Here's the inimitable Latauro with entertainment news from the land of Kangaroos and Didgeridoos...
Man, we're gonna be banned from our own funerals.
AICN-DOWNUNDER
Sleep is unimportant when the World Cup is on, and downright
offensive when Australia's in the competition. Nothing should take
precedence over that. So, partly due to the sleep thing, partly due to the
large number of reviews down below, I'll keep this bit short.
Enjoy.
NEWS
Okay, I love Peter Jackson. I think he's teh awesome. But I've been
a little confused as to why someone would go from one of the greatest
novels of all time (LOTR) to one of the most critically-acclaimed novels
of recent years (THE LOVELY BONES) to a novel by, er, Uri Geller. Yeah,
the one who bends spoons with his brain. That guy. The novel is, not
surprisingly, a work of fiction about a teenage girl who discovers she has
psychic abilities. Is the book, which incidentally is called "Ella", any
good? Well, Mr Geller himself said "it's an incredible novel", which is
high praise indeed... for himself. Or maybe he was just praising his ghost
author. Who's probably an actual ghost. According to Yahoo, Jackson was
given the novel by Geller when he was in the UK, which may well mean jack
squat. Someone gave me a muesli bar the other day, doesn't mean I'm going
to make it into a film.
Matthew Grainger and Jonathan King are two of the guys behind NZ
killer sheep film BLACK SHEEP, which, frankly, I can't see soon enough.
Looks like it won't be long until their next film begins shooting. THE
TATOOIST (not "TATTOOIST", apparently, or maybe that's a plot point),
based on an idea by Vela Manusaute, will be directed by Peter Burger who
is mostly known for his TV work. The film centres on a skin artist who
"must battle an evil spirit that is inking his clients to death". Just one
request: one of the tattoos has to be a killer sheep, yeah?
Still in New Zealand, and it looks like we'll be seeing Sir Edmund
Hillary's life on the big screen soon, in the form of a film called HIGHER
GROUND. The film, written by Tom Scott, will probably be directed by Roger
Donaldson. Well may you scorn Donaldson for his direction of DANTE'S PEAK
and THE RECRUIT, but the man made THIRTEEN DAYS and THE WORLD'S FASTEST
INDIAN, which are both pretty damned perfect films. So that proves you
wrong, buddy. Pictures of Hillary, circa his Everest climb, suggest that
he should be played by none another than British comedian Lee Mack... but
will probably be played by Karl Urban. All this first appeared in the New
Zealand Herald.
Chris Isaak was in Australia recently, and, for all I know, is still
here. AICN-D reader Meg happened across him, and got what can only be
described as "some information". Says Meg, "I went to a Chris Isaak
in-store today - great by the way! really nice - here in Australia. Asked
him if he's doing any more movies, and he said he's writing a film about
his old friend, Roy Orbison, and hopes that will be his next acting gig."
Photos of a young Orbison don't immediately suggest any actors, but I'll
be pushing for Lee Mack, because that seems to be my thing today.
The year is 1986. The country is New Zealand. The key word here is
"zombies". After taking out Best Horror/Comedy Short Film at Screamfest LA
in 2005 and Best Short Film at the New York City Horror Film Festival in
2005, filmmakers Michael J. Asquith and Ben Stenbeck are presenting their
film ZOMBIE MOVIE online. To watch the film or just watch the trailer,
head to the boys' website at www.2chums.com and get your cricket bat ready.
I've discovered that researching for news stories is not nearly as
easy as stealing them from Mark Wilcox and his essential website
black-magic.co.nz. Mark dropped us a line the other day to let us know
that WETA has uploaded some conceptual artwork from DAYBREAKERS, the new
film from the Spierig Brothers (UNDEAD). You wanna see what the boys have
in store for vampires? There's only one picture up, but it's worth a
look.
AWARDS, FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS
2006 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
This is, unfortunately, the last year at MIFF for Festival Director
James Hewison, who did some sterling work the last few years. What note is
he going out on this year? Well, the opening night film is being kept
under wraps, and, if all goes to plan, nobody will know what's playing
until the lights go down and the credits start. I want to dismiss it as a
semi-interesting publicity stunt, but I'll be damned if I'm not chomping
at the bit to find out what it is...
BOX OFFICE
The theme for this week is "cars", repeat: "cars". Those of us smart
enough to stay off the roads for the duration of FATF3's will have to stay
at home and dig into some backlogged DVDs until SUPERMAN RETURNS is released
next week (hooray!).
1. THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT
2. CARS
3. THE BREAK-UP
4. THE DA VINCI CODE
5. STICK IT
RELEASED THESE PAST WEEKS THREE
Vince Vaughn nicks the title of the next FAST AND THE FURIOUS film
(THE BRAKE UP), Pixar proves that their worst effort is still about a
hundred times better than anyone else's best effort, Australian filmmakers
break all the rules by making a film about a young girl's emotional journey,
Chumscrubbing proves to be almost as popular as Phenting, Adam Sandler mixes
high concept with low brow and ends up with zero interest level, John
Malkovich plays at Not Being Stanley Kubrick, Matt Dillon is a load of
Bukowski, Lucas Black proves he's both three fast *and* three furious, an
attempt to muscle in on SHREK territory proves a tad unsuccessful, a dirty
old man takes advantage of a minor (love your work, Mr Polanski!),
DreamWorks unfortunately associates the word "hibernation" with its latest
CGI-fest, a group of Tennessee students correctly identify paperclips as the
one thing Holocaust victims needed, Zhang Yimou makes his HOUSE OF FLYING
MELODRAMA, and Richard E Grant forgets what a trumpet is called.
THE BREAK-UP
CARS
THE CATERPILLER WISH
THE CHUMSCRUBBER
CLICK
COLOUR ME KUBRICK
FACTOTUM
THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT
HOODWINKED
OLIVER TWIST
OVER THE HEDGE
PAPER CLIPS
RENAISSANCE
RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES
WAH-WAH
REVIEWS
Quite a haul for you today, including a couple of guest reviewers.
The first managed to see a couple of screenings at the recent Sydney
International Film Festival; the other caught an early screening of the
new Australian film THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS. I did some searching around,
and I believe this is the first review of the film anywhere, so
enjoy.
SOLO
Reviewed by Latauro
Morgan O'Neill's SOLO is going to be judged pretty harshly by many
who see it; it's the script that beat most of them in the high-profile
"Project Greenlight: Australia" competition. Even I begun with a pretty
cynical eye, and I didn't even enter the contest!
Nevertheles, the moment the uber-cool opening title sequence kicks
in, your expectations and judgments fall away pretty quickly. It's a film
that wears its genre on its sleeve, and because so few Australian films do
that do that successfully, you want to love it.
I didn't actually end up loving it, but I really liked it. When,
during our recent interview, I told Morgan that I was really impressed
with the script and the film, I wasn't blowing smoke. It's a terrific
movie, and a very enjoyable one. Colin Friels is a hitman who wants to
retire, but the big bosses don't want him to until he does one final
job... and it's a job he doesn't want to do.
It's a slightly cliched premise, but so much that it's debilitating.
If anything, the film is let down by the rather disturbingly-high number
of character inconsistencies. Barrett (Friels) has to kill Billie (Bojana
Novakovic), and keeps trying to warn her that this is going to happen...
only he refuses to be specific. His reasons for avoiding saying it
directly seem to be more of a plot device that something he would actually
do, given he keeps telling her to leave town and stop nosing about in the
mob's business. Likewise, Billie is writing her thesis on organised crime
and keeps trying to dig into the organisation, but whenever Barrett gives
her any piece of information, she dismisses it. In fact, on three separate
occasions she claims it sounds more like something out of a novel by
either John Grisham, James Ellroy or Raymond Chandler. For someone that
invested in what the mob does, she comes across as having no clue about
it. Meanwhile, the relationship between Barrett and Reno, his boss,
changes from scene to scene. Are they old buddies? Do they dislike each
other? Is Barrett submissive to Reno? I'm all for a layered relationship,
but again, this smacks more of inconsistency.
The only other major problem I had was that a lot of the film hinges
on Barrett's desire to protect Billie, which, given she's one of the more
irritating characters in recent months, is a bit difficult to
swallow.
But the rest of the film is really quite solid. The relationship
between Barratt and Havana, the eighty year old piano player, is
beautifully drawn. The scene where Barrett tries to casually avoid a
sniper whilst sitting behind a desk is one of the film's highlights. The
cameo by Bruce Spence as a dodgy gun salesman is terrific. Angie Milliken
plays a slightly-aging hooker with a tremendous amount of class. There's
really a lot to like in the film.
But more than anything else, you should see this film for Friels.
Sure, he's been great in the past, but this is one of the coolest
performances he's ever given. Sure, it's easy to play cool when you're
portraying an icy hitman, but Friels gives it something more. He is
absolutely the man here.
