Archive for May, 2001

Letterbox Things

Published
by
Robyn
on May 27, 2001
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

When I lived in Mount Eden, I’d find all sorts of crazy stuff in my letterbox. Here are my favourites:

1. This letter turned up in my letterbox one Sunday afternoon. It was a little odd because it was hand written. The letter says that they had been unable to reach me at home, but I’d been at home all that day, so they obviously didn’t even try. The mysterious “B Evans” and his/her neat handwriting comes to the defence of the bible.

2. One day I found a little pamphlet with four sets of before and after shots of people who’d lost weight, most of them looking like Hispanic Americans. No company name was mentioned, there was only a blank space with a name and phone number written in biro. I hope the guy’s midget friend is still mates with him after his weight loss.

3. Another religious themed pamphlet, also in defense of the bible. It wasn’t as interesting as the hand-written letter, but I did dig the well-groomed gentleman engrossed in the holy word.

4. Nathan wants to give you a massage - but only if you’re a man. Like the bible letter, this one is hand written, but surely it would have been easier to write out one notice then make some photocopies? Or was he so desperate for cash (or perhaps for manflesh?) that he wrote them all out by hand?

Bad Magazine

Published
by
Robyn
on May 26, 2001
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

I’ve moved flats (again) and I’m now living in a reasonably classy neighbourhood. I found in my letterbox a magazine full of advertorial, hawking stuff that rich people are supposed to covet. It has a cover price of $5.50, but it distributed free to suburbs such as mine.

It seems to be written by a bunch of writers who have to engage in creative writing exercises to write the sort of articles that they think that rich wankers who lead busy, stressful lives and have too much money, would like to read.

It doesn’t quite come across as being real, though. It’s like those rap videos where the rappers sit around with all their possessions, drinking champagne, showing how they are livin’ large, but you know it’s just a front.

The results are some of the most hilarious and sickening sentences I’ve read in a long time.

The magazine’s editorial starts with a call to arms:

“The mornings are getting crisper and winter is creeping up. It’s time to buy snuggly woolies and new ski gear.”

New ski gear every year? But of course!

First up was a section on organics, with a handy section of commonly held myths regarding organic food. This was my favourite:

“Myth #2: It’s more expensive
-Wrong. We bought meat from an organic butchery in Auckland and then went to the supermarket and bought the same meat and the supermarket was more expensive. And the organic meat was much less fatty.”

How creative to present their research findings in the written style of an enthusiastic nine-year-old (”and then we went to the beach and it was cool and I had an ice cream and…”). It’s also interesting that they dis “the supermarket” but in an article on the same page they praise a supermarket for stocking a large range of organic products.

“Lothar says the hardest thing about buying produce today is that it often comes pre-wrapped in cellophane and as any good buyer knows, it is imperative that produce passes the ’smell and sniff’ test to confirm that it is in peak condition and not past its prime.”

I sometimes buy produce wrapped in cellophane. I do not ’smell and sniff’ produce before I buy it. I am bad.

“Just reading the bill of fare will send shivers of pleasurable anticipation through the most seasoned gastronome.”

They could have written “menu” instead of “bill of fare” and “food lover” instead of gastronome, but no. Simple, concise language isn’t the sort of thing that busy, stressed-out people understand.

“This has got to be a godsend for busy urbanites. You know the routine - long hours at the office, tired and travelling home in traffic, asking “What shall we do for dinner?” Here’s the answer.”

Whilst it might seems that the answer would be to quit your job and go and live on a kibbutz for a year and get your life back, the answer is actually just a more expensive version of meals on wheels.

My favourite item was a list of “fashion faux pas”, allegedly according to Coco Chanel. I say allegedly, because despite the fact that Ms Chanel died in 1971, item number 12 was “do not buy makeup on the internet.”

There was also a shopping hints page, sponsored by a credit card company. Hints included, “always carry a bottle of water. Shopping can be dehydrating and exhausting.”

From an article about a fashionable shopping street:

“The whole street engenders a feeling of community spirit - even the metre maid had a smile.”

It’s almost tempting to go there to see if I can find this 100 centimetre maid.

This description, of an apparent nightmare situation, started off an article for a panelbater:

“It’s often hard enough coming to terms with the fact that your beloved German sportscar has been rammed up the proverbial through no fault of yours, coping with the insurance companies and reams of paperwork, imagining being without wheels for weeks on end and, to top it off, realising that you’re late for a meeting.”

It’s like, oh crap, your car’s been hit, that’s bad. But wait, you’re late for a meeting, that’s, like, a total disaster, dude! And what, you can’t call the office and say “I’m not going to be able to make the meeting. I’ve been in a car crash.” Or will this panel beater be able to fix up your beloved Deutch mobile so you can make it back to the meeting?

A gaggle of drag-queens pose glamourously next to a car. The article first defines what a drag queen is:

“This differs from the sisters of drag, the “trannies” who live as women and therefore are women.”

I’m reluctant to call anyone with a penis a woman, but if some bad magazine says men who live as women are women, then it must be true.

A page offering tips for not spending too much on a wedding says:

“Use invitation stationery that’s light enough when assembled for delivery that it doesn’t require more than one stamp.”

