Sounds Like Cinema

Short Film Month: Week 1

2012-02-08T14:51:00.000+13:00

The first week started with some of my all-time favourite shorts. If you're wondering where Day 1 is, it received a stand-alone post to help even things out. The titles link to the short film in question; if any go dead, I'll try to replace them as soon as possible.

Day 2. EVERYTHING WILL BE OK (DonHertzfeldt, 2006)

I made a rule that I wouldn’t include more than oneshort by a director, and thus found myself with a tough decision as to which Hertzfeldtto include. In the end, I went with the one short I’ve watched more times thanany other. This heart-breaking tale of an average man (right?) is the first part of atrilogy that includes I AM SO PROUD OF YOU (2008) and IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY,which is currently touring around the USA, and I can’t wait to see formyself. Hertzfeldt’s style is instantly recognisable and he remains a truly independentfilmmaker, earning a living through his website, bitter films. I recommend you visit, andscoop up some merchandise.

Day 3. 7:35 IN THE MORNING (Nacho Vigalondo, 2003)

If you don’t speak Spanish, be sure to turn closed captions on! Vigalondo’s Academy Award-nominated short appears to be a rather sloppy musical number, and although that's certainly the case, there’s a lot more going on here. Since the turn of the century, the musical has enjoyed a surge in popularity. The rules of the genre are quite clear: spontaneous synchronised song and dance, everybody having a great time, and the good guy ending up with the girl. I think more and more people have had that thought where they wished life was more like a musical. In this short, one man decides to take steps to make this a reality.

Day 4. THE FROG,THE DOG, AND THE DEVIL (Bob Stenhouse, 1986)

Another rule said that I wouldn’t talk about filmsalready covered on this blog, which ruled out nine NZ shorts I recommended in Five Essential New Zealand Short Films and Kiwi Halloween Playlist (all still worth checking out). Notto worry though, there’s plenty more to explore, including this AcademyAward-nominee. This is a beautifully animated ode to the NZ rural drunkard. Ourprotagonist has a scam going to score himself some free booze, but hiscomeuppance arrives in a devilish form.

Day 5. TREEVENGE (Jason Eisener, 2008)

In between the trailer and feature versions of HOBO WITH ASHOTGUN, Eisener made this demented exploitation film. Everything you need toknow can be found in the title: it’s about trees... these trees seek revenge. Bygiving the Christmas trees sentient thoughts, suddenly being hit with an axe bydrunken, foul-mouthed lumberjacks seems as horrifying as it sounds. Theold-school gore effects are most welcome, but just like his better-knownfeature, this short leaves a somewhat nasty aftertaste. It’s best to not thinkabout it too much and just sit back and enjoy the splatter.

Day 6. BALANCE (Wolfgang andChristoph Lauenstein, 1989)

Work together or perish! This short is a rather simpleparable, with a hint of complexity introduced through the numbers written onthe backs of the otherwise identical characters. Personally, I don’t know whatthe numbers mean – perhaps nothing? It’s interesting that it’s the introductionof music that brings about the downfall of this micro-society. What does thatsay about art? This film is itself a great work of art; let’s introduce it toanother society and watch it crumble.

Day 7. FLATLIFE (JonasGeirnaert, 2004)

The rhythms of four adjacent flats are on display in this humorousshort which won a Jury Prize at Cannes. Using a predominantly static short ofall four flats, we see the effect each person has on the others. Some cleversight-gags keep this film interesting, with the one involving the panda havinga particularly good pay-off. Be sure to stay until the end of the credits,where we get to see just how well they each solve their problem of having annoyingneighbours.

Day 8. L'ETRANGE PORTRAIT DE LA DAMEEN JAUNE (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, 2004)

A single camera films an odd patch of floor at a ratherstrange angle in this engrossing horror short. Black gloves, unnaturallighting, sex, death, glass, water, flowers – this film ticks all the giallo boxes. This directorial pair madeseveral horror shorts in their spare-time before eventually making their debutfeature, AMER, one of my favouritefilms of 2010.

In the words of John Landis, see you next Wednesday!

Short Film Month: My DEATH TO THE TINMAN Story

2012-02-01T19:10:00.000+13:00

2012 is a leap year, so instead of exactly four weeks of 28films in February, we have four weeks and one day. That extra day messes withmy weekly roundups, so I’ve decided to give one film a post all of its own.

Here’s a story I’ve told many times but never actually writtendown:

In Wellington a few years ago, I woke one morning withboth a massive hangover and a ticket to a Film Festival session that started inless than an hour. The session was called ‘World of Shorts’ and featured manyshort films that had been collected throughout the year from various other filmfestivals around the globe. As I love short films as much as I do, I quickly stumbled into apair of pants and a t-shirt and ran to the cinema. I arrived with a few minutesto spare, so I decided I best get a drink to help ease the headache anddehydration. I was surprised to find that local beverage L&P was nowavailable in a glass bottle, so I ordered one. The bartender (it was that kindof cinema) went to take the top off it with his bottle opener when he said, “Ohhang on, it’s twist-top,” and handed it to me. We all shuffled into the theatreand the lights dimmed. I tried to open my bottle, but it was a struggle. Istrained and twisted and pulled but the metal cap wouldn’t budge. Just as I was thinking that the bartender must have been mistaken, the cap finally popped off.

From here on out, I started consuming the greatest drinkI’d ever had in my life, while watching the greatest short films I’d ever seenin my life.

The credits of the final film rolled, the lights came up, and I sat back in my chair exhausted by the cinematic bliss I had just satthrough. Those films were why I love the medium! That session was why I lovecinema!

At this point I noticed my hands were covered in blood.

What the hell!? I buried them into my pocketsand hurried off to clean up. Although the L&P bottle was certainlytwist-top, I didn’t realise the metal cap had torn my hands to shreds as Istruggled to get into it! The damage was superficial but a strange thought occurred, one I just couldn't shake...had I really enjoyed those films as much as I thought or wasit merely endorphins rushing through my body to help ease the pain and repairmy hands?

Maybe I didn't have such a great grasp on how the human body works, and maybe it was just an absurd thought, but it did seem like myreaction to the films was a little strong. I needed to see them again. Moreimportantly I needed to see that one film that somehow stood out amongst allthe others:

Day 1. DEATH TO THE TINMAN (RayTintori, 2007)

Tintori’s short film serves as a prequel to THE WIZARD OFOZ where we learn how the Tinman came to be, and how he lost his heart. Themagic and fantasy elements of THE WIZARD OF OZ have been replaced by miraclesand religious events. It’s beautifully shot in black and white with a wonderfulscore that keeps the energy high. Its narration is deadpan but witty, itscharacter’s are archetypes but well-rounded, and its story is meticulouslyplotted so that throw-away gags and references from the first half suddenlytake on a greater meaning in the second.

I hunted online for weeks after that first screening,looking for any sign of the film – where it was screening, how it was beingreceived. Finally, I stumbled across a copy and quickly snapped it up. That curious combination of cut hands, L&P, and a hangover was not necessary to enjoy this film – it was just as brilliant as I had remembered. I showed it to asmany friends as I could, wanting them to share in the experience.

Nowadays, short films are usually not as much of a struggleto track down, as most wind up streaming online. The experience may be a loteasier to find, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Over the rest ofthe month, I’ll be recommending 28 more experiences. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, check back every Wednesday for links to seven more of my favouriteshort films.

Short Film Month: Intro

2012-02-01T18:37:00.000+13:00

A short introduction to what you can expect on the blogthis February. Yes, it’s a short month, but by Short Film Month, I’m actuallyreferring to the length of the films I’ll be recommending. If you follow me on twitter, I’ll be tweeting a link to one of my favourite short films every day.If you don’t have twitter, or miss the tweet in question, check back every Wednesdaywhere I’ll be doing a weekly round-up of links to each film – plus a shortwrite-up explaining why I love it and/or chose it.

I’ve always been fairly obsessed with short films as anartistic medium, presumably due to my love of re-watching films over and overagain until they’ve been burned into my memory. Although there are plenty of featurefilms that I’ve seen so many times I can anticipate every beat, it’s much easierto re-watch something with a running time of 40 minutes or less.

For those wondering why I’ve cited 40 minutes as themaximum length, that’s how long you’re film can be, including credits, in orderto qualify for an Academy Award for Best Short Film (either Live Action orAnimated). The Oscars used to determine what qualified as a short based on thelength of a film reel; there were categories for both One-Reel and Two-Reelfilms, but they changed the criteria in 1957 in order to just have one LiveAction short winner.

Of course, not every film I’ve chosen for the month wasan Oscar contender. There’s been an explosion in short filmmaking and shortfilm competitions since the rise of digital cinema and thanks to sites such asYouTube and Vimeo, it’s never been easier to track down and share great shorts.The majority of films I’ll be linking to are hosted on those sites, but othersare found on the artists’ official pages. I’ve uploaded none of the filmsmyself, I merely sat down and wrote out a list of as many great shorts I couldthink of, and then went on a scavenger hunt through-out the web.

If you’re visiting the blog from the near- ordistant-future, I can’t guarantee each of the films are still live. If any ofthe links go dead, you should let me know and I’ll try to change them for freshones. Other than that, at least you’ll know the title of the film and perhaps be able to hunt it down yourself.

The shorts I’ve selected run from anywhere between 2 to40 minutes, from the 1950s to November last year. They’re live action, animationor a mixture of the two. They’re shot on film, digital, or assembled fromphotographs. They’re by world-renowned directors, or artists you’ve never heardof. I’ve tried to mix it up as much as possible.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and I’m very interested in hearing your own favourites.

My Top 10 Films of 2011

2012-01-01T13:12:00.000+13:00

Same as last year, there’s no separation of documentaryand narrative, released and unreleased, and no honourable mentions. It’s justthe top 10 films that enriched my 2011.

10. TINY FURNITURE (Lena Dunham)

Lena Dunham directs, writes, and stars as Aura in thishilarious tale of post-Uni disaffection. Aura’s struggle to find her placeafter obtaining a film degree might have cut a little close to the bone for me,but that just made it all the more enjoyable. It comes out on DVD throughCriterion in February and I’ll be scooping up a copy.

9. HANNA (Joe Wright)

I only watched this film two days ago but it instantlyfound a spot in my Top 10. The story and lead performances by Eric Bana, SaoirseRonan and Cate Blanchett didn’t do much for me but in terms of visual and auralpleasure – this film gets full marks. An energetic soundtrack by The ChemicalBrothers and a terrific supporting cast in Jason Flemyng, Olivia Williams andespecially Tom Hollander make this a film I want to revisit again and again. Ican’t get that whistle out of my head.

8. SUPER (James Gunn)

You’re a mad bastard, SUPER. This film was the last I sawat the Melbourne Film Festival and it was a great high to go out on. While itcertainly earns marks for its deconstruction of the superhero genre, I love thefilm more for its many dark, surreal moments. Rainn Wilson burying a pipe-wrenchinto the skull of a man for cutting in line at a movie? So terrible, yet soterrific. I love films that are rough around the edges and this flick was amongthe roughest I’ve ever seen!

7. I SAW THE DEVIL (Kim Ji-woon)

It’s no secret that Kim Ji-woon’s A BITTERSWEET LIFE is notonly my favourite Korean film, but one of my favourite films of all time. His follow-up,THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD left me cold but this year saw a return to formwith this twisted revenge film. Kim Ji-woon regular Lee Byung-hun starsopposite OLDBOY’s Choi Min-sik. Just which one is “I” and which one is “thedevil” becomes harder to distinguish as the film progresses.

6. MIDNIGHT INPARIS (Woody Allen)

In a year where I became more and more frustrated atartists trying to live in the past, Woody Allen seemed to take it upon himselfto make a film on why that’s not such a great idea. I loved its message thatnostalgia can only get you so far, and I enjoyed discovering what Wes Andersonfans have known for years – Owen Wilson can give a fantastic performance. Thefilm was stolen by a hilarious supporting cast though, with Alison Pill’s ZeldaFitzgerald, Adrien Brody’s Salvador Dali and Corey Stoll’s Ernest Hemmingwayproviding a lot of laughs. The best Allen in years – possibly decades!

5. TAKE SHELTER (Jeff Nichols)

The director and star of SHOTGUN STORIES, Jeff Nicholsand Michael Shannon, team up again for this tale of a man struggling to keep ahold of his sanity and his family. The apocalyptic visions that plague him seemto stem from his anxiety attacks, but they appear as real to the audience asthey do to him. Extremely powerful performances and an unforgettable endingearn this film a space in my top 5.

4. DRIVE (Nicolas Winding Refn)

This is definitely one of those films I was talking aboutwhere the artist is trying to live in the past, however through sheer levels ofawesome (an ’80s word) this film ranks very high for me. It has possibly myfavourite soundtrack of the year, with Cliff Martinez’s biggest competition comingfrom himself (CONTAGION). Gosling, Brooks, Mulligan, Cranston and Hendricks areall a joy to watch (or at least to look at), and I can’t wait for NicolasWinding Refn’s next outing.

3. TABLOID (Errol Morris)

I probably had more fun watching this film than any otherin 2011. It was a hilarious and fascinating documentary by master filmmakerErrol Morris. I’m not sure you come out of TABLOID with a very clear idea ofwhat exactly happened with Joyce McKinney and her manacled-Mormon lover, whichmight be a turn-off for some documentary fans, but it is one hell of a talethat deserves to be heard. The people being interviewed are all entertaining andinsightful with McKinney clearly enjoying the spotlight again falling onher. For those who have never seen an Errol Morris film, this is a perfectplace to start.

2. SNOWTOWN (Justin Kurzel)

This film is extremely grisly viewing, and definitely notfor everyone, but I was completely enthralled by it. Justin Kurzel’s debuttackles Australia’s infamous Snowtownmurders committed by a group of men led by the charismatic John Bunting. DanielHenshall gives the best performance of the year with great support from newcomersLucas Pittaway and Louise Harris. For those who grew up in small towns, you’llbe familiar with how an idea can infect a community. Here we have that taken toits most evil extreme.

1. THE YELLOW SEA (Na Hong-jin)

The best film of the year was this Korean blockbusterthat puts Hollywood to shame. As soon as the credits rolled I knew it would behard for another film to beat it and only SNOWTOWN really came close. Writer-directorNa Hong-jin crafts an extremely entertaining thriller with remarkable scope andambition. It’s a film rich in subtext for those willing to look a littledeeper, but the spectacular fight sequences and incredible chase scenes offeran immediate thrill. Track this one down as soon as you can.

If you’re favourite film of the year wasn’t on the list I assure you it was definitely number 11. Judging from how hard it was to pick my most anticipated for 2012, we’ve a very exciting year ahead of us. Can’t wait.

2011 Year in Review (Part 2 of 2)

2011-12-31T14:28:00.002+13:00

Following on from yesterday’s post we have six more awards.

Best MusicalMoment

1. DRIVE – “Oh My Love”

2. KABOOM – “The Bitter End”

I’m not sure why DRIVE dug up Riz Ortolani’s “Oh My Love (feat.Katyna Ranieri),” first heard in the 1971 Italian film GOODBYE UNCLE TOM. Evenwatching the scene [spoiler] I’m not really sure why it’s there. Is it a style-for-the-sake-of-stylemoment and I’m embarrassing myself by trying to find something deeper within?Probably. All I know is I really love this song and its strange, unrequiteduse somehow enriches it all the more. DRIVE was full of great music moments; Icould have made an entire Top Five list just using tracks from the film.

That’s unfair to the rest of cinema though, so I’ll turnmy attention to Greg Araki’s sex apocalypse KABOOM. I should probably fix thegrammar in that previous sentence but reading it like that makes me smile toomuch. KABOOM is a film that’s packed full of ideas and colour and both tend toclash. It builds towards a bizarre climax set to Placebo’s aptly titled “TheBitter End.” I laughed all the way through.

Most Talked About

1. THE TREE OF LIFE

2. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE)

The film so divisive to most that one cinema had to put a warning label on it, but THE TREE OF LIFE was very well-received in criticalcircles. It topped Sight & Sound’s poll and Metacritic’s aggregated end of year list. Love it or hate it, there was a period in the middle of the year when it seemed this wasthe only film anyone was ever talking about.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE sequel follows in its predecessor’s footstepsto earn a spot on this list. The first film was ‘Most Talked About’ due to itsbizarre premise that dared you to watch it. For this second outing, we’re well-aware ofwhat a ‘human centipede’ is, but director Tom Six promised to raise the stakes.He may have over-done it. The film was refused classification in the UK withthe BBFC giving a list of complaints that served as a spoiler for everyshocking moment. Six wasn’t happy, but after some editing it was granted an 18certificate. In Australia, the film was initially given an R18+ rating but the NSWAttorney General, Greg Smith, was less than impressed and successfully lobbiedto have the film banned. After some edits, the film is again set for re-release.What a mess.

HighestNon-Franchise Grosses

1. THE HELP

2. BRIDESMAIDS

This is my annual, factual award that looks at whichfilms managed to gross the highest in North America without the help of apre-existing brand. At the time of writing, these two films sit at 11th and 12th with $169 million each. Not one stand-alone film cracked the top 10 ina year dominated by sequels and comic book adaptations. I never saw THE HELP, but BRIDESMAIDS definitely deserves to be seen by many.

The Long Take Award

1. HANNA

2. THE TURIN HORSE

I never saw any moments quite like last year’swinners, THE BOOK OF ELI and THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES. Those were mind-blowingCGI-aided long takes that stretched so far they approached the absurd. However,HANNA still offered up one fantastic sequence that lasts exactly three minutes.Eric Bana gets off a bus, crosses a street, moves through the bus terminal,then realises he’s being watched. There’s some less-than-subtle eye imagerycovering the walls of the street he then turns down. He moves onto an escalatorthat takes him into an underground complex where his pursuer continues to tailhim. At this point, several more men appear and Eric Bana beats the ever-lovinghell out of them. All in one long take! Climaxing a very long take with a fightsequence must be nightmarish to negotiate – you’d have to go back to the start ifsomething goes wrong and the actor has to do his own stunts. Totally worth it.

Béla Tarr has claimed (jokingly?) that the length of aroll of film is a form of censorship. THE TURIN HORSE contains only 30 shotsbut lasts 146minutes. You do the math.

Best Feature Debut

1. SNOWTOWN – Justin Kurzel

2. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE – Sean Durkin

I think I’m pouring all my ‘local cinema’ love that I had for BOY last year onto SNOWTOWN this year. Because no New Zealand film did anything for me, my mind widened the net as to what it considered ‘local.’ Kuzel’s debut is a grisly outing that won’t be for everyone, but completely blew me away. He’s definitely one to keep an eye on, as SNOWTOWN is so unique, I can’t even imagine what sort of film he’ll make next.

The title that was on everyone’s lips during the film festivals; or at least it would have been if it wasn’t so hard to remember. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE was a very strong debut from director Sean Durkin which is currently finding its way onto many end of year Top 10 lists. It’s a haunting, psychological drama that gets great performances out of its entire cast. I really hope Durkin teams up with John Hawkes again.

No Milk in myComedy, thanks

1. SUPER

2. THE WOMAN

Black comedy of the year was a very easy choice for me asSUPER was the darkest, strangest, most hilarious film I saw in 2011. Its ‘Whyhas nobody ever thought of being a superhero?’ premise may have been a littleoverused by the time the film found release but the results are certainlyunique. Rainn Wilson in the role he was born to play (sorry Rainn, it’s true,don’t fight it) dons a misshapen red costume and calls himself the CrimsonBolt. With his trusty kid sidekick (Ellen Paige, who has never made me laughharder) they fight ‘crime’ with bloody results. Terrific.

I’ve been told that THE WOMAN isn’t a comedy. Are yousure? The ridiculous use of music, the exaggerated characters and the absurdpremise had be cracking up all the way through. Well, perhaps it just sayssomething about me, but I’d hate to be the sort of person that watches this andtakes it dead-serious!

I’ll publish my Top 10 films of 2011 tomorrow, so be sureto check back, it’ll make for some good hangover reading.

Happy New Years.

2011 Year in Review (Part 1 of 2)

2011-12-30T21:29:00.000+13:00

Did you see a lot of movies this year? I did. I brokeevery personal record I had, but still feel I could have worked harder to see more. Thosefamiliar with the blog know that I have a (fairly recent, let’s be honest)tradition of posting an awards-based Year in Review on the two days leading upto the new year before unveiling a Top 10 on January 1st. It’s a snap-shot ofhow I experienced the year weaving though festival films and general releases.A lot of the ‘awards’ are the same every year, but there are a few that have tobe retired when no suitable film presents itself.

Let’s get started:

Best Trailer

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

2. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

I’ll be the first to admit that these two trailers arequite similar – quick shots of unexplained imagery set to repetitive music.DRAGON TATTOO comes out on top though for combining Karen O, Trent Reznor andLed Zepplin. Further bonus points for it being “leaked.” Perhaps if you’veread the book or seen the Swedish film you’d have a better idea of what wasbeing shown. Me? I didn’t have a clue; I just knew I wanted to get amongst it.

The ‘MercifullyGood’ Award

1. THE TURIN HORSE

2. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

If it really was to be Béla Tarr’s final film, I’m surewe all hoped it would be a great one. I found it a lesser work, but still agreat experience, one that enriches the man’s oeuvre. I sincerely hope hecontinues to make films, but THE TURIN HORSE was a fine swan song.

Second-time winner Woody Allen could take this award out every year. Seriously! I love the man so muchthat I just *need* each new film to still be good. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS was notonly mercifully good, it was one of the best films of the year and my favouriteAllen film in a long time.

BiggestDisappointment

1. SCREAM 4

2. THE GUARD

I really wanted the latest instalment of SCREAM to be a returnto form of the first two films, not a sad reminder of the third one. I knowmany still love the third and greatly enjoyed the fourth, but for me this wasthe film that kicked off a spiralling dislike for films and TV obsessed with films and TV. DRIVE and the TV show COMMUNITY suffered the most, but Istill love them due to an ability to entertain beyond mere allusion andpastiche. SCREAM 4 didn’t have this ability.

Everyone seems to love THE GUARD but me. That’s fine. I thinkI’d been sold on a different movie. The trailer made it look like a version ofIrvine Welsh’s “Filth” that leaned a bit heavier on the comedy. “I thought onlyblack lads were drug dealers... and Mexicans?” says Sergeant Gerry Boyle in the trailer, followed by silence. In the film itself he admits he’s just jokingaround, he’s not nearly that ignorant. Writer-Director John Michael McDonagh has a brother named Martin who made the excellentIN BRUGES. Martin’s script was one of the most carefully plotted films I’ve everseen. Every piece of information was relevant, often in unexpected ways. JohnMichael’s script is full of intentional red herrings. I was a disappointed butI guess I have nobody but myself to blame. I’ll give THE GUARD another try at alater date.

To the Torrents!Award

1. ATTACK THE BLOCK

2. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

I’m starting to think I should rename this annual award,given to the best-looking films yet to make it to New Zealand cinemas butreadily available online. It’s a different climate now. Some were lucky enoughto see ATTACK THE BLOCK at the 24 Hour Movie Marathon; I doubt many others willwait until it’s released on the 29th of March.

As for WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, I haven’t seen ityet. I just really want to. And if I can’t wait until the 1st of March, I knowwhere to find it.

