Cool News
AICN-DOWNUNDER: Oscar Etiquette, Black Sheep, And A Stack Of Reviews !!
I'll show you the roof. It's upstairs.
AICN-DOWNUNDER
So, I suppose it's too late to do my Oscar picks, huh?
Actually, I already did them. I did them weeks ago. Thing is, I took longer than expected to finish this column, and then when I sent it in... well, I have no idea what happened, but it didn't get posted. I'm going to pretend to be all huffy about how you didn't get to see how brilliant and clairvoyant I was, but the truth is I blew it. Oh, I picked the obvious ones like Martin Scorsese, Helen Mirren, and Forest Whitaker, but this year was the absolute worst I'd ever had for Oscar picks. It's more than a little embarrassing.
Hopefully, that embarrassment will be tempered somewhat by a video I'm quite proud of, which you can view by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
Go Marty!
NEWS
BLACK SHEEP, the already-notorious horror film about killer sheep in New Zealand, has been confirmed for a Stateside theatrical release. June 22 is the date that all of you Yanks will be able to see it, which will please me no end on condition that I see it before you. Those attending SXSW will get to see it even earlier, as the film will be playing in nary a few weeks at the massive festival. In the meantime, there's a pretty damn awesome site for the film at www.blacksheepthemovie.com, which I've just spent way too much time playing on when I should have been writing this column.
Jedi Muppet sent me a pretty interesting and amusing rant about JB Hi Fi, and included a pretty interesting note on Australia's part in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD competition: could HD-DVD be dead in Australia? Says Muppet: "If you live in Australia, then you'll know who JB HiFi is. Sony has bribed JB HiFi, if you ask me. JB's a very over-rated store to begin with, I hate the place. Unwrapping the security stickers and plastic that they wrap their cds and dvds in, is as much fun as sitting hogtied in Uwe Boll's loungeroom forced to watch his holiday slideshow." Muppet is the first person I've ever heard say they didn't love JB; it's a pretty popular place. I don't think this will be the death knell of HD-DVD in Australia, but it's certainly going to impact sales. The HD camp down here has got to be getting at least a little worried...
AWARDS, FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS
TROPFEST 2007
Steve Baker of Queensland took out the top prize at Tropfest this year for his film AN IMAGINARY LIFE. There's a degree of controversy at every Tropfest... this year's? The film is being investigated for possible copyright infringement, as the plot comes awfully close to a US TV series "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends". Having not seen either (just read the synopses), I have to say that it seems like a pretty easy coincidence. I think it's more than likely that two people came up with this idea independently of one another, but still. You never know. And that's my in-depth analytical contribution to the story.
BOX OFFICE
Well, what do you expect? It's Oscar season, so naturally everybody's going to be flocking to... er... GHOST RIDER. Hm. Maybe it's the fact that it's shot in Melbourne? Who knows.
1. GHOST RIDER
2. MUSIC AND LYRICS
3. NOTES ON A SCNDAL
4. THE GOOD SHEPHERD
5. MISS POTTER
RELEASED THESE PAST TWO WEEKS
The FLY sequels become more misguided, Nic Cage proves how in need of another ADAPTATION he is, Robert De Niro proves he has no problem with a two hour and forty-five minute running time, Thomas Harris shows us exactly how talented Jonathan Demme is, a good-natured rom-com is still as formulaic is you think it will be, and Cate Blanchett recaptures her youth.
FLYBOYS
GHOST RIDER
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
HANNIBAL RISING
MUSIC AND LYRICS
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
REVIEWS
MUSIC AND LYRICS
I'm getting a little sick of having to give rom-coms a free pass. It's almost like they're review proof. And I don't mean that in the sense that they make money no matter what the reviews are like, I mean that in the sense that your standard romantic comedy follows very strict rules (boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again), and critics seem almost embarrassed to attack the conventions of the genre for fear of looking foolish. This film in particular, MUSIC AND LYRICS, sticks so closely to its conventions that to attack any aspect of the film feels like attacking the entire genre of romantic comedies, and if you want to maintain credibility with an audience that loves romantic comedies, you just can't do that.
So, my credentials: I love a good romantic comedy, but they're few and far between. Sticking to conventions does not, I believe, mean conforming to cliches. So why are we so quick to forgive Marc Lawrence for what is a pretty stock-standard exercise in ticking off a bunch of boxes?
