The cart before the horse: Addenda to a contribution to Senses of Cinema's 2012 World Poll

Or, everything really is cinema, more or less: part one in an ongoing series

Your humble correspondent pausing
a moment to pose alongside a
prostrate Otesánek, who, doubtless a mite
peckish, is just biding his time...

Senses of Cinema's annual world poll supplement will be posted online early in the new year. Meanwhile, so itching have I been to ensure there's some new content gracing this seemingly moribund blog before year's end, and so eager to expand, especially illustratively, upon some of the arguably more fanciful aspects of what I've contributed to Senses of Cinema's latest poll, with particular respect to claims towards the everything-is-cinema-ness of all things, that, well... here we are!

Some of what follows – whether for better or for worse, I cannot say – will adopt certain of the characteristics of a travelogue. This is somewhat unavoidable as this post's central cases in point were the stuff of recent adventures abroad, for, not so terribly long ago, I was summoned to my beloved city of Prague to sit on a jury at Mezipatra, the Czech Republic's wonderful queer film festival, or at least for the Prague leg of it. Now, to either side of my gleefully adopted Mezipatra duties – not to mention right smack-bang in its midst as well, of course (samozřejmě!) – I had me some (extra-)cinematic adventures, as demonstrated below and which will link to my corresponding part in Senses' 2012 world poll, as and when it's live.

By the way, wrapped up in all the pictorial splendour and waffle below lies in wait an allusive announcement, whose time I can comfortably say has almost now come, with respect to a project of mine and certain esteemed others set to launch in mid-2012 and shake up stuffy old Melbourne town, where too many film festivals is never enough...

But let's deal with one horse before its cart at a time – on with the picture show – roll camera!

Here's the rather de Chirico-esque big-screen backdrop above the stage at Kino Lucerna ahead of this year's Mezipatra closing ceremony. Should I hasten to add that de Chirico was cinema? After all, I've just watched Alain Robbe-Grillet's Eden and After (1970) (thank you thank you thank you! the Slovak Film Institute, for releasing this on DVD!), and if those scenes in the Eden nightclub weren't de Chirico all over (if also a few parts Mondrian, after a '60s Godardian fashion), then my name isn't Cerise Howard, and nor has it always been.

(Mezipatra's website hosts a fab gallery covering its closing night, which was altogether rather busier and more glamorous than my photo above would suggest, and in which I make a few appearances.)

Now, I could scarcely have timed my journey to Prague any better. For unbeknownst to me at my journey's outset, what should happen to be on in the very centre of olde Prague but...

"Jan Švankmajer: Dimensions of Dialogue – Between Film and Fine Art"

in the House at the Stone Bell in Prague's Old Town Square
(26 Oct 2012 – 3 Feb 2013)

Per my world poll contribution, "Dimensions of Dialogue" is "room after Rudolphinian room a-glut with Švankmajeriana. Magical, obsessive, capital-S Surrealist objects abound, all riffing on relationships, direct or indirect, with Švankmajer's 48-year-long filmic output, with one film, whether long- or short-form, looping in its entirety in each room, and the exhibition's great plenty of uncanny objects organised correspondingly. Magnificent!"

Please find here following a corroborating, annotated gallery:

This is a room devoted to Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), which also featured a number of "tactile portraits", object-characters from the film and, centre-frame, its unforgettable masturbation machine, which had in fact been switched on for the exhibition. (On which note, Prague's Sex Machines Museum is just a hop, skip and a wank away from the House at the Stone Bell and the Old Town Square, but I don't recall it having anything half so elaborate, nor half so modern, let alone half so amusing, as the Conspirators of Pleasure machine amongst its offerings. If anything, as memory serves – I visited it several years ago – its exhibits are not terribly far removed from those in Prague's cheesy mediaeval torture museums...)

In the room devoted to Historia Naturae, Suite (1967) can be found collaged drawings and objects, imaginary creatures, and taxonomic descriptions thereof galore, in a fabulous demonstration of the full rein Švankmajer has always given himself towards the creation of alternative zoologies, ones to long outlive we sadly less fabulous critters to presently have the run of our grimly imperilled planet.

Natural enemies in the wild?

The scenes in this and the preceding image have more than just a little in common with Salvador Dalí's 1936 painting, "Autumn Cannibalism". See also the second section of one of my favourite Švankmajers, his final short film, Food (1993).

A tableau familiar from Alice (1988). This, like so much of JS' work, is equal parts Švankmajer and Švankmajerová.

Characters and sets from Švankmajer's Alice.

Waiting in the wings with some of the cast from Švankmajer's Faust (1994)

Some of the cast atop and within a set from Faust.

Several of the oversize puppets from Faust, and one oversize human from Wellington, by way of Melbourne.

Scary prop from Švankmajer's The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope (1984), as designed by the late, great Eva Švankmajerová. Fortunately, perhaps as much an OH&S consideration as anything else, it was rather more still in the exhibition than in Švankmajer's brilliant film. I don't think Poe has ever been as frightening on screen as in The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope.

Otesáneks, and parts thereof, galore. As seen in Little Otik (Otesánek) (2000).

Oh, and did I mention that I actually had a chance early morning encounter at a Prague tram stop with Švankmajer himself? Were that I could have captured the look in my eyes in that moment they locked fleetingly with his! Were too that I wasn't so dumbstruck by the occasion that I so easily let him slip by my clutches before I could surprise him with some strongly Australasian-inflected Czech, conveying some sort of gormless, grating, ingratiating précis of my adoration of his work ever since I first encountered it in the '90s. Actually, perhaps it's for the best I did keep my mouth shut after all. Next time, though, Švankmajer, next time... I'll be prepared!

"Slovanská epopej" ("The Slav Epic", Alfons Mucha, 1912-1928)

Now hanging permanently, if not without controversy, at Veletržní Palace, a campus of the National Gallery in Prague

Now, I may have made some slightly contentious claims in my poll contribution, if, I would argue, not really either as specious nor as spurious as all that, for Czech Art Nouveau godfather Alfons Mucha's 20-colossal-canvas-strong magnum opus "The Slav Epic" as cinema...

Here follow only a meagre few photos – my photography simply hasn't done these magnificent pictures justice – in under-substantiated support of certain aspects of my flimsy hypothesis. Happily, much better quality reproductions of Mucha's magnificent masterwork can be found all over the Web, and they do my lunatic theorising far prouder than my own underwhelming photography here can hope to.

