A to Zeddy...

So the AJN’s latest recruit Zeddy Lawrence has arrived to take on the top job. Presumably he hopes to last longer than the numerous previous occupiers of that chair.



He has an unenviable task trying to increase circulation figures or at least put a stop the ongoing loss of circulation and try to ensure that the paper at least breaks even. The other unpalatable option is for the AJN to continue being a money-losing plaything for one rich Jew after the other.

Who can blame the previous AJN proprietors, who, after having a bit of fun, were relieved to find another ‘sucker’ upon whom to dump a financially (and otherwise) rapidly diminishing asset? All the recent business moguls with delusions of being mini-press barons quickly lost interest. The Kleins, Pratts nor the Adlers. Current owner, property developer Robert Magid will no doubt get sick of holding on to an a money-losing asset.

(But let’s not forget one obvious advantage enjoyed by some of the previous proprietors. Ie, ensuring that despite the efforts of the general media, the AJN carried no reports about certain financial and personal unpleasantness regarding themselves, their friends and/or family members. That must’ve been worth SOMETHING.)

So Zeddy, you have your work cut out for you.



Here’s some advice. Have a good look at who your demographics are. Who in the Jewish community is interested in a Jewish newspaper?



It definitely isn’t those who have lost most of their connections with Jewish values and traditions. There is very little future for the AJN in the reform/progressive/liberal sector. After all many (most?) are probably not halachically Jewish and even less so their children. As for the ‘mainstream’ orthodox, some are probably interested in reading a decent Jewish newspaper. But you will soon come to realise that the future of Jewry in Australia comes from the members of the 'traditionalists’, the modern Orthodox, the Charedim and Chassidim and the hundreds of Baalei Teshuva.

Cater to their needs and the AJN has a chance of survival. Antagonize or ignore them at your own peril.



Zeddy, you may not have heard, but the newspaper Hamodia – whose British edition sells thousands of copies weekly – has also been available locally for the past couple of years. It has built up an fiercely loyal readership of several thousand people who are prepared to pay $6 a week for the pleasure. For this they get 4-5 times as much reading material as in the Jewish News including dozens of pages of world, Jewish and communal news and features. Compare that to the few pages of cut-and-paste stuff served up to the readers of the AJN (most of which they have long ago seen on the net).

Is it any surprise thatyour newspaper is generally considered to have the status of the weekly free suburban throwaways?



The ONLY thing going for the AJN are the “hatches, matches and dispatches” notices. But even that too has changed since the advent of community e-mail news services by a number of Melbourne and Sydney congregations. Their information is available immediately as it happens, rather than waiting until Thursday.

To add to the AJN’s misery, there is a persistent rumor that some enterprising chaps are planning a free email service listing all life-cycle events culled from the Melbourne and Sydney editions of the AJN. No doubt many would avail themselves to this service and pocket a saving of $3.50 per week.



So good-luck Zeddy. You sure need it.

JNF again: 3000 Trees for Palestinians!!!

So now you know where your Blue Box contributions go to
Palestinians and Xmas trees! http://tinyurl.com/ygasx9s
Definitely time to increase our donations....

JNF Donates 3,000 Trees to Palestinian Authority
Kislev 13, 5770, 30 November 09 09:28

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu(Israelnationalnews.com)

A member of the board of the Jewish National Fund said “the system has gone haywire” after hearing reports that the venerable Zionist organization is donating 3,000 trees to the Palestinian Authority for a new city near Ramallah.

Maaleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, who also is a member of the JNF board, told Arutz 7 Monday morning he will bring up the issue with the JNF, which is considered a symbol of Zionism, particularly in the Diaspora where Jews have donated billions of dollars for planting trees and building the modern Jewish State.

Kashriel said the contribution to the PA is a grave step that was taken without any request for approval and without advance notice and reflects a “system that has gone haywire.”

The mayor of Maaleh Adumim, which along with the rest of Judea and Samaria has been slapped with a freeze on new construction with the threat of arrest for breaking the ban, said, “The country has gone crazy when it plants trees for the PA in Judea and Samaria at the same time that it forbids Jews to build. The system does not know who it is representing – us, the Palestinian Authority or the Americans?”

