Lightning in a Bottle

This documentary was the perfect post script to The Blues that I saw recently, it is basically a recording of all the artists playing on stage.

Wonderful performances.

The Man who Stole my Mothers Face.

A documentary journalling a mother reconstructing her life after a brutal rape and assault, and her daughters fight for justice.

Both mother and daughter was available for Q&A afterwards.

A very powerful, moving and uplifting film.

Intergalactic 5555

(This was a replacement for _Phil the Alien_)

There is a movie god and she loves me. I bought the _Daft Punk_ album (that is the sound track of this movie) based on the accompanying clips which reminded me so much of _Ulysses_.

The movie is lovely animated with all the stereotypes, it was magical.

Crimson Gold

The reaction of a poor, depressive Iranian who rubs up against rich people in his daily job as a pizza delivery guy.

The ending of the film is shown at the start, and it’s an interesting exercise in character development.

Most rich folk want nothing to do with him, but that doesn’t stop him treating them with respect. When he comes across one rich person who treats him with great respect, he decides to take his frustrations out on someone who didn’t, with tragic consequences.

There are lots of funny and quaint moments in the film.

Greendale, or Neil Young does a Movie.

I don’t feel comfortable talking about artistic films, it’s the old `I only know what I like’; but this is a blog, so here goes.

This a musical exploring the internal effects on Americans of post September eleventh politics.

Overall the film worked for me, like a cat doing figures of eight around my legs the leftist propaganda kept me warm; it was always going to be one sided.

He has the perfect voice for this sort of work, slipping between lines of dialogue and lyrics, I never tired of him. The only disappointing bit was the ending, where it turned into an old Hollywood musical ending.

I never really twigged where the devil had come from, or what his interest was in this one family.

Shouf Shouf Habibi! (Hush Hush Baby!)

The clash of cultures when a Moroccan family move to Holland. There’s the daughter who doesn’t want to marry in an arranged way, and the son who can’t fit into Holland, but also discovers difficulty fitting in back home.

A serious film with many funny moments, or a funny film with many serious moments? The director is constantly yanking the audience in both directions in a _Bend it like Beckham_ style.

Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story

There’s an odd mail order industry in the states, send it any crappy old lyrics and professional musicians will sing them and add backing music.

This film interviews the musicians, the collectors, and some of the more odd writers. It’s mostly very funny, and very eclectic. It’s touching at times to, as for some of these people, it’s their only way of expressing themselves.

There’s some great live performances where you see bizarre lyrics turned into, uh, music, right before your eyes.

It was great seeing the reactions of the writers to the finished product.

I don’t understand how anyone makes any money out of this.

War at a Distance

This is like a dumbed down, doped up version of an anti-tech. documentary that you’d expect from a lobotomised unabomber.

It completely ignored any benefits of the technology it was lambasting, and failed to actually firmly connect a link between modern production mechanisms and the war machine.

The repeated use of film clips was particularly irritating.

There were some clips of interesting technology in use.

The Lost Film

A short documentary about a couple of Lebanese film makers trying to discover what happened to their film they sent to Yemen for release a decade ago.

Overall it was pretty lame, there’s some really pathetic clutching at straws to add drama, and the ironic ending couldn’t save the film at all.

Some interesting insights into Yemeny history, culture and politics.

Prey for Rock & Roll

This is a fun romp through the lives of an all female rock group, my favourite slice of the genre.

Most of the movie is fairly gritty, but very bizarre in places with the mix of personalities.