Parker Posey on working with Christopher Guest

Before we enter into a scene, on any of the movies, the main direction from Chris is, "This isn't too far from the truth. People are really like this". The irony is that he inspired an ironic or postmodernist position in comedies today, but he couldn't be further away from irony. The other irony is that for such funny movies there's disappointment for the actors when they see the final product, since so much of everyone's performance gets cut. After the premiere of Best in Show in Toronto, the actors weren't laughing as much as calculating or comparing what was shot to what was sacrificed to move the plot. The ratio of material produced to the bit that's kept feels out of proportion. There's no clause with the Writers Guild of America for improvising being seen as writing but maybe one day there will be. As in the case on Woody Allen's films, no one gets paid anything, so you do it for the sake of the art. Chris doesn't do the awards circuits, so great performances worthy of them are left to legacy. I'm thinking of Catherine [O'Hara] in For Your Consideration, who was so funny and painful, just genius. Life imitated art for her that year because like in the film, there was talk in the biz of her receiving an Oscar nomination. He gives us our very own medals, though, made especially for the production, with the title of the movie written on a round medallion that hangs by a red, white, or blue ribbon. I have four of those medals and a few Oscars of my own. They're the souvenir-sized ones from LAX, but still, it's something.

- Parker Posey, You're on an Airplane, New York, 2018, p.255-6. 

See also:
Movies: Now God said to Moses I don't want no sinnin', 19 March 2014
Movies: I'm a hypocrite, but not an idiot, 4 March 2011
Movies: Oh Superman, 8 November 2010

The first single, maybe

The first [45rpm 7-inch vinyl single] issued ... was 'Texarkana Baby' by Eddy Arnold. He might not be mentioned much now, but he was a big name in the Fifties when his TV show took over Perry Como's slot. His songs spent a total of 145 weeks at number one on the US Country charts and sold over 85 million records. Signed to RCA, he was managed by Colonel Tom Parker, but would later find himself pushed down the roster when the 'Colonel' hooked up with some punk from Tupelo. Like Elvis, Eddy came from an impoverished background. Born in Henderson, Tennessee, in 1918, his father was a sharecropper and eager for his son to earn a few dollars by working the land himself. Accordingly, despite having forged a musical reputation that took him to the Grand Ole Opry, his record was released under the billing of 'Eddy Arnold, the Tennessee PlowBoy and his guitar'. The record was released on 31 March 1949, making it the first single ever released, if we ignore the [RCA spoken-word] demonstration record, which I think we have to. You can cop a listen to it online of course. It's pretty good, and though his guitar is certainly in evidence there are dandy bits of fiddle and lap steel too. It sounds a lot like Hank Williams, only cheerful. 

- Mark Radcliffe, Crossroads: In search of moments that changed music, Edinburgh, 2019, p.132-3. 

See also:

Music: Rich pickings at the Boston Tea Party, 14 February 2019
Music: A Chickasaw County child, 5 February 2018
Music: Mr Iturbi will see you now, 29 December 2013

The old route to Karori

Karori Road has been used since the 1840s to describe part or all of the route from the city to Karori. The earliest settlers made their way up Orangi Kaupapa Road and Military Track, crossing over Northland, down to the Kaiwharawhara Stream and then past Seaforth Terrace and Rosehaugh Avenue to reach Karori Road. Signs mark part of the way. Soon, however, the regular route was up The Rigi, over the hill (later pierced by the Karori Tunnel), down to the Kaiwharawhara Stream, across the Devil's Bridge and up Old Karori Road, then through a deep cutting to Karori Road. A plaque erected by the Wellington City Council in 1989 near the former Karori Garden Centre in Old Karori Road commemorates this route. Karori Road remains the main way through the suburb down to South Karori Road which, with various bridges, gave access to many small dairy farms in the early days.

As part of the Wellington City Council's renaming of many Wellington streets in 1925, it was proposed that the road from the Botanic Garden to the foot of Makara Hill be renamed as follows: 

Botanic Garden to Tunnel - Glenmore Street

Tunnel to Cemetery - Karori Road

Cemetery to Makara Hill - Chaytor Street

The argument was that any road to Karori should be known as Karori Road. However, John Burns, a Wellington city councillor, (ex-Karori borough councillor) and Karori resident, was instrumental in switching the proposed Karori Road and Chaytor Street named sections before final approval. The numbering of Karori Road property today follows sequentially from the Old Karori Road numbering. Thus, Karori Road numbering commences at 77, following on from 75A Old Karori Road.

- Will Chapman & Kitty Wood (updated by Judith Burch), Karori Streets 1841-2019, Wellington, 2019, p.59-60.

