Sinister: All-time middle

[Simon Fallaha]

Hello again everybody.

Occasionally flicking through your posts (especially
Laura's - you mentioned Storytelling, I'll come to it
later), still looking for a placement and generally
messing about with an odd job in between. How else can
I describe my current situation? It's not exactly an
all-time high, so the title I'm using for this message
gives the second best way of describing it. Still, few
won't realise that the title's a lame 007 pun (the
Roger Moore season on ITV finished just days ago).

Anyway, last month there was Tunisia. It was great
while it lasted (one week, that's all it was). The
place we stayed, Port El Kantoui (I'll never remember
how to spell it) seemed to have been purposely built
for tourists! Not that that's a bad thing for us
visitors (I encountered many English people there, and
even a few Irish) but I wonder how the natives must
find it. However, no matter how cynical I am about the
tourist aspect, you shouldn't let it detract from the
enjoyment of the place. 

There was plenty of chances to go swimming (either in
the Med or the hotel's pool), an arcades room (even
though most of them were ancient and me and my
brothers preferred to play pool) and even a
discotheque (I only went there one night though).
There was also the chance to play many sports, but I
think what really stood out for me is the activities
you could do at the beach. Especially paragliding. The
thought of it may scare some of you, but if you get in
the right seating position and hold on, you are
sitting comfortably while you float up high in the
air, and the view is tremendous. 

Enough about that. Now, my last post before I left
suggested how "excited" I was about seeing
Storytelling. Well...having seen it now I am very
divided over it. Now that I know how Todd Solondz
treats the characters in his films I'm not so
convinced that I want to see Welcome To The Dollhouse
or Happiness, no matter how highly they've been rated.
>From what I've been reading about them, Welcome To The
Dollhouse makes you glad that you're still an adult,
rather than back in high school, and Happiness just
seems like American Beauty. 

But Storytelling...well, what was the point of it? The
fiction act made more sense than the non-fiction act,
but in my opinion the whole film was virtually
directionless. Some of Solondz's characters may live
long in the memory, but you don't really want them to.
Nearly all the characters in this film are dislikable
or warped (with the possible exclusion of Selma
Blair's Vi). That little kid in the non-fiction act -
now I know most kids in films are brats, but this one
is more so than any other one I've seen.

I can understand now why you all thought Storytelling
"sucked", but are Solondz's films meant to be
attractive viewing anyway? A few scenes are
disturbing. There's some things in that film which you
really don't want to see again, and other things which
are just boring. What gets me, though, is that Belle &
Sebastian's music seems out of place in a film such as
this. I did like the end credits theme (sung by
Isobel) but doesn't it seem a little too cheery for
the setting? And I was glad when the film ended, even
though it's only about 80 minutes.

Apart from Storytelling, the only other film I saw
recently was Austin Powers 3 - and there's very little
to say about that. I avoided Men In Black II on a
friend's advice - have any of you seen it?

Enough for now.

Take care,

Psi

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