Father Geek here, toiling away here in ol' Austin, Texas... try'n to keep up with our own DVD purchases/desires here at the Geek World Headquarters Compound nessled in the Cedars and Oaks of the hill country. Yeah, Latauro, olde chap, you're not the only one caught-up in the DVD collecting competition... I think its really a world-wide plague... a conspiracy of the Trilateral Commission, or something equally grand. I just went out to Best Buy and spent money needed elsewhere for THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, HELL'S HIGHWAY, THE HIRED HAND, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, annnnnd that four-pack INDIANA JONES boxed set. Annnnnd that doesn't even count all the disc from Korea Harry just ordered online. We've got it bad. Of course we tell ourselves its our job to keep up on what flicks are out there, and it is, but just the same they're piled everywhere here at Headquarters... in stacks as high as 7 feet. The 8 floor to ceiling bookcases were filled long ago. Latauro... if you find that "Patch", send a couple our way and hurry...

I’m gonna nail your ass.

AICN-DOWNUNDER

There is nobody at AICN I can turn to for this problem... In fact, I don’t think anybody here would view it as a problem.

I think I’m in need of a Compulsive DVD Buyers Anonymous meeting. It’s chronic! I went and bought the first three seasons of “Angel” and seasons four-through-six of “Buffy” in one go. That’s twelve box sets. Swiped my card and that was that. I needed a separate box for the receipts.

Admittedly, there was a sale going on and I calculated that I was saving over a grand, but it’s still bad. Last night I had to forbid myself from going near the store, as I had an itching to get SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. It’s chronic! I have so many other things I need to be spending money on, and yet a significant portion of my cash always goes into DVDs. I need help.

There’s some news that Joel Surnow (creator of “24”) is planning a series that will only be released on DVD. Is this the new way to go? Perhaps. I’ve become more relaxed in keeping up with TV. It doesn’t bother me when I miss, say, a “South Park” episode because I know I’m just going to get it on DVD eventually, anyway.

I suppose I’m just wasting my breath (fingers?) here. I mean, I’ve got absolutely nothing on this site’s Uber-Editors, who collect DVDs like so much... y’know... whatever. And that’s another problem: I can’t read Moriarty’s DVD column without "jealousy" drool shorting out my keyboard.

I need a patch. Some sort of clear sticker I can wear under my t-shirt that slowly releases commentaries over the course of the day. A plastic tube I can suck on that will satiate my need for deleted scenes.

In the meantime, here’s the latest news from Australia, New Zealand and Freedonia. Enjoy.

NEWS

* This one’s going out to the chatroom’s Bilbo_Fett (who will stop at nothing to get more ROTK news)... It seems that those in NZ working on the final film have relaxed a little. Their argument is there’s not a lot left to spoil, and I think they’re right. So here’s the tidbit from NZ super-spy Dr Lynskey: “Wanna see Aragorn single-handedly take on a massive troll? You will in The Return of the King.” I don’t think the troll is the “big thing” that Aragorn is mooted to fight towards the end, but there it is. Nothing massive, but I thought it was cool. So there.

* Levon J Polinelli is a man with a mission. He’s prepping his first film STILL WATERS for a January shoot. STILL WATERS follows “a group of non-annoying kids [who] decide to spend schoolies week sailing around. They visit a seal colony, where the pique the interest of a thirty-foot Great White Shark, who takes it upon himself to follow them wherever they may roam (by sea or foam; land is the tricky part)”. Everything is ready to go: script, cast, crew, etc... but that last stage of getting the cash together is yet to be completed. If you know someone who’s keen on investing in the Australian film industry or would just like to view a prospectus, drop me a line and I’ll pass you onto the man.

*Baz Luhrmann’s ALEXANDER THE GREAT has been delayed for “at least six months”, apparently due to script revisions. I’m personally not going to put any money on it getting back up off the ground again, but time will tell.

* Libosis from the website Buffy Australia dropped me a line the other day: “Just a heads up for your readers, there’s a chance for them to win the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer game CHAOS BLEEDS” from our website.” The link is Right Here... Go Ahead, Click Away. I, personally, would like to discourage you from entering as it would decrease *my* chances of winning it. Thank you.

AWARDS AND FESTIVALS

AFI AWARDS

The 45th Australian Film Institute Awards, held at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne on November 21st, will be hosted by Tony Squires. Expect jokes. (Nominations will be announced on October 31st, and shamelessly reprinted in this column.)

BERLIN INTERFILM SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

Somewhere between November 4th and November 9th, the Australian short film THE HOUSE OF NAMES will screen in Berlin. It stars local actors Samuel Johnson and Kim Gyngell.

PLAY NOW/ACT NOW

This anti-drug and anti-alcohol short film initiative gave first place to the short LEAVING on October 21. The film was written and directed by Ben Briand.

BOX OFFICE

NEMO took a dive down to seventh position after a very impressive run, whilst Tarantino’s latest managed to take first place despite (technically) excluding all those under eighteen. CRUELTY took out fifth spot from previews alone, and the British CALENDER GIRLS grabbed second spot through its arthouse release.

Annnd this week's winners are...

• 1. KILL BILL: VOLUME ONE
• 2. CALENDER GIRLS
• 3. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
• 4. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAODINARY GENTLEMEN
• 5. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY

RELEASED THIS WEEK

IMAX throws you out of a plane, street kids improvise dialogue in a video-shot feature, the first of many movie icon showdowns makes its debut, the first Coenmantic Comedy hits the multiplexes, a completely original film refuses to trade on the success of one that has come before, actors thesp-out with Danish Death, and a New York family drama gets its arthouse release.