Concerning the government’s building freeze policy, Mayor Kashriel said he is “ashamed” of the government’s move, which he said are more drastic than those taken during the years of negotiations under the Oslo Accords that blew up into the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, nine years ago.

“As chairman of the local Likud faction, I am ashamed seven times over,” he said. “Even during Oslo we did not receive letters that remove our authority and turn us into criminals.” He also echoed sentiments of other leaders in Judea and Samaria to continue building despite the orders to halt new construction.

Kashriel said regional leaders will appeal to the High Court to overturn the building freeze, which he said violates the rights of residents of Judea and Samaria. He also has proposed that regional leaders stage a strike opposite the offices of Prime Minister Netanyahu

The Decade List: Tony Manero (2008)

Tony Manero – d. Pablo Larraín

[I wrote about this earlier this summer, so here's a slightly edited version of that.]

Like Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle and Man Bites Dog’s “Ben,” Pablo Larraín's Tony Manero offers a new addition to the league of cinema's most fascinatingly maladaptive sociopaths with Raúl Peralta (Alfredo Castro). Set in Chile during Pinochet's oppressive reign over the country during the late 1970s, Larraín takes an unflinching look at his nation's history through Raúl, who'd prefer others to call him Tony Manero, better known as John Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever. While bearing some resemblance to Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely, the two films part ways quickly as Raúl's celebrity projection turns rapidly grim when we discover that he also brutally murders innocent people without a glimpse of reservation.

More than Taxi Driver, to which it shares a political leaning, Tony Manero recalls some of Michael Haneke's notable works. Like a hybrid of Funny Games' Paul (Arno Frisch) and The Piano Teacher's Erika (Isabelle Huppert), Raúl incorporates Erika's appalling acts of sadism with Paul's absence of remorse. He's not inhuman as much as he's beyond it, a product of the devastating reality of his world and Hollywood's endless dream-pushing.

I resist calling Tony Manero a satire or even a dark comedy as, like The Piano Teacher, its moments of rabid cruelty only spark laughter as a relief from the unshakeable dread the film creates and the repugnance that it instills (though I’m fine if you want to make a correlation between Saturday Night Fever and the downfall of Chilean society). In one of the film's most memorably ghastly scenes, the local theatre's change of attraction from Saturday Night Fever to another Travolta vehicle Grease propels Raúl to crush the elderly projectionist's skull inside the projection booth.

While the underlying idea in Tony Manero rings familiar on a couple of levels, those associations never infiltrate the hypnosis Larraín and Castro, who co-wrote the screenplay, place the audience under. Whether it's mortification or a seedy desire to where the film could possibly be headed, there's something thoroughly transfixing about Tony Manero, which sustains its foreboding uneasiness to its final, astonishing sequence.

With: Alfredo Castro, Paolo Lattus, Héctor Morales, Amparo Noguera, Elsa Poblete
Screenplay: Alfredo Castro, Mateo Iribarren, Pablo Larraín
Cinematography: Sergio Armstrong
Country of Origin: Chile/Brazil
US Distributor: Lorber Films

Premiere: 17 May 2008 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 29 September 2008 (New York Film Festival)

Awards: Best Film, Best Actor – Alfredo Castro, FIPRESCI Prize (Torino Film Festival)

I Am Just So In Love With Whatever Comes Free

I am such a complete cheap ass bitch. I mean, I totally adore free things and would totally buy something just because it has free another thing that attached to it.

Such as this Glamour Magazine which cost me £2, but they included a bottle of £10 Nails Inc polish for readers.

This £1.50 Sanitary Pad is totally awesome in this gifts, such as this Jemma Kidd Make Up School Lip Gloss which RRP is £10. Wasai, I love anything to do with free make-ups. That's why I have tons of Lip Gloss cuz every free products seems to be them -__-'''

This is another thing I got off the internet, Yorkshirt tea, cost me nothing as I just have to fill in some forms. The taste of good, or so I think, but anyway, its free, so no complaints there.

I know, you guys are kinda bored with all these posts but I just couldn't resist the temptation to show these lovelies to you. OK, I promise, the post after wouldn't be so boring.

