No Friday Night Movie in February

The good news is, we have a new venue for our Friday Night Movies. The management of the Echuca Paramount has graciously offered us the use of the Monash Room for our monthly meetings and our DVD screenings. Rather appropriate for the Film Society to be housed in a movie theatre, don't you think?

The bad news is, we won't be able to take advantage of it until March.

Let me explain: Since we are no longer running our Friday Night Movies at Wesley Chapel, the Church License we used all last year is no longer valid, and we had to seek a new licensing structure. Fortunately, the Australian Council of Film Societies just struck a deal with Village Roadshow and other distributors to offer film rights to Film Societies at a cost of only $50 (plust gst) per film. While this is more than we were paying with the Church License, it's far less than the previous, pre-deal cost, which could run upwards of $300 per film.

The problem that we've run into is that each film must be licensed individually, and since we're just getting started, it's taking longer than expected to license our first film. (Future films will be licensed months ahead of time, to avoid just this situation.)

We will attempt to make up for this "lost" film by adding one during the year, possibly with another Christmas break-up film, like we did this past year.

New Meeting Place

The Echuca-Moama Film Society has a new home!

As of 25 November, meetings will no longer be held at Ceres. Instead, we'll be meeting in the Monash Room at the Paramount.

You may not know exactly where the Monash Room is; Don't worry. We'll be milling about in the lobby until about 7:25, then all go up at once.

Big thanks to Grant for donating the space!

Project: DVD Share

At the last meeting, during a discussion of EMFS member incentives, John Twigg suggested that members open their private film collections to the group. This is something that has been discussed previously, but never actually proposed at a meeting. The idea was met with excited approval, and followed by discussion about the best way to organise it. A plan was set in motion to compile a list of members' libraries, and that's what this post is all about.

Obviously, it's not mandatory. If you'd rather not be part of the list, that's absolutely okay, and won't preclude you from borrowing from the list. All EMFS members will receive the list, and be able to borrow from it - at members' discretion, of course.

(For example, from my own experience, if "Ian" borrows a film, then lends it to someone else, "Ian" is barred from borrowing films for a period of time. Similarly, if "Ian" already has three of my discs, "Ian" must return one before being allowed to borrow another.)

All I'm looking for at the moment are expressions of interest from people who are willing to share their libraries with the group. Please Do Not Forward Your Lists To Me At This Stage. I will then contact all interested parties with a simple style guide, which will make it easier to compile the lists on this end.

If you have any questions - or suggestions - about this project, please feel free to contact me.

Cheers,
Steve

Christmas Break-Up!!

December Friday Night Film - The Thin Man

The Thin Man
Friday 3 December 2010
9:00

(after the barbeque)

A comedy-mystery from 1934, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. The Thin Man features former detective Nick Charles (William Powell) and his rich, playful wife, Nora (Myrna Loy). They solve a murder case mostly for the fun of it.

Friday Night DVDs

At the last meeting (28 October) a decision was made to drop Wesley Chapel as our venue. It is simply not worth paying for the space when we only have three to five people turn up for the show.

It was decided that we would finish out the year's movies, and that Bianca and I would host them at our house. After that, it's kind of up in the air.

Details of this discussion can be found in the forthcoming minutes as of 18 November, one week before our next meeting.

Cheers,
Steve

Accessing the Minutes and Agenda

Hello Folks,

I've found that some versions of Internet Explorer have difficulty opening up links to PDF documents, like the links for our minutes and agendas.

If you're having problems, you can still access the minutes and agendas. All you need to do is right click on the link and select Save Target As from the drop down menu.

You can then open the PDF file from wherever you saved it to. I recommend the Desktop, less chance of it going walkabout from there!

Cheerio,

Bianca

November Friday Night Film - Dead Man

Dead Man

Friday 5 November 2010

7:30pm

Dead Man is the story of a young man's journey, both physically and spiritually, into very unfamiliar terrain. William Blake travels to the extreme Western frontiers of America sometime in the second half of the 19th century. Contrary to his nature, circumstances transform Blake into a hunted outlaw, a killer, and a man whose physical existence is slowly slipping away.

August Minutes & September Agenda

Minutes from the August meeting - click to download

Agenda for the September meeting - click to download

October Friday Night Film - The Blues Brothers

The Blues Brothers
Friday 1 October, 2010
7:30pm
Wesley Chapel
(Echuca-Moama Uniting Church)

Jake and his brother Elwood take on a "mission from God" to save from foreclosure the Catholic orphanage in which they grew up. To do so, they must reunite their rythym and blues band, The Blues Brothers, and organize a performance to earn $5000 to pay the tax assessor. Along the way, they are targeted by a destructive "mystery woman", Neo-Nazis, and a country and western band - all while being relentlessly pursued by the police.

