Father Geek here... sorry for the lack of Downunder news last week but my Geek Headquarters work station imploded towards the end of the workweek and I lost all ability to harvest e-mail and/or post anything till my new equiptment arrived and our site's techie-geek had it all up and running once again. All is well in the Central Texas Geek Compound now, so here I am with the latest from our man downunder...

Am I not supposed to have what I want? What I need? What am I supposed to do?

AICN-DOWNUNDER

I was walking through a Melbourne back alley with some friends recently, heading to a hidden bar/lounge. The best bars in Melbourne are the ones that you need a compass and complex orienteering skills to find, and even if we do complain endlessly about their descent in quality, we still go. So there we are in this alleyway, when we suddenly hear the whispers of a small child. We look up. In a window is the very large image of a child peering down at us and whispering things. It took us a moment to realise that the image was coming from a projector just across the laneway... Someone in the group had heard something about this. An artistic project; in one section of the city, loads of bubbles were pumped down a laneway for the benefit of people walking down it. Here, we stood for nearly half an hour watching this child whisper things at us and look over his shoulder. Like all experimental film, it's difficult to describe the effect in full, but it was certainly effective. Just when you think that film can't surprise you, that certain things are gospel, someone goes ahead and changes something as essential as the venue on you, and you go back to questioning things. Which is as it should be.

NEWS

Remember us reporting on the George Miller animated film HAPPY FEET? The one with the penguin voiced by Elijah Wood? No? Then you should concentrate more. Because Miller wanted to make the film a photorealistic and rather mind-blowing thing, and if his plans pan out, we may be in for something awesome. *If* they pan out. This is what Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Max had to say: "Animal Logic [the SFX house commissioned to bring the project to life] has never done this kind of film before. The company's basically expanded by a factor of ten to do it. It's spent the last 18 months building digital models, sets, pipelines etc. An enormous technical effort. All of this to bring George's vision of completely photo-real CG penguins to life. But in all this activity, all this work, there's been one thing that everyone's overlooked... photo-realistic penguins CAN'T ACT!!! Yes, after all these millions of dollars spent, Animal Logic have discovered that penguins are completely inexpressive creatures. What about all the wonderful character animation that the artists are creating, I hear you ask? Well, dear reader, the entire production is MOTION-CAPTURED! There is no character animation. So what's only now been discovered is that the entire cast of the film are as emotive as garbage cans. The blamestorming has begun, with Animal Logic desperately trying to keep a lid on what is fast becoming a spiralling disaster. Even the studio has no idea how much of a mess this has become." Max goes on to give away the ending, so I'll cut him off there. But this could be a big disaster... HAPPY'S GATE, perhaps? We'll let you know.

According to special super-secret-branch-of-the-government-funded AICN-D sources, the Pacific Film and Television Commission (big funding body in north-east Australia) is putting together a large bunch of money to attract PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2 & 3 to shoot in Queensland. There's been rumblings around the town of PIRATES shooting in Australia (I saw a casting sheet many months ago stating that they were looking for actors for PIRATES 2), but this may be the first actual step Australia has taken in securing the big sequels.

Proving that the French can, in fact, fight fascist forces perfectly well, Catherine Breillat's ANATOMY OF HELL has not been refused classification. The film, which has been playing for a week now in Melbourne and Sydney cinemas, was passed by the Classification Review Board in a three-to-one vote. This echoes the saga of Breillat's previous film ROMANCE, which was initially banned before being granted an R18+ rating on appeal. Complaints about ANATOMY were made by the Australia Family Association and, God bless him, Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock. ANATOMY will, however, now feature a new consumer advisory warning: "This film contains actual sex, high level sex scenes, and high level themes". The Australian Family Association should, at very least, be glad that adults are being warned against seeing films containing "themes".

AWARDS AND FESTIVALS

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The festival's programme went out last week with copies of Melbourne newspaper The Age, and there's some damned interesting stuff in there. Highlights include the premiere of FAHRENHEIT 9/11, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS, Chan Wook-Park personally introducing a screening of OLD BOY, INFERNAL AFFAIRS II & III, HERO, Australian film SOMERSAULT, Jarmusch's COFFEE AND CIGARETTES, ONG BAK, Chris Doyle photographic exhibition "Why I Am Not A Painter", YOUNG ADAM, Mario Van Peebles's BAADASSSSS!, Takeshi Kitano's ZATOICHI, Takeshi Miike's ONE MISSED CALL, the massive Chang Cheh retrospective (including ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, THE BLOOD BROTHERS and VENGEANCE), a group of Studio Ghibli films (including the Miyazaki-scripted WHISPER OF THE HEART), Mike Hodges's I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD, Hergé documentary TINTIN AND I, documentary METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER... plus a bunch of other stuff I couldn't fit in here. This is one worth going to, folks.

BOX OFFICE

Is anyone really surprised? I mean, SPIDER-MAN 2 is number one in China, and it's been banned there. The top three are pretty accurate cross-sections of what this "Summer" is about (although, it's awfully cold down here at the moment).

Huh... well, I guess this week's "cash-cow" could be no other...

• 1. SPIDER-MAN 2
• 2. SHREK 2
• 3. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
• 4. MEAN GIRLS
• 5. NEW YORK MINUTE

RELEASED THESE PAST TWO WEEKS

Robert De Niro bears Greg Kinnear's child, Bruckheimer delivers an historically-accurate version of a fictitious legend, a Hong Kong film features violence, Omar Sharif invades Paris, Sarah Polley shacks up with Scott Speedman, Robert Downey Jnr does to Michael Gambon what Steve Martin did to Bob Hoskins (trust me, that makes sense), David Mamet braves Madmartigan and trains Antwone Fisher, Miss Piggy forgets what satire is, and we finally get the most eagerly-awaited sequel since ANALYSE THAT.