Nicholas Ray's Final Film to Be Restored; Plus More Awards, UPDATED with Gotham Winners

Via Variety, Nicholas Ray's final (solo-directed, feature) film We Can't Go Home Again, a little-seen "experimental" film he made with his wife Susan and a group of his film students at the time, will undergo a $500,000 restoration funded by the Nicholas Ray Foundation with the Venice Film Festival. The restoration will be supervised by Susan and will bow at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, "to mark the centennial of Ray's birth." Variety also says: "The Ray celebration will include a series of DVDs, an installation, an educational film titled "Nicholas Ray Master Class" and an interactive website." What that means, I have no clue, especially as it relates to the number of Ray films still MIA on DVD in the US: 55 Days at Peking, Johnny Guitar, Bigger Than Life (which is coming from Criterion, reportedly), Born to Be Bad, Hot Blood, Knock on Any Door, The Lusty Men, Run for Cover, The Savage Innocents, Wind Across the Everglades, A Woman's Secret, et al. For those curious, there are a number of clips from We Can't Go Home Again in Wim Wenders' Lightning Over Water, aka Nick's Movie.

Now for some awards from around the world, both national and festival related. Warwick Thornton's Samson and Delilah, which was awarded the Caméra d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, took the top prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, held on 26 November. It's also Australia's official submission in the Foreign Oscar competition. Sergei Dvortsevoy's Tulpan from Kazakhstan was the Best Picture winner last year. The rest of the awards are below:

Best Feature Film: Samson and Delilah, d. Warwick Thornton, Australia
Jury Grand Prize (tie): The Time That Remains, d. Elia Suleiman, Palestine/France/Italy/Belgium/UK; About Elly, d. Asghar Farhadi, Iran
Best Actor: Masahiro Motoki - Departures
Best Actress: Kim Hye-ja - Mother
Best Director: Lu Chuan - City of Life and Death
Best Cinematography: Cao Yu - City of Life and Death
Best Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi - About Elly
Best Documentary: Defamation, d. Yoav Shamir, Israel/Denmark/USA/Austria
Best Animated Feature: Mary and Max, d. Adam Elliot, Australia
Best Children's Feature: A Brand New Life, d. Ounie Lecomte, South Korea/France

Taiwan's Oscar submission, Leon Dai's No puedo vivir sin ti [Not Without You], was the big winner at the Golden Horse Awards, Taiwan's biggest annual award ceremony. Any film, whether from Taiwan, Hong Kong or China, primarily in Chinese is eligible. As the Film Experience Blog reported, Maggie Cheung made a rare appearance to deliver the ceremony's top award. Last year's Best Picture was awarded to Peter Chan's The Warlords (which Magnolia should be releasing soon in the US). The Awards are below:

Best Film: No puedo vivir sin ti, d. Leon Dai, Taiwan
Best Director: Leon Dai - No puedo vivir sin ti
Best Actor: (tie) Nick Cheung - The Beast Stalker; Huang Bo - Cow
Best Actress: Li Bingbing - The Message
Best Supporting Actor: Wang Xueqi - Forever Enthralled
Best Supporting Actress: Kara Hui - At the End of Daybreak
Best Documentary: KJ: Music and Life, d. Cheung King-wai, Hong Kong
Best Cinematography: Cao Yu - City of Life and Death
Best Action Choreography: Sammo Hung - Ip Man
Best Art Direction: Lee Tian-jue, Patrick Dechesne, Alain-Pascal Housiaux - Visage [Face]
Best Original Screenplay: Chen Wen-pin, Leon Dai - No puedo vivir sin ti
Best Adapted Screenplay: Guan Hu - Cow
Best Original Score: Dou Wei, Bi Xiaodi - The Equation of Love and Death

The 20th Annual Stockholm Film Festival finished up today, awarding Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth its top prize; Courteney Hunt's Frozen River claimed that title last year. On a side note, I originally reported that Dogtooth would be representing Greece for the Foreign Oscar category, but that apparently was (not surprising considering its subject matter) false. Instead, Adonis Lykouresis' Slaves in their Bonds was named Greece's official selection. About the prizes below, the Telia Film Award is a newly created award for films without local distribution. Read more about it here. Awards below:

