DVD: The Thirty-Nine Steps

A real masterpiece, in The Thirty-Nine Steps Hitchcock is completely in control of all the elements and he - and we - have a lot of fun with them. Bursting with humour, suspense, sparkling sexy dialogue and unexpected set-pieces, it is entertainment without parallel. But is it high art? I think that such churlishness is out of order and irrelevant: if entertainment can cross cultural and generational boundaries for over seventy years, it must be art...

DVD: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

This, the original 1934 film of the Man Who Knew Too Much, is my preferred version. I find it exciting, amusing and charming. The dance scene in Switzerland has a great window, and the, um, charateristic Nova Pilbeam makes a fine kidnappee in her first Hitchcock film. And who can go past the great Peter Lorre, phoneticising his English curiously convincingly (he'd just escaped Nazi Germany and hadn't learned English yet)?

DVD: Number 17

Aha, now we're getting closer to the Hitchcock we thought we knew! Number 17 is a silly but fairly comic little film, almost entirely set on a staircase in a deserted house, with a plot that's tooooo far-fetched but enjoyable. Nice camerawork and lighting too.

DVD: Rich & Strange

Definitely strange. This would-be comedy-romance starts with a nod to German Expressionism (the initial office scene), becomes a rather nasty cruise-ship counter-romance (the central spouses finding equally unattractive partners to escape with) but then shifts into an action film with sinking boat and pirates... Worth a single-eyebrow-raised viewing.

DVD: The Skin Trade

Oh dear. This slow and wordy filmed play isn't a very exciting C21st experience. And the central cause of all their problems now seems so very trivial (like the scandal at the heart of Oscar Wilde's 'Lady Windemere's Fan' over 30 years before). However, there is still surprising interest in the portrayal of the class structures that cage individuals, and the ambivalent (and unexpectedly sympathetic) portrait of the social-crossing nouveau riche patriarch.

DVD: Murder!

Hitch's 1930 creaky old thriller hasn't aged as well as, say, his earlier The Lodger or Blackmail, both silent films (though Blackmail had sound added for key scenes, to terrific Hitchcockian effect). Entertaining, but a bit off the boil...

Hitchcock madness...

One man's madness is another's obsession. Some time ago I bought a 10-pack of early Hitch flicks for about $7. I've also bought cheap DVDs of some of his later films. I decided, whilst ill, to watch them. All...

HD Film: Talk To Her

After my Almodovar bender at the ACMI recently, this film came onto SBS so I recorded it for my later viewing pleasure. I'd seen it on DVD relatively recently with X for the first time, and been quite perplexed by it. But watching it for a second time I was more and more seduced by its charm, depth and warmth. The bizarre plot, quite different from his other films, keeps you guessing all the time, but weaves a spell as the characters become real parts of your life. And the flamenco interlude, listened to by both you as viewer and a host of Almodovar regulars, is pure cinematic magic - one of those times where time seems to stand still and the film's rhythm matches those of your own body.

HD Film: I Walked With A Zombie

Despite the penny-dreadful title, this is a beautiful, beautifully paced psychological thriller, with an intelligent look at a culture clash between European mores and Afro-Caribbean 'realities'. The sort of film that makes you glad to be alive, with some scenes that linger for a long time afterwards. Nice to be realised that they were making such things 60 years ago! Not surprising that Jaques Tourneur was also responsible for the wonderful "Cat People" (NB NOT the Paul Schraeer version!!!).

DVD: The Fifth Element

I've been meaning to watch this one for ages. X bought his (wonderful B&O) TV based on a demo using a scene from this movie, and he bought the DVD to go with the telly! Three years ago he proudly showed me that scene on this screen, and I was duely impressed. And as, at any moment, he'll be reappearing to claim back his TV (and DVD player, and hard disk recorder, and fridge, and washing machine, and phone, and...) I thought that I'd better watch The Fifth Element before it was too late!

What a silly, silly, SILLY film! But quite good fun. And I liked Milla Jovovich very much, especially with orange hair and speaking in tongues. But silly. SILLY I say!

Play: Translations

A play set in Ireland in the early 1820s (just before the potato famine), set in Irish Gaelic but spoken in English, doesn't sound very interesting or relevant to our lives today. But this turned out to be a marvelous work, entertaining and thought-provoking, entwining conflicts of language, nationalism, culture and thought in ways that were both true to the circumstance of the setting and rang warnings for today. A great cast, well directed, the only flaw was one of the most hideous and ill-digested sets that I've ever seen on the professional stage. Oh well, you can't have everything!

Well worth crawling off my sickbed for. :)

DVD: Demonlover

Olivier Assayas has turned out a would-be thriller that is rewarding without being as much of a satisfying punch-to-the-head as he intended. Cool, in the way that Gattaca was, it takes too much time setting up the premise, and despite the great opening scene in an aeroplane, it never really takes off again. The crosses and double-crosses don't have as much of an impact as they would if you really cared about the characters, and the central premise of the underground web site is a bit obvious and silly. A jolting sex-suicide though (although I preferred the similar scenes in Matador!).

