Films 2010 - Count Five to One Down

FIVE
Another Year
The rocking chair pace of Mike Leigh’s latest character study makes for unforced viewing although this does not necessarily mean it’s one to relax into. It makes the number five spot, not as much because I enjoyed the film, I left feeling thoroughly dejected, but because it is crafted so subtly and the whole thing is just so darn considered. There is an overwhelming feel of involvement which makes certain moments pretty much impossible to watch without squirming or referencing a memory – rather than cringing at the idea of sewing up a TB infected wound with a blunt needle one shudders desperately for those on screen – and the pain is as acute. It has been said, Leigh’s chatting about how crap life is without the Tom to your Jerry, but I found much more it’s about interpreting circumstance, alongside a how to in manipulating relationships, and within that, there are some truly perfect occurrences. The amount of wine consumed, stellar cast, the snide jinx of being middle bloody class and the time on the allotment just means it can’t NOT be a film of 2010. And Mary is just freekin’ wonderful - I think she should know.
Dir. Mike Leigh
Viewed November.

FOUR
Alamar
Second of two films I first saw at EIFF and possibly the most circumstantially great film out of this bunch. It’s very simple, delicate and short at less than 80 minutes, which just gently feeds the soul and readdresses some balance. I mean, how can you go wrong with a father son grandpa fishing trip? It’s all about fish, water, lots of boats and just general loveliness. Or is it just because Pedro González-Rubio is the most beautiful man I’ve ever met? Or is there some stirring ecological message? Or are Natan and Blanquita (boy and bird respectively) just too wonderful to watch? See the film, google Pedro, watch that Al Gore thing and decide where my bias lies.
Dir. Pedro González-Rubio. Alamar Film Trailer
Viewed June.

THREE
Mary and Max
A gem from the southern hemisphere that sits softly between both; Mary & Max is the reason Europa Cinemas are wonderful and Cineworld and Odeon aren't so. I have written previously about this film and I was hitting the sentiment angle. Elliot's play with observational comedy and laugh out loud silliness is not to be swept under the carpet of wistful scrutiny – shoplifting sherry and stamps, meeting the person who attaches the string to teabags, clay pants on the clay washing line in the clay worlds of New York and Melbourne, a disinterested mischievous rooster (also clay). It’s a piece of work in its ability to engage on many levels – something we may have considered only Pixar are insanely adept at – there are shockingly bleak moments and startlingly bright ones. Plus, give me Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman on a bad day and my heart sings. This is them guided by the omnipotent narration of Barry Humphries, on some very good days.
Dir. Adam Elliot http://www.maryandmax.com/
Viewed November.

TWO
Inception.
No surprises here. In good Sci-Fi improbability should be acceptable as standard, and this film asks for more than just suspended disbelief. It expects you to keep multiplying. I know Inception is an easy choice, but sometimes that’s what a Hollywood film should be on the horizon of a film year – there should be insane beauty and ridiculous expectation on the part of the audience. The production should be slick and sweeping, the set pieces should be breathtakingly perfect and vigorously polished in post production and this is all of that. With the development in film technology films like this deserve their place, why should I have to head back to the likes of Blade Runner for kitsch, smart, terrifying concept Sci-Fi? Cheers Nolan, and I look forward to revisiting and hoping none of it looks any less bleedin’ gorgeous.
Also, not to be childish but any film that offers the possibility of exclaiming "Look it's Europe, but bendy!" is a film I want to see.
Dir. Christopher Nolan
Viewed July.

ONE
Boy
The biggest grossing independent New Zealand film to date Taika Waititi’s Boy is a masterpiece for several reasons. Its clamouring perfection with language and characterisation for one; every moment is so well nuanced and thoughtfully built with the same affection and imagination as kids creating a den. The most gutting and heartbreaking moments are thrown in alongside the sharpest quips and the silliest laughs this side of a dry stone wall. It’s consummately Kiwi but ultimately welcomes all, "dukes of hazaaaaard". There’s something about this film that has captured my imagination and it has been the most astounding constant and comfort this year.