According to New Zealand Post, the maximum weight for a standard letter is one kilogram, so I guess that rules out using granite tablets to chisel the invites onto.

In an article for car grooming products, a story is told of a valet who saw a dirty BMW pull up and was expecting an equally dirty driver.

“To his horror and amazement, a well-known personality stepped out of the car, designer clothing and picture-perfect hair, and handed over the keys.”

This event permanently scarred the valet, and “even now, some years on, he can’t see her photo in a magazine without first remembering that car.”

Two pages offer an adult section. The highlight being a stripper service, offering “strobe and neon lights, smoke machines, mirror balls and techno laser graphics,” in case seeing a naked lady isn’t exciting on its own.

An article about the joys of a Maserati tells of “a day in the country” and describes “heading south”. But the accompanying pictures show the car at Piha beach, which is neither rural nor south of Auckland.

“The New Zealand equivalent of London’s exclusive Notting Hill will soon stand as an integral component in the make up of Auckland City’s exclusive Viaduct Harbour.”

No, it won’t. It’s just another harbourside housing development. It won’t be anything like Notting Hill. There won’t be a multi-cultural street carnival. Julia Roberts will not fall in love with Hugh Grant in Freemans Bay.

“Our eldest daughter told us recently how much she enjoys the regular ‘family dinners’ held at our home.”

Why the scare quotes around ‘family dinners’? Could it be that they aren’t really family dinners, that it’s just someone sitting on their couch with an up-sized burger combo?

An article titled “Stop being a victim”, offers safety tips for women who are sick of feeling vulnerable. Highlights include:

“I am fed up with the limitations these evil-minded muggers and rapists put on our lives.”
“Self-defence courses for women are NOT martial arts schools.”
“Women have a very strong 6th sense, but it’s not often we heed it.”
“Be safe at home - e.g. don’t hop in the shower if the ranch slider is open.”
“We want our lives back without fear and intimidation.”

The social event pages bring us pictures of the beautiful people at such events as “New Years Day at the Tauranga Racing Club” and “Hillary and Tracey’s Farewell”.

The back cover has an ad for a sports car rental company. It features a photo of the back of a Porsche with three women standing in it bending over so their bums were on display. The incredibly witty caption read, “It’s a REAR thing to hire a Porsche.

A bunch of arse, really.

Bad Directions

Published
by
Robyn
on May 22, 2001
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

I have a car and a drivers license. Several of my friends don’t. So sometimes I find myself giving them lifts to places. I have eventually come to realise that people who don’t drive can be really bad navigators.

When walking is your primary mode of transport, you take the quickest route. You don’t have to worry about traffic lights, rush hour traffic or what lane to be in. You can go down a one-way street in the wrong direction, and if there’s a walkway at the end of a dead-end street, you can ignore that “No Exit” sign.

Here are four situations I’ve been in with non-driving bad directions-giving passengers.

The Impossible Right-Hand Turn

“Ok, now turn right up here.”

But it’s not just any right-hand turn. It’s a right-hand turn into a busy, four-laned road, in the middle of rush hour and the only way I have a chance of making that right turn is if I were to wait there for about two hours until the traffic dies down. So instead I make a left hand turn, with the plan being that I turn into the next street on the right, do a u-turn down that, and turn left back on to the road I was originally supposed to turn right down.

“No, I said turn RIGHT!!!”

The One-Way Street

“Turn down this street here.”

So I stick my indicator on and slow down and prepare to turn, but something’s wrong. There’s a no entry sign. That’s right, it’s a one-way street, and I’m about to drive down it the wrong way.

“I can’t go down here. It’s a one-way street.”
“Oh, um, well I guess you’ll have to take the next one. This is how I go when I walk.”

The Quickest Route

“Hey, where are you going? Shouldn’t you be going that way?”

Yes, but that way has five sets of traffic lights, where as this way has only two. That way also goes past the motorway on-ramp, which usually gets queues, and I don’t want to get stuck behind one of those. That way is quicker if you take a short cut through the big park, but as I’m not driving a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and as I think the city council wouldn’t be too happy about me driving all over the grass, I think I’ll stick to this way.

The Lack of Directions

“Go along here.”

Ok, I’m driving down this street, but the street is coming to and end pretty soon. I have three options; left, right or straight. I need to know which way to go so I can get into the correct lane. The passenger is in the middle of telling me a funny story.

“Then we left the party and…”
“Where do I go now?”
“What?
“Where do I go now? Left, right or straight?”
“Ummm…”
“Shall I just stop here in the middle of the street until you make up your mind?”
“Go left!”

Too late. I missed the left turn lane. Straight ahead it is.

The Lack of Warning

“Turn left, now!”

Suddenly the passenger sees the street I’m supposed to turn down and tells me. However, if I were to attempt to turn down it, I’d have to suddenly slam on the brakes, and jerk the steering wheel hard to the left. I used to trust people’s timing and once ended up driving up on a concrete island at a service station because I thought “turn in here” meant “you have enough stopping distance to safely turn in here now.”

Bath

Published
by
Robyn
on May 21, 2001
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

Go to your favourite search engine and do a search for the phrase “pamper yourself”. No wait, don’t. It’s a far too terrible thing to inflict upon an innocent net surfer.