The small advantages of being ill...

= cough =

Well, the only one that I've discovered so far is that you're expected to lie in bed or on the couch and watch DVDs...

= cough-cough =

But even this gets tiresome after a week.

DVD: Open Your Eyes

Wunderkind Alejandro Amenabar made quite a splash with this little head trip, starring a luminous Penelope Cruz as the object of desire of a mixed up boy played by Eduardo Noriega. I've yet to see what the Americans did with it (Vanilla Sky) but this is definitely worth seeing. It has pace, style, a lovely balance between silliness and earnestness, and excitement. Amenabar went on to make the fine The Others and the fabulous The Sea Inside. A great talent (even if his music isn't very memorable!)

Best Breakfasts of Melbourne (Part 3)

So finally got to Cafe Sweethearts on Sunday - they sensibly close only at 3pm so breakfast lasts until then. :) Just down the road from the South Melbourne Market they get very busy at peak times, but at 2pm I had the pick of the tables, and settled down outside in the shade of a convenient tree (no more sunburn for me, please).

Eggs Forestiere - 2 poached eggs, bacon, mushrooms, hollandaise, toasted muffin - has been my choice since first coming here. The eggs were nicely cooked, the mushrooms delicious, the hollandaise very good indeed, the serving size very good... Only the bacon let the side down a bit - perhaps I've been spoilt by the upper echelons of superbness but this bacon lacked much character. So not THE BEST but certainly very, very good indeed!

Oh, but if you like pancakes (who doesn't like pancakes?????) then this IS the place for you...

http://thebreakfastblog.blogspot.com/2005/02/cafe-sweethearts-south-melbourne.html

Lobster parade

After gymming and steaming on Saturday morning, I met a friend for a swim, part of my ongoing process: "lets learn how to breath out underwater and so overcome my fear of drowning long enough to get from one end of the pool to the other." The weather forecast wasn't fantastic so we were going to go to an indoor pool (laconically named in memory of the only Australian prime minister to drown, such is life) but changed our minds at the last minute and ended up at the Prahran Pool. It's an outdoor 50m pool - very lovely setting for somewhere so close to the hustle and bustle. Actually part of the attraction had been my friend's assertion that there'd be a bit of hustle and bustle at the pool - apparently two sides fill up with families and the other two sides with gay boys (someone else called it the Pansy Patch!). But there was practically no-one there! Not too much of a worry - I'm still a bit embarrassed by my lack of swimming ability and was able to struggle up and down several times only slightly self-consciously.

We sat on the grass for a little while before my last quick swim before showering and dressing. The pale sunlight was gently warming despite the slight cool breeze. The lapping sound of water and the swirling blue of the pool were mesmerising and time seemed to stand still. "We'd better be careful," I said to my friend, "this is probably misleading - the UV's probably high and if we stay too long we could get sunburnt." We didn't stay too long.

I woke up on Sunday morning with brilliant red shoulders, shining like an electric lobster. Ouch.

Exhibition: Living Proof - Gillian Wearing

Walking into ACCA (The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, South Melbourne) is like venturing into a hall of mirrors, once you've got past the rusty hulk of the building itself. Definitely an otherworld, set aside from the 'normal' world outside. Is this what is quite intended? - never mind, it's exciting architecture that compliments Juliana Engberg's exciting programme of exhibitions. There's usually something of extreme interest on show.

So with Gillian Wearing's retrospective, Living Proof. One of the so-called YBAs ("Young British Artists" - Charles Saatchi's marketing phrase) she shows here that her work has real depth and feeling, simultaneously appealing and appalling us. As Ms Engberg said on Sunday, her work is more like photographic and video records of performances, rather than photography or video as art medium itself. And her performers are real people, interacting with her and with us, confessing and revealing too much of themselves and thus revealing our own lives to ourselves too.

Of her clever, technically precise and yet deeply felt work, I particularly liked 'Snapshots', a remarkably convincing "living photograph album" that gently but persistently questions personal and social histories and viewpoints. A revelatory exhibition.

Film: Hard-Boiled

Fast-punch-action-thriller-pow! segueing into slow-motion contemplative sections (cue mournful jazz) then tense-set-up-erupting-in-epic-shoot-outs with slow-motion contemplative details... and so on. Fun and with captivating central performances and full of interesting little details (some reminiscent of Blade Runner? - origami, smoky jazz, identity abiguity), the general silliness is held at bay by our eager collusion in a big suspension of disbelief.

In a rare Cinemateque error, what appeared to be a startlingly radical flashback structure turned out to be an interchange of a couple of reels of film! I'd guess the cans were mislabelled :)