I first heard of the film at a local cinema in Matakana North Island NZ, my chance to see it was realised when I leafed through the 2010 EIFF programme and then in turn sat down to watch it at the Cameo on the same day England danced their way to failure in the World Cup. At the interview for the Discovery Film Festival Katharine Simpson asked me about my favourite film of the year – and I wasn’t sure whether it would look geeky to mention something in their programme.

This year, for me, has been one of discovery in a similar way to Boy – no – I’d never thought a deep sea diving, samurai wielding, rugby international, army officing Dad was coming to rescue me from real life – but 2010 was a year with moments where I had to banish some naiveties and accept some other wonders. My hair, like his, is also a bit of a mess. Maybe it is just the sentimentality of his journey into the real world that catches my breath.

Onwards into 2011 for some more silver screen skirmishes deep set in the knowledge my Michael Jackson dance moves will never quite be as wonderful as Boy's, but knowing I can revisit him killing it over and over again.
Dir. Taika Waititi http://www.boythemovie.co.nz/
Viewed June.

Films 2010 - Sorry I Missed You

This is more of an NB than anything else.
Here are the films that did not make my Top Ten but I thoroughly enjoyed for one reason or another:
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Secret of Kells
Enter the Void - just as I know I will never see a film quite like it. Ever. Again.
Tamara Drewe - purely for Tamsin Greig.
Sampson & Delilah
That one with Will Ferrell and Marky Mark – pathetic I know – it’s all about the shark/lion extended-metaphor-off in the first 20 minutes, it’s quite a sustaining joke, and the titles are very interesting.

These are some films that probably should be on a list but I missed them:
The Kids Are All Right
I’m Still Here
A Prophet
Illusionist
A Single Man
Winters Bone
Four Lions

Here are some films I’m super excited about in 2011 but am now more concerned about missing and am therefore trying not to think about them:
Somewhere
The King’s Speech
Animal Kingdom
Tintin
Paul

See when I said this was a NB – I was not lying. And you’ll never get those three minutes back.

Films 2010 - Count Ten to Six Down

I’m not particularly a fan of a Top Ten – a selected seven, or a random list maybe – but when I got to thinking about my films of 2010, there were ten standouts. The guardian called 2010 a ‘widely underrated year for film,’ concurring, I really hope there will be a something surrounding one of the films in this list that drives you to see it for yourself. It makes me very happy to think you may.

There are many ways to respond to film, critically, viscerally, comparatively and most often emotionally. This list quite honestly is just my first thoughts of what was my film 2010 – there may well be great work missing, but if it hasn’t stuck with me, it’s not here. Welcome, to my interesting world.

TEN
Panique au village.
I look forward to seeing this again when I’m less tired. It’s an absolute ball of random. And some of the most wonderful, ingenious and wistful animation you’d see this side of Creature Comforts (Aardman produced the original mini puppetoon series from birth in 2000). Take the ten most awkward unlikely things you would see together in one film – because they do not, would never, should never belong together – and you have Town Called Panic. That anything that occurs in this feature does so from a cautionary tale of forgetting birthdays, planning barbeques and accidentally ordering 6 million (billion?) bricks just makes it all the more angular in its perfection. Look it up – and make sure you’re well rested and ready to be confused with Cowboy, Indian, and Horse.
Dir. Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar http://www.atowncalledpanic.tv/
Viewed October.

NINE
Social Network.
There is always something satisfying about a film that leaves you feeling something tangible other than grief or cheer or cynical about over sentimentalised happy ever everything. Social Network sends you off into the world thinking like a crack whore in the dome at the end of crystal maze; if the dome was filled with crack and none of the trippy time trials had induced a trance. You get the picture. The casting is tight and the scripting is slick. Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg is funny, and it doesn’t matter if that’s true to the real one as the creations of West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin are so fascinating to watch. Armie Hammer’s Winklevoss twins almost become an apelike Jedwood, not getting the point and expecting the world. The real Winklevoss twins, not Jedwood, are a little frustrated by this portrayal to say the least. A smart and well timed piece of work about creation and personal demise – log this off Facebook and call it a tragedy.
Dir. David Fincher http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/
Viewed October.

EIGHT
Kick Ass
It has been noted my interest in having a baby is based purely on playing dress up. A little ballerina one day, batman the next, super hero weekends, the options are endless – just imagine the fun! This film therefore, works for me on two levels. One: Kids playing dress up. Two: Kids being bullied. Sorry little Miriamus’ - both are on the cards. But you’ll look freekin’ cool. And maybe one day we can go into the lucrative crime fighting business.
Dir. Matthew Vaughn
Viewed April.