If you were to do that search, you’d find an assortment of links, most of which are encouraging the person reading it to, indeed, pamper herself.

From this, it seems that the act of pampering takes many forms. Sometimes it’s a weekend away at a health resort, sometimes it’s curling up on the couch watching an old Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy film, other times it’s drinking a cup of herbal tea.

But it seems that the most common, most mentioned form of pampering, the uber pamper is a long, hot bath, preferably by candlelight. A wet dream if ever there was one.

Like some people use drugs or alcohol to mask their troubles, others use herbal lavender fizzy bath balls with natural botanical extracts.

There are two kinds of baths. There’s a bath taken as a means of cleaning the body. These aren’t so common, as showers make cleaning youself quicker and easier. Then there’s the bath taken as a recreational activity, which has created the cult of bath.

The whole idea is that in this modern world we live in, everything is really fast-paced, hectic and stressful. But all this fast-paced hectic stress can be magically undone by submersing the body in a tub full of warm water. No wait, something is missing. There also needs to be candles (electric light is too stressful, apparently), some incense or essential oils wafting around, some bubble bath (or is it a foaming soak?), and maybe some jazz or other background music to add to the bath experience.

The cult of bath has grown in recent years. Bubble bath, the former domain of little kids (”make bathtime fun time!”) and large bosomed women with bouffant hair-dos and champagne glasses, has become totally mainstream.

Producing bubbles isn’t enough for a modern bubble bath. There has to be something else to give it that extra special touch. Natural ingedients are important. Even if the amount of rose extract is so small that by the time it gets in the water it’s practically non-existant with dilituion, that doesn’t matter. It’s something real and natural in this fast-paced, hectic, stressful world.

Also important is for the bubble bath to have an aromatherapy componant. This basically translates to a really strong smell. The idea being that soothing smells make people feel better. They also make people smell like cheap bubble bath.

Then there’s colourtherapy, which is just an excuse to dye the bubble bath garish shades of orange, and somehow the get-up-and-go of the colour orange will soak through to the bath-taker.

The cult of the bath has started to infiltrate shower culture too. When is hot water not soothing and relaxing? When it’s 7.00am and it’s spraying at you from a shower nozzle. The wonderful world of shower gel is the flipside of bubble bath. The ingredients are mostly the same, the only difference being that while bubble bath relaxes, shower gel invigourates.

I’ve noticed at my local supermarket the flavours of shower gel that always seem to sell the most are the ones that purport to be the shower-gel-equivalent of a cup of coffee. They are usually orange in colour and have a citrus fragrance. Grapefruit is popular, possibly as an alternative to eating one for breakfast. But, just as coffee isn’t a substitute for sleep, neither is shower gel.

My favourite cheap-crap shop has an exceptionally large range of bad bubble bath. For small dollar amounts you can buy really cheap-arse bubble bath. The packaging of some stuff is amazing. Some bottles come on sushi rolling mats and a pseudo feng shui design, others have bits of twine wrapped around to give it an earthy look.

There’s also stuff that gets described with phrases like “soothing muscle soak”. Well, I think it’s really the skin that’s being soaked in it. But it they’re going to include stuff that’s under the skin, it could be “caressing kidney soak” or “luscious lung lather”. Could there be a market for that?

Taking a bath can be really nice, but all the candles, bubble bath and other acoutrements won’t really make it anything other than a tub full of hot water. Like booze or drugs, a hot bath won’t make the troubles of the world go away, but it might make them seem less significant.

And remember: a bath may feel soothing, but it’s only one degree of separation from a spa pool full of fat people.

Footpath

Published
by
Robyn
on May 18, 2001
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

I walk these city streets, man. I see things. The pavement under my feet, it tells a story. Oh bollocks, the only story the footpath tells is “Hi, I’m really dirty and I have a bunch of chewing gum and cigarette butts on me.”

What this is really about is various amusing anecdotes that have occurred to me as I’ve trod down the many footpaths of this city. And places that the footpaths lead to. (And other non-footpath related things, but it’s nice to pretend there’s a theme).

Tablecloth
I was in Wendys and there was this really fat - obese - family eating at a table near me. There were three huge women, probably two sisters and a mother. Running around and eating was a bunch of overweight children. One kid packed a mental and one fat lady smacked it. Fat gran was wearing a t-shirt and what looked like a table cloth wrapped around her waist, although I doubt it was because surely table cloths aren’t made that large?

Funny Boat Name
I saw a boat down at the wharves with “Scandinavian Reefers” painted on its side. Ja møn.

The Lame Side
You know what there’s too much of? Cartoons in the style of Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” cartoons. One panel, a picture of something kind of wacky, and a caption like “Mildred did not remember leaving a squid in charge.” The difference being that Gary Larson’s cartoons were funny where as the crap copies aren’t. If someone gives you a birthday card with one of those cartoons on it, hate them.

Accidental
There’s that ad for RNZAF recruitment and in it one of the happy Air Force members says “I joined the Air Force by accident, but it’s no accident that I stayed.” I’ve seen that ad many times at the movies and every time there’s always been someone in the audience who says “How do you accidentally join the airforce?!”

