I’ve been a patron of this festival since 2002 and am used to seeing some really brilliant stuff, quite a lot of it never reaching wide release here. Past years have entertained with the likes of Frailty, Donnie Darko, 28 Days Later, Hero, Azumi; the list goes on. This year however I couldn’t help thinking that the offering looked a little dry, but as with the festival in previous years, you never really can tell.
Last year the GCFF ran at exactly the same time as the festival in Brisbane, so this time it looks like they pushed it forward a whole month. People who have been previously know not to expect a huge festival, as it’s both only a youngster in the festival world and it’s not exactly in a capital city. It’s definitely a quality over quantity show though.
The schedule placed the first hurdle. I could watch Paul Schrader’s cut of Exorcist and miss two other films. This would have been forgivable, except that Exorcist was to be screened twice and to the exact same effect both nights. In the end I decided to skip it and see the promising (if not completely strange) foreign Innocence.
A friend the next day picked their schedule, and was surprised at a couple of my selections – surprised because the movies just weren’t on the list. Haute Tension was gone, and Appleseed was shown to be replacing Innocence. I figured that they hadn’t been able to secure prints and tried to forget about it.
Day One…
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Since I’d decided to skip on the opening night Millions (after watching it a month later I was glad I didn’t pay the $30) my first film this year was the heavy “live-action anime” Casshern, which I didn’t quite appreciate until a couple days later. While occasionally overacted, the beautiful cinematography and a completely fresh style really made it worth watching. I left a little numbed, but wholly satisfied.
Day Two…
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It’s nice to start a day of film watching with an old favourite, and The Princess Bride did nicely. It was enjoyable to see something that you’d grown up watching on the big screen again, and as I’d find out later a whole lot more enjoyable than the other offerings. As the day (and films) passed however, I didn’t realise that it would be hard to top Bride, although the much-hyped Night Watch did come close.
Expecting much less, Night Watch was a welcome surprise, as it was not only entertaining but exceedingly well made. It will be interesting to see how the trilogy develops.
I’d not seen much anime at the cinema, and since my mate was keen on seeing Appleseed we figured it was worth a shot. You could say it set the bar very, very low. Perhaps there was a more cohesive story in the original language, but whatever the problem was the only excitement (however shortlived) were the two or three times I actually thought it was about to end.
On the way into Appleseed we were stopped by one of the organisers and asked a few short questions. I couldn’t help get the feeling throughout that the whole subtext was to gauge if they could move the whole festival to Bond University next year – if so I hope people had let her know what they thought about the Cerum Theatre.
After the fairly ordinary offering so far I just had to ask her about Innocence. To paraphrase her, “Oh Innocence, yeah we had a private screening of that and decided not to show it”. Oh. She seemed pretty happy with that answer, so I explained I was really looking forward to seeing it. “It was a bit different, and depressing, so we decided to show Appleseed instead – it’s really good!”. Uh huh. And here I thought film festivals were all about screening things that might not be the norm. I guess I should have gone to the Sydney Film Festival, as they thought it was good enough to screen. Twice.
Day Three…
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The organisers are really on to something in regards to old favourites opening up the day. Beetle Juice was wholly enjoyable, if not for the fact that three of us could have swore there was a missing scene there somewhere. A slight annoyance was the fact that for both Princess Bride and Beetle Juice were prints this year, whereas the hammer films shown last year were DVD. On one hand you could argue that it’s a more authentic screening, but try telling people that while they watch grainy film with faltering sound.
Next up was Land of the Dead. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when a not-bad zombie movie is some of the best you’ll see at a film festival. Saying that, it was a fun watch and it sure beat waiting for the next film. Oh wait, that turned out to be the last film for me. 
The night before, during the survey, my mate asked the lady (who I have the feeling was the chief organiser) about the “special sneak preview” that was to screen after Land of the Dead, and was told plainly that she couldn’t possibly reveal what movie it was. After an audible sigh we moved on, and my secret hope continued that it would be Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was already screening in the USA at the time.
Just after Land of the Dead the lady materialised at the front of the cinema to announce, once again, that she couldn’t possibly announce what the secret advance screening was to be. “Although”, she said, “I can tell you it stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson”. More sighs. After a silent reaction, the lady ran out of steam and told everybody that she’d see us there, and walked out. The Island opened nationally an entire four days later.
In conclusion…
Reading back on this whole post now, it really does read as acrimonious. To put it plainly, I was really that disappointed this year; with not only films that I couldn’t see, but most of the films that I did. Let’s hope 2006 is a return to previous years, and (if common sense prevails) not at the Cerum Theatre. 
Further information about the GCFF can be found at FilmFantastic.com.
