AICN-DOWNUNDER: KING OF KONG, THE MIST, DIVING BELL AND SWEENEY TODD!!

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit, and it's filled with people who are filled of shit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it...

AICN-DOWNUNDER

I'd overslept my alarm, which is something I hardly ever do. Within ten minutes, I'd showered, dressed, and was in the car on my way to the press screening of KING OF KONG (review below). Feeling a little edgy at my high-stress dash, I decided to flick on the radio in the assumption that it would settle me into a good mood. It did... for about five minutes. Then the announcer returned from a song, registering a tone of shock in his voice that I'd never heard from this particular DJ before, and told us that it had just been announced that Heath Ledger was dead.

I nearly drove off the road.

The shock stayed with me all day (though I was able pull myself out of it to concentrate on the film, on a friend's opening night play, etc). Whenever I let my mind wander, the news hit me again, the way it does when a relative or close friend dies and you can't quite believe it. That was strange. I always find myself moderately saddened by the passing of someone I admire, but this one hit me hard, just as it hit many others hard. Why? Is our culture so unused to the Jimmy Dean stories of movie stars branded with eternal youth? Did we feel some personal connection with Heath?

I considered how I'd feel if Ledger's publicist had simply come out and announced his retirement from acting. If he pulled out of Gilliam's film halfway through, declined to do any press for DARK KNIGHT, and retired to a life of solitude, my personal relationship with him (that being one of artist/fan) would not change. I'd be surprised, disappointed, and shocked, but my gut reaction would be markedly different, even though this sudden retirement would, from my point of view, have the same basic effect.

So why am I, and so many people I know who are usually unaffected by celebrity deaths, so deeply shocked? I'm not sure. It's tragic to see someone go before their time, but how is this more tragic than the report I read half an hour ago of yet another death in Kenya? I'm not prepared to answer that. It's a question that's asked far too often, and I'm yet to see a convincing argument either way.

Other people have written far more eloquent things about Ledger's passing than I, and it now seems a little redundant to talk about it (though it would seem more redundant not to). A friend of mine blogged about how Ledger was possibly the greatest Australian actor, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised this was not sentimental hyperbole. With the possible exception of Cate Blanchett, I can't think of another local actor, past or present, who had the range, energy and passion that Ledger had.

Around the beginning of his Hollywood career, I spoke to some people about what a terrific actor he was, yet when pressed on the matter, I realised he hadn't really been in too many good films. My favourite of his films was 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, but you can hardly cite that when talking about a talent you think is the next big thing. I would scratch my head, wondering what he'd done to make me so convinced of his talent. A few years later, I didn't have to. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, I'M NOT THERE, CANDY... It seemed fitting that he was finally doing films worthy of his obvious talents.

I could write a lot more here, but I think I've said enough. And I think enough has probably been said, even before I began writing this. Instead, I think I'll point you towards what is easily the best thing I've read regarding Ledger. It was written by Christopher Nolan, and is such a simple yet elegant tribute, I kind-of wish it had been five times longer. Nevertheless, I direct you towards this, a far better tribute to Ledger than I was able to achieve: http://www.newsweek.com/id/105580

NEWS

The writer's strike has proved to be a boon for our local television industry, with this year set to feature more local content than ever before. So, naturally, our flailing film industry will also benefit from this, right? Surely lots of scripts have been prepared well in advance (what with all the months we've known this was coming!), with lots of local production companies making deals with distributors and getting their... er... hm. Nothing? Perhaps the deals are being done in secret! Yeah, that's it. Local films are notoriously bad at promoting themselves during their production, so there are probably lots of films getting made that we don't even know about. Like, there's probably a dozen in Melbourne alone! Okay, just checked the Film Victoria website. No, just Adam Elliot's MARY AND MAX and Alex Proyas's KNOWING, both of which we already knew about. Hm. If anyone knows anything, send us an email. It'd be so awesome to report some film news.

