazy but quirky eccentricities.

There have been an increasing number of these irritating character fantasies in the last few years but possibly the most offensive is Natalie Portman in Garden State (her nonsense talk, that giggle, the tap dancing - the fact that she was in love with Zach Braff).

Just to see if the playing field is even I want to see if I can find some Manic Pixie Dream Guys films or the equivalent offensive character type.

(BTW has Natalie Portman made a good film since The Proffessional? Shes so affable and seems quite talented (even though it was a dog of a film she was great in My Blueberry Nights) and intelligent (she's at Harvard right?). She just keeps making these awful film choices e.g. Closer, Garden State, Star Wars 1-3, The Other Boleyn Girl. Why Natalie?!)

The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires

Yet another of my favourite couples (though they never appeared together in a film - technically). I love how cheeky and free spirited Karina looks in all these photos - they are such a beautifully matched couple they compliment each other so well.

Persona

"“Sonata for Two Instruments” (work in progress) is an installation of video, photographs and sculpture centered around a large 2-channel video projection in which two women passionately read the script of Ingmar Bergman’s legendary film “Persona” while in bed. "

Jeannie Simms

Bill Murray at Parties

Yet another reason to move to NY - Bill Murray just may drop in at your next party to hang out with you! Apparently he's been making appearances at random hipster bars and parties in Brooklyn. True he's a little older than his SNL days, and he looks a little sad - but its Bill Murray if you want a lonely eccentric guy to hang around you want it to be Bill Murray right?




(from Cup of Jo)

Obsessed

I can't stop looking at images of Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, perhaps in anticipation of the new Vicky Cristina Barcelona which is supposed by incredible. They are the most perfect couple in all their incarnations in filmic life.

Top Ten...

MUSIC VIDEOS - songs that kick ass and the videos that live up to the ass. I had a couple of rules no crappy songs and no claymation.

1. Justice - Stress

2. Kanye West - Flashing Lights

Flashing Lights - Kanye West from Jarvis Smith on Vimeo.

3. Beyonce - Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) (Beyonce/DC videos make me want to dance like I'm home alone but in public - true story)

4. MGMT - Time to Pretend (I didn't even like MGMT till my pal Hugh made me watch their music videos)

MGMT- Time to Pretend from ▲HOWLCARNAGE▲ on Vimeo.

5. Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes

6. She and Him - Why do you let me stay here

7. M83 - Graveyard Girl

8. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma (I actually just saw this on another list and they are such cuties - the videos not that great)

9.  Gnarls Barkley - Whose Going to Save My Soul

10. LCD Soundsystem - New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

11 Jay Z - Wonderwall / 99 problems (not really a music video but still stupidly awesome)

GET DRUNK

Always be drunk.

Thats it!

The great imperative!

In order not to feel

Time's horrid fardel

bruise your shoulders

grinding you into the earth,

get drunk and stay that way.

On what?

On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever

But get drunk

 - Baudelaire

Road Trip

Stephen Shore

Movie Men Part 5

THE LAID BACK LOSER aka THE REAL GUY- Knocked Up

The bearded, bear-like 26-year-old is probably the world's unlikeliest pin-up. True we fell for a few of Rogen incarnations Knocked Up, Freaks and Geeks and Pineapple Express. In fact they are all fairly similar characters with a few different quirks.

Theres something about his inept honesty about himself and inept earnestness and inept...well you get the idea. Also there's something about his realisation that Heigl is soooo out of his league - the opposite of guys who think they're doing you a favour by glancing in your direction.

Or it might just be that even the idea that even when you have a drunken one-night stand with someone, that they'd actually try and make it work long term is kinda sweet.

Also he's funny. Like really funny.

2008 in books

I read a lot this year -more than last year and the year before - and I tried to read a lot more. It was a year of the library fight for me. Requested a lot of books - tried to find the time and inclination and concentration/focus to read a lot of books. Half finished a lot of books, sped-read a lot of overdue books and stayed up all night finishing books etc etc I can't remember all the books I read. I'm a compulsive list maker. Last year I made a list of all the films a saw each month - I saw a lot (RMIT Lib access plus interning at MIFF). This year I think I saw a lot, I think a read a lot, I definitely saw more theatre and dance. Probably listened to a lot less new music than I did in the 2005 and 2006. Anyway here for my own peace of OCD mind is an incomplete list of the books I read in 2008. I'll prob compile some other best of/all the best lists in the coming months - just to avoid that stack of overdue literary better myself tomes on my dresser - and hey its better than sitting on facebook pressing refresh every 5 seconds right? Right!