Strangest Film Writing

1. “How I punk'd the Twitterverse”

2. “Absurd Source Code Repeats Its Mistakes, Eight Minutes at a Time”

Here’s a new category. On the 13th of April, AustralianNewspaper “The Age” published online Jim Schembri’s review of the movie SCREAM4. Within the review, Schrembri accidentally committed a sin of movie reviewingby giving away the killer’s identity. After an uproar, the review was soonaltered to avoid such a spoiler. Over a week later, Schrembri responded to thecontroversy with “How I punk'd the Twitterverse,” one of the most bizarre,rambling pieces of writing I’ve ever come across in which he claimed he plannedto ruin the film on purpose as part of some sort of demented experiment. I didn’tenjoy SCREAM 4, but it deserved better than this.

“Absurd Source Code Repeats Its Mistakes, Eight Minutesat a Time” was a review by Elvis Mitchell for the popular blog Movie Linepublished on March 31st. Mitchell ultimately concludes that the film’s idea is greaterthan its execution, “somewhere under allthat bloat is the greatest short subject of all time.” Even though I disagree,that’s not the main issue with the piece. Mitchell mentions that Jeffrey Wright’scharacter smokes a pipe. Director Duncan Jones may have been one of the first to point out that Wright doesn’t smoke a pipe in the film – it was somethingthey had in an earlier draft of the script but never used. So what happened?Did Mitchell even see the film? I don’t know, but I do know he doesn’t work forMovie Line anymore.

Best Performance

1. Daniel Henshall – SNOWTOWN

2. Michael Shannon – TAKE SHELTER

I know I should probably expand my Best Performance pickto create divisions between genders and lead/supporting, but you’ve plenty ofaward shows that give you four or more winners. These are just my two favouriteperformances of the year without qualification.

Henshall is outstanding inSNOWTOWN as the charismatic but twisted real-life serial killer John Bunting.It’s tough work making it believable that so many people would get swept up inhis madness, but Henshall absolutely nails the role. As it was his featuredebut, he instantly becomes one to watch in the future.

Michael Shannon is probably most known for his ongoing rolein the TV show BOARDWALK EMPIRE or perhaps for his Oscar-nominated turn in REVOLUTIONARYROAD. Soon he’ll be known primarily for his role as villain General Zod in thenew Superman film. Right now I can’t think of him as anything other than CurtisLaForche in TAKE SHELTER. He suffers from anxiety attacks and apocalyptic visions,and it’s unclear whether one stems from the other. It’s an unforgettableperformance and I’ve heard people suffering from similar ailments vouch for itsauthenticity.

Tomorrow we have six more ‘awards,’ including BestFeature Debut and Best Musical Moment...

My 12 Most Anticipated Films for 2012

2011-12-04T17:11:00.001+13:00

This time last year I unveiled my 11 Most Anticipated Films for 2011. Looking back I see that they were an odd bunch, but my taste infilm has always been fairly eclectic and esoteric. Not all of them werewinners, but some still blew me away and some still remain to be seen. Mycurrent Top 10 for 2011 only includes one film from that list as the best filmsof the year were the ones I weren’t expecting. Let’s not talk about thatthough, I’ll unveil my favourites on January 1st – as is my way.

Let’s look ahead to the future! This list is far more “mainstream” than last year's one and is admittedly lacking in foreign titles and documentaries. I’m expecting (and hoping) that all of thesefilms get released next year but there’s no guarantee. Films that have an Americanrelease in 2011 but an international release in 2012 unfortunately tend to getlost in the shuffle.

They're in alphabetical order and I've linked to atrailer where available:

THE ABCs OF DEATH (Various)

The brainchild of Ant Timpson & Tim League, this anthologyfilm is made up of 26 different chapters, each corresponding with a letter ofthe alphabet and a different way to die. A worldwide contest was held to findthe “The 26th Director” with the winning entry being T IS FOR TOILET. Who arethe other directors? A smorgasbord of cult indie auteurs, some of whom onlyhave one feature under their belt: Nacho Vigalondo (TIMECRIMES), Hélène Cattet &Bruno Forzani (AMER), Ti West (THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL), Ben Wheatley (KILLLIST), Adam Wingard (POP SKULL), Srdjan Spasojevic (A SERBIAN FILM) and more.

Trailer (for the contest films).

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Christopher Nolan)

I don’t enjoy Anne Hathaway. At all. Her smile bugs meand I think she ruins films. I mention this upfront because her role as SelinaKyle aka Catwoman is the only thing stopping me from being 100% excited forthis film. I’m sure Nolan knows what he’s doing though. I’d argue that he’snever made a bad film and has even made some masterpieces – THE DARK KNIGHTbeing a possible contender there. Tom Hardy as Bane is probably awesome enoughto counterbalance the Catwoman casting and having Joseph Gordon-Levitt on boardis another definite plus. Let’s see how Nolan wraps this up.

Trailer.

DJANGO UNCHAINED (Quentin Tarantino)

Joseph Gordon-Levittalso has a role in Tarantino’s latest – alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, SachaBaron Cohen, Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Kurt Russell and (of course) Samuel LJackson. Foxx plays Django, a slave who escapes and becomes a bounty hunter.Details are a little slim at this stage but after INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS blew meaway, I say bring on the next!

GOD BLESS AMERICA (Bobcat Goldthwait)

Bobcat Goldthwait’s previous two films were blackcomedies that went places nobody else had ever touched. They found comedy inthe darkest, strangest material and although I didn’t think too highly ofSLEEPING DOGS LIE, I was in awe of WORLD’S GREATEST DAD and it's embarrassingly high on my list of all-time favourite films. His latest filmstars Joel Murray, an actor recognised more for his supporting roles on MAD MENand DHARMA & GREG. He plays a man who is sick of all the stupidity in theworld (well, in America, at least) and goes on a killing spree to try wipe outas much of it as he can.

LOOPER (Rian Johnson)

When I first saw Rian Johnson’s BRICK I fell asleep. Itwas no fault of the film, I was just exceptionally tired and it wasn’t my firstfilm of the day. I left the cinema thinking it was a pretty good effort, but itwasn’t until I watched it all the way through later that I realised just howgreat it really is – a modern indie classic. His follow-up THE BROTHERS BLOOMwas underwhelming but hopes are high for LOOPER – a sci-fi flick about hitmenthat are sent from the future. Very keen.

THE MASTER (Paul Thomas Anderson)

I spent the entire year working on a University projectabout PTA’s films (it was about their relationship to 1970s cinema in case you’recurious). Everyone asked me at the start, “Aren’t you worried you’ll get sickof him?” To be honest, I was a little – it’s happened before. Luckily thereverse occurred and I ended up loving him all the more. Every single film isfantastic, a near-masterpiece or higher. It’s been far too long since his lastouting (2007!) and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next (then spendall my time ranting about its relationship to 1970s cinema).

NERO FIDDLED (Woody Allen)

After making Spain and Paris look gorgeous (and doing thebest he could for London), Allen directs another film set outside his home country.He rounds up a fantastic cast – including Jessie Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, EllenPage, Judy Davis, Greta Gerwig and Roberto Benigni – and takes them to Rome forthis four-part anthology (admittedly, Benigni was probably already there).Allen himself also has a role, his first time in front of the camera since 2006’sSCOOP. I’ve had a great year revisiting his old comedies and MIDNIGHT IN PARISwas fantastic – next please!

SKYFALL (Sam Mendes)

The latest Bond film sees Daniel Craig return to the rolehe excelled in during CASINO ROYALE and showed up for during QUANTUM OF SOLACE.Mendes in the director’s chair is an exciting choice and it will be shot byRoger Deakins. Add Javier Bardem as the main villain and Ralph Fiennes andAlbert Finney in undisclosed roles and this is looking like one promisingouting for the long-running film series.

STOKER (Park Chan-wook)

Both Kim Jee-woon and Park Chan-wook are directingEnglish language films for their next project but Kim's film (LASTSTAND) looks like it won’t arrive until 2013. Based on a script by WentworthMiller (former-star of PRISON BREAK) STOKER stars Mia Wasikowska as a girl whose formerlyunknown uncle (Matthew Goode) moves in with her and her mother (Nicole Kidman)after her father dies in a car-crash. It’s apparently a psychological thriller,and you’d expect nothing less from the director.

THIS IS FORTY (Judd Apatow)

I don’t think I need to go on about how much I adore THEFORTY-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN vs how much I loathe FUNNY PEOPLE as it’s ground I’vecovered often (KNOCKED UP was okay). Details are scarce but THIS IS FORTY stars Apatow’susual suspects (i.e. his family) alongside Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, Megan Fox, AlbertBrooks and John Lithgow. I'm hoping it's a return to form.

TWYLIGHT ZONES (David Chase)

Ha! Will adding an awkward “Y” avoid confusion with apopular TV anthology series? Or an even more popular vampire novel and filmseries? Just look at that title! I really hope they change it. Chase was the creator, showrunnerand head writer for THE SOPRANOS and this will be his feature debut. It’s setin the 1960s and stars James Gandolfini as “a postwar, post-Depression eraparent who has given his kid every advantage that he didn’t have growing up,but now can’t help feeling jealous of the liberated, more adventurous destinyhis son is able to enjoy.” (Chase’s own words.) Sounds good to me.

WRONG (Quentin Dupieux)

I wasn’t the biggest fan of RUBBER (aka “that weirdkiller tyre movie”) when I first saw it, but I must admit it’s grown on me.Perhaps it’s my love for messy, ambiguous films that has blossomed in the lastyear and a half? I think that very same blossoming love has a good chance of enjoying hisnext film. I don’t know what it’s about. Just watch the trailer and seeif you can figure it out.

Trailer.

I think it’s going to be a good year.

I Need a New Favourite Film of All Time

2011-11-22T20:22:00.001+13:00

That’s right – I *need* a new favourite film. It’s notenough to simply no longer cite my current favourite when people ask. “I don’thave one,” I could say. “I love them all,” I could lie.

No. I would feel incomplete. I have a long history of havingmy favourite artistic endeavours locked-down: Album – The Downward Spiral byNine Inch Nails. Song – Common People by Pulp. Painting – Metamorphosis ofNarcissus by Salvador Dalí. Novel – The Double by José Saramago. Film – PRIMER byShane Carruth.

Good ol’ PRIMER. I used to watch that film whenever I had aspare 80 minutes. Last year, when it looked as though THE WOLFMAN was going tobe the film that closed my 2010, I threw on PRIMER at about 10pm on the 31st inorder to quickly slot it in. Maybe it’s just me, but I never want to end theyear on a cinematic down note (which THE WOLFMAN definitely was).

Only three films have held the status of my favourite film.JERRY MAGUIRE was the first film I absolutely loved when I was in my teens –definitely an odd choice, but that was always another tick in the ‘pros’ column.Then I saw A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and that overtook JERRY MAGUIRE. Then I sawPRIMER and that overtook A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. I expected to see another filmthat would overtake PRIMER but instead I’ve just found my appreciation forthe film waning. I can think of dozens of films I would prefer, but I’m notsure what should take the top spot.

I think a favourite film should be two partsGenuinely-Awesome-Movie and one part Personal-Significance. As the list ofgenuinely-awesome-movies I’ve seen is extremely long, I thought it best toexamine that other crucial factor. What films have had the greatest impact onmy life?

RESERVOIR DOGS

I first saw this film when I was about 14 and when the final credits rolledI went into the kitchen and announced to my mother that I wanted to be adirector. “Do you mean like the director of a company?” she replied. Yes, itwas a different time back then, but luckily THE LORD OF THE RINGS was justaround the corner and soon a film director didn’t seem such a foreign occupationto have (although it still totally is). The desire to be a director isn’t as strong as it once was (I preferwriting) but this film was still the catalyst in terms of my cinematicambitions.

BILLY ELLIOT

I went to an all-boys high school so it took a lot of guts for our Englishteacher to try getting us to accept a film about a young boy who does ballet – especiallywhen word got out that our sister school was doing THE MATRIX! It seemed alittle backwards, but we made it work. BILLY ELLIOT is genuinely a fantasticfilm but there’s one moment in particular that earns it a place here. The titular character is angry and dancing up a storm outside. He reaches a wall andstarts pounding against it while still dancing. Beyond the wall, the ocean can be seenand a single boat sails upon the water. “What do you think that boatsymbolises?” asked our teacher. After being greeted with a classroom of blanklooks and awkward silence he said, “Well, some people say that the boatrepresents freedom.” While others scoffed and suggested he was reading intothings too much, my brain exploded out the back of my skull. This was the birthof film theory for me.

MAN BITES DOG

One of my favourite aspects of cinema is that due to there being so goddamnmuch of it, there’s always more films to discover. As great as CITIZEN KANE andTHE GODFATHER are – everybody knows it. I’ve always been drawn to the greatfilms that sit outside the classic canon (plug, plug, plug) and MAN BITES DOGwas the first film I took a massive chance on and it paid off. Black and white and in a foreign language withsubtitles – both aspects would have been a massive turn-off to my teenage self,but for some reason I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It instantly blew meaway with its dark humour and unconventional story-telling (it was probably myfirst mockumentary). I would take the VHS to my friends’ houses and promisethem that despite the lack of colour or English language, it was well-worthwatching. When they loved it, I would loved it all the more.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

And in an instant, we jump forward several years to the film that has left the biggestimpact on me in my adult years (outside of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE or PRIMER).In January of 2010 I named it my second favourite film of the decade and wrote:

“As Ennio Morricone's 'Rabbia eTarantella' filled the theatre and the credits started to roll, I found myselfsunken into my seat with a strong case of Stendhal Syndrome.... I often tell people that in five years, it will be my favourite Tarantino film.I don't really need to wait that long. Cinematic bliss.”

I saw it three times in the cinema and have never watched it since. Idecided that I never wanted to see it on the small screen. It has to be large.It has to overwhelming. I’m not sure I could name it as my favourite filmwithout seeing it one more time. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for aretrospective screening.

All four films have played a part in shaping the way I experiencecinema nowadays, but which one comes out on top is impossible for me to say atthe moment. Perhaps a marathon of all four is in order? But of course thestipulation I’ve laid out for that last film makes it tricky.

Hmmn. I guess I’ll keep citing PRIMER for just a little bitlonger...

My Best Picture Ten 2011

2011-11-02T18:49:00.000+13:00

Last year, on October 2nd, I picked 10 films I thought would make the cut forBest Picture. I planned to do the same this year, but havemissed that mark by a month. Nonetheless, the idea behind picking films that earlyout was that I'd seen very few of them (and a handful hadn’t yet been seen byanyone). This year, the circumstances are the same – I have only seen two filmsfrom this list (and one was only yesterday), so I’m flying blind with thesepicks.

Last year I was correct for 8 out of 10 – choosing NEVER LETME GO and RABBIT HOLE over WINTER’S BONE and BLACK SWAN. This year it’s alittle harder to earn a statistic like that because the Academy has changed itsrules so that now it could be anywhere between 5 and 10 films nominated forBest Picture. I’m going to go ahead and just ignore that, pick 10 regardless,and hope the Academy ends up with the same.

THE ARTIST (Michel Hazanavicius)

WINGS was the first and last silent film to win Best Pictureback in 1929. The thought that another silent film stands a chance 80+ yearslater is an exciting one indeed. To be honest, I don’t really think it willwin, but the nomination alone would still be historic. It looks beautiful, andearly reviews have been extremely positive – can’t wait for it.

THE DESCENDANTS (Alexander Payne)

Payne returns with his first film since 2002’s SIDEWAYS. I’mnot really as dedicated to the Cult of Payne as most. I really enjoyed ELECTION,but everything else has merely been fine. One of the stranger aspects drawingme to this film is that it was co-written by Jim Nash, who plays Dean Pelton onCOMMUNITY. It appears this film has been an early favourite to take outthe top prize, but there are some strong competitors yet to be seen.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Stephen Daldry)

Only recently did I learn that this has something to do with9/11. I’ve never read the best-selling Jonathan Safran Foer novel it’s basedon, but I have friends who have enjoyed it immensely. This earns a spot onthis list for one reason: Stephen Daldry. He has directed three films, and allhave been nominated for Best Picture. Am I suggesting the Academy would selecta film based on such extremely shallow and incredibly transparent criteria?Yes.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sean Durkin)

One I’ve seen! I’m probably being too cautious after failingto realise WINTER’S BONE would make the cut last year. MMMM has plenty incommon with that film on a superficial level (including the fantastic JohnHawkes), but the form and presentation are very different.I’m not sure how the Academy will respond to it.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Woody Allen)

The other film from this list that I’ve actually had achance to take in and it is absolutely marvellous. A screenplay nominationseems assured, and I’m ready to predict it as a win in that category. Hopefullya Golden Globe victory for Comedy will increase its chances to make the cut (unless BRIDESMAIDS takes it out or maybe even the final film on this list?).Seriously, if you haven’t seen this one, it’s time to give Woody another chance(because anyone who likes the man has surely seen it).

MONEYBALL (Bennett Miller)

Miller’s third film after THE CRUISE (shrug, haven’t seenit) and CAPOTE (shrug, didn’t like it). It stars Brad Pitt and has a screenplay byAaron Sorkin – so far, so good. Early reviews have been great (95% on RottenTomatoes is a sharp look) and films about sport (and particularly baseball) havetraditionally done well in competition.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Tomas Alfredson)

The only British film on my list? Well, they had their funat the last Academy Awards. Swedish director Alfredson (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN)has adapted the popular novel of the same name (except that one title had commas) with the helpof some of the best British actors working today: Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Mark Strong and Toby Jones. With a cast like that, how canyou resist?

THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malik)

Either you’re passionately for or passionately against Malik’slatest film. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle-ground. I haven’t seen itbecause my bus broke down on the way to the cinema and I took it as a sign (onlyhalf-joking there). I’m guessing enough of the Academy will be ‘passionatelyfor.’

WAR HORSE (Steven Spielberg)

It’s a Spielberg film, about war, starring a horse, scoredby John Williams, based on a hit play which was itself based on a popularchildren’s novel. I’m not sure why this isn’t the front-runner?Do you think TINTIN will split the vote? I doubt it.

YOUNG ADULT (Jason Reitman)

Reitman and Diablo Cody team up again for a film starringCharlize Theron, Patrick Wilson and Patton Oswalt. This feels like myshakiest prediction, but I’m not sure why I don’t have more faith in the film. UPIN THE AIR and JUNO both earned nominations (JUNO! Back when there were onlyfive nominees! Competing against NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THERE WILL BEBLOOD!) and this feels like it has a similar tone based on the trailer – crowd pleasingwith just the right amount of pathos.

The films I expect will probably cause me to slap my forehead when the nominees are announced: THE HELP, J. EDGAR, DRIVE, THE IDES OF MARCH,THE DANGEROUS METHOD and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

Eh, it’s all just in fun.

Kiwi Halloween Playlist

2011-10-28T18:23:00.006+13:00

With patriotism at its highest level in 24 years, I was thinking that instead of watching the best horrors that international film-making has to offer, you might like to spend Halloween sampling some local fare? I’ve constructed a playlist of six films that each fit a certain category, and included some subs in case you prefer an alternative. In between each feature, I’ve suggested a Kiwi short film and included the link to the NZ On Screen page where you can stream it for free. If you’re not up for a marathon, this post will at least act as a quick tour through some of this country’s more horrific cinematic delights.

1. The Antecedent: DEATH WARMED UP

Your marathon should start right at the beginning, and New Zealand horror is still relatively young. David Blyth directed the country’s very first genre film back in 1985. DEATH WARMED UP stars Michael Hurst as a young man brainwashed by an evil scientist into killing his parents (in a scene featuring just the right amount of shotgun and slow-mo). Years later, he’s released from jail and travels with some friends to the island the where scientist now runs a mental institution. Here the scientist experiments on the patients, attempting to stave off that pesky condition known as death. Like most Blyth films (or at least the ones I’ve seen, including ANGEL MINE (1980) and WOUND (2010)) the film isn’t too concerned with overall cohesion and instead builds from a series of creative set-pieces. It’s a gloomy shocker that’s worth watching not just for historical purposes.

Sub: MR WRONG, Gaylene Preston’s ghost tale from the same year.

Short Break: KITCHEN SINK

I’ve recommended this film before and I’ll recommend it again – the shocker that kicked-off the NZ short film renaissance. A woman finds something rather interesting stuck in the plughole...

2. The Contemporary Creeper: THE TATTOOIST

This was a hard one to pick and I’ve offered several subs below. It stars American Jason Behr as a tattooist curious in the Samoan pe’a and tatau in general. He steals one of their tools and unleashes a curse upon himself and anyone he tattoos. Behr is a blank slate, but Mia Blake, David Fane, Nathaniel Lees, and Robbie Magasiva all give great performances. There are some curiously odd moments, like when they use South Auckland rap and a boy-racer to summon an ancient spirit (no, seriously), but it has more than enough creepy scenes to keep you on edge. Pools of black ink become more visually interesting and thus more terrifying than pools of blood.

Subs: I’ve never seen Glen Standring’s ‘dieselpunk’ vampire flick PERFECT CREATURE, but it sounds like a lot of fun. Chris Graham followed SIONE’S WEDDING with the far more interesting THE FERRYMAN – a claustrophobic nautical horror. Aucklanders might also enjoy Greg Page’s rural-phobic shocker THE LOCALS.

Short Break: NATURE’S WAY

One of the better NZ shorts of the last five years also happens to be one of the creepiest. A man kills a little girl and leaves her body in dense kiwi forest. He can’t forget what he’s done though – Mother Nature won’t let him.

3. The Comedy-Horror: BLACK SHEEP

Jonathan King’s debut is a glorious tribute to (our) past horror films. It takes a fairly straightforward premise – zombie sheep! – and crafts a hilarious satire about genetic engineering that plays with international stereotypes of our own country. Nick Fenton stars as Henry Oldfield, a man that suffers from a crippling phobia of sheep. He returns to his family farm to sell his share of it to his brother Angus (geddit?), a man who’s maybe a little bit mad. Oliver Driver’s transformation from dirty hippy to sheep hybrid is worth the watch alone.

Subs: Jason Stutter’s DIAGNOSIS: DEATH (featuring appearances by Rhys Darby, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement) would be the best alternative here. There’s a zombie-comedy called LAST OF THE LIVING from 2009, but I haven’t found it or spoken to anyone who has seen it.

Short Break: THE MURDER HOUSE

Is calling the dental clinic, ‘the murder house’ a uniquely kiwi phenomenon? A young schoolboy has his number called and leaves class to visit the dreaded place. The dental nurse seems to be just a little too enthusiastic to put him under the drill...

4. The ‘90s Mindfuck: JACK BE NIMBLE

Garth Maxwell’s 1993 oddity throws all sorts of horror elements at the screen in the hopes that they stick. Inexplicably, it kind of works. A brother and sister are split up when they are adopted by two different families. The sister is psychic and telekinetic, while the brother invents a hypnosis machine. They track each other down as adults and try to find their real birth parents. Also Jack is on the run from his demonic step-sisters. Also Bruno Lawrence shows up, he might have been psychic too? Look – it really is just a beautiful mess. A lot of fun and a little campy.

Subs: Try Scott Reynolds’ psychological, serial killer debut THE UGLY. THE IRREFUTABLE TRUTH ABOUT DEMONS is technically from 2000, but is suitably WTF for this category.

Short Break: SNAP

A young couple stumble into a man’s creepy photography studio on a dark and stormy night. This giallo-influenced film has a few twists and turns as it plays fast and loose with time and location.

5. The Hollywood Money: 30 DAYS OF NIGHT

David Slade’s adaptation of the popular graphic novel does the book more than enough justice. It’s a freaky vampire flick with plenty of bloodshed and one of the most horrific decapitations captured on film. Josh Hartnett stars as the sheriff of an Alaskan community about to enter a 30 day period without sun.

