At present, Wellington is hosting the 'Wellington International Film Festival.' This is essentially a collection of films that have not already or will not ever arrive in our local Arthouse cinemas. My viewing plans of this Festival involved: #1. Watch zombie film. #2. Watch film about Motown's backing band. #3. Watch movie made in the 20s that has been digitally restored.
I planned to go to #1 by myself tomorrow. I mentioned this to my manager who said "Sunday?!? Why go on Sunday?!? Go on Saturday… and you get to listen to the Director. We're flying him over from the States to come give a lecture after the film." The downside being that the film began at 10:30pm and ended at 12am. Not being a pansy, and ignoring my Dad's warnings of "You're crazy Dan. Risking a drunken beating for some movie. Can't you bring a friend at that time of night?" I strolled into town (alone) to the tunes of Elvis Costello's 'Ten Bloody Mary's and Ten How's Your Fathers' and sat down on a couch at the theatre to read a play for half an hour.
A reasonably attractive forty-year-old woman and her accompanying reasonably attractive thirty-year-old manfriend sat down on the couch next to me. I paid
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no attention (save for a quickened page-turning pace to look like an impressively cultured and well-read 17 year old). My Manager walked up and sat down next to the pair, paying no attention to me (he didn't have his glasses on, and I was probably looking too cultured and well-read to look like the pimply uniformed employee he normally sees). I walked off to go buy popcorn and I gave him a polite wave.
In line for popcorn, I get a tap on my shoulder, "Daniel, do you wanna come meet the director? Shh. No-one knows who he is yet…" So I go downstairs and sit down (alone) next to the reasonably attractive thirty year old; who also happens to be the director of a ten million dollar film. We began a legendary conversation on the state of Horror in Hollywood today. Turns out he hated the fact that people found 'The Ring' scary too. Turns out that he adores 'Braindead,' 'Evil Dead' and 'Dawn of the Dead' too. He listened with interest as I explained my inability to make people scared without having them laugh at clunky dialogue and implausible situations: "Fuck plot man. Get some gore and go hard." He agreed that Digital Video was the best way for me to go, and I should just practise my craft until I have a killer (literally) script ready to go. He did that and is now being courted with big fat eight digit paycheques. So how is his film? Click the '+++' sign:
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