A somewhat disappointing day at the festival.

ROLLING FAMILY
6.5/10
A story about how an extended Argentinian family all pile into a campervan and go on a road journey to a relative’s wedding. I dunno, I like Argentinian films mostly from what I’ve seen, but this was a little too slow-paced for me, and the characters didn’t gel – I don’t feel like there was enough development of who they were in order to become emotionally involved with their various highs/lows. It was quite nicely shot though. Ultimately, it felt a little like taking a long car journey – not much happened. Dan, who sat next to me claimed that this was a good film, yet he slept through half of it, so I’m unsure how he can judge…

THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX
7/10
This documentary was interesting in that it was done over a few years, and focussed on a girl in a small Texan town, who was raised by two republican christians, has taken a vow through her youth church group not to have sex until she’s married, but in the meantime seems to question her religion, her parents value system, and tries to push for sex education in schools, representation of gay rights amongst youth, and is a self proclaimed democrat. I suppose 15-17 year old questioning the beliefs they were raised with is nothing particularly new, but I thought that she had a lot of guts to do what she did where she is. I also think she’s a little confused (which is fair enough) and perhaps, as suggested by her competitive rival, did hunt for the limelight a bit more than issues at points. I also reckon her parents were pretty ace too – given that you could tell they had difficulties accepting that homosexuality exists, they still supported their daughter. Worth a watch if it comes on TV.

A DIRTY SHAME
6.5/10
I’ve seen some but not vast amounts of John Waters’ films, and the last I did see was Serial Mom, which I thought was great and worth a repeated viewing or two. I understand that his films are puerile, but I really wasn’t sure what the point of this zombie-like film was. Was it meant to introduce me to the world of fetishes out there? Was it meant to shock and offend? I don’t know – probably both. Overall it had some amusing moments, but there wasn’t enough substance to pull off a full length film in my opinion…

5 X 2
6.5/10
Hmm. How to start. Well, this film is filled with unlikeable characters/couples who treat each other quite poorly. Really, in a story about five different phases in a relationship, you’d like to think that deceit/mistrust/insensitity/etc wasn’t prevalent at every phase… Or maybe that’s the point – that their relationship was doomed from the start. Anyway, call me traditional or a romantic or something, but in five phases of a relationship, I’d like there to be some pure warmth and happiness and not have it laced with bad. If seeing films that show the negative of relationships is you thing, check it out. I’d have preferred a more balanced representation personally.

CHILDSTAR
7.5/10
A Canadian film about how a 12 year old actor comes to term with the fact that he’s growing out of his star phase (at least in children’s roles). Was very well acted and enjoyable.

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM
6/10
I’d certainly recommend seeing this if it comes on TV. As a cinema release though, I’m not rating it very highly. It was a very dry documentary about how the corporation screwed the little guy and laughed their asses off doing so. There’s enough documentaries out there which paint corporations badly, and I’m not sure that this one was needed – it told the story, but didn’t do so in a particularly entertaining way. I don’t think this is such a bad thing for a documentary, but some more entertainment would’ve been appreciated for a cinema experience.

PIXAR PRESENTS… ONE MAN BAND
8/10
Yeah – a real highlight of the festival. Two Pixar people came and chatted about Pixar, what goes on there, the steps involved in the creation of a short film, and showed us the film twice (the first time being the Australain Premiere). There was a Q&A, and at the end we all got a golden coin at the end too (which will make sense once you’ve seen the short, which is basically about two one-man-band players who are vying to win a gold coin from a little girl with their performance). Most excellent!

KISSED BY WINTER
7.5/10
A swedish film, which I am pretty sure starred one of the actors from ‘Kopps’, which was a good film from miff a couple of years ago. This film was interesting in that it showed how people can jump to conclusions and not necessarily be right as they allow personal feelings to cloud their judgement. Was a fairly straightforward and not terribly long film, but was certainly worth the time of day.

CZECH DREAM
7.5/10
A documentary which was made by two film students in the Czech Republic. They filmed a giant prank, which was to lure the general public into believing that a new ‘hypermart’ was opening, when it wasn’t at all. They went so far as to have image consultants dress them up, hired relevant people to design logos, brochures, tv advertisements, billboards, etc. They did have an aim to the prank though, which became obvious through the film. It was interesting to see the reaction of those at the grand opening that were fooled, seeing reactions from anger to amusement. I’d like to think that I’d be one of the amused in that situation, but in reality, I’d probably be one of the bitter ones.

ANIMATION SHORTS 1
7.5/10
Hard to give a proper ranking on this since some shorts were better than others. Overall, worth parking in a seat for, even if it was one of the crappy ones in Greater Union… My favourites of the lot were Pinata (cute one about a donkey pinata), Appeal (slightly gross one about how a girl loses weight, while her cat gains it), His Passionate Bride (quick and sassy), Spooky Doll Kids (freaking awesome, this should be a series), The Twelve Months (nicely animated) and The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello (mind-blowingly amazing animation). Well, that’s a majority of the films, so yes, a very good selection.

SCREAMING MASTERPIECE

I fell asleep through a lot of this, but in a good way :-). I really like bands like Sigur Ros and Mum (and Bjork too), so this documentary about Icelandic music was right down my alley. I often listen to SR and Mum when I go to sleep at night, so I suspect that this music-heavy documentary might have triggered my mind into a relaxed enough state to snooze. Anyway, the parts I did see were great, so If I had to give it a score it’d be closer to 10 than to zero. There was another band in the doco called Bang Gang which sounded really good too, so I’ll be trying to get a CD by them ASAP. Luckily their latest one is available locally through shock records.

DEAD MAN’S SHOES
8/10
I really liked this film, though it might not really deserve an 8/10 perhaps – maybe a 7.8/10… I think what did it for me was one of the actors, Paddy Considine, who I loved as the father in ‘In America’ at MIFF a couple of years ago. Anyway, this film isn’t overly complex or anything – it’s a tale of revenge, executed (pun intended) by the brother of mentally retarded man who was regularly picked on by the local thugs in a small UK town. Think Kill Bill, but about three hours shorter maybe. Okay, not really, but definitely worth checking out. I hope this one gets a wider release here.

A quick post to mentioned Leo’s MIFF blog. He’s a guy I’ve seen every year at the festival, and his taste in films is pretty similar to mine. A random web search this morning uncovered his blog and so I’ve added a link to it on the left hand side of the page here – be sure to check it out for some useful comments about the films he’s seen at MIFF this year!