I'm sure a lot of people will dislike the film. There's far too much
history there to go in with a clean slate ("THAT'S the script that beat
me?!?"), but I can see why it won. It's a neat story, it's more than just
colonial navel-gazing, and, though far from perfect, is easily one of the
country's highlights this year.
Read Latauro's one-on-one interview with SOLO
writer/director Morgan O'Neill here.
SIONE'S WEDDING
Reviewed by Latauro
I was trying to figure out why Village Cinemas had been pushing
SIONE'S WEDDING so much lately. None of the leads were famous, none of
them were white, and it was a film from New Zealand (sans hobbits) with
everyone speaking in those funny accents. Why not just put in another ad
for STICK IT and leave the arthouse films for the arthouse crowd?
Then I realised: it has "Wedding" in the title, the easiest way to
ensure box office success!
Okay, so I'm a bit cynical. But walking into the cinema, I was
wondering what this film would contain that would cause it to not only
leap to the top of the New Zealand box office, but get itself a release in
Australia (we almost never get NZ films).
The answer is that SIONE'S WEDDING is a funny, almost grown-up
version of AMERICAN PIE, that will certainly star Ben Stiller, Owen
Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Paul Rudd when Hollywood gets around to remaking
it. The story follows four friends who cause a massive ruckus at every
wedding or major event they attend, so much so that they've been banned
from Sione's wedding. This is unacceptable, as Michael -- one of the
banned boys -- is Sione's brother, and was set to be best man. Then the
boys come up with a solution: if they can commit themselves to a woman and
bring her along, they'll definitely behave. An agreement is struck, the
clock is ticking, and the boys need dates.
What's incredibly charming about this setup is it's not trying to be
a carbon copy of its successful Hollywood counterparts. Far from it.
SIONE'S WEDDING is completely focused on the Polynesian culture of
Auckland. Our four boys have grown up in that culture, but are also
heavily influenced by Americanisms and hip-hop. It's a mix that's never
really directly addressed, just shown.
Most of the story is fairly predictable. When you meet the "dowdy"
office geek girl, for instance, you know she's going to throw her hair
back moments before the end and suddenly become the pretty
girl-of-someone's-dreams. You can pretty much guess what's going to happen
in most of the plot threads, but that doesn't detract from the enjoyment
of the film. For every predictable plotline, there's another that goes in
a slightly different direction to the one you were anticipating. For every
joke that falls flat on its face (the, er, highly comic white boys who act
all ghetto), there's at least two more that do work. I laughed out loud
more than a few times, and isn't that all you really require of a
comedy?
SIONE'S WEDDING won't break any records or make you rethink the
entire genre, but it's worth your time. Particularly if you see every film
the Frat Pack (or whatever we're obligated to call them these days) puts
out, or the teen comedies that look like they might have something to
offer. SIONE'S WEDDING stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of
them.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Reviewed by Spans Man
This had a very brief but very favourable mention on AICN after it
was shown at Sundance this year. Having read little about this movie prior
to seeing it on Saturday night, I really went in with very few
expectations, except knowing that it had a very simple premise of a
likeable but ultimately flawed family, forced together on a cross-country
road trip after their 9 year old daughter Olive flukes entry into the
Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.
Sounds simple enough, even - So what? Wrong!
Imagine the tragic subtly of the human condition of the Office (uk
version) crossed with the situation humour of Lampoons European vacation
and you'll begin to get close to the what unfolded before our
eyes.
This is a film about dreams, family and the school of hard knocks
called Life. The whole family comprises of people who just want to achieve
something for themselves in life, nothing grand, just something that
defines them.
From the wannabe motivational speaker Dad facing a last chance
saloon of business glory, the gay academic brother in-law on suicide watch
after a failed relationship ruined his career, to the son who has taken a
vow of silence until he gets into flight school- this is a family
struggling with their dreams.
As my better half eloquently put it afterwards, this is a family
who, when thrown together, put aside all their issues to help one chubby
little girl chase her dreams and in-turn, possibly theirs.
The film set's up the family beautifully during the first scenes and
sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Toni Collette gives a solid
performance as a mother trying to keep them all together, as do Greg
Kinnear and Steve Carrell.
Stand-out performances come from Paul Dano playing the son, who,
even though he doesn't speak for the majority of the movie plays with an
under baked subtly that provides many of the movies many laughs and
Abigail Breslin, who delivers again a near perfect performance of a
'seemingly' innocent little girl chasing her dreams.