SEVEN
Toy Story Three
Surely, this film couldn’t be any good? It darned well is. It just is. Congrats Pixar.
Dir Lee Unkrich
Viewed November

SIX
L'arnacoeur (Heartbreaker)
On a good day I fall in love roughly five times. Once with either Robyn or Janelle, the second time with a new musical discovery or moment, the third time could be someone on a train with lovely eyes or someone looking wistful in the queue for coffee. I may fall in love with a place, or an idea, a tree or a pathway (an actual path), a type of cheese, all cheese, a beer freshly tapped from keg land, a glass of pinot noir, a beautiful tomato, a firm rounded merlot. I may fall in love with a moment, a joke or a funny quip. I fall in love with at least one cup of perfectly timed tea, every day. On the day I saw L’arnacoeur, I fell in love with it.
Dir. Pascal Chaumeil http://www.arnacoeur-lefilm.com/
Viewed September.

Tedious and Rambling

It appears to me that there is a certain clarity missing from this blog. My apologies. I have decided to invest some time – escaping the glorious sunshine* – to remind this blog of its purpose, and in turn, all four of you that skim read it when you’ve done checking Facebook on a miserable night in.

Blog literal - place to notate all the crap that surges through one's mind, you know, the stuff that falls on deaf ears in the pub.

To Blog (verb)- sit down on one's own and talk to oneself and then kind of publish it.

Blog (noun) - a unique entity that is not defined by name but rather by contents in turn leading other people to wonder what is wrong with the author.

I have chosen to approach this in the style of an English language GCSE mark sheet. Please note my A* bitches – earned minus the knowledge of how to apply an apostrophe correctly – I learned this in my 21st year. Apparently I still have problems applying oo correctly too. Loose and lose and also, I must admit, choose and chose often catch me out. I think it’s the ownership over oos as an Attwood.

Style – There is no specific style in which I write, nothing that has a stipulated term, and I have never indulged in specific rules regarding style; I do freekin’ love a good semi-colon. I think the main way to approach the style in this blog is to imagine everything is persuading you to indulge in my emotional response. For example, if I’m describing something tedious and rambling, you will note my style is tedious and rambling. I wouldn’t want you to miss out.

Language – Making words up and finding new linguistic applications is the best thing about writing. Fo’ sho’. Anything that can be exclaimed in a silly and unclear way that either takes insane deciphering or is only funny to me – will bring me joy – and hopefully that will infect the style of the copy. Wondering what the fudge I’m talking about? Maybe you’re reading the wrong blog. I don’t ask you to understand me. Just come with me.

Sincerity – Now, I add this into the score chart, as it’s a feature of writing that has got me into endless trouble. Hopefully Contained doesn’t see me in some kind of sticky shiz with the Arab Emirates. As there is a level of insincerity in my jest (there’s not. I hate it there) you see? See also Orange Highlighters for my continued struggle with sincerity. If it’s a review then trust I’m being sincere. Have you still not seen Boy? Idiots.

Text Inference/interpretation – I have posted a poem regarding caravans on my blog this week, in return I have received several emails detailing concern for my well being. I’ll leave – gentle – interpretation for readers in their own time. The text will often infer I’m bonkers; it’s best to take this at face value but I cannot promise to play party to your concerns.

Sentence structure, punctuation and spelling – Apparently to get full marks. You have to avoid ambiguity. That’s me out then.

*There isn’t any glorious sunshine, yes, I’m as confused about that as you all are about the bouts of glimmering snow pummelling down in the UK. Or maybe you’re all used to the snow by now? As used to it as my rambunctious oddities anyway.

Caravan and poem.

If I had a caravan.
I’d be in it all the time,
doing dishes,
drying up, eating shortbread by the clock.
I wouldn’t have a 4 by 4,
to tow my caravan about
I’d rather have a van or some bears,
they could get my caravan up any stairs.
I would tour round all the cities,
people would come in my caravan
for a gentle break from their norm
I’d make them up a cup of tea
with formula milk and Tetley.