This is the 2nd canvas in "The Slav Epic" – now, I ask you, is that a big screen, or wot? (Refer relative size of awestruck, darkened space-inhabiting gallery patron to artwork.) This is "The Celebration of Svantovit in Rügen" (1912).

This is a detail – almost a close-up, even – of that same canvas, from centre bottom. To stand but a foot away from the painting is for mother and child to fill "the frame". This woman's eyes have haunted me ever since I laid mine upon them.

Eyes no less haunting – a detail from the 1st canvas of the Slovanská epopej, "The Slavs in Their Original Homeland" (1912).

An awful purdy doodad which wouldn't be at all out of place in Argento's Suspiria (1977) but which is in fact merely a detail of the 5th canvas in "The Slav Epic", "King Otakar II of Bohemia" (1924).

Further postcards from Europe to prop up one's claim that everything is cinema

And now for a little more photographic everything-is-cinema-ness, surplus to requirement as addenda for my contribution to the 2012 Senses of Cinema world poll, as I in no way alluded to the following in my poll text, nor need have. But I no got worry.

I'll let the photographs, if necessarily aided to some extent in each instance by their captions, speak for themselves...

Elsewhere in Veletržní Palace, this permanent installation pays tribute to the great puppet animator, Jiří Trnka. (He was pretty handy in a few other fields, too.) There'll be more from me about Trnka hereabouts, and in the pages of Senses of Cinema, soon – that's a promise! (For many happy reasons which will become apparent in due course.) It's a shame about the shadow of a certain gormless pillock in this one. Reflective surfaces: the scourge of amateur photographers everywhere!

In the same room as the Trnka installation can be found these gorgeous vintage film posters. The two leftmost are for Gustav Machatý's 1931 film, From Saturday to Sunday. "Jsem děvče s čertem v těle" translates as "I'm a girl with the devil in (her) flesh"; it's credited to director Karl Anton and is instantly as tantalising a film to hunt down as any I've heard tell of any time lately.

Also from that same room. I haven't figured out which films these gorgeous images pertain to – something by Martin Frič, perhaps? Anyone, any leads?

Oh lookee here – seems we've taken a wrong turn mid-exposition, as can happen, and have wound up in Vienna.

The Wiener Riesenrad – which is to say, this is the Ferris wheel seen in The Third Man (d. Carol Reed, 1949) in Vienna's nowadays impossibly kitsch Prater amusement park.

Kitsch? The Prater? With this photo, I rest my case.

Still: what is this post if not a paean to the "Magic Dreamland" that is the cinema, anyway? And is that really any less naff a term than "Dream Factory", that popular epithet for Hollywood?

Well, that'll do for now. I've more piccies from other far-afield adventures in cinema recently had, but it'd be remiss not to save some for another day, which would greater risk this blog's going another few months without an update...

But wait – a pledge! Yes, I hereby pledge, contrary to all recent indications, that this blog will actually regularly feature new content in 2013. Truly!

Let's see then if I'm not yet as good as my word. (And here I'll confess to knowing something you don't, at least, not for very much longer – my year in film in 2013 will be a very busy one, and it'll sure need some documenting and ballyhooing here. Stay tuned!)

Toodles for now then,
C.

Of content elsewhere, new and old, and more on MIFF releases

Firstly, a stocktake

With but five further days to go of the 61st Melbourne International Film Festival, folks who missed it going live to air might like to do some catch-up listening to last Thursday's hour long "Max Headroom" MIFF special on Melbourne radio station 3RRR, in which I and estimable fellow critics Tara Judah and Josh Nelson set the 61st MIFF to rights, alternately waxing laudatory and scornful about umpteen of the festival's big screen offerings and various peripheral matters.

(A bonus? - seldom can Kylie's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" previously have been heard to emanate forth along the airwaves from Melbourne's legendary independent community radio station nonpareil, but it did, and, what's more, in context. Who'd ever hitherto a-thunk it?)

Our Kylie, all growed up, in Leos Carax' sublime Holy Motors

Speaking of 3RRR and Max Headroom specials, and with ACMI's thorough Guy Maddin season not long come to a pre-MIFF close, here's reminding y'all of the hour long "Max Headroom" Guy Maddin special I, fab fellow critic (and, latterly, MIFF's Next Gen & Shorts Coordinator) Thomas Caldwell and ACMI programmer and season co-curator Kristy Matheson perpetrated back in late June, replete with many minutes of interview gold contributed by Maddin himself. It's still available "on demand", courtesy of 3RRR, for another few months.

(Here's reminding you too of the double Guy Maddin book review of mine in the Senses of Cinema before last, the better that you, whether an old or a new convert to Maddin's singular cinema, might want to deeper immerse yourself in (critical writing on) critical writing on Winnipeg's finest and most delirious filmmaker.)

Speaking of Senses of Cinema, issue #63 finally emerged at the very end of July and with it, my festival report "The South’s Not Long for This World: The 26th Fribourg International Film Festival", accounting for my 3rd trip to this terrific Swiss film festival in beautiful, principally francophone Fribourg and my first experience as a member of a FIPRESCI jury, something I'm still savouring. Maybe everyone who lands one of these gigs is as lucky as I was (though I doubt it), finding themselves working entirely with altogether lovely, super smart and highly collegiate fellow critics; mad props and shout-outs go out to fab fellow jurors Sheila Johnston (President, Great Britain), Hauvick Habechian (Lebanon), Katja Čičigoj (Slovenia) and Nina Scheu (Switzerland) - wotta team! May that we all be reunited somewhere, sometime, and were that such a thing were possible here in Australia, where such juries, with all their exciting, horizons-expanding internationalism, are nowadays almost unheard of. (Grrr, argh.)

Image: Caroline Alexandra McCurdy

Moving on, in my last post (lawks, has it really already been a month?), I neglected to plug something I put out into the world, which, I'll concede, is unlike me. I refer to my guesting on the May 2012 edition of Hell Is For Hyphenates, in which I join HIFH hotshots Paul Anthony Nelson and Lee Zachariah in poring over the ever astonishing film work of my pick of a filmmaker to focus upon, Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer, after a precursory gloss over a few recent releases and a consideration of the sometimes vexing matter of film remakes.

Oh, and while we're on matters Czech, it was only last week that I was party to the incorporation of CaSFFA, or the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australasia. Just call me Paní prezidentka! Let's see if we can't just pull off a memorable inaugural festival in mid-2013. Much more news about this will emerge in due course.

