This past weekend was Queen's Birthday Weekend, the nomimal day on which the Queen's Birthday (or King's Birthday) is celebrated (having got to a point where changing the date every time there is a new King or Queen was seen as too much trouble). Queen's Birthday is one of the holidays that is Mondayised, so it is always a long weekend.

Amongst the sales, and the Queen's Birthday Honours List, it also has the Wellington Outtakes Film Festival, a "reel queer film festival". I went to three films.

An Englishman in New York

"An Englishman in New York" (IMDB) tells the story of the last few years of the life of [Quentin Crisp]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp), living and performing in New York during the 1980s. Quentin Crisp came to fame in England after the publication of "The Naked Civil Servant" and the later film version staring John Hurt. John Hurt also played Quentin Crisp in "An Englishman in New York".

The movie interspersed segments of stage performance (almost exclusively stories told in a question and answer sort of fashion) with depictions of off-stage life and friendships. It's nicely paced, and Quentin Crisp comes out with many quotable phrases both on and off stage (which I assume are memorable quotes from his life). To me by far the best advice offered was to "be the best you", to look inside for what to do rather than to try to immitate others. From someone who suffered for living his life the way he wanted to, despite how others reacted to it, that comes across as especially poignant.

It was proceeded by the short "Gayby" which depicts a straight woman asking her gay male friend from college to give her a baby "the old fashioned way". The result is a hilarious sex scene where both just want to get it over and done with.

And Then Came Lola

"And Then Came Lola" (IMDB) borrows the structure of "Run Lola Run", one of my favourite movies of all time. So I had to see what they'd done with it, despite it being the Wellington Lesbian Gala Event (I think I was one of perhaps half a dozen men in an almost packed theatre).

Having seen the "original" ("Run Lola Run"), the similarity in structure (three variations highlighting the effects of chaos) and overarching theme (racing to rescue things for a loved one) is obvious, but "And Then Came Lola" is clearly also telling a lesbian love story, with obvious references to tropes of that genre (one frequently recurring example is relationship counselling sessions about what each character wanted out of the relationship).

It was very cool to see it set in a city that I've been to (San Francisco) and the hills of the city work into the plot quite well. Although I wasn't quite able to pick out the route taken (the references to locations that I did recognise didn't seem to flow together in an obvious fashion).

Overall it's a fun movie, with strong characters of it's own, and I expect that it'd stand up fairly well on its own even for people who didn't get the "Run Lola Run" reference (I expect much of the audience for the screening on Sunday hadn't seen what is basically a German Art House film). I'll also have to keep an eye out for Ashleigh Sumner, who played "Lola" in "And Then Came Lola", since while she hasn't done much before she shows a lot of promise.

An Evening With Richard O'Brien

"An Evening With Richard O'Brien" is, essentially a recording of an interview, on stage in Hamilton (New Zealand) of Richard O'Brien -- best known for writing "The Rocky Horror Show". He considers himself transgendered, and appears on stage initially in a relatively "butch lesbian" outfit, and later in a more feminine dress.

While it's an intersting interview -- interspersed with some impromtu performance -- and Mark Sainsbury does a good job as the straight man (in all senses of that phrase), overall the movie comes across as watching a live event "second hand" (the audio from the live performances was particularly poor, for example). I think it'd make a reasonable TV documentary, perhaps even trimmed to a single hour. But it would have been better if they'd done something to take advantage of the different medium -- even interspersing some footage shot earlier or later, showing things that were being talked about, would have helped even without attempting to add more structure. (As one obvious example they repeatedly talk of the Riff Raff Statue in Hamilton, presumably not far from the theatre in which they were filming, but never even show a picture of it.)

It's a shame that he never got New Zealand citizenship after growing up in Hamilton (New Zealand), before returning to the UK (where he was born), and a shame that he may not be able to retire here (thanks to tyellas for the link). Possibly he'll still get to retire in New Zealand -- I think if he can pay his own way there's no reason to not allow him to do so (the main theme in the comments on that news story is concern about the NZ taxpayer paying for his retirement, which I don't think is his intention).

By contrast the short "Get Happy" which played before the feature cleverly used contemporary footage of Mark Payne performing in his teens impersonating all sorts of famous female singers (Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Barbara Striesand, etc), and intermixed it with modern interviews. He managed to parlay this talent for both makeup and impersonation into performing as a warm up act for various famous stage performers, and then later into a career in makeup -- eventually winning two Emmy Awards for Makeup.

And now for something different...

Showing that it's possible to be an anything Geek, Serious Eats investigates in great detail how to cook a perfect French Fry (in the style McDonalds has made famous). In brief summary the answer seems to be to cut them finely (5mm square), blanch them in a salt and vinegar water solution, cook briefly in hot oil, ideally freeze them, then cook again in hot oil. This process helps "roughen" the surface allowing it to crisp up properly, while also drawing out the water which allows them to stay properly fluffy.

They also demonstrate how to cook Sous-Vide using a beer cooler (apparently best suited to items that cook relatively quickly since the water will gradually cool down).

Cooking Issues, also looks at the technical issues of cooking in great detail, following the scientific method. They've also recently looked at how best to make French Fries in great detail: part one, part two. And Sous Vide cooking: part one, part two.

It seems that mastery of something remains doing the simple things well.