The Wellington Fringe Festival started its 2008 run yesterday, with beautiful weather to make it shine. My goal is to see as many of the outdoor shows as I can. Sure, I’m looking forward to seated theatre as well, but there’s something about an audience that resembles a flash mob.
Footnote Fused came up first on the list, partly because of the genre, a fusion of dance and acrobatics, and partly for not listing a venue. Instead, the audience had to send a text in order to receive further instructions. Our instructions were to go to a store on Willis St at 6pm. From there, we moved on to Waitangi Park and followed a pair of dancers up to the final venue, where an aerial acrobatic rig was waiting for us. It was a brilliant idea and a wonderful show. Congrats to those involved.
After spending a lot of time on the outside of cinemas, due to a number of crap films released in the past year, I found myself seeing 3 movies in 3 evenings, and I was happy about it. Each of them came with their own recommendations – from different people and for different reasons. I’ll happily reiterate those sentiments.
Number one was a special screening of The 11th Hour. The Monday night showing was hired out from Penthouse Cinema for use as a fund-raiser to gather support for public transport in the Ngauranga to Airport Transport Study. The film itself wasn’t overly surprising. Those of us who went to see it already knew a lot about the subject matter. It was quite interesting, however, that they kept reminding the viewer that no matter what climate changes occur, the planet will survive without us. A very good point to make, to remind us that we’re not above nature.
Immediately after work on Tuesday, I rushed back into Wellington, to The Paramount, to catch a 5:00 screening of Once. This was recommended to me based on the soundtrack, which we were listening to in the car a couple weeks ago. Folkloric and emotional, the music grabs on and really makes this movie stand out. It’s a nice little romantic story, but it’s so much more because of the soundtrack.
Finally, I’d dragged a friend out to see Juno. I’ve heard a lot about this one from all sorts of directions. People love it; the media loves it. It’s up for a few Oscars, and rightly so. It’s nice to see a good film on the screens for a change.
That’ll probably be all the films I see for a while. There’s a lot more to do in the city over the summer than hang out in dark cinemas. Besides, my box set of Minuit, le soir arrived yesterday. I don’t think I’ll be bored for quite a while.
