Sometimes, the Melbourne Film Festival lets you down. Of course it does. If it didn't, it would be peopled entirely by the same demographic. This is not the case. Sometimes it's a comedy film and there's a comedy crowd. Sometimes it's a religious film and it's full of people wearing tiny gold icons under their windcheaters. Sometimes it's a music documentary and there are people in heavy metal t shirts wandering in with popcorn.

But it doesn't let ME down often, because it's fairly hard to let me down. It's fairly difficult for me not to find even the bits that I don't find interesting kind of... interesting... on account of the fact that someone else is finding them interesting.

Anyhoo. So there's this friend of mine. I spend each festival thinking, "Oh, she would have LOVED that film! That film was MADE for her!"

Then she calls me up and says, "Can I trail along to one of your films?" and I say "Oh, you're going to WET YOUR PANTS this film will be SO GOOD".

Anyway, last year she came to three. Two of them were terrible. I only saw two truly terrible films last year. One of them was so badly projected we got our money back. The third film? Ace. Unreal. Really excellent.

Which is why I thought it would be safe to assume I could "let her trail along" tonight to see a film about... well, now, that would be telling.

It was a film that should be shown to anyone who thinks they're creative, because it's an interesting eight minute film. It went for two hours. It's a film that teaches people that you should always edit more than you think you should out of whatever it is you're creating.

My friend is beginning to think she is cursed.

Otherwise today I saw Eagle vs Shark, a New Zealand film, which was gorgeous and hilarious and which is on again on August 12. Funny as hell.

The last film I saw today was about Alexander Litvinenko, I am SURE I am spelling that wrong but I'm too tired to even use google... Anyway I have written here previously about him and I've always been fascinated by his story and the connections between Putin and the secret service/death squads/terrorism within Russia. Anyway, wow. Writers and people who say things about politics that people in power don't like can get themselves into some serious trouble in some countries.

Good to remember when you're complaining about deadlines. Which I will hereby refrain from doing. Good night.