Radio Show #1

The inaugural voyage of the Outland Institute radio show set sail today – Josh Kinal assures me that the “one show anniversary” is traditionally lined notepad paper, freshly torn. And who am I to say he’s wrong?

On today’s show:

Josh Kinal talks about All Saints and televised eating contests, Narrelle Harris and Mary Borsellino discuss Robin The Boy Wonder‘s place in culture, Our Almost Fabulous feature looks at Neighbours’ Andrew “Macca” Mackenzie, Glenn Dunks picks some hits from this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, Toby Sullivan tells us the right way to approach football, and our Crime Against Pop is Buckner & Garcia’s Pac-Man Fever:

You can find the podcast in the usual places or download it directly from here!

Show notes after the jump:

John’s MIFF blog: No Place (part 2)

Yesterday I presented my Melbourne International Film Festival wrap-up, and also gave room for some our regular Institutees to speak. Last up is the glorious Syms Covington (who normally lives here). He rants exclusively for The Outland Institute.

This year’s MIFF was an interesting one for me. It was the first time I had attended the fest in three years, having been stuck in Sydney town for that period, and also because I could directly contrast it with my experiences at SIFF about a month earlier. The two festivals are vastly different, and I have Richard Moore to thank for that. The Sydney Film Fest is strutting off in its own direction with its big blue prize, eyes firmly on everything but Australian film, while MIFF had the tenacity to not only program some of the best Aussie arthouse films around (as well as new genre surprises like The Horseman and Acolytes) but to devote a whole strand to the ‘drunken uncles’ of the Australian film industry – the ones the more ‘respectable’ contingent of the industry has been actively ignoring at the parties for years – the filmmakers who made what is currently being referred to by the trendy Tarantino-coined moniker of “Ozploitation”.

Indeed the Ozploitation bent of this year’s MIFF was the thing that pushed me over the edge to travel south. I’d had the opportunity to see Not Quite Hollywood previously at a closed screening, and fallen in lust with it. I was terribly excited by the possibility of attending opening night just to experience the film again in a room filled with not only the genre benders profiled in the film, but the very film industry snobs that had blacklisted many of these films originally. For me, the film and opening night shenanigans were well worth the trip down. The only thing that would have made it better was if there had been screens either side of the stage filming “reaction shots” – like at the Oscars – of the old snobs shuddering in their hush puppies and sensibly ironed fawn slacks. I am seeing it again with a crowd of industry folk at the AFI Awards Screenings night in Sydney, so hopefully someone will have acted on this idea by then.

John’s MIFF blog: There’s No Place Like Home

And so another year’s Melbourne International Film Festival draws to a close. The rubbish is strewn across the turf, the drunken young women have collapsed on the trams, and the vomit is being hosed down from the VIP tent – no, wait. That’s the Melbourne Cup. Let’s start again.

Ah, MIFF. You come, toy with our affections, then leave in the night. Yet every year we come back. You mock us, yet we want you so. You temptress. You seductress. Both dominatrix and mother to us all.

Like all art, film is subjective. Our response to film is not only based our our preferences and tastes but can be altered by our surroundings – would I have enjoyed Let The Right One In more if the gentleman next to me hadn’t spent the whole film munching through a box of popcorn larger than his head? Probably. Would I have enjoyed My Winnipeg less if I hadn’t been so exhausted from chasing horses all day that I was more than willing to fall under it’s hypnotic spell, like the sleep-walking residents Guy Madden describes? Maybe. Am I now aware that even the most deserved criticism of the festival is likely to bring on the fury of The League Of Festival Directors, like a Marketing Team descending in the night? Oh yeah.

So here is my completely subjective take on the 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival (after all, if you didn’t want my opinion you wouldn’t be here, would you?)

John’s MIFF blog: “je regrette, je ne parle pas Francais”

My intention with this MIFF blog was not to review individual films, but to give you a taste of the festival as a whole – to explore what makes it this festival and not – say – that one. I find, however, that with a week to go I don’t have much more to say. This year’s Melbourne International Film Festival has been just fine, there are popular and unpopular films as you’d expect, and only the occasional drama (off-screen, that is).

