im now half way through the six movies im going to go see at the helsinki international film festival. it was only meant to be five, but a spare ticket for the britpop documentary “live forever” was going and i went.

“live forever” covered the 1990’s british music industry, concetrating on blur, oasis, the labour party, massive attack and a few others. i enjoyed it a lot more than i was expecting and had some very funny moments in there, including a big “blur versus oasis” bit which talked about when they released singles on the same day back in 1996 i think. (i bought the blur single, cant remember why).

the second film i went to see was oliver stones documentary and interview of cuba’s fidel castro, called “comandante”. i didnt really get too much from this documentary because of the norwegian subtitles, spanish interviewing and very hard to hear english translations being spoken in the background. from the 30% or so that i did understand, it was very interesting, strange to see a countries leader with almost no entourage, and his governmental offices seemed to have layabouts hanging around the place, slouching there in the leather chairs. stone did ask some pretty pointed questions, castros answers too were pretty good, refreshing to hear a leader free of soundbytes. his human rights record is a different thing though and wasnt discussed too much in the documentary.

the third movie i saw was jim sheridans movie “in america“. im literally just in the door from seeing it, and it was one of the best movies ive seen in a long long time. semi based on sheridans own experiences of moving to america (new york city) with his family back in 1982 (the only real time reference in the movie was to the movie e.t.). a fantastic fantastic movie that was just a delight to watch. a very emotional movie too, it has to be seen to be appreciated.