"New York Movie", Edward Hopper, 1939

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.”

“If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”

- Edward Hopper

While these may not be the definitively ‘best’ films released this decade, they are the ones that I found most personally satisfying, moving, stunning, touching or worthy. There are even 2 bona fide masterpieces in there – films for the ages (see if you can guess which).

1. Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
2. There Will Be Blood (Anderson)
3. Elephant – (Van Sant)
4. Pan’s Labyrinth (Del Toro)
5. The Wrestler – (Aronofsky)
6. Zodiac (Fincher)
7. Let the Right One In (Alfredson)
8. The Station Agent (McCarthy)
9. Hidden (Haneke)
10. The Lives of Others (Von Donnersmarck)
11. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Gondry)
12. No Country for Old Men (Coens)
13. Children Of Men (Cuarón)
14. Capturing the Friedmans (Jarecki)
15. The Prestige (Nolan)
16. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Schnabel)
17. Atonement (Wright)
18. The Prestige (Nolan)
19. Hunger (McQueen)
20. The Devil’s Backbone (Del Toro)
21. The Quiet American (Noyce)
22. Adaptation (Jonze)
23. The Host (Joon-Ho)
24. Downfall (Hirschbiegel)
25. Control (Corbijn)
26. Grizzly Man (Herzog)
27. A History Of Violence (Cronenberg)
28. Jesus Camp (Ewing/Grady)
29. Up (Docter)
30. We Own The Night (Gray)

In my last post, I mentioned that Sexy International Film Festival Director Jason Turley has been a great champion of my short film, The Body Watchers, and the following exemplifies his support.
Unbeknownst to me, he was approached by the organisers of Sexpo, who this year have launched the  inaugural Australian Erotic Film Festival, which is dedicated to films that depict a personal view on love, romance or eroticism (“no porn, please”, their application form states). Jason offered them several of the Sexy entries, from which they selected The Body Watchers and one other film (the name of which escapes me). The Body Watchers ended up being one of 6 finalists, chosen by the festival judges.

These films were played at a gala opening evening in Sydney recently, and will be played on the big screen at Sexpo Sydney & Melbourne, in between stage shows. Winners will be chosen by public voting, via SMS. A $5000 prize is available to the winner of the festival. If any of you are heading to Sexpo, I’d appreciate your vote!

Some good news for ‘The Body Watchers’, which was recently judged Best Australian Short Film at the 2009 Sexy International Film Festival at their closing night in Melbourne.

Still from The Body Watchers.

I was most surprised, and my acceptance speech wasn’t much to write home about – I think I forgot to thank my wonderful cast and crew which, given my guiding philosophy that film is an essentially collaborative medium (and my rabid hatred of  auteur theory), is very regrettable. So, to redress this remissness – many thanks, people; I couldn’t have done it without you, and the award belongs to every one of us. Thanks also to the festival’s director, Jason Turley, a lovely chap who has championed The Body Watchers and really helped its progress.

From here, the Sexy International Film Festival travels to Perth, and then next year will tour Paris, Los Angeles & New York. I’m currently in the process of subtitling the film into French, in preparation for the Paris screening, and I’d like to add yet another thanks to Charly Vanni, for his excellent and thorough translation of the film’s dialogue, and thereby teaching me the French term for ‘golden shower.’

2009 is looking like the year that will restore my faith in Australian Cinema.

It was an auspicious year already, with the long-awaited restoration and cinema/DVD re-release of Ted Kotcheff’s seminal masterpiece “Wake In Fright”, one of the most important (and greatest) Australian films of all time. I’ll write a blog on this film soon, as I attended a screening a while back that was introduced by Ted himself, and have had a long-standing obsession with it.

Donald Pleasance in 'Wake In Fright'.

But we’re also seeing a real return to form in the films currently being produced and released here, too. To date, I have seen (and been incredibly impressed by) Adam Elliot’s first animated feature Mary & Max, Warwick Thornton’s brutal, essential Samson & Delilah, Robert Connolly’s terribly angry and moving Balibo, and Rachel Ward’s Beautiful Kate (which holds a special personal significance for me, as it is the first feature film shot by my long-time friend, the very talented cinematographer Andrew Commis. I’m also eagerly awaiting Jonathan Auf Der Heide’s Van Deimen’s Land, which looks like a cross between the sensibilities of John Boorman and Werner Herzog, if the 20 minute short version I saw is any indication.

It seems, at least temporarily, that Australian film-maker’s are throwing off the yoke of the fussy, static, twee and cowardly ‘coming of middle-age’ movies that plague our industry (and die lonely, deserved deaths at the box office) for darker, more expansive and bold works, that delve into our culture and have some actual relevance.

About. Fucking. Time.

Kelly Ann Doll in The Body Watchers.

My short “The Body Watchers” is proving to be a tenacious little film.

After being selected for the 2009 St Kilda Film Festival (where it played to a sold-out crowd at the Palace George Cinema), it has gone on to be screened at the 2009 Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), and has just been chosen as an opening night film for the upcoming 2009 Sexy International Film Festival.

I’m particularly excited by this last festival, as it means “The Body Watchers” will not only screen in Melbourne this October, but will then travel to Perth in November, and from there tour Paris, New York and Los Angeles next May.

My recently completed second film collaboration with Lisa MacKinney, a performance film of her latest musical guise ‘Mystic Eyes’, has been accepted into Perth’s Revelation Film Festival.

Poster for 'Mystic Eyes.'

Coming on the heels of ‘The Body Watchers’ making it into the official Top 100 selection at the 2009 St Kilda Film Festival, it’s a (film) festive season all-round.

Here’s a 30-second trailer for the final film. Enjoy; the poster image below links to the Youtube video. I’ll post more on its recent screening at the prestigious St Kilda Film Festival once I recover from aforementioned festival.

