georgia rule

georgia rule
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Awesome letter from Morgan Creek to Lindsay! Although if she's suffering from heat exhaustion, not sure it's a good idea to send her a rude letter - it just may cause a relapse.
Posted courtesy of Ben Barren

MIFF: Second Instalment

The run is likely to end soon, but 6 films into MIFF this year and I haven't disliked a film yet!

United 93 - the Paul Greengrass S11 film was compelling and interesting - although a work of fiction based on historical events, it certainly has the air of truth about it, helped by many people playing themselves (air traffic controllers, bureaucrats, etc). An interesting film, well worth seeing.

Invisible Waves - set in Hong Kong and China, the lead character is a Japanese man and the dialogue is about 50% in heavily accented English. It is sort of a gangster film sort of a revenge movie and sort of a comedy. And it's shot by Christopher Doyle, so of course there are plenty of beautiful, slow shots. I liked it quite a lot actually, but I can see others finding it pretentious and/or boring.

Thank You For Smoking - funny, smart, slick. And a genuinely independent (ie. non-studio) film. Introduced by the director, Jason Reitman, who also did a Q&A afterwards (at which I asked a question). Recommended - a lot of fun.

Once in a Lifetime - doco about a New York soccer team in the 70s and 80s - a mogul developed an interest in soccer and recruited superstars to join a new team he formed as part of a tiny pro-soccer league. A great subject, some great interviewees but not a particularly well-made film. Enjoyable nevertheless.

I missed A Scanner Darkly due to a blinding headache yesterday, but am looking forward to seeing it at the second screening.

First Day of MIFF

After the opening night film Wednesday, the Melbourne International Film Festival got down to business yesterday ...

Saw my first 2 films:
Deliver Us From Evil - a really good (but hard to watch) doco about pedophiles in the Catholic clergy and efforts to have the Church publicly acknowledge the issue. It centred around an interview with a truly evil man - a priest who abused kids for about 30 years (with the apparent knowledge of his superiors in the Church). My only real concern about the film was that it gave so much airtime to this man, who seemed to relish reliving his crimes.

Luxury Car - the winner of the Un Certin Regard section of the Cannes festival this year. It is a Chinese film about the widening cultural gulf between the old and the young and the urban and the rural and also about the mix of Communism and Capitalism in contemporary China. I liked it. It was 88 minutes, which definitely helped, and beautifully shot - which also helped. It really felt like a window into issues in contemporary China. Worth seeing.

fascinating insights into business strategy

Met with a couple of wannabe-entrepreneurs yesterday who are working on setting up a business and wanted some advice on protecting and commercialising their idea. In the course of the meeting, I threw out a couple of fairly standard lines such as the one about always build a business assuming that it will face smart, well-resourced competition and the one about instead of focusing obsessively on secrecy and IP protection, it will generally prove more successful to focus your efforts primarily on executing as well as humanly possible.

They sat there and wrote down every word. I forget sometimes how so many business-people and prospective business-people have never heard or understood these sorts of "insights". I guess that's why people pay consultants.

So often a primary focus of people starting businesses is on protecting their valuable secrets. In reality, ideas are a dime a dozen. If you come up with a great idea, the safest bet is to assume others will also (independently and in a way that cannot be challenged) come up with the same idea and to simply focus on executing the hell out of it.

In other news, MIFF starts later this week. Be there.

Fairly random thoughts on films

Is it just me, or do the ads for the new film Little Man look almost supernaturally unfunny. I would not see it unless I was tied down and my eyes held open (clockwork orange style).

Rewatched Kill Bill 2 last night. Even better than I remembered it - Tarantino is almost a parody of himself at times, but he does it better than anyone else. And everything about the film is so ridiculously overdone - and it all works.

Geez I hope A Scanner Darkly is as good as I want it to be. Which is a surefire recipe for disappointment. I'm a bit concerned that the film isn't based on the Charlie Kaufman script - his script was very faithful to the book and I thought would have worked well - not sure what Linklater's script will be like. Anyway, I'll find out at the Melbourne Film Festival in a couple of weeks.

gnoos update

A rainy Saturday in Melbourne...

Just had a coffee with Ben Barren from gnoos. It's looking (very) good for Ben and Mike - traffic numbers are great (and trending up) and there are some exciting developments coming up at the site and for its sister businesses.

The World Cup and the turkeyslap have been milestone events in gnoos' short life... What will be the next great Aussie drama to spark the country's imagination ??

In the meantime, gnoos has been scoring some great coverage - a couple of recent mainstream media articles have linked through to gnoos as a window to what Aussie bloggers are thinking about an issue.

Drained!

It's been too long between drinks! I can't believe my last post was about the BB controversy - it feels like that was years ago!

Just back in Chambers after settling a case down at the Magistrates Court - I was up most of the night preparing because I was stuck at a mediation (which I also settled) yesterday that dragged on until well after 7.

Very excited about MIFF coming up - I organised my Festival Passport months ago and now the Guide's out I've been booking tickets to films. Looks like there'll be some great stuff. Looking forward to A Scanner Darkly, Sympathy For The Devil, Thank You For Smoking, Once in a Lifetime, The Sun, Wassup Rockers, Iraq in Fragments, A Bittersweet Life, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, Rats and Cats, Three Times, Jonestown, Seven Swords, Rock The Bells, The Book of Revelation, 13 Tzameti, Em 4 Jay and many more!

My two cents on John and Ashley (apologies to people sick of Big Brother)

For those who've been hiding under a rock, two housemates - John and Ashley - were kicked out of the Australian Big Brother house over the weekend for an incident involving Camilla in which sexual misconduct occurred.

I heard the audio of the incident on radio this morning - it is apparent that Camilla was 'playing along'. But that does not make it ok. There is a huge amount of pressure in the BB house to "be a good bloke" and every season the guys seem to set the social agenda and the rules of engagement. And of course we don't live in the nineteenth century - girls can encourage male attention if they want to!

The bottom line is - and must remain - unwanted or non-consensual sexual behaviour is never ok. It's not just a laugh or harmless mischief or boys being boys. It's not ok. John and Ashley had to go - and should have been removed far sooner.

I was disturbed, also, by the reaction of the house (at least as shown on tv). There was plenty of sympathy for the guys in getting kicked out, which I understand - they appear to have blundered into sexually inappropriate behaviour through stupidity rather than malice - but where was the genuine sympathy for Camilla for having been subjected to the behaviour?

I promise

I promise this will be my last Survivor post for quite some time, but I couldn't resist commenting on Lucas' list of Survivor All-Stars.

• Stephanie: a solid choice, but with a personality a little wooden for my tastes.
• Andrew Savage: good call.
• Rob Cesternino: yeah. He was funny at the time, but pales into insignificance compared to some of the other true characters.
• Jenna: I dispute the sexy call, but otherwise agree. Initially I thought she was unworthy as a series winner but I happily admit I was wrong - she was a far stronger competitor than she appeared to be : an excellent quality on Survivor
• Ian and Coby: interesting ...
• Rafe: good call. An excellent competitor.
• Rob Mariano: too straight-up nasty to make my list. But undoubtedly an interesting character.
• Twila: a weak choice at number 18.

Hey Lucas - Robb selected himself - what were you thinking having him as an apology!! Ditto for Matthew.