I enjoyed Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman -- in fact, I often enjoy architecture documentaries. I wonder why there seem to be so many of them, compared to other professions? While there are a couple of fashion designer docos in this festival, where are the documentaries on Aunt Daisy, or Allison Holst? I could imagine an ( Read more... )

Animation For Kids had plenty of cute films -- which is why I went -- but nothing outstanding that made me go, "Whoa." A couple of good music videos, one by They Might Be Giants about not going to work (apparently part of a podcast? need to investigate), and one called "Hello Antenna" that was hoping that the music and video would be a good enough ( Read more... )

There's a few more things to say about Dogtooth, I think. For example, the scenario seems unbelievable, but that kind of situation could just creep up. For example, if the father had some odd ideas about education and home-schooling; once he managed to convince the mother to stay at home, she'd no longer have any external feedback to tell her how ( Read more... )

I overheard someone describe Camino as "melodramatic"; I think that's a fair call, but I don't see it as necessarily derogatory. I would agree that the film definitely knows who it wants you to sympathise with, and is unashamed to tell you so; but sometimes I don't want to spend mental energy deciding which shade of grey I support, and just want ( Read more... )

Tulpan was the story of a sailor who dreamed of the steppes, who had a romantic idea of what a great life he would have as a herder, if only he could get a flock to get started. And the key to convincing Comrade Boss to give him a herd is to get married; and the only girl on the steppes is Tulpan, who thinks his ears are too big, and dreams of ( Read more... )

I lost a whole day of reviews (and an hour or two of writing) by trying to look up a trivial detail on Google. I went to bed, and this is my attempt to recreate them the next day. Believe me, the originals were much more awesome. :)

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One of the first things that sprang into my head, thinking back on Wendy & Lucy, was, "I wonder whether they ( Read more... )

I've had to make a last-minute change to my itinerary, since I managed to mess about at home so long (note the time of my previous posting) that I was only going to make it to Looking to Eric if I was excessively lucky in my buses. Unfortunately, I managed to just miss a bus, and the bus that I did get derailed; and I was reluctant to go into a ( Read more... )

Every Little Step was essentially a sports film, in the same sense that Spellbound was a sports film. It watched a group of contestants as they were whittled down from thousands to tens, and then to the individual cast members of "A Chorus Line", which is a musical about actors auditioning to get into the chorus of a musical, telling their stories ( Read more... )

One of the disadvantages of writing up films on the same day as I watch them is that I don't have a lot of time to mull them over.

For example, I've been thinking about Zift (and film noir in general), and the way that the style (if not the content) reminds me of folktales.  There's the whole stylised plot thing, and the way that there are stock ( Read more... )

I feel I should point out that C doesn't constantly come up with My Girl references in the course of daily life. It's just come up twice during the Festival. Maybe I should watch the movie.

Something else random that I've been thinking while waiting for the bus; has there ever, in the history of the world, been a medical practitioner of any kind ( Read more... )