"I had no need of my friend the potato"

I really must try harder to leave more time to get to places. I've no problem getting to work for the time I need to be there but it often seems to be the case that getting to anything not-work during work-time when not at work results in leaving at the last available moment and having to walk across town far quicker than is wise on a hot day. The EIFF also seems to be operating a start-as-soon-as-possible policy instead of starting at the time things are meant to start according to the tickets but I only missed the little introductory speaking-bit rather than any of the six or seven documentary short-things including an interesting one about a Bulgarian translator stranded in Australia by political upheaval working as an office-cleaner and speculating about the character of the people whose desks she cleans on the basis of the tidiness thereof. It also seems that the toilet hygiene of men in offices is of a similarly low standard in Australia as it is up here.

Though I've started to try to watch more closely for not-just-films on their normal non-film-festival release schedule as well they're certainly easier to find at this sort of thing, as are speaky-events with famouses. When the EIFF was amongst the other fests my dad popped to see Malcolm Macdowall talking about Lindsay Anderson and noted the embarrassing activity of a bloke hassling Macdowall for his autograph before he'd even reached his lectern and again before he'd left it at the end. None of that sort of thing for Sam Mendes though there were a few people waiting at the drop-off point outside waiting to catch a glimpse. Despite the interview being conducted by Mark Kermode (he knows his stuff but always gives the impression that he enjoys the knowing of the stuff more than the watching of the films) it was interesting and enlightening, and good to learn that the reason you thought something was done was in fact the reason why it was done. There's always a worry that these sorts of thing will turn out to be pretentious lanyard-waving (particularly during the questions) but it was mostly sense being speaked.

The only proper full-length film today (excluding Road to Perdition which I quickly watched in the afternoon before the Mendes-speak in case it was mentioned (which it inevitably was)) was van Diemen's Land, a cheery little based-on-historical-supposition desaturated but very scenic and well-shot tale of the exploits of a bunch of convicts who escape from a Tasmanian penal logging crew.