It’s always welcome for Hollywood to bring its dime to our country. Personally, I can never be bothered with arguments about what does and does not constitute a New Zealand film. I’m well-aware that Slade is British and the leading cast are American, but the Kiwi influence here should not be disregarded. It was shot predominantly in New Zealand and features a large supporting cast from this country. It also uses Weta Digital for some visual effects and Weta Workshop for special make-up effects. You may not think it deserves a spot in this playlist, but I’m sure the many New Zealanders who worked on the film appreciate it.

Sub: Okay fine, watch THE FRIGHTENERS then! It’s the exact same thing but Jackson was born here.

Short Break: ACCIDENTS

I don't have a short to fit into this category, but here's a good one regardless. Not exactly horror, but unsettling nonetheless. It’s hard being the new kid on a worksite. Teasing by the older crew is often expected, but here things take a turn for the worst. Features Rawiri Paratene (Koro from WHALE RIDER) and Fred Whitten (Grandpa from OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE).

6. The Immortal: BRAINDEAD

How could you possibly close a New Zealand Halloween marathon with anything else? Peter Jackson’s BRAINDEAD is easily the greatest horror film this country has ever produced, and one of the best horror films ever made anywhere. Timothy Balme gives his most iconic performance (sorry, Shortland Street fans) as Lionel, a man with some serious oedipal issues. I’m not sure what else needs to be said about it? Surely you’ve all seen it by now? If you haven’t, just know that it’s probably the goriest film ever made, climaxing with a zombie bloodbath involving a lawnmower.

Subs: Feel free to swap for either BAD TASTE or MEET THE FEEBLES, if those are more your speed.

Happy Halloween!

Words Added to Make Sequel Titles

2011-09-22T22:27:00.007+12:00

I love when filmmakers decide against using a number to mark their sequel and instead add a word in order to signify that it’s not the same film. Surely one of the most anticipated films for 2012 is THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, a film that adds ‘rises’ to the original title. For some reason, Batman films are particularly fond of this practice.
Below are some of my favourite words that get added to sequel titles along with examples I’ve rustled up with the help of IMDb. I’ve excluded films that alter the title beyond merely adding another word, but have allowed titles that alter punctuation or drop articles such as ‘the’ or ‘a’. A significantly high number of these films are straight-to-DVD or made-for-tv movies.

Returns

BATMAN RETURNS
THE MUMMY RETURNS
THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
TOPPER RETURNS
SUPERMAN RETURNS
PRANCER RETURNS
PSYCHO COP RETURNS

Both the film series and primary character ‘returns’! Adding ‘Return to’ or ‘Return of’ at the start of a sequel’s title is also especially popular. I picked my favourite seven here seeing as there were just too many examples.

Too

LOOK WHO’S TALKING TOO
TEEN WOLF TOO
WHY DID I GET MARIED TOO?
PRETTY COOL TOO
TWITCHES TOO
SPLASH, TOO
THE JERK, TOO

Homophones! I had to end this one at seven as well. Those awkward commas are not my mistake; both of those made-for-TV sequels genuinely want you to take a slight pause before the final word.

Again

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK... AGAIN
BRING IT ON AGAIN
GET SMART, AGAIN!
WOULD I LIE TO YOU AGAIN?
DEADLY INTENTIONS... AGAIN?

Another dodgy comma – plus some ellipses to spice things up! The final part of that first film’s trilogy also has a very cool (but awkward) title: SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK... FOR MORE. I love the question mark at the end of that last film. It’s like it doubts its own existence.

Another

ANOTHER 48 HRS.
ANOTHER STAKEOUT
ANOTHER PERFECT STRANGER
ANOTHER THIN MAN

THE PERFECT STRANGER is a Christian film, and the stranger in question is probably Jesus. No, really! In the sequel ‘probably Jesus’ strikes up a conversation with the daughter of the last film’s main character. The point is: I’m not talking about that Halle Berry and Bruce Willis one.

Reborn

JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN
WATCHERS REBORN
THE MANGLER REBORN

SUPERMAN RETURNS’ working title was “Superman Reborn” and the upcoming Zorro sequel is tentatively called “Zorro Reborn”. The original THE MANGLER was based on a Stephen King short, stars Robert Englund and was directed by Tobe Hooper! I've never seen it, but that makes me think it’ll be worth tracking down.

Resurrection

ALIEN: RESURRECTION
HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION
THE FEAR: RESURRECTION

‘Resurrection’, like ‘reborn’ and ‘begins’, is a good way to signify that you’re starting over.

Still

I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
STILL WAITING...
THEY STILL CALL ME BRUCE

There was a straight-to-DVD sequel called I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, which holds a very rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Second

THE SECOND ARRIVAL
THE SECOND QUEST
BEETHOVEN’S 2ND

Okay, that last one arguably doesn’t belong there, but I thought that ‘second’ would be much more popular!

Forever

BATMAN FOREVER
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL FOREVER

The long waited “Duke Nukem 3D” game sequel (that was released earlier this year) had been given the title “Duke Nukem Forever” way back in 1997!

Lives

FLETCH LIVES
KING KONG LIVES

The sequel to IT’S ALIVE was called IT LIVES AGAIN!, but that doesn’t quite fit my criteria.

Next

NEXT FRIDAY
THE NEXT KARATE KID

FRIDAY AFTER NEXT probably belongs under the ‘after’ category below, but that shuffling of the word ‘next’ has excluded it from my list.
_
To finish up, here are a string of words where I could only find one sequel example. If you can think of more, let me know!

Regeneration

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION

After

AFTER THE THIN MAN

More

MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Revenge

PORKY’S REVENGE!

Unleashed

GINGER SNAPS: UNLEASHED

Now

LOOK WHO’S TALKING NOW

Back

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK

That last one is my absolute favourite sequel title. WHEN A STRANGER CALLS – it’s terrifying. When you call a stranger – it’s not so bad. But WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK – it’s terrifying all over again!

12 Novelists on Film Versions of their Work

2011-09-18T22:03:00.015+12:00

Whenever a major fictional work has a film adaptation announced, there’s usually a collective groan from the literary community. A feeling that another superb work is about to be bastardized and bowdlerized into a film that will pale in comparison seems to be the normal response, but it’s never been one that I’ve shared. I love film adaptations - from the ones that follow the book nearly to the letter, to the ones that go completely off the rails and create something just as interesting. I’ll admit there’s a chance a novel I love can be turned into a disastrous film, but the stakes are fairly low for me when compared to that of the original author. It must be a daunting thing, seeing a story you’ve spent so much time working on and have finally finished, reanimated by a different artist, with a different vision.

Below is a tour through quotes by twelve different novelists on the adaptation of some of their more famous work – from absolutely loving it, to absolutely hating it, to (more often than not) somewhere in between.When James Ellroy was asked what the major difference between his novel and the film version of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL was, he replied: “The book is black type on white paper and the film is visual. That's it. It's a brilliantly compatible visual form of the novel.” Not every author is lucky enough to see their work turned into something they love – Stephen King famously hated Kubrick’s THE SHINING. Speaking in 1983 he said:

“From a plotting level, I don’t think the film works very well, and in terms of execution I think some of the choices that he made about where to set his cameras and how to shoot certain scenes were amazingly bad.” –Stephen King on THE SHINING

The above quote is in contrast to the love he has for some of his other adaptations. Recently, he reacted to news that CARRIE might be getting remade:

“I’ve heard rumblings about a Carrie remake, as I have about The Stand and It. Who knows if it will happen? The real question is why, when the original was so good? I mean, not Casablanca, or anything, but a really good horror-suspense film, much better than the book.” –Stephen King on CARRIE

King is not the only author to declare an adaptation better than their original. Chuck Palahniuk has always loved Fincher’s take on his most famous novel:

“Now that I see the movie, especially when I sat down with Jim Uhls and record a commentary track for the DVD, I was sort of embarrassed of the book, because the movie had streamlined the plot and made it so much more effective and made connections that I had never thought to make.” –Chuck Palahniuk on FIGHT CLUB

Annie Proulx also praised elements that the filmmakers added when they adapted one of her short stories:

“I thought that what they did was really quite wonderful. It really enriched the story. Instead of a little canoe, it became an ocean liner.” –Annie Proulx on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Although some people would prefer that nothing changes during the novel to film adaptation, it’s often a necessity:

“It could've been better. As it stands today it could be cut and made into a pretty good movie. The director had the notion that he could put the entire book up on the screen. Well, you can't do that. You have to pick out the story that you want to tell and put that on the screen.” –Cormac McCarthy on ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

However, not every novel is altered for the better:

“Well, it was undeniably exciting that someone had adapted my book into an art form that I love. Of course, the experience was also distressing because the movie had nothing to do with the temperament, the scenes, the dialogue — nothing to do with what the book was actually about.” –Bret East Ellis on LESS THAN ZERO

Capturing what the novel is about can be seen as a vital component to a film adaptation’s success:

“I was actually surprised at how strong the film was and how great the characters were. It captured the spirit of the whole thing, yeah?” –Irvine Welsh on TRAINSPOTTING

Danny Boyle seems to be particularly adept at translating novels to the screen (at least in a way that impresses the original author!):

"The film is beautiful. The plot is riveting. The child actors are breathtaking." –Vikas Swarup on SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
In a novel, we have a lot of internal thoughts available to the reader that can’t be immediately translated to the visual medium. Voice-over narration is commonly used to help bridge the gap between novel and film, and can be done quite successfully. Two of Tom Perrotta’s novels have been adapted into films that make great use of voice-overs:

“In Hollywood, it's considered a sign of weakness to have voice-overs, but in both cases, they were doing it as a dynamic element in the film; it's not just there to explain what's happening, but to create ironies and complexities.” –Tom Perrotta on LITTLE CHILDREN and ELECTION

In the right hands, it seems that any novel can be turned into something special. I’m sure authors are relieved when they find out their work is going to be adapted by someone they find tremendously talented:

“I love the movie of Morvern Callar too. The lady who made it, Lynne Ramsay is a remarkable filmmaker. In the real sense of that over-used word.” –Alan Warner on MORVERN CALLAR

If it’s possible to be a little too happy with the adaptation of your work, J.G. Ballard might fit that category. In a 1997 interview he said:

“I think of Crash as the first film of the next century, if you like. I think that the very influential role of Psycho since 1962 will apply to Crash...Paul Schrader said 'Wonderful film - if only I'd been so honest', and I think it will impel a new frankness and honesty that will reveal itself over the next few years.” –J.G. Ballard on CRASH

It would appear that the best attitude to take is to recognise that the film and the novel are two completely different works of art. Russell Banks probably has the right attitude:

“I was very happy with the film, though of course there were some small parts of it that I might have handled differently. But it was Atom Egoyan's film, after all, not mine, and besides, I was eager to see what he would do with the material, not what I would do with it.” –Russell Banks on THE SWEET HEREAFTER

For a final word on the process, I’ll return to the man I opened with. James Ellroy may love the film L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, but he’s not without reservations [censorship in original]:

“When I read the script, I thought the shoot-out (the adrenaline-packed finale) was preposterous. And you know what? In the movie it's preposterous. Two guys holed up in a room where they kill fifteen guys - it's bull--. But you know what? It's inspired bull--.” –James Ellroy on L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

Any favourites?

Two Years

2011-08-28T14:44:00.005+12:00

On the 28th of August 2009, following a conversation with a friend about MORVERN CALLAR, I quickly put together a blog under the title Sounds Like Cinema. Two years and 127 posts later, I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I initially started blogging because I was worried I would have nowhere to write about film after leaving University. It seems a strange thought now, but that was a different time – a time when I was far more introverted and unsure of myself. I started blogging anonymously before adding my name to the blog and eventually my face to the name. Nowadays I have no problem standing behind the things I write and actively seek more places to be read. It hasn’t always been good. I’ve written terrible posts. Posts so bad I’d like to have them scrubbed from my memory and deleted from the site, but while they fade a little from the mind, they still exist permanently here in the archives. I’m not going to help you find them though. Instead, here are my Top 5 favourite posts:

“flawed.”

My Own Personal Exit Through The Gift Shop

Rosemary’s Baby and the Curious Game of Scrabble

Unfinished Viewings

What Jaws Did

In terms of traffic to the blog, my figures have been steadily rising every month this year (with a slight lull in February) and it still boggles my mind that so many people continue to read my ramblings. It’s rather humbling. Other than direct traffic, most of it comes from Google, Twitter and Facebook (in that order). On the 28th of August 2009 I was shunning both Twitter and Facebook and would have never guessed how important they would become to me. For anyone starting a blog – or any other writing for that matter – I can’t recommend Twitter enough. It’s a fantastic place to find like-minded people/bloggers. I’ve since met quite a high number of people who I follow on Twitter and I can assure you they’re all good-sorts in real life too!
I’m not about to share my stats with you, that would be very ungentlemanly (and potentially embarrassing), but these are my Top 5 viewed posts:

My 11 Most Anticipated Films for 2011

MIFF 2011: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA

The Problem(s) with a Best o’ the Year List

MIFF 2010: ENTER THE VOID

Five Offscreen Opening Monologues

I woke up one morning to find I had received 200 page views from Turkey alone. It turned out my ANATOLIA review found its way to the site’s press page, which is why it’s second overall on the blog (and approaching first!).
I’m aware I don’t post as much as I used to, or as much as I’d like to, but I returned to University this year and so they receive most of my film thoughts/writing. The Hidden Gems are still going strong over on AtTheCinema though – a new one every Tuesday! I have plenty of other schemes brewing but as I’m approaching the end of the Uni year, the studies will be receiving most of my attention. Come November, things will be heating up again I’m sure.
I still pay for all the films I watch, and make no money from the blog. The latter will never change, but I should probably think about finding ways to make my trips to the cinema slightly less expensive.
Anyways – I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for reading. I wanted to do this kind of post at this time last year, but was a little hospitalized. Then I wanted to do it on my 100th post, but I was a little forgetful. Today = success!
Here’s to the next two years...
_
Sidebar: The tremendously talented Jason Aldous was the designer for the blog (including the header). I feel this is something I should have mentioned before now, but for some reason never have. Fixed.

MIFF 2011: THE WOMAN

2011-08-20T15:24:00.005+12:00

That infamous clip on YouTube making the rounds is both the best and worst thing to happen to Lucky McKee’s THE WOMAN. Best, because it acted as great publicity for the film, better than any trailer. I’d never even heard of it until I saw the clip and it’s safe to say that it was the primary reason I ended up going to the film. Worst, because it seriously misrepresents the type of film THE WOMAN is. The man’s complaints about how disgusting it is and his calls for it being banned surely aren’t the views of your typical Sundance Festival attendee. Did he wander into the wrong screening? Was he supposed to be at LIKE CRAZY next door, missed the opening credits and assumed this was it? This isn’t INSIDE or MARTYRS or any other sort of “extreme” cinema to get up in arms about – this is just a very good, very satisfying comedy-horror.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have its seriously fucked up moments though.Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers) is a husband and father of three who works as a small-town lawyer; on the surface he seems to be a fairly typical American family man. While hunting he discovers a wild, feral woman (Polyanna McIntosh) living in the woods. He captures her, chains her up and introduces her to his clan. It’s going to be their new family project to help civilize her, wean her off her base instincts and turn her into a more respectable human being. “Do we really get to keep her?” asks the young teenager Brian (Zac Rand). We’ve already seen evidence of a streak of sadism running through him when he put bubblegum on a (female) classmate’s hairbrush, and his wide-eyed fascination with the woman chained before him is further cause for concern.
THE WOMAN is a deliciously satirical portrait of a patriarchal figure with too much control. Chris seemingly does everything with a smile on his face but underneath that exterior is a man controlling his family with fear, sadism and yes, misogyny. I think claims that the film itself is misogynistic are fairly unfounded though. At no point are we meant to think that Chris is doing the right thing – that soon enough The Woman will be an upstanding member of society and his family will love him all the more for his success. Clearly, we’re meant to condemn his actions at every turn. Just because the film wrings a few (very good) laughs out of his blowhard, self-delusional approach to running a family (I swear Bridgers was channeling Will Ferrell in his performance), doesn’t mean we’re ‘enjoying’ what he’s doing. Laughter does not equal acceptance. I’m worried our YouTube star couldn’t separate the two.Director McKee was present at the screening and introduced the film by saying he hoped it scared the hell out of us. I’ll give the man credit for achieving this on a couple of occasions. There are some terrific moments of gore and a few violent twists in the story that I certainly didn’t see coming, but I seriously don’t think anything was too extreme. The tone is far too comical in order to be truly unsettling and scary. There was a Q&A after the screening I attended but THE WOMAN was my third film of the evening and it didn’t finish until well after midnight so I left during the end credits. I didn’t have any questions for McKee at the time, but now that I’ve seen his first film MAY (which immediately blew me away, possibly my favourite horror of the last decade), I’d have probably asked him about his “women biting of men’s fingers” motif as it was a plot point in both films (though it’s not hard to rustle up some connotations).
A very enjoyable film, the audience responded to it well and some of the parts I found funny where I had to suppress laughter as it seemed I was alone in the thought (such as the entire opening montage) I will happily chuckle to when I revisit the film on DVD. I just think an audience should be more aware what they’re getting themselves into. If you’re a fan of horror, just be aware of the comedy. If you’re a fan of comedy, just look out for the horror.
But if you’re a fan of comedy-horror: this is a must-see.

MIFF 2011: KILL LIST

2011-08-13T16:41:00.003+12:00

Friends and regulars will know that PRIMER is my favourite film of all time. I use it as a reference point far too often, bringing it up in conversation where it’s only tenuously linked to the topic at hand. So when I say KILL LIST remind me of PRIMER, you might be tempted to roll your eyes, but bear with me. While PRIMER is undoubtedly rooted in sci-fi and KILL LIST belongs more to hitmen and horror genre tropes, both films feel like cinematic puzzles waiting to be solved. I’ve watched PRIMER dozens of times so I’d like to think I have a fairly good handle on it. After one viewing of KILL LIST – I *really* want to watch it again. It feels as though all the pieces are scattered amongst the film in order for me to “solve” exactly what was going on, but on the first viewing I was focussing much more on the snappy dialogue, brutal violence, and uneasy tone. Writer-director Ben Wheatley has crafted a truly unsettling, unpredictable thriller. I was enthralled from the very first frame to the last – where I was finally allowed to exhale.

Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring) are an unhappily married couple prone to bickering and all-out fighting. Jay hasn’t had a job in eight months and when his old army friend Gal (Michael Smiley) comes to a dinner party he knows of an offer for some paid work for the two of them. The work consists of a list of three names for them to kill (hence the title) and Jay has soon kissed Shel goodbye to take to the road with Gal to get the job done. It probably sounds fairly straightforward so far but Wheatley has many curve-balls to throw at the audience and by the time the film ended it was all but unrecognisable to the film that we thought we were watching.
The banter between Jay and Gal is often hilarious with the “additional dialogue by the cast” credit suggesting a lot of it was improvised. It’s refreshing to note that even murderous hitmen still engage in that delightful dry English wit between bouts of bloodshed. The banter and the bloodshed are both razor-sharp, with some terrifically bloody “how did the even film that?” moments. The low-budget digital look adds to the kitchen-sink realism of the first part and the all-out surrealism of later moments. I’d like to go more into the plot, but I think it’s quite important for an audience yet to experience the film to discover some of the twists and turns on their own. Come talk to me after we’ve all seen it a few times...
It feels like KILL LIST is both challenging and daring the audience to see it again and I certainly won't leave it at just the one viewing. I’ve a few theories on some of the more curious moments but this film is far from “solved” for me. Bloody, brutal and batshit crazy, KILL LIST demands to be seen – arguably many times!

MIFF 2011: MELANCHOLIA

2011-08-12T17:14:00.005+12:00

Lars Von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA was greeted with near-universal praise by those around me as we left our screening. In a festival wrought with dodgy endings, this film offered one of the most memorable and spectacular. As we filed out of the cinema, those final moments were certainly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Including my own – whatever you have to say about the film, you can’t really knock the ending – it’s easily my favourite of the festival.
I can, however, knock some of the decisions leading up to this moment. Von Trier may have crafted his most accessible and visually interesting film to date, but he’s still up to some of his old tricks. There was a moment early in the film when I realised he was going to go down a certain path – the sort of phony provocation I had come to expect from him and when the moment finally happened I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I’d mention specifically what it was, but a woman nearby audibly gasped in a way that made me turn my head as if wanting to catch a glimpse of the sort of person who was actually engaging with this predictable provocation. Oh well, I’m happy she was so into it and in case you might be too, I’ll remain vague on the incident (it involves sex though, for those who have seen it).MELANCHOLIA opens with some fantastic slow-motion, out-of-context moments (we’d recognise these later) intercut with shots of the massive Melancholia approaching and ultimately colliding with Earth. It’s a visually striking way to open and combined with the suitably epic score, it sets us up for the most art-house apocalypse ever conceived.

Set primarily within a castle on a golf course (that sounds like hyperbole, but I’m being genuine), the first half takes place during the wedding reception for Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). The newlyweds arrive two hours late much to the chagrin of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who has organised it, and Claire’s husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) who has paid for it. The events that follow belong on some sort of “Weddings from Hell” reality show as Justine’s mother (Charlotte Ramping) gives a speech about how much she loathes marriage, Justine’s boss (Stellan Skarsgard) uses the time to try bully an idea out of her, the wedding planner (Udo Kier) refuses to make eye-contact with the bride, and Justine herself vanishes for long stretches at a time – at one point taking a long bath while the guests wait for her downstairs.It’s clear pretty early on that something’s not right with Justine and as we watch her increasingly anti-social behaviour it becomes clear that she’s suffering from some sort of manic-depression. She’s putting on a brave smile for the wedding, but inside she’s just not feeling the part. Alexander Skarsgard does a wonderful job as her optimistic husband, well-aware of her illness and the sadness that haunts her. There’s a fantastic scene where he manages to raise her spirits by taking a long scull of something strong, daring her to match him.
The second half takes place a few days after the wedding reception and focuses primarily on Claire as she comes to terms with the planet Melancholia's threatening path towards Earth. In the first half Melancholia existed entirely in the background. It was mentioned in passing, or seen as a speck in the sky, but now the planet appears large, its surface visible to the naked eye and even more spectacular through telescope. Claire is rightfully concerned the planet will collide with Earth but her astronomer husband assures you it will merely pass by – a not-to-be-missed, once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.
Our main trio of Dunst, Gainsbourg and Sutherland all give fantastic performances. Dunst has already been wildly praised and even won Best Actress at Cannes for her portrayal of a deeply troubled woman trying in vain to conform, but I particularly enjoyed Gainsbourg’s performance as Claire, a rational, calm-headed woman encountering the phenomenal and struggling to cope. Sutherland meanwhile provides plenty of comic moments as his frustration over Justine and her family turns into many pithy asides. It’s also a lot of fun to see the genuine glee spread across his face as he revels in Melancholia’s presence – full of information and having access to the tools to suitably observe its beauty.
I have a problem with how one-note some of the other characters are though. Granted a few (like Kier's) are used for comic relief but I find Stellan Skarsgard's Jack a particularly odd character. The way he badgers Justine for a tagline like Jack Lemmon looking for leads is a very curious subplot. I suppose it's to emphasize that Justine can function well in society or perhaps its trying to turn her into that "person with a mental illness is actually a genius" cliche. Either way, I don't like it.
The second half also meanders a bit. Once Justine’s wedding reception narrative had wrapped, the film’s energy waned and we hit a bit of a lull. I found myself wondering why were still even watching. We’d already seen the apocalypse take place in the opening sequence so it felt like we were building towards a climax we’d already witnessed. But I was wrong – so very wrong. The climax absolutely exceeded all expectations. Yes, we’d *seen* the Earth be destroyed in the opening sequence, but we hadn’t *felt* it.
All issues aside, you should see MELANCHOLIA on the biggest screen you can find.
_
Sidebar: MELANCHOLIA plays at Wellington NZFF on the 13th of August.

