Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with Latauro on all things pertaining to Auzealand. He's got tons of info, including exclusive pics that'll fork with your mind a bit. Enjoy!!!!
If only I could go down that river. To love her in the wild, forget the name of Smith. I should tell her. Tell her what? It was just a dream. I am now awake.
AICN-DOWNUNDER
There's always a bit of confusion in Australia as to whether New Zealand is our sworn enemy or our kooky cousin. Given nobody over here can get worked up enough to go the enemy route, it's always sort-of fallen to kooky cousin by default. When something or someone from NZ is successful, we tend to claim it as our own ("Australian actor Russell Crowe was nominated for an Oscar yesterday..."). If something we previously claimed was ours is suddenly an embarrassment, we unceremoniously handball it back ("New Zealand singer Russell Crowe was arrested last night on twenty-seven counts of..."). You can imagine the frustration we felt at not being able to claim LORD OF THE RINGS as our own. Believe me, we tried.
Lately, the New Zealand film industry has become a hotbed of activity, with every film announcement evoking the reaction "Oh, I gotta see that" every time. I mean, look at BLACK SHEEP. A horror film with killer sheep, set in a country where sheep outnumber humans by, like, ten to one? Tell me you're not going to see that.
The latest film to pique my interest is called THE DEVIL DARED ME TO. Kiwis will remember Chris Stapp and Matt Heath as the guys behind "Back of the Y Masterpiece Television", which apparently caused a fair about of shit to be stirred up when it aired. Well, they're the guys behind DEVIL, a film set in the "wild world of kiwi stuntmen and stuntwomen".
I've been swapping emails with some of the people involved in the film (most of which are of the "we're off to blow up the bridge tonight" and "I sure hope nobody dies" variety), and managed to get my hands on a couple of exclusive stills.
Image number one is of "friendly amputee" Mr Watson, standing beside his old flame and ex-stuntwoman Debbie.
Image number two is of Dick Johansonson (Matt Heath), apparently preparing for a stunt.
Take a look at the official site for more stills, production diaries, and info. Cheers to all involved, and good luck with the rest of the shoot!
NEWS
I'm thinking of retitling this column "The WATERHORSE Updates", thanks to the ever-flowing emails from Big Large Monkey. The other day, Variety confirmed our earlier scoops, and reported Emily Watson and Alex Etel had signed on. Variety added another name to the list: Ben Chaplin from THIN RED LINE. The Monkey confirmed this, and added another name to the mix. "Pippin Took himself, Billy Boyd." Boyd has been conspicuously not cashing in on his LOTR fame, so it'll be nice to see him back in NZ battling big, CG creatures.
Long-time scooper, first-time reader "Lennox" wrote in after hearing Paul Walker interviewed on ABC Radio here in Australia. Turns out he and Tarantino have become buddies after QT saw and loved Walker's violent cunnilingus flick RUNNING SCARED. Quoted Walker, "[Tarantino is doing] this war movie, INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, and I hear the script is great." Not a huge bombshell, especially compared to "[I] may have spoken to him about a role in it...". Could we see Walker's name on a poster alongside John Jarrat, Adam Sandler, Michael Madsen, and Bo Svenson? Definitely maybe.
Australian feature film THE HOME SONG STORIES begun shooting in Melbourne this week, under the directorial eye of Tony Ayres (WALKING ON WATER). Joan Chen ("Twin Peaks"), Steve Vidler ("Love My Way") and Kerry Walker (MOULIN ROUGE!). Cinematographer Christopher Doyle had to pull out because of a schedule clash, so says The Age. Stepping in to replace him is Kiwi DoP Nigel Bluck, who did a lot of second unit work on LORD OF THE RINGS. HOME SONG STORIES, set in the 1970s, follows a Shanghai nightclub singer trying to survive in Australia with her two children. It will be released nationally and internationally in early 2007.
Presumably not based on the Cyberman audio production, STORM WARNING is the new film from Melbourne director Jamie Blanks. Blanks stumbled to fame as the director of URBAN LEGEND and VALENTINE, and has returned to Melbourne to make this low-budget thriller. The film will star Nadia Fares and Matthew Wilkinson, so says Melbourne paper The Age.
Richard Gray was a runner-up in "Project Greenlight: Australia" (which had absolutely no controversy associated with it at all), and is now seeing his script WHEN SHE GETS THERE going through the glorious stage of pre-production. Gray, who is now sort-of the Shannon Noll of "PG:A", has just grabbed WOLF CREEK star Cassandra McGrath for the lead. Moviehole.net added to this story, mentioning the rumour that Vince Colosimo might be joining her. The film will shoot this July in Mildura.