Reinvention
Arse to the concept of reinvention. Whenever Madonna gets a haircut and wears new clothes people say, “Oh, she’s reinvented herself again!”. The concept of reinvention seems big with women in their 40s. Once the divorce is final they change their name from Shona or Margaret to Rae or Lene, take up yoga, switch to soya milk lattes and organic foods and join the exciting world of real estate sales.

Comedian
Overheard in Atomic Cafe, Ponsonby Road: “I’ll always remember this woman in Paihia who said, “Oh, you’re a comedian. My son went to school with Michael Havoc!” because he’s a comedian!”

Glitter
Madam, do you approve of your eight-year-old daughter dressing like a fa’afafine?

A Man
There are those women’s magazines like Cosmo and Cleo who have articles about how to get “a man”. Not a boyfriend, partner, husband or lover, just a man. Adult male, that’s all that required. Do you know how to pick the right man? You’ll know ‘cos he’ll have this indescribable quality (i.e. he cried during that movie you saw) that makes him The One. Magazines then set out to describe what you need to do to get you a man (i.e. not be a fat slag who dresses bad). There are also articles about freaky mutant couples (”He’s a 37-year-old street sweeper, she’s a 19-year-old tax accountant. It was love at first site.”) Go away.

Cornwallis
It’s 3.30 pm. It’s so cold my hands are numb. A mere three months ago it was so hot that me and my flatmates jumped in the car and headed to Cornwallis Beach. It was a lovely afternoon. Cards, potato chips and beer. The warm water of the Manukau harbour washing upon the gold and black sand. Cool things, like driving past the water reservoir dam on the way there, and the noise of the aeroplanes taking off at the other side of the harbour. I need something the opposite of that to do on a day like today.

Zero
During the bright pink and hap-hap-happy Hero parade, where everyone kept reciting the “Love who you are” slogan, I thought it would be choice to have a Zero parade (to which no one shows up, of course) with the slogan “Be mildly disgusted with who you are”. So true.

Chamber of Silence
I went to the Auckland University sound lab once when they had an open day a few years ago. We went in two rooms. One was The Chamber of Sound, which had all concrete walls at funny angles, and it was so noisy. It was excellent to sing “The Banana Boat Song” in there. The other place was The Chamber of Silence, which was covered with foam wedges. Above the floor was a metal mesh, so below that there could be wedges. We all sat down on the floor and the guide turned the lights off and it was so black and so very very quiet.

Bi
There was a sign outside a strip club that read:

Sexy men
Hot women

And in little letter above “men” and “women” someone had chalked in “bi” twice. Obviously just being sexy and hot were not enough to get the punters in.

Wicked
Overheard in David’s Emporium (a legendary Hamilton bargain store): “The prices have gone up something wicked! The screws are ten cents each!”

Joules
Two women were sitting near me at the movies. One skinny, one fat. The fat one was eating from a bag of family-sized lollies. The skinny one was sipping on a bottle of flavoured mineral water. That’s how it works.

Drug Bores
You know what’s really lame? People who brag about drugs they’ve taken. “Ya ya, so I dropped a tab of acid and then the ceiling turned into symphony of love.” I was at a party and there was a bunch of people just sitting around talking about how many rad drugs they’d all taken. Then my friend and I started mocking them, like, “Oh yeah, I snorted five grams of marijuana, and I have tractor marks on my arm cos I’m a hard core E user, eh?” In conclusion, shut up about your groovy drug experiences because a) no one cares and b) you sound like a boring hippy.

Critique
Upon leaving the theatre after seeing “Hannibal,” I overheard two girls having this conversation:

“That freaked me out cos it challenges your definition of evil.”
“I thought it sucked.”

One Liner
Also, you know that movie “Chocolat”? Plotwise, it’s just like “Footloose”, but with chocolate instead of Bacon. (Ha ha).

Zoo
You know how people talk about how zoos have improved so much since the bad old animals-in-concrete-cages days, when animals were put on display for the amusement of humans. And how it’s so much better these days, because they are in natural conditions and can partake in breeding programs. Well, um, y’know most domestic cats have more room to move than the lions at the zoo do. And what is natural about transporting animals halfway around the world to a different climate? It’s still the same. It’s just animals put on display for the amusement of humans, only with better conditions. Tee hee! Look at the funny monkeys!

Education
Also, why is it deemed so important that children learn about animals? Why do parents and teachers have this obsession with exposing kids to animals? I grew up on a farm. We had cows and chickens. I hated it and I wanted to live in the city. You know what it taught me about life, etc? That people kills cows and eat them. Yeah, you can say I had a fairly hardcore upbringing.

Arse
Also, this was from the entrance to the Auckland Zoo aquarium:

“Our liquid planet glows like a soft blue sapphire.”

a) Someone wrote that.
b) Someone else approved it.
c) Someone, a human being, wrote that, with no apparent sense of irony or expression of shame or regret.

Culture Jamming
In the “McDonald’s Rainforest” there was an info board with “Who Causes Deforestation?” and under it “We all do!” but between the two lines some crafty culturejammer had written “McDonalds”.

Waitemata Plaza
There’s an area down by Freeman’s Bay/Viaduct Basin and the walkway along it is called “Waitemata Plaza”. I think that sounds like a suburban shopping centre. The sort of one that would have been built in the early seventies with the best intentions, but the neighbourhood went downhill and all the shops have roller doors now. And no one ever calls it “Waitemata Plaza”, it’s just “the shops”.