Lisa MacKinney in 'Mystic Eyes.'

In 2006, I shot a performance film of the noise duo Second Viennese School; Michael Munson and Lisa MacKinney. Their particular brand of ’sonic terrorism’ takes the form of long (40 minute), hypnotic pieces, constructed from early house beats looped to form a rhythmic foundation, which are then layered with live organ drones, repetitive chord strumming and guitar feedback. The effect is mesmerising and immersive; the listener becomes lost in the gradual, ascending, organic flow of harmonic collisions until you swear you’re hearing things that aren’t even there, like million-angel choirs and glaciers collapsing into the ocean.

A still from the 2006 Second Viennese School performance film "SVS".

Late last year I had the good fortune to once again team up with Lisa MacKinney, who now performs mainly solo, under the name Mystic Eyes. We’d discussed making another musical document, but I wanted this one to be a more minimalist affair than the previous film, which had the (deliberate) 60’s aesthetic of a black and white archival film from Andy Warhol’s Factory – raw, jagged and industrial.

I wanted the film-making process to mirror, as closely as possible, the style and structure of the music; a single take that would last the duration of the piece (around 28  minutes) to reflect the unbroken sonic line of the music, that would begin in a wide shot and gradually move into a roving close up and become immersed in the detail of the image, just as the listener is drawn into the rich and resonant depths of what seems at first to be very simple music.

Lisa amid the tools of her trade.

We filmed the performance against a white cyclorama, as I wanted to focus purely on the technology and instruments used to create the music, and the human operator of that equipment, decontextualised from any particular environment or  surrounding. The stark essence of the result is particularly pleasing and pure.

I guess the concept for this film doesn’t exactly entail screenwriting per se, but there’s an element of  ‘design’ in allowing the style of the music to dictate the visual execution; an example of the form-follows-function principle at work.

The titular Mystic Eyes.

For trivia fans, the title sequence – a close-up of Lisa’s eyes under the credits – is intended as an homage to the opening of Roman Polanski’s ‘Repulsion’.

The film was shot by Adrian Price, cinematographer of the AFI Award-nominated documentary ‘Beyond Our Ken’ (see it, it is great), and the sound was recorded by James Dean (not the dead method actor, the chap from Tugboat). A special thanks also to Tash Blankfield, who loaned us her enviable photography studio for the day.

‘Mystic Eyes’ was completed in early March 2009, and was recently accepted into Perth’s Revelation Film Festival.

1. Sight & Sound Magazine

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/

First published in 1932, and shortly thereafter taken over by the British Film Institute, Sight & Sound is without question the best film review and criticism magazine on the planet. Each month they review every new film released in the UK, from art house fare to Hollywood blockbusters (including full credits), always in a very thoughtful and cine-literate way.

The articles are to die for; I think I’ve learned most of what I know about film from Sight & Sound. The journalism is of an extremely high standard, and just on the right side of academic, without being dry. They do not confine themselves to  purely contemporary filmic matters and are forever profiling some brilliant film, film-maker, actor or genre I’m unfamiliar with.

The BFI also publishes a series of monographs on individual films. In-depth close readings of modern and classic films that make amateur analysts like me drool. They’re small and expensive (a bit like Sight & Sound itself, which is slim but pricey, although it does contain a wealth of material in the small space between the front and back cover.)

I bought my first issue in 1990, and now have an (almost) unbroken collection of this very fine magazine stretching back nearly 20 years.

I am obsessed with filling in the gaps.

2. Creative Screenwriting Magazine’s Podcast

http://www.podcastalley.com/podcast_details.php?pod_id=8894

My God, this is addictive. I hardly ever listen to music on my iPod anymore, as I’m too busy listening to these fascinating interviews, conducted by editor Jeff Goldsmith, with many of the greatest screenwriters in the business. The best interviews are lengthy conversations conducted in front of a live audience immediately after the screening of the writer’s latest film, and feature an audience Q & A after Jeff has worked through his stock (but always relevant) questions; How did you break in to the business? What was the hardest scene to write? What’s your writing habit and process? How do you deal with writer’s block? Etc.

I admit to having an almost unhealthy interest in the writing processes of others; there’s always something to be learned from the idiosyncratic technique someone else has developed,  so this podcast is catnip for me.

Jeff’s slightly grating Californian geek voice takes a bit of getting used to, but he’s a genuine guy and genuinely passionate about screenwriting.

Subscribe, screen scribes!

3. The Four Word Film Review

“The fwfr is a film review site like no other – an ever expanding collection of extremely brief film reviews and summaries. Submissions are welcomed from anyone – the only condition being no more than four words may be used.”

I love FWFR. It tickles me to death. I thrive under the yoke of a constrictive creative parameter, which no doubt explains why I find it so enjoyable to write reviews for FWFR.

Here are my own reviews:

http://www.fwfr.com/display.asp?sort=2&id=4539&Mode=reviewer&Rows=100&Start=1&do=

And if you’re looking to laugh until things hurt, check out the Top 100 Reviews Of All Time:

http://www.fwfr.com/tops.asp?mode=att

A random sampling of the concise genius on display here:

Kramer Vs. Kramer: “I bet Kramer wins.”
Passion Of The Christ: “Gory, gory, Hallelujah.”
Tootsie: “Hoff-man, Hoff-woman.”
Robocop: “Copper is metal.”
Pretty Woman: “Shags to riches.”
Spiderman: “Teenager emits sticky substance.”
Psycho: “Unfortunate Leigh.”
Eyes Wide Shut: “Pretty shitty gang bang.”

For those of you who believe brevity is the soul of wit. And probably good practice for writing punchier log lines.