Now for the NEW ones...

• ADRENALINE RUSH: THE SCIENCE OF RISK
• THE FINISHED PEOPLE
• FREDDY VS JASON
• INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
• MAMBO ITALIANO
• MINOR MISHAPS
• RAISING VICTOR VARGAS

REVIEWS

FREDDY VS JASON

I found it interesting when I read the recent news about Harry’s upcoming movie-making. Interesting in that we’d finally made it... one of us film geeks who always knows how any given movie could be improved, one of us had been given the glimmer of green light. Sure, Moriarty’s being blessed with a bunch of success, but he’s been working towards it. In Harry’s case, the eponymous “They” came to him. Now, when I refer to Harry as a film geek who knows how any given movie could be improved, I’m not being facetious. I mean it. Most of us are like that. How many most-multiplex conversations have you had that contain phrases like, “If only they’d had the budget, they could have...”, or “If only the ratings board would have let them, they could have...”, or “If only Warner Bros. could tell their dicks from their elbows, we might have seen...”? There are movies that are as good as they could possibly be, and movies that are as good as they’re likely to be.

Take LORD OF THE RINGS. When I first went to see it, I was tentative because I’d wanted to make it since I was seven. At the time, my dad and I came very close to shooting the Tom Bombadil sequence with me and three friends as the Hobbits, just as a lark. When the lights came up after the end of FELLOWSHIP, I was relieved and amazed. Relieved because I knew I couldn’t have made it better. Amazed because Peter Jackson made the film that is the “If only...”. He made it as good as it could possibly be.

I’m not a massive slasher fan, but there’s nothing the geek in me likes better than a good team-up. Kirk and Picard. Batman and Superman. Van Damme and Dennis Rodman. So FREDDY VS JASON got me hooked, especially as that days before it was announced, I was discussing with friends the coolness factor of a DESTROY ALL MONSTERS-type scenario featuring all the bad dudes of the slasher genre. How they’d come together, who’d win, how to make it the coolest thing ever.

Well, as everyone else has been saying: Freddy is pretty cool, Jason is pretty cool, the teens all suck. Okay, they don’t suck, they’re fine for their purpose (identifiable fodder), but the stuff with them doesn’t really excite. It’s when Freddy and Jason square off that it gets going.

There’s a great antithesis to their characters, and it’s played well. Robert Englund is clearly having a lot of fun with Freddy as he crawls back out of hell and tries to regain his powers. Also (and I’ll warn that this sentence is spoiler-filled) the scene when Freddy comes back into reality is just gorgeous. Realising what he can and can’t do.

Jason is depicted acceptably... there’s not a hell of a lot you can do with a character’s depth when he has a hockey mask covering his face, but that’s a good thing. We don’t want Jason to be too deep. He’s slow, he’s lumbering. That’s why we have FREDDY VS JASON instead of MICHAEL MYERS VS JASON. They’re opposites. One killed by water, one killed by fire. One murders in reality, one murders in dreams. One kills virgins, one kills sluts. When the teens realise what’s going on, it dawns on them that they’re not safe anywhere.

It’s easy to see why Ronny Yu is being hailed as the saviour of the slasher genre. He’s good with his scares and he’s good with his laughs. But as much as I enjoyed it, I kept wishing he’d done more. I kept wishing they’d made the teens interesting and three dimensional and they’d played up the not-safe-anywhere aspects.

But it’s still a good film. At least, it’s as good as it was ever likely to be.

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY

There’s a big difference between this film and other Coen films. No doubt, you’ve heard that it’s because the script was written by someone else (later redrafted by Joel and Ethan). I initially didn’t think this was going to be a problem, or even be noticeable, as a Coen Brothers film is a Coen Brothers film, regardless of outside influences.

But it’s not. Within the opening frames, it felt different from their other films, and it took me a while to figure out why. All of their other films feel like a specific Universe. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? didn’t look like the early part of the century; it looked like the Coen’s interpretation of the early part of the century. THE BIG LEBOWSKI felt like its own world from beginning to end. They give you a complete Universe with everything; script, cinematography, performances... The opening of CRUELTY feels like the real world, but with a Coen spin.

That’s not necessarily a criticism, it’s just different. Not while I was expecting. I didn’t have baggage with Clooney or Mrs Douglas, but I did with the Coens. I had to get it out of my head that I was watching a Coen Brothers film.

Seen from the perspective of “just another romantic comedy”, it’s brilliant. It’s one of the best out there. For the most part, I’m not even sure if I want the two leads to get together. They’re horrible and manipulative and untrustworthy, and it’s not something that’s ignored by the film.

But I couldn’t get past the Coens. I was sure I could pick what in the script was theirs and what wasn’t. I was certain that they’d changed each character from *this* to *that*, and it took my out of the film. Oh, I’m perfectly aware that it’s my own problem and not something the film itself has done wrong, but still...

Bottom line is I loved this film and it will eventually make its way into my collection. Above all, however, it’s worth seeing for the greatest confusing-of-hands gag since Peter Sellers’ ice cream bit in AFTER THE FOX.

NEXT WEEK

- Art Malik plays a suicide bomber who still lives with his mother in crazy comedy MY BIG FAT ISLAMIC JIHAD

- Producers tap William Goldman to transform the screen play for the upcoming LINDA LOVELACE BIOPIC into a TOMB RAIDER 3 draft

- Tom Arnold decides not to sign on for TRUE LIES 2, citing “disinterest” and “having better things to do”

Peace out,

Latauro

downunder@aintitcoolmail.com