See also:

History: Rich pickings at the Regal Cinema, 10 February 2020 
History: How to take a bus, 28 November 2018
History: Wright's Hill Fortress, 29 October 2013

Film festival 2020 roundup

So it's been a funny old year for the New Zealand International Film Festival, full of disruption and rebirth. I hope the new leadership gets to put on its preferred full lineup next year so it can be judged against the wonderful legacy Bill Gosden left over the past 40 years. But in the meantime we're very lucky in New Zealand to have been able to experience at least some of this year's festival titles in the cinema, and the online streaming option has worked well, for me at least.

Instead of the usual 20 films I've only managed nine this year: six in person at the Roxy in Miramar and three online. Here they are in rough order of personal preference:

The Kingmaker (dir. Lauren Greenfield, US/Denmark, 2019, trailer)

An object lesson in a documentarian's restraint, as Imelda Marcos displays all of the messianic pretensions that were the hallmark of the dictatorial regime she was at the head of with her equally ruthless husband Ferdinand Marcos, and seeks to perpetuate through her children, who still hold sway despite their legacy of vast corruption and thousands of extrajudicial killings during the eight years of martial law decree. Lauren Greenfield's documentary might well be the defining record of the end of three decades of Philippine democracy and the return to ruthless, kleptocratic autocracy. One can take at least a little hope from the director Lauren Greenfield's observation that there has been considerable interest in the film since it opened in the Philippines last week.

The Truth (La Vérité) (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, France/Japan, 2019, trailer)

Kore-eda's first venture outside Japan is a delicate mother-daughter fencing-match, with the great central pairing of Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche reliving old grudges and debating the legacy of a fractured childhood dominated by an alpha mum for whom acting was everything, and examining the way family memories are subjective and fluid as they calcify with age. There's a top supporting cast, with Ethan Hawke immensely likeable as Hank, the American husband, and Clementine Grenier as the charming young daughter. The film also makes good use of a film-within-a-film as a narrative device to further explore the positive and negative nature of maternal bonds.


Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson & The Band (dir. Daniel Roher, Canada, 2019, trailer)

I'm a sucker for a great music doco and Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson & The Band was a top example, helped by the fact that I love their music. It takes talent, luck, endless practice and a whole lot of living to polish a group as marvelous as these five - four Canadians and an Arkansas drummer, from teenagers supporting Ronnie Hawkins, to the hot R&B group accompanying Dylan-gone-electric and reverberating around the world to a chorus of boos from uptight folk audiences, to an incredible yet defiantly unpretentious group in their own right that had eight magical years at the top of the rock scene, inventing a whole new style of music along the way. The doco is generous and inclusive but is clearly a Robertson-led story - his eloquent, elegant wife Dominique appears to add interview context - to act as a counterbalance the embittered and not-long-for-the-world Levon Helm's 2010 doco Ain't In It For My Health, made at a time when Helm was lashing out at his former bandmate. Once Were Brothers is a fine, positive antidote to that. And where better to end than with The Band's last ever performance in 1976, The Last Waltz, captured so brilliantly by Martin Scorsese.

Driveways (dir. Andrew Ahn, US, 2019, trailer)

A big-hearted drama with gentle touches of comedy and an engaging depiction of a burgeoning friendship between a solo mum and her 8-going-on-9 year-old son venturing to upstate New York to clear out a deceased relative's house and a lonely octogenarian widower who lives next door (Brian Dennehy, in one of his final roles before his death in April at the age of 81 ). File alongside Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent as a film that enjoys dwelling on the simple pleasures of companionship, with the added charm of the surrogate grandfather relationship of Pixar's Up.

Kubrick by Kubrick (dir. Gregory Monro, France, 2020)

A valuable contribution to the canon of Kubrick film obsession, with Michel Ciment's audio interviews conducted over several years helping the film play the same role as Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home: a safe space for a notorious recluse who has little time for the fripperies of media interviews to put their real philosophy on record with a trusted interlocutor. The usual actors contribute via contemporary interviews, but ultimately it's the strange sensation of hearing the director's own voice that is deceptively powerful. The Leon Vitali documentary Filmworker was a great second-hand view of the director; Kubrick by Kubrick is one step closer.

Dinner in America (dir. Adam Rehmeier, US, 2020, not a trailer)

A rousing tale of suburban misfits bolstered by an absolute star turn by the delightful Emily Skeggs, of Broadway and The Miseducation of Cameron Post fame, as the downtrodden Patty, ably assisted by Kyle Gallner as sociopathic Simon, who shakes up Patty's dead end existence with a dose of anarchic punk energy.

