Hey look, it's 2010!

Happy New Year and all that.

Maybe tomorrow I'll manage an about 2009 post.

( Merry Christmas )

Crossposted to http://aquila1nz.livejournal.com/25961.html

Right after I posted yesterday I found out that The Cult starts here Thursday week, and there was an article in the paper about it this week.



http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10596240&pnum=0

( I'm sad Lisa's hair is short again )

( Lisa Chappell, Danielle Cormack, maybe Sfnal, maybe even intelligent TV )

And all but one of my cities have been guessed http://aquila1nz.livejournal.com/24935.html

Crossposted from http://aquila1nz.dreamwidth.org/4194.html

I've added a second picture of city 1 and 5 to aid with guessing my cities.

Five cities I haven't visited yet, but would like to. Can you name them?

In no particular order:

1.

( 4 more cities below )

Once a city is guessed correctly, I will tell why I want to visit it...

ETA: now with double pictures for city 1 and 5.



gacked from hellga

Crossposted from http://aquila1nz.dreamwidth.org/3622.html

( The First Day of the Rest of Your Life )

( Mid-August Lunch )

( Birdwatchers )

Tally:
10 films, 2 shorts
4 kid centred
4 coming-of-age
3 made me cry
1 Kazakhstan
2 sfnal
1 person snoring in the row in front of me
1 dud

None of these reviews are particularly spoileriffic (the A Lake one is slightly).

( Treeless Mountain )

( An Education )

( Six Dollar Fifty Man )

( A Lake )

( Moon )

Tally:
7 films, 2 shorts
4 kid centred
2 coming-of-age
2 made me cry
1 Kazakhstan
2 sfnal
1 person snoring in the row in front of me
1 dud

http://www.otalia.istotallyawesome.com

The Auckland International Film Festival started yesterday. So far I've seen three films:

( Double Take )

( Kisses )

Kisses was preceded by a short:

( Kehua )

( Still Walking )

Tally:
3 films, 1 short
2 kid centred
1 coming-of-age
1 made me cry
1 Kazakhstan
1 sfnal
1 person snoring in the row in front of me

http://www.jessicaleccia.istotallyawesome.com

There are 139 films on offer in the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland this year.

I've managed to winnow it down to about 39 I think I'd love to see:
http://delicious.com/Aquila1nz/nziff09+longlist

Now I need to cut it down to about twenty that I can afford, time and money wise, to see. And play the scheduling game so none of them clash (and yes, I just checked how much annual leave I have saved up).

That includes films from Korea, Japan, China, UK, USA, NZ, Australia, France, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Italy and two from Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan is big this year, there are three in total in the festival).

There's a section on humans and animals, and the usual range of movies about kids, though less that look like coming of age movies than usual. Quite a few about extended family get togethers. Some interesting NZ ones, and the retrospective is on a NZ documentary maker. The Incredibly Strange section didn't catch my eye much his year - mostly horror (including the Zombie Nazi film) though the priest/miracle healer by day, vampire by night Chinese film looks good, but I'm not doing more vampire movies. I don't like vampires. Even if I did see Let the Right One In twice last year.


The site is bouncing like a ferret right now, so apologies if links don't work, try again a minute later.

PS http://jill-lorie-hurst.istotallyawesome.com/ Always.

Last night's film also had a short, both were centred on young intersex protagonists.

( Clouded )


( XXY )

I'm continuing to be really impressed with quality of the Outtakes films this year, not sure if it's because they couldn't run the festival last year, so had a deeper range to choose from, or if queer filmmaking is finally coming of age, or if the people choosing the films are just better at it, but these films are on a level with those shown at the always excellent NZ International Film Festival. I have bought a ticket to I Can't Think Straight tonight, wish me luck on getting there on time.

And Crystal's twitter is well over 1000 followers, 24 hours later. Otalia fandom rocks.

http://crystal-chappell.istotallyawesome.com/

Crossposted.

I saw three films and 5 shorts over the weekend.

( Was am Ende Zählt )

( Mein Freund Aus Faro )

( Seriously Good Girl's Shorts )

( A World Unseen )

And

( Crystal Chappell is on Twitter )

http://jessica-leccia.istotallyawesome.com/

Crossposted.

Let's face it, I'm looking forward to this way more than it is safe to:





My nine year old self watched the original V mini series with horrified delight, my 12 year old self loved it when it finally played in NZ after we came home, my older teenage self saved forever for the $100 to buy the video box set, and I plunked down money again a few years ago to buy it on DVD. I can't think critically about V at all, I just loved it too much, reptilian looking Marc Singer and all.

I have a V comic somewhere, bought in LA in 1985, I have almost all the tie-in novels (the AC Crispin novelization was pretty good, I loved the New York ones, I am grateful they introduced me to SP Somtow, and some of the rest were appallingly bad) http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=v+series&view=Aquila

I'm delighted to get to see Elizabeth Mitchell play an FBI agent, I don't see how Morena Baccarin, much as I like her, can live up to Jane Badler's scenery chomping Diana, I'm sorry that it looks like the "first they came for the scientists" aspect might not be in the new one (anthropologists as all seeing, hmm), but that that means this probably won't be another heavy handed Nazi Germany allegory could be a good thing.

