He Beat Me To It

Theo sez [Sorry for the lack of recent Films Seen; I got sidetracked - and now I'm off to a festival in Greece, so no more action on this site for at least a week. I wish life would stop getting in the way of movie-watching, to be frankly honest.]


Damn. Since Theo hadn't gone to the TIFF (that means Toronto International Freedom Fighters), I was hoping I would see most of the big 2005 movies before he did, in the São Paulo Festival. Damn. That would've placed me in a superior, more venerable position. Like if in the middle ages, a king would like order a pizza by phone every day and one of his guards would receive the pizza everyday from the delivery guy and he would bring it to the king, but this guard is really poor and he really likes pizza so he saves some money and after a few months the king orders a pizza and the guard dude also orders a pizza, but he orders his pizza from a cheaper place, and, like, ironically, the cheaper pizza place would deliver his pizza faster than the expensive haute cousine pízza place the king ordered from. So when the king's pizza arrived, the guard would already be eating his pizza and the king would be like "Go get my fucking pizza!" and the guard would be like "Hey, can't you see I'm fucking eating here? Wait a minute! I mean jesus. (pause) Oh boy, this tastes really good" and the king would be like "Ok, I'm chopping this guy's head off pronto" and the guard guy would be like "God, what a drama queen. Ok, I'll go get your pizza". You know?

Oh well.

Anyway, does anyone have a clue as to what film festival is going on in Greece this week? I heard of a Short Film Festival, but I couldn't find MALGAAT in the programme. There's also a Canberra film festival, but it's just a few greek movies, what would Theo want with that, etc. So I don't know. I frankly didn't do any extensive research, so if any Panayidette would be interested in investigating, be my guest.

I predict these are going to be Theo's ratings to the big 2005 movies:

THE HIDDENED - high 70's (on account that this movie was made by Micheal Haneke and he has loved virtually all of Haneke's recent movies and on account that this is chilling thriller and on account that the trailer for this movie is better than most movies I've seen this year (and I'm sure Theo agrees))

GAME OVER, KURT KOBAIN - low 60's (on account that he was mixed on EL PHANT and this looks slightly "more accomplished" than EL PHANT)

THE CHILD OF THE DARDENNE - high 70's (on account that Theo flips over backwards for any Dardenne bros movie -- now I just pictured Theo flipping over backwards while waiting in line to get a ticket for this movie, and the guy next to him in line thinking "this is some fucked up greek dude, jesus". That would be really funny.)

THE WAYDOWNTOWN CLOUD - low 70's (on account that Theo's recent tryptich (sp?) of Tsai shows that he is slowly coming to terms with the fact that this filmmaker is so awesome. Also, Mike Del Anglo said this is Tsai's best movie)

HOMOSSEXUAL COWBOYS BY ANG LEE - high 60's (on account that this has Donnie Darko having sex with cowboys and Heatcliff Ledger, which is something Theo always thought would be interesting to see)

ARAGORN'S VIOLENT HISTORY - low or mid 70's (yeah, sue me) (on account that everybody loves this movie)

LAY MAN'S DEARTH (THE LARS VON TRIER MOVIE) - either high 50's or low 60's (on account that this is like Dogville but inferior. Also, Theo's the Cinephile Nigger)

THE PRESIDENT LIKES TO BANG - mid 60's (on account that Theo does not usually love asian movies (because of his hidden anti-asian agenda (yes, I did not forget that 65 for SEVEN SAMURAI, bud)))

TIME TIMES THREE - high 50's ("One more time!", said Daft Punk, some years ago)

REGULAR LOVERS (is there any way to make this title funny? I'll leave that to you) - either low or mid 70's (on account that I don't have much info on this movie, but a lot of folks seemed to like it, like Sicinski gave it a 9 and stuff, so who knows)

EVIL ALIENS - mid 90's (this is obvious, etc)


If I get at least five of these right, I'll celebrate by buying myself a bottle of non-cheap wine and inviting my friends over for a Coen Brothers marathon.

Of course, those predictions of Theo's grades don't have much to do with my predictions of my grades (for example, THE WAY-TO-GO CLOUD would certainly be a high 70's-low 80's for me, as it will obviously rock, and I'm becoming a Tsai fanboy).

Anyway, good luck with the festival, Theo. You better come back with one of those anecdotes.



PS: What's so great about ACE IN THE HOLE? I'm on the J. Hoberman/Phil Hall side.