Howl's Moving Castle

It's murasaki_1966's birthday today, so yesterday we went and saw Howl's Moving Castle at the closing night of the Sydney Film Festival.

And were disappointed.

Not greatly, but I found the end rushed and the characters not as interesting as in previous Miyazaki films. It is his first adaptation of someone else's material and I got the idea that he wasn't sure what to keep in and what to throw out. The structure appears lop-sided (the early part of the film was way more entrancing than the end of the film) and there were scenes that made no sense until murasaki_1966 explained their significance (she was familiar with the book having read it over a decade ago.)

It's worth seeing in a cinema, there are some absolutely wonderful images that need to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated, but it's no "Spirited Away" or "My Neighbour Totoro".

Health and Play update

I'm feeling a lot better, but still don't quite have as much energy as I thought I had.

ferkster and I have had some word on the casting of "Sit on My Facets" which I'm really excited by, but I want it to be confirmed before I reveal it publicly, lest I jinx it.

Here's the poster for the live radio plays:



Doesn't give anything away does it?

I've done an interview with Drum Media, who were interested in my early career in Canberra, so I've had an odd week of remembering and encountering people (albeit through the media) from that time (which would have been about twenty years ago) and from other phases of my perfomance career (if you could call it that.)

For example: one of the support acts for the radio play is Christa Hughes. We were in the same show together at a place called "O'Malley's" which was on William Street around 1991, 1992. On Radio National whilst recuperating at home I heard a documentary on Cuba put together by singer Jenny Swain, who I remember from acting classes back in Canberra.

It's been strange as I've been fairly depressed and un-creative and out of sorts to have a week of reminders of the people I used to know and the life I used to lead, and to realise that it hasn't just all disappeared into the ether. It was more like I'd suppressed it for a long time, and now that I'm back to working creatively, scattered fragments of my past are bobbing up to surface, like driftwood bearing the name of a doomed ship.

ferkster and I have been able to crack our second entry for Short and Sweet (we're entering a comedy and a drama). We've thrown out the whole Snowtown, serial killer, horror story angle and gone back to an idea I had earlier. The idea (I won't go into any details) was based on coming up for a different kind of role for Christine, who was perfect as Mathilde in "Relics" and who we definitely wanted to work with again.

Of course, even if the play is selected, it doesn't mean she'll be cast in the role that was written for her, but that's showbiz.

That MIT Survey everyone else is doing