Cinephilia: 36th Wellington Film Festival Preview
It’s Film Festival time of year, that two and a half week period when watching three films a day becomes more than shameful self-indulgence, its almost obligatory.
Like life itself, preparing for the Film Festival is all about choices. You start with a virgin programme and then, over a period of weeks, notes are scrawled, dates are checked, friends are consulted and previews like this are read and then discarded. You check the timetable wondering whether you can leave work to, er, post a letter for a couple of hours on Friday morning; you find yourself at lunchtime checking how long it really does take to walk briskly between Te Papa and The Embassy, and you try and forget those moments during past Festivals when you come out of a disappointing but worthy Finnish drama at the Paramount and pass hordes of happy people who saw the extraordinary Japanese animation at The Embassy instead.
The whittling is relentless as the forces of time and space require choices to be made. To add an other layer of complication to your personal process here’s my list of the less obvious options, some of which I’ve been lucky enough to preview, but mostly I’m hanging out to see them like everyone else.
The rest of the preview, after the jump.
Stationery Porn
Hopefully!
Small Business Expo – a 3 day event happening from today at the TSB Arena on Queen’s Wharf.
Um… no pictures to tempt you sorry, I dithered lovingly over a snap of an electronic stapler, but it occured to me that there may be no electronic staplers there & that might be misleading advertising.
Anyway, the expo – 3 days of stalls, seminars, mentors, and most exciting of all, giveaways.
See you there this afternoon.
Taking the Good with the Bad
Although Tom beat me to the chase on posting about the Waitangi Park Markets I thought I would supplement his post with a few secrets from the markets he may just have overlooked.
What I’ve enjoyed about the markets, apart from hauling my sorry tuckus out of bed at 8 or 9am on a Sunday, is the way it’s something of a little community.
Mind you, it’s a community made up of people whose names I don’t know, and there’s even a few I forgot to photograph. But you get the gist.
Vension guy here, for example, sells some pretty good salami. They’re brought in from some wholesaler called BaseCamp. We’ve got one hanging in the pantry gradually aging. It’s covered in a white mold and is starting to get properly stinky. Will probably use it on a pizza, or maybe in an antipasto of some kind.
This guy on the other hand might look like the fishmonger from the Asterix books, but he actually makes a pretty good variety of rustic breads.
We call him, “the nine-grain man”, because makes this fantastic bread. Keeps for about a week, and takes a whole lot of eating. It’s not delicate and refined like Moulin Bakery, but… who cares! You need to be making doorstop sandwiches? Get on down the market.
Nina Nastasia
Nina Nastasia is an accomplished musician, songwriter and performer who currently makes her home in New York, but she’s playing at the Bar Bodega on Friday night with Jim White (out of Aussie week-long-musical-wake post-rockers The Dirty Three).
More info after the jump.
TXT BUS
Wellington public transport has made another great leap forward. From the margin of a local community newspaper:
Bus users across Wellington can use their cellphones to find out when the next scheduled service will arrive. The service allows prospective passengers to find the times of the next three buses due by txting a four-digit number — the bus-stop ID number, displayed on bus-stop signs — to BUS (287). A reply will arrive within seconds.
Now note that this will not tell you when the next bus will actually arrive, but (presumably) give you the next three buses due as per the timetable. So not hugely helpful when your bus has not shown up for no apparent reason, and nor is it as cool as the digital signs I’ve seen in Auckland’s inner suburbs, but still a start. Now can they just sort out integrated ticketing? Kthxbai.
Sex in the city…..carparks
Today I parked in the Tournament car-parking building on Marion Street and made the mistake of walking down the stairs to the street. Along with the delightful smell of urine, the stairs were also littered with used condoms. Now, I’m really stoked that people were practicing safer sex, especially because I’m going to assume there’s a connection between the number of sex workers on Marion Street and their proximity to that building, but really, isn’t there a more ummm enticing place people could go? I’ve also seen people having sex in the Lombard parking building as well – what’s up with that, Wellington? Is it the smell of petrol and urine that’s such a turn-on? Or are all Wellingtonians just so horny that if you’ve gotta get off, you’ve got to get off wherever you are?
You are very important, yes you are
The lovely Beckon Design Store (Willis St Village) will be having a VIP evening on Wednesday the 18th of July from 5.30pm onwards.
They will be showcasing new ranges from valued local arts and craft people including…
- Hester de Ruiter:Hand-painted pouffes and Tea Towels
- Cloud of Birds: one-off Plushies
- Babylicious : Children’s wear; Lady pants and Man pants!
- Amulet Treasures: One-off brooches by Amy McLennan
- Robyn Yee – Bung Hamsters
- Nikki Burrows – Jewelery
- Ataahua – Linen and Light shades
- Annie Collins – Jewelery
There will also be 50% off selected stock from…
Catherine David Design, 2 Belle, Mimi, T Double L, Jenstar, Flock, Scene Stealer and Heavenly.
On top of all of this there will be bubbles, spot prizes, nibbles, great company and fantastic service (as usual)!
What more could you want? Come and support some very talented locals. All welcome (yes, you are a VIP. Easy wasn’t it?)
Announcing the Wellingtonista Quiz League
It’s oooooooooooooon! We are very happy to present you with a starting date for the Wellingtonista Quiz League – Tuesday July 24. We’d love you to participate. Not only will you get to flex your brain muscles and check out the quiz nights at four different pubs, but you’ll also get to network with likeminded people and have a lot of fun. So now you need to find yourself three friends, send us an email to wellingtonista @ gmail.com or leave us a comment here with your team name, and sign up to the mailing list for Quiz League announcements which may look suspiciously like the Bowling League mailing list. We’ll let you know which inner-city pub we’re starting at closer to the time.
After the break, the rules. Any questions?
Cinephilia: Opening This Week
A very quiet week for openings, the calm before the Film Festival storm you might say. Slipping out a day early under cover of darkness is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (or Harry Potter 5 as it said on my ticket this afternoon). Sneak preview of my Capital Times review next week: “meh”. (Empire, Readings, Regent, Sky City Queensgate).
The only other picture opening this week is the unfortunately titled Bra Boys, which is a documentary about the famous Sydney surf gang from the suburb of Maroubra. The film is directed by one of the Bra Boys himself, Sunny Aberton, and Exec Produced by Russell Crowe who is understandably more interested in his South Sydney roots than his South Wellington origins (documentary about Strathmore anyone?). Crowe is so into this particular story that he’s slated to direct and star in a fictionalised version of it in 2009. Rialto only.
Numero Uno? Numero no no!
(Issue two is out now, but I have been slow. All judgments below are based on the first issue. I’m not buying another one to see if it’s improved.)
When I saw the first issue of Uno on the shelves at the supermarket, I was hoping it would be the Wellington equivalent of Metro – on a good day, not all “Why your kids’ school will give you cancer and never let them buy a house” Listeneresque. But it’s not. It’s really, really not. Instead it turns out that Uno is every bit as advertising-copy driven as the Wellington Guide – without the advantage of at least being Welly exclusive. I suppose I should have known better give that Wellington’s official villain of 2006 is on the cover. After the jump, more reasons not to waste $9.95.