My MIFF2012 experience: It's a wrap

My goal at the start of the year was to start blogging and maintain the blog site for the year. To keep the goal achievable, I had to do at least 1 blog a month. I knew that in August with the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), it was going to get interesting. I decided to aim for around 30 movies during the festival, while still working and also keeping the blogs coming.

MIFF was going to be my biggest challenge with my blogging abilities on a number of levels. This will be my third year of going to the festival. My first MIFF in 2010 I saw around 5 films, last year I moved up-to 14 films, and this year I took the plunge and aimed for 30 films. For someone who is not the best at writing, and even after rewriting my blog article 3 or 4 times, I can still get simple grammar errors or wrong names, you can see why MIFF was going to be a challenge for me. I decided instead of doing my monthly movie blog, to go and try and do a blog after each film, and try and keep up with the flow of the festival. This started of well, but then I hit the wall. Once I finished the first week and up to 19 films on my film tally, I was struggling to maintain the blog site.

Hitting what I call that MIFF wall, and at that half way point, I was starting to struggle with keeping focus on the movie I was watching, and some nights seeing up to 3 movies after work, I found my self falling asleep or just having my thoughts drift away while watching movies. I felt like I was a MIFF Zombie, going from one movie to the next, feeding on what MIFF was offering to me. With MIFF providing free activities at The Forum like the comedy night on the 15th Aug, hosted by Lee Zachariah, and featuring funny man Bobcat, where good to break up the festival, and to keep my mind fresh.

In a way its sad that MIFF is over and yet I am also happy that it is over, it is hard to explain and only when you see over 30 films in 2 weeks can you understand the ups and downs which comes with MIFF. I will be looking forward to MIFF in 2013, the moments of selecting the films and then working out the hours and days, and experiencing all what comes with the festival.

I have not had time to write the blogs on the last few movies, so I will do a quick summary of each now:
- The Red and the Black: Felt like it was more of an advisement than a movie. 2/5.
- God Bless America: I have a new found respect for Bobcat. What a fantastic movie, loved it. 4.5/5.
- Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time: Enjoyed this Korean Gangster movie, but I think went slightly too long. 3/5
- Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap: This documentary about rap was interesting. 3/5.
- Into the Abyss: Just like the TV version, I found this documentary very interesting. 3.5/5.
- Save your Legs: This will be another classic Australian film, very funny. 3.5/5.

Thank you to MIFF staff and volunteers for the hard work which has been put into another successful festival, and look forward to next years. In the end I ended up seeing a total of 31 movies, and here is how I rated them, from top to bottom:
1: God Bless America. 4.5/5
2: Beast of the Southern Wild. 4/5
3: Undefeated. 4/5
4: Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai
5: The Ambassador. 4/5
6: Fight for your right Revisited. 4/5
7: Holy Motors. 4/5 
8: Liberal Arts. 4/5
9: Ace Attorney. 3.5/5
10: Save your legs. 3.5/5
11: Safety Not Guaranteed. 3.5/5
12: We are Legion: The story of the Hacktivist. 3.5/5
13: Killer Joe. 3.5/5
14: Into the Abyss (Movie version). 3.5/5
15: Into the Abyss (TV version. 3.5/5
16: When a city Falls. 3.5/5
17: Rampart. 3.5/5
18: The Legend of Kasper Hauser. 3.5/5
19: Robot and Frank. 3/5
20: Nameless Gangster: Rules of the time. 3/5
21: On the Road. 3/5
22: Beastie Boys in Awesome I Fuckin' Shot That. 3/5
23: Something for Nothing: The Art of Rap. 3/5
24: Mine Games. 3/5
25: Make Hummus not war. 3/5
26: Just the Wind. 2.5/5
27: Step up to the plate. 2.5/5
28: L. 2/5
29: Tomorrow. 2/5
30: The Red and the Black. 2/5
31: Crime and Punishment. 1.5/5