The entire film is treading water. People told me that they'd seen the entire film after watching the trailer. I'd seen the entire film after looking at the poster. This isn't normally a huge problem, but the film itself seems so content with its own predictability, at no point does it feel like it's trying.
See, rom-coms aren't just all niceties and prettiness. They need to have conflict. They need to have obstacles. The problem is that the obstacles in MUSIC AND LYRICS are the most arbitrary and groundless obstacles that has ever been witnessed in such a genre. Hugh Grant wants Drew Barrymore to write lyrics for him! But she won't do it! How will he convince her?
Why doesn't she want to do it? There's some half-hearted reason involving a literature professor given later, but it's pretty thin. As is the way they meet. As is their "boy loses girl" moment. As is the humour in the film.
Look, it's not all bad. The 80s clip that opens the film is a spot-on send-up, and is actually very funny. There's a line about Bob Dylan that Hugh Grant absolutely nails. The rest of it, unfortunately, seems to rely on one conceit: that Hugh Grant will make a simple observation, and it will be funny because he's using big words and an English accent.
Of course, the crowd I saw it with lapped it up. The film's going to make an absolute mint because it understands its audience through and through. And it's the closest thing Marc Lawrence has come to writing a good movie, so I don't want to give it too much flack. It's actually a pretty pleasant movie, and despite it being about fifteen minutes too long, it's kind-of enjoyable to sit through.
The point is that we haven't had a good romantic comedy in a very long time, and when one comes along that doesn't absolutely suck, everybody is a bit too eagre to forgive it for its excessive laziness. I'm sure there's someone out there who's able to make a film in this genre that isn't completely predictable and by-the-numbers. It's okay to expect a little more from the genre.
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
It's been a while since I've seen a film squander its own good will to such an extraordinary degree.
It starts so well. It's beautifully shot, the acting is superb, the music is excellent... but just as "MASH" got some criticism for running eleven years despite the Korean war only lasting three, my problem with LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is that World War II only lasted six year. I didn't check my watch, but I'm pretty sure the film exceeded this running time to some significance.
This is why I'm shocked at how sentimental Eastwood's inclusion in the Best Director category is. Regardless of his prowess during production, his post-production skills are practically non-existent. Almost as if they just decided to put all the footage they shot back-to-back in the hope that some sort of narrative will form. It's incredibly indulgent that the film drags on for so long, and you can't help but feel that Eastwood has mistaken length for import. It's a pity, too, because this should be a much more important film than it is. In fact, it should have been the film that it thinks it is.
It's interesting how they choose to depict Ken Watanabe's general. When he arrives, he's seen as a great man by his troops, and a madman by his senior officers. He changes the strategies they'd been working on and forms an entirely new defensive procedure. Now, he does this calmly and with a smile that suggests he knows something we don't. In the meantime, all of the other officers fluster about and can't believe he'd do such a thing and so on and so forth. Naturally, this obvious characterisation leads us to think that Watanabe's Kuribayashi knows exactly what he's doing. Problem is, (spoiler alert) the Japanese lose Iwo Jima. Now, while this is probably more to do with the sheer number of US troops as opposed to Japanese troops, it does make me wonder what sort of film this would have been if Kuribayashi had been played as a flustered, misguided army man, and his lieutenants had been portrayed as handsome visionaries.
Oh, and "fans" of "writer" Paul Haggis will enjoy a scene that is undoubtedly written by him, occurring about two thirds into the film: "I always thought the Americans were cowards... but now I've learned that they're just like us." I'm not paraphrasing nearly as much as you think I am. Why, Paul, why? I get that racism is bad. You told me so fifty times in CRASH. But surely the point of making films like FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA back-to-back is to show this very fact, right? Anyway, I should be appreciative of this scene. It did give me the only laugh of the entire film.
As I said, all good will this film built up is squandered after (at most) an hour. As with FLAGS, when I think back to individual elements (the performances, the cinematography, etc), I remember it being a work of excellence, and yet, as with FLAGS, it doesn't come close to working as a whole. Mr Eastwood, you're an incredible filmmaker and I will continue to see your films, but for the love of all that is holy, learn to edit.
THE ILLUSIONIST
It's disappointing for the makers of both THE ILLUSIONIST and THE PRESTIGE that we can hardly talk about one film without acknowledging the other. It shouldn't be that way, and yet it is. Or, at least, it is for lazy film critics like myself. Bottom line, THE PRESTIGE is the far superior film.