MIFF 2011: FOOTNOTE

2011-08-11T17:28:00.003+12:00

There’s often a fine line between the ambiguous and the abrupt ending. With the ambiguous ending the audience should have enough information provided by the film in order to reach a conclusion on their own; while the abrupt ending stops the action early and leaves it up to the audience to decide what would have happened next. I’m not a fan of the latter. It can often feel like filmmaker had no idea how to wrap up their film so they’re crowd-sourcing what would happen next from their own audience. Sadly, these films have been a staple during the Melbourne Film Festival and FOOTNOTE is no exception.

I was initially drawn to writer-director Joseph Cedar’s FOOTNOTE due to its win for Best Screenplay at Cannes. Films that win awards for their writing but nothing else always intrigue me. What was it about its story, dialogue, narrative, plot that saw the script excel over all other aspects? I’d like to think I discovered the answer, but that abrupt ending does not work in its favour.
Set in Jerusalem, a father and his son both specialize in the same obscure area of study within the Hebrew University. The father Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba) is a cantankerous old man whose life’s work was made nearly redundant by another professor’s accidental discovery while his son Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi) is an award-chasing egoist and critical darling of the University. Needless to say, the relationship between the two is a bit strained. However one day Eliezer learns that he will be the recipient of a prestigious award and Uriel finds himself enduring what his father had to go through all those times he had to watch his son win.
FOOTNOTE is an oft-hilarious deadpan comedy with some delightful moments of slapstick thrown into the mix. The meeting in a room so small everyone has to shuffle around in order for the door to open was a highlight. The film has a great sense of rhythm and timing, things move quickly and some unusual CGI flourishes keep things visually interesting. The use of microfiche during some flashback sequences was particularly inspired.
Ultimately, this a very sharp satire on the bureaucratic nature of academia. Anyone who has gone through University and won an award, been overlooked for an award, or didn’t even know they had awards would find something to relate to here. It’s just a shame about that abrupt ending – I’m desperate to know what happens next and I can’t believe the audience was left hanging. Still, it was the writer-director’s decision to make and it was not enough to undo all the goodwill he had built up. In summary, my final opinion on the film would be

MIFF 2011: INNOCENT SATURDAY

2011-08-10T15:40:00.008+12:00

The highlight of watching Aleksandr Mindadze's INNOCENT SATURDAY had to be when I made eye contact with Glenn from Stale Popcorn and he had the same “WTF is this?” look on his face. Sometimes it’s important to know you’re not alone when a film completely goes over your head.

It’s 1986 and a worker at the Chernobyl power plant has just learned that one of the reactors has exploded. Valery (Anton Shagin) then makes an attempt to gather up his girlfriend and flee the city before everyone else learns of the disaster and panic sets in. Their initial attempts to catch a train reminded me of that ridiculous scene in THE HAPPENING when everyone tries to outrun wind. As the train departs without them, it feels like a reel is missing because suddenly Valery is at a wedding and any generic notions of the “disaster film” evaporate when he starts playing the drums. Instead of fleeing for his life, Valery and his peers decide to make a few bucks (or karbovanets? Is that right?) and steal a few beers. Perhaps something is lost in translation but these characters come across as morons.
The film employs the most irritating use of shaky-cam I have ever seen. The camera just never stops moving and is always so close on the characters that I struggled to keep track of anyone. Was that the point? Probably, but the end result is so unpleasant an experience. The recent warning at NZFF about how the (I thought, fairly innocuous) hand-held camerawork in MELANCHOLIA proved too much for several patrons made me laugh – if those same patrons saw this film their skulls would probably collapse.
INNOCENT SATURDAY is surely the most ugly and unpleasant film of the festival. That the smouldering reactor is continually seen off in the distance is a reminder that somewhere in the background is a much better film about the day’s events. I’ve since read some very positive reviews such as this one from Film Lounge, but even they recognise that very few other people responded favourably to the film. I just didn't get it, and it would seem I’m not alone.

MIFF 2011: FAMILIAR GROUND

2011-08-10T13:41:00.003+12:00

I don’t usually take notes while watching films but sometimes during the festival, the line between one film and another begins to blur and it’s handy to jot down thoughts as they come to me. I’m still not very good at writing in the dark though – it’s legible, but I’ll often write one sentence over-top of another and have to decipher it later. I also use far too many abbreviations. As I left FAMILIAR GROUND and looked down at my notes I saw: "WWIAFTM". During the film I’m sure I was confident I would remember what that meant but immediately after, I was scratching my head.

Putting that to one side, FAMILIAR GROUND is another French-Canadian film with borderline-insufferable characters stuck in arrested development. It shares many similarities with CURLING (a film I didn’t really like/review), the most remarkable being a scene where someone struggles to open a jar of pasta sauce and resorts to hardware tools to smash the glass. That must be a major problem for Canadiens [sic].

Benoit (Francis La Haye) receives a visitor from a few months into the future, telling him his sister Maryse (Fanny Mallette) will suffer a terrible accident. That’s about as much plot as you need. The film is very episodic and contains many deadpan comic moments, nothing to laugh aloud at, but plenty to draw a slight smile.
About three-quarters of the way through the film, I had reached my opinion on it: it was fine, just fine – too slight to recommend, too innocuous to get annoyed at, somewhere in that perfect middle.
Then we reached the climax.
This film is the reason you don’t walk out of the cinema halfway through. From now on whenever I’m out to give up on a film I’ll think to myself “What if it pulls a FAMILIAR GROUND?” and sit back down to ride the rest of the film out. I started to think the previous 80minutes were intentionally bland to heighten the ending, but that would surely be a dangerous game to play with a festival audience. If you haven’t seen it, it’ll probably never reach the massive expectations I’ve just laid out for it, but in that moment it was perfect: the music began to swell, time began to slow. There were shots of various motorists, the snowy landscape and that car dealership from earlier, instantly recognisable because out front it had a – oh yeah, that’s right – Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man.

MIFF 2011: THE TURIN HORSE

2011-08-07T14:36:00.007+12:00

“In a film culture that’s been dispersed—and in some ways diminished—by the DVD age, when everyone consumes movies at separate times and in separate pods, SATANTANGO offered a rare communal experience, where cultists had no choice but to take the journey together.” – Scott Tobias, “The New Cult Canon: SATANTANGO”.

I once had a lecturer who went off on a tremendous rant against contemporary times. He claimed that nowadays people need to be stimulated electronically with sights and sounds and movement and colours. We’d become an ADD culture, prone to boredom, addicted to excitement and always looking for our next high-impact fix. It never used to be like that, he claimed, in the past people could sit for hours and simply watch a horse...
I couldn’t help but think of that speech he gave as I left THE TURIN HORSE and listened to those grumble around me. I’ll admit that the analogy here isn’t perfect with the cinema itself being an example of this stimulation he was ranting about, but our attention spans certainly have been diminished. Sitting and watching a “horse” is a lot harder than it used to be.
I was pleased to discover that in terms of the films plot, Béla Tarr was in on the joke – it’s not just how I was framing it. If you’re talking about the circumstances of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s descent into insanity and death after protecting a horse – you’d expect the obvious film here to be about Nietzsche. Tarr’s opening black-screen narration discusses in detail this incident – the place, the date, the whipping, the sobbing, the final words – before adding, “We do not know what happened to the horse.” What a great punchline! And thus the film follows the fate of the beast and its owners – a belligerent old man and his doting daughter.
We experience the owners’ own descent into misery through repetition – collecting water from the well, eating a mere potato every night, the ritual of dressing and undressing, the stubbornness of the horse to perform or eat – we follow these moments through glorious, long, unbroken takes. Tarr has always been the master of steadicam shots and he outdoes himself here.But look – I get it, okay? The Potato Peelers MIFF ad makes fun of this film in particular, and the dangers of crossing from slow to unengaging to boring. This is the sort of film that’s easy to parody, along with the type of audience who would readily go along with it. If you can’t get into it and don’t understand the type of person that could – it’s fine. There were plenty of walk-outs during my screening as people reached their limits of endurance, and I’ve absolutely no problem with that.
So you might be wondering what kept me in my seat. In a Béla Tarr film with minimal dialogue, plot, and action – you find your poetry elsewhere. Explore the composition, the sound design, the texture and shape of the image and you’ll find riches. The silent house exploding with sound as the door opens and the wind engulfs. The horse’s head consuming the frame as its master beats at him in vain. The texture of the walls, cracked and fragmented – I used to say Béla Tarr films were so interesting even the walls have character, and I was pleased to have that thought run through my mind again. Let the film consume you and you may experience something transcendent, perhaps even sublime...
In the words of Scott Tobias (as outlined above) what I really wanted though, was that “rare communal experience.” This may not have had SATANTANGO's epic 7 hour length, but I’d never seen a Béla Tarr film in a cinema – always alone and always on readily pausable DVD. I wanted to be completely engulfed by a Béla Tarr, unable to leave it even if I wanted to. Enraptured, hypnotised, stuck to my chair – when it ended I genuinely wanted more. I wanted to stay with the film. I wanted the experience to continue. Although a lot of my friends and peers claimed to have hated the film, they still remained until the end and I’m very grateful that they did. They may not have had the same experience, but at least it was communal – something we all went through together.
What stops the film itself from being a complete five-star experience has something to do with theme. Misery begets misery begets misery – it’s not the most revelatory statement for a film to make and Béla Tarr himself has explored this concept to a much more satisfactory extent in prior works. However, I went into the cinema looking for something beyond what I was usually offered and I found it. I sat and watched a “horse” for a few hours, my old lecturer would approve. Thank you to those who took the journey with me.
_
Sidebar: THE TURIN HORSE screens at Wellington NZFF on the 10th and 11th of Augus t.

MIFF 2011: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA

2011-08-07T12:41:00.004+12:00

The first of a double dose of long, paced (read: slow) films. ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA clocked in at 157mins while THE TURIN HORSE ran for 146. There was a time when I used to struggle with films of this length, avoiding them in the cinema so I could easily pause them on DVD and take a break. I’m also a big fan of having an emergency Red Bull on hand in case a film really starts to wear me down halfway through, but so far this festival I haven’t needed it. When someone told me MELANCHOLIA ran 130mins I actually said, “oh, is that all?” Clearly a change has occurred within me – probably something to do with Romanian cinema.

Moving right along...Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA is a beautifully episodic film following a convoy of cars containing policemen, a couple of murder suspects, a doctor, a prosecutor and some men with shovels. It’s the middle of the night and the Anatolian countryside stretches for miles with no other light-source beyond the headlight beams of the men searching for a freshly buried corpse. The suspects have admitted to the killing and are trying to lead the police to the place of burial, but the chief perpetrator had been drinking so heavily that his mind is struggling to rustle up the exact location.

That’s merely the plot of the first half though, in the second – things get a bit lighter. Both literally (it’s daytime) and in terms of tone; it becomes more comedic and the cinematography no longer feels of note. I do understand the need for the second half as it closes a lot of the narrative threads, but it isn’t nearly as entrancing as the first. I wanted so desperately to return to that gorgeous Anatolia countryside and thus I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.
Don’t let that sway you against seeing it though, the style may change but the performances are consistently fantastic. The banter between Doctor Cemal (Muhammet Uzune) and the prosecutor, Nusret (Taner Birsel) is a real highlight. Nusret tells Cemal a story about a beautiful woman who predicted the day she would die, and on that day dropped stone dead. While Nusret thinks it a great story about the unexplained, Cemal continues to ask questions from a factual (medical) standpoint and tension emerges.
That story is much like the film itself, sitting somewhere between the unexplained and the literal – a mystery waiting to be explored. A beautiful film with a phenomenal first half, and a very good second, Cannes Grand Prix winner ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA is well worth 157mins of your time.
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Sidebar: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA plays at Wellington NZFF on the 12th and 14th of August.

MIFF 2011: THE YELLOW SEA

2011-08-05T16:00:00.007+12:00

The deck was stacked against THE YELLOW SEA. Not only did I dislike (to put it mildly) the director’s debut effort, but I had just sat through the worst South Korean film I’d ever seen (which is also somehow putting it mildly). I decided to push as much of that out of my mind as possible and give the film a fair chance. The result? The best Korean film I’ve seen in years and my absolute favourite film of the festival so far. The love is back... thank you Na Hong-jin!

The film opens in Yambian, an area bordering China, Russia and North Korea, with taxi driver Gu-Nam (Jung-woo Ha) deep in debt with the mob, gambling away the little that he does earn. He needs to make enough money to cover the cost it took to send his wife to South Korea to try and make a better living, but unfortunately her promise of sending money back to him has gone unfounded and he hasn’t heard from her yet. Haunted by dreams that she may be with another man, Gu-Nam needs a miracle if he’s ever to escape his current torment. That miracle may have arrived when a shady character called Myun (Yun-seok Kim) gives him a proposal that’s hard to ignore. He’ll cover Gu-Nam’s debt and send him to Korea where he can look for his wife, but while there he has to kill a man, and bring back his thumb. The reasons for wanting the man dead are not given but slowly become clear as the film progresses.
While carrying out the assignment (and of course, hunting for his wife), Gu-Nam encounters some difficulties and soon Myun and his hilariously, uncouth cronies have caught the next flight over, looking for Gu-nam, and hoping to find him before the police or Korean mob catch him first! The Korean gangsters dressed in their well-tailored suits offer a stark contrast to Myun and his crew and the film plays plenty of their interaction for laughs. This is a film that has found that perfect balance of humour, social commentary, and violence, glorious violence – a balance Korean film often excels at.
THE YELLOW SEA is quite long, clocking in at a full 140minutes, but it never dragged. There’s also a noticeable tonal shift around the halfway mark. Divided into chapters, the first two build their way towards the moment Gu-Nam will finally have to kill his mark, and features some fantastic meticulously planning that would have impressed even Jean-Pierre Melville. The moments of Gu-Nam watching the automatic lights in the stairwell leading to his mark’s apartment - timing them to see how long they stay on for, measuring the exact location their sensor activates - was an early highlight for me.
The second half (and final two chapters), ups the ante as we move into some seriously spectacular set-pieces. This is a film primarily concerned with escape. The Yellow Sea itself offers an escape to better opportunities for those fleeing China, and throughout this film our main characters are continually finding ways to escape their own fate. For Gu-Nam, his primary mode of avoiding capture involves both stealth and plenty of luck. Director Na is aware that some of the situations Gu-Nam manages to escape from are ridiculous and I feel he’s addressed this by heightening the spectacle of the action sequences. The amount of collateral damage caused to buildings, people, (and especially) vehicles around Gu-Nam is staggering and makes from some jaw-dropping moments. Myun on the other hand, continually escapes using brute force, smashing his way though his enemies in a display equally as ridiculous. There’s plenty of brutal humour found within how these two evade capture, and the moment Myum picks up the thigh bone of a cow had me in stitches for what I expected to happen next.
Brutal, bloody, brilliant – do not miss out on seeing THE YELLOW SEA if the chance arises (it has sadly finished its run at the Melbourne International Film Festival). It'll take something special to topple this as my best of the fest.
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Sidebar: THE YELLOW SEA plays at Wellington NZFF on the 7th and 8th of August.

MIFF 2011: THE UNJUST

2011-08-05T14:50:00.003+12:00

Look – I’m sorry, I made a mistake.

THE UNJUST is a fairly run-of-the-mill crime thriller with an unnecessarily convoluted plot. They’ve tried to give the impression of a sprawling crime epic but I’m just not buying it.
Set in contemporary Seoul, a string of serial killings has left police scratching their heads, so in order to restore calm they find a dodgy cop, Captain Choi (Jeong-min Hwang) to frame someone for the crime with the promise of promotion. Meanwhile, another dodgy cop-
Oh fuck it, life’s too short.My enthusiasm to see as much Korean cinema at film festivals stems from a great run of brilliant films throughout the 2000s. These films were astounding, eye-openers to an entire country I’d never investigated in terms of cinema. I was amazed at how they blended bad-ass action sequences with jet-black humour and political/spiritual/social commentary. A BITTERSWEET LIFE remains one of my favourite films of all time and it’s immensely rewatchable – I doubt 6months pass without me taking in another viewing. It’s beautiful, lyrical, hilarious and very, very violent.

I’ve found plenty of other films like it but as I sat through THE UNJUST, those weren’t the ones that were running through my mind. I started to recall every terrible or underwhelming South Korean film I had ever seen. The boredom I felt during NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE, the way A DIRTY CARNIVAL had one good fight scene but that was it, the abject reaction I had to THE CHASER, how I wished SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE was more like the rest of its trilogy, the moments I’ve had to exaggerate my love for MOTHER and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD because I’d prefer Bong Joon-ho and Kim Jee-woon had perfect filmographies – all of these came flooding back and I felt overwhelmed, exhausted and ridiculous for the massive expectations I’d given myself.
I left the cinema agitated and annoyed – those around me might have had to suffer a spurned cinema-goer with a shorter fuse, if so I apologise. I crossed the road from the Forum, downed an energy drink from the 7-Eleven to try return some enthusiasm, and settled in at ACMI for my second Korean film of the night, THE YELLOW SEA...

MIFF 2011: TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS

2011-08-05T13:42:00.005+12:00

At this rate, Romania will soon be my favourite World Cinema if they continue to produce enthralling and engaging films such as PRINCIPLES OF LIFE and this beautiful portrayal of three people in a mess. Writer-Director Radu Muntean’s TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS has a fairly minimal plot – Paul (Mimi Brănescu) has both a wife, Adriana (Mirela Oprişor) and a mistress, Raluca (Maria Popistaşu). That’s almost all you need to know. I’ll add that Paul’s becoming aware that he can’t carry on living this way and so decisions need to me made, but to go any further finds us deep in “spoilers” territory, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Though TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of its love-triangle plot, its commitment to realism combined with long unbroken takes has to be applauded. Our three main actors each give fantastic, heart-breaking performances – often built around their characters trying to suppress what they’re really feeling. The scene that occurs at the dentist early in the film is just devastating to watch [below: husband, wife, mistress, daughter]. All three characters sharing the same space, the pain on Raluca’s face visible only to the audience as she tries to hide how she feels about being face-to-face with her lover’s wife.

It was recently pointed out to me that I had described PRINCIPLES OF LIFE as “subtly hilarious” and this film as “subtly devastating” and that both were a contradiction in terms. They feel like apt descriptions though – subtle, slice-of-life moments that build into something hilarious/devastating. When the credits rolled on TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS, I was exhausted – my mind felt like mush, but if you asked me to pinpoint the exact moments in the film that lead me to feel that way, I couldn’t. There was only one “major” scene (other than the dentistry, perhaps) that you could identify as the primary source of pathos (you can probably guess what happens) but other than that it was just glances, moments, fragments... There was a final piece of synchronicity between husband and wife at the end of the film that made me feel like I’d been slapped in the face. A simple gesture containing so much meaning is a prime example of the subtleties Romanian film excels in.
Highly recommended viewing - a contender for best of the fest.

MIFF 2011: PRINCIPLES OF LIFE

2011-08-04T19:12:00.004+12:00

“Give me a break, I’ve been through hell,” says Emilian Velicanu (Vlad Ivanov) near the start of PRINCIPLES OF LIFE, but his own personal hell is only just beginning. Trying to organise a trip to the seaside for his family becomes a series of slight frustrations and irritations that eat away at his resolve over the space of about 24hours. This Romanian comedy doesn’t have a lot of laughs, but it finds plenty of humour in the overlooked aspects (and principles!) of life.

Ivanov’s performance is fantastic – my pick for best of the fest so far. Velicanu is a hulking, balding man who has found success in printing and publishing. He has a 14 year-old son, Catalin (Gabriel Huian) from a previous marriage and a baby from his current one. Velicanu is also a complete jerk; admittedly some of the people around him aren’t making his life easy, but he’s so obnoxious and treats everyone with the same level of contempt that it’s very hard to feel sympathy for him. He uses phrases like “can’t you take a joke” and “I’m only kidding” often – a clear sign that he’s rarely on the same page as those around him. As his trip to the sea approaches and his short-fuse decreases, it’s only a matter of time before his anger boils over.
Writer-Director Constantin Popescu’s film is a very subtle comedy, fitting comfortably in the recent (actually its a few years old now) renaissance of brilliant Romanian, slice-of-life pictures. The humour derives not only from watching Velicanu fight against his anger, but slight sight-gags and quieter moments. The sound of Windows starting up off-screen when his son leaves his Father’s side, Velicanu trying to get as much information out of Catalin regarding a girl he knows, the two of them trying on and debating sizes of flippers in a supermarket – that most of these moments involve the pair only increases the impact of the unforgettable climax.
A terrifically satisfying film for those willing to go along with its slower pace, PRINCIPLES OF LIFE is a well-crafted ode to the oft-awkward family vacation.

MIFF 2011: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

2011-08-04T18:23:00.004+12:00

The cult of John Hawkes becomes literalized! Ever since his astounding turn in – and surprise Oscar nomination for – last year’s WINTER’S BONE, I’ve been revisiting some of his older roles (ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, DEADWOOD, even MIAMI VICE!) waiting to see what he’d do next. His follow-up performance as cult leader Patrick in MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE shares some of the traits of Teardrop from WINTER’S BONE – wiry-built men with an air of menace surrounding them, an intensity behind their eyes, the feeling they could explode with rage at any second. I certainly wasn't disappointed!

Elizabeth Olsen plays our title character; the length of the name becomes clear not too far into the film. Apparently she’s related to the Olsen twins, but I really couldn’t see it. I couldn’t imagine a performance this riveting coming out of that family until now. Martha (let’s keep it simple) flees the cult she has been living with for the past couple of years and reconnects with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson). She moves in with her and her new husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) and attempts to adjust to something resembling a “normal” life. However, the memories of her time with Patrick and the cult continue to haunt her and she becomes increasingly paranoid that they will try and track her down. As her mental stability continues to be called into question, she becomes a threat to both herself and her “new” family.
The film operates on two different time-frames, cutting between both her families, i.e. the cult and her sisters’ home. The switches between time/location usually occur on some straight-forward match cuts (e.g. jumping into the water in one location, to falling into the water at another), but the film is absolutely soaked in ambiguity. Are these her genuine memories of the cult or how she imagines it? Is she actually in danger or is it all in her head? By the time you reach the final credits, I’m sure you’ll have an opinion, but it might not match the person next to you.

Beautifully shot by Jody Lee Lipes (TINY FURNITURE was his handiwork too!) and featuring fantastic performances all round, director Sean Durkin’s debut is a promising start to what I hope is a long career.
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Sidebar: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE plays again at MIFF on the 7th of August, and at Wellington NZFF on the 5th and 10th.

MIFF 2011: TERRI

2011-08-03T18:22:00.004+12:00

Newcomer Jacob Wysocki gives a fantastic performance as the titular character in Azazel Jacobs’ TERRI – a film that does a wonderful job capturing the awkwardness of adolescence in a way SUBMARINE simply could not. While both films feature misfit main characters trying to navigate the politics of high school, only TERRI truly delves into how uncomfortable and unsettling that period of growing up can be.

