Well, its the week's end so once again Father Geek finds himself posting Latauro's news & views from the land beyond beyond, the land past hope and fear... the land downunder...
It is not revealed to us whether Abraham, Isaac and Jacob paid tolls to their enemies at the gate, but it is very sure that the gate was to them an oppression and an abomination.
AICN-DOWNUNDER
I guess the big question the online community has to be asking itself these days is, “Just how dumb are Russell Crowe and Laurence Fishburne?”
For those of you who think I’m talking about A BEAUTIFUL MIND and BIKER BOYZ, I ain’t. I’m referring to these two actors refusing to talk to online journalists during press junkets. Crowe banned them in advance, Fishburne simply refused to enter the room for a round-table interview. Why? Is it some sort of standing-retribution until Moriarty finishes his 90s list? Is it frustration from only ever being able to find pictures of Garth Franklin when he’s fully-clothed?
According to Crowe, internet writers are “the purveyors of nasty gossip about him”. One can only guess that Fishburne feels the same way (publicly, he gave no reason). I know how they feel. I can’t visit CHUD without reading tawdry, fictitious gossip. I can’t visit Cinescape without having to endure Patrick Sauriol’s endless obsession with tabloid rumour.
Seriously, did Crowe really give that quote? Does he really think that?
Despite his tendency to stick it to English awards night producers in corridors, Crowe does come off as an intelligent, grounded person. When he says things, they make sense. They sound like the thoughts of someone whose brain is glued in properly. He’s a smart guy. Why, then, would he be so simple as to assume that an entire medium is bad?
If he said, “I refuse to talk to anyone who prints in a serif font – they always misspell my name” or “Only set me up for interviews with dreadlocked vegans – nobody indents paragraphs the way they do”, would he still be taken seriously? Would those arbitrary connections still be considered valid?
The only sites I visit with any regularity are the film news sites. AICN, Dark Horizons, etc... I have a great interest in films, as well as the people who make them. I don’t, however, care about their personal lives. If they’ve just, say, gotten married and they want to tell the world about it, fine. I’m happy that they’re happy. All power to ’em. I don’t care about who’s dating who, I don’t care about what diets stars take, or what new waterfront address they’ve moved to, or who they go on drug-fuelled benders with. I just don’t care.
Do you want to know who cares? Tabloids. Tabloids print this endless bullshit, and I can’t stand it. It’s pathetic and patronising to think that I have nothing better to do that care about the intimate details of someone I’ve never met. And I find it sad that others care. If you want tawdry scandals, we have soap operas. That is exactly what they are designed for. Watch them. Enjoy them. I’m not going to berate you for watching a daytime soap, because those people are fictitious. You’re not infringing on someone else’s life.
Crowe has every right to be pissed about the things that are printed about him, he gets some shocking press. I’m not defending anything he’s done, or being accused of doing, but the man has a right to privacy.
Part of me hopes that Crowe’s quotes were a tabloid beat-up, that he missed a plane and scheduling problems meant he couldn’t make his interviews. Because if he honestly believes that everyone who writes for the internet is out to tawdrily reveal secrets of his personal life, he’s an incredibly stupid man.
NEWS
* For the sake of, y’know, mentioning the fact, a lot of places are reporting that Hugh Jackman is going to be the next James Bond. Crazy rumours? Perhaps. But he wouldn’t be the first Australian Bond. Inarguably the most popular and successful Bond ever, George Lazenby
* Well, kids, we can be the first to report that Ben Gibbs, the filmmaker behind the successful short NOVA, is about to begin production on his first feature film IN THE EQUIDISTANT. The story follows five scientists who have developed the technology to transport themselves through time... albeit, fairly unsafely. They soon learn that the realities of time travel are all completely wrong, and the realities prove disastrous... Casting is about to begin on the film.
* If you live in New Zealand and like your DVDs, take note of the following news. A new law has been passed banning the sale of DVDs until nine months after the date of their international cinema release. The move was initiated to prevent the sale of DVDs having a negative effect on rural cinemas, many of which are showing significant drops in revenue. So while your local DVD store can no longer stock Region 1 DVDs in advance of their cinema release, it is still lawful for individuals to order them in, so long as it’s for personal use. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what this ruling does to the free trade agreement New Zealand has been negotiating with the US.
And speaking of free trade agreements, Australian filmpersons such as Bryan Brown, Gillian Armstrong, Claudia Karvan and Gary Sweet have expressed concerns over what this agreement will do to our local industry. At a joint press conference earlier this week, the Australian Writers Guild, the Australian Screen Directors Association, the Screen Producers Association and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance called upon negotiators to hold firm to commitments promising to protect Australia’s cultural future. If and when the free trade agreement gets stamped, signed and delivered, we’ll let you know what the ultimate effect will be on the local industry.
AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
45th ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN FILM INSTITUTE AWARDS
Recently-released crime comedy GETTIN’ SQUARE has equaled the record set in 1978 by NEWSFRONT for number of AFI nominations. Other nominated films include JAPANESE STORY, CRACKERJACK and NED KELLY.
BOX OFFICE
England’s attempt to echo THE FULL MONTY dropped a spot, whilst America’s attempt to echo MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING only made it to spot seven. What these top five lists are good for is gauging future films. For instance, FvJ’s success ensures that we’ll be seeing plenty of team-ups (HELLOWEEN is a shoo-in), and PIRATES’ refusal to leave the multiplexes means that the currently-being-written scripts for PIRATES 2 and 3 will see a green light sooner rather than later.
