The Standing There Productions guide to the Melbourne Film Festival continues despite my "wagging" an apparently brilliant film, Crimson Gold on Saturday. A disgraceful black mark against my name, I admit.

I did, however, see the following films this weekend:

Grbavica. Excellent film in the Women's Film section, which is an interesting section actually. This film is post-war and it's gorgeously done. It opens on this group of women who are encouraged (in fact paid) to tell their war stories and talk about their grief as part of the healing process. At first glance, all of them appear to be dead.

Anyway, others:

Summer 04. German film summarised as follows: what tangled webs we weave (sorry, but you see so many and the capacity for meaningful analysis diminshes hourly).

An Inconvenient Truth. Really excellent film made by Al Gore about global warming...

I know, I know!

Seriously, though. This film is a very well-made documentary that can't really be accused of bias. It's an excellent lesson in climate change (literally), as well as being fairly revealing about Al Gore, which turns out to be quite surprising. What's more it understands its own role as a film...

Which is more than I can say for Al Franken: God Spoke, which apparently thought it was a film about how brilliant Al Franken is and how he should be the next President of America. Al Franken is a comedian from Saturday Night Live , who wrote an often hilarious booked called Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced View of The Right in America. He is, however, one part political analyst and nine parts comedian. Not the other way around. His targets in the film are, well, everyone who isn't talking to him right at that very moment (one of his foes correctly points out in the film that he sucks up to people in person and then mocks them in the car on the way home). And he doesn't mind what he picks on them for, either. Poofy impersonations, ever so slightly sexist asides, and a searing analysis of a Senator's dog poo. Again, maybe comedy ain't my thing at the moment. I could smell the ego from the second back row.

Also saw a Danish gangster film, Pusher, which was excellent but which was a gangster film (yeesh!). Straight after that I saw a Hong Kong musical called Perhaps Love. Also very good although richly bizarre transition from gangster film to dancing in streets.

Lastly, The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Irish. Good LORD those poms have a lot to answer for. Extremely well written.

So, thirteen films down, many bijillions to go. Good thing I've got nothing else to do with my time (gulp).