Peter Smith: Blog

“Lisa”:http:/www.yellowoasis.org/ and I went to see “The Pillowman”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillowman tonight. It was mar­vel­lous. We both enjoy a black com­edy and this was very black and very fun. The cru­ci­fic­a­tion scene was par­tic­u­larly well done–and par­tic­u­larly har­row­ing. Hat’s off to “Brooke Williams”:http://www.aucklandactors.co.nz/ViewFullCV.pl?objectID=519 for a great per­form­ance. I also thought that Jonathan Hardy was very drole as the …

We went an saw the Oscar win­ning “The lives of others”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/ this even­ing. As “Mark Kermode”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kermode said, its good but “Pan’s Labyrinth”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/ is bet­ter. Both of these films are well worth seeing.

This was the last file that we sent to see at the “film festival”:http://www.nzff.telecom.co.nz/. Maybe I don’t _get_ French com­edy, but I found the end of this film incom­press­ible. It star­ted off with a good premise, and some inter­est­ing ideas, but over­all it is a stinker.I’ll give it one star out of five.

Last movie of the week­end was Keane. Over­all, I found it slow and overly long (maybe the two are con­nec­ted). Two out of five stars.

So, hav­ing watched “The Method”:http://www.petersmith.org/diary/archives/2006/07/22/the-method.html we rushed down to the Civic for the 21:15 show­ing of “The Sci­ence of Sleep”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0354899/. As we were wait­ing for the film to start, I made the com­ment that the seats at the “Civic”:http://www.civictheatre.co.nz/ are much more com­fort­able than those at the “Sky City Theatre”:http://www.skycity.co.nz/. The people sit­ting next to …

It’s going to be a busy week­end. We’re see­ing five movies over the week­end. Today star­ted off with more anim­a­tion at the “film festival”:http://www.nzff.telecom.co.nz/. The two best films were “Der Propellervogel”:http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0490473/ and “Moongirl”:http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0482549/. Kazka­heutte was pretty good too. The audi­ence (mainly chil­dren) seemed to enjoy them all (and enjoy them immensely).

Still at the “festival”:http://www.nzff.telecom.co.nz … This movie is a semi-autobiographical piece by “Richard E. Grant”:http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001290/ recounts a his life in Swazi­l­and. Not only did he write the screen play, but he also pro­duced and dir­ec­ted it. Appar­ently, his real mother (played in the movie by “Mir­anda Richardson”:http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001669/) thought is was a good movie too (if …

I should start by say­ing (no pun inten­ded) that I was already warm to the idea of global warm­ing. So, this film (doco) about “Al Gore”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore and his cru­sade to inform the world about global warm­ing fell on fer­tile soil. Judging by the applause at the end of the movie, most of the audi­ence were …

I haven’t read the “book”:http://www1.gifu-u.ac.jp/~masaru/TS/contents.html so I can’t make any com­ment about the accur­acy of this movie. What I can com­ment on is how much I enjoyed it; and enjoy it I did. I know that “Mark Kermode”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml like the movie (I listend to the “podcast”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/fivelive_aod.shtml?fivelive/kermode140706) so I was expect­ing a good movie, and I …

The first film of the “film festival”:http://www.nzff.telecom.co.nz/ (for me any way) was _Animation Now_; a col­lec­tion of “anim­ated gems“[1]. I agree with someone else who was there, who said it wasn’t as good as last year. Nev­er­the­less, there was some good mater­ial. The best of the col­lec­tion were: * *McLaren’s Neg­at­ives*: I liked this as …