Best Film: Dogtooth, d. Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece
Best First Film: Sin Nombre, d. Cary Fukunaga, Mexico/USA
Best Actress: Mo'Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Best Actor: Edgar Flores - Sin Nombre
Best Screenplay: Eran Creevy - Shifty
Best Cinematography: Christophe Beaucarne - Mr. Nobody
Jameson Film Music Award: Krister Linder - Metropia
Telia Film Award: Miss Kicki, d. Håkon Liu, Sweden/Taiwan
FIPRESCI Prize: Sin Nombre
FIPRESCI Honorable Mention: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, d. Lee Daniels, USA

I was so busy with the film festival, I didn't even get around to posting the Documentary Short-list for the 2010 Academy Awards. It's now down to 15, with a number of glaring snubs from Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (though I've heard its omission is justified), James Toback's Tyson, Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public, R.J. Cutler's The September Issue and Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons. Someone on another site mentioned Terence Davies' Of Time and the City, but I'm never really sure which films are eligible in terms of year with the Documentary category. The 15 are below:

- The Beaches of Agnès [Les plages d'Agnès], d. Agnès Varda, France
- Burma VJ, d. Anders Ostergaard, Denmark
- The Cove, d. Louie Psihoyos, USA
- Every Little Step, d. Adam del Deo, James D. Stern, USA
- Facing Ali, d. Pete McCormack, USA/Canada
- Food, Inc., d. Robert Kenner, USA
- Garbage Dreams, d. Mai Iskander, USA
- Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, d. Mark N. Hopkins, USA
- The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, d. Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith, USA
- Mugabe and the White African, d. Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, UK
- Sergio, d. Greg Barker, USA
- Soundtrack for a Revolution, d. Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman, USA/France/UK
- Under Our Skin, d. Andy Abrahams Wilson, USA
- Valentino: The Last Emperor, d. Matt Tyrnauer, USA
- Which Way Home, d. Rebecca Cammisa, USA

Cinema Eye also announced their nominees for achievements in non-fiction cinema. The complete list of nominees can be found on their website (last year, Man on Wire took the top honors), but here are the 5 listed for Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Feature Filmmaking:

- Burma VJ, d. Anders Ostergaard, Denmark
- The Cove, d. Louie Psihoyos, USA
- Food, Inc., d. Robert Kenner, USA
- Loot, d. Darius Marder, USA
- October Country, d. Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher, USA

And, finally, the Gotham Awards will have their ceremony tomorrow in New York City. The Gotham Awards, an extension of the Independent Film Project, recognize the achievements in "independent cinema." I remember a lot of confused reactions to some of their omissions and inclusions when the nominees were announced in October. Courteney Hunt's Frozen River won the Best Picture last year. So, since I didn't post it previously, here are the nominees in the big categories: [UPDATED: The winners are in red; I didn't think a separate blog post was necessary to name them]

Best Feature Film

Amreeka, d. Cherein Dabis, USA/Canada
Big Fan, d. Robert Siegel, USA
The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow, USA
The Maid [La nana], d. Sebastián Silva, Chile/Mexico
A Serious Man, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA

Best Documentary

Food, Inc., d. Robert Kenner, USA
Good Hair, d. Jeff Stilson, USA
My Neighbor My Killer [Mon voisin, mon tueur], d. Anne Aghion, France/USA
Paradise, d. Michael Almereyda, USA
Tyson, d. James Toback, USA

Breakthrough Director

Cruz Angeles - Don't Let Me Drown
Frazer Bradshaw - Everything Strange and New
Noah Buschel - The Missing Person
Derick Martini - Lymelife
Robert Siegel - Big Fan

Breakthrough Actor

Ben Foster - The Messenger
Patton Oswalt - Big Fan
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Catalina Saavedra - The Maid
Souleymane Sy Savane - Goodbye Solo

Best Ensemble Performance

Adventureland - Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Kristin Wiig, Bill Hader, Ryan Reynolds
Cold Souls - Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun, Emily Watson, Katheryn Winnick, David Strathairn
The Hurt Locker - Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly
A Serious Man - Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed
Sugar - Algenis Perez Soto, Rayniel Rufino, Michael Gaston, Andre Holland, Ann Whitney, Richard Bull, Ellary Porterfield, Jaime Tirelli