I mention this because THE PRESTIGE takes careful care to explain exactly what it's doing, and yet never loses its sense of mystery. THE ILLUSIONIST does not do this. In fact, THE ILLUSIONIST can't figure out if Edward Norton's character is actually an illusionist, or someone who can do real magic. They seem to switch back and forth depending on what's convenient for each scene, and this gets a little frustrating. In fact, it gets very frustrating.
Almost as frustrating is watching two of my favourite actors (Norton and Paul Giamatti) completely miscast in their roles. Jessica Biel, who is not one of my favourite actors, is also miscast, and Rufus Sewell is ridiculously typecast. Seriously, how many times do we need to see Sewell play the bastard rival love interest?
And who was monitoring the accents in this film? Norton manages to maintain his throughout, but everyone else seems to switch constantly between a slight Viennese accent, and a much safer English accent.
Sorry, I know I'm just reeling off a bunch of things that pissed me off about this film, but... well... they did. And I'm annoyed, because I quite like a lot of what's in here. It has so much potential, this film, and yet it doesn't seem to do much with it. It's got a pretty nifty ending (that, as both myself and someone else pointed out, appears to be lifted straight out of THE USUAL SUSPECTS), but that doesn't save it. It's a pretty good film that will probably annoy and entertain in equal measures.
PREVIOUSLY ON THE BAZURA PROJECT
Our final episode for season one has aired, and what an ending it was. All the season arcs were wrapped up satisfactorily, and yet there was a cheeky cliffhanger that left the audience teased for more.
It looks like we'll be coming back in June for our second season, so this will be the last you hear me go on about it until then (stop cheering). In the meantime, here's a clip from our last episode, in which we instruct potential Oscar winners on Academy Awards Etiquette.
NEXT WEEK
- George Lucas confirms that Harrison Ford will not be appearing in the new INDIANA JONES film, as there was no room for him what with Sean Connery as his father, Natalie Portman as his daughter, Shia La Bouef as his son, Kevin Costner as his brother, Randy Quaid as his cousin, and Rainn Wilson as his retarded nephew
- David Ogden Stiers to reprise his role as the Martian Manhunter in the new JUSTICE LEAGUE movie
- Ghostface Killah to join Andy Garcia in romantic drama WHEN A MAN LOVES A WU-TANG
Peace out,
Latauro
AICNDownunder@hotmail.com
-
+ Expand All
-
maybe its coz im in nz?
-
Undoubtedly it is. Wellington reprahzent.
-
I can see how he would have won the fest if he ripped off Fosters...that show is well done and entertaining. I like to think how I would have perceived today's cartoons 30 years ago when I was a kid. Some of these shows are pretty high concept for a cartoon. Kids are pretty lucky these days...I still remember HATING Casper and that stupid follow-the-bouncing-ball-sing-along crapfest that used to be on. Yeah, I retain anger.
-
gave me a good chuckle. Latauro, look at Herc's post about The Black Donnellys in coaxial, it's both sad and funny to me the NBC is so moronic as to replace Studio 60, with Haggis trash.
-
Amazing moving film.
-
The one where its being remade in Australia afters baz does his big film. The remake will also star Gay Wolverine(his marriage to a woman is a cover). Just hearing the rummer made me want to puke yet alone the thought that anyone would want to contemplate this. You were to hard on LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA man! After reading about how the guy who won the Aussie PGL cheated and now this TROPFEST thing all Aussies must be crooks...
-
MrWonka, as someone who dislikes the majority of Haggis's works (but, I should stress, not EVERYTHING the man does), it pains me that my current favourite show Studio 60 (to hell with the haters) is going to be replaced by this apparent garbage. Sigh. Oh well. And to Ms Power Girl, Baz is doing a Gone With the Wind-STYLE film with Hugh Jackman. It's likely you're confusing this with the 2008 Broadway musical of Gone With the Wind, as the producers are hoping to get Jackman to star in that as well. And as for your lazy Jackman-is-gay "put down"... yawn. Seriously, yawn.
-
Letters from Iwo Jima is to war what Crash was to racism.
-
I think the reason many like JB-HiFi is because compared to Sanity & other such record shops, JB is relatively inexpensive and also stocks audio & video equipment. I don't mind it, in fact I'm considering getting my next Panasonic projector from them (friend of mine got a good deal).
