(That 1938 Errol Flynn Robin Hood was jolly japes all round. And so many pairs of tights!)?

Understand the reluctance at assigning Greg to the poetry basket.

Not so much kitchen sink, as toilet bowl. Perhaps I'm responding to his dedication to risk-taking images, stories and ... importantly ... characterisations. But hey – what use poetry, if not risk?

Has anyone read The Man From London?

"I'm not sure if Elam's stamped it out yet, but when I was there, there was a bunch of us who only wanted to make narrative-based films" or similar.

currently the film festival links dont work. an extra space in there maybe?

this kind of tribal history is something we need more of, and the more and the sooner, the better. It?s still too easy to consign New Zealand history to a single story of colonial exploitation.

Agreed, we need to do it before it's all been buried deeper. Looking forward to?

Work and parenthood are limiting further cine fun. Mates have cajoled me into the Ashes of Time Redux wahoo fun powpow!

Oh boy... you're in for a hell of a shock. Wong Kar-Wai doesn't do 'wahoo fun powpow' more delicate melancholy and eye-poppingly luscious, highly stylized visuals. __Ashes of Time__?

The one aspect of the film festival that I feel you've overlooked James and its an easy omission to make because the festival has grown so large.

This year there?

It's playing this arvo in Auckland if?

I loved it! The doco playfully styles itself as a heist movie, complete with a "man on the inside". The shadow of 9/11 looms, but?

I saw "Man On Wire" at the Wellington FF opening.

Snap! Weird film for a big law firm like Russell McVeagh to sponsor but (free drinks + free food) > odd film choice.

And within that is the retrospective of Edward Yang films.

I saw Taipei Story on Wednesday and enjoyed it very much. Yang has a lovely way of expressing very big themes through normal person-to-person conversation. (A key lesson learned from that film: if a character is listening to Kenny Loggins,?

It was pretty damn good – but I found it deeply frustrating that two major questions the film raised (how did he learn to do this? How can he afford to fly himself and his friends around the world doing?

Wong Kar-Wai doesn't do 'wahoo fun powpow' more delicate melancholy and eye-poppingly luscious, highly stylized visuals.

True enough, and well supported by You Tube cheat clips. And the programme note wasn't kidding re. egg-yolk yellow desert.

Still, eye-ball popping, egg yolk-yellow visuals should be ok of a sunday morn.

Agree?

I found it deeply frustrating that two major questions the film raised (how did he learn to do this? How can he afford to fly himself and his friends around the world doing it?) were never addressed.

Yes, I had this discussion with many people after the film.

I think?

Did anyone else see A Complete History of My Sexual Failures? It was hilarious, if outrageously outrageous. It starts off as a cringefest, but before you know it, it becomes exponentially more obscene and downright upsetting than that naked wrestling scene in?

*Exponentially*.

How does it rate against the Aristocrats?

Well I'll be – the director's cut. The late Lesley cheung? What happened to him?

He committed suicide in 2003 — think it was April Fools, just to give it that extra bitter edge.

I saw Ashes of Time years ago (presume it's the same one – is it in?

He committed suicide in 2003 — think it was April Fools, just to give it that extra bitter edge.

Yeah, I caught up on that yesterday. Oddly, I know of someone else who chose that day to top himself.

Fair enough, and Wong certainly is something of an acquired taste?

Ashes of Time left me cold though – maybe more happens in the new cut?

I saw it on Sunday, haven't seen the original so don't know if more happens, but what did happen I found rather confusing. Each segment was prefaced with the name of a season, as though?

Off for the 2 weeks, I have 51 films to see. I have seen 19 thus?

this kind of tribal history is something we need more of, and the more and the sooner, the better. It?s still too easy to consign New Zealand history to a single story of colonial exploitation.

Agreed, we need to do it before it's all been buried deeper. Looking forward to?

Walker's book is fascinating, very well written and irrestistable if you have any interest in NZ's history, but hardly anyone read it.

Guilty! That one's been too far down the reading list....have to start a "must read over summer' pile. I was interested in Omai, who Cook took back to?

I bought a very interesting book by Nicholas Thomas on Cook's voyages?

I bought a very interesting book by Nicholas Thomas on Cook's voyages and his interactions with the people he met at the airport last week.

There were airports back then? And Cook was meeting people at them? It makes you wonder why he bothered sailing all that way.

I was interested in Omai, who Cook took back to England and was celebrated in aristo circles, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds and written about (poems to porn) extensively. Is Omai the same person as Tupia?

Mai – dubbed Omai ("OhMy") coined by the English media of the time) was?

I saw Vincent Ward's new film and was quite overwhelmed by it – it's really sad, really interesting and you are certainly right that as many of these stories must be recorded before the very last of them fade out.

Paul Reynolds once described the Treaty claims process as "a?

Cook was bemused and discomfited as he discovered that the peoples of different islands knew each other's locations, were clearly related, and evidently could get around without a sextant or any other technological navigation aids.

And at a great rate of knots.

dyan correct me, but Tupaia was an actual chief, whereas (O)mai wasn't – it was just that when he was in England that he was treated as such, and did nothing to discourage the idea.

Mai was indeed "a commoner" according to Anne Salmond's book __The Trial of the Cannibal?

Inspired by his reading of Anne Salmond's The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas Tuffery reinterprets?

i wonder if Tupaia drew or painted the Englishmen? Would be interesting to see what he made of them.

Anne Salmonds is profusely thanked in Nicholas Thomas' book and her work (__Between Worlds__) cited as a source.

Organisers of the Auckland International Film Festival have been left counting their losses because of a ticket-sales fiasco that has also left punters fuming.

The festival?