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You

Everything Strange and New, d. Frazer Bradshaw, USA
Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, d. Damien Chazelle, USA
October Country, d. Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher, USA
You Wont Miss Me, d. Ry Russo-Young, USA
Zero Bridge, d. Tariq Tapa, India/USA

Immoral

I Finally Found The Way

I am currently so so happy right now... Cuz I had found the way to replace words of text with pictures to link a website. Yipee... After days of trial and error and sleepless nights (ok, I'm kinda exaggerating here, but you get what I mean right??), finally, I'd manage to find the way to creative-land.

In order to prove what I had said, here you go... Just click on those logos and you'll be directed to them pages.






And thanks for this inspirational idea. Absolute loves...
****************************************************************************
Oh yeah, and am getting ready for the Christmas Party this Saturday. Although its a simple plain outfit, I don't I wanna bare too much skin this winter. Therefore, no low-cuts, no sleeveless.

Some Random Body Affair Stuff

As I have not transfer any new photos from my phone/camera to the laptop, in the mean time, I'm showing you all these random pictures which I concluded that relates a lot to the grooming of my body.

I am totally in love with this nude colour from Nails Inc. And the name is pretty funky too, its call Elizabeth Street (I mean, what's that gotta do with some street in England?).

Anyway, I can't put them on all the time (as KFC forbids its workers to apply polishes) so, its just a way to boost my confidence a bit when I'm doing some shopping or outing.


Oh yeah, I'm using this abdo and cellulite slimming cream from Biotherm. Although I wouldn't say they make huge differences to my fat/figure/skin, but I do like the fact that its cooling and my pores really felt a bit tighter after application (I swear!!).

And I heard that Biotherm are quite good with their slimming creams if compared to other brands. And I do admit, they are indeed better than Loreal and Clarins (texture and after-application-feeling wise).


This is da bomb, and I repeat, the ultimate bomb. I can't really describe what kinda fragrance tone this Paris Hilton perfume has (because I suck at finding words for smell, not to mention elaborating them). But me and my girlfriends (yes, I introduce this fragrance to my friends and they fell in love with it at 1st spray and therefore, the 3 of us has a bottle of the same thing -__-''').

So here is just a tiny collection of what I have if compared to my massive products that I'm using everyday from head to toe. But really, if I start to blog all about them, I think all my readers would switch channel or maybe snore after going through 1/4 of it -__-'''

Love a Positive

Dear Friends,

There is NO shame in having HIV.
And I'm afraid gays are the worst culprits.
Why do so many gays discriminate against men with HIV when it comes to relationships and long term 'marriage' with an HIV positive person?
Some think they are 'better' because they don't have HIV.
So silly when it's really just the luck of the draw.
Grow up queers and find yourselves a positive lover.
Because HIV positive people need a ton of love too.
NOT rejection due to a positive HIV status.

I'm so proud to be on this fantastic new journey of discovery.
So get tested and follow my lead because life is great.
Trust me, it's MUCH better knowing.
I have never felt so great about my future.

You can love someone who has HIV if you don't.
Of course you can.
To not be with someone due to their HIV is your loss.
It's actually the perfect combination.
One positive and one negative.

Together, we can all build a new society.
A society where people who have ANY disease are treated with the same respect, dignity, consideration and love as any other person who is considered 'healthy'.

I'm very healthy, happy, and some even say hot! (hahahaha)
And I have HIV...

and a beautiful, smart, clever boyfriend who does not.
We've been together for two years already.
No problem.
Just our pure love.

The Decade List: La mujer sin cabeza (2008)

La mujer sin cabeza [The Headless Woman] – dir. Lucrecia Martel

Of all of the decade’s notable directorial debuts, no other director found their footing as succinctly and skillfully as Lucrecia Martel, who managed to craft one of the striking masterpieces latter part of the ‘00s with her third film, The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza]. Building upon the worlds of both La ciénaga and La niña santa, Martel molds The Headless Woman around a central mystery. Did bottle-blonde, affluent dentist Véro (María Onetto, brilliant in an extremely challenging role) run over and kill someone on an empty road? In a moment of panic, she drives away from the accident where something, whether a dog or a person, was fatally hit. It depends on who you ask what the answer to the cryptic puzzle is, but most will agree, nothing about The Headless Woman can be deduced in simple terms.

