Video in which a quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog:
Funny or Die has stand-up in Jabba’s palace…
Competition-winning Star Wars fan-film: hot chicks fight with lightsabers. How could it not win? Made by the featured women; interview with them here.
Cute things falling asleep
45 notable statues – how many have you seen?
15 secret service buildings – how many have you seen?
Writers! Submit to Modern Drunkard Magazine! “We’re looking for stories with a positive view of drinking — if we wanted boo-hoo ballyhoo we’d go to an AA meeting.”
100 things your kids won’t know about. Apart from a weird reference to the nanny state, this is quite astute.
Open Parachute explains how you tell a genuine scientific controversy from a media work-up.
Reading the Maps visits Samoa – well worth the read for every citizen of the Pacific.
A Slovenian Choir does Toto’s Africa a capella, in Africa:
And finally… Why must I cry. It’s been around a few years but I’ve only just seen this. And… man. I actually started really caring about the guy. man what
When Sick, Observe Who
Despite having a long list of things to do, I just couldn’t clear my head yesterday enough to do any of them. So I went to the DVD rack and watched a Doctor Who story I’ve never seen before: “The Sea Devils” starring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor. It was exactly the right sort of thing to be watching when home sick, because it didn’t make the slightest bit of sense but had lots of running around and some amusing stunts.
This, after all, is the reason why I’ve been slowly building up a collection of Doctor Who videos and DVDs – for sick days. Ahhh, lovely.
Anyway. Feeling much better today so going to try and do things. THINGS.
Voting Yes
I’ve got a cold. It is stupid.
Voted today on the citizen’s referendum about the parental right to smack children.
To the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand”, I voted Yes. I won’t explain my rationale, because the estimable BK Drinkwater has already given his and he puts it better than I could.
Final Flim Fevistal
Rounded off our NZ Flim Fevistal experience with two more flicks:
Rachel (France/Belgium, 2009)
A doco investigating the death of American protester Rachel Corrie in Palestine, “from an Israeli point of view”. Made by Simone Britton, a Moroccan-French Jew who spent years in Israel. Corrie was a member of the International Solidarity Movement protesting the Israeli occupation in Palestine, and died under a bulldozer. The Israeli Defence Force has claimed that it was an accidental death; the protesters claim it was deliberate. Britton’s investigation doesn’t establish clearly one or the other, but does seriously undermine the IDF position. Mostly, however, the film works to contextualize Corrie’s actions, and make sense of the ISM. Corrie comes out looking both pragmatic and compassionate; Britton juxtaposes Corrie’s written description of her empathy for the young members of the IDF with a former soldier reflecting on his experiences, clearly haunted by the things he did. It’s a good film; everyone gets to speak for themselves. I recommend this excellent interview with Britton, by Andrew O’Hehir at Salon.
Everlasting Moments (Sweden, 2008)
Based-on-true-story account tracking a Swedish family from 1907-1917, centred on the formidable wife and mother Maria Larsson, who wins a camera in a lottery and slowly works out what it can offer her. It steers clear of expectation, avoiding easy resolutions to emotional or narrative dilemmas; it is imagined more gently and more responsibly than that. It’s a great film, frequently funny, more often touching, and above all beautiful – the cinematography has been getting a lot of attention and deservedly so, it all looks incredible. (Like all the best films, it made me think – in particular about the transformational power of the camera, what it means for our experience of life that images can be captured and kept; and how transformational this last century has been, that such images are now so omnipresent.)
Linky For The True Cool
Take a load off, drink some Slow Cow, and settle in for some more linky on a Friday…
“Not sure what these are, they are too heavy to float but they look like surf boards…”
Everyone’s been having some fun with Sarah Palin’s see-ya-folks address. You should have seen Shatner’s poetry reading already (google it, it keeps getting taken down but there’ll be copies around) – also worth a look is this editing pass from Vanity Fair… (via the ‘gator)
Barbershop Star Wars
Huge scale model of Shanghai
Emails from Crazy People
Adam Curtis’s new doco, It Felt Like A Kiss, in its entirety but obviously without the live-action interactive experience in which it was originally embedded.
And finally, more from Aaron – it’s Doc Bottoms all-over body spray deodorant. Bleah.
Paula Bennett’s Privacy
Latest political drama convulsing its way through the NZ political commentariat: the new Social Development Minister, Paula Bennett, has responded to criticism by violating the privacy of the critics.
Bennett announced the end of the Training Incentive Allowance, a payment given to beneficiaries going into study, the premise of course being that if they complete their study they’ll get off unemployment and into work. Two women receiving the TIA protested. The response from the Ministerial office was to hand to the media the particular details of the welfare payments received by these two women.
It’s an obvious diversionary tactic. While Bennett claimed that she just wanted to get all the information out there, this move was obviously designed to discredit the complainants. Sure enough, the talkback masses have leapt to the attack, saying that they have every right to know all the details about these dole bludgers and the tax money they receive.
We’re a long way from Mickey Savage‘s welfare state here. Much of NZ has adopted a framing of society that asserts the individual is the only meaningful unit on analysis; therefore, tax is theft, and social welfare programmes are morally irresponsible. This body is the current government’s core constituency, and this framing of society is the one they promote. Producing with such fanfare the welfare records of these women is more or less throwing them to the wolves, and expecting that the baying of the hounds will drown out their protests.
(Sharing this information is also illegal. Bennett’s parliamentary office staff will be in for some serious bollocking, I’m sure.)