Secondly, a MIFF release dates update

Before getting to the nitty-gritty, I feel I should mention another couple of avenues through which you might legitimately encounter films screening at this year's MIFF outside of this year's festival, perhaps then sparing yourself from needlessly making haste to see them at MIFF rather than catching something altogether scarcer, something which you really might not have the opportunity to ever catch on a big screen, or even on 35mm, ever again, or from the worry that to have missed them at this year's festival might be to have missed them altogether.

Firstly, any number of this year's MIFF titles will doubtless re-emerge at other film festivals staged hereabouts in the year ahead, whether, for example, at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, which often re-runs a handful or so of queer themed MIFF titles in the March of the following year, or at any of the multitude of festivals celebrating (typically only the recent) cinema output of a given nation.

To cite just one example, it has been announced that the Taviani brothers' highly regarded Caesar Must Die will screen at the forthcoming Italian Film Festival, running from 19 September through to 9 October in Melbourne, and at different times in other capital cities.

Credentialled industry bods could also look to the Festival Scope platform to access 10 out of 12 of the features in the TeleScope program and as many of the Accelerator offerings as well, presuming they're willing to pony up/have already ponied up for an initial subscription charge to stream them (and much, much more) on demand.

(To quote the latest Festival Scope newsletter: "Time to swan dive into Port Philip's Bay!")

Now, there hasn't been a terrific flurry of new release date announcements made or press releases issued by distributors and exhibitors over the few weeks since my previous post. There have nonetheless been a few of significance, with the most notable regarding Tony Krawitz's adaptation of my favourite Christos Tsiolkas novel, Dead Europe, which wasn't even in the MIFF program when I previously posted. That, and my need to remedy an error I made last time, have led me to update the table, below.

Dead Europe

Re that error, my apologies go out to Hi Gloss Entertainment. I had had DVD releases for the three titles of theirs listed below down for October but my original source was evidently not really in the know; no DVD release date has, in fact, been scheduled yet for any of Italy: Love It or Leave It, Journal de France or The Minister. Two of these three titles (with one of them being The Minister) are presently, furthermore, under discussion for theatrical release.

All the usual caveats then about the following table, and more, apply. None of the following can be taken as gospel, not least for the fact that human error, my own most certainly included, can be a factor in information provided below not ultimately standing the test of time. Let the browser beware!

TITLE	DISTRIBUTOR	RELEASE INFO (where known)	SECTION
¡Vivan Las Antipodas!	Madman		Documentaries
[REC] Genesis	Vendetta Films		Night Shift
100 Bloody Acres	Hopscotch		Night Shift
11 Flowers	Palace		Next Gen
A Monster in Paris	Madman		Next Gen
A Simple Life	Dream Movie		Accent on Asia
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	Madman		Documentaries
Alois Nebel	Madman		Animation
Amour	Transmission		Int. Panorama
Back to Stay	Transmission		Through the Labyrinth
Barbara	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beasts of the Southern Wild	Icon	13 September	Int. Panorama
Being Venice	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Berberian Sound Studio	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beyond	Rialto		Facing North
Beyond the Hills	Madman		Int. Panorama
Bully	Roadshow	23 August	Next Gen
Caesar Must Die	Palace		Int. Panorama
Chasing Ice	Madman		Documentaries
Croker Island Exodus	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Damsels in Distress	Sony	6 September	Int. Panorama
Dark Horse	Roadshow		Int. Panorama
Dead Europe	Transmission	1 November	Aust. Showcase
Easy Money	Madman		Facing North
Ernest & Celestine	Rialto		Animation
Errors of the Human Body	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Farewell, My Queen	Transmission		Int. Panorama
First Position	Hopscotch	27 September	Next Gen
Girl Model	Aztec		Documentaries
God Bless America	Potential Films	15 November	Night Shift
Hail	Madman		Aust. Showcase
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai	Icon	18 October	Accent on Asia
Headshot	Madman		Accent on Asia
Holy Motors	Icon	23 August	Leos Carax
I Wish	Rialto	4 October	Accent on Asia
In the Fog	Sharmill		Int. Panorama
Italy: Love It or Leave It	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Jack Irish: Bad Debts	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Jayne Mansfield's Car	Eagle	DVD, early 2013	Int. Panorama
Journal de France	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Killer Joe	Roadshow		Night Shift
Last Dance	Becker Film Group		Aust. Showcase
Le Grand Soir	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Liberal Arts	Icon	2013	Int. Panorama
Make Hummus Not War	Antidote Films		Aust. Showcase
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present	Madman		Documentaries
Mental	Universal	4 October	Closing Night
Metropia	SBS	n/a (has previously aired on SBS)	Facing North
Miss Bala	Transmission	22 November	Through the Labyrinth
Monsieur Lazhar	Palace	6 September	Int. Panorama
Moonrise Kingdom	Universal	30 August	Int. Panorama
No	Rialto		Through the Labyrinth
On the Road	Icon	27 September	Int. Panorama
ParaNorman	Universal	20 September	Next Gen
Paul Kelly: Stories of Me	Madman	18 October	Backbeat
Policeman	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Rampart	Madman		Int. Panorama
Robot and Frank	Sony	15 November	Int. Panorama
Ruby Sparks	Fox	20 September	Int. Panorama
Safety Not Guaranteed	Rialto	18 October	Int. Panorama
Save Your Legs!	Madman	24 January, 2013	Aust. Showcase
Searching for Sugar Man	Madman	4 October	Facing North
Seeking A Friend for the End of the World	Roadshow	23 August	Int. Panorama
Shadow Dancer	Potential Films	11 October	Int. Panorama
Shut up and Play the Hits	Vendetta Films		Backbeat
Sightseers	Rialto	26 December	Night Shift
Sister	Palace		Int. Panorama
Sleepless Night	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Sound of My Voice	Fox		Night Shift
Tabu	Palace		Int. Panorama
Teddy Bear	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The Angels’ Share	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The First Fagin	Ronin Films		Aust. Showcase
The Hunt	Madman		Int. Panorama
The Imposter	Madman		Documentaries
The Intouchables	Roadshow	25 October	Int. Panorama
The King of Pigs	Madman		Animation
The Loneliest Planet	Palace		Int. Panorama
The Minister	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Int. Panorama
The Sapphires	Hopscotch	9 August	Opening Night
The Sessions	Fox	8 November	Int. Panorama
The Taste of Money	Madman		Accent on Asia
This Ain’t California	Management of Doubt		Documentaries
Undefeated	Madman		Documentaries
V/H/S	Roadshow		Night Shift
Violeta Went to Heaven	Madman		Through the Labyrinth
Vulgaria	China Lion	23 August	Accent on Asia
War Witch	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 1	Monster Pictures	13 September *	Accent on Asia
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 2	Monster Pictures	13 September *	Accent on Asia
Wunderkinder	Umbrella	6 September	Next Gen
Wuthering Heights	Transmission	11 October	Int. Panorama
Your Sister's Sister	Madman	6 September	Int. Panorama

* You might like to note that Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale is being theatrically released as one film, not two.

