Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Russell Brown,
It's actually nice to see someone say that.
Is it really that rare a position? I hope not.
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Yes, I'm kind of bemused at the sour-puss-ness surrounding the impending RWC. If I'm bitter about anything, it's that we didn't put in harder. But it's still going to happen, and be a huge event, probably the biggest that NZ has ever seen. Auckland is going to be flooded with foreigners in a party mood. I'm actually looking forward to that. I won't make a cent from it, but it seems cool all the same. I'd like those foreigners to come away with positive experiences to speak of. It's a matter of pride far more than a matter of economics.
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The Footrot Flats movie was not a children's movie. I found it rather dark and strange, having expected (unfairly, in retrospect) to be laughing through most of it, as I did through the comic strip, at least in the early years. Of course most of the humor in the strip could not carry. When the Dog is faced with disaster, his observations were still humorous. In the movie, the same action, without the humorous observations, seemed tragic.
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Islander, <sigh> read what I said. I said the period seems to make baby boomers all gooey, not that it was when they were born. Also it doesn't interest me, the way that M*A*S*H doesn't - I've just seen too much of it.
Which is not to say that baby boomers aren't entitled to their sentimentality, of course they are. But when a movie came along that told a story about the time and place I actually live in, it made a much deeper impression. On me.
Speaking of Once Were Warriors, an American friend of mine recently saw it for the first time and thought it was melodramatic, overwrought, and cheesy!
LOL, the irony! But they're right. It's kiwi cheese. Not as aged as European cheese. Not as bland as American cheese. Not made from an alternative animal, like Asian cheese. There are definitely cringe moments if you're inclined to cringe.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to stever@cs.waikato.ac.nz,
<blush>
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Perhaps, and didn't the magnificent opening sequence of Once Were Warriors satirise precisely that essentialised and romanticised view?
It did feel nice to see NZ that was more familiar to me, I must confess. Too many movies set in rural locations had given me the shits over the years. The country's nice, but I don't get out there that much and it really doesn't strike so many chords.
But hey, at least we weren't Middle Earth!
That particular use of the countryside didn't get my dander up. At least it wasn't full of early 20th century rural NZ cliches. I can imagine baby boomers feeling all gooey and sentimental about then, but to me it didn't seem to have much to recommend it and I'm rather glad not to have been born then.
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The first twenty-eight of my life.
I was actually asking about me, you seemed to know, whereas I don't. I can only guess at roughly 7 years. Mostly in the 90s. And mostly in Australia. I have a funny feeling that Once Were Warriors struck a chord with them, that they felt affirmed that urban Maori society could be highly dysfunctional, since that is their general perception of Aboriginal society.
I can only speculate on why NZ would be a darling at any time - my guess is that it's mostly through lack of actual knowledge, which leads to essentializing and romanticizing a place. NZ has a couple of extremities which can make it a natural settling point for theoretical views. It's really remote, and really small, whilst at the same time being moderately developed. It's the modern Timbuctoo. One of the first places you might think of when you wanted to get as far away from where you are as you can, in every sense of the word, without actually going into the wilderness or the third world.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Speaking as somebody who spent a great deal more time abroad than you did
Which was how long? Just curious, because I'm not exactly sure myself.
An Angel at My Table and The Piano were way bigger than Once Were Warriors. And so was The Bone People. Just FYI.
I wonder why they were never once mentioned by anyone to me? Probably not hanging out with enough literary types.
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Yes, because I was always being teased about Jane Campion and Janet Frame and Keri Hulme. Everyone always brought them up.
Actually, practically the only cultural references to NZ (apart from rugby and sheep) I ever heard abroad were about Once Were Warriors. "Is it really like that?". Hard one to answer. "I don't know, might be for some people, pretty much like here?" was my usual.
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It makes a change from sheep. Seriously.
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