Horrible, nasty, vindictive weather in Melbourne this week. The wind hurls dust up under your eyelids and into your nostrils and hurtles along the street swirling dirty clouds of McDonalds packaging and dead leaves into the gutters. It's October and it feels like March. A particularly hideous March. If you haven't already seen Al Gore's climate change film, go and see it, if only so you can realise how many of the "Things You Can Do" that you're not doing. It's getting a bit spooky.

Tonight I'm going to see 1984 at the Melbourne Arts Festival, with many thanks to Rita. It's my first festival show and I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully they have re-conceived the show in a contemporary setting, such as in the accounts department of Telstra, which I have been suggesting to anyone who will listen for some time now.

So there's a reason I've been missing, apart from the internet being down and the sun being out.

I've been missing because I've been uninspired. When the newspapers are full of this, this and this, it's very easy to think you're living in some kind of darkly comic novel.

Honestly, there's a bunch of blokes failing to recall whether they raped and killed a woman and took photographs of it, there are two political leaders (from either side of the vast political spectrum) claiming that migrants should sit an exam in English language* and Australian history, and one of the most watched "journalists" in the country is going to court over a child from a region that Australia has been trying to pretend doesn't even exist.

How genuinely dysfunctional.

So anyway, for once in my life I decided this evening that I had to disengage. I needed to not think about politics, or the media, or thugs, or the fact that John Howard wants people to learn about Australian history (which incidentally I thought we weren't supposed to remember) and then of course there's the fact that the opposition leader has put himself in the almost impossible position of being legitimately accused of racism by Amanda Vanstone.

So, in order to disengage, I decided to go and see a very brainless but potentially enjoyable film, the new Jack Black film.

Anyway, half way through, a group of people turned around to ask the couple behind them to please remove their feet from the backs of their seats.

So the people who were asked to take their feet off the seats told the other people to (and I'm editing this for all the under twelves) shut up, go away, leave them alone, and "Go home" because "You're not in China anymore, mate".

This impressive display demonstrated a fine understanding of Australian history (Chinese history not being relevant in Australia until the gold rush), a fantastic command of the language (although sadly not the use of the word "dinkum"), and even a reference to the "essential Australian value" of mateship ("You're not in China anymore, mate").

There was then a stand up screeching monologue wherein it was determined that some of the people in the cinema were "Asians" and that the two loud-shouty-type-racist-people "had paid good money" to be sitting in the film racially vilifying other persons. All of this screaming was happening during Jack Black's leaping around doing accents in tight lycra pants, and it resulted eventually in an almost-physical fight.

Since my disengaging tactic hadn't worked thus far, I decided to alert the very startled (twelve-year-old) manager to what was going on, and to his credit he did attempt to stop the madness, with the result that the loud shouting (from the non-Asian contingent) continued until after the movie. When I left, the manager was offering to arrange a safety escort (presumably in order to protect the Asians on their way back home to China).

Thankfully, I can report that when the lights came up, the entire cinema turned to the couple of - what's the fair dinkum English expression here - dickwits involved, and collectively greased them off or loudly commented (I saw several people complaining after I did). So, I'm not disengaging anymore. It doesn't work.

I've got no idea what the Jack Black film was like. It was the first film I'd attended since the Melbourne International Film Festival, which was largely "Asian" and some of the films from which have now gone back home to China.

FanTAStic day for Australia.

* Very interesting to me that a plan aimed at teaching English properly should be entitled the "fair dinkum" test. Doesn't it just roll off the tongue? Such excellent expression would make the proudest wordsmith blush.

So now I've turned umpty-nine. It's a good age. I've got this upcoming week off, and I will be watching little or no films, to make up for the following:

Bawke (one of the more interesting short films of the festival)

My Country My Country (about Iraqi elections)

4.30 (Singaporean, painfully long)

Passabe (story of an East Timorese man owning up to his part in the 1999 massacre, as part of the truth and reconcilliation process. Not the best docco but subject matter of course very interesting)

Global Haywire (Bruce Petty animated documentary that he calls a "dialogue" - flashes of brilliance including comments from the brilliant Robert Fisk, who should be briefing the White House).

