I’m heading to my homeland today. 2 hour trip, motorbike screaming just to maintain 100kph.

I’m visiting a friend I haven’t seen in maybe a year? maybe more. Should be fun.

Uni is a little crappy lately. I dropped a class, got to make it up next semester. They’re all very nice to me about it though. I’m still behind drastically in one of my classes (which I should have finished completely by now).

My sis is moving in for a few months. Haven’t lived with her in years.. Should be good.

And my big news, is that I’m committed to visiting New Zealand over the winter break. If only for a few weeks. I aiming at a month. Lots wandering around aimlessly. Maybe I can rent a bike there? Price could be an issue though.

If I like it too much, I might not want to come back.

I just need to get away. Do something on my own for a change.

I’ve been gaming too much, to avoid study. That’s why I fucked up my class so much.

But still… I’ve finished 4 seasons of Pro Evolution Soccer 6. The lynchpin of my team is Zinedine Zidane. I wouldn’t let him retire. In the game he just turned 38, even at 38 he’s amazing.

Speaking of which, I saw the movie “Zidane”, it’s excellent art movie. A full game from Zidane’s perspective, no dialogue as such. He gets sent off in the end, but creates an amazing goal. He drags his feet when off the ball, as if he’s playing with an imaginary ball. So subtle.

I haven’t shot archery in weeks. I’m getting back into though.

Ballet just finished for the term. 2 week break. I’ll miss it.

I’ve decided I need to do exercise of some sort in the mornings or I do nothing of use with my day. Cycling, yoga, or a jog, maybe even swimming, but that seems like too much.

I’ve been downloaded and purchasing tons of music lately. I bought a Sophie Koh cd, should be arriving soon. Some Veda Hille CD’s arrived. I’ve got some new Nina Nastasia albums, and I’m expecting some more Tujiko Noriko. It’s funny I think most of my music lately seems to be by women artist. That’s a turn around. I actually remember saying I couldn’t find any music by women artists. Shows how hard I looked.

A damn weird movie. Fastastic. Urgh. My vocabulary defies me again.

Naomi Watts was excellent in all her roles, but they all were.
I wish I had the energy to talk about this, but I just spent an hour or so going over it with L. Anyway, I’m going to download some more David Lynch movies.

It was the best fairy tale movie I’ve ever seen, which doesn’t really say much I suppose. However it was great because it was so much more then a movie with a fairy tale in it. It has a meaning to the tale, a reason for existing. I think it was worth 5/5. I get flak of family for after every movie I like, I say it was the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life. Usually I’m joking. But this one was seriously up there. One that’s worth remembering. It really sucked me into it. I felt like I understood it.

It was terrifying. An excellent movie, brilliant. I can’t say enough for it.

It’s a funny thing, when I see a movie this good, everything I say about it sounds too nice. It wasn’t a nice movie in the least, it was emotionally terrifying… Matt Damon was remarkable. I’ve never seen him so good.

The funny thing is the movie was so good, praising it sounds wrong. It was too real, too sad, I related too much to the main character, at the same time as I lost all sympathy for him.

Never before have I seen a movie, where I start of liking and sympathizing with the main character, and grow to lose all respect and sympathy for him. Loath him. Though I still empathise with him, perhaps even more so by the end.

There was only 5 people in the cinema at a 6.30pm showing.

It’s a bit sad that so few people see good movies, but at least it makes them more enjoyable for those that do, hehe.

Yep it was fantastic, Anthony Hopkins was brialliant. I’m always biased to a movies I’ve just seen and liked, but I think it’s the best thing I’ve seen him in. Considering he usually is playing himself in recent roles I’ve seen, it might not be that much of a feat.

I really didn’t notice it was Hopkins. The character was so real. I had this constant feeling of dread that something horrible would happen to him. It’s a really inspiring story, that makes me want to get the documentary now. Basically it’s about an old guy from New Zealand who’s been tinkering with his old Indian motorcycle for his whole life, he has a 24 year old dream of going to Boneville salt flats to see how fast he can get it. He goes there and breaks a world record for fastest streamlined motorcycle under 1000cc’s.

The real story is in the determination he has to follow his dream. I guess it sounds a little cliche put like that. But it’s the best told version I’e seen. That, and it never ceases to be an inspiring lesson.

