| by Lou | 9.38pm UK time |

Your favourite film of all time


(Took me long enough! I've actually had this sitting in drafts almost finished for a month... New job, lovely man (Michelle did very well with that set-up) conspired to distract me from ever finishing this.)


At last. The final one. I've known all along what the film would be:

On the Waterfront

I fucking love this film. The main reason why can be summed up in two words: Marlon Brando.



I'm going to use an adjective I've never before had cause to put into a sentence:

His performance in this film is incandescent.

Of course in it he delivers one of the most famous pieces of acting ever - the "I coulda been a contender" speech. I knew this scene long before I saw it, and even with the high expectations and the foreknowledge it is still a stellar moment of acting.



But in this film he gives an overall performance of raw power and tender softness that transcends a single moment of celluloid legend. I love the swoon-worthy moments of delicacy and vulnerability:

When he picks up the girl's glove and sub-consciously puts it on his own hand.



When he pushes her against the wall and kisses her to the floor.



He is simply stunning across every frame, every line, every scene.

A film about a waterfront union dispute sounds rather bland and dry. But for me in Brando's performance* is a film about something (or someone) shaking up your life and leading to a catharthis where you find within yourself an integrity, a strength, a goodness and a sense of pride you didn't even know you were capable of.


Marlon Brando, Terry Malloy - I salute you.


*I say Brando's performance to try and detatch from the dodgy political context of the Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg McCarthyist thing - I choose to detatch this from my own experience of the film, having not known about it when I first saw and fell in love with it.

| by Bel | 3.35pm NZ time |

Your favourite film of all time

My favourite film? My favourite? Singular?? Choose just one?!
Yeah right.

Because then I'd have to decide whether I like Amelie better than The Philadelphia Story!

Or find some way of comparing Clueless with La Haine. Both of which are films I love, but for very different reasons.

And I just saw Drive on Sunday, and I easily think that could go onto the Best Movies Evaaaaaah list.

And most of all, I am always hoping that I am yet to see my favourite film.

| by Bel | 10.21am NZ time |

A film from your childhood

Home Alone came out in 1990. I was 8 years old. My dad took me out to the cinema to see it, which would have been a treat enough in itself. But we were also celebrating my new glasses:

Yep.

...is pretty much the right response.

| by Lou | 11.33am UK time |

A film from your childhood

My earliest film memories are:

The Goonies



imdb tells me that it would have been 1985/86. My family and I were on holiday with friends of mum and dad's who lived in a small Canterbury town called Geraldine. I thought they were funny as we all had the Southland rrrrrrr and they had a seeming inability to pronounce an r - therefore my brother Kirrrrrk became Kik.

During the holiday it was one of the Canterbury kids' birthdays and they made her a witch birthday cake from the Australian Woman's Weekly Birthday Cake Book, using those chip sticks you used to get as the broom bristles. The weather was really hot so we celebrated outside in a yard of brown fried grass.



Us kids were allowed to go to the cinema to see The Goonies. One of the Canterbury kids had to come late as she had a doctor's appointment due to having arthritis-like symptoms in her hands. The seven of us sat along the front row armed with popcorn and lollies and feeling like kings and queens of the world.

The film was awesome. I have always dreamed of finding a cave waterslide that leads into a hidden lagoon.





The Princess Bride



It would have been 1988. I had watched The Princess Bride on television and was so overwhelmed by its wonderousness that I promptly wrote all about it in my dinky diary. (It was a purple one that a friend had given me for my birthday.)

I wrote with breathless excitement about a film I had seen that was so great and I might never see it again so needed to get the plot down on paper lest I forget. At the time my brother and sister and I were big fans of wrestling, so Andre the Giant's role in the film just made it even better.



Years later I saw the film again and was absolutely delighted to recognise it as the film I had so loved when a child. Rewatching it as an adult I can't argue with the judgement of my 7-or-8-year-old self - it's a glorious film that captures adventure and romance in a way that nothing else has.

| by Bel | 12.30pm NZ time |

Favourite film from your favourite director

Mainly because it is going to incur the wrath of Lou, I'm going to say Dazed and Confused by Richard Linklater.

