No Surprises - Radiohead

Intermission:

Contrary to the song title above, today was a day full of nice little surprises.
First of all, I had the opportunity to meet the talented Ms Rara Avis and her friend. She is a lovely person on and offline. Rara, if you are reading this, sorry for the initial confusion on who's who! Hopefully we'll cross paths again.

So the story goes that since last Monday I was pretty pissed that tickets to LAuberge Espagnol sold out, I decided to take a half day's leave from work:

Fake to Boss: "I need to take half day leave tomorrow. Medical checkup"
Boss to fake" Anything serious?"
Fake to boss: "Uh..Ive been having these mysterious allergic reactions"
Allergic reactions my ass...heh

So anyway, off I go to MV GSC. Agh..the horror of school holiday crowd. Getting the ticket to the 330pm show itself was a mini event. All the normal tickets were sold out, the ones left were the phone booking ones , that will only be released at 300pm. Apparently, I was the 1st one who got to know this as people started to ask about the Lauberge tickets and all were given the same answer by the counter girl. So, in a scene that wouldnt look out of place in Amazing race where those buxom girls and hunky men would wait in front of the airline counter to secure the first tickets, we did just that. Not only that, we kept pressuring the counter girl to release the ticket albeit subtlely ( ala...adik..lagi 2 minit aje...release je la ticket tu). Come 300pm, got my tickets! Finally! Also managed to get tickets for the 645pm show of Upswing. later, I heard that some people got really2 pissed off about their booked tickets being given away. Well, too bad innit? heh...

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L'Auberge Espagnol

It was a full house! This movie was a sexy and fun movie. Nothing groundbreaking but its offbeat Euro-centric humour really made my day ( better than the stupid Eurotrip). Even though the movie was basically in French, parts of it were in English and Espanol. And the best part was, the censors were having a lazy day today! ( For your info, the censoring was done manually by holding a cardboard over the projector since this is actually a DVD screening unto the big screen!). Ass shots, side view of a full frontal nude male, girl on girl action, fuck in 5 different languages spoken (Spanish, French, English,Danish & Flemish!), horny french women in lingerie, some pseudo fucking scenes, sloppy french kissing, gay shots....it was definitely a riot!

I will definitely hunt down the DVD. But the most pleasant surprise of all, was the fact that the song No Surprises by radiohead ( in which this blog title was taken from) was played thrice in the movie! I guess the director must a be a big fan.
Sexy indeed. ( and that includes the cast.....)

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Upswing (Nousokausi)
I know next to nothing about this movie and just decided to give it a shot. The only thing I know about Finland is that its the birthplace of Nokia. Nada info about its films.
AllI can say was, this is one quirky Finnish movie which is funny, bittersweet and depressing all at the same time. You are also required to suspend your disbelief over the gullibleness of the Fins! Despite it's flaws, it was pretty informative in the sense that it shattered my illusion that Finland is a country where noone is poor and lead depressing lives. It was also an eye opener to see how the homes of the middle class and the working class in Finland. ( I have this obsession about houses).

Unfortunately for this one , the censor guy got a bit carried away ( there were quite a number of fucking scenes and the word fuck...we were left in total blackout for 1-2 mins in a couple of scenes!). The Finnish embassy probably didnt bribe him enough eh Rara? :P
Good movie nonetheless.

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I wish I could see the other films that were offered at the EU film fest but time is not on my side. Really wanted to see the Dutch film The Twin sisters but wtf GSC is showing its last session tomorrow at freakin 12 pm!!

That said, I am glad that more and more Malaysians are catching and finally can enjoy films that are outside the usual Hollywood offerings. It 's also important that people should know that foreigns films need not be pretentious or arty or a mindfuck one ( like david lynch) all the time.

You need not be an film appreciation student, an artist or an elitist wanker who says dahlink every 5 minutes to enjoy these movies. These films can be a valuable insight on the culture that exist beyond our safe boundaries. In fact, most of the films offered in this time's filmfest tend to reflect similar occurences in our own society.

They are just represented in a different tongue.

Viva la celluloid!