Of MIFF, Maddin and Max Headroom

For Melbourne's cinéphiles and their fellow travellers, the greatest show in town is shortly to commence. Of course, I speak of the Melbourne International Film Festival and its second edition under the stewardship of über-cinéphile and former Senses of Cinema colleague* of mine, the wonderful Michelle Carey.

* Michelle is still a pillar of the Senses of Cinema team, serving as its Festival Reports Editor. It is I who have left, though I continue to contribute articles. For example, the next issue (due out... surely any day now?) will feature my report on the 26th Fribourg International Film Festival, while the miraculously still current issue features a lengthy screed in which I review two fantastic recent books on Guy Maddin: Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin by William Beard and Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin, edited by David Church.

Speaking of Guy Maddin

MIFF aside, far and away the greatest film cultural event to hit Melbourne town in 2012 (notwithstanding the formal inauguration of yet another fine local film journal, Screen Machine) is still underway at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. I speak of “Nocturnal Transmissions: The Cinema of Guy Maddin”, a really rather thorough* retrospective of Winnipeg's finest, most delirious and most exclamatory filmmaker, that great poet of Vaseline-smeared, amnesiac melodrama and recent Order of Canada awardee (!), Guy Maddin, running through to 27 July.

* But not completely thorough, even with as many as three weeks of screenings. Just below, for example, is a terrific Maddin short not screening as part of ACMI's season but which makes for an excellent companion piece to his brilliant The Heart of the World (2000) (one of my all-time favourite short films and more than just a little tinged with genius and reverence for the cinematic medium (just as, one might say, Maddin is himself tinged with irreverence for the 'medium' of the ghosts of cinema and Winnipeg's pasts, real and fabricated, that he himself bodily represents.))

The Heart of the World presents an altogether new Creation myth of the moving pictures, and so too does his under-seen 2009 short, Night Mayor. Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada, enjoy!



Maddin devotees and novitiates alike should be flocking in droves to ACMI to get a fix of that inimitable imitator's truly astonishing body of work. Equally, both camps could do a lot worse than to tune in, using Melbourne radio stations Triple R's recently launched “Radio on Demand” facility, to a “Max Headroom” special from Thursday, 28 June, where I was joined by tremendous fellow Triple R critic, Thomas Caldwell, super-dooper ACMI programmer Kristy Matheson, co-curator (with Maddin) of ACMI's extensive Maddin season, and a pre-recorded Guy Maddin himself, from whom I had gleaned an exclusive interview and no few pearls of wisdom.

For example, the answer to the question on every cinéaste's lips: will not real Vaseline forever trump digital? Tune in and find out!

A Max Headroom Maddin-MIFF segue

You can get it live, or you'll be able to get it “on demand” all the way up to six months later – your choice. Either way, be sure to catch the Thursday, 9 August edition of “Max Headroom” on Triple R when I join Tara Judah and Josh Nelson from the fabulous Triple R film criticism podcast, Plato's Cave, as we throw an hour's worth of musings at this year's MIFF from a fine vantage point, one full week into the festival, from where we'll cast an eye over what we'll have seen and what we'll anticipate we'll still yet see at Melbourne's film festival of film festivals. All the critical scuttlebutt from the 61^st MIFF – and more!, more or less.

A time-honoured tradition: MIFF 2012 release dates

Here follows a cannibalisation of last year's edition of much this same blog post. The devil is in the details.

Caveats

Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild:
a fabulous film indeed!
But can you not hold out until
it goes on general release (13 September)?

Please be advised that none of the following can be taken as gospel, for the distribution game is the stuff of whims, vicissitudes and, some have alleged, sorcery. Furthermore, some films may not be destined for theatrical release at all but rather may go straight to TV, DVD or Blu-Ray, online streaming or download, or even to YouTube, Vimeo and their like (to speak only of outlets a film might find itself distributed to legitimately). This means that MIFF might represent your only chance to see many of these titles on a big screen in Melbourne.

Last year I observed that I had never known there to be so many films screening at MIFF to have distribution lined up at a comparably early stage in proceedings. There were, however, a mere 81 such titles this time last year, whereas this year, I make it 92 (not including retrospective titles long ago to have been released to theatres and home viewing, like Hal Ashby's legendary morose laugh riot Harold and Maude from 1971.)

Madman Entertainment, while still having secured distribution to as many as 23 of the following titles, have nowhere near so large a representation in the following table as they did in last year's; Madman titles accounted for a whopping 37% (30 out of 81) of films to have distribution lined up ahead of the 2011 festival. This has dropped in 2012 to 25% (23 out of 92).

This might help placate certain conspiracy theorists to have surmised on this blog last year that Madman's huge representation amongst last year's MIFF offerings carried with it a whiff of impropriety...

Now, while some of the films listed below may well be released very soon after MIFF, there can be incentives beyond bragging rights to attending their screenings at the festival, as, for example, when guests will be in attendance to conduct introductions, Q&As, flesh-pressings and so forth.

In the particular case of many of the Australian titles, there can be the added buzz of attending what will be hometown world premieres, which can generate a peculiarly electric atmosphere which no other viewing scenario can ever hope to match. Being at such a screening when it goes well is a particularly salutary experience. (Also, there may be a party afterwards.)

However, the converse also applies. Attending a local premiere when a film tanks, with cast and crew present, can be awkward and dispiriting, as with MIFF's 2010 curtain raiser, the yet-to-be-seen-again, may-in-fact-never-be The Wedding Party (d. Amanda Jane).

It is also true that some of these films may not be released for quite some time. Referring to last year's list, one of the 2011 MIFF's most outstanding offerings was undoubtedly Nuri Bilge Ceylan's mesmerising Once upon a Time in Anatolia, which was only granted a theatrical release within the last month or two. The wait then can be long.

Okey doke. Thems are caveats enough. On with the main attraction!