On the other hand, there also hasn’t been that excitement you would expect by now, the rush of good (or bad) word-of-mouth that often propels a festival such as this (“You’ve got to see the Etruscan leper musical, it will change your life!” or “Last night I saw Book Of Revelation“). I also don’t have any celebrity stories to pass on – did Morgan Spurlock sacrifice a goat in his hotel room? Did George A Romero set fire to Eureka Tower? No, sadly. Remember when Larry Clark attacked his film’s distributor during the 2002 London Film Festival? Ah, those were the days.

So let’s talk about subtitles.

John’s MIFF blog – Three Chords And The Truth

Continuing my apparent inability to watch anything that isn’t an arts documentary, I saw a couple of music documentaries last night.

The second of these was Rock N Roll Nerd, which follows the career of musical comedian Tim Minchin. It was a well made documentary, with two very strong points in its favour. First, director Rhian Skirving is obviously a friend of Tin Minchin and his wife Sarah, so they’re remarkably candid on camera. Secondly, exceptional timing means that Skirving can follow Minchin‘s career from its very beginning, even shooting his first Edward Scissorhands haircut. Minchin‘s determination is clear from the start, and it’s interesting to watch him develop his act and persona as the film goes on (even changing his entire look to create a stage presence he thinks will be more sellable). Possibly slightly longer than it needs to be, it’s a solid piece of work.

The first was I Think We’re Alone Now, a film that follows two fans/stalkers of former pop sensation Tiffany. You might not remember Tiffany – her biggest hit was in 1987. And so was her other hit. But 20 years later she’s still being followed/stalked by obsessive fans, and this documentary follows two of them. Sean Donnelly‘s film is rough-hewn video, with no attempt to pretty things up. The credits are handwritten, and it’s not even widescreen. It’s all very unglamourous, which suits the subject perfectly.

John’s MIFF bloggette – Glitches in the Matrix

A frustrating evening at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Monday as a strange confluence of wrongness occurs.

After all the delays, trailers, introductions, and big-ups to my homies, Dead On: The Life And Cinema Of George A. Romero hit what must be a new MIFF record, starting a full 45 minutes after the advertised time. Festival-goers planning to attend a nine o’clock screening had to choose whether to leave halfway through this film or arrive halfway through the next. It might have helped if they hadn’t decided to include an unlisted short film by Romero‘s daughter, Tina. Her short was hardly the worst thing ever, but it looked like the second-year film it is, and the audience response could best be described as “polite”. Surely if the film is both a) running late and b) longer than you have programmed for, adding short films is not the answer. (The film itself I would describe as “Brighton Grammar girls do Battleship Potemkin as a rock eisteddfod.” Do Americans have rock eisteddfods?). The documentary itself looked good, and I hope one day to see the end of it.

The George A. Romero Title Game… Of The Dead

As part of our ongoing tribute to horrormeister George A. Romero, here’s a game for you to play at home.

Choose any film title and try adding “Of The Dead” to see if you can turn it into an appealing zombie flick. Not every combination works, but some are box office gold.

I tried going through the top 50 of IMDB’s Top 250 and was taken with these, any of which I would happily fork over my money for:

The Godfather Of The Dead

12 Angry Men Of The Dead

Rear Window Of The Dead

Memento Of The Dead

Taxi Driver Of The Dead

To Kill A Mockingbird Of The Dead

It’s A Wonderful Life Of The Dead

That last one’s my favourite – it sounds heart-warming. “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his face chewed off by re-animated corpses.” Stars Jimmy Stewart.

Feel free to leave more titles in the comments below.

Finally, the statisticians at WordPress show me the Institute’s attendances went through the roof yesterday, so hello to all our new visitors! Tracey in the Outland Institute Gift Shop was totally exhausted by the end of the day, and needed a nice Kingston and a sit-down. (Also, we’re totally out of Wong Kar-Wai slippers, so please don’t ask.)