Small Print
“I bought it without really reading the label. It says it should be used in conjunction with a healthy diet that’s low in saturated fat. But from the ads, I got the impression that you could eat as much of it as you like.”

A fellow sitting near me at a food court discovers the horrible truth about a low cholesterol spread.

Destroy
I was walking down the steps in Myers Park. On a flat, terraced part someone had spray painted “DESTROY CAPITALISM” and the anarchy symbol. Coming up the steps towards me were two bros. One stopped and looked at the graffiti. “Anarchy…. Destroy Capitalism….,” he said to the other. “Well, I know what destroy means, but I still don’t know what capitalism is.” And that, my friends, is why the revolution will not be taking place any time soon

Computer Expo

Published
by
Robyn
on May 16, 2001
in Events
. 0 Comments

As regular reader of these pages may be aware of, I have a liking for expos, so you can imagine my delight when I learned of the Computerworld Expo. Actually, that’s a lie. The news of the 2001 Computerworld Expo did not excite me much.

I went to the 1999 one and listened to some guy with a beard rave on about where the Internet was “@”. That was enough to make me run away screaming in horror and disgust.

I wasn’t planning on going this year, but a friend required me to go so he could bum a ride off me, so I didn’t really have a choice.

We arrived just in time for the Geek Bowl, a quiz to test the geek knowledge of the participants. After swiping my card with the “hostess” (who looked suspiciously like a man), I went in and joined the Geeks team. The Geeks at that stage were having their arses kicked by the Nerds team on the other side of the room.

At this stage I was miserable. Sitting in a room full of self-confessed geeks and nerds who were answering questions about computer stuff that was going straight over my head, I felt sure that anyone moment someone really cool was going to walk past and see me and laugh and ruin my urban hipster status. However I realised that really cool people would not be at such an expo, so I cheered up a little.

Then an unexpected thing happened. As well as questions about computers, there were also questions about general geek culture, including more than a few about geek movies. There were questions I knew the answers to, and answer them I did. Soon the Geeks were in the lead, totally kicking the Nerds’ arse! Then the scoring program crashed, but it was up and running in time for the grand final question.

The question asked what Patricia Neal’s character said to Gort the robot, and it was also said by Bruce Campbell’s character in Army of Darkness. I knew it! I hurriedly scribbled it down on a piece of paper. But the Nerds got it right too, so it was a draw. The quizmaster threw inflatable penguins at the teams and I grabbed one. I was so happy. Oh, quelle sad-arse!

My next missions was to score as much free stuff as possible without being disgusted by the large amount of e-w@nkery.

My loot:

  • 3M Notebook Palm Pads
  • Three bags of jelly beans for Job Universe
  • Two IBM drink bottles with a compartment containing three penguins (like those Eskimo lollies, but penguin-shaped)
  • One sock (I apparently get the other one when they ring me up later)
  • Three Compaq juggling balls
  • Two cans of Red Bull
  • One can of V

(I’m thinking if I had all that stuff before the 12-hour movie marathon, I would have been set.)

It wasn’t pretty interesting to compare this year’s expo to 1999’s. There was much less pretentious arse than two years ago. There was a distinct lack of dodgy web designers (”I will design you one A4 size www page for $50!!!!”). There was money behind a lot of the stands, and it showed.

The best bit is how, unlike at other expos, sex is not used to sell anything. Stick a chick in hot pants and potential customers will not look at her - they’ll be too busy looking at the hardware to notice.

I left the Expo with my bag full of free stuff that I don’t actually have much use for. I donated the penguin to a friend’s geek flat. It pains me to say it, but I had a reasonably good time.

The Incredible Film Fest 2001 - My Reviews

Published
by
Robyn
on May 9, 2001
in Film & TV
. 0 Comments

Anatomie
A German thriller about some bad behaviour going on at an elite med school. Starring Franke Potente, a.k.a That Chick From “Run Lola Run”. There were a bunch of Germans sitting in the row in front who laughed harder and longer at the humour. Also, while lame stand-up comedians might say that German is not a sexy language, “Anatomie” proves that wrong.

Audition (Odishon)
I loved “Audition”! It started out so nice. A widower seeking a new wife sets up a fake audition to meet chicks. The one he picks turns out to be really messed up - bad touching in her past made her a crazy lady. The horrible finale of the film was so gruesome (but a lot of it was never shown, just implied) that about six people walked out rather than face it. But the bit I loved was when after being savaged by his dream girl, who in turn is pushed down the stair by the widower’s son, the widower turns to her and says something like, “One day you will realise that life is wonderful.”

Butterfly and Sword (Xin Liu Xing Hu Die Jian)
Part of the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” tribute, and also starring Michelle Yeoh, but less serious and more fun and funnier than “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. The sub-titles were sometimes badly translated, but that added to the charm. Plenty of crazy martial arts. I’m not a huge martial arts fan, but “Butterfly and Sword” was fun and entertaining. A couple of days later I heard a girl describe it as “so bad it’s good”, but she’s a deluded fool if she thinks that.

