Student work gets better and better

There was a welcome freedom from boy's fantasies in this year's end of year show for the Diploma of Animation students at Yoobee (previously Natcoll).

That is almost certainly because, in a hugely welcome trend, there were far more women showing their work than previously. Indeed in previous years the course was often 100% male. This year there were four or five women, including some who presented computer generated models as their final work. (Modelling is usually a boy thing - they make monsters and machines of mind boggling complexity and ingenuity.)

Of the models my favourite was "Time Guardian" (by a girl) - a creature designed in three versions - good, neutral and evil. Models are usually presented as static images, shown from all angles and at various stages of development. "Time Guardian" was presented in an engaging way with narrative and poetic quotation on screen.

There was still a lot of "boy stuff" - but considering most of their job prospects are in the overwhelmingly male gaming industry, this is not surprising. Because I'm a girl I enjoy the girls' work more, but a boy produced the dear little dog creature running over to its mother and a cute tale about a little witch, so I hope I'm not too biased.

The Diploma of Digital Filmmaking filled the second half of the show. This course has always had more women in it and my favourites (below) are by men and women.

The films from this course were almost all excellent. Something new to the course was photo animation, where still photos are animated against background scenes. This is surprisingly effective, making a moving "collage" image.

Some of the films suffered from the undergraduate problem of starting with an abstract idea and then using the most obvious symbolism and images to portray it. A bit more brainstorming of ideas was required.

Favourites in this category "How to Get a Girl in 6 Days" - a gorgeous wee thing with heaps of humour and charm - and "The Fort" - well observed drama about childhood.

A boring and pretentious movie about a boring and pretentious movie maker (yawn)

Early in New Zealand film making, or at least early from my point of view (the early '80s) there was a trend to making deadly boring and pretentious films and call them deep. Unfortunately for the industry, Vigil, an early example of this type, was a hit with the critics and up and down the country film makers tried to emulate it.

For me, until I married a film maker, NZ movies were a gloomy no-go zone. Let's face it, even the good ones are seldom a laugh a minute - The Piano, Once Were Warriors, even Whale Rider.

So here we have The Russion Snark, a boring pretentious movie, a throw back to 1983, about a boring pretentious film maker - and the critics don't seem to have learned much - they like it!

1. If you're making a movie about something boring it has to be interesting, or at least funny. There's nothing funny about this movie.

2. Main characters, no matter how flawed, need to have some humanity, Misha (the pretentious Russian film maker) is childish, humourless, self centred, lazy, deluded and immoral.

3. Characters must be believable - Misha's foray into petty crime makes no sense, and his "redemption" at the end comes out of nowhere. We absolutely do not believe this is the same character.

4. His beautiful wife, who has put up with him for a long time, deserves, when she leaves him, better than the writers deliver. When she goes back to him it's a kind of defeat. We don't believe he's a better man.

5. When they sail off into the sunset nothing has been achieved, unless you believe Misha's a better person (yeah, right!) - to me it seems certain the whole sorry mess is due to be repeated at another location.

6. Most of the movie is Misha staring gloomily into nothing, Misha's awful black and white movie, and Misha groaning on about art and meaninglessness. The whole plot (such as it is) is crammed into the last quarter.

There are two good things - the black and white photography is terrific (just FARRRRRRR too much of it) and the actress playing Misha's wife Nadia is mesmerisingly beautiful.

How to succeed in movie making - drop the F bomb as often as you can

For completion's sake - this is a quick note about the Auckland final of the 48 hours film making competition. As we were disqualified for lateness, we were not in the running but we did win an award for weirdness.

The Auckland finalists were actually all good. Some very slick indeed such as the robot revenge movie with added special effects for director's commentary, Maori language versions and an alternative ending. Probably a bit too clever. There were a couple of pointless ones we had to scrabble to remember later, but the hit this year seems to have been the fad movie genre.

Fad movie? What's a "fad movie"? Well that's what I asked when I first heard of it. But the three I've seen have all been clever and original - including my favourite of the final which was about kite flying and had a sweet ending (unlike most 48 hour efforts which go for shock).

The winner was another fad movie which was a mockumentary about "kid jumping". Funny and original but it had one of those stupid shock endings.

My favourite from the heat - called Circus Animals - defied our predictions and was in the final.

