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My Festive Comb

Posted by Damian on 28 June 2008 | 0 Comments

Tags: cinema, nzff, festival

Lo, the 37th Annual New Zealand Film Festival is upon us and while I have no delusions of attending all the offerings that appeal to me, I sit down and apply my methods to the programme to try and a wake a reasonable selection.

As the process is downright thrilling, I shall outline it here.

1. I flick through all the pretty pictures in the programme (this year in a ferocious A4-sized format) and see if any appeal. I especially take interest in the animated features
2. I stroll through the programme in an orderly fashion reading most blurbs, adding all of the sessions to my google calendar (combined work and personal calendars ftw!) and to the NZFF system (the website is better than last year but still not great).
3. Other schedule requirements are overlaid such as work, play and general me-time to stare at the wall. I trim the sessions down to fit the calendar and remove duplicate entries leaving evenly spaced days (too many movies in one day is exhausting) with no overlaps.
4. At this time I usually take note of the movies that will undoubtedly arrive at mainstream sooner or later and last year that included Rescue Dawn. Heck, many of the movies will appear in some cheaper and more accessible form or another and so it really renders down to the question of how keen I am for the silver screen.
5. For the final step I ask myself, realistically, how many movies can I actually see yourself going to and how much can be financed? A final few are put into a must-see and the rest are at least noted so that I may hope to see them outside the festival.

How many did I see last year after building a list from this method? None. Heh, well ok - I saw a few by reviewing them and some more afterwards. This year I've got a list done - let us see how this year fares:

• Vexille - Seen Appleseed Ex Machina? Oh so purdy!
• CJ7
• To Each His Own Cinema
• The Counterfeiters
• Ben X
• The King of Kong
• [REC]
• Timecrimes - Seduced by the blurb so much I will admit that I actually Squeed
• Be Kind Rewind - I predict this to be a popular outing
• Let The Right One In
• Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone - Evangelion? You bet!
• Night

All laid out in a list makes me realise how ambitious I am being - I doubt I will be seeing more than four or five at the most and with a mid-festival interlude to Hamiltron, some prime viewing will be missed.

Oh, and if you are wondering I am still using Dvorak