* 13.8.12 My apologies to the folks at Hi Gloss Entertainment; information published here previously pertaining to release dates for their titles was erroneous. I had DVD releases for the three titles of theirs listed here down for October but my original sources were evidently not really in the know; no DVD release date has, in fact, been scheduled yet for any of Italy: Love It or Leave It, Journal de France or The Minister. Two of these three titles (I'm not sure which two) are, furthermore, presently under discussion for theatrical release.

The table below has been adjusted to reflect this.

There are a few further updates which could yet be made to this table to reflect announcements made, and press releases issued, by various distributors and exhibitors over the last couple of weeks; time permitting, I'll get around to updating this table within the next day or two accordingly.

TITLE	DISTRIBUTOR	RELEASE INFO (where known)	SECTION
¡Vivan Las Antipodas!	Madman		Documentaries
[REC] Genesis	Vendetta Films		Night Shift
100 Bloody Acres	Hopscotch		Night Shift
11 Flowers	Palace		Next Gen
A Monster in Paris	Madman		Next Gen
A Simple Life	Dream Movie		Accent on Asia
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	Madman		Documentaries
Alois Nebel	Madman		Animation
Amour	Transmission		Int. Panorama
Back to Stay	Transmission		Through the Labyrinth
Barbara	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beasts of the Southern Wild	Icon	13 September	Int. Panorama
Being Venice	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Berberian Sound Studio	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beyond	Rialto	November	Facing North
Beyond the Hills	Madman		Int. Panorama
Bully	Roadshow	23 August	Next Gen
Caesar Must Die	Palace		Int. Panorama
Chasing Ice	Madman		Documentaries
Croker Island Exodus	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Damsels in Distress	Sony	6 September	Int. Panorama
Dark Horse	Roadshow		Int. Panorama
Easy Money	Madman		Facing North
Ernest & Celestine	Rialto		Animation
Errors of the Human Body	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Farewell, My Queen	Transmission		Int. Panorama
First Position	Hopscotch	27 September	Next Gen
Girl Model	Aztec		Documentaries
God Bless America	Potential Films		Night Shift
Hail	Madman		Aust. Showcase
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai	Icon	18 October	Accent on Asia
Headshot	Madman		Accent on Asia
Holy Motors	Icon	23 August	Leos Carax
I Wish	Rialto		Accent on Asia
In the Fog	Sharmill		Int. Panorama
Italy: Love It or Leave It	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Jack Irish: Bad Debts	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Jayne Mansfield's Car	Eagle	DVD, early 2013	Int. Panorama
Journal de France	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Killer Joe	Roadshow		Night Shift
Last Dance	Becker Film Group		Aust. Showcase
Le Grand Soir	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Liberal Arts	Icon	11 October	Int. Panorama
Make Hummus Not War	Antidote Films		Aust. Showcase
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present	Madman		Documentaries
Mental	Icon	4 October	Closing Night
Metropia	SBS	n/a (has previously aired on SBS)	Facing North
Miss Bala	Transmission	DVD, 5 September	Through the Labyrinth
Monsieur Lazhar	Palace	6 September	Int. Panorama
Moonrise Kingdom	Universal	30 August	Int. Panorama
No	Rialto		Through the Labyrinth
On the Road	Icon	27 September	Int. Panorama
ParaNorman	Universal	20 September	Next Gen
Paul Kelly: Stories of Me	Madman	18 October	Backbeat
Policeman	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Rampart	Madman		Int. Panorama
Robot and Frank	Sony	15 November	Int. Panorama
Ruby Sparks	Fox	20 September	Int. Panorama
Safety Not Guaranteed	Rialto	20 September/18 October	Int. Panorama
Save Your Legs!	Madman		Aust. Showcase
Searching for Sugar Man	Madman		Facing North
Seeking A Friend for the End of the World	Roadshow	23 August	Int. Panorama
Shadow Dancer	Potential Films	4 October	Int. Panorama
Shut up and Play the Hits	Vendetta Films		Backbeat
Sightseers	Rialto		Night Shift
Sister	Palace		Int. Panorama
Sleepless Night	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Sound of My Voice	Fox		Night Shift
Tabu	Palace		Int. Panorama
Teddy Bear	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The Angels’ Share	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The First Fagin	Ronin Films		Aust. Showcase
The Hunt	Madman		Int. Panorama
The Imposter	Madman		Documentaries
The Intouchables	Roadshow	25 October	Int. Panorama
The King of Pigs	Madman		Animation
The Loneliest Planet	Palace		Int. Panorama
The Minister	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Int. Panorama
The Sapphires	Hopscotch	9 August	Opening Night
The Sessions	Fox	8 November	Int. Panorama
The Taste of Money	Madman		Accent on Asia
This Ain’t California	Management of Doubt		Documentaries
Undefeated	Madman		Documentaries
V/H/S	Roadshow		Night Shift
Violeta Went to Heaven	Madman		Through the Labyrinth
Vulgaria	China Lion	23 August	Accent on Asia
War Witch	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 1	Monster Pictures	6 September	Accent on Asia
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 2	Monster Pictures	6 September	Accent on Asia
Wunderkinder	Umbrella	6 September	Next Gen
Wuthering Heights	Transmission	11 October	Int. Panorama
Your Sister's Sister	Madman	6 September	Int. Panorama

Master of My Domain

Inadvertently humourous Czech poster for
Steve McQueen's Shame

Hi all.

After a little lie down that would do Sleeping Beauty proud, my hand has been forced into posting something here anew.

Some sort of catastrophic server trouble recently left stricken the good ship Senses of Cinema and had, in the process, left me incommunicado via email for two long weeks and unable to access any of my email from a further three or so weeks prior.

It wasn't until only just a little earlier today that Senses got up and running once again after a full fortnight's lay-off. Mind you, the spell on the sidelines has done it some appreciable good; in resurrecting the site, aspects of its design have been markedly improved, even if some elements of its facelift still need quite some fine tuning (as has been acknowledged).

All this being so, you'll now be able to access two articles I've written for Senses since last I posted here: "A Twilight Portrait: A Report on the 21st Film Festival Cottbus" in Issue 61 and "Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin by William Beard; and Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin edited by David Church" - a whopping double book review - in the current issue, # 62. Additionally, I contributed to Senses' 2011 world poll, published between these two issues.

But I have digressed.