See, I'm already too invested in what is going to be more bad scifi, aren't I?

In other news, I still have those two dreamwidth codes to give away, but it looks like the market is now glutted.

http://ellen-wheeler.istotallyawesome.com/

Crossposted.

http://www.outtakes.org.nz/2009/akl/films/fin.html

And once again I've been struck by the "this was made just for me" very big grin of "oh how I love that trope, and look it's actually being used well".

I'm stuck between spoiling something so the people who REALLY REALLY SHOULD SEE THIS FILM AND I'M LOOKING AT YOU thrace_ know that it hits their very favorite tropes, and knowing that it loses something to go into the film already knowing this. But to think I might have believed the trailer and the blurb and thought this was only an issues movie because there was no mention of the genre and the things that make me squee!

So, SPOILER FREE REVIEW, with the exception of the setup details:

Finn's Girl starts with 11 year old Zelly and her other mother dealing with the aftermath of the loss of Finn's biological mother, an activist and abortion doctor to breast cancer. Finn has given up her fertility specialist career to take over Nancy's life work at the protester beleaguered abortion clinic, Zelly is acting out, trying to play her sperm donor father (who Finn is also at odds with professionally over his acceptance of pharmaceutical company money in what was their fertility research) against Finn, who is not managing to make time for Zelly. When police protection for Finn and therefore Zelly has to be increased the pressure starts to build.

There were moments early on when I felt distanced from it, but I liked it more and more, and from the point that I realised where it was going I just had a great big grin on my face. I might have expected it from a comedy, or a post apocalyptic separatist fable, but this was a grounded, interesting movie about the way families are, rather than the way families are in movies, and it was great.

Bonus moment - one of the actresses was at the screening, she happened to be in Auckland visiting her girlfriend, saw the poster which features her, and contacted the directors who put her in touch with the festival organisers.

My next movie is tonight.

Crossposted to http://aquila1nz.dreamwidth.org/1733.html

And today was a sweet plateau day. We got flirting, happiness and snuggles:




http://crystal-chappell.istotallyawesome.com/

Two more dreamwidth invites, comment with your email and I'll send one to you.

And I think I should pause to note that this post means I have posted more times this month than I did last year.

In other happy news, it's an Otalia day and I can't way to get home to watch the clips.


So close, and yet so far!



http://jill-lorie-hurst.istotallyawesome.com/

http://tscc.istotallyawesome.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/18/fox-the-sarah-connor-chronicles

I really wanted there to be more of this story. I'm not sure I can articulate everything I liked about this show - the female roles, which were varied and OMG that shouldn't be so unusual, the timeline changes, and that they didn't feel the need to spell them out to us, the exploration of what humanity is, Lena Headey, this show just really clicked with me, and I don't feel it got to be everything it could be (and cancelling it before the movie comes out? How dumb is that?)

I still have eight episodes to go (it plays at 10:30pm on Wednesday nights here) and I'm mostly unspoiled for what is to come.

FUFOX, and FUCBS while I'm at it.

And http://otalia.istotallyawesome.com/ always and forever. G'wan, click.

If anyone would like a dreamwidth invite, give me your email address and I'll send you one (feel free to pass this on to friends who might be looking, since I suspect a lot of my flist already have one or aren't interested in getting one). Both gone now. I'll let you know if I get more.

I still haven't figured out how I'm going to use dreamwidth, should I back my little journal up over there, should I mirror ongoing posts, should I use it for a different personality, which end should I allow commenting at? At the moment I'm mirroring most posts there, and reading my circle, most of whom are people I know here too, and a lot of whom are crossposting here anyway. It's confusing, but interesting.

I'm in a state of "Why has no one told me that I really want to read this book?" because

( Mission Child - only mild spoilers )

I feel like amanuensis1 watching Let the Right One In trailers - I needed fanfic warnings for this, so I'd know I want to read it, but I'm also glad I wasn't spoiled for it. Even the fact I didn't remember seeing it discussed suggested things to me about the shape of the ending as I read it.

Manually crossposted from http://aquila1nz.dreamwidth.org/1524.html

Which films should I go see?

http://www.outtakes.org.nz/2009/akl/schedule.html

The only two on the list I've heard of are World Unseen and I Can't Think Straight. While in an ideal world I'd like to see some of the gay male films too, I don't have the time and money to see them all. I want to see: at least one of the shorts compilations, at least one doco, at least one trans film, as many happy endings as possible (I watched Children's Hour last night, I'm not in the mood for tragic, no matter how realistic that may be).

At the moment my (long) short list contains:
Finn's Girl
Another Woman
Nothing Else Matters
Seriously Good Girls Shorts
To Faro
Who is Family
Boy I Am
World Unseen
XXY
I Can't Think Straight
Vivere
New World
Ghosted
Ask Not
Patrik 1.5
Bi The Way

So has anyone seen any of these? Which are the "Don't misses?"

Manually crossposted from: http://aquila1nz.dreamwidth.org/1169.html