And am I the only one who thinks Illusionist was better than Prestige? I found The Illusionist more consistent as it was a love story with a guy that, as he says again & again, everything he does on stage is an illusion. No magic mystery there, his act was entirely an illusion which he used in the end for the love story.
The Prestige had trouble in my opinion that it was showing how the two magicians did their illusions (because they were illusions, not magic) up until the point when they bring Tesla into the story and his duplication machine/technique. What was _that_ about? Suddenly we've gone from a credible film about illusionists to science-fiction. Just didn't add up in the end for me. Oh, and the less said about the out of place music score, the better (I know they were going for a modern juxtaposition against a Victoria backdrop, but it just didn't work). Illusionist wins hands down (yay Philip Glass). -
I don't think it really has all that much to do with JB really. I've been asking left right and centre about HD-DVD and just about nobody (in the stores) had a clue what it was, let alone when it would be released. Serves MS and Toshiba right I guess, as obviously they don't give a shit about the arse end of the world. So much for their big head-start. Digital Bits has a thing about HD-DVD supporters crowing about Circuit City support in the States which is pretty funny. Aren't those the same guys who supported Divx? I know it sounds like I'm a blu-ray supporter but the truth is the conduct of both MS and the rabid hata fans is more and more upsetting - it's more that I'm an HD-DVD non-apologist than anything to do with the 'opposition'.
JB probably do a decent trade in blank storage discs. One thing that's hardly EVER mentioned is that this is a big part of the whole high-def disc equation, and capacity is all-important. Maybe it factors in to JB's decision.
Oh and Foster's is brilliant. Gives flash animation a good name.
I went to see Music and Lyrics - and missed the opening bit. D'oh. -
I was going to post my two cents worth in the big Oscars tb but then I got scared at how excited and surprised everybody was that Clint knew Italian. Does nobody remember (or know in the first place) what flicks made him famous?! Begs belief. Especially considering the reason he was doing the translation. Gah. Maybe I'll tell 'em they're fuckwits. Then run away.
-
"When a man loves a Wu-tang"
Lat, you've done it again! -
Amy, I actually felt the opposite way. I think Norton simply saying "They were all illusions" is a cop-out, because so much of what he did was quite clearly magic. The dead people getting up and walking through audience members? That's an illusion? The Prestige was quite clear about what was an illusion and what wasn't, and took care to explain which of its tricks were fake and which were real. The science fiction aspects didn't bother me because it was a science fiction film! And vadar, not that I don't appreciate your praise, but why do I always get complimented on my lamest jokes? Even I rolled my eyes when I wrote "When a man loves a Wu-Tang", but then realised I couldn't think of anything better this week, so let it slide. But cheers anyway.
-
When's Bazura season 2 starting up? I thought season one was aces.
-
Cheers for that, Quinn. I think we're starting back up in June, but finding an exact date would require literally minutes of me struggling with a calculator and a calendar, and I don't have that kind of patience. But rest assured, you will all be kept informed.
-
Live with it the guy loves cock! I still love him but he is one super gay man. A gone with the wind musical will rock my socks!!!Bring it on the people who wrote the lyrics for Little Women on Broadway would be perfect for that job.
-
Seems to me that the ghostly images that The Illusionist made ruined your suspension of disbelief (guess I can understand that, although it's likely he got this "smoke & mirrors" technique from Asia where he studied), while the duplication machine in The Prestige seemed to be the only element of sci-fi in an otherwise dramatical film about illusionists (nothing else they did was sci-fi that I can remember, so it wasn't a sci-fi film IMHO) and hence was out-of-place for me.
-
The clockwork-birdcage-retracting-body-armour that Angiers tries to use at one point was a bit outside the realm of the ordinary. And the mistake is in viewing the film as a serious period drama, rather than the gothic, slightly fantastic novel adaptation it was. Think of Frankenstein. You could say that that seemed to be a plausible drama about a Doctor with an unhealthy obsession with alchemy and necromancy up until the only 'sci-fi' bit happens with his success at creating a living being out of body parts. The film is actually a little less fantastical than the book, which really is a gothic horror novel.
-
You're right, in part. That was one of the bits that took me out of the film, but only in retrospect. For the most part, I was waiting to discover (a) how he could perform such incredible illusions, or (b) that he was, in fact, magic. Given we never really found out one way or the other, the filmmakers were able to have their cake and eat it too, and do pretty much whatever they wanted without having to justify it. I think the SF aspect in The Prestige didn't bother me because they took effort to explain that it had been developed scientifically (or stumbled upon by accident as they tried to invent something very similar). Had the duplication process been dismissed as pure random magic (as in: "by the way, he can do THIS"), Prestige probably would have bothered me as well.