2008 in reading - an appendix

Yes its like the Infinite Jest all over again! You even get - if you care - my one word capsule reviews - occasionally abbreviated due to laziness to one letter. DF is didn't finish btw and RR is re-read it was probably overdue.

And no my hope/aim/only New Years resolution to read Hemingway, all the Russian authors, mountains of feminist and philosophical texts etc all came to very little. It is hard even in these times of terrible television to tear myself away from drinking, facebooking/blogging, movie watching and laundry to read something as momentous and self-improving as Dead Souls. It seems the best I could do was a few easy to read feminist tomes and some slight volume semi-classics - and a whole lot of other enjoyable trash.

Pat it and Love it and Call it...

I want a cat! Correction Kitten! If it was a boy I think I called him Frank or maybe Sedaris.

A friend of mine named her cat Matilda after the Dahl character - I love the idea of naming pets after characters or authors. So Cute!

Another thought is Annie Hall or a similar iconic and beloved film character. Can you imagine my fat squash faced cat called Annie Hall?!

(From fat squash faced cats blog)

Master of My Domain

My friend Emily was the first person to compliment Elaine Bennis on her sense of style. I remain unconvinced to be honest.

The strange quiff helmet hair. Thats what breaks it for me. True it didn't last past Season 5 or 6 but its still the style I equate most with Elaine - did anyone else have hair with a weird fring/quiff/helmet like that in the 90s? Was it "the Rachel" of its generation?

Also hate the long skirts I really hate long skirts - theres something incredible Island holiday -slash - mumsy about them.

The blazers, shoulder pads and ankle riding boots and skirts is all coming back though it seems - Elaine is coming back in to vogue as Emily maintains. Plus I do love all the Laura Ashely floral.

AND this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life truly!

95% of the Population is Undateable

This cracks me up - plus I also brutally relate!

I don't do well with competition. If someone (anyone - anyone) also fancies my boy of choice I automatically give in. I'm not one to fight for what I want in the love game - so if everyone else loves you this an instant drawback for me.

Thought I was the only one!

(Pic via Cup of Jo)

PS Seinfeld anyone? I could never date a close talker . Seinfeld really makes you realise all the tiny annoying things that are wrong with most people - and why its impossible to date 95% of the population - especially if you're sober. Thanks Larry and Jerry.

Movie Men - Part 4

NICE GUY/THE FRIEND - Pretty in Pink - Duckie

Kind of nerdy, smart, sweet, kind, approachable and bitter as hell. Always the 'best friend' and a 'girls guy' - a guy that understands the female temperament and mindset more than the typical male one. The one we were always meant to be with - or thats what our other female friends thought after an extended single patch.

Its also Duckies refusal to play the 'nice guy' and his opportunistic and relentless ways of wooing Andie that makes him flawed-ly lovable - 'Yours or mine? Ours?'. Its hard not to love him when he sings 'Try A Little Tenderness' as a mating song.




Either way - just like Andie ended up with Blane (what kind of name is that really?!) - we all know Duckie ended up with the cool record chick Iona in the end.

Movie Men - Part 3

CRAZY GUY aka ANARCHIST REBEL - Heathers - Jason J.D. Dean

Similar but slightly different from the bad boy the crazy guy is actually unhinged and in this case sociopathic - BUT (and this is a big but deserving of caps) always smoking - literally and figuratively. He's also intelligent, witty and wickedly funny. J.D. quips his way through bloodbath killings. Yes 'the extreme always seems to make an impression.'



He does the things we only fantasise in our angsty teen moments about - killing off rich Cactus Jam shopping bitches and blonde tipped Hawthorn residing assholes who in the crazy injustices of high school always seem to rule - and he does it with style and panache. The mysterious and misanthropic drifter with his over gelled hair doesn't suffer fools - this is one cool guy we always wanted to tell 'get out of my life' and into our croquet courts.

Movie Men - Part 2

THE IDEALIST - Masculine Feminine - Paul

Masculin/Feminin remains my favourite Godard film. Mainly because of Jean Piere Leaud's portrayal of Paul one of the good looking and charismatic children of Marx and Coca-Cola. Paul's interests move between his on-again-off again girlfriend, his political beliefs and a social survey he is conducting into the opinions of Parisians. His Marxist-Leninisst stance collide . When he talks about politics it sounds like he's talking about love. There's nothing like a man who confuses his political with his personal even if its subconscious. He longs for a perfect society - culturally and politically in the same way he longs for a perfect love (a movie story romance) and a perfect film - his perfect vision of life as it should be.



