My Creative Fortnight: 16th - 28th October
SXSW Sydney, Battle Snake, Last Stop Larrimah, Tim Minchin, Mubi, Charles Dickens, No Hard Feelings, podcasts, acting and Weezer
After a bit of a lull where I found myself mindlessly scrolling through pictures of impossibly proportioned women on Instagram and improbably serious “manfluencers” on YouTube (it’s not me, it’s the feed!), I have a fortnight of fulfilling cultural and creative experiences to share.
First up, I attended SXSW Sydney with my colleague down under where, in between the sensible conference sessions I got to see some bands and watch some movies and I would like to thoroughly recommend glam-punk-rockers Battle Snake who took to the stage at Tumbalong Park in full costume against a backdrop of fire and brimstone to project songs such as ‘I Am The Vomit’ and ‘Nightmare King’ into a fairly conservative conference crowd 🤘😝.
The best film I saw, (OK the only film I saw), was ‘Last Stop Larrimah’ a true crime documentary by the brilliant and determinedly independent Duplass Brothers (see also short horror movie ‘Creep’ - it is nearly Halloween after all).
Set in a tiny town of 11 people in the dustbowl heart of Australia, it tries to solve the murder of 9% of its population. What makes this film so compulsively watchable though is not the whodunnit or the how, but the sheer eccentricity of the characters who choose to live in such a remote location. And now it’s on Netflix too!
Back in the big smoke, Sydney celebrated an important anniversary; the 50th birthday of the Sydney Opera House which, at the time, was considered not just a controversy but a carbuncle that has since grown into an icon. Aussie iconoclast Tim Minchin celebrates its success in this amazing anthem to creative risk-taking ❤❤❤
Now, speaking of streaming platforms, as I was somewhere up above, I recently cancelled my Disney+ and HBO subscriptions (the former because I don’t really understand why any adult would choose to watch endless Star Wars or Marvel films, the latter because of the utterly hopeless UI), and replaced them with Mubi.
Mubi is an arthouse and world cinema streaming platform with less formulaic and franchise content on it, including more from the Duplass brothers. So far I have watched shlock horror b-movie ‘There’s Nothing Out There’ and re-watched Japanese pre-cursor to ‘The Hunger Games’ ‘Battle Royale’ but my watchlist is growing longer by the day.
Back to books and I still can’t face the relentless sexism, misogyny and homophobia of ‘Money’ by Martin Amis so it remains on my bedside table three-quarters complete but I have made a meaty start to one of the many downloaded-but-unread classics on my Kindle and am 40% of the way through Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ and loving it. Most years I read ‘A Christmas Carol’ to get in the festive mood but had guiltily neglected the rest of his work until now. My old English teachers would be so proud!
En route to SXSW I took a red eye flight and slept all the way but the return leg was during day time so I also caught the Jennifer Lawrence comedy ‘No Hard Feelings’ on the plane. Now, I’m somewhat biased here because J-Law sits at the very top of my laminated list (you know what I’m talking about), but it was sweet, sexy and ultimately the type of mid-range comedy/drama that has mostly been edged out by big budget franchises and for that reason I rather enjoyed it.
Back in Sing I spent two days in the studio recording my brand new video podcast ‘The Business of Storytelling’, which is sponsored by Vimeo and features nine guests in season one include five top brand marketers, two publishers and two agency CEOs. Any day away from my laptop is a win but two days spent talking to some of the top storytellers in Singapore was a real pleasure and I can’t wait to share it with you via my company Substack ‘The Lore’, where you can also read more about my trip to SXSW.
In between my podcast shoots I had another acting job playing a culturally-insensitive douchebag sales manager for an internal training video. As you can imagine, it was quite a stretch but apparently I was very convincing!
And that brings us up to date. I shall leave with you the surprise hit of the night from the recent Weezer gig, which I was at - their rather poignant cover of Kit Chan’s iconic anthem ‘Home’
Maybe I’ll see you at the upcoming Suede/Manic Street Preachers double headliner gig on 22nd November or the Alliance Française French Film Festival from 9-21st November? Let me know.
Nx