Deliver Us From Evil (best documentary I saw in the festival, which had many good doccos. This one was about the Catholic Church. Not being religious, I didn't think it would get to me as much as it did. It was devastating. Brilliantly researched and made a real case showing that the abuse of kids has been part of the structure of the religious order for centuries).

Offside (funny Iranian film about women trying to watch a soccer match)

Em 4 Jay (Australian film about two junkies in love)

Heart, Beating in the Dark (remake of old Japanese film. Go the Japanese with their presumption that the audience is cleverer than they are).

Mind Game (Japanese anime. Completely insane).

... This means that I have seen, I think, forty-seven films in the last eighteen days.

Also, what it means, is that I am now on holiday for a week. I have no idea where I'm going, if indeed I am going anywhere, because Stewart has decided to "surprise" me with a "plan". Given that the word "Stewart" has never before been deliberately and un-ironically paired with the word "plan", and given also that the word "surprise" should be kept well away from the word "Lorin", I am anxious to find out how my future is going to pan out. I do know one thing. I don't think I will be seeing 47 films in the next eighteen days. If I can at all help it.

While you watch four films in a row, the world goes on around you.

When you go to your first film, it is daylight and conservative MPs are crossing the floor in Parliament over the Migration Bill. When you come out, having seen a slow Iranian film, an animated Richard Linklater film, a nature film, and (accidentally, wrong cinema) an Australian film about kids in a small town... there are cabs all up and down the streets of Melbourne and the city rings with the voices of angry cab drivers on the steps of Parliament.

After eight hours of movies, the Migration Bill has passed. A man has been charged with the death of the taxi driver he (allegedly) threw from his cab. And you've turned another year older.

It's all a bit much to take in, really.

By the way, as well as the above, I'm adding to my list of films seen so far: Detour de France (about cycling but actually about Aussie blokes being disgraceful), Music in Exile (supposed to be about New Orleans musicians post-Hurricane-Katrina, but just a bit too full of white people telling about their pain for my liking), Tough Enough (German gangsters) and You're Gonna Miss Me. This last one was a corker. Docco similar to Capturing The Friedmans in many ways only with broader subject-matter and made by a first-time director.

Massive week for Standing There Productions. Deadlines, Film Festivals, weekend film shoots and yes, as you may have read in all the important newspapers, it’s my birthday on Friday.

Rita, Stew and Robin (who all worked on I Could Be Anybody ) shot a film on the weekend while I did a fair bit of writing and a fair bit of swearing at my computer. August is always stupidly busy, but who would have known that the annual festa that happens on August eleventh would be thrown into doubt…

I think I might celebrate my birthday some time in September. Meanwhile:

MIFF update

On Saturday I saw:
Iraq in Fragments, which was described as a poetic documentary about Iraq in three parts. It certainly was poetic, wonderfully shot. It was astonishing really, but I think I probably got more out of In The Shadow of The Palms . Iraq in Fragments was still shattering, which it would be hard not to be if you were a documentary about Iraq.

I then saw Hunt Angels , which was about the Australian film industry (in other words it was a snuff film) (shoosh no it wasn't).

Sunday:
Linda Linda Linda, which was Japanese. So far the Japanese are winning the "best country" category (aided by the fact that I have only seen two Japanese films so far and they were two of the best I've seen). This one took a while to grow on me but I can still sing you the main chorus of the song sung by the band all throughout the film. Also, it made me want to go to high school in Japan. How much FUN were those kids HAVING exactly!?!??! I remember high school being fun and all, but there wasn't a daytime festa and a fluid sense of time and a pancake baking session during lunch time and stuff. Massively robbed.

Then saw the hideous (in a good way?) Longing , which had a fairly high walk-out rate, many of them women. Interesting in that it was a film about infidelity on the part of a man who can't communicate in a relationship with two women, in a film directed by a woman. (And the only reason Claire and I didn't walk out was that we were engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the screen, each other, and anyone else we thought might benefit. Sorry about that).

Then, Lunacy. The title pretty much sums it up. Check out the photo on the website. It's an Eastern European horror film where the director appears at the start of the film to tell us it's not art, and then disappears to make way for an insane asylum and a whole lot of raw chops having meat-sex.