AWARDS, FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS

2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Nash Edgerton's SPIDER has been playing just about everywhere, and its latest conquest was at Sundance, where the film received an Honourable Mention in Short Filmmaking. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it sounds pretty good, eh?

2008 BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

CORROBOREE and SON OF A LION, both Australian independent feature films, will play in the International Forum of New Cinema section of the Berlin Film Festival this year.

2008 MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL

Hey, there's a film program for this year's Melbourne Comedy Festival, and you can enter no matter where in the country you reside. But you have to reside in the country. They're not after professional polish, they just want you to bring the funny. There's money to be had, so check out the details at http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/specialevents/FilmProgramme/ and remember to fucking thank me. Bitches.

BOX OFFICE

JUNO jumped from third spot to first, no doubt buoyed by its Oscar boost, as well as its incredible (and deserved word of mouth). Just click on it for my review! It's a pretty good list this week, but I would have been over the moon if CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (sitting at number six, just off this list) had been in the top five. Oh well.

1. JUNO
2. 27 DRESSES
3. SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
4. 3:10 TO YUMA
5. AMERICAN GANGSTER

REVIEWS

KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS

The last thing you want to do in a theatre is feel like your time is being wasted, so when KING OF KONG begins and you're being introduced to all these people whose primary obsession is 80s arcade games, you start to wonder if the next ninety minutes is going to be worth your while.

Why was I being so judgmental on a perfectly legitimate sub-culture? Especially given I'm writing this on Ain't It Cool News, which almost qualifies as a sub-culture on its own? Not sure. That's probably an issue for my therapist (therapist = I will watch TV instead of addressing this), but the key thing is that like so many people that this film will attempt to sell itself to, I have no interest in Donkey Kong or who got the highest score. If they were going to hold my interest, the human angle needed to be emphasised above all else.

Of course, the guys who made this documentary are obviously a lot smarter than I am, and knew this fact going in. And boy, were they blessed with great characters.

On one hand you have Billy Mitchell, one of the greatest video game players of all time. We know this because it's something he mentions often. On the other hand you have Steve Wiebe, who may have some flaws, but is generally an incredibly likable, humble, and all-round nice guy.

It's very easy to read that and assume that there's a massive bias on the part of the documentary makers, but it's almost impossible not to have that bias. You can't fake the things that Mitchell says. You can't create humbleness in the editing suite. These guys are quite clearly the people they are presented as, which makes the whole film that much more extraordinary.

This is a brilliantly-told underdog story, with some utterly masterful bait-and-switching at the end. No interest in a documentary about video games? Good. You don't need it. This is a story about people, and of the ultimate self-destruction that hubris inevitably causes. See it.

THE MIST

Am I the only one pissed off at THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION being so close to the top of the IMDB Top 250 Films of All Time list? My annoyance isn't because I have any animosity towards the film; quite the opposite. When I saw it, nobody had ever heard of it. It was a video that a friend and I had hired because his parents said it was worth a look. My experience with the film was intensely personal. I was too young to quite understand what the film was doing, but it soon became clear to me that this was the best film I'd ever seen in my life. When I see other people vote it so highly, I'm torn between feeling glad that so many people have such terrific taste, and feeling jealous that other people are loving a film that so clearly belongs to me and me alone.

To this day, it remains my favourite. Writer/director Frank Darabont has earned himself an eternal free pass in my eyes, so much so that if he spent the rest of his career punching members of my family and then urinating on me, I'd still find it hard to say a bad word against the man.

That doesn't mean, however, that his films get off scott free. I can still view them with a critical eye. This much was proven to me when I went along to see THE MAJESTIC, a film I was convinced that I would love despite the negative reviews, a film I tried desperately to love with every fibre of my being. I didn't. The film just didn't work, no matter how much I wanted it to.

