So, I’ve obviously been absent again for a while. As you might recall, my last post was related to the 17th Canberra International Film Festival, and I mentioned that I was seeing 18 or 19 films throughout it. I had planned to be posting my thoughts on each film as I saw them, and doing more in depth discussions on the ones I enjoyed the most, but it turns out that seeing that many films takes a huge amount of your time. Add that to the fact that I spent the weekend showing a colleague from Washington, D.C. around the city, and I’ve had practically no time to myself for the last week and a bit.

At this stage, I’m 13 films into my 19, and the last one will be showing on the 13th, so next Wednesday. While it’s been an enjoyable experience so far, I must admit that it can be hard to take in that much and process it all when I’m often walking out of one cinema and straight into another. Now that I have a little more space between films though, I’ll be starting to work through my thoughts on each one and posting about them. The next few weeks should see me posting some brief commentary on each film, followed by proper reviews of several of them. I do have a double feature tomorrow night, and another on Saturday, but if I can I’ll try to get something done on Saturday morning. Otherwise it will be Sunday. This means there won’t be any real gaming being posted about during this time, unless I can convince Jim to do some more guest posts or get another one of the players from my Pathfinder games to write something, so I hope you’ll bear with me while I get this out of the way.

To give an idea of what I’ve thought of the films so far though, I’ve listed them below along with what rating I gave each one in the festival voting.

5 Stars: My Sweet Pepper Land (Kurdish Western); Michael Kohlhaas (French Historical Drama); The Priest’s Children (Croatian Comedy); Filth (UK Comedy/Drama); Only Lovers Left Alive (American Romance/Fantasy/Comedy/Drama); In Bob We Trust (Australian Documentary)

4 Stars: Ginger and Rosa (UK Drama); The Butler (American Historical Drama); Night Train to Lisbon (German/Swiss/Portugese Drama)

3 Stars: Magic Magic (American/Chilean Thriller); In Bloom (Georgian Drama); Patrick (Australian Horror/Sci-fi)

2 Stars: Mirage Men (American Documentary)

1 Star: Nothing’s been deserving of such a low rating yet, though Mirage Men wasn’t far off it.

I think the fact that out of 13 films, I’ve rated 6 of them as 5 stars and 3 of them as 4 stars, is indicative of a really strong program at this year’s festival. Though it could also just show that I’m not very choosy and like most things you put on a screen in front of me I suppose.

That’s it from me for now about the festival. One last thing though, this year I’m taking part in Movember, the fundraising event w here men grow moustaches for a month to raise funds and awareness for men’s health issues. If anyone is interested in sponsoring me as I support this cause, you can find my profile here: Keegan’s Mospace. I really appreciate any support people might like to give. There will be an updated photo of my progress in the next couple of days (progress is thus far fairly minimal, my moustache grows about 3 or 4 times slower than my beard… I’ve already shaved the beard 4 times since I started last week, while the mo’ is barely visible…).