Tag: Stevo

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Oh Alright Maybe

A flurry of Facebook comments from Stevo and Motorbike Steve about the return of The Walking Dead behooves me to confess that The Goddess and I started watching the second season a while back and got two eps -, no wait, three -, hang on.

… Whoa. Okay. Disappointment in the second season was so deep that it wasn’t even entered into my viewing diary.

I’m as shocked as you are, believe me.

But back to the story. We got however many eps into the season and She turned to me and said what I’d been thinking for all the eps subsequent to the season opener: This is boring. So we stopped.

Michonne and travelling companions (“The Walking Dead” #19).

But Season 3 beckons with the promise of Michonne and the penitentiary arc and… godsdammit, that arc was just mindblowingly awful (but in a good way) that I just have to relive it, and it’s been too, too long since we’ve had a bad-ass no-nonsense African American heroine like Strange Days‘ Mace.

Angela Bassett as Mace in “Strange Days” (1995).

Yeh okay, I’m in.

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International Film Fest Time

he 39th Auckland International Film Festival programme arrived in the mail a couple of days back. It’s that time of year. (A bittersweet moment: Amit Tripuraneni‘s Five wasn’t selected but there’s Francis Glenday‘s Tumanako Springs to catch.)

A perusal of its 152 glossy pages brings back familiar behaviours, namely:

  • excitedly dog-ear-ing a third of the programme because they’re ones that I must see, until –
  • a reality check of limited funds means some serious whittling – I hope I can still live with myself with a new list of twenty or so, and then –
  • I’m gripped by the realisation that family commitments make the idea of leaving either the Goddess and children, or just the children with a babysitter, for even just ten films (or just over thirty hours in total*) is just asking for trouble, until finally –
  • somewhere between three and six sessions are selected and booked.

C’est la vie.

Friend and festival veteran Stevo once sagely advised: use the fest to see something that’s unlikely to return ’cause the big and/or popular productions are bound get general release – and failing that, they’ll eventually make it onto video.

Excellent advice for those with limited funds and/or time.

 

*     Maths in a Minute: based on an average movie running time of 105 minutes, with an additional 90 minutes return-travel and park-finding time – just ten films is a 32.5-hour commitment over the festival’s sixteen-day run.

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