Martel’s films thrive on the peripheral; she spends no time introducing characters, all of whom seem to know or have blood relations to the those upon which she focuses and seem to flutter in and out during the course of her films. It’s a refreshing, if frequently disorienting, technique, and one she puts to masterful use in The Headless Woman. Following the accident, Véro suffers a strange bout of amnesia as she disassociates herself from the crash. After a visit to the hospital, she hides away in a hotel, not unlike La niña santa, which is owned by either one of her family members or close friends (forgive me for not remembering a lot of the factual details, even though I did just watch the film again this past Sunday).

It becomes apparent that what Véro is suffering isn’t just fleeting panic but something more psychologically severe during the scene where she walks into her place of work and sits herself down in the waiting room, clearly unaware of her own profession or why she’s even there. Martel gives us very few details about Véro before the crash, which happens within the first fifteen minutes of the film, placing the audience on the same level as the protagonist, blind to almost everything that’s come before the accident and just as startled at everything that follows. Véro’s actions following the crash seem mechanical; she knows which hotel to go to and which house is hers, but she lacks recognition of the people around her and the circumstances of her own life. At the hotel, she runs into Juan Manuel (Daniel Genoud), a face she recognizes, and has sex with him. It’s later revealed that Juan Manuel is the husband of Josefina (Claudia Cantero), who’s either Véro’s sister or her cousin (no review or person I talked to seemed to be really sure about which). Though the question as to whether the two were partaking in an ongoing affair or if it happened just the one night is never directly answered, Martel tells us all we need to know when Véro, then convinced she did in fact kill someone that day, and Juan Manuel face one another again at her house.

The emphasis on the peripheral in The Headless Woman is where Martel’s strength as a filmmaker reveals itself even more dynamically than in her previous efforts (after La niña santa, The Headless Woman is the second of her films that Pedro and Augustín Almodóvar co-produced). When used in the realm of characterization, the film shows a peculiar, surprising sense of humor. From Véro’s crazy tía Lala (María Vaner) who sees ghosts and Josefina’s hepatitis-ridden daughter Candita (the wonderful Inés Efron of XXY) who discloses her crush on Véro by groping her and stating at one point, “love letters are to be answered or returned,” the actual world of The Headless Woman is a bizarre one, even outside of Véro’s mental distress. The combined efforts of cinematographer Bárbara Álvarez (who also shot Rodrigo Moreno’s wonderful El custodio) and the entire sound department rival Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men in technical flawlessness and innovation.

(While I hate to keep harping on this particular subject, especially as I’ve argued against it many times before, it’s worth noting that I don’t think I could truly appreciate the film’s technical prowess until seeing it projected on the big screen, where it swallowed me whole. It probably also helped that I was seeing it for the second time, after watching it at home months prior. But without being encompassed by the film in a theatre, committing one’s self to it without the leisure of home viewing, The Headless Woman loses some of its power. Note also how several critics have admitted to not really "getting" what Martel was up to and changing their tune after seeing it a second time.)

Truly though, it’s the way Martel addresses the film’s central mystery that makes The Headless Woman such an uncompromising and incandescent film. The details surrounding the disappearance of a child (more than likely one of the boys we see running around the canal in the opening scene), a block in the canal after the big rainstorm that arrives just after the accident and Candita’s offhand mention of a murder are all revealed almost extrinsically. For those familiar with Martel’s work though, nothing can truly be described as extrinsic in her films. In a certain light, the elements described above nearly create a secondary narrative, but as Martel situates the film entirely in Véro’s perspective, they cannot be seen as mere red herrings. I think if you pay attention to not only the details but the way in which the men in Véro’s life—her husband Marcos (César Bordón), her brother Marcelo (Guillermo Arengo) and Juan Manuel—interact with her, there is an answer to what happened on the road that day. Add that to Josefina’s proclamation that all the women of their family eventually succumb to madness, recognize the division of class in the film and The Headless Woman becomes less opaque than it originally appears.

