Max

Just bought this great new app for the iPhone called Camera Bag. Really just has some pre-made effects but they’re of a reasonably high quality & good fun to use.

Here’s a pic of Max using the ‘Helga’ setting:

Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games”

Funny Games

It’s not very often that I’ll walk out of a film.

It takes a lot. I even stayed to the end of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, a decision I truly regret and wish I’d taken Leanne’s lead by curling up in the chair and grabbing some sleep. I can only attribute this unwarranted tenaciousness to childhood sentimentality for the original films, but it’s still a couple of hours I’ll never get back.

Tonight Leanne & I went to see “Funny Games”, a film directed by Austrian director Michael Haneke. It’s actually a remake of a film he made back in 1997 though this time with an English speaking cast. Haneke’s name wasn’t familiar to me, but I found out after we returned home that he’d directed a film called Caché (renamed to it’s English translation, Hidden, here in Australia) starring Daniel Auteuil & Juliette Binoche. I only recently saw Caché and really liked it – a good, slow burning film with lots of layers to it. It’s probably a good thing that I didn’t know he’d directed this film beforehand, as it would have raised my expectations substantially and that would have meant a harder fall.

We had no idea as to the plot of the film and only realised just before the film began that we were about to see some kind of psychological horror flick. Ordinarily Leanne wouldn’t voluntarily go to this genre of film, but we decided to see how it would pan out. It begins quite well, and without giving anything away it very cleverly manages to unnerve you at the outset so that you’re already pretty unsettled before the film gets going.

Sadly, that was about as good as it got for me. I found that even with the calibre of actors like Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, the film really struggled. The acting was a bit wooden (perhaps due to Haneke’s insistence that the film was to be made almost exactly like the original, shot for shot, actors in positioned the same spot as the original version for each scene etc, which hardly lends itself to creative insight), the dialogue was dire, and I couldn’t stand Michael Pitt & Brady Corbet who were totally unconvincing in their roles. They were way too preppy without enough depth of character to carry it off, and were almost lazy in their approach to their roles and yet at the same time seemed to try way too hard.

We lasted about 35 minutes before we’d had enough, which was probably about 20 minutes longer than we should have waited but we wanted to be sure we’d given it enough of a chance.

It turns out (upon some post-film research) that Haneke’s intention is to point a finger at that segment of the American market that enjoy films based on their level of gratuitous violence. This film was supposed to be a counterpoint to these films both by withholding the very thing that the audience came to see (i.e. graphic violence) as well as demonstrating that violence is neither entertaining or trivial.

Yawn.

Really? Did he think that those of us who already understand this needed to be told? And does he think that those poised at the lowest common denominator of said audience would either be remotely interested or even understand his oh so cleverly allusive cryptogram? Come on, that just seems so…well, arrogant, doesn’t it? If he’s as clever as he’s supposed to be, he already knows that the bunch of adolescents in the back row of [insert your local multiplex here] in anywhere USA will only walk out of this film feeling either ripped off, confused or, most probably, both. So to the rest of us, then, he’s just preaching. Urrrggghh.

Seriously, don’t bother with this film. It’s neither clever nor suspenseful, either of which Haneke would have you believe – depending on who you are.

A better way to use Twitter

I neglected to mention this in my post about Twitter the other day. I didn’t like the idea of having to open up a web browser every time I want to either Twitter myself or catch up on everyone else’s Twitters. That’s too much like hard work & just gets in the way of it. Luckily, there are a couple of Twitter clients around that you can run on your computer just like Windows Messenger/Skype etc. That way you can just leave them in the corner of your screen and either enter a quick post yourself should the mood take you, or keep an eye on other people’s Twitters.

One of the really great ones is Spaz, an open-source (i.e. FREE) application, and this is the one I’m using. You’ll need Adobe’s AIR installed, but it can all be installed at the same time with one click, and is very quick to download.

Hope to see more of you on there!

Chris

Things that don’t make sense in movies

Why don’t prisons put security cameras behind a transparent panel so that prisoners can’t keep smashing them to bits every time they don’t want the guards to see what they’re doing?

A change is as good as a blah blah blah…

So I’ve gone with a new theme for the blog, I think in the hope that it may somehow inspire me to start posting more regularly again. Plus it’s cool to have a new look.

What’s strange is that while I’m pondering on how little time I get to post here as it is, not a few hours ago I set myself up with a new Twitter account. Yes, I’ve succumbed. I’ve heard so much about Twitter that I decided I’d have to try it out – it is free, so I can always cancel if I don’t like/use it. And I like the idea that you’re restricted to 140 characters per message, so it’s always going to be really quick to throw up a new txt. Quick is good.

Sadly, after importing 140 contacts from my Gmail account, Simon Chapman is the only person I know with a Twitter account! Maybe it’s not as big over here as it is in the US. A lot of the talk I hear about it is on US podcasts I subscribe to. In the US it’s massive, amongst the biggest of the social networking platforms in terms of users. Perhaps it’ll catch on here later – Facebook had been running for a while before anyone I knew over here began to use it.

For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is, it’s a way to post up a really quick note about what you’re up to at that moment. The idea is that your circle of friends can just check in on you periodically throughout the day to see what you’re doing, kind of like you’re all just hanging out. It’s better than instant messengers like Windows Messenger etc because no one else needs to be connected at the same time. You can just leave a note up and others can catch up on you at their convenience. I think it could be quite cool, but it’s only gonna be fun if a few more people I know sign up. If you’re up for trying it out, it’s free to join. Once you have, just look for my Spank email address to search for me and add me to your list.

Jeebus, 12.30am. Time to drag my weary arse to bed.

Star Wars (Sweded)

A new term for me, to ‘Swede’ a film is essentially to make your own homestyle-version of one that you love.

Check this one out – this is just AWESOME…

The best case I’ve ever heard for taking action against climate change

This is everything I would want to say about climate change. It’s rational, reasonable & well-thought out. Thanks to my brother Andrew for posting this on my Facebook page.

Max at the park

 

Max & Leanne

 

Max on Leanne’s knee