Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. This entry from Latauro's regular Downunder column speaks for itself, so that's what I'll let it do. Enjoy!
I'm a level five vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.
AICN-DOWNUNDER
I think it's a safe assumption that guys who write internet articles about film are geeks. Even beyond the actual articles we put up, it's pretty obvious that we all have deep, dark secrets relating to hidden geekiness. For instance, when I was in high school, I edited ten bi-monthly editions of a fanzine called "Eternity" that was devoted to "Doctor Who" and other televisual science fiction and fantasy. My friends and I were fifteen, and whilst it was fairly amateurish (particularly in the beginning), we were pretty well received. In fact, I've recently had my "Doctor Who" obsession re-ignited, first by the ABC then by the new Russel T Davies series. Yes, I am a big fan. And "The Christmas Invasion" (the first proper episode with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor) is probably the finest episode of "Who" ever produced.
So you know where I'm coming from when I tell you that a few months ago, I did the geekiest thing I've ever done in my life.
A friend had sent me a link to a trailer. It was, he told me, a trailer for a porn film, but one I absolutely had to watch. Now, I'm not a huge fan of porn. I don't have anything against it, I just find it really boring and curiously un-sexy. I'm in that small percentile of guys who don't own porn of any kind, and while I wonder if sometimes it makes me look like a bit of a prude, I don't spend that much time thinking about it. So I click on this link and a video starts up. It's four blondes in a car speaking really bad lines in really bad English. For some reason their car breaks down and they have to walk through the forest in skimpy outfits.
So, just as I'm beginning to wonder why I've been direct to the link, one of the girls disappears. She reappears, naked, on a ship, and just as we hear "Extermine! Exterminate!", we pull back to reveal Daleks advancing on her. Then the title: ABDUCTED BY THE DALEKS!
It was Hungarian Lesbian Dalek Porn, and I had to own it.
Immediately, my housemate and I jumped on the net and begun searching for copies. The BBC had jumped all over this, forbidding sites to sell copies. The makers had vainly changed the title to ABDUCTED BY THE DALOIDS, but even this wasn't good enough. The BBC was forbidding anyone from selling any copies, regardless of what the title was.
A lot of searching led us to a site selling the DALOIDS version. While it was essentially the same movie, we both agreed that the whole point of tracking it down was to get *Dalek* porn. I eventually gave up, but the next day he came across a copy of the original DALEK version. Only a thousand ever made. After a brief debate over which one of us wanted it more, we decided to get two copies. This was too great a talking point, too irrestible a collector's item to not shell out the AUS$45 required. Each.
Why is this the geekiest thing I've ever done? Because it's the first porn I've ever bought, and I didn't get it for the girls; I got it for the Daleks.
We finally watched the film the other night, once we'd gathered a small portion of the hundreds of people who'd told us they'd wanted to watch it. The film itself was unsurprisingly awful, but it's the sort of thing you can really get a kick out of if you're watching with a group of beer-fuelled friends. If you do manage to track it down, make sure you're getting it for the Daleks: there's no actual sex anywhere in the film.
Can you compete with this? Is this so pathetically ungeeky that you can top it with six geekier things you did before breakfast? Tell us below!
NEWS
Baz Luhrmann's epic, which is being curiously referred to as PROJECT OKLAHOMA (though I maintain had the working title TEN THOUSAND HORSES nary a few months ago), will start rolling around July/August. Described as an Australian GONE WITH THE WIND, Our Nic and Their Russ will re-team after their disastrous pre-production stint on EUCALYPTUS. The WWII-set epic will be shot in Western Australia, and will be co-written with Stuart Beattie.
After playing a straight man who has a gay relationship, Heath Ledger will do a one-eighty and play a gay man who has a straight relationship. There's a minor amount of talk that Ledger will play Rock Hudson in a film that shows his relationship with his secretary, Phyllis Gates. Gates, who apparently died about a month ago, claimed that she had no idea Hudson was gay. She later claimed their marriage was a publicity stunt. Of course, Ledger playing a gay man he looks nothing like is a very easy rumour to start, so you can probably chalk this one up as something we'll never hear again.
Ana Kokkinos's THE BOOK OF REVELATION has been sold to twenty-two "territories" (I think that means countries), despite the fact that it hasn't been played to an audience yet. This is good news for Kokkinos, whose last film HEAD ON had its fair share of critical praise.
Finally, the trailer for AQUAMARINE was pointed out to us from TheWrongGuy, who had this to say: "Why is this important? Well, it isn't. But it was shot in Australia and, oddly enough, it seems to have a lot of Aussies attached to it. For starters it has Claudia Karvan in it, complete with godawful American accent. And the equally-godawful Tammin 'Home and (why-don't-you-go) Away' Sursok (I didn't spot her in the trailer, but I'm assuming she's godawful). And also Roy Billings, that bald guy who I don't have anything against but who seems to be in every other Aussie TV show and movie that I come across. Most importantly, though, it has Shaun Micallef in it, who created the greatest comedy series of all time (No exaggeration; I'm quite serious) with his ABC show, The Micallef Program. I think that's the only reason anything to do with this movie is interesting. Mind you, he's not in the trailer, but judging by the quality of what IS in the trailer (they always show the 'best' bits, don't they?)I'm going to assume he's probably actually going to be pretty funny, and that they edited him out of the trailer on the grounds he actually promised something slightly entertaining. And they wouldn't want the viewer to get the wrong impression, would they? But seriously, what a waste of talent. And what a crappy movie this will be." The AQUAMARINE trailer can be found on the Apple website.
AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
TROPFEST 2006
The sixteen finalists were announced, and needless to say, you weren't one of them. To watch and bitch about the undeserving bastards who did get in, go to one of the big outdoor screenings held in whichever capital city you're nearest on February 26.
ACADEMY AWARDS
Anthony Lucas (director, THE MYSTERIOUS EXPLORATIONS OF JASPER MORELLO), Nikki Gooley (makeup, NARNIA), Dion Beebe (cinematographer, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA) and Heath Ledger (actor, "Home and Away") were all nominated for Oscardemy Awards.
BOX OFFICE
See what Oscar season makes people do? It makes them go see BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2. I kid; whilst I know it's the glamour of the Oscars that attracts people to these films, it's still nice to see such a pretigious lineup. And GEISHA.
1. WALK THE LINE
2. MUNICH
3. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
4. BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2
5. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
RELEASED IN THE PERIOD BETWEEN AICN-DOWNUNDERS
Tom Welling proves that the actors-who-potray-Superman curse is true, snow + dreams = snowdreams, a poorly-researched documentary team sets out to interview a subject who's been dead for over two hundred and fourteen years, Jake affixes a jarhead to his brokeback, Chris Klein applies for welfare, Charlize sticks it to the man, and someone finally has the balls to name a musician's biopic after one of their songs.
THE FOG
FIRST DESCENT
IN SEARCH OF MOZART
JARHEAD
JUST FRIENDS
NORTH COUNTRY
WALK THE LINE
REVIEWS
TRANSAMERICA
If, like me, you're a big fan of Felicity Huffman, and will see a film based purely on the accolades her performance receives, you'll probably still spend the first twenty minutes of the film waiting for her to turn up. This is despite the fact that the camera rarely leaves her face.
Every positive adjective you can think of to praise a peformance can be applied to Huffman. She gives one of the most honest, believable, and *brave* performances I've ever seen, and if she isn't given a gold statue in a few weeks time, she'll definitely be given a make-up one in a couple of years for a minor role in some well-received action thriller.
I have no problem saying this is Huffman's film, as she lifted a fairly ordinary film into greatness by virtue of her performance alone. Kevin Zegers and Graham Greene are both excellent, but everything else leaves a lot to be desired.
For starters, the script isn't quite sure what it wants to be. It begins as an interesting character study, but quickly falls into the cliche of the "get to know each other on a cross-country road trip". The road trip device isn't a problem in itself, but the contrivances that get them there are really, well, contrived.
Though the sin of shoehorning in an old device can be forgiven, I became less willing to forgive once the film reached its third act. Or, as I choose to call it, "Everybody Loves Bree". This is where the film completely loses itself and admits it has no idea what it wants to be. The scenes and characters are right out of a B-grade sitcom, which is unfortunate, as it really undermines what came beforehand. Similar is the random and shoe-horned speech that Zegers's character gives about why LORD OF THE RINGS is gay. Surely this belongs in a film by someone trying badly to imitate Tarantino or Kevin Smith.
But far worse than this are the stolen lines. Did writer/director Duncan Tucker realise he was ripping other material off shamelessly? Or had a friend of his quoted lines to him, claiming them as their own, and was then too embarrassed to admit the truth when Tucker asked permission to use them? Either way, the line "I'm a level four vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow" is only one word off a line from "The Simpsons" episode "Lisa The Tree Hugger". It may seem like a petty thing to pick up on, but stealing something so obviously should be a cardinal sin in cinema (oo! A cardinal cinema... that could be a Next Week joke), and, I feel, must be pointed out. There are other moments as well (Graham Greene discussing what each hat tilt means is painfully familiar, but my memory isn't good enough to tell me exactly what it may or may not be from), and far too many moments reek of lazy writing.
I certainly give him credit for tackling such a difficult subject, and for centering it around a character such as Bree, but if I recommend the film, I recommend it for Felicity Huffman. Huffman's the reason I struggled through the first three episodes of "Desperate Housewives", but here she's so central, so believable, so watchable, I feel like I can easily recommend the film based on her and her alone.
NEXT WEEK
- Tim Robbins to play a clergyman who accidentally gets cast in a soft-core porn film in CARDINAL CINEMA
- Ice Cube to star in an adaptation of "The Diary of Anne Frank", ARE WE AT WAR YET?
- Lasse Hallstrom signs on to the multi-language Italian/Spanish/English bullfighting/rockclimbing-themed biopic LA TAURO ROCKS!
Peace out,
Latauro
email: Email the head of the Aussie Posse here!!