Terri lives with his Uncle James (Creed Bratton), an old man slowly succumbing to some form of dementia and thus Terri has to fend for both of them. Terri’s large build makes him the object of ridicule and that he’s started going to class in his pyjamas acts as a red flag for his principal, Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly). Reilly’s character is our primary source of humour throughout the film. The painful, touching moments that occur to Terri are punctuated with his visits to Mr. Fitzgerald’s office, where Reilly’s fantastic comedic timing provides a few moments of genuine hilarity.
Mr. Fitzgerald is no stranger to alienation and awkwardness either – it’s not much of a stretch to claim he sees part of his younger self in Terri – and some of the private moments they share together are simply fantastic.
The emphasis here is not on comedy though. Apart from some Reilly-Wysocki interaction, I never found the film particularly funny, more painful and uncomfortable. I spent more time watching this film through my fingers than I have for some brutal horror flicks! The final act in particular is one long, drawn out exercise in awkward-style situations that have become a mainstay of some of the better American sitcoms. But isn’t that how many recall their teens? No matter how much of a misfit or outcast you were (and we see several different kinds throughout the film), your teens were long, painful and uncomfortable. So’s TERRI.
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Sidebar: TERRI plays at Wellington NZFF on the 11th, 12th and 13th of August.

MIFF 2011: FIRE IN BABYLON

2011-08-03T17:24:00.004+12:00

At my last job, many of my co-workers were massive fans of reggae music and its various derivatives while I – to put it mildly – was not. As FIRE IN BABYLON began, (a documentary about a sport I’m not really a fan of either,) it became clear that the film was going to feature a score set entirely to that particular music. During these first few moments, as the reggae played a thought occurred: this film was going to feel like work.

It took quite a bit of work for me to get into the groove of FIRE IN BABYLON, an account of a remarkable cricket team that endured jeering and racial taunts but overcame them to become major players on the world stage. The West Indies were nicknamed (by their opponents) “Calypso Cricketers”, a team that could entertain but were not to be taken seriously. Under the captaincy of Sir Viv Richards, this all changed. The West Indies altered the way they played, became more disciplined, and recruited several intimidating fast bowlers in an attempt to beat the English at their own game.The film placed a lot of emphasis on their remarkable fast bowlers. I’ll conceded that they were a major part of the team’s success but the way the film continued to show batsman getting hit with a full speed cricket ball and limping away made the sport seem like a competition to see who could do the most physical damage to the other players.
The flow of the film often stopped dead in its tracks so that we could have musical interludes by artists from the area singing/rapping about cricket. The importance of both sporting life and music to the people of the area is not lost on me though, and if I was a fan of both, I’d be having a much better time. For anyone who enjoys either though - get involved!
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Sidebar: FIRE IN BABYLON plays at Wellington NZFF on the 3rd, 5th and 14th of August .

MIFF 2011: TABLOID

2011-07-31T19:02:00.004+12:00

In the past year I’ve gone a little crazy for Errol Morris documentaries - devouring GATES OF HEAVEN; VERNON, FLORIDA; THE THIN BLUE LINE; FAST, CHEAP, AND OUT OF CONTROL; and THE FOG OF WAR all in a very short space of time. I love the way he constructs his films, no voice-over narrator – just the people involved talking about what happened, what they do, what they wish etc. We get to hear in their own words their side of a story and have it contrasted with another individual giving completely contradictory facts. Morris is a master of montage and his films are often edited with a certain level of playfulness – utilizing found footage, animation and re-enactments.

Having seen all these wonderful films, I of course wanted the good times to keep on going so when I heard his new film TABLOID would be at MIFF – it was one of the first tickets I bought. I was not disappointed.
TABLOID features interviews with a mere six people:
-Joyce McKinney [below: right], a woman who fell madly(!) in love with a Mormon in the late 70s.
-A pilot who helped fly McKinney to the UK to look for him.
-A journalist for the Daily Express whose paper helped McKinney tell her side of the story at the time.
-A photographer for the Daily Mirror whose paper told a startling different version of the events.
-A former Mormon who acts as our tour guide for some of the faith’s more obscure principles.
-And one other man, who shows up too close to the end of the film for me to reveal here!

The Truth (with a capital T) has often been hard to establish in any one of Morris’ films and it’s no exception here. At one point, an interviewee claims that it might lie somewhere between McKinney’s version of events and those of her “kidnap” victim and I feel he’s probably right. The function of TABLOID isn’t to solve the case of “The Manacled Mormon” (“I think it was actually ropes, but ‘chains’ sounds better,” says Peter Tory from the Daily Express) but to entertain the viewer and let several people give their take on events.
And boy, is it ever entertaining! It’s easily Morris’ most accessible film; I was in fits of laughter one minute and with my jaw dropped, wide-eyed the next. The story is truly unbelievable, and even though I thought I had a fairly good handle on McKinney’s life, the final act was so strange and out of left-field I was stunned. Not to be missed!
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Sidebar: TABLOID plays at Wellington NZFF on the 31st of July, 2nd, 4th and 6th of August.

MIFF 2011: CURLING

2011-07-31T18:35:00.003+12:00

There is a shot early on in Denis Côté’s CURLING that seems to last forever. It features Jean-François and his daughter, Julyvonne walking along a barren road in freezing cold weather. The land to the left and right of the road is covered in thick snow and visibility is minimal. The camera stays far from the characters as they brave the conditions to return to their home. It’s blowing a fierce gale from right to left and the snow sweeps across the road, at the mercy of the wind. It’s a beautiful shot – reminiscent of the director of my most anticipated this festival (Bela Tarr and THE TURIN HORSE). A policeman pulls over and asks Jean-François why he’s walking and not driving home given the conditions. He gives an unsatisfying response – our first indication that something might not be right with Jean-François and his parenting practices. As the policeman leaves, the film’s title comes up in thick letters across the top of the screen.

It’s kind of all downhill from there.Okay – that’s really unfair, but sometimes I just can’t connect to a film despite it having plenty of elements I usually love. Unexplained occurrences, an odd sense of humour, deliberate incongruities (how about that end credits music!) and quiet character studies usually make for a great filmic experience, but this time I just wasn’t feeling it.

Will revisit this one at some point in the future.
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Sidebar: CURLING can be viewed for free on Mubi’s official MIFF page.

MIFF 2011: TOP FLOOR LEFT WING

2011-07-31T18:14:00.002+12:00

9/11 has been an uneasy source of comedy for the past - well - we’re coming up on ten years. From Chris Morris’ hilarious FOUR LIONS to Uwe Boll’s abysmal POSTAL, the recent political climate has been exploited for laughs with varying degrees of success. French farce TOP FLOOR LEFT WING might have an uphill battle finding an audience given recent events haven’t exactly left people wanting to rush out and see a “terrorist comedy”, but to paint the film with that brush might be a little unfair. The target of ridicule here isn’t exactly terrorism itself, but more race-relations, police ineptitude and media hype.

Set in France, François (Hippolyte Giradot) knocks on the door of the titular apartment to evict the tenants for unpaid rent. Algerian wannabe-rapper Salem (Aymen Saïdi) freaks out as he’s holding a large amount of heroin for a friend and assumes the place is being raided. Soon François, Salem, and his alcoholic, passive father Mohand (Mohamed Fellag) are locked in the apartment with the police banging on the door outside. As Salem waves a gun around, François becomes his hostage so that he can stall for time until the rightful owner of the drugs arrives and will hopefully cause a riot big enough that Salem and his father can slip away during the ruckus.

Meanwhile, the police and government officials below have floated the word ‘terrorism’ out there and the press have picked up on the story. Salem does nothing to dispel the notion that he might blow up the entire building, as he figures the whole ‘terrorism’ angle can only buy him more time.
There were several laugh-out loud moments (a very funny scene involving the installation of a peephole stood out for me) but as the film winds down, I’m not sure its climax was particularly satisfying for anyone other than one of the three men – and I’m including the audience when I say that! However, its final shot was fantastic and returned the smile to my face. A smile I’m currently wearing as I think about it now, so that at least counts for something!

MIFF 2011: SUBMARINE

2011-07-30T17:25:00.006+12:00

I love Richard Ayoade. His performances in THE MIGHTY BOOSH, THE IT CROWD and the criminally underseen GARTH MARENGHI’S DARKPLACE are hilarious and memorable. Just what sort of filmmaker he would be remained to be seen and if his debut SUBMARINE is anything to go by – the man loves his French cinema.

Craig Roberts stars as Oliver, a precocious 15 year-old stuck in Wales during the 1980s. He’s scheming, manipulative and smitten with fellow classmate Jordana (Yasmin Paige), a girl whose main interest seems to be lighting things on fire. Despite Jordana initially using Craig to get back at her ex, a relationship blossoms between the two [below: the happy couple] and we get to experience the delicate social mores and sexual politics surrounding young 80s love (although, personal experience tells me not much has changed in 2 decades).Meanwhile, Craig’s parents are going through a somewhat bumpy patch in their marriage. They haven’t had sex in 7 months which Craig knows due to the state of their bedroom dimmer-switch in the morning. He’s even made a chart and graph about it. When his mother, Yasmin’s (Sally Hawkins) former lover – a self-help guru – moves in next door (played by Paddy Considine, clearly having a lot of fun), it only adds further strain to the marriage and Craig decides to do everything within his power to keep his parents together. Craig’s father, Lloyd (Noah Taylor) is a talented marine biologist and unfortunate sad-sack who has clearly lost all passion. There’s a beautiful moment when both father and son shun their responsibilities and sit in the kitchen with the phone ringing, neither wanting to answer.

Oliver narrates the film from start to finish, pausing briefly to converse with those around him. In his mind he’s clearly a lot more confident, as his speech often starts and stutters, particularly during the early moments of wooing Jordana.
The film has a self-aware, kinetic energy to it that immediately recalls the French New Wave, my eye was also drawn to a LE CERCLE ROUGE poster on Craig’s wall (an anachronistic one at that, but never mind) and at one point Craig takes Jordana to see THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC. I’m sure many more film references can be found within and I look forward to trying to spot them all on repeat viewings.
SUBMARINE is a very touching coming-of-age story that announces the talented actor Ayoade as a talented filmmaker to watch.
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Sidebar: SUBMARINE plays at Wellington NZFF on the 31st of July, 4th and 5th of August and screens with the Cannes winning short BLUE!

MIFF 2011: TINY FURNITURE

2011-07-30T15:02:00.003+12:00

My Melbourne International Film Festival began with a very funny Indie by writer-director-star Lena Dunham. Dunham played Aura, a girl in her very early 20s who has finished a film degree at University and moved back home to figure out what to do with her life next. Immediately the film must sound fairly autobiographical, and if you add the fact that Aura’s mother and sister are played by Dunham’s actual mother and sister, that reading becomes impossible to avoid. Films like this typically take one of two routes; become very Meta (a filmmaker struggling to sort out her life decides to make a film about a filmmaker struggling to sort out her life decides to make... ad infinitum) or become very self-deprecating. Luckily (because I’ve had more than enough Meta this year), TINY FURNITURE takes the latter path.

These characters are insufferable and incorrigible. From Aura’s woe-is-me moaning, to her (new) best friend’s phony in-your-face attitude, to the “YouTube celebrity” staying at her house, to the obnoxious chef looking to score some pills, to her over-achieving hipster sister – these are all terrible people who I’d hate to have as friends, but make for a fairly entertaining 98minutes of “laughing at” style humour.

If you can stand them, of course. I’d imagine the film could prove rather divisive – either you have the time for these sorts or you don’t. It’s probably unfair of me to single out just the sister as a hipster as the whole cast works well to confirm some of those prejudices. A friend who saw it a while back had warned me with, “The dialogue is awful. It makes JUNO look like fucking NETWORK,” and while I think I genuinely agree with him – I’m counting it as a positive. While Juno was supposed to perpetrate a real-life style of teen speech, here the dialogue comes across as parody – a heightened, pretentious way of talking that invites the audience to ridicule it, not adopt it (honest to blog).
TINY FURNITURE is also a great example of form matching theme. The entire story is as aimless and directionless as our principle character, and features a hilariously unsatisfying climax (in more ways than one).
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Sidebar: TINY FURNITURE plays again at MIFF on the 5th of August, and at Wellington NZFF on the 11th and 14th.

10 (slightly unusual) Picks for the Melbourne International Film Festival 2011

2011-07-14T12:41:00.007+12:00

Seeing as I don’t want to pitch the same film twice on the blog, every time I do another list I exclude the films that already made the cut on previous posts. So for this collection of films I’ve excluded THE FUTURE, THE GUARD and THE TURIN HORSE (My 11 Most Anticipated Films for 2011); and ANOTHER EARTH, DRIVE, THE INNKEEPERS, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, MELANCHOLIA, SUBMARINE, TABLOID and TAKE SHELTER (10 Picks for the New Zealand International Film Festival 2011). All of those films I plan to see (you could fill up a 10-trip card right there!) and I still recommend you look into them. I’ll also exclude INTO ETERNITY from this list as I saw it during a documentary film festival earlier in the year (and did a write-up on it).

So what does that leave me with? The outsiders and outliers – the films that make up my second tier of recommendations. The ones I had only a vague interest in before the festival started or perhaps never heard of until I picked up the programme. I plan to go to every one of these films below and have already booked most of them.
In alphabetical order (as always):

FAMILIAR GROUND
Here’s one I had never heard of until I was flicking through the guide, but its description contained several terms that always get me excited. Terms like “absurd circumstance”, “traces of sci-fi”, “a dark trip”, and “Winner of the Ecumenical Jury prize at the 2011 Berlin film festival.” Okay, maybe not so much that last one, but it’s still another tick in the “pros” column.
A man still living at home with his father is warned by someone who has traveled from the future that a grave accident will befall his sister.
FIRE IN BABYLON
I’ve booked my ticket for this and I don’t even like cricket [above: bowling and batsmaning]. So if you do enjoy the sport you must be at least doubly excited for this one. FIRE IN BABYLON is a documentary charting the rise of the West Indies cricket team from an international joke into repeated World Champions. I think I’m just a sucker for underdog tales; plus far too often I pick documentaries where I already know too much about the subject (like VIDEOCRACY last year). Here I have an opportunity to genuinely learn something.

KILL LIST
Ben Wheatley’s follow-up to last year’s DOWN TERRACE (which I’ll admit I haven’t seen) is easily in my (overall) top ten but it’s hard to explain why. RichOnFilm (who saw it at the Sydney Film Fest) advised me not to read another thing about it or even think about the film again until I’m sitting in the cinema – adding that it’s just my sort of thing. So take from that what you will.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
Winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA [above: eerie] features a policeman and a prosecutor escorting two men through the Anatolian countryside to find the body of a man they have confessed to killing. I saw director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s THREE MONKEYS a few years back and it was an intense, psychological experience. I’m expecting this film to pack the same punch.

PRINCIPLES OF LIFE
When I reached this one in my shortlist I had to stop and think “what was this about again?” As soon as I saw it was from Romania, I knew why it had made the cut. I love contemporary Romanian cinema. THE DEATH OF MR. LAZERESCU, 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST and 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS have helped established the country as a producer of fantastic, dark and subtly humorous films. PRINCIPLES OF LIFE features a man trying to organise a simple holiday for his family but suffering “minor set-backs and petty frustrations”. Sounds like fun (for us, not him).
SUPER
“Shut up, Crime!”
Tell me you’ve all seen this trailer? Rainn Wilson [above: beware crime] stars as a DIY superhero who wastes people in the face with a pipe wrench. From drug-dealing to molesting kids to cutting in line, it doesn’t matter the crime, they each get a wrench upside the head. From the director of SLITHER this promises to be a much darker film than the trailer probably lets on.

TINY FURNITURE
This one I want to see almost entirely due to the first paragraph describing the film on the MIFF website. Change the gender to male and remove the New York setting and you have an uncomfortably accurate description of my life at one point. Writer, director, star Lena Dunham (who is only 25) has created a film about what it means to be a rudderless member of Generation Y. I wonder if her character will handle it better than I did (or do? Hmmn).

TOP FLOOR LEFT WING

A French film about a civil servant who attempts to serve an eviction notice to a flat but ends up being taken hostage by the man inside who’s a little jumpy due to the five kilos of cocaine he’s holding. A series of (I assume hilarious) misunderstandings follow as the police and media gathering outside interpret the event as an act of terrorism (the film’s apparently set on September 11, which can’t help matters). Could this be this year’s FOUR LIONS?

THE UNJUST
It’s a Korean film called THE UNJUST. What more could you want? [above: just look at it! Keen.]

THE WOMAN
“This film ought to be confiscated and burned. There’s no value in showing this to anyone.”
It would seem at least one person at Sundance had a very strong reaction to watching THE WOMAN. A video was making the rounds on YouTube earlier this year featuring a very upset man being escorted from the building as he talks about how terrible an experience the film was. Over at Hitflix you can read a very good account of what happened during the Sundance Q&A by someone who was there.
So what’s it about? A family find and capture a feral woman roaming in the woods and attempt to “civilise” her. Let’s call this the “cinematic dare” of the festival. Don’t sit near the exits – the walk-outs might get distracting.

I’ll be at the festival from the 27th onwards and for every session I attend I’ll be doing a 140 character review over on twitter and a more detailed write-up here on the blog.
As always – if I’ve overlooked any films be sure to let me know!

7 Great Film Festival Trailers

2011-07-05T13:57:00.006+12:00

Not long to go now! The Melbourne International Film Festival programme launches very soon and needless to say – I’m excited. A few weeks ago they unveiled a couple of very clever film festival trailers; not trailers for a film in the festival but rather trailers promoting the actual festival itself. These trailers also (traditionally) play at the start of every screening, so they need to be entertaining! Below are 7 Film Festival trailers from around the world that I think are particularly great. A lot of them show a great sense of (often self-deprecating) humour, but all help convey the joy of film festival attendance.

1. Melbourne International Film Festival 2011 – The Potato Peelers

I thought it best to start with the trailer that inspired this list. After last year, the phrase “Kubrick versus Apatow” has forever burrowed into my mind. If this one stays with me though, it won't bother me. Love the cameo at the end.

2. Vancouver International Film Festival 2009 – Subtitles

I see more subtitled films on screen during film festivals than at any other time of the year. I have no problem watching subtitled films but the very first attempt to translate the film into English can provide some interesting results.

3. 44th New York Film Festival

A very simple but effective trailer that puts a lot of emphasis on the role of established auteur directors during festivals.

4. Raindance Film Festival 2007

Unlike the one above, this trailer instead focuses on the first-time director – the sort of very low budget filmmakers who get a chance to shine during the fest. I love these sorts of films, a chance to see a great director just starting out with grand things ahead of them. (Eagle-eyed viewers will notice part of this trailer was shot in Melbourne.)

5. Vancouver International Film Festival 2008 – Front Row

In 2008, VIFF created 7 short trailers each saluting a different type of festival attendee, from seat-savers to over-analyzers to the guy who elects to ask the first question at the Q&A session. I’ve embedded the one for those who have to take up the oft-uncomfortable front row. I love this almost entirely due to the narrator’s delivery of the words “top right”.

6. 42nd San Francisco International Film Festival

A groovy Saul Bass inspired effort that highlights many cinema-going inconveniences such as people talking during films, fighting over armrests and again... sitting in the front row (I hope I never have to do this at a screening!).

7. Vancouver International Film Festival 2009 – Sexuality

I’ll close with yet another VIFF trailer. I can’t help it – they just seem to have a knack for this! Another version of the “subtitles” trailer above, this one focuses instead on a certain type of film we see far too often during festivals (or maybe not enough, to be honest).

If you have any favourites I’ve excluded, be sure to let me know in the comments.

10 Picks for the New Zealand International Film Festival 2011

2011-06-30T19:06:00.006+12:00

Tis that time!

The Wellington programme for the New Zealand International Film Festival went live today and there are plenty of cinematic treats to explore. I assembled a shortlist earlier in the week based on the Auckland programme but I thought it would be best to wait in case any of my picks were cut. I received a great shock when instead of Auckland getting films we weren’t... the other way around appears to be true! Oh sure, some of these new films could be late additions to the Auckland programme but for now I’m just going to savour the thought that this year – Wellington is getting a sweeter deal!
How much of the Wellington Film Festival I get to see is up in the air as I will be in Melbourne for the bulk of it attending their one. It’s a real shame that the two festivals overlap as I would have loved to do 4 weeks of film mayhem! I’ll still be trying to see every film I list here that plays over there and hopefully I can catch the ones that don’t when I return. Watching good films shouldn’t be this complicated!
Of my list of overall most anticipated films for 2011, THE FUTURE, THE GUARD, I SAW THE DEVIL, MEEK’S CUTOFF, and THE TURIN HORSE are all playing at the festival! So let’s take those as a given and move onto 10 different films:

ANOTHER EARTH
Thank you alphabetical order for letting me talk about the two new additions to my list first! This film doesn't appear to be on the Auckland programme (yet).
Mike Cahill’s ANOTHER EARTH won the special jury prize at Sundance this year and contains a world where a second Earth is discovered identical to the current one. I’ve been told the film doesn’t lean too heavy on its sci-fi aspects and instead focuses on its characters – which to be honest is exactly how I like my sci-fi.
DRIVE
I can’t believe my luck here.
When DRIVE became the closing night film at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the only way I was going to get to see it was to fork out AU$100, which is a considerable amount of money for a guy like me. Now that DRIVE has been added to the Wellington programme, once MIFF is finished, I can just see it when I return to New Zealand!
DRIVE stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stuntman who spends his nights as a getaway driver. Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn and also featuring Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman – this film is surely the must-see of the festival.

THE INNKEEPERS
Ti West’s 2009 film THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL was a fantastically atmospheric throwback to old 80s horror films. He returns here with another flick that appears to be in a similar style: a horror film without the meta-commentary and sly winking at the camera; one that starts off slow but completely loses its mind by the final reel (okay this was shot on HD, but you get the idea...)

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
The love affair with John Hawkes continues! I cited his performance in WINTER’S BONE as the best of 2010 and I can’t wait for this awkwardly titled Sundance hit. I’ve been avoiding reading too much about this one, but it sounds like a seriously impressive debut for director Sean Durkin.

MELANCHOLIA
Oh dear, Lars von Trier.
If there was any doubt that the man loved to provoke, it was removed during the infamous Cannes screening of Melancholia where he calls himself a Nazi, joked about Hitler and wound up “persona non grata” for the festival.
A large celestial body is on a collision course for Earth, the apocalypse is near, and Justine (Kristen Dunst) is getting married. Dunst won best actress at Cannes over front-runner Tilda Swinton, so I’m keen to check it out based on that alone.
MY JOY
This played at the Melbourne International Film Festival last year but I unfortunately missed it. A friend who did see it has been talking about it sporadically ever since, and I’m glad I finally get a second chance to take it in for myself. MY JOY [above] plays out as a Kafkaesque road trip through Russia, based on true stories that come across as horror; one of those films where if you went to it based on the title alone, you might be in for a shock...

SUBMARINE
The hilarious Richard Ayoade (Moss from THE IT CROWD!) directs his feature debut about an alienated 15-year old boy in Swansea, Wales. It just occurred to me that this is the only comedy I’ve picked for my list – that wasn’t intentional, but let’s says that gives the film even more importance. SUBMARINE also features Paddy Considine whose own directorial debut TYRANNOSAUR is playing the fest.

