Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.

The sunshine on the water. Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula. January 2011.

What’s that you say? Five questions about motion pictures you sure?

Why sure…

What is your favourite movie of all time and why?

A hard one, as it depends on my mood. If I had to pick a short list, it probably include Unforgiven, The Godfather, Cool Hand Luke, Das Boot, The Life of Brian, Halloween, The Thin Red Line and Three Colours: Red.

One of those, for lots of reasons…

What was the best movie you saw this last year and why?

Toy Story 3. I didn’t get around to seeing a lot of movies last year, but I’m not sure that it matters. Who would have thought that an animation would be filled with such pathos and the tale of a bunch of toys so utterly ’human’?

Who’s your favourite director and why?

Like the favourite anything, it depends! Krzysztof Kieślowski seemed to be a great combination of storyteller with an utterly fantastic eye for a shot. I think that Dekalog is about the best thing ever made with a video camera.

What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?

Halloween. Note to filmmakers: real terror is about what you don’t show, not what you do.

What’s the funniest movie you’ve ever seen?

The Life of Brian is a funny one. It is a hard one though, as inevitably what was hilarious the first time around is ground into dust after it has been copied eight-thousand times. [See: Flying High/Airplane; Top Secret and The Naked Gun…]

The view from the beach set against the ‘dog-line’. Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula. January 2011.

Comments

Kris McCracken said…

GONE!

17 May 2011 at 14:56

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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