THE MIST is a film I was weary of. Very little Stephen King horror translates well to the big screen (or small, for that matter), and frankly, it's not my bag at all. So when the first act of THE MIST featured characters accepting the central concept way too quickly, and leaps of logic that just didn't fit together (their justification for telling Andre Brauer about the tentacle before everyone else was what again?), I figured I was in for a bit of a long wait. See, films can't be brilliant if they don't start brilliantly. Many great films fall apart in the end, but very few get it together after a weak first act.

But that's not quite true. That's exactly how I felt about EASTERN PROMISES, a film that had me won over by its halfway point. Could THE MIST do the same? Pretty much, yeah. See, Darabont does characters pretty well. He's very good at clearly setting up their motivations, and in a film where the majority of the action takes place in a supermarket and mind games are aplenty, this is key.

I don't want to give anything away (having the advantage of going in with no prior knowledge, I wish others to have the same advantage), but if you want to get -- I mean really get -- why Darabont wanted to make this film, you gotta make it to the end. There are things in this film that I can't believe a studio let through. Either they had no idea what film he was making, or somewhere there's an executive with brass balls who should really be in charge of everything.

Okay, if I'm not going to discuss plot points or any real specifics, I should really just get down to business and tell you whether it's any good or not. It is. It's definitely worth seeing. And not just because Tom Jane is really good (I now get why there's a decent amount of web love for the man), or because Darabont brought back many of the SHAWSHANK bit players (very happy to see them back), but because this is a sucker punch of a film that makes all the recent remakes and lame slashers look even worse than they did the first time around. THE MIST is absolutely worth your time.

PS: My original review was going to be an incredibly profound look at the way Darabont dealt with hope in SHAWSHANK versus how he deals with hope in THE MIST, but I read Moriarty's Best of 2007 list, in which he makes the exact same points I was going to, but does so in a far more articulate way. So you're better off reading that.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Sometimes I don't learn about a film going in because I don't want to be spoiled. Case in point: when it looked like CLOVERFIELD has the potential to be the Next Big Thing, I avoided all spoiler information before going in. The worst thing you can do to a film is not give it a fair chance. Other times, I don't know anything about a film because there's just not that much information out there. It's only natural to get more excited about a pre-existing product like, say, Batman or Spider-man, than a dramatic foreign language film, regardless of which turns out to be better. I knew nothing about DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY because, well, I knew nothing about it.

That's a good thing, because if someone had told me I was about to watch a film about a paralysed man who learns to communicate by blinking his remaining eye (the only part of his body that still works), that the majority of the film would be shot from his point of view, and that half the film would be people reciting the alphabet in French and then writing down letters... well, I probably wouldn't have made the effort to attend the screening.

And it would have been my loss. I don't know how to tell you that the film I just described is not only brilliant, but utterly compelling... but it is. It's actually a very enjoyable film. I've seen a fair few French films over the past couple of years treat moderately-serious issues with complete dour-faced weightiness, and it's utterly tedious. Whether the subject matter deserves it or not, it's like punishing the audience is the filmmaker's way of telling you that he's dealing with Important Issues.

Given that, director Julian Schnabel should be given some sort of award (do they do that for films?) for making a tight, taut, funny, interesting film. I really can't think of too many directors who would make the choice to film it from the protagonist's point of view, given how limiting that would seem. How did he know it wouldn't be? I can't imagine being on the set during this shoot and thinking "Oh yes, this scene will be excellent!", but then I suppose that's why Schnabel is a well-respected director, and I'm a guy who writes on AICN with a pseudonym.

The film is based on a true story, and it's based on the book written by the main character, who blinked it out letter-by-letter. And the book is partly about the process of him writing the book. How meta is that?

Special mention must also go to Janusz Kaminski, who has reminded me that my cinematography love need not be confined to the great Roger Deakins. Kaminski has always been a great DP, but this may well be his best work. Between his lensing and the dream-like narration/soundscape that recalls RUSSIAN ARK, this is a film with a synopsis that sounds like utter torture, but start-to-finish, it's utter perfection. An absolute contender for my favourite film of the year, and one that I'm dying to see again.