Criminal Lovers (Les Amants Criminels)
I got really excited because “Criminal Lovers” was the sole French film in the festival. I like French films. The trashier, the better. “Criminal Lovers” was kind of like Hansel and Gretel meets “Deliverance”. Y’know, young lovers on the run get lost in the woods and are taken hostage by a crazy woodsman who has a thing for the young man. In a parallel universe, it would be an excellent date movie.

The Curious Dr. Humpp (La Venganza Del Sexo)
So there’s Dr Humpp and he needs to capture the sexual essence of attractive young men and women in order to stop decaying. He has a monster who he sends out on errands. One time he was operating on the monster, inserting a smoking thing into the monsters brain, and suddenly smoke started to come out of the monsters eyes and nose. Such are the production values of this Argentinean exploitation classic. A soft-core porno film (which means naked people feeling each others bums) that features a brain in a jar can’t be a bad thing.

The Devil At Your Heels
Crazy Canadian stuntman Ken Carter wants to do a jump one mile from Canada across the St Lawrence seaway to the USA. It takes him five years, he builds a big-arse ramp. Near the end of the film, building up to the actual jump, it was so suspenseful. My palms were all sweaty and I was almost sitting on the edge of my seat. It almost had the sort of feeling that those “In Search Of…” TV shows did. In search of a crazy guy.

Divine Trash
At one point in “Divine Trash” John Waters is talking about how he and his friends used to take speed and go and see all-night movie screenings. I had to rely on energy drinks. “Divine Trash” is a documentary that looks at the making of “Pink Flamingos”. It was pretty entertaining, but might have been more interesting if I’d seen “Pink Flamingos”. I think, though, that it shows that making a good film is not reliant on technical genius, wonderful actors and money. Or perhaps it is?

Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!
I think to appreciate this film you have to think of it in its historical context. (Oh wow, I just wrote that sentence). Basically, in these post-Xena days, seeing women kicking arse on screen is nothing special, but back in 1966 it was, so there. But the film isn’t just about large-bosomed racer chicks. It’s beautifully shot, and the acting isn’t too bad either. Leaving the film I overheard a bunch of lesbians discussing the film. One of them said “It was great - lots of crotch shots”. Does that make lesbians the new pervy old men?

The Girl Next Door
A woman lies on an operating table. Her nipple has been cut out, leaving a hole in the centre of her breast. A surgeon pulls out a bag of gel through the hole. Half the audience giggles, the other half sucks in their breath. And the best part - it’s real. The breast belongs to porn star Stacy Valentine, and “The Girl Next Door” is a documentary on her life. She escaped an abusive marriage and became a porn star. We get a behinds-the-scenes look at fakes orgasms, porn awards, and the mundane stuff that goes on.

Green Snake (Ching Se)
“Green Snake” is a really beautiful film, filled with rich colours. Everything looks good. It’s about two snake sisters who take human form, and a monk who is on the lookout for animals trying to pass themselves off as human. I think when I first saw it, it annoyed me, but thinking back, I really liked it. It’s like watching visual contentment.

In China They Eat Dogs (I Kina Spiser De Hunde)
Funny! Sexy! Violent! Immoral! Danish! “In China They Eat Dogs” is typical of the new kind of films that the Incredible Film Festival plays. If this film was American, it would probably get a cinema release and be really popular. But as its in Danish, we have to settle for occasional festival screenings. It’s not high art, it’s just fun, the story of a mild mannered (i.e. boring) man pushed to the limit and turns to a life of crime!

The Loved One
One of the two good, old films in the festival that attracted old people to come and see it. Old people laugh differently to younger people. It’s a more restrained, polite laughter. They say the film is about the young British man and his adventures in the Californian funeral industry. But really, it’s about the dead body make-up lady, Miss Thanatogunos. It’s about her and the two men vying for her affections. A classic love triangle story.

Legend Of The Wolf Woman (La Lupa Mannara)
Like Dr Humpp, it’s an exploitation classic dubbed into English. There’s a girl who experienced some bad touching and now she thinks she’s a werewolf (or maybe she really is…!). There’s a flashback where an ancestor of the girl frolicks naked in the moonlight, then turns into a werewolf, and oh my golly gosh, her were-nipples are more frightening than Stacy Valentines’.

Nowhere To Hide (Injong Sajong Polkot Opta)
There was a woman in the audience who laughed too much during this film. She would laugh at stuff that wasn’t funny (e.g., a title card reading “Day 17″ HAHAHAHA! Not funny.) And in one scene a cop was taking a piss and she said “Oh, come on!” Yeah, wees are yucky. But apart from her, I managed to like the film. The basic plot: a group of cops go after a criminal. But what makes it cool was how the film was so stylish. It was like a cartoon with real people, yet didn’t feel cartoony.

Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos)
Y’know, this film is being remade in English with Tom Cruise and directed by Cameron Crowe. Crowe makes really good romantic films. “Open Your Eyes” is not, however, a romantic film. See the original! It’s about a man (played by Eduardo Noriega who is a spunk) who is horribly disfigured in a car accident. His life is crap, then things start going well for him, almost too well. Is he crazy or is the world crazy? And, as I scribbled on a piece of paper, are we supposed to feel sympathy for Nuria? Who knows!

