The King's Speech & True Grit

I've been seeing quite a bit of film recently, so here's the beginning of a whole heap of film interviews.

One of the cinemas in my city has a double feature showing every Monday, the films are sometimes an odd combination (I remember once they showed Matilda followed by A Clockwork Orange) however, the tickets are cheap and you get to bang out two films in a night. Last Monday's feature was particularly epic; they showed, The King's Speech (this years Academy Award Best Picture winner) and True Grit (a respective nominee). Both I enjoyed equally in different ways.


(source;google images)

The King's Speech screened first, and although I thought it was a little long towards the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it. For such a mundane theme as a King trying to speak, I went into the film a little cynical as to how it would be entertaining. However, director Tom Hooper managed to capture the audience through his brilliant score and script. He also achieved this through, most notably, the techniques used. Many intrusive fisheye lens, eye-level camera shots were used which evoked the idea of constriction as a result of being (to an extent) voiceless. Furthermore, it placed the audience on the same level as the King.


(source;google images)

As for True Grit, I'm not particularly a fan of any western films. The idea of revenge and private justice just doesn't really do it for me in a film, coupled with tacky American accents and the conquest of the wilderness just bores me most of the time. But, it was the Coen Brothers, and although I haven't particularly loved any of their work in the past (don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed their films, but I've never fallen head over heels for any of them) I thought that I should probably see the film. And like most of their previous films, I liked True Grit but it isn't something I'd see again or particularly loved. Hailee Steinfeld (who plays Mattie Ross) was excellent, and really deserved the credit she received especially considering her age (she was 14 at the time of release). The film is a typical story of western vengeance and follows Mattie who is in search for the man who killed her father. She finds the best man in town to accompany her, the merciless Rooster Cogburn (played by the one and only Jeff Bridges). Watching two films subsequently made me lose slight interest during the beginning scenes of True Grit, but it managed to hold my focus until the end of the film.

All in all, the two films were an enjoyable watch. I preferred The King's Speech over True Grit, probably due to a number of things. The first being the era they were set in; the pre-world war two era that The King's Speech was set in is one of my favourites and thus the socio-historical context probably influenced my preference over the western True Grit. And secondly, because Colin Firth is to die for and Geoffrey Rush is an amazing Australian actor.

Blue Valentine

(source; Michelle Williams Online)

03.27

Today was intended to be a study day, but I got a call from Viv in the afternoon to chill at her house and go for coffee. Taking any opportunity to avoid study, I chilled at her house for the rest of the afternoon.

University & soforth...

(disposables)

So that's pretty much the epic recap of my 2011. I've extended the posts on the first day to accommodate all my new posts (I think i've just published about 15). It's been fairly hectic so far with no signs of stopping but i'm loving it and having fun so far. I'm now approaching my fifth week so the workload is piling up, but I think I should be able to bang through it fairly easily, I do only have 13 contact hours after all. I've managed to concentrate my timetable down to 3 days a week at uni, which leaves 2 days for work and then 2 days for leisure. Also, I was voted the Arts Union Fresher Rep, which means I sit on the Arts Union and do stuff (i'm not exactly too sure what that entails, but it sounds cool.)

The weather still refuses to cool down, so i've been living in my summer dresses and sandles. Nothing really too creative on the fashion wise, but hopefully i'll start taking some snaps soon. As soon as I bother to tidy my room up i'll take some shots of my new house and new room. It's a lot bigger than my old room, and a lot cooler methinks.

Anyways, I'll leave it with this last post for a couple of days, just so you kids can get through the past 15 without me bombarding you with more. I've got the blogging bug again, and I feel like taking my camera out more these days. So stalk away!

The last of the Summer days...