The County (Héraðið) (dir. Grímur Hákonarson, Iceland, 2019) 

A strong central performance from Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir anchors this north Iceland rural drama replete with traditional Scandinavian stubbornness. New Zealand dairy farmers making their livelihoods with Fonterra will be well aware of the role of a powerful co-operative, but in Skagafjördur the co-op not only buys everything, it also controls most of the retail, and as newly-widowed Inga (Egilsdóttir) discovers, when you ask awkward questions and rock the boat, the co-op will fight back. It's telling that director Grímur Hákonarson was originally planning to make a documentary in the farming fjord but quickly learned no-one would go on the record to discuss the real co-op, so the film became a fictionalised tale filmed in a different fjord entirely. While there are perhaps too few surprises in The County, it's still a treat to witness a well-told narrative set in an island that always seems as if it's actively trying to kill its inhabitants.

The Last Wave (dir. Peter Weir, Australia, 1977)

A visually stylish metaphysical thriller with an added dash of cultural appropriation that remains effective if over-long. Richard Chamberlain and David Gulpilil work well within the constraints of the material, and the increasingly apocalyptic visions of a haywire climate are convincing and well-staged. Lots of mucking about in Sydney's sewers, so you have to sympathise with the actors and the crew.

True History of the Kelly Gang (dir. Justin Kurzel, Australia, 2019)

Impressive cinematography boosts this young filmmaker's revisionist 19th-century outing, which features memorably energetic set-pieces and commendable central performances. And before people get up in arms, even if the Kelly Gang didn't do it, men dressing up in women's garb for criminal hi-jinks was actually a thing in the 19th centuries - look up the Rebecca Riots. But the over-reliance on repeated revolver-to-the-head standoffs, strobe lighting and drone shots become slightly wearying, as does an overlong prologue in which we learn the superhero childhood backstory of our 'hero' Ned but take an hour to do so, which is an unusual narrative choice. As for the NZ contingent, Thomasin McKenzie doesn't get much to do but is reliably watchable, while Marlon Williams should possibly stick to his excellent singing voice as opposed to his at times ropey American accent.

See also:
Blog: Film festival roundup 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 part 1 / part 2, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009

On the naming of Inglewood

A party of gentlemen — members of the Provincial Council — were invited by the Executive to partake of lunch at the new township, in the Moa block, in order to see the district, and bestow a suitable name on the town. The party consisted of Messrs. Standish, Kelly, Upjohn, Andrews, Callaghan, Syme, Peacock, Elliot, McGuire, and Hately. In consequence of the arrival of the Avalanche, his Honor the Superintendent could not join the party as was intended. After luncheon had been partaken of, Mr. Kelly, in the absence of the Superintendent, addressed the company, and stated the object of the meeting. 

He said that he regretted the necessity there existed to change the name of the township from Milton to Inglewood, but, in doing so, he did not consider the name either ignoble or inappropriate. A writer in the News questioned the meaning which he had given to the word, and, though it could not be disputed that the writer was right in stating that "ingle" was derived from the Gaelic, and meant fire, yet that did not in any way prove that the old Saxon name Inglewood meant firewood; on the contrary "Ing" in Saxon means a pasture, a meadow, or a level plain; and as applied in the word Inglewood was more likely to mean an open plain, or meadow in a wood, and, therefore, appropriate to the name of the township. There was no doubt that the site was a plain in a wood, though not at present a meadow or pasture. In few places could 150 acres be obtained so level as the site of the township, and it was an indication of the level character of the country. He would call on Mr. Standish, as Secretary for Waste Lands, to perform the ceremony of christening the township.

A lordly pine stood in the vicinity of the party, and Mr. Standish dashed on its rugged trunk a bottle of sparkling champagne, and declared the name of the township to be Inglewood. Three cheers was given for the new township, and Mr. Upjohn, as the oldest member of the Council present, responded, and addressed the meeting in a speech of some length, in which he described the vicissitudes of the Province, but now believed in its prosperity. Mr. Andrews proposed [a toast to] "the Executive," and spoke with approval of their action. Mr. Kelly responded, and stated that the Government felt grateful for the support and assistance which they had received from the Council. Mr. Standish proposed "The Council," and spoke in terms of praise at the energy they shown in getting through the business. Mr. Syme responded. "The Patea Members" was also given, which was responded to by Mr. Peacock, who said the members returned satisfied that the Province intended to deal fairly with Patea, and the ill feeling and jealousy which existed at the first was now being rapidly removed. Mr. Kelly proposed "The success of the District," and called on the oldest inhabitant, Mr. Stevens, to respond. Mr. Stevens responded, and thanked them for the compliment paid him in coupling his name with the toast, and expressed his belief that though the inhabitants were now few that in a few years Inglewood would be a thriving district. 

At this period the party broke up, having spent a very pleasant day together. The Patea members went on, on foot, to Patea, while the New Plymouth party returned to town, where they arrived about eight o'clock.

- Taranaki Herald, 27 January 1875

See also:

History: Writing to the New Plymouth colony, 28 November 2015

Blog: 'Psychics' 'helped' search, 3 April 2014

History: Old New Plymouth, 9 February 2014