Peeping Tom
It’s a horror film, and it does it without cheesy fake spurting blood. The horror, dear viewer, is in the mind. A man, whose scientist father constantly filmed film growing up, as a film fetish of his own. He films women, and kills them being filmed. But the horrible thing about “Peeping Tom” is we see what he sees through his lens. Watching this film makes you an active participant in the goings-on. It’s an absolute classic and it was such a thrill to see it in the wonderful Civic theatre, up there on the big screen.

Paradise Lost 2: Revelations
Three teenagers were arrested for the murder of three boys. One was sentenced to death, the other two imprisoned for life. But did they do it? Perhaps not. Mark Byers, the bizarre step-father of one of the dead boys seems suspicious. Damien Echols, the one on death row, is like poster boy for the West Memphis Three. At one point in the doco, his mother is talking about how she goes and visits him and he puts his hand up on the glass, and how she likes Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” because he’s the only thing that really matters. The song starts to play, then as it builds to a climax, the film cuts to Damien in jail, behind the visitor’s room glass, with his hand up on the glass, staring soulfully with his beautiful brown eyes. Free the West Memphis Three!

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
Waiting for the movie to start, I heard a guy say to a friend of his, “hey man, we should have brought a protective screen for the, uh, splashes”. But anyone expecting a pornographic film would be sadly disappointed. Grace Quek was gang raped in London. A few years later in Los Angeles she became Annabel Chong, pornstar, and engaged in a 251-man gang bang. Like Stacy Valentine she also wants to give up the porn industry, but she goes back to it. Watching the film, especially the part where her mother finds out what her daughter does, is harrowing. It’s about as erotic as a car crash.

Son Of That’s Exploitation
A collection of classic exploitation film trailers. It started with Oliva de Havilland introducing her new motion picture, “Lady In A Cage”, about a woman who gets trapped in a private elevator (”Help! I’m trapped in a private elevator!”) and a bunch of loonies invade her home. A taste of 1968 hippy culture film “Psych-Out” was a favourite. The collection ended with the trailer for the 1994 film of “The Fantastic Four” that was never released. It was a little sad to see that trailer end with “Coming soon to a theatre near you”.

Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival Of Animation
A mixed bag of animations. In “Coco The Junkie Pimp 2″, one puppet hit another puppet and that cliche movie hitting noise was heard. An audience member drew his breath in sharply in empathy. Yeah, ow, that must have really hurt the puppet. There was some really vile, offensive stuff near the end. Just because you can make animated poo coming out of an animated bum, doesn’t mean you should.


Starwoids
Another doco, this time about hard core Star Wars fans. It focusses on two groups of fans who are living on the streets outside two movie theatres so they can be first in line for the opening night screening of “The Phantom Menace”. The highlight of the film is some guys who wrote “Star Wars: The Musical”, which is a bunch of songs from other shows with lyrics changed to be about Star Wars. Tears of laughter. Another cool bit was the leader of one of the groups queuing was this 17 year old fat-arse, then in the epilogue a year later, he’d lost a whole lot of weight, and there were gasps of astonishment from the audience.

Tell Me Something
Plastic rubbish bags filled with body parts and a whole lot of blood turn up and the hunt for a serial killer begins. There’s a twist at the end. At the time it was a shock, but when I think about it, it was a fairly standard film noir ending. I guess it seemed unexpected because I wasn’t used to a Korean femme fatale. Another film where a woman is subjected to bad touching as a child and turns into a psycho when she’s an adult.

The Tex Avery Cartoon Collection
The cool thing about these cartoons is they don’t rely on dialogue to tell a story. Much fun is had with the limits of cartoons. There were lots of kids at this screening, and there was one group of about six children and the dad in charge would walk along the front of the row with a bag of popcorn and they’d all take some. He was also wearing a bum-bag under his beer belly. Fortunately the cartoons started and he sat down.

The Toy Box
There’s a young couple called Donna and Ralph. In the beginning there are lots of scenes where Ralph is talking but we never see his lips move. Donna is all hot ‘n’ bothered and wants Ralph real bad, but he says, “I’ll let you know when I’m ready for your slobbery mouth!” Then our young lovers go to the house of Uncle, a horny corpse, and hang out with a bunch of free-lovin’ hippies who take turns in performing for Uncle. In one scene a woman is lying in bed and the sheets start feeling her up. Then a voice says, “Your body and my sheets are one!” It’s like a surreal soft-core porno, with a slight “Rocky Horror Picture Show” feel to it, only with Janet being Frank-n-furter. Don’t look for sense. There is none.

Wonderwall
I didn’t see “Wonderwall”. It was only on during the first week of the festival, when I was ignoring it. Damn.

B-Movie Marathon

- The Undertaker and His Pals
So there’s this undertaker and he and his two pals who run a greasy spoon diner (”The Greasy Spoon Diner”) go around on their motorbikes and kill people. The pals get to keep a limb, while the undertaker gets the business generated from the funeral. The victims have names like Miss Lamb, so the pals get to have “leg of lamb” as today’s special. Then in the end all the dead people came back to life and everyone was happy.