(disposables)

Like I previously mentioned the rest of the summer days were spent hibernating and watching plenty of films. I tried to stay positive, and kept myself surrounded by my amazing friends. I got ready for university by picking my units and starting a lot of the literature that I had to get through. I study two English units, so there is quite a lot of long literature novels to get through that I probably won't have time to during the semester. My other two units are Politics, which is mostly based upon political philosophy as opposed to more theoretical politics that we studied in high school and lastly French intermediate, which at the moment i'm finding incredibly easy.

02.12 Laneway

On February 12th I went to Laneway, which was a day-long music festival held in Perth city. Bands included were; Local Natives, Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, Yesayer, Gotye, Cut Copy, Cloud Control, Beach House, Warpaint amongst many others. As amazing as the Laneway line-up was, I was feeling like shit and left after Local Natives. I missed most of the big acts, but I just really wasn't up for it at all.

Sufjan Stevens

(source; google images)

The night that I came home from Brisbane one of my favourite modern artists, Sufjan Stevens was performing in Perth at the Regal Theater. I'd been looking forward to this concert for months and it certainly didn't disappoint. He played the entirety of his latest album The Age of Adz as well as old favourites such as Chicago and To Be Alone With You. He didn't play much of his folk favourites, which I was anticipating but nevertheless it was a good concert.

The next day I was off to a Arts Camp. Arts Camp is a fresher camp for all the first year University students who intend to study Arts. It practically involves no sleep, drinking games and all things teenagers do. I won a skull-off competition against someone in dread-locks in front of the whole camp and almost died of bloatation (well, not really) during the boat races. All in all it was a fun three days which made me super excited for the commencement of uni.

In the days that I returned, I received some horrible news that kept me in hibernation for most of February. I won't go into too much detail here, and those of you who know me already know the severity of the matter. I feel like I've gotten through it now, by keeping focus on many of the other things in my life and with the help of some amazing friends that I have. However I think it will be something that i'm going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. I think there will be days when i'll struggle to get through, but that's life. And the whole situation made me realise just how amazing my friends really are.

Brisbane

In the first week of February I headed over to Brisbane to visit my Grandma for her 90th Birthday. I hadn't been back to Brisbane (which is where my Dad's side of the family is on) since I was 10 so it was nice to see everyone again. Her 90th birthday lunch was nice and filled with nostalgia.

I had completely forgotten that my Uncle is a film director. He mostly does low budget documentary films for cable TV but it was still pretty cool to be taken around his studio and look at all the fancy equipment. He also hires out a lot of cameras and things like that, and gave me a film SLR plus a whole heap of film! I haven't gotten any of my rolls developed yet, but hopefully it turns out nicely. I'm still experimenting with film, but so far i'm loving it.

I did a little bit of shopping aswell, investing in my first pair of jeans that I have since been living in. They are amazing. Also I got my prep on for the kick-start to Uni, filling my wardrobe with oxfords and cable-knit sweaters. I can't wait til winter!

Zoe's Welcome Home

The week in between Sydney and Brisbane was an interesting one to say the least. Let's not dwell on the past. Australia day was celebrated with a surprise coming home breakfast for my good friend Zoe who had been in Norway for the year. The rest of Australia day was average-ish but it was a nice breakfast, and a good way to catch up with many of my friends that I hadn't seen since school finished.

Black Swan

(via google images)

I should write a review on Black Swan, as I really did love it. But I'm not in the mood, and I wanna get posting some more so here's some snaps of the gorgeous Natalie Portman.

Flickerfest: Closing Night

(disposables)

Closing night unfortunately wasn't anywhere near as good as opening night. We all got super drunk off Jameson whiskey (which gave us the worst hangovers in eternity) and didn't really meet too many more cool people. Nevertheless, the two weeks working at flickerfest was a blast. We got to see a whole pile of films and meet a whole pile of people whilst working at one of the best film festivals in Australia. I still have a whole pile of disposable snaps that I haven't yet uploaded, but I will in due time (or when I fall into another lull again and have nothing to post.)