One gripe - I kind of get why film makers liberally drop the "f-bomb" in their productions. But why do they have to do it when accepting their awards? The MC, Oliver Driver, dropped a few, and the winning team called each other "f - ers" and implied the audience were too. They're proud of it - revelling in their licence to curse liberally, as if they think they're making some huge stride towards a better society, or something.

Fashion victims

Who decreed that women don't want to wear skirts any more?

Or, if they do, they're 14 years old, or your great grandma?

Who said that cardigan sleeves need to be so tight they cut the blood flow to your hands? Or that all tops flare out under the boobs so you look pregnant? Or that black or the foulest purples, reds and blues are the only colours to wear?

I made the mistake recently of attempting to upgrade my wardrobe. It was very simple. I wanted two winter skirts, not black (I have three black skirts), and a variety of tops to go with them.

I had to scour two malls to find the skirts. I am a size 18 middle aged woman. The skirts had to be relatively trendy and flattering. I did find two. And only two. There were others that fit - but putting all the detail on the hips of a size 18 skirt is not smart - who wants extra inches there?

As for tops - ALL manufacturers put the shirt buttons exactly where a decent bust makes them gape or, worse, pop open. I have one shirt where they were thoughtful enough to put a dome in the strategic place, otherwise I avoid shirts or provide my own extra precaution. Also, high round necklines make large-busted, no-necked women (like me) look like their head grows straight out of a uni-breast. This year, guess what? A decent v-neck was almost as scarce as a decent skirt.

Maybe if I was shopping at the top end I'd have more luck - but we don't all have that choice. If there's any manufacturer reading this - please note - different shaped women need different shaped clothes.

Meanwhile I have a teenage daughter who is interested in a career in fashion. Maybe I'll be able to get her to make my clothes?

Killings and uncomfortable laughs easy outs

It's "48 Hours of furious film making" season again. We attended "our" heat last night.

It was 9.30 on a Friday so they obviously thought they could play their most offensive entry. As my 14 year old daughter said (she is very wise) "it's easy to get uncomfortable laughs". My 15 year old daughter hit it on the head when she declared none of the films in our heat to be finals material.

To me they were mostly distinguished by almost every one ending in a death. I have decided I like my short films to be simple, so the one room movie where two characters, with almost no dialogue, play a lethal skill game was my favourite - even though it, too, ended in a death.

The MITCIT team (our team) once again foundered on the shores of technical ambition, but we had a great live cast this year (the heroine has received accolades on the review site for her performance). The second version will probably be a masterpiece as the final came unstuck with CG backgrounds and editing.

Shock and grossness and lots of violent death - easy fixes to plots with holes and implausability aplenty. Our script was great, our cast was great - one day we'll nail the tech stuff, then watch out!

Indie kiwi flick - well worth seeing

Our most recent NZ movie is The Curry Munchers, a low budget indie about the immigrant experience in Auckland. To me it had the feel of many British indie movies I have seen and, although it didn't have the production values, because of its budget, my family, who have seen Gazza Snell, rate it better than that. It is certainly better than Predicament. However, it would be fair to say it is patchy, especially technically, and some of the "crowd" scenes reflect the low budget. But some things they pull off miraculously - like the TV show set up.

The script is mostly funny and subtle, and I'll get to that in more detail - but some of it is a bit over the top. Our biggest belly laugh was in a slapstick scene in which an unconcious person was transported around in a rubbish bin. Silly and unrealistic, but we did laugh and I have seen worse in better-resourced movies.

The strength for me was in the subtleties of the script (yes, the scipt is uneven, but when good, very good). The careless racism of the policeman who will not pronounce Indian names correctly, even when gently corrected, the patronising TV commentators pronouncing the name "Curry Munchers" not politically correct, the agonising scene whether the hero's father fails a job interview, and above all the poignant relationship between the mother and father. They are both struggling in their new lives in New Zealand and yet they are not communicating. If they would just talk ... but then the whole thing is about cultural expectations and how a new country can turn all these upside down.

Most enjoyable - go and see it. It's worth it.

What makes a good story?

What set me off thinking about stories was watching The Time Traveller's Wife on television the other night and really not liking it, but seeing The Lakehouse the previous night and really liking it. And I wondered - Why? They're both love stories with fantastical twists and The Time Traveller's Wife arguably has better credentials.

