Curling was weird and I felt a little sick afterward. The film began veeeery slowly and felt like it was heading somewhere but just as I was worrying that there was a second theatre being used at Kino and I might miss the start of my next film, it ended. So many developments in the plot were left not only unresolved, but unattended to. It had me thinking of The Room, the way things like Lisa's mum getting cancer pop up and get a mild reaction and then are not mentioned again, but far less brilliantly terrible, just actually terrible. I felt nothing for these bizarre disjointed characters and a bit freaked out about ever going to Canada.
There wasn't another theatre at Kino so I jumped into a centre seat and bumped into some friends before settling down for Life 2.0, the documentary exploring the nature of gaming addiction through three vastly different experiences of people using Second Life. One of the stories involved a couple who met on Second Life and began a first life affair that destroyed both their marriages and had far more real world consequences than either seemed to realise. The second story was that of a virtual entrepreneur making and selling virtual wares on the site and making a very comfortable living which is stolen from her resulting in a real world lawsuit that blurs the lines between real and unreal worlds. The final story is of a young man who destroys his relationship with his fiance when his obsession with the site becomes hazardous and the revelation that his avatar is an 11 year-old girl brings unresolved issues to a head. The films also looks at the virtual reality from the perspective of the creators and what they aimed to achieve when creating Linden. While I enjoyed the film I think it may have benefited from a professional psychologists point of view exploring why people are so drawn to the escapism of alternate realities. Second Life seems really dangerous to me in its almost cult like ability to seduce and capture people and totally warp their worlds. On the other hand the positive relationships that develop through it are truly remarkable. This is a brilliant cautionary tale for addictive personalities and an enthralling portrait of escapism in the age of technology, and the blurred line between authenticity and artificiality.
I rushed off then to ACMI to see the wildly audacious and thoroughly Australian produced documentary of the underground sensation Shut Up Little Man. In 1987 two young graduates Eddie and Mitch moved into a dilapidated apartment in the heart of San Francisco, unbeknowns to them their neighbours were two aging alcoholics, a homophobic southerner and a real queen, who proceeded to scream and yell profanities at one another disturbing the sleep of the two young boys. After a scary encounter with the men Eddie and Mitch proceeded to record the arguments of the two men and after including snippets on mixtapes they had made for their friends and having parties where friends would come over and listen to the old men bickering, their recordings became an underground sensation. They compiled hours of material and started releasing tapes with popular zines and soon the obsession progressed into comics, plays and finally a war between various different groups vying for the rights to make a film. This film follows all of this madness through interviews with Mitch and Eddie and comic artists, zine editors, playwrights, and film producers all embroiled in the phenomenon. Pre-internet viral mania, absolutely incredible. This is an outrageous story and a wonderful film, "when" this gets a release you must see it.
Finally was Super which I thankfully had my late night movie buddy Alex to watch with. This film stars Rainn Wilson of The Office as a bumbling nowhere man whose wife is lured away from him by her ancient drug addiction by none other than Kevin Bacon (eating eggs, brilliant). He forms an unlikely friendship with comic book nerd Ellen Page and creates his own super hero to fight the crime in his city and take down the Bacon and get his wife back. This film seems on the outside to be pretty Hollywood but went off on some pretty fucked up tangents. Ellen Page was completely off the chain. This film was unexpected, funny, weird and had the most excellent guest appearance from Nathan Fillion whose appearance in the film made me (and only me) burst into hysteric laughter until I composed myself, whispered that it was him to Alex and a wave of whispers followed by laughter flowed through the cinema. Unexpectedly good, will possibly be a cult hit.
Pick of the day
Shut Up Little Man was just such an outrageous story of obsession, cult success and pre-internet virality. Bizarre and wonderful.
Surprise of the day
Super. I wasn't expecting much but I was surprised, shocked and quite disturbed.
Film total so far
31
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