MOVIE OVERDRIVE - Day three and I got into movie overdrive. Kicked the days viewing off with The Informant, the new film from Steven Soderbergh, starring Matt Damon. The film is structured as a whistleblower drama but it’s styled as something much more playful. Matt Damon is a delight to watch sporting a dodgy moustache and 20 extra pounds put on especially for the role.

Next up was Leslie: My Name Is Evil. This is the latest in a long line of films about Charles Manson and his followers. Far from a conventional re-hash of the grisly details, the Leslie of the title is one of his girls. We didn't get to the end of this as the film became increasingly strange and bizarre. We left after about an hour.

Then it was onto Joe Dante's new film The Hole. Aimed squarely at the family audience, The Hole relies more on suspenseful thrills than aggressive shocks to deliver its kicks. Shot unnecessarily in 3 D, I don't think the process added anything to the film and would have been just fine in 2-D. The film has been picked up for UK distribution. Expect to see it in cinemas next February.

We were then going to go on to see Solomon Kane, which is one of the Midnight Madness films, but we ran into Jonathan (Black Sheep) King. Jonathan is in town with his new film Under The Mountain, starring Sam Neil. He got us on the guest list for the New Zealand party and the lure of free booze and food proved too much for us. We headed off to the party, the first of three lined up for the evening.

As it turned out we made the right decision. The film will be on again and the party was fun. The wine flowed freely and was very tasty. - from Sam Neil's personal vine yard. There was also an impromptu performance by The Topp Twins. The Topp twins are New Zealand's first lesbian country and western singers. They are huge on New Zealand TV and they've made this documentary called The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls. To be frank this film never featured on my list of movies to see this week, but you know what, it is now.

Then it was on to our second party of the evening hosted by Todd Brown, editor-in-chief of Twitch. We hooked up with Phil Newton here and another of my friends James Evans. Full of the great and the good of the internet and blogging world, the entertainment was made up of an entertainer whose act consisted of stuffing nails into his various orifices. Lasted about an hour here and went on to a final party of the evening and after a few more red wines called it a day about 1 a.m.

Until the next time…..

Ian.

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