So I arrived at a kind of philosophical question. What makes a good story?

OK - this is subjective, but not entirely. Often when we're left with a disatisfied feeling at the end of a book or movie it's because there is a fault in the story telling. I recently reviewed an action sci fi script, which is completely not my thing, but it was a good story. It is only partly a matter of what you like, because I should have liked The Time Traveller's Wife.

But here is why I think I didn't

a) The story has a time travel plot, but is nothing to do with science fiction. This is a romance. The time travel is explained as some sort of genetic disposition. That's not the problem. The problem is time travel should have some sort of meaning in the story. It doesn't beyond what a bummer it is when your husband keeps disappearing.

b) The two main characters are creepily manipulative. The time traveller, as a mature man, deliberately goes back in time to meet his future wife as a child and keeps meeting her, in secret, until she grows up enough to fall in love with him. Later he has a vasectomy without her agreement, so she hooks up with a younger him just passing through on a time travel in order to conceive. Further, he disappears on their wedding day so she marries an older him.

Contrarily, in The Lake House, which in theory is just as odd, the two main characters get together in one time zone and presumably live happy ever after. It was based on a French movie, which may explain why it seemed both more romantic and more plausible.

It is OK to have creepily manipulative characters, but I think it has to be clear that their behaviour is seen to be creepy and manipulative and is in some way, condemned. In The Time Traveller's Wife we are meant to think that these are two star-crossed lovers, not a paedophile and a control freak.

Where does evil come from?

Recently I viewed two stories that were engaged with evil and the havoc it causes in the world. They were good studies of evil in that they didn't shirk the consequences, although I wouldn't say they were among my favourite experiences.

The first was a live play called "Gagarin's Way" set in Scotland in recent times when economic hard times have hit. There are four male characters, each reacting to the hard times in different ways.

The youngest character is the kind of modern liberal who espouses the "middle way". He is caught up in nefarious goings on because of his greed and sense of superiority about his degree in politics. He allies himself with two men who are plotting violence against one of the management. The manager himself is a study in cynism, a local made good, he is so world weary the prospect of meeting an untimely end at the hands of two kidnappers doesn't seem to bother him much. He understands that the proletariat of old has been seduced by the materialism of modern culture, something the older of the kidnappers doesn't understand. He is an old school political activist, trying to stir up a political movement. He is the most sympathetic character, in a way, because at least he believes in something and he also shows concern for his victim, to the point where he doesn't want to carry out the plan. In the end it is his tear stained face that haunts you as you leave the theatre.

The fourth character is a psychopath who enjoys violence and making trouble. He has no political beliefs at all and indeed, cleverly skewers them all in a way that makes you understand the futility of human systems of social organisation. His view of the world is bleak and completely amoral. The play is a comedy of the blackest kind, but the blackness only grows on you as you realise that the two kidnappers are completely different. The psycho has no interest whatsoever in the anarchist's agenda.

Where lies evil? In the amoral perceptions of a psychopath who uses the hatreds of others for his own ends? The play flinches a wee bit in making it clear that the psycho is, indeed, a psycho, having been in an institution. Although it is a clear eyed play about politics and its shortcomings as a philosophy, it cannot face the truth of the existence of pure evil. An evil man must be sick ...

The second was the movie "Four Lions" - again a black comedy. Here it was hard to locate an evil character at all. They all had their moral weak points (clearly, as they were jihadist bombers), but they were also sympathetic characters. Perhaps the least sympathetic was the white Moslem, who felt he had to be more jihadist than his peers because he was white. They were all idiots so it is hard to label any of them the source of the evil. It was more as if a source from outside had simply stoked their hate into a force for evil. This of course is the cause of fanaticism on such a scale. Get enough people hating hard enough and you can persuade them to do anything.

The most intelligent of them, their leader, was perhaps the most culpable. In one scene he persuades his somewhat intellectually deficient friend that his gut feeling that what they are doing is wrong is really the devil usurping God's place in his heart. It's a clever, amoral manipulation of someone who clearly doesn't have the capacity to make a properly informed decision about being a suicide bomber.

Although this is laugh out loud funny in many places they don't come to a good end. And it left me with lots of questions. These men were just ordinary British moslems with ordinary lives . And yet they were the type of people (not just men) who's hatred can be stoked to the point of violence.