My old sensesofcinema.com address had been my principal email address for over ten years. Seeing as a) I have not, strictly speaking, been in the employ of Senses of Cinema for some time and b) I have just now been made all too aware how compromising it can be sticking for so long with an email address which is administrated by folks who are effectively a third party, I have just seen fit to mint myself a brand new, personal domain, the better to gain complete control over my email and never again fall foul of such communications strife beyond my means to remedy personally.

Hence, cerisehoward.com has been born. On the web, a visit presently does nothing more than simply and peremptorily re-direct the curious visitor right here, to A Little Lie Down.

Well, it had to do something.

Owning an eponymous domain, I now feel the pressure to use that domain for some good beyond merely using it as an expedient for reliably sending and receiving email, so www.cerisehoward.com will likely, if not necessarily immediately, yet be stocked with content pertaining to my various activities across film, music, writing and so on. There are many projects afoot in these various fields and many worthy projects in them to have come and gone before, so it might indeed be nice to have them all documented, contained even, in a central repository.

Let's wait and see what develops there...

Meanwhile, if you're someone who's been trying to reach me via email these last few weeks and been foiled, please update your records so that you have my email address down as cerise [at] cerisehoward.com. Thanks!

*

Now, seeing as we've finally found ourselves enjoying another Little Lie Down, I think something of an update with respect to my activities in film is in order.

Aside from those aforementioned articles in recent issues of Senses of Cinema, here are some other things to have been going on:

I'm not long back from serving on a FIPRESCI jury at the 26th Fribourg International Film Festival. It was a great pleasure to serve alongside my esteemed, and altogether charming, colleagues, namely Sheila Johnston (president of the jury); Hauvick Habechian; Nina Scheu, and Katja Čičigoj. (I'm kinda tickled that the page on the FIFF website listing our jury's members has me down as representing Preston specifically rather than Melbourne!)

And the winner of the FIPRESCI Jury award is... (cue drumroll)... Countdown!

My report on the FIPRESCI jury prize winner, Huh Jong-ho's cracking genre(s) film Countdown (2011), will appear soon on the FIPRESCI website alongside reportage covering several other aspects of the 26th FIFF from my fellow jurors.

Furthermore, I will yet have a full report of my experiences at this year's festival in Fribourg in the next issue of Senses of Cinema. (I've previously also covered the FIFF for Senses in 2010 and 2011.)

What else?

Some radio I've done in recent times can be accessed online.

The kind folks at 3RRR - I'll be back on the air in my usual spot on SmartArts opposite Richard Watts a week today (Thursday 26 April) - have made accessible online a spot I did back in February when I reviewed My Week with Marilyn (d. Simon Curtis, a film rather more interesting for its dramatisation - and perhaps meta-dramatisation - of a pitting of Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh)'s old school hammy thesping against Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams)' high-maintenance Stanislavskian new school method acting, than for its more conventional biopic aspects); Steve McQueen's grim, sexually frank depiction of dysfunctional, downward spiralling siblings adrift in the big smoke, Shame (rather humorously, this film is known in the Czech Republic, after a rather unfortunate translation, as Stud! - see the poster above), and the rather misleadingly titled Leonardo Live (d. Phil Grabsky), a behind-the-scenes look at the lead-up to the Opening Night of the blockblusteriest of all blockbuster exhibitions, the National Gallery in London's "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan".

If that weren't enough, RRR's internet fairies have also put online in its raw, unedited entirety an interview I conducted with legendary avant-garde artist, progenitor of industrial music and "pandrogyne", Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, who came to Melbourne to partake in a fantastic, consciousness-raising Q&A after a screening of Marie Losier's beautiful experimental documentary, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, as well as, it transpired, to perform with Psychic TV at a memorable "secret show" at The Toff in Town the night following.

Lastly, back on December 8 - soooo last year, I know - I had a ball filling in for Josh Nelson on 3RRR's always splendid Plato's Cave film criticism podcast during a special live-to-air summer season. I saddled up my high horse to kickstart a discussion about the parochialist failings I (continue to) perceive in Australia's film festival culture, after having first mused with Thomas Caldwell and Tara Judah over the merits of Puss in Boots (d. Chris Miller); Gus van Sant's perhaps unfairly disdained Restless and the really very stabby The Yellow Sea (d. Na Hong-jin).

If you haven't yet, now's a very good time to subscribe to Plato's Cave.

On the matter of fabulous film crit podcasts, the lovely folks at Hell Is For Hyphenates - that's Paul Anthony Nelson and Lee Zachariah - have asked me to join them as a guest on their May edition. Asked to pick a filmmaker whose work we'll ultimately come to collectively dissect, after first setting any other number of film critical matters to rights, I settled on...well, perhaps I won't spoil the surprise just yet. But suffice it to say it's someone who some recent time spent in the Czech Republic only did more to further expand my already considerable appreciation of...

If you haven't yet, now's a very good time to subscribe to Hell Is For Hyphenates. (May I especially recommend you listen to the episode where Christos Tsiolkas guests and a fabulous conversation about Pier Paolo Pasolini ensues!)

Also looking ahead, I'm to introduce a 3RRR subscribers' screening on Friday 4 May of Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil (1968) at ACMI, a full eight days before its official ACMI season begins (you lucky 3RRR subscribers, you! Excepting, of course, any dyed-in-the-wool Rolling Stones fans, who invariably hate the film, finding it unbearably pretentious and stingy on the Stones footage...) Here's the trailer:

Lastly, I'm still working on my review of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' alarmingly filmographically and theoretically comprehensive Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study for Bright Lights Film Journal. The number of films of that ilk I've watched, in a few frenzies of catch-up viewing staged necessarily a few weeks apart - well, it takes a toll, I tells ya!

*

I would like to finish this post by stating in pithy but no uncertain terms that if you live in Melbourne and don't get to the William Kentridge exhibition at ACMI before it closes in late May, then you'd have to have rocks in your head. That is all.

Of recent gads had about Central Europe; the near future, and points of intersection

Long-time scanners of A Little Lie Down will know that many a post hereabouts begins along the lines of “Well, gosh, it's sure been a while between drinks” before leading into some sort of lame apology.

Well, with that acknowledgement made I can dodge that particular bullet for this late November '11 stocktake instalment of ALLD and just get the hell on with it.

Yes, a stocktake

A stocktake, that is, of things to come, of things to have recently occurred, and intersections thereof.

Two reasons for my not having contributed much to my own blog lately are:

1) I have an awful lot to write before this year is over for publications other than ALLD, publications of a reputable nature which, unlike ALLD, actually and necessarily operate to deadlines.