Monday: In Between Days (about a Korean girl living in America. Gentle and real but the highlight for me was the sound - the snow crunching, the breathing, the wind). Mutual Appreciation was great for any writer to see because the dialogue and the characters were so unbearably true. Cringe-makingly true.
Then The Willow Tree, about a blind Iranian man who suddenly sees again. Reminded me of an article I read by Oliver Saks once, in The New Yorker, which was about how people deal with blindness (do they still "see" in their mind's eye or do they drop the idea of vision completely and learn the world in another way. Also very interesting on how depressing it often is for people to regain site after years of blindness). The article is here.

Then last night I saw Shooting Dogs, which is about Rwanda and was made in collaboration with survivors of the events the story is based on. I found myself being annoyed by the performances of the two central white men in it, whose "acting" seemed a bit out of place in a real (and horrible) story.

Prairie Home Companion, the screenplay of which was written by Garrison Keillor (hurrah). Very funny, and also good to see from a writer's perspective because of the Robert Altman "dialogue running across itself" thing. Also, check out the cast list. Yikes. Next was The Host, which I adored despite the fact that it had a huge monster in it that terrorised the public. Usually, I hate that crap. This one was Korean. Right up there with the Japanese, the Koreans. Completely hilarious and dangerously out of genre. Yay.

I am completely exhausted. Standing There Productions is taking next week OFF. Right off. No films, no meetings, no nothing. We won't know what to do with ourselves.

I wanted to read about the film I saw last night, "United 93" (the first film about the September 11 attacks) and I found this , which just raises so many questions I don't know where to begin.

The film was brilliantly done in many ways although don't see it before a long flight, be my advice. I left my wallet in the cinema so Standing There Productions then lost two script hours to me sitting around waiting for the guy in Row C to stop sitting on my wallet like maybe he enjoyed it. Weirdo.

Anyway it's the third and my birthday is on the eleventh so you guys still have heaps of time to make me a prize. Lastly, a special thanks to the guys out the back of my house who made it so much more challenging for me to write to a deadline, by sawing and grinding with the loudest machines in Melbourne all afternoon for the last two days in a row. You guys are awesome.

Last night and tonight featured the best and the worst two films I have so far seen at MIFF, and this afternoon also delivered the worst and the best letter I have ever had the pleasure of receiving from Telstra.

Telstra, for those of you who haven't been listening, is allegedly a telecommunications company. See here for my previous mystifying dealings with Telstra this year. Now, should Telstra ever choose to entirely fund a Standing There Productions feature film, I am sure I will find it in my heart to forgive them. But I will never forget this journey:

1. Over six months ago: closed my account with Telstra
2. Since then, keep receiving bills from Telstra for 67 cents every month
3. Bills have "DO NOT PAY UNTIL NEXT BILL" written next to the 67 cents
4. Then, the next month, receive exact same bill as above
5. This happens for months
6. Call Telstra, express doubts regarding efficiency of system
7. Assured by Telstra communications expert that this problem has now been solved
8. Today, receive two page bill for $0.00
9. Written next to this "total" are the words "PAYMENT IS NOT REQUIRED".
10. There is a little graph comparing my bill totals to this time last year - handy!

... If you wrote Animal Farm or 1984 or whatever in contemporary times, I reckon Telstra would have to rate a mention.

Movies:
Most bizarre film EVER (requires sitting patiently and attempting to understand Japanese humour) is Funky Forest: First Contact . I'm certainly not running around telling everyone to go and see it, because you could love it, or you could hate it. I loved it. It was genuinely insane but it still worked on a narrative level. The dialogue was great. The images were brilliant. The ideas were whacked. The official site is here (takes a year and a half to load and lots of it is in Japanese, but who cares).

And the worst film so far? Gabrielle. French film. Tortured discussion by two tortured French people about their tortured relationship. For two hours. One of those ones where you sit there thinking "LEAVE HIM! KILL HIM! SOMETHING!". Also, almost the entire thing was out of focus. So glad I invited my friend Claire for a fun night out to the movies.

Have also seen over last two nights:
Guernsey - I've seen films like this a thousand times but it was well done.
Slumming - excellent performance in a really good film by a guy who has a genuinely fluid face. It is as though his face melts between horror, pain, joy, and mental instability, all at the one time. (Kind of like my face during Gabrielle ). Good to see a film that isn't a comedy but has the guts to be funny, too. Really liked this one.

In other news - one project deadline down, two to go. Such a good feeling to get your homework in on time.