TABLOID
Token documentary pick!
I kid – I’m actually a massive Errol Morris (THE THIN BLUE LINE, THE FOG OF WAR) fan, with only a couple of films left of his to see. TABLOID tells an incredible true story, but as with a lot of Morris’ films the actual “true” part might be buried amongst his disputing subject’s opinions. In 1977 Joyce McKinney kidnapped a man she had fallen in love with, and attempted to sex the Mormon out of him.
What? Is that not accurate?
TAKE SHELTER
This film was completely and utterly off my radar until I watched its phenomenal trailer. The second film on this list with an apocalyptic mood (sign o’ the times?), TAKE SHELTER [above] stars Michael Shannon as a family man who starts experiencing visions that lead him to believe he has to enact the film’s title. Is it all in his head? The trailer hints that other family members have problems mentally. All I know is I’ve heard this film has a climax that *needs* to be seen (take away from that what you will).

TAXI DRIVER
Following on from last year’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST we have a brand new 35mm restoration of Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER. I love these vintage screenings as you just never get a chance to see movies like this on the big screen in New Zealand. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what it’s about and I’m extremely envious of anyone who will experience the film for the first time in this setting.

Normally I try to have a good mix varying in genre and tone but my picks this year are genuinely my Top Ten* and thus my cult sensibilities shine through. I’m sure there are plenty of beautiful, lyrical, foreign films on offer too. Let me know if there’s anything vital I’m missing in the comments.
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*Sidebar: Oh, as if I need to tell you to go see THE TREE OF LIFE! Its omission isn’t me making a statement – I’m keen too!

Curiosities #4

2011-06-15T15:03:00.007+12:00

All right then.

Some Curiosities to follow but first, a lengthy apology. Sorry I’ve been a little absent lately. The blog hasn’t received the TLC it deserves due to a number of factors. Firstly, there have been laptop issues. It was pointed out to me that this is the 21st Century equivalent of “the dog ate my homework” but just as I’m sure some people’s dogs did consume their assignments, some people’s laptop do occasionally catch on fire – which mine did. It was returned to me two days ago with new insides and I’m currently back up and running.
Secondly, I originally created this blog because I was worried I’d have nowhere to write about film after leaving University. I’ve since returned to University to engage in some post-grad shenanigans, so I’m doing plenty of film-writing but you don’t really get to see any of it. I’m also writing for another site, which I’ll talk about shortly, but that doesn’t mean soundslikecinema is packing it in. No sir, I need this blog. I need to have somewhere I can write without anyone editing or grading me. I need to have a place where I can write a sentence like: “People who begin a review with the words ‘Dear Internet’ can fuck right off” and not have to answer to anyone except myself (and people who write like that).

Plus: festival season is upon us! This is my favourite time of year to be a blogger because I don’t actually have to come up with new things to write about. Top 10 Picks for [Festival], Reviews of Films within [Festival], 10 Favourite Films of [Festival]. Brilliant. I’ll be travelling to Melbourne for their one and when I return there’ll still be a week of the Wellington festival left. It’s going to be a very fun three weeks. In the meantime, the Sydney Film Festival still has a few days left and I’ve been enjoying coverage from Rich on Film, The Reel Bits and of course, AtTheCinema.
I say “of course” because that’s who I’ve been writing for over the last 15 weeks. For those who don’t know, my Hidden Gem articles which I used write sporadically for this blog have become a weekly feature over there. Be sure to check them out. I’m fairly obsessed with how many people have seen, so feel free to do me a favour and have a count up! The ones I wrote here are still about. They were BLAST OF SILENCE, ROGER DODGER, TARGETS, SURVIVE STYLE 5+, MALICE, THE DAMNED UNITED and RECOUNT [above].

Back in May, The Film Experience did a very cool piece about how long it takes certain directors to release a new film and what their average number of years between films are. For example, David Lynch averages one film every four years with the gap between MULHOLLAND DR. and INLAND EMPIRE being the longest, whereas Clint Eastwood averages one film every 16 months with the longest gap lasting 3 years between THE GAUNTLET and BRONCO BILLY. Terrence Malick’s 20 year gap between DAYS OF HEAVEN and THE THIN RED LINE gets a lot of attention but Roy Andersson’s 25 year gap between GILIAP and his masterpiece SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR [below] has him beat.Another director who has been taking his time is James Cameron. There’s a 12 year gap between TITANIC and AVATAR and both score exactly 83% on RottenTomatoes.com. I became aware of this when I typed his name into Slate’s Hollywood Career-o-matic. Give it a director or an actor and it will give you their RT score on a graph over time. Cameron’s career goes up and down for a bit until it hits TITANIC where it just flatlines (so to be speak (!)). Peter Jackson (Dir.) has a line that looks a little worrying so I typed in some other NZ directors and found Roger Donaldson, Martin Campbell and Jane Campion all look like they’re on the right track. Remember, it’s all just a bit of fun though, you can’t make critical hits *all* the time (unless you’re Mike Leigh... look at his line!).

Have you seen what the IMDB rating for THIS IS SPINAL TAP goes up to?

Have you seen that the original SPACE JAM website still exists?

Anyway, that’s probably enough for now. I just wanted to get back into the swing of things, and I’ll try to return to the semi-regular postings I used to do.
Feel free to make jokes about how I definitely *do* need an editor in the comments...
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Sidebar: cheers to filmisnothing for his recent comment on COLD WEATHER where he both gives an interesting take on the film, and calls me out on my lack of posting.

World Cinema Showcase 2011: THE WHITE MEADOWS

2011-04-23T12:30:00.004+12:00

I am not a rich man and my time is limited. Ideally I’d be able to see ever film I ever wanted to see, when I wanted to see it, but as I have limited resources I have to pick my battles. The World Cinema Showcase offers a multi-trip card where you can purchase five films for a discount. I scooped one up and quickly allocated the first four slots with films I’ve been hanging out for (KABOOM, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE), a film I’d never heard of that sounded awesome (COLD WEATHER), and a new film by a director I study (AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE). The fifth slot was left available for a prestige flick. If I hadn’t seen UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES last year, it would be my final choice. Instead I was left to frown over whether to see Grand Prix winner OF GODS AND MEN or the very beautiful looking THE WHITE MEADOWS. After some Twitter discussion, it seemed the latter wouldn’t get a general release in this country (or any other country for that matter – how are there only two (2) reviews on Rotten Tomatoes?) so I decided I best see it now and hope OF GODS AND MEN returns.
I’m pretty sure I made the right choice.

THE WHITE MEADOWS is a highly allegorical piece of cinema that immediately overwhelms you with its stunning visuals and beautiful locations. The film follows a man named Rahmat as he travels by boat from island to island collecting people’s tears in a small glass bottle. He acquires a young male companion searching for his father and Rahmat instructs him to pretend to be deaf and dumb, so other people know it is safe to open up and cry without feeling judged. Rahmat has been doing this sort of work for a long time and although nobody knows what he does with the tears, the people who cry feel as though every tear is precious and important.
Rahmat’s first island is mourning the recent death of the most beautiful women anyone had ever seen; a woman so beautiful, one man claimed her death was ultimately a good thing due to what she could do to men’s hearts. Another island contained inhabitants who speak into jars (their fears/hopes/dreams? I may have missed what exactly they were saying and when they were doing the actual speaking into the jars it was too quiet for the subtitles to pick up). The jars are then sealed and strapped to a small man with six fingers on each hand (!) who is to deliver them to a fairy at the bottom of a well. The small man only has a limited amount of time to deliver the jars and he cries about possibly being viewed a failure in the eyes of the townspeople and his new wife...
As you can tell, the film is fairly episodic, but each new island brings a new group of people, a new allegory, and new interpretations.

Apart from the rampant poverty and even more rampant superstition (for lack of a better word), the visual elements tie all of these islands together and this may just be the saltiest place on earth. If salt represents tears and tears represent sorrow – this land is absolutely covered in it! Being surrounded by salt water is one thing, but the salt on some of the land is so thick it looks like snow. This is great for our visual pleasure, not so much for the inhabitants who have a small cut or get it in their eyes, or need to grow some vegetables. They all pray for rain and the sky is a thick grey of cloud, always threatening to start a downpour, but never does. Probably for the best as at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if it starting raining salt.
Writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof’s THE WHITE MEADOWS is easily the most beautiful looking film I’ve seen in a long time and may not get a chance to see again; certainly not in 35 mm as was shown here. Rich in allegory and covered in sorrow, I encourage you not to miss this one.
I eagerly look forward to Rasoulof and (editor) Jafar Panahi’s next collaboration.
Oh, hang on.
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Sidebar: THE WHITE MEADOWS screens again in Wellington on Sunday the 24th of April. Details.

World Cinema Showcase 2011: AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE

2011-04-19T20:53:00.004+12:00

Steven Soderbergh’s AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE is a particularly hard film to talk about. More-or-less a documentary about Spalding Gray’s life, it takes the form of one of his monologues cut together from other monologues, performances, home movies, and interviews. It really is something that just needs to be seen for the effect to be understood, but I’ll do my best to pitch it here.
Spalding Gray was an actor who became well-known for a very specific performance style. He’d take to the stage alone, sit at a desk with a glass of water and a spiral notebook and proceed to narrate episodes from his own life, offering hindsight commentary and candid insight. They were often very humorous (as looking back on one’s own life usually is), very reflective and very personal. The man really was a great storyteller in the traditional sense.
His monologues have been filmed before: SWIMING TO CAMBODIA by Jonathan Demme, MONSTER IN A BOX by Nick Broomfield and GRAY’S ANATOMY also by Soderbergh. Where AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE differs the most is that Gray passed away in 2004 due to a supposed suicide (his body was pulled out of New York’s East River). What we have here is one last monologue; a new performance made up of dozens of old ones.

As for the content of the monologue, we mainly have the autobiographical elements arranged in a more linear order, starting with him talking about his early life and finishing with him talking more about the later (i.e. the present). There is a lot of talk of death and suicide (Gray’s Mother took her own life) that makes for some particularly eerie viewing. He tells the story about a friend who wanted to play Ivanov (in the Chekhov play of the same name) so that he could shoot himself at the end of every night and come back the next evening to do it all over again. Similarly Gray agreed to play Mr. Mungo in Soderbergh’s KING OF THE HILL when he learnt that the character wants to kill himself by slitting his wrists. And in one final unsettling touch, the film ends with Gray finishing an interview where a dog can be heard howling in the background. “That’s a great sound effect,” he remarks before listening to it for a bit. He then adds: “it’s like Chekhov.”
A seriously haunting piece that often had me laughing very hard. There’s no way 89 minutes of a man talking about himself should be this engrossing and entertaining but Spalding Gray certainly had a gift.

World Cinema Showcase 2011: COLD WEATHER

2011-04-19T13:19:00.006+12:00

“Sherlock Holmes smokes a pipe to help him think. Not a stupid big one like Basil Rathbone, but he does have one...” – Doug.

Yesterday afternoon I was staring out the window at my washing on the clothesline, twisting in what had to be the iciest wind in a long time, when I decided to see if anything decent was playing at the cinema. I went to the World Cinema Showcase website and saw that a film would start in 45 minutes that I had pencilled in as wanting to see. I quickly grabbed my coat and cap and took off to escape the cold weather in a warm cinema by seeing COLD WEATHER.
Aaron Katz’s COLD WEATHER is an odd delight that moves at a pace I’d call “glacial” if it didn’t feel like I was making a pun. Doug (Chris Lankenau) is a forensic scientist student who has just dropped out of college and moved back to his hometown of Portland, Oregan. He is living with his sister, Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and working in an ice factory, unsure what his next move will be or when he will make it. We learn he wants to be a detective like Sherlock Holmes, and when one of his workmates Carlos (Raul Castillo) mocks him for this, he lends him one of his books. Carlos reads it and is forced to admit that yes, Holmes is “pretty badass”. When Doug’s ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Robyn Rikoon) comes to visit all four of them get on well and have low-key discussions about STAR TREK and ice and the weather etc.
Then around the halfway mark of the film, Rachel goes missing, and the remaining characters are thrust into something requiring a bit of Sherlock Holmes detective work to solve.

It might turn a lot of people off that the film spends so much time meandering along watching the characters go about their lives. There’s a shot of Doug and Gail eating sandwiches on a park bench with the ocean behind them that seems to last a full minute. No words, no action, just the filmmaker giving enough time for people who thought they would be seeing a “thriller” that might actually be “thrilling” to walk out. That’s not to say the detective work isn’t exciting, but this isn’t exactly CSI: Portland. We spend a lot of time with the characters merely thinking; thinking about what to do next, thinking about code-cracking, even thinking about thinking itself (which sees Doug go to a pipe store to see if one really would help him think). Where stories like this tend to take the slacker and thrust him into an exciting detective story, COLD WEATHER instead takes the detective story and drags it down to the slacker’s level.
When the film ended it felt insanely abrupt but then I started thinking (sans pipe), “what else is there?” The narrative had been fulfilled, all the goals met, and any subplots (will Doug go back to college? Will Carlos and Rachel get together?) ended up feeling like my own invention. Because of the film’s emphasis on character over action, by the time the action ends, I still wanted to know more about the characters.
As I left the theatre and it started to rain (my washing!) it felt like I’d seen a truly great piece of low-budget, low-key filmmaking. Fans of “mumblecore” cinema should obviously track this one down and for those unfamiliar with the genre, this is a pretty good place to start.
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Sidebar: COLD WEATHER screens again in Wellington on Saturday the 23th of April. Details.

World Cinema Showcase 2011: KABOOM

2011-04-19T01:10:00.003+12:00

Now this was a fun way to kick off my World Cinema Showcase. I’d already seen a few of the films on offer (at other festivals) and after putting a line through those, KABOOM emerged as my most anticipated. There was something about the candy-coloured poster, the sexy trailer and the fun-to-say title that made me very keen on this film despite being so unfamiliar with Gregg Araki’s work. I wasn’t completely unfamiliar, having seen the brilliant MYSTERIOUS SKIN, but it seemed like there wouldn’t be a lot of cross over between the two.
KABOOM is a very funny conspiracy-horror-apocalypse hybrid with some very open and liberal attitudes towards sex. Thomas Decker plays Smith, a horny 18 year-old boy approaching his 19th birthday and having some very odd and very vivid recurring dreams. Two of the girls in his dream he has never seen before in his life and when he finally meets them he starts having casual sex with one, while he witnesses the other get killed by men wearing animal masks. At least that’s what he thinks he saw, he’d had a bit to drink and was possibly drugged; he wakes up on the ground unsure whether it actually happened or was yet another vivid dream. His quest to find the girl drives the narrative of the film, (you know, when he’s not having sex with everyone or trying to have sex with everyone else,) and sees Smith cross paths with such colourful characters as his surfer flatmate with long blond hair whose name is actually “Thor”, a ludicrously handsome man at a nudist beach, and a constantly stoned R.A. called “The Messiah”.
Meanwhile, his best friend Stella is having a lesbian relationship with a witch. Yep. Basically everything about the film is exaggerated. The characters, the colours, the situations, the editing (plenty of what I call a “STAR WARS wipe”), the dialogue, the conspiracy-horror-apocalypse film clichés... everything is turned up to 11 and the film is all the more fun for it. I’m sure plenty will complain that it’s too light and too unbelievable but that’s part of what makes it so enjoyable. I don’t think anything in this svelte 86 minute runtime is meant to be taken seriously so just sit back, switch off your brain and let the anarchy wash over you. The film ends with Placebo’s Brian Molko singing “see you at the bitter end” over the soundtrack as we hurry towards its inevitable, hilarious climax. I wasn’t bitter at all though - I went in with certain expectations and they were definitely met. Great poster, great trailer, great title, great film. Highly recommended.
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Sidebar: KABOOM screens again in Wellington on Friday the 22nd of April. Details.

Doc Edge 2011: INTO ETERNITY

2011-03-27T23:03:00.003+13:00

How long is 100,000 years? Well it’s 1,000 centuries and I’ve only been alive for less than a quarter of 1. Nothing built by man has ever come close to lasting that long. For all intents and purposes, it might as well be an eternity.
“Intents and purposes” is an old phrase; I assume you all understand what it means. It has been around for about 500 years. So take that much time and multiply it by 200: what do you suppose language will look like then? Will those words still make sense? How about the words: Do Not Enter! Nuclear Waste Storage!
Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen’s INTO ETERNITY tells the story of the construction of Onkalo (which means ‘hiding place’), an underground facility being built specifically for the storage of nuclear waste. Once construction is completed (still another 100 years away), Onkalo is to be filled with all of Finland’s nuclear waste and then sealed for that length of time I’ve been ruminating on. Apparently that’s how long it takes for the waste to no longer be harmful to humans (or whatever humans evolve into) (or whatever becomes the dominate life-form once humans are extinct) (or whatever, whatever, whatever).
My brain hurts.

To be honest the film could have told me that someone was building something that needs to last 1000 centuries and then just played music while I slinked down in my chair and tried to wrap my head around the ramifications of this. In some ways, the film does just that. There are long periods of music playing while the camera gracefully glides around current nuclear facilities, and as much of Onkalo as exists. At the moment it’s a really long and deep tunnel where a small crew (I got the impression it was just two men) diligently work on a goal they will never see realised in their lifetime.
The film is narrated in the second person, addressing the future generations directly, as if they’ve stumbled onto Onkalo by accident and this was the film playing in the “lobby”. It frequently warns them to turn around and leave. You’d hope they’d listen but we are an inquisitive species. It seems the best solution might be to bury the whole area and forget that Onkalo even exists, in which case I recommend you watch this film while you still can (but don’t tell your grandkids about it).

Doc Edge 2011: EICHMANN'S END - LOVE, TREACHERY, DEATH

2011-03-16T13:13:00.010+13:00

“If you don’t stay objective, then I won’t stay objective, so then I’m quiet...” –Eichmann to his interviewers.

The Documentary Edge Festival kicked off in Wellington last Thursday but it took me a while to take in my first film. I’ll be seeing three or four films and will do a write up for each of them on the blog. Be sure to have a browse through the program as there is still plenty of good stuff to come! Also: be sure to say hello if you see me at a screening (I’ll be the guy in the hat).

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about the First and Second World Wars. I have the basics down - knowledge of the key players, dates and places, but I’ve never actively studied or even looked into one of the most significant events of the last 100 years. If I was a bigger fan of the war genre I might improve my understanding of events, but having INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS as your favourite Nazi flick is a little problematic. The point being that although many will approach this film being familiar with Adolf Eichmann and his capture, I was a blank slate.
After the war ended, newspapers published reports that Eichmann had killed himself and his family when in reality he had fled the country and taken a new name. German journalist Willem Sassen tracks him down in Argentina and proceeds to interview him about his role in the war and Nazi politics in general. Meanwhile, near-blind Jewish Holocaust survivor Lothar Hermann is also living in Argentina and by some bizarre twist of fate, his daughter falls in love with Eichmann’s son. Just through hearing the son talk about his father and their past, Hermann becomes convinced that he has located the elusive war-criminal and contacts German Attorney General Fritz Baur. Baur in turn contacts Israeli Mossad agents in order to circumvent Argentinean and German involvement. Anyone who paid attention in history (which I obviously didn’t) probably knows what happens next.

Director Raymond Ley isn’t really concerned with what happens next though; this is all about the retelling of events up until that point. Ley uses a barrage of different styles to tell the story: re-enactments, “talking head” interviews, documentary footage and archival footage, particularly of concentration camps. This was a little disorientating to begin with but it soon settled into a rhythm. The re-enactments made for the bulk of the film, with the actor playing Eichmann [above: Herman Knaup] doing a tremendous job portraying a man who is very sure of his place and lack of accountability in the Holocaust even while his interviews are revealing otherwise. He makes a terrible analogy at one point, comparing how you don’t blame those who load bombs onto a plane for the outcome, with his “loading” of Jews onto a train. He was aware that “some” would be killed but he felt less guilty by knowing that the final decision as to which ones wasn’t his own...
Ultimately though, this is the story of a horrible person and his extraordinary capture. EICHMANN’S END – LOVE, TREACHERY, DEATH keeps things moving at a pace more akin to a thriller than your standard History Channel Nazi tale. If more documentaries were as well put together as this, my grasp of history would be much stronger!
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Sidebar: EICHMANN’S END – LOVE, TREACHERY, DEATH screens again on Thursday 17th and Sunday 27th of March. Details.

Pixar’s UP Does Not Have an Exclamation Mark

2011-03-11T13:40:00.006+13:00

I have a fairly strong tendency to obsess over little details that others are happy to ignore and get on with their day. It’s a curse, I assure you, but there’s nothing wrong with a desire to be accurate. However, you can only see other people making the same mistakes over and over again so often before you turn to your blog and write 493 words on the matter.
And here we are.
Just so there’s no confusion: UP without an exclamation mark is a 2009 award-winning Pixar film about an elderly man and his house that takes flight due to a large number of balloons. UP! with an exclamation mark is a 1976 Russ Meyer softcore sex comedy about the murder of a former Nazi starring Raven De La Croix, Kitten Natividad and Candy Samples.
As you can tell, two very different films and yet whenever I see someone mention “UP!” I’m becoming more and more confident they actually mean the Pixar film. “I was at the DVD store and bought UP! for the kids” is a sentence where I can only hope the writer made an error. People make this mistake a lot, with a recent Cinematical article being the breaking point for me (although they got it right in the headline). I’m not above screwing up titles. Last year’s THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT provided me with a bit of difficulty as I kept spelling it as “ALRIGHT”. This stemmed from a combination of being a fan of the song/documentary film by The Who where it is spelled that way, and of my own personal belief that was the correct spelling of the word. I’ve since learned that this is erroneous and it should always be “all right” (unless referring to The Who, of course).
So where did the mix up for UP/UP! come from? I thought maybe it was from an earlier title of the film, or maybe featured on an early poster. I went over to IMDB but the only “Also Known As” featuring an exclamation mark for the title came from Hungary’s FEL! (It also states on that page that the Japan-English literal translation of the title is MR. CARL’S FLYING HOSE [sic]. I’m sure that’s meant to be “house”. Geez, do I find errors or do errors find me?) I haven’t found any posters that feature the exclamation mark either, so that line of thinking may be a dead-end...
I’d imagine Pixar *always* wanted the film to have no exclamation mark specifically because they didn’t want it to be confused with the Russ Meyer cult-classic. That this still happened might be the cause of some frustration but perhaps you (and me for that matter) could take it another way? UP is so utterly fantastic that every time one talks about it they feel so tremendous inside they need to slap an exclamation mark down as a symbol of their joy!
Yeah, that’ll work.

Follow up: Obligatory Oscar Prediction Post 2011 & My Best Picture Ten

2011-03-04T16:57:00.004+13:00

The Academy Awards have come and gone and I didn’t watch the ceremony due to both other commitments and disliking Anne Hathaway when she tries to be funny. Sounds like she ended up doing a much better job than her co-host Franco, but as I said I didn’t watch it, and I haven’t seen any of it since. Of course, I am well-aware of the results so let’s have a look at how those line up with some of my predictions.
The joy that I might experience by calling THE KING’S SPEECH to triumph over THE SOCIAL NETWORK in Best Picture is undercut by two things: 1. I really didn’t want it to, and 2. I got *a lot* of other categories wrong. Only five out of the eight that I predicted were correct and the other three seem very obvious now:

Best Supporting Actor

I said: Geoffrey Rush – THE KING’S SPEECH

They said: Christian Bale – THE FIGHTER
I acknowledge in my write-up that Bale [above: skinny] was the hot favourite to win this, but then go on to call him a dick – twice! I suppose he was pretty good in THE FIGHTER. I hated how broad he was at the start but as his character’s life became better defined, so did the performance. That’s probably genius.