Paul plays out the cliches of a leading man tossing cigarettes offhand and getting into lovelorn fight, wandering the streets of Paris - a heartthrob to an unseen audience. His political ideals, romantic ideals and his own ideals about his own life.

Movie Men - Part 1

Movies have taught me a great deal - mainly about men. I often fall for types of men or cliches/stereotypes of men from movies before I meet them in real life.

1. THE BAD BOY - A Streetcar Names Desire - Stanley Kowalski

"Some people rarely touch it but it touches them often". Brando may have been talking about booze but he may as well have been talking about about the ultimate bad boy character he himself was playing. Sweaty, dirty and eventually shirtless and gum chewing and cocky - Stanley oozes power, strength and just a whisper of possible danger and violence. When Stanleys looks at Blanche in those first scenes its almost like a hungry lion stalking a stupid animal.



Stanley was more than the first bad boy I ever encountered but the first I ever swooned for. Just like Blanche I was weak for men that I was unsure of, unable to read or predict their reactions. Also the Stanley is all man - hunky, husky, and somewhat incoherent.

Stella explains any women's interest in a guy like Stan "But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark — that sort of make everything else seem — unimportant."

Yes sex - sex is Stanley's saviour.

A man like Stanley or a man with a bit of Stanley in them - he's like so many men that do us wrong - we should turn our backs on them completely and may do so in part but there always be that heady spell of lust that they can cast with a look that still slays us dead.

Goddamn! You are one radical son of a bitch!

It seems that everything is about the beach these days - including one man San Diego band WAVVES. Even though I'm best described as an indoor child (and adult) and the closest I've gotten to surfing is re-watching Point Break - I love listening to something calling itself "beach-punk". Then I considered starting a band called Johnny Utah.

Nathan Williams - the man-boy behind WAVVES - is pretty much like the younger brother I never had. It sounds like he's stolen all my Pixies and MBV CDs and got bombarded with my Dad's 60s/doo-wop records - and turned out sounding pretty damn fine.

Plus they have a song called 'Weed Demon' (could you get more summer vibes?) - which just came out on 7-inch and if you live inside The Internets is available for high-quality AIF's on the WAVVES blog. The self-titled WAVVES debut is also out now on cassette through Fuckittapes. If you need immediacy, you can stream both Beach Demon/Weed Demon the awesome tracks from the 7inch over at WAVVES myspace. Soft copy for life.

NY Fairytale

- from the Selby.

CUTE!

Having A Coke With You

by Frank O'Hara

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

Frank O’Hara, “Having a Coke with You” from The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara. Copyright © 1971 by Mauren Granville-Smith, Administratrix of the Estate of Frank O'Hara. Used by the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc, www.randomhouse.com/category/poetry/.

Source: The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara (1995).

Most Played

1. He Keeps Me Alive
2. Blind
3. Gray Or Blue
4. Stupid Thing
5. Little Waltz
6. Clumsy
7. I Felt Your Shape
8. Headsprung
9. I'm A Flirt
10. Shoop
11. One
12. Radio Nowhere
13. Where Friend Rhymes With End
14. Until the End of Time
15. Good Life
16. I'm Going Down
17. Heard Em Say
18. Shorty Swing My Way
19. The First Night
20. Tears Dry On Their Own
21. Relief
22. When I See U
23. Hate It Or Love It
24. That Kind of Girl
25. You Can't Hold The Hand of a Rock and Roll Man

Crazy, Cryin , and Amazing

Festivals Schemstivals

I'm in a post-MIFF come down at the moment. The festival was everything I've know festival's to be - anticipation and expectation in the build up, a trashy opening night party, then its a scramble to see and experience the best and none of the crap (easier said then done). I'm yet to come out of a festival feeling like I've seen and had the best that festival has had to offer. Especially from festival's I feel offer a lot. Unlike my better counter-parts (and being a Libran) I have trouble forgoing all aspects of my life (social, health, work, monetary) for the festival (though I have a big part of me that would rather do this - one can always go to the gym/sleep/drink/save tomorrow). Thus I make choices on films and unfortunately, as with Sophie's choice, with choice comes regret. With choice comes the life unlived, the road untraveled and unlike Frost who knows which one is less travelled as a film doesn't show that kind of wear and tear really. If it did wouldn't that probably be the film less travelled as its probably old and crappy from its rarity and disuse? I digress...