2) I have been preoccupied by being overseas, attending festivals in Cottbus (Germany, in the old East, not far from the Polish border and where all signage is in German and in Sorbian*), and in Prague, which dovetails neatly into item 1), for one of the things I have to write is a report on the 21^st FilmFestival Cottbus for Senses of Cinema for its next edition, and another is a report on the 12^th Mezipatra, the wonderful queer film festival in the Czech Republic, which I have notions I'll be submitting to another particular esteemed film journal, though I'd be foolish to say here just which when I couldn't altogether be said to have run it past them yet.

* No, this is not a typo.

I won't go into too much detail about either of these festivals here, in the interests of dodging ultimate duplication, other than to recount a few personal highlights of Mezipatra which would not necessarily be the stuff of a more formal festival report:

Chief amongst my highlights was moderating a Q&A with Todd Haynes after a screening of Far From Heaven (2002), chased down with a few drinks at Prague's legendary Kavárna Lucerna with the highly affable, accessible director; his lovely partner; a few fellow guests, and various of the Mezipatra staff. At Mezipatra director Aleš Rumpel's behest, I found myself toasting the table as only one too deeply versed in the Australian vernacular can, with a wholehearted “up your arse!” This, happily, went down rather better than, in hindsight, it conceivably might have.

Also: a day or two prior Mezipatra held, upon the hallowed ground of FAMU*, a Todd Haynes masterclass, conducted by Variety critic Boyd van Hoeij. Now you too can enjoy, as did I, a front-row seat for this terrific discussion. Haynes is a terrific speaker, warm, erudite and generous in equal measure, and there's well over two hours' worth of his thoughts upon the cinema - his, and all that which has inspired it.

* FAMU is, rather awkwardly in English, the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Read the list of notable alumni (some, like Věra Chytilová, these days serve as faculty!) on FAMU's Wikipedia page – and weep!

Here, notwithstanding my slight, doth-protest-too-much, old-school discomfort with embedding video content on my blog wholly the (recent) creation of others, is “Todd Haynes Himself” - the superb Todd Haynes masterclass given on the occasion of his retrospective at the 12^th Queer Film Festival Mezipatra in Prague.

Alas, there isn't (as far as I know) any video footage of my Q&A with Todd Haynes, but here at least are a couple of photos so I can still commemorate the occasion here. (With many thanks to Josef Rabara for the photos.)

The author (l) with Todd Haynes. This is immediately after a screening of a spanky 35mm print of Haynes' sumptuous Far From Heaven. Little does the director realise it, but deliberately pinned to my accidentally apt '50s-ish tuck shop frock - accidentally apt, that is, as I had in fact been prepared to conduct a Q&A that day after my favourite Todd Haynes film, Safe, rather than after Far From Heaven - is a badge bearing a detail of a photo, taken by the amazing Gregory Crewdson, depicting Julianne Moore in a state of terrifying domestic narcotism, bought originally in 2008 at a Crewdson exhibition held in Prague's Rudolfinum, as if to summon Todd Haynes to Zlatá Praha, celebrated alchemy capital of the world, within a matter of but three years...

(l-r) The author, Todd Haynes, festival director Aleš Rumpel (mid-translation) and programmer Lucia Kajánková. The latter two, atop all of the powers they demonstrate in abundance for Mezipatra in their respective roles, have truly formidable translation skills, taking turns in rendering into Czech some wonderfully well-considered but very, very lengthy responses from Todd Haynes to questions posed to him, whether by me or by members of a happily, highly engaged audience.

And now, especially for non-Czech readers of this blog and anyone else who wasn't at the festival and so likely hasn't seen this year's Mezipatra trailer, here then, the better to give you a sense of the festival's flavour, is this (dir: Tamara Moyzes):

Lastly on Mezipatra (for here and now), here's a photo of the beautiful, 102-year-old Kino Lucerna, taken on Mezipatra's Opening Night.

I love this place, even though the projection is occasionally a little pants.

Now, if you were to look closely, you might just spot me in the second row, covered in owls. A cautionary note: it is no longer safe to purchase a dress covered, one might have thought uniquely, in owls, in Hobart, under the unconscious presumption that its like will never, ever be seen North-si-eed, hemispherically speaking. However, the very day following the Opening Night shenanigans in Prague, I spotted the very same dress prominently on display in a groovy little Prague boutique. Globalisation, amongst its many other evils (and, granted, certain goods) has sadly increased the risk of same-garb embarrassment a hundred-thousandfold. None of us are safe from this scourge, no matter how far flung our travel destinations. None of us!

Which brings me, sans an elegant segue, to:
Critical failings of film festivals in Australia...

Chatting with the lovely Boyd van Hoeij in Kavárna Lucerna one evening, we got to talking about his role as one of four (including the delightful, impassioned and sage Tom Kalin – and hasn't Swoon (Kalin, 1992) aged brilliantly well!) adjudicating on the features jury at Mezipatra this year. While Boyd spoke of greatly enjoying his jury duty, having been on many juries previously, I had to confess that I've never served on a film festival jury, and instantly felt something a hick.

This point now dovetails neatly with a near-future engagement of mine to have just emerged. Come Thursday next week – that's December 8, at 7pm – in the absence of Josh Nelson, I'll be joining the remaining 2/3 of the fabulous Plato's Cave film criticism podcasting team – Thomas Caldwell and Tara Judah – on the second of their nine week live-to-air summer season on my beloved Triple R 102.7FM, already home to my regular fortnightly radio gig, “A Fistful of Celluloid” on Richard Watts' Thursdaily artsopotamus, SmartArts.

Per the Plato's Cave formula, I'll chew over three current releases with Tara and Thomas, with the remainder of the show turned over to discussion of some film cultural matter or other. It already having been suggested that I might like to tell a few stories from my recent European adventures, I further proposed that that

could easily be linked to a wider consideration of film festival culture and, in particular, to what I consider a major failing of film festival culture in Oz: a certain parochialism/provincialism, something which I feel has a negative trickle-down impact upon critical practice here (amongst other things).

When last did a festival here afford local critics a chance to mix with international peers (whether in a formal capacity, say, on a jury) or just through attracting international media to our far shores? Is not film criticism in Australia largely practiced in one great, blinkered, whitebread vacuum, largely marooning Australian critics with only their own for company (little wonder they so often turn on one another), robbing them of opportunities to develop a more internationalist perspective of film (festival) culture, notwithstanding the richness, diversity and heft of the foreign big screen offerings that unspool here more and more every year?