I think we can all agree, if nothing else, that it is one of Ben Affleck's greatest roles?

| by Lou | 8.30pm UK time |

Favourite film from your favourite director


Pulp Fiction, all the way.


Three fun facts about Pulp Fiction related to my Invercargill teenagerhood:


1. A school friend was given a VHS copy for her 14th birthday by our school's priest*. We started to watch it, but one of the girls there was the principal's daughter and her parents had come along. They conferred with the birthday girl's more liberal-minded parents in the kitchen, and before we'd gotten more than 2 minutes in they turned it off and forbade us from watching it. This of course made us even more desparate to see it.




2. My 5th form economics teacher was fresh out of uni and would willingly engage in a bit of a 'youth' chat**. One day he came over to help me and my friend, and somehow ending up telling us about how Morgan Freeman's character asks the robber to get his wallet out of the bag and the guy says "which one is yours?" and he says "the one that says bad mother fucker" and the guy pulls out his wallet and sure enough it said bad mother fucker. He thought that was the best thing ever. It probably actually is.



3. My mother decided that she was going to watch Pulp Fiction when it premiered on television, because people from her work liked it. I told her she was going to hate it***. She insisted on watching it nonetheless, but within 5 minutes had turned it off. I was watching it in the other room and so when they got to the adrenalin countdown evilly shouted out for her to change the channel, leading to her flicking over at this exact moment and being utterly mortified:




*Yes, he was a young and kind of weird priest. Later on the same school friend's mother stalked him and it's actually a really tragic story of psychiatric illness.

**Yes, this did go badly. Several of the girls in my class were precocious enough to entirely put him on edge by bringing him close to the line of inappropriate behaviour. I felt quite sorry for him.

***My mother doesn't swear. I once heard her say shit and was absolutely shocked. Luckily my siblings and I inherited our vocab from dad.

| by Bel | 7.41am NZ time |

A film that you wish you had seen in theaters

I am fortunate that I have seen a lot of the films I love in the cinema - and many classics which deserve the big screen treatment. With all the developments in 'home theatre' recently, you still can't convince me that there isn't something magical about that shared experience of sitting in a dim room together.

By example, I have seen A Streetcar Named Desire twice at the cinema! First time was in France, when I was a teenager. We went as a school trip for my English class and it was subtitled.

Other than the film itself, there are two things I remember clearly: 1) our teacher bumming a smoke off a student afterwards, when there was a mass exodus to quickly go and light up on the footpath, and 2) having to try and explain to my classmates that Blanche is raped by Stanley off screen.

More recently, the glorious Embassy cinema here in Wellington screened a lovely looking 35mm print. I went on my own, sitting in the cushy premium seating and loved every minute of it!

Ok, but what is a film I wish I had seen in the cinema? It's Star Trek, a film I mentioned way back at the start of this '30 days'.

And my main reason is because I chose to see that godawful Terminator Salvation instead. Gahhhhh.

To think that the torment of sitting through that P.O.S. movie could have instead been the gleeful experience of seeing Star Trek for the first time! Woe!

| by Lou | 1.30pm UK time |



A film that you wish you had seen in theatres


God bless both the New Zealand International Film Festival and the British Film Institute for allowing me to see so many films on the big screen that I had missed first time round (mostly due to Not Being Alive Yet). The Marlon Brando BFI season was particularly glorious in giving me the bonus of allowing my virgin screening of Apocalypse Now to be done right.

One film I have never seen on the big screen that I would love to have seen in its full glory is:

The Piano

Mostly because it is The Most Beautiful Film Ever, but also because it would be giving the price of a cinema ticket towards an unbelievably talented filmmaker of both my gender and nationality.