Hey, look at this, another WATERHORSE update! I can't be arsed incorporating it into the above update, so you'll have to deal with this oversaturation and read yet another paragraph covering this film. Or you could skip ahead. It doesn't bother me. Big Large Monkey (who else?) let us know that the casting is almost complete, with David Morrisey (the one who did BASIC INSTINCT 2) playing a posh British Army Captain. Meanwhile, the production is building what the Monkey tells me is one of the largest ever outdoor tanks ever constructed for a film. Hopefully the producers of THE DEVIL DARED ME TO will hold off blowing the thing up until WATERHORSE can actually shoot it in. New Zealand sounds like a fun place to be right now, doesn't it?
Still at The Age, it seems that Spike Jonze's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE may film in Melbourne later this year. Fingers-crossed on this one. Toes-crossed that I'll get a set visit...
AWARDS, FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
As my nipples begin to fizzle with excitement over this year's upcoming MIFF, it's just been announced that local feature A LONG WAY TO FREO will screen at the festival. Part of Western Australia's ScreenWest initiative, the film is directed by Aussie actor Jeremy Sims, and adapted by Reg Cribb from his original play. The film is described as being a psychological drama set on a suburban train on its journey to Fremantle. At the tail end of the festival is the closing night film, SUBURBAN MAYHEM by AUSTRALIAN RULES director Paul Goldman. MIFF opens this July on the 26th.
NICE SHORTS
10:11am back on Wednesday the 19th of April. That was the best time ever for filmmakers. At least, that's the impression I got when I took literally the press release sent out at that exact time proclaiming that "it has never been a better time to be a filmmaker". Whilst some of us lament last Wednesday, the rest of you can go to www.niceshorts.com.au to either view other people's films, watch interviews with big-time film industry people, rate what you see, and get you and your stuff on there so it can actually be seen by people. Best of all, it appears that the whole thing is completely free of charge, which is good news for you, 'cos if you have money you're not really an Australian filmmaker.
BOX OFFICE
The post-Oscar slump continues, with lazy animation, powerfully unfunny comedies and annoying teen flicks dominating the screens. Still, next week's box office takings should be very interesting, with the release of infected monkeys from a local laboratory.
1. ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN
2. SCARY MOVIE 4
3. FAILURE TO LAUNCH
4. SHE'S THE MAN
5. SHE'S THE MAN
ABIERTAS AL PÚBLICO ESTAS ÚLTIMAS TRES SEMANAS
Paul Walker is the one with the blonde hair, sometimes the titles make it too easy, the Craven Has Royalty Cheques, Michael Franti brings peace to Iraq, Pixar Lite takes liberty with history, one of the more important periods of Australian history is given the treatment it deserves in the lead-up to ANZAC Day, the Isreali army invades Ethiopia, Martin Lawrence completes his latest Work For The Dole project, an MTV Award montage is given sound effects and released under the assumption that it's a film, Amanda Bynes plays the worst Richard III since Frederick Warde, baby got Baumbach, it won Best Foreign Language Film so go see it, Deepa Mehta proves he is the world's slowest Indian, and Anthony Hopkins appears in a film that thankfully has nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter.