I'd already started to write a stroppy great rant about as much for this blog but would now rather instead focus those energies on delivering the same on Plato's Cave tomorrow week, whereupon Thomas and Tara can immediately present the case for the opposition, if there is much of a one, or at least get several strong opinions of their own on the matter in edgeways.

And after that episode has gone to air, and the podcasting fairies have waved their magic wands across it, I'll be sure to post a link to it here for all whom should transpire to miss it live but wish to catch up with it later.

Another very good reason for publishing something, right here, right now

Truth is too that I needed something to hang a promo on for the Australian Film Critics Association's Film Writing Awards, lest AFCA secretary Bernard Hemingway otherwise find out where I live and pop round to break my knees in frustration at my not having let him know what I, as a card-carrying member of the illustrious AFCA, would be doing (if anything!) to promote the AFCA's awards.

And, so, lo! Behold! And: go forth and compete!

I'll hasten to add that I'll certainly submit something to these awards myself, ahead of the looming deadline of December 31. Perhaps it'll be something to have first had a run here at A Little Lie Down. Perhaps, indeed!

I'll also give the awards a plug when I return to the Triple R airwaves a little later this morning at 11.30, joining Richard Watts on SmartArts and yakking about George Clooney's The Ides of March, Megan Doneman's documentary on Asia Nobel Prize winner, Kiran Bedi, Yes Madam, Sir, and this and that else besides.

*

A personal film criticism and publication diary for the remainder of 2011

Today, Thurs, Dec 1: I return to SmartArts.

Thurs, Dec 8: I fill in for Josh Nelson on Plato's Cave.

Mid-late Dec – I'll submit a report on the 21st FilmFestival Cottbus to Senses of Cinema (along with as many as two book reviews: dekalog 3: On Film Festivals (guest ed. Richard Porton) and Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin (ed. David Church)). Yikes!

Thurs, Dec 15: SmartArts – Reviews of Lars von Trier's Melancholia and Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In will be the likely order of the day.

Sat Dec 31: Deadline for submission to the Australian Film Critics Association's Film Writing Awards.

Also, then or thenabouts:

I will submit a review of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study to Bright Lights Film Journal (I must mention that I saw an absolute cracker of just such a film in Cottbus, in new Russian feature, Twilight Portrait (dir: Angelina Nikonova)).

I will submit, presuming such are once more solicited, a wrap of the year that will have been 2011, to Senses of Cinema.

And I must submit a report on Mezipatra 2011 to a certain journal as well.

Busy times! (During which I believe the 3RRR subscriber magazine, The Trip, will post a slightly premature Top 10 of mine for 2011 as well. (What? - you don't subscribe? Well, that's easily remedied – now get cracking!))

Ah, how oft!

Gosh, the tumbleweeds have been blowing round these parts awhile once more, haven't they?

Still, it's not that I've been idle. Far from it. It's just that my energies have principally been diverted in recent weeks towards that other sort of cinema: the theatre.

(This isn't the full truth: I did slave over a hot keyboard, battling a recalcitrant DVD screener, a very tight deadline and divers alarums aplenty in order to file an interview with Maryam Keshavarz, Iranian-American director of highly provocative Iranian lesbianeering flick, Circumstance, as the cover story of the latest issue of Cherrie to hit the streets (the magazine "for the not so straight girl").)

So, yes, the theatre. I am but one of three to constitute Dirty Nicola and the Spud Hussies (or, to give us our full due: Dirty Nicola and the Cheap, Filthy, Pre-Loved, Shop-Soiled Spud Hussies: myself on bass, Katrina Wilson on keys, Nicola Bell on drums and all of us on foley), finest purveyors of 'The New Sound' as applied to the live scoring of deranged expanded marionette theatre adaptations of macabre 19th century Wilhelm Busch morality tales told in verse. Such as Max and Moritz: A Juvenile History in 7 Tricks! Presently playing at the Czech Club in North Melbourne during the Melbourne Fringe Festival. And for three more nights only!

We've several shows behind us now and, happily, I can report that they've been going down a treat, both with Joe and Joanna Public as well as with some folk "who matter". The show is considerably evolved from its ramshackle but vivacious (and even then well-received) début late last year at the Village Festival in North Fitzroy's Edinburgh Gardens, which I blogged a little about way back when, going then into a little detail about some of the Czech marionette theatre traditions the show is indebted to.

But that was then.

Here's what you need to know about the now:

Max and Moritz: A Juvenile History in 7 Tricks
at the Melbourne Fringe Festival:

Venue: Czech Club: 497 Queensberry St, North Melbourne

Remaining dates: Tue 4 & Wed 5 Oct at 7.30pm
AND
Closing Night: Fri 7 Oct at 7.30pm, featuring a post-show set from Dirty Nicola and the Spud Hussies!

Tickets: Via the Fringe Festival website, by phone on 03 9660 9666, or at the door on the night.

Dirty Nicola and the Spud Hussies, with a glimpse of the Max and Moritz set behind, at the Czech Club, recently.

Come one, come all! It's a show I'm very proud to be involved with, with the Spud Hussies a unit I'm even more thrilled to be in thick with, which - happy day! - will live on long beyond this show. And about future Spud Hussies excursions into 'The New Sound', post-Fringe and with, or without, puppets and thespians... I'll keep you posted.

*

Lest anyone be concerned that I've given myself over wholesale to pandering to the Euterpean Muse and will therefore be wont here on in to neglect the cinema (oh, had it only a Muse to call its own!), fear not! I'll be on the air on 102.7FM, 3RRR, once more this very Thursday at 11.30am in my customary slot opposite Richard Watts during his arts behemoth, SmartArts. Hurrah!

(My apologies for missing it a fortnight prior; on that occasion, I really was altogether too snowed under to surface for "A Fistful of Celluloid" and do it justice.)

*

Lastly, for now, Senses of Cinema, that august film journal of record still very dear to my heart, needs your help. Without it, it might not be much longer for this world, which is just too appalling a prospect to countenance. And yet countenance it we must.

Senses is reaching out to the cloud via a Pozible campaign in the hope that $15,000 - just enough to keep it afloat for another year while, hopefully, some other revenue-generating manoeuvres are successfully implemented - can be raised by 5 November. That's only 33 days away! And Senses still needs $7,745 - criminy! But... perhaps you can help?

Can you?