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

I should start by telling you that I was geared against SWEENEY TODD from the beginning.

It wasn't because of my usual hesitation when it comes to Tim Burton films (I like him a lot, I just think his direction is surface-level and over-praised, but more on that later). Nor was it because I have some sort of bias against musicals. Actually, they're my favourite type of film, and Sondheim is one of my absolutely favourites (I lost count of how many times I watched the original Joanna Gleason stage production as a kid, but I'm pretty sure I wore well through that VHS). No, it's because SWEENEY TODD is a very personal thing to me.

See, the only times I'd seen the musical had been in two separate productions, as a child. In both, my uncle played the titular character. When the feature film version was announced, the feeling in my gut told me that unless Warner Bros. actually brought my uncle back to life and gave him the lead role, I was not going to be praising this film in the least.

Of course, I'm being just a little facetious here. I was, as it turned out, able to divorce myself from my childhood memories enough to enjoy this as its own variation. See, my problems with most Burton films is that his style really just does exist on the surface. Whereas the wild and crazy shot designs of Terry Gilliam actually contain massive amounts of meaning and depth that can quite figuratively blow your mind if you stop to look at them, Burton's wild and crazy shot designs are just there for pure visceral effect. And that would be fine on its own, except for the heaping praise that's always thrown his way. He's not the alternative maverick he's made out to be; he's a very studio-friendly director who likes thinks a bit darker and gothicky than other people. On that level, I really do enjoy his films. So my enjoyment of SWEENEY TODD came from the fact that the depth and meaning required exists in the music. Sondheim's already done the hard yards. What the screen adaptation needed was a spit and polish from a visual director who knows how to frame a shot well, and that's what Burton does. The perfect marriage of subject matter and filmmaker.

Then, of course, we come to Johnny Depp. It would have been so much easier for me to direct my mournful disdain at the film had they cast someone wildly inappropriate, or even vaguely inappropriate. Sadly, Burton gave the job to Depp, who is -- and this may come as a shock to you if you've been living under a rock since July 16, 1990, the day that Depp's final episode of "21 Jump Street" aired (god, I love the internet) -- one of the best actors on the planet. Also, he's someone who would not only suit, but also embrace the utter awfulness of Sweeney Todd. See, Todd's not a likable guy. He's a scarred guy who has chosen to exact his revenge in the most horrific way possible.

The best parts involve Sweeney's interaction with the other characters. The way Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter play the relationship between Depp and Mrs Lovett is perfect. Depp's scenes with Rickman are truly edge-of-your-seat stuff. His scenes with Sacha Baron Cohen are sublime.

It really is a perfectly-cast film, and that's one of the keys to getting this sort of film right. The other thing is production design, and because it's a Burton film, you know you don't need to worry about that. When Sweeney sings his opening lines about what he thinks of London, you instantly understood why Burton was the guy for this film. London is depicted as being utterly horrible (as Todd sees it), but that horribleness is still presented to us in a very appealing way, just like in... well, any one of his films.

I suppose that on one hand, I was the prime audience for this film, loving Sondheim as I do. On the other, I had a personal reaction against it, which I suppose meant I broke even. I was a neutral audience member. And as such, I loved the hell out of this film.

NEXT WEEK

- Renee Zellweger, desperate for her own big budget fantasy franchise, signs on for sequel BEATRIX POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF NUTKIN

- Sam Mendes follows up ROAD TO PERDITION with ROAD TO SAGINAW where Michael Sullivan Jnr meets up with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on a journey across Michigan

- Peter Berg will next write and direct a film that studies both the July 2007 machine-gun attempt on the life of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, and the fact that Pakistan's constitution does not allow for a vice-president, in I SHOT MUSHARRAF (BUT I COULD NOT SHOOT HIS DEPUTY)

Peace out,

Latauro
AICNDownunder@hotmail.com