He wasn’t just determined though, he had an open mind. It’s like his dream had put into perspective the things that were important. He clearly made friends easily, and wasn’t concerned about the walls that are so often constructed around us (by us). If I remember correctly a quote from him is something like: “People expect old people to just die quietly in a corner”. I don’t know if that’s just for the movie or from the man, but either way, he was a doer, that ‘lived’ to the end.

It’s people that ‘do’ that are remembered.

Burt Munro is the man’s name. I had to look it up even after just seeing a whole movie of people calling him Burt.

It made me think about circumstances when people have opportunities to take advantage of others for their own benefit. Maybe in just small ways, but we lie ourselves about our motives. We might try to convince ourselves that we are doing something for them when it’s really only for ourselves.

In Copote he not only lied about his intentions for his book to Perry, he lied to Perry about caring for him. It seemed to me (from the movie) that Capote didn’t care about Perry, he refused to admit it to the end. He felt guilty about it. So somewhere on some level he did care about Perry, but knowing what that would involve and cost him he took the other path.

There’s something in our culture that makes it acceptable to take our own interests above all others. It was important in the movie that they included Copote’s party scenes. He was just living the New Yorker famous writer lifestyle. Genuinely caring about Perry might have took admitting the farce of that life.

On the other hand, having no real connection to Perry, is thrusting himself into the position of friend simply an unachievable goal? Copote would never have tried to write a book that required he play that role if he had known it would take 4 years for Perry to be executed.

Perry was on death row, to be clear.

It may just be too much to take on, no matter who you are. Thinking of it this way, who is there that would take it on? What would the motives be of anyone who did that?

Capote tried to use Perry for his own benifit. That was his first intention, friendship was what he paid with. I guess another aspect of the movie is that friendship isn’t a commodity.
I’ve often wondered at the motives of salvation army type people. Sometimes they seem like they are helping others for their own benefit. It makes them good. It feels cheap.

Honesty about our intentions to ourselves and others is important. If we can’t tell our intentions to someone are we ashamed of our intentions?

Another really really good movie.

It is worth doing good, for it’s own sake. Things are what we make them.

Really .. really good movie. Very emotional. Very thought provoking. It was just a really smart movie. They don’t come around too often and you really need them. Stimulates the brain. Makes you think. Thank you thank you film makers for being great.

It’s also so relieving to watch a movie that doesn’t shy away from political issues for a change. Usually they dumb them down, cut out the controversy. Thus making them offensive to my intelligence. They end up loaded with racism, sexism, patriotism and propoganda.
I never used to like George Clooney, but he keep being in lots of really good movies. He’s endeared me.

I was worried that other people who saw it would treat it unfairly, but was pleased to see everyone entranced by it. It wasn’t just because I’d read all the books already. Which means the movie does justice to the book.

I highly recommend it.
Especially to all those kids that love harry potter, now it’s time you see what a real story is. You will love it.

• DEAD MEAT (79 mins)
  Unfortunately this was actually much longer then 79 minutes, but they messed up and only 4 of the 6 rolls came. They still haven’t refunded my ticket.. *grumbles*
• Dimmer (12 mins)
  OSCAR (60 mins)
  Good
• TURTLES CAN FLY (98 mins)
  Really really great movie. About iraq, the war, and more.. I cried
• DISTRICT, THE (85 mins)
  I had to miss this one. Was way too tired to drag myself to it.
• TOKYO EXPRESS 05 (100 mins)
  This was a disappointment, but what did I expect of showcase japanime? 1 out of 4 was good. Which is a pretty good ratio, thinking of all those absurd japanese animes.
• Seventeen (12 mins)
  MCDULL, PRINCE DE LA BUN (77 mins)
  Odd very funny, very emotional. Pigs and turtles.
• BLOOD AND BONES (140 mins)
  Very good, amazing. Beat Takeshi was great, along with all the other actors. But wow.. what a scary movie.. So real.
• BALLETS RUSSES (118 mins)
  Hopefully I can see this again when it gets a limited release. I’m considering getting the dvd too. It was inspiring and beautiful. The ballet russes, after all these years still has power.
• KUNG FU HUSTLE (95 mins)
  By the star and director of Shaolin Soccer, so yeah very funny and absurd again. I got to see him afterwards in an interview at the festival club. Lots of chinese fanboy/girls were around.
• DAYS AND HOURS (96 mins)
  I had to miss this one. Uni was on.
• IZO (128 mins)
  Ahh and my last film of the festival now gone. This was a bloody weird movie.. Not really sure if I liked it, but I was just drunk enough to enjoy a weird slightly arty, samurai slasher demon movie.