Without wanting to spoil the movie, the real stand-out is Alan
Arkin, who not only blows you away as the family's rampaging drug taking,
porn loving Grandfather, that takes this movie to another level when he's
on screen and then into the stratosphere with the legacy he leaves the
family.
All the way through, the Sydney audience laughed and clapped en
masse at several points, but with the family realising that Olive's dreams
are about to be smashed to smithereens, the final pay-off delivered an
ending that that had not only people crying with laugher, it brought one
of the longest and loudest applauses that I have ever experienced.
This is a small budget masterpiece, and one that I really hope gets
the support it deserves when it's released later this year.
KIDULTHOOD
Reviewed by Spans Man
Next up is another gem albeit with a much much darker message.
Before I go on about Kidulthood - - A message to Australian (yes you
Hopscotch) and International distributors -PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE -
stuff the straight to DVD release -if the reaction of the Sydney audience
and UK press is anything to go by - get Kidulthood into the
cinemas!
This low budget flick receiving its international premier, is a
hard-core urban fable set in inner-city London and centres around lives
and influences on a group of inner city kids struggling to find direction
in life and whose world is generally hidden from adults.
The film focuses on a group of teens given the day off after from
school a girl in their year commits suicide and follows them through a day
in their lives. From sex for cash , peer group pressure, to drug dealing
and racism - the film runs several themes that, whilst not without hope,
combine and combust in a shocking yet inevitable conclusion.
The picture that is painted is both tragic and brutal. There are a
couple of scenes that left the audience aghast and during a great Q&A with
Menhaj Huda, aside from a high level of praise from the audience, one
audience member (who happened to be a teacher) said not only was he
>shocked by what he had seen but raised a question of how realistic the
film actually is?
This question of reality was one brought-up by a couple people and
was best answered by Huda when he explained that they had used kids from
inner city London, many of them who had never acted before.
As a result some wanted to include some of the London patois (a
cross between Jamaican and cockney English) that is their language, and a
language that is so alien to modern English, they had to curb its use so
that the audience could understand what these kids were saying (yes - I
can easily see this English film being subtitled).
Having lived both in London and now Sydney, this movie captures
something that has been years in the making and something that most older
generations cannot understand namely that underneath the surface of
society multiculturalism and commercialism, a generation of children are
bring driven to create a society whose language, values and behaviours are
radically different from what would be considered mainstream.
Although this film is essentially a British film, as Huda quite
rightly feels, its message is international and one that may help explain,
drive and heal racial and cultural explosions in a world where the
boundaries of race religion and identity are creating an increasingly
secular and fragmented society.
A great film that will linger long after you leave the
theatre.
THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Reviewed by Noddy
CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS
Last night, and friend and I attended a feedback screening of The
Book of Revelation, Ana Kokkinos's follow up to her critically
acclaimed Head-On, at Melbourne's Cinema Como. We saw Greg McLean
(director of
kick-arse-but-too-scary-to-see-again-even-though-I-bought-the-DVD Wolf
Creek) and Germaine Greer (feminist activist and author of The
Female Eunuch - an appropriate audience member as it happens) in the
lobby, although both must have seen the film in one of the three other
theatres there that screened the film simultaneously, as there were only
about ten people in the theatre my friend and I were in, none of whom was
Greer or McLean. Kokkinos herself introduced the film following the Palace
films marketing woman's spiel. She described the movie as a "ride" and one
that would be both confronting and thought-provoking, a film we'd still be
thinking about a while after we'd seen it. Kokkinos was right.
The film opens with a dance rehearsal as choreographer Isabel (Greta
Scacchi - Looking for Alibrandi), encourages the dancers with some
>corny words of wisdom and inspiration, reminding the male dancers "You're
warriors, remember". The focus settles on Daniel (Tom Long - Two
Hands) and Bridget (an impressive Anna Torv - The Secret Life of
Us) as they dance in an incredibly balletic and stylised manner, the
female dancers suspended by ropes and harnesses from the roof as their
male partners guide them through the air. Yet Daniel's movements soon
become fast, deliberate and sexual, roughly dragging Bridget through to
the finish. When the dance finishes, Isabel warns Daniel that "...there
are more ways to seduce someone than through sex..." This line sets up the
entire film, offering a hint at things to come.