Perhaps hatred is the biggest evil - the one we are all capable of and the one we should be on guard for all the time.

The latest NZ flick - patchy at best

We are interested in movies in our family. My husband and I enter the 48 hours (six years now and counting), my children help us in other productions, we even have a presence on YouTube (see a previous post on The Vintner's Duck), so we try to see New Zealand movies as they come out (if they seem at all interesting and/or suitable for young teenage girls). So we went off last weekend to see Predicament - the latest New Zealand flick, completing the filming of every work of fiction by iconic New Zealand writer Ronald Hugh Morrieson. I have not read Morrieson, nor seen any other movie made of his work, but Predicament did not change my impression - a black comedy, obsessed with the gothic and scandalous and black, black, black.

But the story was fun. Obviously the concoction of some sort of genius. Morrieson does not fit in the usual New Zealand literary tradition. This is not serious stuff - it's fun and thrills and blood and guts and a little bit naughty. Small town gothic. I doubt Morrieson was terribly worried about the Great New Zealand Novel (which is really refreshing).

The film looks beautiful but is so patchy. Also, it was useful to understand that Morrieson had not completed the story upon his death, for the ending is quick and perfunctory and leaves a lot unexplained. Jemaine Clement, who receives star billing, steals the show. He plays a character called Spook, whose main characteristic is appearing as if from nowhere - and it is impossible to imagine anyone else doing this so well. Unfortunately he departs the scene well before the end and takes most interest with him. None of the characters are in the least bit sympathetic, except the Gran, who is a very minor character and this is a problem in watching the movie. So after Jemaine departs it gets a bit tedious. Other reviewers have mentioned that the actor playing Toebeck overplays most of the time so that his secret sinister side is actually not so secret. Although the pivotal scene where we become aware of his possible involvement in his father's death is effective.

The main character, a callow youth who is terminally embarassed by his father, is extremely unsympathetic and this is a real weakness, possibly inherited from Morrieson - and put this together with the hustled up ending (not written by Morrieson) and you're left with an unsatisfactory cinema experience.

Big slick Hollywood movie making 101

Inception is the latest big event movie. As such it invites direct comparison with the other BEM of 2010 - but it's a much better movie than Avatar - much less gimicky, much less simple minded and a uniformly terrific cast.

But ... I can't call it great.

For example, it invites comparison with The Matrix, involving worlds that exist only in the mind, but it is not as primal as The Matrix, it's only playing with the concepts. It reminded me more of Wim Wnders Until the End of the World, which was a bit of a mess of a movie (coming for me, as it did, on the heels of Wings of Desire which is one of my greatest ever movies) - but has in common with Inception the idea that our dreams could be addictive if we were ever able to control our access to them. In Inception our dream worlds threaten to become our reality and the end (somewhat simplistically) plays with our inability to discern reality over delusion.

But, for me the deep issues of Inception are laid over the top, they're not really significant to the movie. They're more like a shallow attempt to make the movie important.

Basically it's a heist movie. The main characters are thieves on a mission impossible. The direction is almost flawless. At one point we are four dreams into the maze of the unconscious and we know exactly where we are at all points. The only thing that slightly confused me was the firefight in the snow where everyone was wearing white - I wasn't sure who was actually dieing and who was surviving.

The apparent emotional core of the movie, the main character's angst over the death of his wife, remained extremely unmoving, although it did complicate the heist.

There was remarkably little in the way of SFX, which was refreshing, and if you want to cast an action hero Leonardo DiCaprio is probably your best bet. The unbelievably dependable Michael Caine turns up, and Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard - I told you it was a great cast.

Inception is a brilliant action/sci fi movie that doesn't rely too much on gimmicks. Just don't expect a masterpiece.

How to write chick lit

I have read chick lit on and off my whole life, obviously being a chick and being into lit, and I have come to some conclusions about how it's done.

True chick lit involves the friendships of women. Books and stories mainly about men/women relationships are romances. I think this is probably my arbitrary division, but it seems chick lit celebrates something about women. Chick lit is about how women are the best friends of women, how our relationships with our friends meet all our emotional needs, how wise and special women are. Men are in these books and stories only as objects or caricatures. So Sex and the City is the TV version, The Jane Austen Book Club or The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants or The Joy Luck Club are the book (and sometimes movie) versions. Another movie version in The Making of An American Quilt (I haven't read the book). In all these stories a woman's girlfriends put her back together after crisis, or help her mature and grow up, etc.