- Bigfoot
The festival organiser dude, wearing pyjamas, described this as a “piece of shit” and he wasn’t wrong. Big Foot abducts some guy’s girlfriend and he goes looking for her. Only he takes along a really large group of people and they spend most of the time walking from one side of the screen to the other.

- Dead Kids
An early ’80s horror film about some groovy teens who kill other groovy teens because an evil scientist is controlling their minds. The cool thing is, the film was set in Nebraska, but was filmed in Auckland. In one scene a car drove through the entrance gate to the school, and everyone laughed because it was a gate at One Tree Hill. Then one of the teens was hanging outside a school building and crossed the road and there was the Auckland University clocktower building. It brought the house down.

- Pieces
Another groovy horror film. A killer with a chainsaw is terrorising a university. A studly young fellow (who even walked around naked for a bit, oo-er) helps an attractive lady cop investigate. Meanwhile the killer, who as a child killed his crazy, domineering mother, assembles a blood-stained nudie jigsaw puzzle. The killer has trouble doing this because he is wearing thick leather gloves. But I guess if he took them off it would reveal his identity. There’s screaming and titties and tons of that fake blood around the place.

- Girl from Starship Venus
An alien comes to earth and takes the form of a naked lady. She wanders the streets of London investigating human life. All the places she visits are in the dodgy, seedy areas. She goes into a porno theatre, a massage parlour, and a strip club where she drinks alcohol and turns green and grows an afro. Then a man tries to have his way with her, but the force-field that has been activated in her nether-regions means he’s not gonna get any hot alien lovin’. I don’t really have an opinion on this film. It was on at around 6-7.00 am, and my mind was fuzzy.

I learned this:

  • If the film is fiction, abuse in a person’s past turns them into a psychotic killer.
  • If the film is a documentary, abuse in a person’s past turns them into a porn star.
  • Movie marathons are better with comfortable clothes, good food and lots of leg room.
  • Seeing naked ladies in ’60s sexploitation films is weird because they have non-surgically enhanced boobs.
  • Audiences get really quiet during soft-core sex scenes.
  • It’s going to take a while before people get used to the idea that the Incredible Film Festival is not “the best of the worst”.
  • No matter what film you see, there will always be someone in the audience who thinks it’s the most bizarre film they’ve ever seen.

And I’d do it again!

The Incredible Film Fest 2001

Published
by
Robyn
on May 9, 2001
in Film & TV
. 0 Comments

It’s 7.50 am on a Sunday morning. A group of tired, dazed, bleary-eye people wearing pyjamas are standing outside the Civic theatre. Some wander off to a nearby Burger King for some breakfast, other start the long walk up Queen Street. All have just spent the last eight hours inside the Civic watching a bunch of B-grade movies.

But wait, let’s stop and go back four weeks to where I find myself grabbing five copies of the program to the Incredible Film Festival.

At home reading one of the five copies of the festival program, I concluded that all the films were lame and I didn’t want to see any. For the first week of the fest I ignored it, hoping that it would go away.

Then a friend of mine said “I saw “Sex: The Annabel Chong Story” last night. It’s really interesting.” So I bought a ticket. To recall that is like a junkie recalling their first hit of heroin.

I saw “Sex”, and had another look at the program. Some titles appealed to me. I figured I’d go and see a few films. Then I considered buying the festival pass, which would let me see all the films for only $88. I reckoned there were at least eight films that were interesting enough, so I plonked down $88 and the ticket lady gave me a huge pile of tickets - one for each film.

It was like a challenge. “Go on,” the tickets were saying. “I dare you to go and see every film in the festival.” I took up the challenge. It took up my life.

I alienated friends, family and flatmates. My life revolved around the films. I had to remember to eat first, or rush out between films and grab something quick. I found myself relying on coffee to stay alert during some of the days where I saw three films in a night.

At first it was hard seeing two films in a night. It was almost physically exhausting. But by the third day when I saw three films in a row, I had adjusted and could cope.

I figured out where the best place to sit was, how viewing a film with subtitles is better with no one sitting in the seat directly in front. The music played before and after the films became familiar. The guy who ripped the tickets, the dude who made coffee, they were all part of my cinematic whanau. I even saw the same faces in the audience - other people like me who’d come to see all the films.

On the final night, I saw the four remaining films. The movie marathon was at midnight. I was originally not going to see it because it seemed too difficult - eight hours of movies straight. Then I considered seeing the first film and calling it a night. But after the first I realised I could manage a second. Then, after sucking down cans of V, eating chocolate bars and a mince ‘n’ cheese pie, I realised that the junk food fuel would keep me in the elevated state required to make it to the end.

My legs ached, I was tired, whenever someone in a movie said something about needing sleep I knew exactly how they felt. On screen sex and violence provided no thrills, but I would have gladly sat through a film with people going to sleep in it. I sat there through five B-grade movies, two of which were pretty terrible. I did it and I burst out onto the street and took in the early morning sun and made my way home.

I don’t think it’s possible to devote two weeks of your life, including eighteen hours in one day, to seeing truckloads of films if you hate movies. The sort of person who sees seven films a year, or whatever the national average is, doesn’t do bad-arse festival stuff like that.

It’s about love of movies, and the joy a good film brings and it is completely accurate to be called the Incredible Film Fest, because it was an incredible two weeks.