MIFFed

[thorfinn]

Well, MIFF started yesterday. Wish I had the ability to take two weeks off and see the lot, but I can't really afford to do so right now. C'est la vie. Anyway, here's my session times:

1. Session Date: 24 Jul 03 7:15 PM
   Intro by Filmmaker CONTRAPTIONS (80) - 4004
2. Session Date: 26 Jul 03 5:00 PM
   COME DRINK WITH ME (94) - 1015
3. Session Date: 26 Jul 03 9:15 PM
   DEMONLOVER (120) - 2017
4. Session Date: 27 Jul 03 7:00 PM
   KAIDOHMARU (50) INTERSTELLA 5555 (67) - 4023
5. Session Date: 31 Jul 03 8:00 PM
   NOSFERATU (80) - 6043
6. Session Date: 1 Aug 03 11:15 PM
   PARASITE DOLLS (85) - 5050
7. Session Date: 2 Aug 03 3:00 PM
   BOLEXBROTHERSWORLD (95) - 3053
8. Session Date: 7 Aug 03 9:00 PM
   VIRGIN OF LUST (140) - 3083
9. Session Date: 8 Aug 03 7:05 PM
   SHAOLIN SOCCER (87) - 5087
10. Session Date: 10 Aug 03 7:15 PM
    TOKYO EXPRESS 03 (96) - 4101

Review of Contraptions

Well, this was a two-fold series of shorts... Bruce Petty "Human Contraptions", a series of ten animated commentaries on various human societal contraptions, such as "Law", "Finance", "Art", etc. Shown also were six Wallace and Gromit "Cracking Contraptions" shorts... An awful lot of people seemed to come out saying, "Well, I was here for the Wallace and Grommet, but geez the other thing rocked." I must agree.

I presume that Human Contraptions will be shown on the ABC in those "five minute filler" slots that they have, since the production was sponsored by the ABC and Film Australia. I highly recommend catching them if you can. I think they manage to strike an amazing balance between summarising and explaining the area using simple line drawn animations, and referencing all the fine details and problems in the subject area for those that already know. Brilliant, definitely. And Andrew Denton is great as the sarcastic voiced narrator.

And regarding the "Cracking Contraptions"... I've known too many programmers just like Wallace. They have this ordinary looking problem that they want to solve, so they throw some code together with the first idea that leaps to mind... of course, the first idea never solves the original problem, so what they then do is think of the first idea they have to solve the problem of "okay, we've got to here, so now we've got this other problem, and we can go this way to get to the original problem", then throw some more code at the problem. At no point in this process do they ever stop and say, "Err, wait a minute. This is getting more and more baroque, and 90 percent of our code is solving problems we've created for ourselves..." And that's where Wallace's Cracking Contraptions start... and watching them in "action" for their first test run, and watching poor Gromit deal with the consequences is funny, although painful.

Comments

Extra Session Tonight!

[lukeii.livejournal.com]

Come and see Cala My Dog! tonight at 9pm, Greater Union. It's a really fun and interesting film!

I'll be there!

-Luke

[frou-frou.livejournal.com]

we're seeing Virgin of Lust at the other session and you'll see drzero at Shaolin Soccer - and we have two tickets going spare for your session of Demonlover if you know anyone who wants them: we've got a party that night so will reschedule.

ah, the joys of season passes...