Mostly, though, I think Paula Bennett just hasn’t thought any of this through. I actually believe her most recent comments, that she hates how personalised and ugly the debate has become. She wanted it to be personalised, of course, but she’s surprised by the venom she has unleashed, by the dirty psychology that has been exposed on every talkback radio station. Perhaps she senses now what sits underneath her party rhetoric; perhaps she will realise the extent to which her own worldview has been sold…
“She certainly put her viewpoint forward on how hard it will be for her to study next year. She had a compelling argument actually,” Bennett said.
…but probably not. The ability to reconcile to our own satisfaction the inconsistencies in our positions, between our professed beliefs and our behaviour, is the most precious skill of the political class. Even if she did think an apology was appropriate, she has clearly been directed from above not to offer one. Paula Bennett will likely learn nothing more from this than that she should surround herself with less-foolish advisors.
See also: Kiwipolitico on Uncitizens, David Slack at Public Address and the ensuing discussion
There is no rescission in NZ
Rescission, in the insurance industry, is the practice of voiding the contract between the insurer and the policyholder when the policyholder would otherwise be due some money. I’ve been watching horrible tales of this practice in the US for a while and smugly telling people that we don’t have those problems here in NZ.
Well, our health insurers have learnt some lessons from the US apparently. Terminally ill Wayne Croft has had his policy cancelled because (the insurer alleges) he didn’t declare some pre-existing health conditions (all of which are minor, none of which relate to his cancer at all). Croft says he never tried to hide anything and did his best to be upfront. The icing on this sad cake is that Croft only recently switched insurers, because he was promised a better deal at Sovereign than he had at the other place where he had initially taken out insurance as an 18-year-old.
Crucial difference between here and the US: our public health system is still intact. That doesn’t make this any less reprehensible.
It’s clear to me that the insurer bears much more responsibility than they’re prepared to admit. They have all the power in the relationship, and that should properly impose responsibilities upon them. One form with a “declarations” box is simply not sufficient to claim due diligence has been performed, not when the stakes are this high for the policyholder. Forms are distinctly user-unfriendly, and lend themselves to distortion and omission even with goodwill and diligence. Sovereign has acted appallingly, and I hope the NZ public send a clear message to Sovereign and the health insurance industry that this is not acceptable behaviour in this country.
(It was satisfying to watch John Campbell go attack-dog on the Sovereign rep on his show last night. I watch Campbell about once a year, if that, and this was a good night to pick.)
Balibo (Australia, 2009)
Third on my flim fevistal slate was Balibo, an Australian dramatisation of the Balibo Five story, and the efforts of subsequent journalist Roger East to uncover the truth.
The Balibo Five are far less well-known than they should be. Basically, they were Australian TV journalists (including one Kiwi) who went into East Timor to document the Indonesian invasion, and were executed when captured by Indonesian forces.
It was an intense film, playing out like a thriller but of course the horrible events depicted were real. Very effectively made, excellent performances, stunning location cinematography (it is, says wikipedia, the first film ever made in East TImor). The only thing that struck a bum note to me was the final fate of Roger East, which did not feel of a piece with the rest of the film; the way it was edited and cut together changed register into melodrama, when the events themselves didn’t need any help. But this is a small criticism only.
The film only had its world premiere a few days ago at the Melbourne fest, where current East Timor president Jose Horta was in attendance. The younger version of Jose is one of the main characters in the film, and it’s a depiction that isn’t entirely flattering. It deserved his presence, though; this film is intended to raise awareness of the depicted events. Film has the power to make stories like this catch in the imagination; I’m going to remember this film much more vividly than I ever remembered the details that I read in various articles a decade ago. This film can only help bring wider understanding of the events of 1975 and the consequences for the region.
An excellent film. Though I’m ready for a happy NZFF flick now plz.
Flim Fevistal
Frist movies at the flim fevistal this weekend gone. By a weird quirk of fate they were both highly naturalistic films about the consequences of poverty in the Western world, and both titled Name and Name.
Wendy and Lucy (USA, 2008)
Wendy is a young woman. Lucy is a dog. Wendy has very little money and is trying to get to Alaska. Dog goes missing. It’s sad and carefully observed, with almost no plot – it’s all about character and situation and, just quietly, the wider picture of a society where money no longer flows. There’s an admirable economy of backstory – you hear one phone conversation with Wendy’s family, who aren’t very supportive; she flips through a photo album hurriedly and you glimpse a photo of a baby. The focus stays firmly on the present. It’s a good film.
Samson and Delilah (Australia, 2009)
Samson and Delilah are aborigine kids living in a tiny community some distance from Alice Springs. The movie tracks their courtship, which is the strong thread that makes it bearable as they cope with a society that offers them nothing. The film is almost wordless, occasionally shocking, and impossible to resist. Another good ‘un.
LINK LUNK
(It’s my aunt’s birthday today, happy birthday to you!)
This is a short trip through rap music from 30 different countries and almost as many languages. It’s interesting, even though it isn’t mixed and summing up an entire nation’s tradition of hip-hop in a three-second clip has obvious limitations. Worth a look just to remind yourself of the global appeal of talking over a beat.
Also, a goofy rap over the Harry Potter film trailer. Heh.
The highly respected Architect’s Journal does Top 10 Comic-book cities.
Post-it note stories: Man not Superman. (Someone twittered this. Stephen Judd maybe? Er.
Heaps of pop-culture riffs on da Vinci’s Last Supper.
44 end-of-the-world prophecies that didn’t happen.
The Second Pass identifies ten classic books that you shouldn’t bother reading.
CG at Sleep Dep has been turning out great weird little fiction/humour things for a while now. I particularly like the latest one: a promotional brochure for DadCo.
CG is also involved in The Event, a collab fiction with five writers detailing what happens to five different characters as some great event affects their city.
And finally… it’s the interactivity of it that I love… Small things eating Big things