Here are this week's winning films...
- 1. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
- 2. FREDDY VS JASON
- 3. KILL BILL VOL. 1
- 4. CALENDER GIRLS
- 5. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
RELEASED THIS WEEK
Andrew Davis digs upwards, Patrick Bateman’s mother gets it on with Kate Beckinsale, John Cusack Grishams up the screen, propaganda films get a new spin, Abbas Kiarostami makes a film ten times better than RUSSIAN ARK.
Annnnd here are the new flicks...
- HOLES
- LAUREL CANYON
- RUNAWAY JURY
- PRISONER OF PARADISE
- TEN
REVIEWS
VOLCANO HIGH
Initially, I wasn’t even going to write any reviews this week. I went to see VOLCANO HIGH in a double with JU-ON (THE GRUDGE) at the Astor on Wednesday night, but I was just going for the fun of it. These were two films I’d been hanging out to see. My friends had all decided to go out on the town, but I’d been waiting too long for this double. So, after amusing myself by listening in on conversations about AICN by fanboys in the lobby, I entered to see what Korean cinema had to offer me.
And, let’s just establish how much Korean cinema has been ruling lately. In the past few months, I’ve seen such films as RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=15779) and SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGENACE (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=15827), and that bit of land north of the East China Sea is kicking some serious buttage. I want to compare it to the output of high school students. See, I’ve been working with some senior students recently on their films, and when we screened them back-to-back they were leagues ahead of screenings I’ve seen from the VCA or AFTRS, the two most highly-regarded film colleges in the country. Why is that? Well, I believe it’s to do with the naivety of a good idea. It’s about not trying to conform to the acknowledged formula or the perceived expectations of a higher body. When you’re in high school, you know no one’s expecting anything, so you just try to make the best film possible.
Though the simile isn’t water tight, I can’t escape it when I’m watching Korean films. Their films (of which I am not an expert, though I have seen more than three) are not worried about conforming to a formula; they put whatever’s best for the story, the characters, and they put it front and centre. Admittedly, this could be because I’ve only seen three Korean films in the past six months and we only get the crème of the crop. But what about the film itself? What about VOLCANO HIGH?
Imagine J. K. Rowling was a 20-something Korean filmmaker who just got the rights to make X-MEN. That’s pretty much what this film is. It’s the funniest, best-directed film I’ve seen this year, and it’s easily one of the most apt films about growing up ever made.
I’m really at a loss to talk any more about this film. I mean, it’s all there. It’s superb. Okay, for a while I had zero idea what was going on, but even in those moments I was still having a ball. Still completely consumed by the film. And no scene ends the way you expect.
So it’s interesting that VOLCANO HIGH, my favourite film of the year so far, was followed immediately by...
JU-ON (THE GRUDGE)
I wouldn’t say my expectations were high, but I expected the film to be graded slightly higher than “laughably bad”. And it was laughable. The entire audience was laughing, myself included.
Okay, I was told THE GRUDGE was based on a book by Kôji Suzuki, who was the author behind the book that RING and RING 2 were based (I later found out this wasn’t true... but it’s important to mention as it’s what got me to the theatre). But with that in mind, I immediately expected some degree of quality. Hell, I was even prepared to accept the film if it was a complete RING rip-off. But unless you count lame half-arsed ineffective rip-offs, there are zero similarities.
The direction is practically non-existent. There are thrills and scares, which are not thrilling or scary. In fact, they are handled as awkwardly as would be possible for a Year 10 high school student who didn’t understand shot composition. As for the bits in-between the supposed scares, they brought a new definition to the word “dull”. It’s been a while since I’ve seen precious celluloid wasted on such irrelevant scenes. Oh, and there’s a sequel as well in case you want more.
Now, okay, I’m going to admit that I’m probably unqualified to pass judgment on this film as I walked out of it less than halfway through. As a matter of fact, it is the first film I’ve ever walked out of, ever. I was just so bored. I started sending messages to my friends (it’s okay, my phone was on silent) about how amazingly bad the film was. Of course, the response I got was “Come out and meet us”, which was a far more tantalising prospect than spending another minute watching this nonsense. (Yeah, I think I’ll avoid reviewing the night out, even though it was infinitely funnerer than this shite.)
One day, if I’m feeling masochistic enough, I’ll go back and watch the rest of the film to see if it gets any better, or to see if there’s a kick-arse ending that justifies sitting through the longest forty minutes of my life. But I doubt it. I seriously doubt it.
NEXT WEEK
- Renny Harlin to direct a remake of Japanese film THEY CHANGED WHAT?! (about a hack Hollywood director who remakes Asian films) for No Hint Of Irony Pictures
- Fulfilling his Bandwagon Clause with STUDIO pictures, Jon Peters begins development on MARK LEWIS VERSUS MASTER SARDU, whetting the appetites of hardened PEEPING TOM and BLOODSUCKING FREAKS fans
- Ben Affleck signs on as Groucho Marx, Michael Badacullo as Abbot, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Curly, Janeane Garafolo as Mae West, Steve Buscemi as Stan Laurel, and Johnny Depp as Special Agent Buster Keaton for Michael Apted’s LEAGUE OF DEAD COMEDIANS
Peace out,
Latauro
downunder@aintitcoolmail.com
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