-
It cant be just because he did musical theatre? Has he beenc caught snogging a bloke like John Travolta was? Not that I'm bothered, but I'm a sucker for Hollywood gay gossip! True story. Went backpacking in Mexico in 1999. Met an Irish guy who said he was an assistant director in Hollywood. He seemed to know what he was on about, so I didnt disbelieve him. I asked him who was gay (as you do). He told me 2 people; Kevin Spacey and John Travolta. Spacey has already been found on Hampstead Heath at 4 in the morning asying he had lost his mobile phone, and Travolta who has just been cuaght kissing a bloke on his private plane. Come on fellas, be out, load, and proud!
-
I think early on I moaned and whimpered a bit about your obligatory dadjokes (y'know, the sort of joke that just makes you cringe). Eventually however I learned to admire your chutzpah/shamelessness in giving us the clever highbrow gear but still ruthlessly slamming us with the low blow.
Maybe it's your literary generosity - never let it be said you don't cater for all types of audiences!
I found that now I actually look forward to an awful pun or rotten joke, even if I do hafta wait fuckin' forever 'til you get off your arse and post something! -
And it was probably better than this Australian killer-sheepshit crap.
-
I'd see this just for the shot when they say "oh no" and we see flocks of sheep charging over the hillside...this looks like inspired goofiness!
-
Whenever you see the name Christopher Nolan associated with anything on AICN just realize that here are people on this site who for some ungodly reason read that name as Jesus and will go on any number of crusades to protect it. There are people here who actually think the guy is Stanley Kubrick good. And Latauro I'm wondering exactly how you figure The Prestige wasa science fiction film. Unless you were familiar with the source material beforehand I doubt you had any idea before the end that anything like electric cloning would occur.
-
StrangeCo, have you been arguing on AICN talkbacks so long that you can't tell the difference between a flame war and a discussion? Look back and you'll see I wasn't giving shit Amy. In fact, I was enjoying being able to have an intelligent debate with someone about these films. I think Amy made some excellent points, but I didn't agree with them, so I countered with my own. That is what a discussion is. Industrykiller: I didn't realise it was SF until we reached that point (or until I figured out what was going on). I was prepared for it to be a straight drama, where everything had a practical explanation, or a fantasy where it turned out someone was actually doing magic, or a science fiction piece, which it turned out to be. I certainly didn't know that going in. Halfvadar: you give me waaay too much credit. Much as I would like to confess to cleverly switching between high and low brow jokes to cover all demographics, I really just put down the first thing that comes into my head... which is why my hit/miss ratio is so high. Or low. Whatever the bad one is.
-
I too have friends who loved The Prestige, not just because it was a Nolan film, but because they genuinely enjoyed it and think it a fantastic movie. I'm just wondering what the fascination is.
The comparison to Frankenstein, I understand, I just don't think The Prestige pulled it off. It wasn't Mary Shelly worthy, and the first half of the film, which wasn't sci-fi, just jarred against me when it suddenly became a sci-fi.
Just the way I felt about it.
But The Illusionist did make illusions. I never got the sense that he was making magic, but more that (as he taught the police officer) when you know how the illusion is done, the "magic" is lost. So I just accepted the ghostly images he produced as another illusion (quite ahead of his time perhaps, so if I were him I would have patented that holo-projector there and then).
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 383 total posts 380 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 111 total posts 111 posts
- WTF HOLLYWOOD: SOLARBABIES -- 75 total posts 73 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 71 total posts 68 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 77 total posts 55 posts
- If the Behind the Scenes Pics of the Day drops her pen, pick it up, but don’t look at her legs or else it will be on your record. -- 54 total posts 48 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 165 total posts 41 posts
- Herc’s Seen Tonight’s Return Of THE WALKING DEAD!! Discuss Also DOWNTON ABBEY, FEAR FACTOR, PAN AM, ONCE, SIMPSONS, DYNAMITE, LUCK, SHAMELESS, BAIT CAR, THE GRAMMYS And More!! Sunday Is Sweeps Day 11!! -- 41 total posts 41 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 500 total posts 35 posts
- Avid Comic Reader Hercules Does Battle With Tedium During Kevin Smith’s COMIC BOOK MEN! -- 28 total posts 28 posts