Sydney

(Strand Arcade)

Viv and I decided to venture into the big city of Sydney on our 5th day there. I took barely any snaps because I way way too busy busting through my 6 month's worth of savings. We didn't spend too much time in the city, and wondered through Oxford street on our way home. I spent most of my money at American Apparel and many of the thrift stores along Crown street.

Sydney; Grandma Takes A Trip

Like I mentioned previously, I didn't take a great deal of snaps whilst in Sydney as most days were spent at the festival. The times when I did take snaps I was using a disposable merely because it was easier to lug around town with me and they have yet to be developed.



On one of the first few days in Bondi, Ella showed us one of her favourite stores in Sydney called Grandma Takes a Trip. We ended up visiting the two stores that reside in Sydney (one is in Bondi and one is on Crown Street closer to the city centre). Grandma takes a Trip sources most of their items from Europe and ensure that each piece was actually produced in the period that is intended.



Viv bought the coolest 90's orange Versace jeans, pictured bottom, as well as a 60s orange tunic. We all tried on the most gorgeous Laura Ashley 80's white ball gown that I would've loved to have purchased except for the fact that I would've had to have taken out a few ribs to fit into it. It sucks that most of the retro pieces are suited for body types that no longer exist in this modern age. I only purchased one item from the Bondi store, a full-piece purple swimsuit from the 60's however bought 2 dresses from the second store; a 60s white lace dress and a green shirt-dress with gold buttons.



The whole store was set up like a wardrobe filled with all different dresses, skirts, shirts from all different periods. It was like a treasure hunt in the store and we spent a decent hour or so trying on everything.

Flickerfest days

During the festival we did pretty basic jobs like collecting tickets and cleaning up the theaters but it meant we could watch all the films for free plus attend the opening and closing parties. I watched all sessions (there are 5 Australian sessions and 5 International session which showcase over 100 short films) except for a few. The first few days we stayed around the Bondi area, settling into our accommodation and whatnot. The first four nights we spent in the local Bondi Backpackers, which was a really fun experience. It wasn't the best quality place to stay, but we met so many international people who were really friendly and really easy to talk too. After that, we moved into a local apartment which was much much more comfortable.

Flickerfest: Opening Night

The blog posts from here on in may be a little chronologically out of order, but i'll try my hardest to update everything over the past two months before I start on new stuff ^_^

During the first two weeks of January I boarded a four and a half hour flight from small town Perth to big town Sydney to volunteer at Australia's only Academy Award accredited film festival called Flickerfest. Flickerfest is an annual short film festival which is screened over the course of 10 days. Like always, it was held at the Bondi Pavilion right on Bondi Beach. My two best friends, Ella and Viv, traveled with me (Ella has helped out at the festival the past three years running). We stayed in Bondi however managed to take a few days off from the festival to do some shopping and venture into the city.



Opening night was amazing fun. We danced with characters from Star Wars (as a result of this years theme of Flickerfest being Star Wars) but also worked super hard due to the summer rain kicking in and thus everyone scattered from the outdoor cinema to the covers. We had to deal with chaos (the rain showed no sign of stopping, thus the opening night screening almost didn't take place!) We eventually moved everyone into the indoor cinema, which housed about half the size of everyone who arrived whilst the volunteers cleaned the outdoor cinema in the pouring rain. But it was all worth it for the after party.



We served pizza and drinks to the one and only Kris Marshall (okay, for those of you who don't know, he played the English guy who traveled to America in Love Actually). Yeah, that guy. He was hilarious, in real life and we even got the pizza box that he ate from signed by him! I met various other Australian actors which included Bryan Brown (who stars in Heath Ledger's acting debut and one of my favourite Australian films Two Hands (1999)). I also had a good chat to the director, producer and writer of the film David Michôd. He was extremely modest and flattered at all the attention the film was receiving. Two years prior he had also entered a film into Flickerfest proving that the film festival was a stepping stone for directors to make feature films.



Viv, Ella and I had a few drinks and danced to Cee Lo, all in all it was a super cool night which made us excited for the two weeks ahead of us.