While certainly a difficult film to market, the fact that it took The Headless Woman over a year to make it to the United States after premiering at Cannes in 2008 can best be attributed to reported cat-calls and boos it received at the premiere. The film doesn’t have the beneficial shock factor of something like Antichrist, which was picked up for US distribution immediately, and it wasn’t until I saw the film top IndieWire’s poll of the best undistributed films of 2008 did I realize the jeers it received at Cannes were as unjustified as they tend to be at that particular festival. Think of them then as a nod to the reception Michelangelo Antonioni’s now classic L’avventura, which also surrounds a mystery without an expected resolution, received in 1960. For the perceptive viewer (or one that’s given the film more than one sitting), The Headless Woman is utterly brilliant filmmaking, the sort that will hopefully fuck with and perplex audiences for decades to come.

With: María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón, Inés Efron, Daniel Genoud, Guillermo Arengo, María Vaner, Alicia Muxo, Pía Uribelarrea
Screenplay: Lucrecia Martel
Cinematography: Bárbara Álvarez
Country of Origin: Argentina/France/Italy/Spain
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 21 May 2008 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 6 October 2008 (New York Film Festival)

Awards: FIPRESCI Prize (Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival)

Humpin' Around

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels - 2009 - USA - Lionsgate

There's so little time left in the year for me to spend a whole lot of time writing about films that I don't like, but I need to flush my feelings for Lee Daniels' Precious out in some form. When my friend Tom sent me a Netflix note saying, "God help me, I partially agree with Armond White," I couldn't help but share his sentiment. Despite the editorial errors (really, how does giving the wrong title for a director's previous film, Shadowboxer not Shadowboxing, get past the NY Press' editor?) and including Marci X, Little Man, Mr. 3000 and Norbit (!!) in all seriousness as "excellent recent films with black themes," White sort of nails the self-loathing that runs through all of Precious, from its ludicrous fantasy sequences--the worst of which placing Precious (Gabourney Sidibe) and her mother (Mo'Nique) in a scene from Vittorio De Sica's Two Women as they watch it on television, despite the fact that Precious is barely literate--to its onslaught of racial stereotypes.

I am glad, however, that Lee Daniels' incompetence is finally getting some press after the film screened at the New York Film Festival. No one seemed to have a bad word to say about it at Sundance, Cannes or Toronto. Poverty porn, emotional porn, a new kind of blaxploitation, an impeccably acted piece of trash, a con job -- all of these descriptions are appropriate. One of the highlights of White's review points out one of Daniels' unsubtle, messy visual gimmicks: "The scene where Precious carries her baby past a “Spay and Neuter Your Pets” sign is sick." But I can't help but give it up, as most of the film's detractors other than White seem to be doing, to the actors, from newcomer Sidibe, a monstrous, Joan Crawford-on-welfare Mo'Nique, a make-up-less, ratty-wig-donning, Jersey-accented Mariah Carey and Paula Patton as the light-skinned lesbian teacher/saint who looks after Precious. Whether the actresses' collectively marvelous performances add to Daniels' lunacy or rise above it isn't certain... all I know is that, thanks to its audacity, if Precious does manage to take home the Best Picture Oscar next February, I won't moaning as much as I did when that other overblown race-issue melodrama did a few years back.

Who Could Say No To Nachos??

I always have this with the bf as a snack treat after dinner. It has become our favourite pencuci mulut (dessert) and tends to provoke further hunger.

Learned this simple snack from a friend's mother. She's totally awesome in cooking and this thingy requires just 4 steps.

1. Scatter Doritos of any brand onto a tray (aluminium foil lined).

2. Place a couple of dallop of salsa sauce (prefer it to be spicy salsa) on top of the Doritos.

3. Sprinkle a generous amount of shredded Cheddar Cheese of any brand.

4. Bake for 10 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees celcius or until cheese melted.

I can sincerely tell you, I would never get tired of eating this over and over again. But because of the health danger and money saving consciousness kicking in, I advise you to not do this everyday (although I had this thrice a week -__-), I repeat, DO NOT EAT THIS EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

