WFC New Zealand: 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous

(February 25, 2017)

Is that… Donald!? Uhm… it would have been nice if this had been subtitled. But I got the gist! This film has 5.8 (of 10) on imdb, and I think that’s as low as the scale goes. That’s harsh! As Wikipedia says, “The film opened in 2005 to negative reviews and had little success at … Continue reading WFC New Zealand: 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous

WFC Peru: La teta asustada

(February 25, 2017)

This film won “best film” at the Berlin film festival, and as film prizes go, that’s the one to win, I think. (I mean, if something wins the a major award, it’s usually drek.) And this is absolutely riveting and very strange and funny. And heartbreaking. I’m not going to spoil the, er, plot, but … Continue reading WFC Peru: La teta asustada

It’s Xmas Again

(February 25, 2017)

CEC HDMI ETLA

(February 25, 2017)

I’m extremely lazy, so using a remote control to switch the TV on or off is just out of the question. The remote is just languishing in a cupboard somewhere, and the TV is always on. Which seems like a waste, since I only use it (like) a couple of days a week or something. … Continue reading CEC HDMI ETLA

WFC Croatia: Ta divna splitska noć

(February 24, 2017)

Hm… This sort of playful artsy fartsy film is right up my alley, but I just didn’t feel it. So I instead spent most of the time wondering why the scenes just didn’t connect (for me). Some of the actors are really good (the mother and the boy) and some are kinda meh (that scraggly-bearded … Continue reading WFC Croatia: Ta divna splitska noć

WFC Morocco: L’armée du salut

(February 24, 2017)

It’s a captivating and bewildering film. Very original from a storytelling and structural point of view. And very nicely shot. I can’t quite make out whether the actors are meant to be this stylised and stiff or whether they’re just not, er, all that good, but it kinda works anyway. The mother’s great. The film … Continue reading WFC Morocco: L’armée du salut

New Music

(February 22, 2017)

Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week. I found the “box of not very interesting albums” in the basement (I think that must have been my criterion when sorting records into the box), but I’ve gotta resample them all. Plus some new stuff.

My New Concert Blog

(February 15, 2017)

Oops.  And then I deleted the next set while trying to copy it from the SD card…

New Music

(February 15, 2017)

Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.

I ❤ The Paris Review

(February 15, 2017)

My favourite thing to read while travelling is The Paris Review.  It has like full-spectrum literature that’s perfect for reading while getting slightly drunk on airplanes. So I just bought a whole stack of old issues from the sixties, seventies and eighties.  You can still get them pretty cheap from sources on the interwebs. Man, … Continue reading I ❤ The Paris Review

WFC Ecuador: Feriado

(February 11, 2017)

Very metal. I finally went through the curiosly divisioned (is that a word?) “Spanish/South American/African” shelves at the video store. As suspected, it was 87% Spanish, 22% Mexican and 13% “other”. (Lots of copro-ductions.) I only found two films from countries previously not covered (of which this is one), so it’s getting really difficult to … Continue reading WFC Ecuador: Feriado

WFC Norway: Reprise

(February 11, 2017)

*gasp* Norway! Such a frustrating film. There are long stretches here of pure bewildering genius where I’m going THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER. And then there are scenes where it all falls flat and I’m all “perhaps this would have worked with better actors or lines or a better director or SOMETHING”. It’s written … Continue reading WFC Norway: Reprise

WFC Central African Republic: Song from the Forest

(February 10, 2017)

This is a documentary (I think… or is it!?) filmed in the Central African Republic, but it’s really more a US/German film than anything else. Most of the dialogue is in English, but the DVD is subtitled in German only. So when the people who are speaking the language people in Ködörösêse tî Bêafrîka use, … Continue reading WFC Central African Republic: Song from the Forest

WFC Cabo Verde: O Testamento do Senhor Napumoceno

(February 10, 2017)

I guess Cabo Verde is too small to show up on the map there… Google! Be better! We’re getting to smaller countries now in this blog series (size-wise or film industry wise (we’re nearly half way)), so the question “is this really a film from ?” is getting slightly more iffy. IMDB lists this one … Continue reading WFC Cabo Verde: O Testamento do Senhor Napumoceno

New Music

(February 7, 2017)

Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.

Blackest Night

(February 7, 2017)

Previously: I bought an HDMI OLED screen and determined that its black pixels emitted light. This made me start wondering: Do all OLED screens emit light from “black” pixels? So I did the simplest thing possible to test this: I made a little app that displays a black screen. It’s on Google Play and everything. … Continue reading Blackest Night

WFC Cameroon: Aristotle’s Plot

(February 4, 2017)

Wow. Such a fresh film. I can see some Godard influences, perhaps, but it’s quite unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s like… Michel Gondry ten years before Michel Gondry. Very meta and quite funny. I found their dialect sometimes hard to follow, though. *concentrate* I switched on the French subtitles to help understanding, and I don’t … Continue reading WFC Cameroon: Aristotle’s Plot

WFC Côte d’Ivoire: La Victoire en chantant

(February 4, 2017)

Uh-oh. That’s not a good sign. I guess that this film is really rather more French than Cote de Ivoirean? (That’s probably not a word.) And it’s a “satire”, which is usually code word for “not actually funny”. MUCH BITE SATIRE An it is, indeed, a bit eye-rolling-ey at times. But it’s not bad. Black … Continue reading WFC Côte d’Ivoire: La Victoire en chantant

WFC Cambodia: នៅកម្លោះដល់ណាខ្ញុំ

(February 3, 2017)

Ahh! A lighthearted goofy comedy. Somehow those aren’t the films that are usually exported from non-major-film-producing countries. It’s always the serious or artsy films. And I love serious artsy films, but c’mon. Unfortunately, this film also illustrates why these films aren’t exported. There’s just not very much about this film that’s memorable. It’s amusing. Staying … Continue reading WFC Cambodia: នៅកម្លោះដល់ណាខ្ញុំ

WFC Palestine: عمر

(February 3, 2017)

Hm… I can’t see the pixels on that map… There’s lots of stuff here to like. The courtship scenes are really sweet, lots of amusing and real-sounding dialogue, some of the actors are good, and all the parkour is invigorating. But. Everything is so damn obvious. I was shouting at the screen when the al-Aqsa … Continue reading WFC Palestine: عمر

Blacker than Black? A Small Monitor Review

(February 2, 2017)

I’ve been using an Emacs-based alarm clock for almost a decade through various hardware incarnations. The main issue is the screen: It’s difficult to find a small screen that has a good black level. The last version used this USB IPS screen from MIMO, and it’s just about as good as you can get with … Continue reading Blacker than Black? A Small Monitor Review

My New Concert Blog

(February 1, 2017)