Another strand of chick lit builds on the premise that women are wise and loving and the fount of all that is good. Examples here are Chocolat, Babette's Feast, Like Water for Chocolate, The Colour Purple (I'm aware that these are movies, but they started as books, three of them are also about food - hmmmmm).

Most of the sisterhood books have in common that you really can't understand what brought these women together in the first place. Margaret Atwood's Robber Bride comes close to answering that. The three friends are drawn together over each other being the victim of the same Other Woman stealing their men. Atwood correctly identifies that sometimes the enemy is one of us, not all are sisters.

So my recipe for chick lit:
1. Take three or four women as different as possible
2. Put them together over a particular past time (quilt making, a book club)or
3. Have them share an experience (the same woman stole their husbands)or
4. Just have them be friends for no apparent reason (Sex and the City)
5. Have them meet and talk endlessly
6. While recounting their rotten marriages, rotten children, thwarted dreams
7. Have them come through a life time of friendship stronger and happier

OR have one particularly strong woman befriend a whole lot of weaker, more victimised ones
have her power be absolutely benevolent and mysterious and have every woman (remember men are the enemies or the weak ninnies) who comes near her be blessed and live happily ever after.

See, they're fairy tales!

Patchwork and Quilting - how to write a short story

Just recently I have been writing short stories (Lankaren is taking a rest) and I have realised I make stories in much the same way I make fabric art. That is, I save little scraps of this and that and look for ways they work together to create an overall "something" that is more than the sum of its parts. I suppose all art is like this - the juxtaposition of pieces that contrast and reflect on each other - creating a resonance between them that is a whole new thing.
A writing friend once described her way of writing as casting a fishing line into a pond and pulling something out which had something else tangled in it, and that something else had something else dangling off it ... in a little string of things that together made a story - not just a sequence of events, but also details that when added together give the story depth and richness and truth. So for example a character loves shoes - this fixation is both a detail of character and a device by which ideas about materialism, luxury, the Cinderella myth and even political comment (Imelda Marcos anyone?) can be explored.
I have also been reading about writing again - including Writing from the Inside Out, by Dennis Palumbo (a therapist who specialises in creative issues - only in America!) and Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood. Palumbo manages to be both encouraging ("you are enough") and depressing ("writing is hard"). Atwood is a very intelligent writer who makes me feel like an intellectual pipsqueak. she is one of the few current writers I actually admire, so perhaps this is not surprising. Her book explores issues such as "Is a writer a prophet, a high priest, or a court jester?" and "Who are we even writing for?" (ourselves, critics, the masses, etc). Heavy stuff.
Maybe I should stop reading and get writing!

History, like politics, is personal

Recently my family attended the unveiling of a plaque on my great great grandfather's previously unmarked grave.

It has long been considered among many, certainly the young I think, that history is irrelevant. Who cares about what dead people did long ago? I have the usual barrage of answers to this - those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it, ideas have consequences (so we better know where they came from), our identities are rooted in the history of our culture. However, great great grandfather's ceremony has reminded me that history is personal.

You see great great grandfather's plaque was donated by the US government because he was a Civil War vet. Yes, he fought (in the navy) in the 1861-65 war when the US finally abolished slavery. He fought in the conflict that posed the greatest threat the Republic of the United States of America has ever faced and the American Government is still grateful!

The ceremony was held on July 4th, the day Americans celebrate their country, their democracy, their way of life, and it was carried out by the deputy consul of the American Consulate in Auckland, and he took the time to explain to us how important our ancestor's contribution was to the survival of his country. It was moving and revealing.

Suddenly my daughter's studies of the Civil War and black American civil rights came into clear focus for her. She has a stake in that story.

But there is more. The day was a family reunion. Great great grandfather married the grand daughter of a pre-Waitangi settler. His wife was also half Nga Puhi. His last surviving grandchild, a lady of 103, was at the reunion. She is the carrier of a sacred taonga - a name given her by her grandmother. Again, my children could see how they fit into history. They are Nga Puhi, from the Bay of Islands, and they both bear Maori names handed down as taonga.