Millennium Mambo, Part 3

More on the Best of the Decade list round-up from Mike D'Angelo and the Skandies, which was actually posted earlier this month (and which I thought I had already mentioned, but... I guess not) and from Glenn Kenny. D'Angelo and the Skandies listed 20 films and 20 performances, with Lars von Trier's Dogville and Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood topping the respective lists. First, the films:

01. Dogville, 2003, d. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/UK/France/Germany/Norway/Finland/Netherlands, Lionsgate
02. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, d. Michel Gondry, USA, Focus Features
03. In the Mood for Love, 2000, d. Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/China/France, USA Films/Criterion
04. Mulholland Drive, 2001, d. David Lynch, USA/France, Universal Studios
05. There Will Be Blood, 2007, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, Paramount Vantage/Miramax
06. The New World, 2005, d. Terrence Malick, USA/UK, New Line
07. Memento, 2000, d. Christopher Nolan, USA, Newmarket Films
08. 25th Hour, 2002, d. Spike Lee, USA, Touchstone
09. Yi yi: A One and Two, 2000, d. Edward Yang, Taiwan/Japan, Fox Lorber/Criterion
10. No Country for Old Men, 2007, d. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, USA, Paramount Vantage/Miramax
11. Before Sunset, 2004, d. Richard Linklater, USA, Warner Independent
12. Silent Light [Stellet licht], 2007, d. Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany, Palisades Tartan
13. Kill Bill, Volume 1, 2003, d. Quentin Tarantino, USA, Miramax
14. Werckmeister Harmonies [Werckmeister harmóniák], 2000, d. Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky, Hungary/Italy/Germany/France, Facets
15. Irréversible, 2002, d. Gaspar Noé, France, Lionsgate
16. Zodiac, 2007, d. David Fincher, USA, Paramount
17. Ghost World, 2001, d. Terry Zwigoff, USA/UK/Germany, United Artists
18. The Man Who Wasn't There, 2001, d. Joel Coen, USA/UK, USA Films
19. Trouble Every Day, 2001, d. Claire Denis, France/Germany/Japan, Lot 47 Films
20. Gerry, 2002, d. Gus Van Sant, USA, Miramax

And the performances...

01. Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
02. Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
03. Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive
04. Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
05. Isabelle Huppert, The Piano Teacher [La pianiste]
06. Summer Phoenix, Esther Kahn
07. Björk, Dancer in the Dark
08. Laura Dern, Inland Empire
09. Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen [Rois et reine]
10. Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
11. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
12. Christian Bale, American Psycho
13. Billy Bob Thornton, The Man Who Wasn't There
14. Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
15. Laura Linney, You Can Count on Me
16. Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
17. Q'orianka Kilcher, The New World
18. Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven
19. Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass
20. Aurélien Recoing, Time Out [L'emploi du temps]

I don't have much to say about either list, aside from... Summer Phoenix? Really? Above Björk? Well, not just above Björk, but on the list altogether. I remember her lead performance in Arnaud Desplechin's English-language Esther Kahn to lack quite a bit. I'm still planning on revisiting that one before the year ends, so I'll let you know then. And I've complained enough about Ghost World; unless it starts showing up a lot more often, I'm keeping mum.

Glenn Kenny's list covers his "Seventy Greatest Films of the Decade," in alphabetical order from A.I. to Zodiac. Of the nice surprises on the list: Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl, Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience (which I don't think was a bit of personal bias, despite the fact that he played one of Sasha Grey's johns), Azazel Jacobs' The GoodTimesKid, Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman, Brad Bird's The Incredibles, Clint Eastwood's Invictus (which he can't talk about yet... but this inclusion isn't stirring any interest in me as Gran Torino is also on his list), Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar, Jacques Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais, Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day, Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours and Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. I spotted a few other Best of the Decade lists floating around, but most of them were deplorable, so I'm not going to waste posting/linking to them.

I also meant to thank Eric over at IonCinema for first directing me toward the TIFF list I posted yesterday, and please do check out out Blake Williams' blog, who also included TIFF's picks for the 1990s, which was topped with Víctor Erice's The Dream of Life [El sol del membrillo], still without a DVD release in the US, and included my favorite first-time viewing of a not-2000-era film in 2009, Olivier Assayas' L'eau froide. Thanks guys. Now, on to some writing of my own...