Sooooo these weeks' newies have been...

• GODSEND
• KING ARTHUR
• LOVE BATTLEFIELD
• MONSIEUR IBRAHIM
• MY LIFE WITHOUT ME
• THE SINGING DETECTIVE
• SPARTAN
• THE STEPFORD WIVES
• THE WHOLE TEN YARDS

REVIEWS

SPIDER-MAN 2

I've been putting off writing this review since I saw the film two weeks ago, and I'm now paying for it. See, it's almost 4am. I have to be up very early, and I've been working all day. I'm bloody tired. And now I have to try to articulately describe why SPIDER-MAN 2 is the most emotionally satisfying film I have seen this year.

Upon first viewing, it didn't do much for me. The same way THE TWO TOWERS didn't upon first viewing. Maybe it was having a crap audience who made it impossible for me to get sucked into the film. But more likely, it was the element of surprise. SPIDER-MAN blew me away because I hadn't seen anything like it before. I didn't realise that a film like that could be *that* good. After FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, I couldn't speak. I couldn't form the words. But when you see the second part of a story, as great as it is, it won't always hit you on that same level (unless it is, of course, the greatest sequel ever made: TOY STORY 2). So, combined with people who just wouldn't shut up, I came out of S-M2 thinking it was really good, but that was it. Subsequent viewings have beaten me black and blue. It's not a sequel in the sense that it takes the first film's setup and tells a new story. So many sequels treat the first film in the series as a pilot, and all subsequent films as episodes that cannot veer too far from their starting point. What's hard to get used to in SPIDER-MAN 2 is the fact that it is a continuing story. It continues things from the first film that in other hands would have been left by the wayside. Minor plot elements or scenes from movie one still play heavily on characters' minds. Harry Osborne doesn't fit neatly into the role of "Peter Parker's best friend who ironically hates Spider-man". He's a complex character, and never remains one thing for more than a scene. He's allowed to evolve.

And so do Peter Parker and Mary-Jane Watson. Other reviews on this site have been absolutely spot-on when they describe the two films thusly: the first film is Peter Parker learning to be Spider-man; the second film is Peter Parker learning to be Peter Parker. Peter isn't just struggling with having a secret identity and wanting the girl he loves. He's trying to do well in school, trying to do make ends meet, trying to save the world. There just isn't enough time to do any of these things properly, and he realises that the choice he must make is between these two different lives. It sounds simple, but it's not. It's handled about as well as it could possibly be handled, with screenwriters and director allowing real world complexity to affect the story without taking away its magic. We've never really understood the nature of the relationship between Peter and Mary... but that's okay, because neither have they. They're not even sure if they're allowed to openly acknowledge it. It's such a natural progression from teen angst to early adult angst, you've got to pinch yourself to realise that you are in fact watching a film that has it all.

Because they haven't skimped on the effects. In fact, they've done what John Dykstra advised against on the first film, and shot in 2.35:1. And it's glorious. There's something about that added space on screen that makes it feel even more epic that it did the first time around. Spider-man moves so beautifully, that I'm even willing to forgive one of the two minor gripes I have with the film. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that Spider-man's webs aren't actually connecting to anything? They're always connects to some unseen thing directly above him, despite the fact that he's usually swinging between buildings that are to one side of- Sorry. I wasn't going to go off on this tangent. It's a minor thing and I'm sure there's an explanation, but as I said: it's late and I'm tired.

The other gripe is the awful, awful soundtrack. Not the score. I think the score's terrific. And I think Michael Buble's big band take on the classic Spider-man theme is a work of brilliance. But the most disappointing moment for me comes when the end credits start up. Instead of continuing the incredible feeling we're left with at the end, we suddenly have to switch gears and listen to some crap that's designed to sell the soundtrack. When everything else is done so right, it's a pity that this is done so wrong. What we should have is more of Danny Elfman's music. The end credits are still part of the film, we're still left watching. We shouldn't be jerked out of our seats and reminded that the film is over, it's time to buy the CD.

And the reason it annoys me so much is that the ending is the most emotionally satisfying ending I've seen in a long time. The final scene between Peter and Mary-Jane hits so many notes... when she says it's time someone saved him and you see the relief in his eyes... when he realises that he can finally have the one thing in his life that he always wanted without having to sacrifice everything else... when Peter hears the siren and looks away... when Mary-Jane tells him to go get 'em tiger, and he smiles knowing someone is finally supporting him (in a shot that is, without a doubt, my favourite reaction shot of any film ever - give Tobey an Oscar NOW)... when he swings through the city, ecstatic about MJ choosing him... when we end on the bravest final shot of any film I can think of, and see that it's not all peaches and roses, that even now before consequences have had a chance to begin their corrosion of their lives Mary can see the dark clouds on the horizon... well, you have to be made of stone not to well up. On so many levels and in so many ways, this film is truly a thing of beauty.

NEXT WEEK

- Carlos Bernard and Reiko Aylesworth star in big-screen "24" comedy spin-off, TONY AND MICHELLE'S SPY SCHOOL REUNION

- Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen to star in Hammer horror remake TWINS OF EVIL

- Juliette Binoche plays a sad composer dealing with death in Baz Luhrmann's MOULIN BLEU!

Peace out,

Latauro

AICNDownunder@hotmail.com