Suddenly they understand the precious gift of heritage, of history, they can see how history has made them.

I amazes me when I see on television various celebrities researching their family histories and being surprised to find out things about their grandparents. For our family, our history goes back all the way to settlement in New Zealand. Also, of couse, there is the whakapapa that goes back to Kupe.

As settlers we grasp onto our history, we are proud. The courage and tenacity of our forebears sets us apart as a people, it is our identity. Tribal peoples also have this sense of pride in forebears, hence the whakapapa. Such tribal memory gives a people it's sense of separate identity, of being special, if you like. We settler peoples perhaps also have the same sense. I'm not enough of an anthropologist to really know. But it's kind of sad that for all but the Maori branch of my family, knowledge stops at England's sea ports.

Goodbye Betty! a bit more about endings

Ugly Betty finished on our screens tonight. Not such a classic in my opinion, but worth a look occasionally, and certainly worth my attention for its final episode ever.

And they got the ending right!

Ie, everyone had a happy ending and there was a good hint that Betty and Daniel just might, just might, put Mode behind them and have the relationship they are free to have now Betty's following her dream and Daniel's grown up.

That's how it's done!

Obsession

It seems that most teenagers are obsessed with something. I suppose as parents the best we can hope for is that the obsession is harmless. I have been thinking about this for a while, ever since my youngest daughter became a bona fide GLEEK, that is, a fan of the TV series Glee, about a high school show choir consisting of geeks and freaks and various other "uncool" types in the American high school culture. (Honestly - these programmes, and the various high school movies, make me soooo thankful we live in NZ.)

Currently the other major obsession I know of is everything vampire, focused mostly on Twilight and its various sequels. I have read the Twilight books and enjoyed the first one as I enjoy most romance novels - it was like candy floss, nice but not good for me and not much to it. But I must confess I do not think vampire obsession is healthy.

Twilight is about adolescent love - a love that is obsessive and juvenile, a manipulative boy who controls the actions of his so-called beloved and a masochistic girl who laps up the danger and is willing to literally die for love. Her willingness to embrace eternal death for his sake is chilling. (On an unwittingly telling note, he is freezing cold to the touch and hard like marble.) She is in constant danger, not least from him, and is seriously damaged many times, until, in the most gruesome birth scene I have ever read ... anyway suffice to say she gets her desire and becomes one of the undead to be dead with him for ever. Shudder.

And some grown women say this story has spoilt them for their husbands. Eh? What is this teaching our girls about real love and relationships? That a cold, manipulative dangerous man is worth dying for? Has anyone considered how totally boring being a vampire would really be?

OK. So back to Glee. Is that really as bad? No - I can't bring myself to say so. It is very affirming of geeks and freaks and has some really fantastic music - my kids are now familiar with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and show tunes from ages past. However, it is preoccupied with the sex lives of its characters, a recent episode was all about whether certain characters should lose their virginity or not (is sex really the most important thing in life? Really?) Also, while it is just possible stories about teen pregnancy and coming to terms with being gay are relevant for teenagers, the break up of a teacher's marriage and his subsequent (almost) relationship with another staff member are not. I think this story line introduces something far too adult into the mix.

BTW - Sue Sylvester, the cheer coach, is one of the best comic characters to appear on TV in ages.

As usual, parental guidance recommended.

The Idolatry of Bernada Alba

We do not frequently attend the theatre, but on Saturday my husband and I ventured forth to see The House of Bernada Alba at TAPAC here in Auckland. We had many reasons for this, not least we both knew the main actor and the director (from a long time ago) and I, personally, like the writings of Frederico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish playwright who was executed by Franco's army shortly after the play was written - either because he was a communist or because he was gay - take your pick.

The play was pretty much standard socialist fare - ie, playing up the injustice and prejudice of the "upper classes" against the honest desires of the proletariat. The main character reminded me of many old women I knew in my childhood - bitter and oppressed and always worrying about what people think. Those who are ignorant believe this is the lot of Christian women. Others of us know such women have replaced the opinion of others for the genuine love of God.

The cast was entirely female - those who worship the idol of public (or the neighbours') opinion and those who worship the idol of sex. Bernada Alba, a widow with five daughters, was malevolently controlling, and her daughters by turn subservient and rebellious. Repressed passions abounded. Obviously they came to a bad end.