John’s MIFF blog – George A. Romero LIVE! (of the dead)

If you’re me – and I am – one of the most exciting things in this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival is the mini-retrospective of horror legend George A Romero. The icing on the cake? Last night’s live interview with Romero himself, which took place at the MIFF Festival Club.

For those who haven’t been to The Forum, it’s like the last-days-of-the-Roman-Empire meets Studio 54 in a crazed fever dream of Zazoom, the donkey from Hanna Barbera’s Arabian Knights series. “Size of a late-1920s picture palace!”. It was too weird even for the Christian Revivalists, who owned it for a decade until 1995. It’s been part of the Marriner Theatre group for the last few years, as well as the central base of the film festival.

The Forum was long ago subdivided from it’s original three thousand seat configuration – the old dress circle is now a cosy 500 seat cinema, and the remodelled stalls section is mostly used for concerts. During MIFF this section becomes the Festival Club.

I had expected more of a beardy horror audience, so was both surprised and pleased to see such a mixed crowd. You could have been expecting an appearance from Krzysztof Kieslowski, rather than a man who has made four films with “of the dead” in the title (and one “of the living dead”).

When Romero discretely appeared at the side of the auditorium, awaiting his cue, the audience started applauding, loudly and warmly. By the time he actually reached the stage, it was clear that introductions were completely superfluous.

John’s MIFF blog – House Of Blurbs

One of the thrills of the Melbourne International Film Festival is Program Day. You wake up so early, just as the sun is starting to peek into the window. On tippy-toe you creep down the stairs, clad in your pyjamas and Wong Kar-Wai slippers, to find that special package under the Festival Tree. You undo the ribbon, gently unwrap the layers of gaily-coloured tissue paper, and finally – there it is. The Festival Program. Now the circling can begin…

Film, fringe and comedy festivals all follow much the same template when it comes to their programs. Only a single photo and a short blurb help you to decide what’s Hot, and what’s Book Of Revelation. For MIFF there’s roughly 150 words in a standard description. A generic blurb looks something like this:

FILM TITLE

“Fulsome but uselessly vague praise!’ – International Newspaper

Character X, a (vending machine repairman/factory worker/university lecturer) in (Taipei/Seattle/Bucharest) is drawn into a web of despair in this new film from Director Y. Like (an unwieldy and confusing metaphorical reference, possibly involving World War I or Iraq), FILM TITLE is a (harrowing/hauntingly beautiful) insight into (the pain of a middle-class couple in crisis/child prostitution/zombies). An exceptional work, FILM TITLE further explores the themes of Director Y‘s FILM YOU DIDN’T SEE (MIFF 2005).

D/S Director Y S Grace Park, Julianne Moore L Esperanto w/English subtitles 35m/2007/193 mins

And honestly, that’s often enough to give you an idea whether you want to see it or not. You may just need to know the director, the subject matter or the genre to make your mind up. But sometimes it’s too vague, especially if the film is extremely complex or falls between categories. Sometimes the descriptions themselves cause confusion, leading the audience to believe the film is something that it’s not (the blurb for 2006’s Flanders led many to expect a World War I drama, rather than the modern-day piece it actually was).

As with most things in life, the internet has changed things for the better. Oh internet, is there anything you can’t do?

John’s MIFF blog – Johnny Racist

I was looking at the Melbourne International Film Festival program online and I saw this photo from Michael Kang’s gangland thriller West 32nd. It’s different from the one in the physical program, more dramatic I think.

My first thought was, “Wow, that woman looks exactly like Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica.”

My second thought was, “You racist pig! All Asian women look the same, do they? An actor in a Korean/New York crime drama must be the same person as the one in a Canadian-shot science fiction series because there’s obviously only one female Asian actor in the whole world. Surely if it was Grace Park her name would appear somewhere in the blurb, or in the information in the footer? Hang your head in shame, Johnny Racist!”

Then I read on IMDB that Grace Park is in West 32nd.

So what have we learned?

1. White middle-class guilt can be extremely potent, and

2. MIFF obviously isn’t expecting much of a Korean arthouse/Battlestar Galactica crossover audience.