THE GUITAR
5/10
The premise of this film was pretty interesting, I thought. A girl finds out she has terminal cancer (with one month to live), and then on the same day, loses her job, and her boyfriend dumps her. So, with that as the introduction, the film proceeds to show how she deals with the short path before her. One of the recurring elements is her memories as a child of wanting a red guitar very badly, yet never realising that dream – until now. I thought the first 10 minutes of the film were excellent, and perhaps this set me up for a bigger fall ultimately. The problems are in the execution – the plot borders on ridiculous, isn’t anywhere near realistic, and I had a lot of trouble empathising with Melody, the main character, which made it hard for me to go along for the ride. I really don’t want to say too much about the plot points lest I spoil the film for others, but let’s just say the ending would have been better had she wound up as the first president of the world, after solving world peace. Oh, and someone should tell her about eBay.

Pic of my bub wearing last year’s MIFF t-shirt, purchased while he was in utero. I rememember at the time being disappointed that they didn’t have newborn sizes. But he’s five months old now and he’s almost outgrown it! Luckily I might spring the bucks for a new one in a couple of weeks 🙂

Hi,

Another year has passed and I return to the blogosphere for the fourth time for MIFF ‘08. I must say it’ll be an interesting year. For the first time in a couple of years I’m taking a full two weeks off instead of trying to work full time (flexibly, mind you), *and* see lots of films. However, I am now a dad, so that will certainly cause some impact to the film watching (as it should). Hope to see some great films and be pleasantly surprised. I’ve got the official guide that came out with yesterday’s Age, and am looking forward to making my pics. I’m usually pretty pre-organised, but am slowing things down a little this year. Hopefully I’ll have read through the guide in the next few days and have made my picks, but if that never happens, and I end up picking films on the day, don’t say I didn’t warn you :-).

If you’re running a blog, or would like to discuss any of the posts, please feel free to drop me a line!

To see my Melbourne International Film Festival blog posts from previous years, please click on the links below:

Mark’s MIFF 2005 Blog
Mark’s MIFF 2006 Blog
Mark’s MIFF 2007 Blog