Alas at the time I was 12 years old and my mother deemed it "inappropriate". When I finally saw it a couple of years later I said "Oh. Right." and decided to remove the quotation marks from inappropriate.


NB: I can't accompany this with an image as I can't find a photo of her sinking into the mud with her skirt billowing around her, and nothing less will do.

| by Bel | 4.45pm NZ time |

A film that you love but everyone else hates

I actually liked Catherine Breillat's Romance. Most people in the cinema were disgusted or embarrassed or offended - and I'm not saying I wasn't! - just that I liked it too!

| by Lou | 9.00am UK time |

A film that you love but everyone else hates


One might think that I could put The Notebook as my answer here. However one would be entirely wrong as many women of intelligence and fine taste love that film. Just none of them seem to read this blog. But one day... one day you'll see it again, and it will win you over. Oh yes, it will win you over!

So, to a film that actally everyone except me hates:

Signs

I should hate this film. I should hate the Mel Gibsonness, the overt preaching, and the laborious denouement. But I just can't.

It's because I saw it back in the era when Joaquin was my one-and-only, and he's so adorably average-guy in this that I found him and it irresistable, and felt myself viewing the film with all sorts of good-will and suspended judgement.




But I promise I'm much harsher on Mel Gibsonness, preaching, and bollocksly convenient plots in any and all other contexts.

| by Bel | 11.11am NZ time |

The most hilarious film you’ve ever seen

Dang it, Lou's already nabbed Wayne's World hasn't she??

Ok, well, here is a clip from a TV show that always makes me laugh. It's I Love Lucy! I really do love Lucy!

(I actually remember watching this on TV (repeats after school on TV1) because Mum explained to me that Lucy had red hair and that's why the crysthanamum joke is so funny!)

| by Bel | 10.33am NZ time |

That one awesome film idea that still hasn’t been done yet

Is there a film version of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?? I vote for that.

| by Lou | 9.00am UK time |

The most hilarious film you’ve ever seen


Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party time! Excellent! Woo-woo-woo-woo-woooooo!




A sphincter says what?

Game off! Game on!

Hi Wayne! Hi!

Hi, we're in... Delaware.

It's sucking my will to live!!

Wait a minute!... No... Wait a minute!... No...

Oops, I dropped my pen.

Cream of some-young-guy.

If you're gonna spew, spew into this.

You could really hock a loogie from this height!

Excuse me, I'd like to get by now.

Did you ever find bugs bunny attractive when he put on a dress and lipstick and acted like a girl bunny?

Foxy!

Am I supposed to be a man? Am I supposed to say "it's alright, I don't mind, I don't mind" ? Well I mind! I mind big time! And you know what the worst part of all is... I never learned to read!

Okay, sorry, I'll stop now.

| by Lou | 4.26pm UK time |

That one awesome film idea that still hasn’t been done yet

There is a comic book hero dying to light up the screens.

He is:

Historical Accuracy Man!

He pins this to his pale clammy chest:



and fights the fight against factually incorrect information!

Whenever somebody claims that the Maori ate a distinct race of people called Moriori, he will be there!

Whenever people discuss the kilt-wearing William Wallace-led fighters of the Scottish Highlands, he will be there!

Whenever Americans commemorate the thanksgiving feast of their forefathers, he will be there!


Please note I have a paper-trail for this billion-dollar idea going back to the year 2000 so don't even think about trying to steal it!

| by Bel | 12.09pm NZ time |

Favourite animation

I once told someone that Aladdin was my favourite Disney film and he said that it was like saying Vietnam was my favourite war.

No, no it is not.

| by Bel | 4.10pm NZ time |

Favourite documentary

Hmm, too tricky.
How about 'most recently viewed documentary'?

Restrepo was filmed over the course of a year in Afghanistan by embedded journalists, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger. It was nominated for an Oscar and, sadly, gained more attention when Hetherington was killed in Libya earlier this year.


The combination of gut-wrenching hand-held footage from the war zone and follow up interviews with the harrowed soldiers filmed in extreme close up makes for a very powerful film.