Original Screenplay

I said: INCEPTION

They said: THE KING’S SPEECH
Had I known THE KING’S SPEECH was written by a 74 year-old, I’m sure I would have picked it. I thought David Seidler’s screenplay was fairly straight-forward and a little easy, but I guess that helped make it such a solid piece. It’s kind of hard to argue with really. INCEPTION on the other hand, is very easy to argue with. It seems that arguing about the script has become part of the experience. Love it or hate it, be ready to talk about exposition whenever the film is mentioned...

Best Director

I said: David Fincher, THE SOCIAL NETWORK

They said: You’re an idiot, Greg.
As Michael C asked over at Film Experience in the days leading up to the Oscars, “When has a picture/director split ever been predicted?” The answer seems to be "never". The only time that Director and Picture Oscars have been split between two films were total surprises. CRASH and BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, GLADIATOR and TRAFFIC, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN... The favourite for Best Picture in these examples only ended up winning Best Director and left us with an ongoing debate as to how that happened. So calling a split is a very foolish thing to do, and that I did it with such conviction makes it all the more so. Oh fucking well, time will tell which is the better film [below: I'm five-eighths sure it will be this one].

Moving on...

Way back in October I took a stab at predicting what ten films would end up being the Best Picture nominees despite not having seen a lot of them (in fact, many hadn’t even been released). I came away with a respectable eight out of ten. The two films I thought would be in the ten but weren’t: RABBIT HOLE and NEVER LET ME GO. I acknowledged that the latter was a pick right out of “left field” but my love for Mark Romanek blinded me to the obvious outcome. To this day, I still haven’t seen NEVER LET ME GO, but it has a release date later this month. I really loved RABBIT HOLE and Nicole Kidman’s Oscar nomination was good recognition but it just didn’t make the cut for other categories.The two films I left out: BLACK SWAN and WINTER’S BONE. Both seem startling obvious now. I saw WINTER’S BONE about 3 days after I made the blog post and immediately wanted to include it. It really is a fantastic film. I’m still surprised that the psychological body-horror film BLACK SWAN was included. I loved it, but I didn’t think The Academy would!
With that, I wash my hands clean of the 2011 Oscars. Talk of next year’s event will be banned from the blog until at least September so we can focus on the joys of film that lie outside of winning awards. I assure you there are many...
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Sidebar: This site is now located at http://www.soundslikecinema.com. You’ll be redirected if you go to the old domain name but your RSS feeds won’t be... please, update today!

Obligatory Oscar Predictions Post 2011

2011-02-23T20:18:00.006+13:00

Here we go again.
Just like last year, the gap between who I want to and who I think genuinely will win the Oscar is very wide. I’ve recorded both in an attempt to double my odds of not being disappointed; this will clearly be an ongoing event for the blog. I’ve focused on what I consider the Big 8 because I’m not really up to speed on Sound Editing and the like. Maybe one day I will have an opinion on Best Documentary Short Subject or whatever, but unless I become an actual member of The Academy, I just don’t see that happening.
And we’re off:

Best Supporting Actor
Who I want: John Hawkes, WINTER’S BONE
Who they'll pick: Geoffrey Rush, THE KING’S SPEECH

I don’t need to keep going on about how much I love John Hawkes in WINTER’S BONE. It’s a tremendous performance that departed greatly from all the roles I’m used to seeing him in. Four nominations is already great recognition for WINTER’S BONE but I doubt it’ll actually pick up any trophies on the night.
Sorry Christian Bale, I know you’re the favourite going into this and I love your performance but I’m pretty sure The Academy still thinks you’re a bit of a dick. I tried to think of a better word than ‘dick’ but nothing quite suits. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’ve forgive you, but I think Geoffrey Rush will take this one out.

Best Supporting Actress
Who I want: Amy Adams, THE FIGHTER
Who they'll pick: Melissa Leo, THE FIGHTER

What can I say? The ladies of THE FIGHTER are amazing! Amy Adams [above] and Melissa Leo give phenomenal performances; Adams as the girlfriend of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and Leo as his mother. I don’t *really* mind which of these two comes out on top but I’m thinking Leo will be the victor.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Who I want: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Who they'll pick: THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Aaron Sorkin has always been a bit of a hero of mine. I’ve been a massive fan of all his work (yes, *all!* Go watch STUDIO 60 again) and despite initial reservations about the screenplay, repeat viewings have given me the opinion that it is a tremendous piece. I think The Academy had reached the same opinion long ago. I couldn’t even pick a runner-up option for this category; although TOY STORY 3 as an Adapted Screenplay because the characters aren’t original can fuck right off, but that’s a rant for another time.

Best Original Screenplay
Who I want: THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Who they'll pick: INCEPTION

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT [above] is my kind of script: a lot of people talking and eating and flirting in a very small number of locations. It also happens to be a very original story, which can’t hurt its chances but I think INCEPTION has this locked down.
Let’s talk about INCEPTION’s script for a little bit. I’m a bit tired of people who moan about its use of expositional dialogue. “Show, don’t tell,” that’s what gets drummed into you at Scriptwriting 101. Seems a lot of people are still stuck in that class... Come on now! Don't set limitations for yourself! Much like voice-over narration, expositional dialogue can be used to great effect. Having characters explain the rules of Inception and dream-thievery etc. was a perfect way to get the story moving. I know literate filmy types (myself included) love to be given something ambiguous so we can look down on those who don’t get it, but that clearly wasn’t what Nolan wanted. He wanted everyone up to speed as the film progressed and I feel he handled it the best way. If you disagree, that’s fine, but I have one group that agrees with me that ought to know what they’re talking about!

Best Actor
Who I want: Jesse Eisenberg, THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Who they'll pick: Colin Firth, THE KING’S SPEECH

I hope all those people in the lead up to THE SOCIAL NETWORK’s release referring to Jesse Eisenberg as ‘the poor man’s Michael Cera’ feel pretty foolish. You know who you are. Well at least I remember who you all are because I was shaking my head at the time. Eisenberg’s take on Zuckerberg was extremely entertaining and complex.
Colin Firth seems to be an unstoppable force here. I have no problem with that, he’s a great actor and this is a great performance.

Best Actress
Who I want: Michelle Williams, BLUE VALENTINE
Who they'll pick: Natalie Portman, BLACK SWAN

BLUE VALENTINE was a script I didn’t like but made for a film I kind of love due to the performances of the two leads. Williams and Ryan Gosling (who should have had some sort of recognition here) were phenomenal and took us through some very powerful and unforgettable scenes. Williams’ personal life also enriched her performance, it must have been a tough role to put herself through.
It’ll be Portman [above] that leaves with the trophy, and again I have no problem with this. It’s a crazy difficult performance in what one could describe as a crazy and difficult film.

Best Director
Who I want: David Fincher
Who they'll pick: David Fincher

Fincher all the way. That is all. Best Picture
Who I want: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Who they'll pick: THE KING’S SPEECH

As THE SOCIAL NETWORK scoops up award after award after award I find myself more and more convinced it will lose to THE KING’S SPEECH [above]. Backlash? Maybe... It just doesn’t feel like an Oscar Best Picture winner, whereas THE KING’S SPEECH is like a hyper-obvious Oscar Best Picture winner (History! Kings! Speech impediments! War! Geoffrey Rush!) and the Academy is usually pretty good at going for films that pander to everything they love.
Then again, last year I was so sure AVATAR would win over THE HURT LOCKER and was pleasantly surprised. I could go another year of being pleasantly surprised...

Vague wishes for other categories: EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP for Best Documentary, obviously. I want THE SOCIAL NETWORK to win score because of my love for Trent Reznor and want DOGTOOTH to win Best Foreign Language Film because it would be fucking hilarious. Have you all seen it yet?

Anyway, feel free to start yelling at me in the comments!

“flawed.”

2011-02-17T03:15:00.004+13:00

Google isn’t going to like that for a page title! Nobody is going to stumble onto this piece through a search engine, which is a shame cause I get a lot of traffic from people looking for things that are only tenuously linked to the blog. Anyways, enough meta, on with the rant!
When I mentioned to a friend about expanding the blog to accommodate reviews, she gave me a sideways look and said “but you hate reviews?” I can see how she’d think that. I do spend more time reviewing other people’s reviews than I do actual films (the epic What Jaws Did post springs to mind). Oh, and I began a paragraph in Curiosities #3 with the line “You might have noticed that I'm not really the biggest fan of film reviews.” Yeah, it’s little things like that that might make you think I hate reviews, but I really don’t. I just hate... cliché.
People (critics) are always having a go at films that they think are cliché but I find the reviews themselves are just as guilty of unoriginality. After What Jaws Did got such a good response, I made a short list of other phrases critics shamelessly use again and again and again. One of these was “BEING JOHN MALKOVICH meets [film]”.

The whole idea of using two films to describe a third bugs me enough on its own but through reading countless reviews I found the film BEING JOHN MALKOVICH was the most abused. This film has become shorthand for something “quirky” or “crazy” or “meta” or just plain “original”! It probably sounds harmless but when I read AVATAR described as “BEING JOHN MALKOVICH meets POCAHONTAS” it made me very sad inside. With the help of Google, I assembled a list of about thirty examples. Some of them kind of made sense and were forgivable (SYMBOL as “BEING JOHN MALKOVICH meets CUBE”) and some of them, well, not so forgivable (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND as “BEING JOHN MALKOVICH meets ADAPTATION.” Seriously?). Before I could actually write the post, I got very sick and was away from blogging for a while. When I returned, I found that cynicism had left me. Hell, these people were just doing their best to describe what they saw and who am I to have a go at how they write? I abandoned the post and later on my hard-drive fried and I lost all that I had assembled anyway. This effectively killed the post for good. Until now, I guess.
Some of the other phrases on the shortlist included “The CITIZEN KANE of [type of film]” and “SCOTT PILGRIM VS. [name of film showing at the same time but mainly THE EXPENDABLES]”. None of these really bother me all that much; I’m just mentioning them now so that I’m on record as disliking them.
There is one thing people do when they talk about film that still annoys me to this day. It’s not a phrase, and it doesn’t directly reference another film like the above examples.
It’s “flawed.”
I hate the word “flawed”. More specifically: I hate the word “flawed” being used to describe film. Even more specifically: I hate the word “flawed” being used to describe film and being put at the end of a sentence.
Boy, that was specific! I best explain myself. “Flawed” is a genuinely useful word when you are describing something that isn’t perfect where perfection can be easily measured. A diamond for instance, has a very specific set of rules to determine whether or not it is perfect. If it has a blemish or a crack, it’s often described as “flawed”. I have no problem with that. Film on the other hand, does not have a very specific set of rules to determine whether or not it is perfect. There are things that make a film good, there are things that make a film bad, but there is no set formula to ensure the film you are making is “perfect”. As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as a “perfect film”. There are great films, there are amazing films, there are films that touch the sublime and leave you shaking with a severe case of Stendhal’s syndrome... but they’re not “perfect”. Calling a film “flawed” tells me nothing.
So why does having it at the end of the sentence bother me most of all? Because if you’re going to use the word (and in case I’m being too subtle: I’d rather you didn’t) ending a sentence on that note is the most cowardly. “I thought the story was really good, but flawed.” “The jokes were really funny, but the film was flawed.” “The movie was great, but flawed.” Don’t use “flawed” as a way of protecting yourself from the disagreement of others. If you thought a film was very well written, just say so! The fact that it has flaws should be default by now. If you do end your sentence that way, the next paragraph should explain why. Don't let that word be your final thought on the matter.
Sadly, I rarely see this. Twitter is where “flawed” is used the most. You only have 140 characters to say what you thought about the film and here’s a negative word that only takes up 6. You can spend the other 134 telling people why you loved it and when they see it for themselves and disagree with you... well, you did say it was flawed...
So there’s my argument against use of the word “flawed” when talking about film. I’m aware I’ve exposed myself quite beautifully here, but I sure as hell am not saying there are “flaws” in my opinion!
On the other hand, if you’ve read this far and said the word “flawed” over and over again there’s a chance the word has lost all meaning.
That works for me.

Five Essential New Zealand Short Films

2011-01-26T15:27:00.006+13:00

I recently heard about Ant Timpson and Luke Dallow’s Sale St Shorts which you can read up on at the Facebook page for the event. Four nights of NZ short films spanning 30 years. Sounds bliss to me!

It reminded me that I had a draft post somewhere of what I felt to be the very best short films this country has ever produced. This is not that post, and these are not those films. Oh sure, some of them are, but in trying to name the very best of the best I found it rather difficult as my personal taste for short films and the ones that have received the highest acclaim didn’t always match up. Instead I give you a list of 'essential' NZ shorts for anyone who loves the genre. Five films that have had varying success, but I feel are important to every NZ filmmaker. Most of these films can be watched at NZ On Screen but if you’re in the Auckland area I’d much prefer you attend the aforementioned Sale St Shorts. If I lived close, I’d be at every one!

KITCHEN SINK (Alison Maclean, 1989)
I’ll kick things off with the most successful NZ short of all time. When I tried to recall what this film was about, all that came to mind were images: the 'figure' emerging from the sink, her gently shaving it, that final extreme close-up... As to the narrative, I was drawing a blank. After a rewatch, I'm not surprised: this is a film of images. Wildly unsettling and open for interpretation, be sure to check out what all the fuss is about.

RUN (Mark Albiston, 2007)
This is my personal favourite. As someone who has heard the phrase “Get your gears on” said in a menacing manner you could say I really connected with this film (for me, it was a rugby coach). A young boy and girl live with their alcoholic Father who’s still mourning the loss of his wife. They’re made to run both as part of fitness and as a punishment, but the children’s real talents (especially the young girl’s) lie elsewhere. A charming film with a fantastic climax.

THE LOUNGE BAR (Don McGlashan & Harry Sinclair, 1988)
"Do you know that one that goes ‘There’s a man at the bar staring into space?’" I saw this for the first time very recently and wondered how I’d missed it all these years. Part of Harry Sinclair and Don McGlashan's 'The Front Lawn' collaborations, THE LOUNGE BAR [above] takes place entirely in the titular location but flows seamlessly through two different time periods. Confused? Might be best just to watch this one. Very funny and very well crafted.

NATURE’S WAY (Jane Shearer, 2006)
I saw this one at the NZFF where it played before Luke Kerrigan's KEANE. To say this film had an impact on how we interpreted the feature that followed is an understatement. A man kills a young girl and hides her body in the forest. He may think he's gotten away with murder but nature has a way... A supernatural thriller that will send a chill down your spine.

TWO CARS, ONE NIGHT (Taika Waititi, 2003)
Surely every NZ lover of film has seen this one. Nominated for an Academy Award in 2005, this short helped bring Waititi to international attention culminating in his fantastic BOY last year. TWO CARS, ONE NIGHT has a young girl and two boys waiting in their cars while their parents drink at the local pub. What starts as some childish insults ends as a love story. Beautifully shot in black and white, this is a contemporary classic and a true slice of Kiwiana.

Any favourites I haven’t included? Please let me know in the comments, I might do another five at a later date. Also, to my Australian readers: Do you have any favourites from your country? My knowledge of Aus shorts is fairly limited.

Sidebar: Miss me? Of course you did. Sorry I’ve been absent for the past few weeks, I’ve relocated to Wellington and am still settling in. Posting will pick up from now on as some of the more important aspects of my life have slotted into place...

My Top 10 Films of 2010

2011-01-01T21:22:00.007+13:00

I was pretty ruthless in my construction of this list. No separation of documentary and narrative. No separation of released and unreleased. No honourable mentions. Just the 10 films of 2010 that I felt were the best the medium had to offer.
Here we go:

10. A SINGLE MAN (Tom Ford)
I came late to this one, seeing it months after it had left theatres in Melbourne. The Astor was showing it with EVERLASTING MOMENTS (which is another beautiful film worth seeking out). I’m not sure if it was the strength of the double feature, the events of my year, or the company I saw it with but this became one of the most beautiful cinema-going experiences I’ve had. Tom Ford’s debut about a depressed professor in the 60s who has lost a loved one and debating suicide was a glorious reminder of all the small joys this world has to offer.
9. INCEPTION (Christopher Nolan)
Christopher Nolan has yet to disappoint me; I get this feeling we both view film the same way. A twisty plot about dreams and reality that doubles as light commentary on cinema itself, this film excels during its many action set-pieces. The rotating hallway fight instantly became the most jaw-dropping scene of the year with many other moments vying for second and third.

8. AMER (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani)
The first (but not the last!) of my “look I’m sorry you couldn’t see it” films. AMER screened at the Hello Darkness Film Festival and immediately blew me away with its stylish portrayal of sex and death and desire. A loving homage to the giallo films of Dario Argento, Sergio Martino, Maria Bava et al. Keep an eye out for it.
7. CATFISH (Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman)
The bizarre tale of an online relationship that wasn’t quite on the level, CATFISH exists as a scary and accurate representation of our time. The detectives here use the same tools that got them into such a mess in the first place. Facebook, Google Maps and Youtube act as both helpful aides and annoying filters as the boys try figure out the truth behind the girl one of them has fallen for. Eventually, filtering information through the web proves too frustrating and the filmmakers take a road-trip to confront those at the other end. It’s this final third that earns CATFISH such a high spot on my list. Emotionally devastating, I was a wreck by the time the credits rolled.

6. WINTER’S BONE (Debra Granik)
A beautifully photographed setting and gritty, believable performances make this a terrific piece of “Southern Gothic”. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) searches for her crystal meth-making, fugitive father in order to save the land her family live on. It often feels like a horror film (and the climax looks like one, for that matter!) but these are very real people doing what they have to in order to survive in a very different world.
5. BOY (Taika Waititi)
I can’t even think of another year when a New Zealand film would make my top 10 (let alone my top 5) but Waititi’s charming coming-of-age tale does this with ease. The titular character (played by one-to-watch James Rolleston) idolises his absent father and when he reappears in his life the wild fantasies and sobering reality collide. Boy has to confront some uncomfortable truths in what would be a depressing affair if not for Waititi’s great sense of humour and terrific use of fantasy sequences.

4. LEAP YEAR (Michael Rowe)
This was my favourite film at MIFF (outside of THE MOVIE ORGY, of course) and I’m aware it’s not for everyone. Stark and confronting in its portrayal of sexuality, LEAP YEAR goes places that will see it banned without heavy cuts; which is a shame. Laura (a fearless Monica del Carmen) is on forced vacation after a source she used in an article proved less than reliable. She spends all of her time inside her flat leaving only to pick up random men for casual sex. We don’t see her on the pull though; the camera never leaves the apartment (except for a short introduction) creating a claustrophobic film with an unsettling tone. We watch Laura crossing out days on her calendar as we get closer to February 29 and learn more and more about her predicament and past.
3. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher)
Sometimes it feels like a movie is made just for you and you alone. One of my favourite directors + one of my favourite writers + one of my favourite producers (Rudin) + my absolute favourite musician (no, not Timberlake, Trent Reznor!) have come together in a quest to entertain *me*. Oh sure, you might get something out of it too; if that’s the case I don’t mind sharing...
Hilarious, intelligent, full of terrific performances... what can be said that hasn’t already? See you at The Oscars.

2. SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD (Edgar Wright)
I saw this film more often than any other this year and it was immensely enjoyable every single time. Edgar Wright has adapted Bryan Lee O'Malley’s graphic novel into a hyperkinetic action film with a great deal of heart and plenty of quirk. This film probably charts so high because my expectations were so low going into it. I love everything Wright has done so far but I’d never read the source material, hated the first poster and even the first trailer! It all seems rather silly now (still hate that poster, mind you) as SCOTT PILGRIM has earned a place in my all time favourite films about lovesick losers in non-linear narratives (ETERNAL SUNSHINE, (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, HIGH FIDELITY, ANNIE HALL... it’s in good company!).
1. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (Banksy)
As great as the last nine films were, none were nearly as entertaining as this hilarious tale of street-art and celebrity. This film would have been a fairly run-of-the-mill documentary about a rather cool artform if not for one very passionate Frenchman: Thierry Guetta. Guetta’s introduction and subsequent usurpation of street-art is captured in its entirety for us to enjoy. Nobody involved (from Banksy, to Shepard Fairey to Space Invader) walks away unscathed as the artform they’ve worked on for years has it’s outsider reputation damaged in an instant.
A fascinating piece that deconstructs street-art, the documentary form, and finally cinema itself! Needs to be seen to be believed (and even then some struggle), it's my pick for the #1 film of 2010.

That’s a wrap. Bring on 2011!

2010 Year in Review (Part 2 of 2)

2010-12-31T02:02:00.010+13:00

Following on from yesterday’s post we have 6 more ‘awards’...

Best Musical Moment
1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK – ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’
2. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP – ‘Tonight the Streets Are Ours’
I’ve made it no secret I struggle to talk about music. Regardless, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ take on ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ became one of my favourite tracks of the year. It played during the “excruciatingly close” rowing scene that proved one defeat too far for the Winklevoss twins. I’ve heard arguments that the song is overdone and the scene is superfluous, but I loved it. It’s easily one of my favourite sequences of 2010.
I’m not usually a fan of when filmmakers use songs that have lyrics that are so on the nose. It can come off as pretty uninspired (this is just one of the reasons why I can’t watch GLEE). However, during the opening credits of Banksy’s EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Richard Hawley’s ‘Tonight the Streets Are Ours’ feels like a perfect match. Maybe because street art has so much to do with the appropriation of other artist’s work, displaying it in a new environment, seeing it from a new perspective... I could be over-thinking this. Let’s just say they’re beautiful credits for a beautiful film.

Most Talked About

1. I'M STILL HERE
2. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE)

Nobody likes to be made to look like a fool. This goes double for film critics. Casey Affleck decided to come clean on the authenticity of I'M STILL HERE [above] after most reviews had gone to print but before audiences had a chance to see it for themselves. This resulted in a curious limbo period where people reading the reviews had more information than those who reviewed them. A mental film no matter how you approach it; it still shocks me that Joaquin Phoenix can throw up on cue.

Speaking of throwing up (segue!), THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE pushed the boundaries of bad taste and bad storytelling. As always, it's worse in your mind than on screen, so those who haven't seen it probably think it's far more shocking than the reality. That isn't me recommending you track it down by the way.

Highest Non-Franchise Grosses
1. INCEPTION
2. DESPICABLE ME
This is a more factual award rather than my opinion. It’s nice to point out what original productions managed to find a mass audience. Last year it went to THE HANGOVER and UP before AVATAR quickly overtook both after I’d published my post. This year INCEPTION easily takes out the top spot; a clever action film that encouraged repeat viewings.

What I found more surprising is DESPICABLE ME scraping ahead of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. I’ve heard plenty of great things about the latter but the former somehow fell off my radar completely... I’ll track it down on DVD.

Didn’t See That Coming Award
1. THE HOUSEMAID
2. THE OTHER GUYS
I know I keep going on about the ending to THE HOUSEMAID here and here and on Twitter but my jaw genuinely fell open as what was already a fairly solid piece of revenge by Euny kicked up a notch when she burst into flames! She just... just... burst into flames! Gah! Let’s move on.
I didn’t care for THE OTHER GUYS [above], a fairly slow comedy that had delusions of poignancy (did you stay for the end credits?). However when Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson’s characters decided to make a jump for it, well let’s just say the outcome wasn’t exactly what I expected. This of course was the point, so I give it credit there for hitting its mark.

