The case of the disappearing sessions. I've caught a cold thanks to one of the several thousand people around Melbourne who had it before me. Nearly everyone I know at the festival (of which there are at least five or six) has caught a cold this year. It was my turn a couple of days ago, and I've been dropping planned sessions like never before (except for one year where I was totally out for 4-5 days with a flu). So I've missed some good ones apparently, like Azur and Asmar, I Served the King of England, and others. I've also been a little moody and less resiliant to films.

So, that might explain why my sessions on the left have been disappearing in great quantities, and it may indicate a certain tendency towards less favourable reviews over the past couple of days.

WIth all that said, let's do today's films.

WOLFSBERGEN
3/10
This was an unplanned session since I skipped the first two today due to feeling like crap. Starts with a four hour still shot of a forest with birds tweeting. Uh-oh. Continue with a bunch of folks who don't seem to believe in two way conversations. Yes, when your husband tells you he's been having it off with your sister, stare into space. When your dad's crying like a baby and you're a 12 (or so) year old, don't say anything, just hug him. Oh and for god's sake, if your son is helping you pack ceramics into a box, don't even think about using anything like newspaper to wrap said fragile wear. No, just place it in the box - it'll be just fine. Couldn't take it any more and walked out. Okay, there were some nice shots in this. And it probably wasn't as bad as I'm making out. But not for me on a day like this.

THE BOSS OF IT ALL
4/10
Potentially funny film about a company who's real boss is a bit of a fraidy-cat and so has spent years telling staff that the 'boss of it all' is a guy over in the US who is leading, so that he doesn't have the confrontation directly. When a prospective client comes on the seen though, he's got to present the real boss, and his solution is to hire an actor to do it. This was probably also better than I'm rating it, but I have a cold, was feeling dizzy and started falling asleep. And it was freaking hard to watch this as it was subtitled with white text on white scenes so often that half the words looked invisible. Walked out, but might give this another go one day when I am more conscious (and maybe SBS has had a go with their wonderful yellow subtitle machine).