It’ll be such a nice place.
Chilled, refined and empty of space.
As what could be better than
sitting in one’s caravan
letting the world meander by
there’s nothing bad in the caravan
free to roam like a free range ram.

I see you think this is not a poem.

Well take this you naysayer you,
do you have a portable loo?
Boiling water on tap
vintage sofas and more too?
Any day you fancy eating your words with
some cheese and biscuits call on me
I won’t be far
with my caravan and ah ha.

Contained

In the last three weeks I have paid visits to four countries, been in a women’s only taxi, allowed a Frenchman’s dazzling smile to befuddle me into accepting two six euro sandwiches when I ordered un, been offered the plinth in some man’s life as his forth wife, had an Aussie in customs tell me ‘it’s funny, you don’t look like a pom’, oh and besides that, I’d forgotten how odd it is to dare to be called Miriam. But it’s an Arab name? (This only beats being greeted in Morocco with ‘Oh, Miriam? You’re not black?’)

Dubai has always been on my list of places I categorically never want to go. The idea of glass and chrome rising out of desert and sea so Paris Hilton can party on her way round the world (or something) was my basis for not going. That and the awful film with that awful harem of bitchy middle aged women stolen from a previously better land of televisual opportunity... Oh, and the rules. Which were firmly assured by my hotel guide to Dubai that explained what ‘day-to-day’ law breaking could result in the death penalty. But, as much as my interest in returning to Dubai where my luggage was searched and run through with red dye and my heart was burst with uncomfortable everything as the whole place is encased in shiny soullessness, is non existent; it was interesting.

I have often passed the time wondering if odd things happen to me, I invite odd things to happen to me, or I find things more remarkable than everyone else. In Dubai I haplessly found myself ricocheting off the walls of a Landrover (thing) in the desert on a Monday evening, which felt strangely like a large Truman Show style set, (the desert, not the vehicle) with a Russian woman of broad design and wired eyebrows shouting ‘MAMUSKA’ and ‘AYYEEEE’ each time the wheel arches tempted to smash through the tires and we tumbled over the dunes. This may in essence already seem odd, but imagine, if you will, our Moroccan (as he took pains to tell us he was not from the oil risen land of the Arab Emirates) driver mirrors her cries for life with his own ‘WAAAAA AYYEEE, MAMA’ and the Philippines and the Germans and I were torn between knocking Russian out, telling her to put her freaking seatbelt on and laughing mercilessly, and openly, at this crazy woman’s expense.

There is something a little odd in parting with a wadge of hard earned cash to be driven on a motorway out of a city to some sand dunes off another motorway, to then be driven about and ear raped by a crazy Russian, then taken to a tourist camp of ‘Dubai’ stuff, none of which, as our lovely driver told us on the way back to the hotel, was remotely Dubaineese. Some call it tour'ism. To be fair, the baked coffee really was of a very high standard. And the shisha. But I’ve had shisha in Morocco and southern Spain and Tunbridge Wells and no one there was offering to buy me into a life of polygamy. Well, possibly in Kent, but still.

Being a tourist – or a newbie to a different place is always going to present challenges. I get that. And I usually reserve confusion for the way so many people treat ‘foreign’ places. But Dubai and MAMUSKA seem to have captured my attention full throttle with the unashamed random combination of various worlds and cultures and a blatant disregard for what I would consider expected norms in my world.

I could wang on about the Louis Vuitton clad persons headed to Dubai merely to buy stuff for $20 less than in the US or wherever you go to buy nasty overpriced branded celebrity endorsed crap normally and to eat in restaurants where the pizza is genuine as a real Italian was flown in to make it – go to Italy? I don’t want to get started on serving pork even though it’s religiously wrong to offer it... ? I left the place with as many new questions as I had thought up to take in with me – but I now am sure I do not need to return to get answers. I’d rather read a book.

Sometimes I can be more succinct in my ponderings when I compare life’s trivialities to films or some kind of referential creative expression. If my take on the world is Kill Bill – a little to whiny and judgemental but in essence put together for the right reasons, then Dubai is SATC2. One fucking huge contradiction.

NB: For legal reasons I must state there is no referential creative expression involved in SATC2. Or I won’t be allowed back into the Arab Emirates.