For the following ten minutes, the film plays out as a downbeat
relationship drama as a tense Bridget (who it turns out is Daniel's lover)
walks in on Daniel flirting with another dancer, before arguing with him
to buy her cigarettes. He reluctantly does so, yet is kidnapped while
taking a detour down a secluded laneway by three (ridiculously)
black-cloaked women (think cheap Ringwraiths) who drug him. It is at this
point that the film takes a dramatic narrative shift. It becomes graphic
sex-crimes-role-reversal as Daniel is forced into sex acts by the three
masked women while chained to the ground in an abandoned warehouse. The
"rape" scenes are pretty explicit, showing full-on nudity, even an
incredibly graphic female/male masturbation scene and a deeply disturbing
anal rape scene. Daniel is made a sex object by the women who explain that
their actions are for their own pleasure. It was during these confronting
(I mean seriously confronting) rape scenes (and they were rape
scenes, even though Daniel was able to "perform", he was not a willing
participant) that I asked my friend "What's the male equivalent for
misogynistic? As a guy, watching these scenes play out was disturbing, and
really uncomfortable. About three people walked out. Yet Kokkinos isn't
being a man-basher. Instead, she effectively conveyed (at least to me - a
male audience member) the vulnerability, the degradation and sheer mental
destruction of rape on a person. Rather than depicting a woman being
raped, which, really, in Film and TV is now a generally desensitised
subject, (just like murder - it happens all the time on Law and Order, so
what?) Kokkinos has reversed the situation and her statement is pretty
clear; the sexual objectification of a person is disgusting, cruel and
dehumanising. Daniel is released by the women after twelve days and is
>forced back into society not knowing who the perpetrators were nor how to
explain to anyone what had happened.
His relationship with Bridget is strained as he finds himself unable
to open up to her about his abduction. He stops dancing, and feels he is
no longer a man. Meanwhile, Isabel, Daniel's mother figure, has since
found out she's dying of cancer. Daniel's world has fallen apart. He
struggles to deal with his experience and the film becomes pretty grim and
dirty at this point. Yet in another mood-shift, he meets Julie (Deborah
Mailman - The Secret Life of Us, who turns in a fantastic
performance), a woman who he sees not as an object of his lust, but rather
a woman with a personality, a woman who returns light to Daniel's life
(literally - the visual style of the film becomes warm and sunny).
Kokkinos appeared to be making a point that Daniel had learnt his lesson,
telling the audience that people can be more than just animals made for
fucking each other. Their relationship blossoms. Daniel returns to his
dancing. He is happy again. Yet it all changes (AGAIN!) when he finds who
he believes is one of the masked women who kidnapped him. He attacks her
violently, searching her body for identifiable features he can remember
from the masked women, none of which are apparent on this woman's body.
Daniel is arrested and sent to jail. The final scene depicts Daniel and
Isabel's policeman ex-husband, Olsen (Colin Friels - Tom White)
sitting together. Olsen hugs a silent Daniel, consoling him in his
unspoken grief, before he breaks down completely. Olsen asks Daniel to
"...start from the beginning..." before the film abruptly ends.
With the film's unexpected sudden finish, I thought, "It left a few
too many questions unanswered." Kokkinos warned us before the screening
that it really is food for thought, a film begging questions to be asked
of it. In retrospect, I think Kokkinos has created a piece of art, as
oppose to cinema, through which she has conveyed several significant
ideas. She is obviously making comment on the humiliation of a person by
rape, yet has amplified this (at least from a male audience member's point
of view) by reversing the roles of the rapist and victim to female and
male respectively. Yet she is also trying to explain to the audience that
it is a person's qualities that make them attractive, as she conveyed
through Julie. Yet, as I explained, The Book of Revelation is more a piece
of art, perhaps a surrealist didactic piece of art rather than cinema. As
a film, it is confusing, explicit, uncomfortably confronting, unsatisfying
and not an enjoyable experience - of course not all films are. Yet
Kokkinos appears to have preferred to make a severe social comment through
imagery rather than a film that conveys one as such. On the plus
side, performances were superb and the music combined with the dance
sequences were just amazing. Daniel's final solo dance sequence for Isabel
is heartbreaking and moving especially. Overall, an unsatisfying
experience, an ordinary film (if not original), yet one that make a
statement that needs to be heard.
** ½ out of 5
NEXT WEEK
- Tony Jaa to star as a B&D loving sex addict in Apichatpong
Weerasethakul's THE THAIS THAT BIND
- Kids who wear black clothes and have really bad hair cuts are being asked to participate in a crowd scene for the new Dreamworks family
film FINDING EMO
- Bryan Singer announces that, due to a typographical error, the
soon-to-film sequel SUPERMAN REMAINS will star Ian McKellen as the film's
villainous painter, Pisarro-Superman
Peace out,
Latauro
AICNDownunder@hotmail.com
| 