Anyway I saw films - quite a few - but I could have seen more and I could have seen better. Even with a film festival, as in many of my personal relationships I have that - its-not-you-its-me - syndrome. Not a cheap break up line, but a true feeling that if something hasn't lived up to expectations it is my fault. My poor choices in programming of my own 12 films. It couldn't be that some or most of the films just sucked, it was decision making that was at fault. My inability to look past the flashy trailers, succinct descriptors and nytimes.com reviews - I should have seen/known/sensed that these films were not going to be all they were cracked up for.

So MIFF - is it you or me?

According to my friends their stance is as usual - its not me its you.

Because I Am Fifteen - no really...

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car): ...no car and no pet...therefore my rock star name is " " -artist formerly know as?

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie): Chubby Hubby Short(y)bread

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal): Black Squirrel

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born): Jane Sydney

7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The" + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink): The Blue Whiskey Sour

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent,favorite candy): Stella M&M

12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Autumn Gardenia

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you're wearingright now + "ie" or "y"): Apricot Jeanie

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree): Cheerio Willow

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: ("The" + Your fave hobby/craft, faveweather element + "Tour"): The Mixtape Sunshower Tour

I write it to get it out of me. I don't write it to remember it.

For 2.000 years, you've had the nerve to tell women who we are. We use your words; we eat your food. Every way we get money has to be a crime. We are plagiarists, liars and criminals.

Love goes away when your mind goes away and then you're someone else.

I know where we're travelling, Genet, and I know why we're travelling there. It's not just to travel, but it's so those others who kicked me out have a chance of being at peace, having a chance of knowing the land of the monster without going there.

Teach me how to talk to you. WANT. Is my wanting you so bad, wanting the feel of your lips on my lips, just me being selfish and egoistic? Teach me a new language.

Please go and buy Blood and Guts in Highschool

Just A Friend

(Check the Method Man cameo)

The Wackness and Hancock

Is it possible to love a movie just becuase the soundtrack is amazing? I think its as valid as loving something for the grading, editing, cinematography, acting, some hot lead etc etc. I'm not really talking about composition because thats not really my style, I'll appreciate it in movies as an enhancer, but will never really make me love a slightly crap movie more.

I get a lot of teasing about my taste in movies, music, books etc but all I can say is the use of ICE-T  -Colours and Ludacris - Move Bitch and the ever lovable WIll Smith (one of the king of one liners - loved that guy since back in Bel Air days) that movie was total 6 out of ten for me and considering how terrible the script and storyline was thats saying SOMETHING!

Also the cute little Wackness film - some cringe lines, but honestly when shit like Juno is paraded around as saving the Indie Genre or whatever this film looks like a Truffaut film - Note to Diablo Cody "I wanna listen to Boyz II Men when I'm with you" is what good teen scripting is about. Plus the soundtrack kicked Juno's try hard arse - Wu Tang, Biggie, A Tribe Called Quest, Biz Markie - amazing. Sure it was a bit like a Larry Clark film minus the reality check but films like this manage to be cross over commercial while not being terrible and actually have good music! 

Note - Anyone who likes Little Miss Sunshine, Juno or Garden State - please keep it to yourselves - or go see some Hartley, Heathers and maybe catch some film festival action in your area - yr palate is in need of cleansing ASAP.

Bunny

http://www.murraywhiteroom.com/

Not A Thoughtless Kind.

My favourite scene and song from My So Called Life - obsessed with this series - and now finally 30 dollars from JB HiFi!

Rosemary's Baby meets Juno?

Confirmed for this Friday - A l'interieur - we'll see!

Better and more Beautiful...

Kate Rohde

I Just Love This....More Melbourne Art Fair 2008

Speaking of...

I'm sure you're all (yes all - my many readers haha) sick of my 2-week obsession with artist Denis Darzacq (I just set up an interview with him and SBS French and had to refrain myself from adding PS I'M A BIG FAN GIRL). Here is an excerpt from a documentary on his work I am dying to seet - next MIFF or G.R.? Lets hope so!

Better the Devil You Know

Another thing thats bugging me about this year's MIFF (besides the fact that mini-passes are too expensive and they won't tell you anything that doesn't already have a guaranteed general release) is that they are holding a single screening of the Robert Bresson film The Devil Probably and this is on a Friday at 12.15pm - I'm sorry but if you are holding one screening of a film as hard to find as this can you please at least hold it after 5PM or on a weekend? I mean honestly how good would this be as a late night feature? Its like if last year they screening El Topo only midday on a Monday. Ludicrous!

Its like they are just going 'oh no-one thats into cinema works full time!"

The worst bit is that its showing around the corner from my work at the Forum. So its so close yet so far AND theres no chance of sneaky sick day as I would so get busted!

Gimme a M-I-double F!

The MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival) program was released on Friday a mere 14 days before the festival. I've pretty much spent this weekend agonising and research and re-reading and prioritising the 10 or so films I'm planning on attending this year (10 is the number on my mini-pass, I'm forking $135 over for!). Its important to start large and cut back I've come up with a list of 30 or so and culled back from there with filters such as a) no weekday films before 6.15PM, as I won't make them b) no weekend films before 12PM

as I won't make them c) anything that doesn't like mind altering amazing or like a really good "festival" film and is likely to get a general release later in the year I'm leaving off my list. Trust me this process is not easy, but a fun way to spend my weekend really.

I'm faced with some dilemma's such as - Kate Bush documentary?

Notes - This film is old and seemed to have sunk without a stone with no general cinematic release in sight and I hate talking head documentaries. Then again on the other hand so many gems sink without general release even to DVD and I LOVE KATE BUSH MORE THAN LIFE. See the dilemma? This could really be my only chance to further my Kate Bush obsession with intimate details of her career and personal life e.g. her no touring stance, as well as a variety of hair styles over the years, cute childhood photos and her almost career as a ballerina etc. Traumatic stuff - its so easy to live in regret with these choices - I've done it before.

Thus far I'm looking at

1. The Guitar (general release vs my obsession with "life after finding out your going to die films") - *

2. Kate Bush - Under Review (see above) - *

3. Son of Rambow (general release?)

4. In Search of Midnight Kiss (general release?) - *

5. Ben X - *?

6. Dai-Nipponjin - *

7. Roman Polanksi Wanted and Desired - (I hate talking head doco's vs I F**KING LOVE POLANSKI) - *

8. Funny Games (Haneke is p. good vs I hate N. Watts and remakes? ew, plus general release fo sho)

9. The Pleasure of Being Robbed - *?

10. Whose afraid of Kathy Acker (there is no way this is getting a g.r.) - *

11. Shall we Kiss - *?

12. The Wackness (general release?)

13. White Lies, Black Sheep - *

14. A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (this could be awful (misogynistic and blokey humour), but it sounds kinda like a Woody film which is cute)

15. Lorna's Silence

16. Wild Combination: Portrait of Arthur Russell - **

17. Fox and His Friends - Fassbinder **

18. OTTO - Bruce La Bruce !! - **

21. Frontier of Dawn -I love Phillipe Garrel **

22. I Think We're Alone Now - (there is almost no way this is getting g.r.) - *

*? - want to see but not 100 % * - really want to see ** -must see!

I'm on a big animation kick since Kung Fu Panda hit the top of my best films of the year list. Let me just say that Kung Fu Panda was one of the best-laugh-out-loud films of the year. Hitting under 100 minutes, featuring my faves Seth Rogen and David Cross and amazing animation - lets just say it was orsum (is there much more to say on "kids film" anyway?).

Best Films of This Year - No Country For Old Men, Kung Fu Panda, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Shotgun Stories, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Orphanage, The Savages, Step Up 2 the Streets, Pineapple Express,

Worst Films of This Year - Paranoid Park, Juno, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Baby Mama, Flight of the Red Balloon, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Sex and the City: The Movie, Fools Gold, Jumper, I'm not there, 2 Days in Paris, We own the night, Margot at the Wedding, Inside Paris, 3:10 to Yuma,

Can't Wait! - WALL-E, Cassandra's Dream, Son of Rambow, Dark Knight, Otto, Where the Wild Things Are, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, An Old Mistress, Boarding Gate, Love Songs,Tropic Thunder, Stepbrothers, Space Chimps, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, Dark Knight,

PS There were about 100 meh films in here like Mrs Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Hancock, Get Smart, Be Kind Rewind, The Other Boleyn Girl, You Don't Mess With The Zohan, Semi Pro, There Will Be Blood (despite the fabulous performance of Daniel Day Lewis), Iron Man, Lust, Caution, Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street etc

PPS I also saw a bunch of these films last year at MIFF so I'm not going to count them either.

Proving that the airbrush can be used for good as well as evil

Petrina Hicks

Chute!

Denis Darzacq

Does urban landscapes from 2006 - obsessed with both of these series - below and here.

"Paris based photographer denis darzacq recently completed a new series ofphotographs entitled Ohyper¹ the series explores Othe place of theindividual in society¹ a common theme in his work. the series may seemsurreal and clearly a product of photoshop, however none of the works havebeen digitally manipulated instead, darzacq recruited young dancers andsportsmen to pose for the series using empty supermarkets as a backdrop."

Dream of Flying

Denis Darzacq