July Minutes & August Agenda

Minutes from the July meeting - click to download

Agenda for the August meeting - click to download

September Friday Night Film - Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo

Friday 3 September, 2010

7:30pm

Wesley Chapel

(Echuca-Moama Uniting Church)

Werner Herzog directs Fitzcarraldo, the story of Brian Sweeny Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle. His plan involves hauling an enormous riverboat across a mountain with aid from the local indians.

June Minutes & July Agenda

Minutes from the June meeting - click here to download

Agenda for the July meeting - click here to download

Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival

This weekend marks the first Echuca-Moama Film Society Film Festival! We'll be celebrating the work of Alfred Hitchcock, starting with his early British films and working our way up to what is arguably his best known film, Psycho, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Come and join us Friday the 9th and Saturday the 10th at Wesley Chapel in Echuca. Society members are admitted free; non-members by donation.

Full details and a schedule of the films can be found here.

August Friday Night Film - Man on Wire

Man on Wire
Friday 7 August, 2010
7:30pm
Wesley Chapel
(Echuca-Moama Uniting Church)

A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider "the artistic crime of the century".

May Minutes, June Agenda & AGM Agenda

Agenda for the AGM - click here to download

Minutes from the May meeting - click here to download

Agenda for the June meeting - click here to download

July Friday Night Film - Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins

Friday 2 July, 2010

7:30pm

Wesley Chapel

(Echuca-Moama Uniting Church)

A spolied and bored uppercrust Edwardian English family has their world turned upside down by a nonsensical nanny who teaches them how to enjoy life.

Man on the Moon - review

This month's Friday Night Movie rated a moderate 3.6 with EMFS members. The consensus seemed to be "Good movie, could have done with less Carrey".

I'm not a Jim Carrey fan, I have to say. His brand of physical comedy leaves me wanting. Wanting to see him flung into the darkest recesses of space. (I did like The Mask, but it was based on a comic book, after all, so his cartoonish efforts worked to the film's advantage.) However, in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the last half of The Truman Show - and, if I'm being honest, the parts in The Mask where he's NOT playing the Mask, but regular guy Stanley Ipkiss - Carrey proves himself to be quite an absorbing actor.

In Man on the Moon, you get half-and-half. Carrey, as Andy Kaufman, is engaging. But Andy, himself, is so often playing a role that we rarely get to see the real him, and are therefore subjected to Carrey's clownish interpretation of Andy's antics. And it's because of this that the movie suffers. The scene where Andy's "Foreign Man" debuts at the Improv, doing terrible jokes and impressions, only to launch into a spot-on Elvis, doesn't quite come off the way it should. Andy didn't imitate Elvis; he became Elvis. There's not a hint of satire in his performance because the performance itself wasn't satire. Watching Carrey do it, it all becomes very over-the-top; his movements are overly pronounced, his lip quiver nearly becomes a sneer. His physical comedy bleeds through, turning the Elvis performance into another joke instead of the punchline.

In all, not a bad movie. But more than a few of us left last night wishing Edward Norton had been cast instead.

June Friday Night Film - Man on the Moon

Man on the Moon

Friday 4 June, 2010
7:30pm
Wesley Chapel
(Echuca-Moama Uniting Church)

Directed by Oscar winner Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and starring Jim Carrey, Man on the Moon chronicles the life and career of the eccentric avant-garde actor/comedian Andy Kaufman.

April Minutes & May Agenda

Minutes from the April Meeting - Click here to download

Agenda for the May Meeting - Click here to download

New Membership Year

Hello All.

April 1, 2010 marked the beginning of the new financial year for the Echuca-Moama Film Society. That means it's time to renew your subscription!

The society is certainly surging ahead these days, with regular committee meetings and a great range of Friday Night DVD showings and monthly films at the Paramount. We are even working on our first Movie Festival to be held in July and revolve around the works of Alfred Hitchcock.

You can download an application form for the society here.

Please fill this out and return it, along with your payment, to:

Echuca-Moama Film Society
PO Box 811
ECHUCA Vic. 3564


Alternatively, payment can be made by direct deposit. Please contact Steve on 0432 288 659 for these details.

If paying by direct deposit, please leave your name in the description section so that we can track your payment.

The next committee meeting will be held at Cerés (Nish Street, Echuca – the old Mill building) on Thursday 27 May, 2010 at 7:30pm. We hope to see you there and keep an eye out for information regarding both the upcoming film festival and the Annual General Meeting.

Regards,

Bianca

May Friday Night film - Rebel without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause
Friday 7 May, 2010
7:30pm
Wesley Chapel
(Echuca-Moama Uniting Church)

Made in 1955 and directed by Nicholas Ray, Rebel starred the late and great James Dean - who is best known for this role as Jim Stark.

March Minutes & April Agenda

Minutes from the March Meeting - Click here to download

Agenda for the April Meeting - Click here to download