By the way - the production was fantastic and our friend in the title role was brilliant.

And the programme was a work of art - a bargain for a gold coin donation.

The perplexity of endings

Endings. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, in the wake of the recent demise of LOST and the more distant last episode of ER, after 11 years, some sort of prime time record.

I am not a LOST fan. I was cured of the "mysterious" in TV series in the 90s when I sat through a couple of seasons of the "X Files" which promised "the truth was out there" until I discovered it wasn't and gave up. So with LOST I watched a couple of the first episodes, then whenever I caught up it was so incomprehensible, I couldn't be bothered. However, after reading a magazine article about the difficulties of ending a long running, and very popular TV series, I watched the final episode of LOST and was intrigued by the old cliches that it relied on to tie up what was obviously a very complicated saga.

What we got was essentially the "happy ever after in heaven" thing - which was probably very annoying for the sci fi freaks who were addicted to the thing and wouldn't embrace visions of heaven if paid to. For myself, of course, the heaven depicted was so unlike the real thing I'm not offended, just perplexed. Why do such a cliched thing? I'm left wondering if the whole series was Jack's hallucination as he lay dying. What was the point, really?

But beyond LOST, the article I read spoke about endings in general, and I realised that almost every ending I can remember, of a long term story, has been disappointing. When I say long term, I mean a long term TV series or a movie franchise that includes some sense of ongoing story.

I have noted here before that I dislike the third Lord of the Rings movie because (although the books actually end OK, because they were conceived as one book) Peter Jackson did not honour the whole story of all his characters. Specifically, he left Eowyn and Faramir dangling. He spent time on their stories and their triumphing over their individual struggles, but he did not give them enough screen time to triumph. In the book they fall in love. Even in the extended DVD version he gives them a brief incomprehesible head-leaning scene.

The Matrix trilogy is my favourite example of a trilogy that should have remained one movie. The Matrix is a brilliant sci fi story channeling Alice in Wonderland and the Gospel (oh yes, forget that the film makers are very woolly about this). The second and third movies are muddled rubbish. I don't even remember them that well. Too much money spent on too little imagination.

Star Wars, alas, is probably the highest profile and most expensive example of this phenomenon. The first Star Wars movie was brilliant, ground breaking (name a block buster from before?????) fun. Number two was great (movie geek types say it's the best, I like the sheer romance of the first better), number 3 was stupid, but it finished the story. The last three Lucas made were .... execrable rubbish. Wish he hadn't bothered.

I could go on and on. Especially film makers, but I regret to say book writers also often, fall prey to the impulse to try and end things off, and relapse into silliness, triteness, or sheer craziness. Mostly things should be left in mid air. Real life endings are messy. Let's not bother with them in our made up stories! (Books that end badly - Twilight. First book - fantastic teen romance with added vampires, book 4 - yeech! Harry Potter - actually book 7 is OK, despite or perhaps because of trite happy ending - but some of the in between volumes (no 5????) forget it!)

So why am I writing a sequel to ASKAR? I hope I'm writing a Godfather II and not a Godfather III - that's why.

The new Who

It's time to commit to some opinions about the new Dr Who, although I haven't quite made up my mind. Also, we don't get terrific reception on Prime, so I haven't had a proper look at him yet. But he seems young and angular and awkward enough to be geeky and still be attractive. Kind of perfect for a very young Doctor.

He is, however, quite cranky. He is often wrong (tonight he made an error in leaving Amy alone in the dark) and he was critical of River Song when in the end she saved the day. He lies as well, when it suits him, and is brutally honest when that suits him. He loses his temper and shouts a lot. But we've only seen four episodes (sadly missing the first one about the stone angels) so he could grow on me.

However, I've decided I don't like Amy. Or perhaps I don't like what the writers are choosing to do with her character, because on the whole she's the usual perky help mate the Doctor usually requires.

However, whoever is in charge of Dr Who REALLY doesn't like matrimony or any sort of committed relationship. Rose's relationship with her boyfriend was completely despised by both Rose and the script; Donna's putative marriage was a fraud; and this Amy person has taken off with the Doctor on the eve of her wedding. Furthermore tonight she tried to jump the Doctor's bones, which wasn't only wrong because I don't approve of it, but was also wrong because the Doctor's relationship with his companion is always based on love - usually deep affection and respect, sometimes (as with Rose) romantic love, sometimes merely affectionate irritation - but always some sort of care. What Amy was proposing was the opposite of love - sex for sex's sake is a complete affront to love, and to the affection that Amy and the Doctor have already shown to each other. Of course the Doctor declined (basically protesting he was far too old for her "I'm 907!"). He had to. Dr Who is first and foremost a family show. Meaningless sex between two main characters would be completely contrary to the spirit of the thing.

