THE LIBRARIANS – ★★★

Documentary about librarians in the US in the more backward states who are being forced to remove books from their libraries, and are being ostracised in their communities. Somewhat predictable situation, and well enough told, but I find myself being less and less surprised about things like this in the current US environment. The two main thoughts I had was that: 1) This documentary is likely to effect little change – the left wing people will be outraged, and the right wing people will not change their minds. I’d probably prefer a harder journalistic investigation into where the money comes from to support these backward initiatives, and who is financially benefiting from them. And, 2) it’s a real pity that libraries are being told to pull books off shelves due to the fragility of the right wing religious folk, but in 2025, it’s going to be super-easy for any student to get access to the content in other ways if they want it. Aside from the copyright infringing options which are very easy to access, it’s not hard to get membership to libraries with digital collections outside the area you live in. It’d actually be cool if (say) Californian public libraries promoted themselves to students in Texas/Florida/etc and allowed them to get easy access to the material.

FAMILIAR TOUCH – ★★★★

Beautiful film about an ageing woman who is suffering from dementia and is put into an aged care facility by her son. She’s comparatively lucky to have a caring son, the financial means to be in a nice place, and surrounded by friendly staff who seem to have endless time and patience, but it still paints a pretty depressing picture of old age. Having lost a parent in recent years, there were moments that hit me emotionally. Between this film and the documentary yesterday (Careless), I felt gratitude that my mother didn’t have to have a particularly long drawn out stage between independent living and her passing.

THE BALTIMORONS – ★★★★

A Jay Duplass (of the Duplass brothers) film, though I believe both are credited as producers. These two are pretty prolific, and don’t always hit the target, but I really enjoyed this film set on Christmas Eve in Baltimore. It begins with an ex-comic who’s six months sober visiting his future parents-in-law with his fiance for a family meal, but is quickly diverted when he has a dental emergency and thus starts a humourous adventure. Being a Duplass film, it had darker comedy tones, but mostly hit the right notes. Excellent performances by the leads as well. A nice end MIFF weekend two for this year.

I’m a bit tired, sorry if there are typos or other fluff below.

TWIGGY – ★★★

Documentary about 60s model Twiggy. Worth seeing if you are particularly interested in her, and some great footage from the 60s. While she’s obviously had a long career beyond her early start in modelling, I suspect this is what most people know her for. Doesn’t require a big screen viewing, and the scene with Woody Allen makes it worth catching.

SIGNORINELLA: LITTLE MISS – ★★☆

Documentary about Italian female immigrants who came to Australia after the Great War through to post-WWII. As my mother and her mother were both, I was keen to see this. It probably could have been a one hour documentary shown on TV for what was provided, and I was a little bit disappointed about the limited collection of women it focussed on; I felt that more could have been done to represent the women that weren’t Tina Arena and Carla Zampatti. (Yes, there were other women who were interviewed, but it felt like more time was spent on them compared to others). I did enjoy the segments with Paola Toppi; Sydney restauranteur. I would like to see the filmmaker’s previous documentary “Lygon Street – Si Parla Italiano” from MIFF 2013.

CARELESS – ★★★☆

Very good documentary about the ageing population in Australia that outlines many of the problems around it. Definitely worth catching, as we are all ageing, all the time. I would have liked to have heard some more views/responses from the demonised sides (politicians and big businesses), and perhaps a stronger assessment of how we might address some of the concerns; presenting the problem will help raise awareness, but having suggestions of what to do would to improve it would have been excellent. I suspect the solution is not easily found. In the meantime, feel free to visit https://www.goodflock.org (live at time of writing) to learn more about an Australia non-profit who is trying to improve things – They were mentioned by the filmmakers on the postcards left at every seat of the session.

PASA FAHO – ★★

For the efforts, intent, and the cast I’d give a higher rating, but for the film itself, I just feel like it was a good effort that did not ultimately succeed. It’s about an African immigrant to Australia who has been running a shoe shop for several years, had recently reunited with his son, and who cases challenges with receiving an eviction notice for his retail space. The script felt forced, and it needed more character development and plot planning. I will 100% go to the director’s next offering when it’s presented, because I think it’s important to have films supported and coming from all walks of life. I just wish that this particular one had been executed a little better.

THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE – ★★★☆

Iraqi film set in the 1990s at a time when Saddam Hussein was president, and America was bombing it with regularity. It’s centres around a young grade three girl, who despite living in poverty is tasked by the teacher to make and bring in a cake to class to celebrate the president’s birthday. It’s well made, and had some great set design and shots; depicting several examples of the expectation by the Iraqi population to give up everything for their president regardless of their plight, with many images of him in hospitals, murals, and other places, always keeping a watchful eye. It didn’t paint either side of the conflict as the good side or the bad side specifically, but showed how the situation was a complicated one, with the citizens themselves often losing out to the actions of those performing actions beyond their control. Excellent performance by the young lead actress as she traverses the challenges of trying to gather the ingredients needed to make the cake.

BUT ALSO JOHN CLARKE – ★★★☆

I don’t know what it is about the late John Clarke, but his presence always resonated warmly with me. And his style of humour was right up my alley. This documentary was an excellent look at his life, presented through a good curation of private home videos, photos, and audio recordings amassed and presented by his daughter, Lorin. It seems like his impact on others was similar to mine, and of his friend’s comments about the glint in his eyes with a sense of mischief hit the nail on the head. I didn’t realise he was from New Zealand before his Australian work, and you can see how his methods have influenced a lot of the great NZ comedy we have today. If you like John Clarke, documentaries, or feeling good about a human, this one’s recommended.

TWST – THINGS WE SAID TODAY – ★★☆

It took a while this MIFF, but I finally saw a film that I would suggest is “not good”. It wasn’t terrible either, but I felt a little bit like it was misrepresented, and that’s likely what led to this rating. With The Beatles mentioned at least six times in the film’s description, and IMDB’s headline description being “August 1965, The Beatles arrive in New York for a sold-out Shea Stadium concert. Crowds of frenzied fans fill Manhattan streets, hoping to catch sight of the band from their hotel.”, I expected more Beatles. It started out strong, it felt like seeing a bit of behind-the-scenes of the Beatles arriving in New York in 1965. But after the first 20 minutes or so, they almost disappeared for the rest of the film. It’s sometimes fun to watch someone else’s home movies from the past, but as a film, it felt lost in purpose, as it jumped between Beatlemania, L.A. Riots, and World Fair footage. I’d say that while it used a lot of news reel and film footage taken from the time, the addition of fictional stories, plotline, and animated characters over it makes calling it a documentary a bit iffy. It was interesting enough just to see New York (and sometimes LA) from 60 years ago, but overall not worthwhile for me.