Head

Just a little suggestion for gmail and all the folk who run 'Blogger'. If a guy is in a foreign country and he logs into his Blogger account, it will sometimes come up in the local language - in this case Chinese. There is an option to change languages, but unfortunately it is written in Chinese characters, which are not all that easy to take a stab at. Maybe you could have the language options written in the desired language. It might make things a bit easier.

Ok, enough of that. I went to the Hong Kong International Film Festival last night and saw 'Tuya's Marriage'. It was a pretty good film. I don't want to give away too much about it, so I won't say anything other than that it was worth watching and it's set in Mongolia. Oh, and Hong Kong cinemas need to think about a little thing called 'stadium seating'. Every moviegoer's worst nightmare came true for me last night, when a reasonably tall boofhead sat two rows in front of me. I found myself cursing the invention of hair gel as his spikey do got in the way of my subtitle reading.

It ended up being a bit like, "What are........ here?" "I don't wa............ again." "The killer was..........."

I found myself ducking and weaving like a title fighter in an effort to get around this guy's impressive noggen. He can consider himself lucky I wasn't armed with maltesers. It would've been an easy target.

Simon Scorsese

Here's a film that my mate Simon de Bruyn (and his mates) wrote, shot, cut and scored in under 24 hours. Hey, Chris Nicholls is in there, too! Music is by The Basics. Jeepers, let's hear it for the Monash Berwick students.

Borat

One thing I miss about Australia is the variety of movies that are available to me at any time. There are small, arty farty cinemas all over Melbourne for when you're feeling a bit highbrow. Even big chains like Village have Cinema Europa, and a chance to see something other than a remake of some American TV show that we never got in Australia but we're going to go and see anyway because it's got that girl with the big hooters.

We are not so lucky in Honkers. We get the big films and that is all. There are a lot of overhyped, formulaic loads of garbage so it's nice to finally see that a 'big' film I can enjoy is on the way.

Borat has been in Washington, inviting the likes of 'Premier George Walter Bush' and 'Mel Gibsons' to see his film.

It promises to be a ripper.

Click here for the trailer and here for the article.

The Devil Makes Crap Movies

I consider myself an open-minded and tolerant moviegoer. I'll give just about anything a go and I'll always try to like it, no matter what I my preconceptions about the film are. It was with this attitude that I sat down to watch a little film called 'The Devil Wears Prada'.

I hadn't heard much about the film, Meryl Streep was in it and it had a clever title. I thought to myself, “What could go wrong? It should be a nice little fluffy piece of entertainment to pass a couple of hours. I'm always up for taking the mickey out of fashion people. Hell, this could be a classic in the making.”

Not since 'Batman and Robin' have I been so shocked by a movie's lack of quality. It seems like the filmmakers weren't even trying to make it interesting. There was not one surprise during the whole thing; the dialogue was crappy; the characters were unlikable; it was boring; it was full of “you go girl!” Oprah-style makeover moments that make me want to puke and the worse thing is... other people liked it!

It is generally considered a good movie! I am gobsmacked. Usually my opinions on movies don't stray too far from the norm, but how could anyone (apart from teenage girls) honestly like this movie?

At least film reviewer extraordinaire Roger Ebert didn't like it. He said,

"'The Devil Wears Prada' is being positioned as a movie for grown-ups and others who know what, or who, or when, or where, Prada is. But while watching it I had the uncanny notion that... one of those books from my childhood had been filmed."

Exactly, Rog. It's not exactly a pasting, but close enough. Some of my other favourite reviewers, however, were full of praise. What's wrong with them? It's a kid's movie and not in a 'Toy Story' good way.

My advice to anyone who hasn't seen it yet – stay well away from this well marketed mound of dung. It'll leave a bitter taste in your mouth for days to come. (The movie, not the dung. Although, I guess that wouldn't taste too good either.)