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

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. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

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...

This will hurt me...

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