Movieing Violations

Well, it's over. I managed to see 7 films in 7 days, and used up my entire 10-ticket bundle. What else did I see, you may ask? Sisters in Law, a documentary from Cameroon about female judges and lawyers dealing with family law and rape cases in a misogynistic society. It was funny and fascinating and sad, all at once. I highly recommend it. Iron Island is only the second Iranian film I've ever seen... And it was only slightly less confusing and strange than the first one. One of the reviews on IMDB says that Iron Island "lets you make up your own mind." I'm sorry, but I'd at least like for the director to give the story a clear point or a followable plot--I'm happy then to make up my mind what I thought of it, but give me something to work with, here! Iron Island has one of the coolest setups of any movie I saw this week; a sort of floating city of poor people are living aboard an abandoned oil tanker, run by a big-fish-small-pond kind of guy who's essentially exploiting the people, they work for him in exchange for rent etc. But there's a love plot that ends incomprehensibly, the people are eventually forced off the boat but it's not clear what will happen to them, and a little kid runs off into the ocean and disappears. (I know the last one is symbolic, but I'm not sure of what since the water represents freedom for fish, and his name is Baby Fish--but the water is also what was imprisoning the people on the boat. So I dont' get it. Maybe I'm just not subtle enough to watch Iranian films.) Last but not least was Kinky Boots, which is based on a true story of a shoe manufacturer in Britain who saves his dying business by starting to specialize in womens' style shoes for transvestites and drag queens. It featured The Operative from "Serenity" as the main drag queen, and it was nothing short of hilarious. Two thumbs up, 5 stars, and so on.

Now school's out, grading is done, I've been to Kalamazoo and back, and things are returning to "normal." I have to dismantle my whole fishtank soon, the thought is daunting to say the least. Maybe I can avoid it a bit longer if I keep blogging regularly...