EIGHT BELOW
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
THE HILLS HAVE EYES
I KNOW I'M NOT ALONE
ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN
KOKODA
LIVE AND BECOME
REBOUND
SCARY MOVIE 4
SHE'S THE MAN
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
TSOTSI
WATER
THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN
REVIEWS
SCARY MOVIE 4 Those who remember my SHE'S THE MAN review (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22831), may notice I've started this trend of reviewing crap films by discussing cups of coffee. (Once is hardly a trend, but this review should help with that.) I drink coffee because I love it. The times I drink instant coffee, I do so because it's the only thing available and I need the caffeine hit. For reasons that aren't worth detailing here, I had some decaffeinated instant coffee the other night. I commented to a friend, "So this is what my own personal hell will be like. Thousands of coffee shops, and all they sell is instant decaf". Amendment: each café will be adjacent to cinemas playing nothing but the SCARY MOVIE franchise. How can they possibly get it this wrong? How can Zucker and Abrams (I still refuse to believe it's them) make such horrendously abysmal films? They invented the frigging genre, now they're playing catchup to the Wayans?!? First of all, the brilliance of FLYING HIGH/AIRPLANE! and THE NAKED GUN came from the fact that the films they were sending up took themselves seriously. Additionally, the characters in these films all took themselves seriously. Lloyd Bridges and Leslie Nielsen were iconic because they played their parts exactly as if they were in the films they were lampooning. I don't know if someone's bothered to write down what makes things funny and what doesn't (says the guy who ran out of Next Week jokes two years ago), but surely the rules of what to spoof and how to spoof it are self-evident? The fundamental problem is that SCARY MOVIE begun as a send-up of the postmodern teen slasher genre, primarily this genre's instigator, SCREAM. Now, if they'd bothered to take a closer look, they'd have noticed that SCREAM is itself a send-up. (The cleverness of SCREAM has been diluted by poor sequels and poorer imitations to the point that I can barely stand to watch it anymore.) Sending up a send-up doesn't work. Recreating scenes beat-for-beat and adding "humourous" sound effects does not make it funny. SCARY MOVIE 2 is one of the most impressive comedies I've ever seen, containing, as it does, no jokes whatsoever. I'm serious. Watch the film again. There are no jokes. It's not that the jokes are bad, they're just not there. Sort-of like THAT '70s SHOW. I actually went to the trouble of watching SCARY MOVIE 3 the day before I saw the fourth film. Not because I thought I was missing some important plot points or anything, but because I wanted to see if Pat Proft and David Zucker had actually done something with the idea. They hadn't. The third film suffers from a poorly-constructed series of send-ups, clumsily referencing THE RING, SIGNS, THE MATRIX sequels and 8 MILE (8 MILE?). It's an embarrassing film to watch, and yet I still consider it to be the best in the series. Or least worst. SCARY MOVIE 4 isn't quite as dire as 2, but it's fairly awful. When did Zucker decide that people getting hit in the face and falling over was the highest form of comedy? I ask because it's repeated beyond recognition here. I know they think they were doing a "runner", but it's just... it's... I'm really speechless. It's so bad, and I can't think of adjectives that would properly convey its true awfulness. It's hands-down the laziest of the four, going beyond parodying WAR OF THE WORLDS, SAW, THE VILLAGE and THE GRUDGE, and just plain rips them off, almost to the point of copyright infringement. The BROKEBACK parody is shoe-horned like the editor was flipping channels, and the WAR OF THE WORLDS jokes do nothing but show just how poor this film is in comparison. (You're not supposed to be comparing them, I know, but SM4 seems to invite it.) I really want to shake Zucker by the shoulders and yell "It's not funny!" over and over. Then I want to actually watch the film with him and ask him if he actually finds this funny. Do constant demographic-baiting references to flash-in-the-pan hip-hop wankers make you feel like you've made something worthwhile? The man who co-created "Police Squad!", made KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, the man responsible for FLYING HIGH. How could the same person make this film? I just don't understand. The only bright spot of this film material? Run, don't walk, from your local cinema! Be as far away from anywhere that might possibly be showing it! Respect yourself by not seeing this film. It may be a little late, but here's a poster quote, Buena Vista: "If you avoid only one film this year, make it SCARY MOVIE 4!" THE NEW WORLD Things were a bit confusing earlier this week. In the space of twenty-four hours, I managed to watch both Terence Malick's THE NEW WORLD, and the first episode of the new season of "Doctor Who", the title of which is "New Earth". Describing cool scenes with flying cars, time travel and omnipotent space heads got me some strange looks from people who seemed to be wondering if perhaps Malick had missed the point of the whole Pocahontas story. Rest assured, Malick got the point of the story, and if there's the occasional flying car, it's only there to enhance the feeling of pre-industrial 1600s colonisation. The story is told in Malick's trademarked dreamlike vagueness (another poster quote for you, Roadshow), the storytelling style sent ever-so-slightly up in a line of dialogue: Pocahontas is never once referred to by name, and when someone goes to, she is quickly cut off by someone else who points out she doesn't go by that name any more. It's an odd choice, but probably works in the film's favour as the name is irrevocably attached to the Disney movie. The role of narrator is moved gently from character to character, giving us an almost objective subjectivism. Wait, that's far too wanky, even for me. What is *actually* does is make us feel like we're seeing a memory instead of an accurate account, seeing truth instead of fact, only the eyes we're seeing it through change every so often. It's not sudden, and to be honest, the entire film feels like it's from the point of view of only one person, but the multiple narrators makes us wonder whose point of view it actually is. In the end, it doesn't really matter, as all three of our central characters are simply shown to want and need. There are no bad guys in this film. There's no morally-unambiguous war scene. Everything is felt. ("Everything is felt" could also be a poster quote, but I was going to save it for POWER OF THE DARK CRYSTAL.) There was a quote that stuck out in my mind back during the shooting of Malick's THE THIN RED LINE. When asked why he'd flown across the world to film a miniscule part, George Clooney told the interviewee that he'd be there to carry tripods around if Malick had asked him. Recently I saw both BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN, and understand entirely what Clooney was talking about. Malick's operating on a completely different plane of existence to everyone else, and the dreamy state that's developed slowly over the course of his sporadic career seems to apply perfectly to NEW WORLD... as it does, I suppose, to all of his films. That dreamy state allows us to view what would these days be considered a paedophiliac relationship through a slightly different lens. I was prepared to accept some fairly explicit or overt stuff when I went in, but the romance was treated with the greatest of care. We're never quite sure of the exact nature that John Smith and Pocahontas's relationship has, and we don't need to. I initially wanted him to push the barrier a bit more, and then realised that I was completely missing the point. Neither John nor Pocahontas views their relationship with the other to be a messy, awkward exploration of sex; they see the other as a romantic figure that is to be, on some level, worshipped. Sure, there's sexual desire, but that's only one element, and it's not even close to being the most interesting or important one. The non-Malick participants in the film are amazing, in particular Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas. Everything about her inclusion is impressive. She's beautiful, but not traditionally beautiful. Compare her to Helen in Wolfgang Peterson's TROY. The fatal mistake in that film was that the entire plot hinged on two nations going to war over this one woman. Helen was probably the least memorable character in the film. Beautiful, yes, but beautiful in the most standard Hollywood way possible. The filmmakers relied entirely on her physical beauty to sell their film's premise, and it's what ultimately undid them. Pocahontas, on the other hand, does not strike you the way you expect her to strike you. When we first meet her, I was more curious about her than anything. She's shown to be a wild animal, watching the settlers with great curiosity, and when you see her you wonder how she's going to react. We only fall in love with her when Smith falls in love with her. Casting a young exotic beauty would have been the easiest thing in the world, but casting someone whose beauty is only apparent when she chooses it to be is something else altogether. Quite aside from her physicality, Kilcher has an incredible screen presence and phenomenal acting ability. I never once stopped to ponder whether she was holding her own against more experienced actors; she was, and it kept me inside the film from start to end. A lot of people don't like Colin Farrell, so I'll mention that this is his best performance ever. If you don't like him in this, I think you can safely say you just don't like the guy, period. Farrell exudes a subtlety I'd never seen him with before, never once falling back on his occasional shtick of charming Irish rogue. Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer, Wes Studi, David Thewlis and Ben Mendelsohn are all amazing. I didn't expect any different, but they each impressed so much I was compelled to mention them. I'd also like to mention the score by James Horner. Horner's one of those composers I can pick from about two chords. I think he's exceptionally talented, but also a bit lazy. For every career-defining note of SNEAKERS or BICENTENNIAL MAN, there's the crowd-pleasing blandness of TITANIC's blockbusting themes. Here, Horner's working from his A material, and like Farrell is more subtle than he's ever been before. Malick worked from Horner's score, rather than the other way around, and I think that's helped give the film its unexpected vibe. Horner's melding with Malick is every bit as effective as Zimmer's amazing THIN RED LINE score. I must admit to being a tad bored by the formula of films lately. A good film will tell you how it will end within the first few minutes, but few go to any great lengths to disguise it. The majority of films I see lately seem to be about going through the motions. Admittedly, these films are the likes of SCARY MOVIE 4 and SHE'S THE MAN, but it's still something I'll occasionally feel with brilliant work such as SYRIANA or even CANDY. THE NEW WORLD reminds us what true filmmaking is all about. Malick shows us things we've never really seen before in a way we were never expecting. The film's two and a half hours long, but you won't feel it. If you let yourself be taken in by this true work of art, you'll forget that time even moves. NEXT WEEK - Quentin Tarantino enlists Steven Hibbert to reprise his PULP FICTION role alongside Three 6 Mafia in IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A GIMP - Spike Lee signs Amanda Bynes to new thriller SHE'S THE INSIDE MAN, which sees Bynes disguising herself as a tall black man in order to rob a bank and win the heart of a teen jock - Elmo stars in a new "Sesame Street" adventure, going in search of the letter "L" when it mysteriously goes missing from his name, and having many fun adventures along the way in TICKLE ME EMO: ALL L BREAKS LOOSE Let's get the hell out of Egypt, Latauro
AICNDownunder@hotmail.com