But why include it at all? And why have a girl about to get married propose such a thing?

The creators of this show really hate matrimony.

Our wonderful teenagers

Last week I had the privilege of taking some of my daughter's year 11 English class to the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival. There was a special day for secondary school English students and they listened to three authors present their works and talk about the life of a writer and Ivy Lies talking about writing pop songs. Ivy Lies came to life when they played their music. Obviously happier expressing themselves in music than the spoken word.
But it was also the week when a King's College student drank himself to death, and this week, we learn that another boy from that college has died. Also last week a 13 year old knifed his maths teacher. What's going on with our young people?
I was, I must admit, impressed with the intelligence and depth of the questions asked by the young people at the readers and writers programme. I was impressed with their behaviour. I was completely unimpressed by one of the MCs, who decided telling off colour jokes was appropriate for a secondary schools programme. I don't know the name of the MC, although his face was familiar to me, I think from TV comedy programmes, but his likening of reading to making love to a woman (in graphic detail) and his joke about an octopus and a set of bagpipes (use your imagination) were completely inappropriate, and our lovely Christian College kids were not the only ones gasping in disbelief.
How do I connect this to the horrible events in the news?
I can only conclude that somehow we are selling our teenagers short. We are forcing them to grow up too early. We are teaching them that adult stuff - drinking, sex etc - is fun, and that there is no price to pay. So the young man who drank himself to death was kicking over the traces just one night. He almost certainly had no idea that a bottle of vodka could kill him. Why not? Because we are selling lies about adult vices. We are telling them it's fun, there is no price to pay. They can play in the adult's play pen and not pay a price. And the MC was pandering to this. "Hey kids, I know you really want to be adults so I'm going to treat you like adults. Not like your nasty teachers and parents who want to keep you children."
Research has shown that our brains are not fully formed, not connected up completely, until around 25 years of age. That means that all of our secondary age children are still growing, still susceptible, still able to suffer damage from careless adults peddling adult things. It's time we, as a society, took better care of them.
Someone asked me the other day if I thought I was wrapping may children in cotton wool having them at a Christian school.
My answer is - until they are adults (legally 18, biologically 25) - I am going to protect them from the adults that do not have their best interests at heart, who want to exploit their natural inclination to want to separate from me, to protect them from a society that is determined they experiment and experience everything before they are mature enough to work out what they really want from life.
And I do not apologise.
BTW I know King's College very well. I know that the events of the last week would have had a completely devastating effect upon the community of that school. I know that, as far as it is possible to tell, the events of the last two weeks have nothing to do with the school.

48 Hours of disagreement with the judges

As usual I didn't agree with the judges at the 48 hours Auckland finals on Saturday night. I felt there were at least three movies among the 16 finalists that outdid the winner and runner up.
Runner up was Confessions of a Fabricator - dodgy undergraduate sexual insinuation with a sock (yawn). Winner was Only Son, by the Downlow Concept who have won before with something very similar. This wasn't a bad movie, just not exceptional among the 16 on offer.
One made it from our heat (heat 10). This was Humanity: the Last Seven Minutes which was at least original - the filmmaker obviously has contacts all over the world and they sent in their contributions over the net - and IMO boasted the best performance by an actress of the night (a woman in a subway train somewhere - in Europe or Australia, I couldn't quite figure out where). The judges' "best actor" was one decision I agreed with - this was the desperate father in Carousel - a magnificent exercise in suspense, marred somewhat by a weak ending.
OK - my favourites (I actually can't pick a winner):
The Pool - car pool goes wrong. Clever idea, neat trick ending, cool use of the required line.
Lost Call - ghost movie. An idea I have heard somewhere before, but still very well done and subtle.
Two Timer - a rarity. A love story that champions commitment, marriage, kids - the whole deal.
There was some stylish work among this lot - how the judges came up with the two winners is beyond me.