Currently Listening To: These Were The Earlies, The Earlies
It's 11.30 on Friday morning and I'm sitting here recovering from the opening night of the 15th Melbourne Queer Film Festival, which was held at the art deco Astor Cinema last night. The festival runs for the next 10 days, with a range of shorts, features and docos from around the world. This year's programme includes more Australian films than ever, as well as a panel which I'm moderating called 'Vocal Locals', featuring a range of film-makers (including the Oscar-winning Adam Elliot, and Matt Campbell, head of programming at SBS TV). For more details about the festival check out www.melbournequeerfilm.com.au
The opening night film was D.E.B.S. (USA 2004, 91 mins, directed by Angela Robinson), and was a bit of a hoot. A tongue-in-cheek teen lesbian spoof of the espionage thriller, it featuring star-crossed lovers, pleated skirts and an 80's pop soundtrack. Imagine Heathers meets Charlie's Angels as directed by John Hughes and you'll get some idea of what the film was like. It was shot on digital video and blown up to 35mm, which meant the film's depth of field suffered on occasion, but for the most part its strong production values, witty script and string of jokes held together well, and it certainly entertained the crowd if the laughs during the film and the smiles at the patry afterwards were anything to go by.
The opening night party was held in the foyer of the cinema, and of course, I had too much champagne... Ah well, I've felt worse.
I took my friend Mike to the party - a gay school teacher mate of mine who recently broke up with his boyfriend. Mike and I have only known each other for a couple of years, but we seem to be becoming good mates. We had a drunken fling once, and while it would have been nice on an intellectual level for us to become lovers (we have similar senses of humour, and the same taste in films and music) the physical chemistry between us was never strong, and would have quickly fizzled out. I think it's better that we're friends.
Speaking of friends, I said I'd write something about my friendships, didn't I?
Cut to Richard biting a fingernail nervously and looking abstracted.
When I was a kid my parents moved around a lot, and I had to find new friends at each new school every couple of years. Without wanting to sound too melodramatic, I think that's affected me in some way - I seem to have these committed friendships which last for several years, and then after a while I drift away and develop a new friendship group.
It's certainly not something that I do deliberately, and I still have a couple of friends that I've known since the 1980's; I just don't see them that often any more, as our lives have grown more complicated and I've developed new friendships and other committments.
People like Mark and Penny, Hugh and Chiara, Martin, Dermot and Chris will always have a place in my heart, but I guess I feel guilty that I spend more time with newer friends such as Mike and Glen instead of with the people I've known for over a decade.
I'm trying not to censor myself here, but am also aware that I'm posting in a public arena, and that people who listen to my radio show as well as my friends will be reading this, so I'm trying not to be either to specific and revealing or too general and vague. Damn, this blogging malarky is harder than I thought...
It's a complicated business, this friendship matter, and sometimes I think I have friends who care about me more than I care about them; I once described myself as living behind a glass wall - people can see me and interact with me and there's an illusion of closeness, but there's a little part of me that's cold, in the frozen sense, and so I come across as a little aloof.
Oh dear, this is all getting far too introspective and self-analytical isn't it?
I might sign off here, as I have to go and finish reading someone's poetry manuscript. I'll save the navel-gazing for another session.
The poet in question has asked me to provide a quote for the back cover of his next book; something along the lines of "His poetry is wry and gently mocking, but simultaneously offers great insight into his life, and by extraction, the human condition..." Hopefully whatever I end up writing won't be so pompous and cliched.
The only problem is that I haven't finished reading his manuscript yet and I have to meet him in an hour. I've been sitting on the manuscript for almost a month. I just haven't found the time to sit down and give it the attention it deserves because of all my other committments. I don't have enough time for my own writing dammit, let alone someone else's!
Oh well, I better go and try and read at least some of it before I meet the poet at 1pm...
Thanks for reading, and feel free to post a comment at some stage, whoever you are...
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