Okay, so I’m blogging this outside of the impending March rant, cos, just in case anyone actually reads my blog, I thought It would be nice to plug the Australian Film Festival before it finishes. It ends this weekend, 13th of March, so if you don’t have plans tonight, tomorrow night, the night after that and that… you should seriously consider seeing a flick at the Randwick Ritz. The festival is only 2 years old, and It’s super super cute, screening a gorgeous collection of old and new aussie flicks. A) aussie flicks get a bad wrap and people need to cut them some slack and actually go see them, B) some independent aussie flicks are really, really cool and you should see them first at rad little festivals like this one. All the films are $13, which isn’t too bad and the Ritz is a super lovely place to see a film, and you can take your drinks in, which is just so damn civilized and lovely. Check out australianfilmfestival.com.au and bookings are at www.ritzcinema.com.au or, for the fake-bookers, facebook.com/australianfilmfestival It’s really nice cos our stories are really important, and sometimes they’re really good, and we need to celebrate them, plus, support our budding film-makers. It is important to tell some stories here and keep some of our talent here too.
So I went along to see Bad Behaviour a rad little Aussie horror film by first time director Joseph Sims. It’s great. Sims has done a great job, on very little money. It’s hilariously funny. Has wit, charm, gore, suspense, surprises, and plenty of truth and honesty and thoughtful-ness to counter or complement the genre-ness. There are moments where you’re laughing and hooting and clapping at the gore and moments where you’re really genuinely moved/disturbed/upset by the happenings. What I’m trying to say is, It’s a lot of fun, and is a bit B grade (in a wonderful way) but you really do feel the pain of the murders and the grief and the loss and complexity of everything in amongst the silly. There are a bunch of kid (as in year 12 student) characters, that are written really well, and really felt like actual kids, that I knew/know&was. It’s not often kid characters get really interesting dialogue and actual distinguishableness and complexity. I think the complexity of the characters is what I liked the most, the women in particular. Georgina Symes (I can’t remember the character name, sorry) played a fascinating, possibly accidental, victim of Peterson (played hauntingly by Lindsay Farris.) There is a scene in a diner, where she drinks tea with her lover, and she completely holds her own and is in utter control, then her lover exits and she begins to flirt with Peterson and is a complete wreck. Seeing the shift in her control was fascinating and so much more 3D and complex than females-in-horror-films are usually allowed to be. Symes’ performance is rad, and, as I started to mention in my bracket, Farris is spellbinding. He’s so fucking watchable, every movement on his face is interesting. He’s terrifying, he’s sexy, he speaks French better than the character that’s supposed to be French, he’s vulnerable, but he’s also real, despite everything horrific you see him do, you still kind of like him. That’s fucking acting for you. I’ve been waiting far too fucking long to see Farris become the star he deserves to be, and, hopefully, this film will finally be his vehicle, it damn well should be. The film rocks and so does Farris. John Jarratt also does some great work as the cop/dad/husband/all-round-good-guy. And Jean Kittson was just gorgeous. So So fun to see Roger Ward too, he brought gorgeous Aussie genre charm to it and he nailed the big-bad schtick perfectly. In short, the film is well written, well acted, well directed and a lot of fucking fun so I really got the shits, when, in the Q&A after the flick, some git (who happened to be Lisa Gormley, cos I know my Sydney actors cos I’ve a good memory) decided to ask John Jarratt, twice, what value he saw in the film, she insinuated it wasn’t a worthy project, and basically said it had no truth or heart (which it did, or she wasn’t watching the same film as me.) Well, I’d like to know what truth she sees in her current job, (Home and fucking Away) and I’d like to know why, at every fucking Q&A I’ve ever been to, there’s always some twirp that feels the need to undermine the thing they’ve just seen. Why do they get off on this? What does it achieve? It just makes the room feel awkward and the artist feel like shit. Jarratt handled her crap well and responded: “for me it was the script, the script, the script.” Meanwhile, speaking of the script, gotta put lesbian-content hat on again. Surprise, surprise, there’s no lesbians in the film, I was talking to a guy at the bar afterwards who said that lesbians are tricky in genre, cos if you’re going to put them in, then genre rules say it has to be gratuitous and tacky, and so a lesbian such as myself would never be satisfied by horror film lesbians… well, I tend to find something’s more fun than nothing and why can’t we fuck with genre a little and shake up all the everyone-but-virgins-must-die crap? I’m sure we could re-write a few rules? Surely… Anyway, I segued here via script, cos lesbians do exist in the universe of this film cos they’re talked about. There’s an odd bit of dialogue about a dyke Tshirt, that one girl wants another girl to bring to the party. Not sure if she ever makes it to the party, we don’t see the dyke shirt anyway… Anyway, I didn’t really know what to make of the dialogue. It made me feel other, and not included, like I’d not have been welcome at the party… but maybe I’m too sensitive. Otherwise though, the film does great visibility things. Lots of characters with different backgrounds and ethnicities, well not lots I guess, but more variety than you usually see. Mostly, It’s a cool film. Go see it when it gets a release:
Love,
Ridiculous.
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