The futility and absurdity of America's war on terror is hammered home by seeing the devastating personal impacts (and deaths) felt by not just the soldiers, but also the locals of the Korengal Valley.

This documentary is brilliantly made, but I would warn it is a gruelling watch. (I bawled.)

| by Lou | 8.33pm UK time |

Favourite animation


I'm not much of an animated film junkie, particularly not when it comes to Disney... but (as an adult) the animated film that has most whelmed me is pre-Disney-takeover Pixar's good ol' Finding Nemo.




This might be something to do with (okay, a lot to do with) my love of Ellen Degeneres.

| by Lou | 9.15pm UK time |

Favourite documentary

Shit man, I really don't know! So many documentaries BLOW MY MIND, but so few are repeat-viewers in that put-it-on-on-a-rainy-Friday-night kind of way that it's hard to think of them in terms of favourite.

Here are three that randomly come to mind as having both BLOWN MY MIND and been greatly enjoyed by me over the past few years:


Trouble the Water

This film in and of itself entirely demonstrates the importance of the democratisation of film-making via the availability of digital film cameras. No news bulletins, feature articles, photo essays, not even our beloved Zeitoun, can so ably communicate how FUCKED UP the whole Hurrican Katrina thing was as this film does.

The footage from within the storm is horrific, but not as horrific as the disgusting way that the citizens of New Orleans were treated by those supposedly sent in to help.





Capturing the Friedmans

A documentary about a clown turns into a documentary about a fuuuucked up family. Weaving in home movie footage shot by the clown, the filmmaker captures with awkward intimacy the descent of middle American family life into something much more sinister when the father and a brother are convicted of sex crimes against children.

I saw this in the 2004 film fest, and while there are now a plethora of films that - again - utilise the digital era to tell intimate family stories, this one seemed so fresh.




Grizzly Man

You know I couldn't get through a documentary list without mention our favourite German. When this film came out I had Bel and another of our colleagues and then a guy at a party tell me in depth about what happens in this, but it still BLEW MY MIND.

Truly, truly bizarre. I had to stop halfway through and google it as I really genuinely thought that it must be taking the piss. In fact, I'm going to go google it again now just in case the passage of time has revealed it to be a hoax. (As if Werner would lie to us!) An incredible example of you're-fucking-shitting-me-this-can't-be-real documentary-making.

| by Lou | 10.30pm UK time |

Favourite Action Film


Can I count The Departed as an action film? No? Darnit. Can I mention it anyway? I really love The Departed. I'm watching it right now.

Leo is brilliant in this film, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise

Okay so an actual action film - Point Break. I love it.

"I am an F B I Agent!"
"Yeah, I know man, ain't it wild?"

Bonus! It's directed by a woman! And not just any woman! Kathryn Bigelow! The first woman to punch her hand through Hollywood's enduring glass ceiling and win the Best Director Oscar!

This is an entirely awesome proposition

Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze (oh Patrick) and Gary Busey are all perfectly bad-but-soooo-good.

"I caught my first tube today... Sir"

Bonus #2! An hilarious cameo from one of my fave rockers, Anthony Kiedis

"That would be a waste of time"

The set pieces are stunning executed and used with (the action genre's version of) restraint.

"You gonna jump or jerk off?"

Bonus #3! The line.

"I'm not going to paddle to New Zealand"

Bliss.

| by Bel | 2.58pm NZ time |

Favourite action film

Leon: The Professional

"I’ve decided what to do with my life. I wanna be a cleaner."

The corrupt cop. The assassin with the heart of gold. And the young girl set on vengeance.

Not just an action film, Leon is also a romance. Between a man and his peace lily. Between a girl and the father she never had. Between the screen of your TV and some sweet slow motion shootout scenes.

After Natalie Portman won her Oscar this year, I saw a tweet asking "So when do we get to see Mathilde: The Professional?". GOOD CALL.