Best Feature Debut
1. A SINGLE MAN
2. ANIMAL KINGDOM
Though A SINGLE MAN premiered in Australia near the start of the year I didn’t see it until it played at The Astor in November. Quite frankly, I was shocked at how much this film got to me. A beautiful debut that left me emotionally drained. I hope Tom Ford plans to keep making films.
Last year this went to Duncan Jones and Adam Elliot and I’m glad I can again reference some Aussie talent with David Michôd’s ANIMAL KINGDOM. You might be aware that this film left me a little cold when I first saw it and that opinion hasn’t changed. It was a very well-made film with some amazing sequences but it was just too ugly for my taste. Ugly characters and an ugly script that never let up, I found myself having quite an adverse reaction to the film. You might be thinking to yourself that this was the very reason you loved it... well fair enough. I can see this film’s appeal; it’s just not for me. I look forward to his next outing regardless.

No Milk in my Comedy, thanks
1. WORLD’S GREATEST DAD
2. I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS
Black comedy is probably my favourite genre and we had two outstanding examples of the form. I’ve added WORLD’S GREATEST DAD [above] because I know most of you saw it this year at MIFF or on DVD (it was the very last film I saw in 2009, so it won’t make my Top 10 list). Robin Williams gives his best performance in possibly decades as the father of the most insufferable child I’ve ever seen on film. At the 30 minute mark something happens that drives this comedy into some very dark places, but the film is ultimately about the desire people have to touch the lives of others. Beautiful and despicable in equal measure.
Can you believe we finally got to see I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS? I’d been hanging out for this film since in premiered at Sundance in January 2009. In my MIFF review I wrote that I found it “refreshing to see a gay character whose sexual preference wasn't the most 'subversive' thing about him.” A lot of the film is deliciously bad taste with a climax that has to be seen to be imagined, and then looked up on Wikipedia to be believed! Outrageous.

That wraps up the awards. Come back tomorrow for my full Top 10 of 2010! I’m sure there will be a surprise or two...

Oh, and Happy New Years!

2010 Year in Review (Part 1 of 2)

2010-12-30T19:40:00.003+13:00

So it begins! For me, wrapping up 2010 in film means a string of posts over three days. Today and tomorrow will be the Year in Review: 12 awards given to two films a piece. This gives me an excuse to talk about 24 films in a more general fashion before posting my Top 10 of 2010 on January 1st.
All right, let’s kick things off. Some of the categories from last year remain, but most are new.

Strangest Title Change
1. TANGLED
2. HEARTBEATS
I have this image of a group of 12 year-old boys settling in to watch TANGLED when one of them declares “wait a minute, this is Rapunzel! We are so out of here!” and fleeing the cinema. It seems a lack of confidence saw Disney try and trick young boys in to seeing their latest outing. Maybe I’m being a little cynical, but hey... they started it.
Xavier Dolan’s LES AMOURS IMAGINAIRES had a beautiful title that you could translate to “Imaginary Loves” and it’d still retain a certain whimsical romantic feeling. Instead, it was retitled HEARTBEATS for the international audience. This title lands with a thud and makes me think of that Yorkshore police drama that just finished its 18 year run.
The ‘Mercifully Good’ Award
1. TOY STORY 3
2. BOY
Back at the start of the year, messing with the near perfect double of TOY STORY 1 and 2 seemed like a dangerous gamble. I’d grown up with these films and the thought of some tacky cash-in made me anxious. All of this seems quite silly now as TOY STORY 3 [above] wasn’t just a welcome addition to the series but became the best reviewed film of 2010.
I hadn’t seen a New Zealand film that blew me away in years. It gets a little depressing trying to support your local film scene when it isn’t really doing anything for you. SEPARATION CITY and PREDICAMENT were decent outings, but I don’t want to use muted terms like ‘decent’ to describe local cinema! Luckily there’s Taika Waititi’s BOY which is one of the sweetest, funniest, most imaginative f**king films I’ve seen in a long, long time. I will shower this instant kiwi classic with hyperbole any chance I get! It single-handedly restored my faith in both NZ film and NZ audiences (they made this film break every local record we have). Foreign readers, I encourage you to seek it out.

Biggest Disappointment
1. THE AMERICAN
2. THE TOWN
This is just a personal thing. I’m aware that both of these films have their admirers but I felt so let down leaving the cinema. I loved Anton Corbijn’s CONTROL, a beautiful film about one of my favourite bands. His follow-up, THE AMERICAN, left me cold and hating butterflies. Still looked gorgeous though!
I talked about my response to THE TOWN in some depth here. I’ll revisit it at a later date now that I’ve no expectations but I shouldn’t need to see a film twice in order to enjoy it. GONE BABY GONE instantly blew me away and I was really hoping for a similar response.
The Long Take Award
1. THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES
2. THE BOOK OF ELI
I’m a sucker for long takes. Some people claim they’re distracting and draw attention to the fact you’re watching a film. I have no such problem; they wow me every time, the more complex and contrived the better! THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES has a jaw-dropping long take that starts high above a packed football stadium then moves into the crowd, beneath the stadium and back out onto the pitch in one exhilarating chase sequence.
THE BOOK OF ELI’s long take [above] is even more contrived as it takes place entirely during a shoot-out. The camera weaves in and out of a small house as bullets fly in all directions. It’s so over-the-top ridiculous I couldn’t help but love it. Subtly be damned!

To the Torrents! Award
1. NEVER LET ME GO
2. TRUE GRIT
Somehow, despite the title of this ‘award’, I’ve refrained from tracking down these two readily available titles online. That gap we talked about quite extensively in this post is frustrating enough as it is but during screener season it’s also futile. Late January release dates for both of these films in Australia... I don’t even know the release date for New Zealand where I currently reside. If neither hits before the Oscars, steps will need to be taken. I’ve been hanging out for both all year long!
Best Performance
1. John Hawkes – WINTER’S BONE
2. Woody Harrelson – THE MESSENGER
One of the best pieces of praise I can give John Hawkes' performance in WINTER’S BONE [above] is that I had no idea it was him until I saw the credits. I’m a long-time DEADWOOD fan and have enjoyed him throughout films where he tends to play lovable losers. In this film however, his character is terrifying. A sudden explosion of rage in his first appearance on screen echoes through the rest of the film. We see him soften a little, but the threat of violence always lingers. Jennifer Lawrence terrific lead performance also deserves mention, but Hawkes' Teardrop stole the film for me.
In August, I declared Harrelson in THE MESSENGER the best of MIFF and wrote: “I really like Woody Harrelson and I really love it when he takes roles like this. Such a powerful performance. When he laughs, we laugh. When he cries, we cry.”
That opinion stands. Tremendously charismatic.
I should mention that WINTER’S BONE also played at MIFF but I didn’t see it until much later.

Tomorrow the ‘awards’ continue with Best Feature Debut, Best Musical Moment and four others...

Deleted from '1001 Movies to See Before You Die'

2010-12-17T21:56:00.004+13:00

I was doing a bit of X-mas shopping this afternoon when my eye caught a familiar book with an unfamiliar cover: ‘1001 Movies to See Before You Die’ edited by Steven Jay Schneider. I received this book as an X-mas present many years ago and I still enjoy thumbing through it to this day. My copy is one of the first editions and features Marion Crane screaming her lungs out on the cover. Since then it seems there has been a new edition every year with other great characters from cinema gracing the cover: Jules Winnfield, Jack Torrance, Indiana Jones, Darth Vader and The Joker. What was on the latest cover? A big, blue Na’vi of course! [below: this Na’vi to be precise] When the book is revised each year and new films are added, the title doesn’t change so for every film in, one gets removed. I began to wonder about the films that have been cut over the years; films that were once up to scratch but were removed on review. The very first time the book was reprinted only two films were culled: FAR FROM HEAVEN and ADAPTATION. This was to make room for KILL BILL VOL. 1 and THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS. Since then the latter film itself has also been deleted from the list. What a cruel world.
Anyway, here’s a full list of every film that has been removed (or added then removed) over the years:

FANNY AND ALEXANDER, THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, CANDY MAN, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, STRANGE DAYS, THE PILLOW BOOK, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, MOTHER AND SON, TETSUO, LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, THE IDIOTS, SOMBRE, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, TABOO, ROSSETTA, THE WIND WILL CARRY US, TIME REGAINED, ATTACK THE GAS STATION, EYES WIDE SHUT, NINE QUEENS, THE CAPTIVE, ALI ZAOUA, PRINCE OF THE STREETS, MEET THE PARENTS, SIGNS & WONDERS, O BROTHER WHERE OUT THOU?, AMELIE, WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, THE PIANO TEACHER, THE SON’S ROOM, MONSOON WEDDING, FAT GIRL, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, LANTANA, A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, GANGS OF NEW YORK, RUSSIAN ARK, FAR FROM HEAVEN, ADAPTATION., CHICAGO, HERO, RABBIT-PROOF FENCE, BUS 174, THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS, LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, COLLATERAL, THE AVIATOR, MILLION DOLLAR BABY, 3-IRON, CRASH, SIDEWAYS, GO SEE AND BECOME, THE CONSTANT GARDNER, APOCALYPTO, THE QUEEN, THE HOST, THE PRESTIGE, CHILDREN OF MEN, UNITED 93, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, BABEL, VOLVER, INTO THE WILD, ATONEMENT, SURFWISE, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, WALL•E, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, THE CLASS.

WALL•E? You monsters! [below]

The book was very popular in Australia, making it to the best sellers list in 2004. When it was revised later that year they pandered to this audience by adding four Aussie films: THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, MURIEL’S WEDDING, SHINE and LANTANA. I’m not saying these films don’t deserve a place in the book but they were hardly being subtle when these four were the only pre-2002 films added.
Since then, LANTANA has also been deleted... So it goes.
If you’re curious as to how many of them I’ve seen, the answer is... “I don’t know anymore.” Previously I had kept track by adding a pencil asterisk next to the titles in my 1st edition. This figure says 277 but I haven’t updated in over a year. Something I update regularly is iCheckMovies. According to them I’ve seen 332 of the films. Unfortunately they use the 5th edition for their list – we’re currently up to the 7th! So no definitive answer from me, but here’s what Roger Ebert had to say on the matter: “I have, by the way, seen 943 of the 1001 movies, and am carefully rationing the remaining titles to prolong my life.” Very good, sir.

Does anyone else read this book and keep track? Or am I just exposing that ridiculously obsessive side to myself again?

Curiosities from TIME's "Top 10 Everthing of 2010"

2010-12-12T14:09:00.010+13:00

TIME magazine has unveiled its “Top 10 Everything of 2010” and it’s... really annoying. 50 top 10 lists with a single page for each entry would be a good way to get 500 page views if it didn’t try the patience of your readers. Anyway, if you can’t be bothered cycling through it all, here are a few of the more curious decisions they made.

Tweets: 7. Roger Ebert
I enjoy following Ebert on Twitter, the man finds plenty of great articles online (even a few he’s written himself) and his commitment to embarrassing Sarah Palin at every opportunity is very entertaining (if not a little sad). The tweet in question:
“3-D is a distracting, annoying, anti-realistic, juvenile abomination to use as an excuse for higher prices.”
He doesn’t muck around! I happen to agree with him and I’m sure I’m not alone.

Travel Moments: 9. Kevin Smith: Too Fat to Fly Southwest? and Tweets: 3. Kevin Smith
Director Kevin Smith makes the list twice for the same incident. You’d be forgiven for thinking TIME was referencing his anti-critic rants when COP OUT wasn't doing so flash, but that doesn’t even get a mention. Instead TIME reminds us he was ejected from a flight due to his size. The tweet:
"Wanna tell me I'm too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR."

Top Movie Performances: 7. Chloë Grace Moretz as Mindy in KICK-ASS

They have plenty of good picks in this category, including Tilda Swinton for I AM LOVE, Christian Bale for THE FIGHTER and of course, Jacki Weaver for ANIMAL KINGDOM. However I just don’t think Moretz [above] is a very good actress and there's not a lot going on in this film! Am I out of line? I don’t want to pick on a child. In fact I’m simply going to wrap up commentary on this and move on. Let me just say that in (500) DAYS OF SUMMER her character called someone a pussy. In KICK-ASS her character calls someone a c**t. I just don’t see where she can go from here...

Top Movie Performances: 10. Angela Wesselman as Abby Pierce et al. in CATFISH

This spoiler-tastic decision is a bit mean for those who still haven’t seen the film, but it bugs me more for the way it winkingly alludes to the possibility the film is fake. CATFISH is amazing. Go see it. That is all.

Top Buzzwords: 8. “Release the Kraken!”
Slotted between ‘Mama Grizzlies’ and ‘Double-dip’ is the line Liam Neeson [above] uttered in CLASH OF THE TITANS. Apparently Sir Laurence Olivier said it in the original version. That’s all TIME had to say on the matter. I’m not sure what this is doing on their list at all.

Top Movies: 4. LIFE DURING WARTIME
They declared TOY STORY 3 the best film of the year. I have no problem with that. In fact most of their list is actually pretty good, from the obvious: THE SOCIAL NETWORK, WAITING FOR ‘SUPERMAN’, to the more daring: GREEN ZONE, FOUR LIONS. I do have a problem with their number 4 pick though. You might recall I didn’t have a lot of nice things to say about this particular film when I saw it at MIFF2010 and it hasn’t grown on me in the time since then. What am I missing? To each his own I guess, but the way they end their write-up is unforgivable: “... [Todd Solondz] is the best argument for why we need indie movies.”
Is that right?

_
Sidebar: I can't believe how negative this post is! I also can't believe 'winkingly' is a word. The next post will be more upbeat, I promise. There’s even a Christmas one in the works...

My 11 Most Anticipated Films for 2011

2010-12-04T05:03:00.013+13:00

This was difficult.
2011 looks to be a promising year if my long and arduous task of only selecting 11 films is any indication. This list is made up of what I expect to see next year. Some of these films have premiered already (at festivals etc.), some of these films don't have yet a release date, and some of these films I'm not 100% sure actually exist at all...
They're in alphabetical order and I've linked to a trailer where available:

THE BEAVER (Jodie Foster)
Curse alphabetical order for making me start with something that generates controversy! Mel Gibson stars as Walter Black, the CEO of a toy company who has a breakdown and begins to communicate with people only through a beaver puppet on his hand. Sounds demented, and I do love demented. Foster's first directorial effort in 15 years, this script topped the 2008 Black List for best unproduced screenplay. I'm sure plenty have had enough of Gibson but I'm still keen.

Trailer.

THE FUTURE (Miranda July)
Miranda July's debut feature ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (where she also wrote and starred) was a strange delight back in 2005. I don't know a lot about this new film but here's what IMDb has to say: “When a couple decides to adopt a stray cat their perspective on life changes radically, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves.” For any other synopsis I'd probably assume the use of the word 'literally' was erroneous but this is a Miranda July film! Expect whimsy and wonderment.

THE GUARD (John Michael McDonagh)
Please note that this Irish comedy thriller isn't written and directed by Martin McDonagh, responsible for the tremendously satisfying IN BRUGES, but instead John Michael McDonagh – his brother. I'm hoping a great sense of humour runs in the family! Brendan Gleeson [above] stars as an unorthodox Irish cop who teams up with a no-nonsense FBI agent (Don Cheadle). Seriously, read that sentence back to yourself. You know you want in on this! Selected for Sundance 2011, competing in the World Cinema Dramatic category.

A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE (Adam Wingard)
I met Wingard back in 2008 when his surreal, headfuck of a film POP SKULL came to the NZ Film Festival. He was very funny and affable and told a few stories that I could never, ever print (one involving Vincent Gallo, ask me about it in person...). Though I found his film to be fairly interesting and really unsettling, I wasn't quite sold on it. Since then I've been waiting to see what he'd come up with next. The wait seems to be over as A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE, about a woman whose serial-killer ex breaks out of prison, screened at Fantastic Fest in September. There it won Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay in the horror category.
Trailer.

I SAW THE DEVIL (Kim Ji-woon)
Another film that played Fantastic Fest! Devotees will recognise that I have a strong love of Korean film and one of Kim Ji-woon's earlier works happens to be my favourite. Here he's reunited with his A BITTERSWEET LIFE star Lee Byung-hun and brings Choi Min-sik (star of OLDBOY) on board for a tale of sweet bloody revenge.
Trailer (no subtitles sorry).

IMMORTALS (Tarsem Singh)
Though I've never seen his first film THE CELL, his follow-up THE FALL remains one of my favourites. Wildly ambitious and beautifully shot, THE FALL needs to be seen by those who love a good adventure story with a rich mythology. His latest seems to also fit that category as Mickey Rourke [above], Henry Cavill and Freido Pinto star in a film set in ancient Greece concerning Gods and Titans. Will probably be the only 3D film I see all year (unless the 2D version is available).

KEYHOLE (Guy Maddin)
Will this be ready next year? IMDb lists it as both 2011 and still being filmed. I have high hopes. Maddin's first feature since MY WINNIPEG will star Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini and Udo Kier. That's right: German cult icon Udo Kier! Very keen. Knowing the synopsis for a Guy Maddin film usually doesn't get you very far until you actually see it. From what I gather it's about a gangster named Ulysses Pick (Patric) who has to make an odyssey from his backdoor, through every room of his house to his bedroom where his wife awaits (Rossellini). Yeah, not very far at all.

MEEK'S CUTOFF (Kelly Reichardt)
I was hoping this would be a film of 2010 for me but unfortunately it didn't travel very far after it premiered at Venice. I loved Michelle Williams in Reichardt's WENDY AND LUCY and I can't wait to see her in this. Set on the Oregon Trail in 1845 [above], this film has been pitched as a western that breaks all genre conventions. For those used to their widescreen Westerns it might come as a shock to know this is filmed in 'Academy' 4:3 aspect ratio. Sounds claustrophobic. Can't wait.
“Trailer”.

SCREAM 4 (Wes Craven)
I promise you, my choices haven't been intentionally esoteric... these are genuinely the films I'm looking forward to the most! Still, I'm aware I have a lack of superhero, franchise and big studio movies (which is probably a good thing if we're being honest). There is one outing that I can't wait for that ticks all of those boxes (ghostface is like a superhero, right?): the latest installment of SCREAM. Craven, writer Kevin Williamson, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette return for another meta-horror installment in the immensely entertaining series. Does part of me think that this could be a little, say, dumb? Yeah... watch the trailer to hear the phrase “2.0”. Let's face it though, the others were a little 'dumb' too, but it was a good 'dumb'. Hell, it was a great 'dumb'!
Trailer.SOURCE CODE (Duncan Jones)
The director of MOON returns for another sci-fi spectacle; trading low-tech models for high-tech CGI with SOURCE CODE. Sounds dangerous, but I have faith. The government has found a way to send a soldier (Jake Gyllenhaal [above]) into the body of a man who has eight minutes left to live before the train he's on explodes. He has to relive these moments over and over until he finds the terrorist responsible. I do love a good time-loop movie.
Trailer.

THE TURIN HORSE (Béla Tarr)
I had my list locked. I'd whittled it down from about 30. I was ready to start my write-up. Then a friend said “you know Béla Tarr has a new film?”. Goddammit, I can't ignore that! In 1889, philosopher Fredrich Nietzche saw a horse being whipped on the streets of Turin. He tried to protect the horse by throwing his arms around its neck. He then collapsed to the ground, suffered a mental breakdown and died the following year. This is the story of that horse. For anyone who can't understand why this film would get me so excited, I'd recommend hiring WRECKMEISTER HARMONIES. A truly unique filmmaker.

What other films were on my shortlist?
In no particular order: BLACK SWAN, HANNA, SUPER 8, JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME, THE MUPPETS, THE THING, GREEN HORNET, THE TREE OF LIFE, VAMPIRE, RED STATE, YOUR HIGHNESS, DRIVE ANGRY, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, TRUE GRIT, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN.

What films have caught your attention?

The Problem(s) with a Best o' the Year List

2010-12-02T01:35:00.007+13:00

December already? Crazy. A whole year of film has passed us by and you might be slowly locking your end of year picks into place. I know I've a rough sketch of what I loved the most and will put my 'Best of' list up on New Years Eve or Day. Before I do though, there are a few things I've been mulling over...

Australia (and NZ) release dates vs. American.
The end of the year is the so called 'prestige season'. A time when studios start releasing their biggest award contenders, the films they think have a real shot at Oscar glory. It's unfortunate then that the delay 'foreign' territories such as Australia experience with a lot of new releases means that we won't see some of these until next year. I'm expecting BLACK SWAN [above: cool effect] and NEVER LET ME GO to show up on a few American lists, but we won't receive either until January (or later!).
The other side of that problem is quite a few (American) 2009 films didn't get a release until early this year e.g. PRECIOUS, THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, and the Best Picture winning THE HURT LOCKER. Do you include those on your list? Honestly? Probably not. They're old news, clogging up your 2010 list so you can't compare it with your peers overseas.
It would seem the final pool for Best of the Year options is a little short at both ends.

What about festival films?
I saw some tremendous films at festivals such as MIFF and although some of them have gone on to have theatrical releases, many still have not. This includes Michael Rowe's LEAP YEAR [above: intimacy], my favourite film of the festival (that wasn't part of a retrospective). It's not easy on your readers if your list includes a film that has only screened twice in this country. Also: what happens when it does get a theatrical release next year? Doesn't that make it a 2011 film?

There's still a few to come...
I wait until the very last moments of the year to post my list in case I see something genius on New Years Eve (it's happened before!). On the 26th of December we have quite a few films being released here that could be contenders. In order of likeliness to make my 'Best of' list: THE KING'S SPEECH, BLUE VALENTINE [above: a different kind of intimacy], SOMEWHERE, HEARTBREAKER, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, THE TOURIST, and LITTLE FOCKERS. Those first three I definitely have an eye on.

I didn't see everything.
Sometimes it feels like I did! However, there are a few films that slipped through the cracks and currently occupy that space between theatrical and DVD release where I have no access to a copy outside of dubious means (and I've gone there before *cough* HURT LOCKER *cough*). Three films that spring to mind: THE GHOST WRITER, FOUR LIONS and BURIED [above: claustrophobic]. I've been kicking myself over missing these, especially Polanski's latest after I had a marathon of his oldest work. I'll be kicking myself even more if they end up being among the best of 2010.

Ultimately, it's a personal thing. THE HURT LOCKER won't make my list because I saw it last year, but THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES might. You should be making your list for your own personal reflection and if others think you've included an ineligible film, they can simply exclude it from their own.
Head over to Matt Riviera's A Life On Film for a handy list of films released theatrically in Australia. It'll certainly help jog your memory as to what you may have seen...

I look forward to everyone's thoughts on film & 2010!

Hidden Gem: RECOUNT

2010-11-26T06:24:00.004+13:00

The made-for-TV movie first gained popularity in the '60s as a way for television to compete with the cinema. Why go out and see a film that will play for weeks, maybe months, when you can stay home and watch an exclusive one you may not get a chance to see again? There's of course plenty of answers to that question, including issues of quality. There have been notable (and very good) entries including THE DAY AFTER, THAT CERTAIN SUMMER, BRIAN'S SONG and Peter Watkin's THE WAR GAME. However nowadays, when you think of made-for-TV movies your mind probably brings up such titles as FIGHTING BACK: THE ROCKY BLEIER STORY, SARAH T. - PORTRAIT OF A TEENAGE ALCOHOLIC, A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS and A DOG TOOK MY FACE AND GAVE ME A BETTER FACE TO CHANGE THE WORLD: THE CELESTE CUNNINGHAM STORY... (Any 30 ROCK fans in the audience?).
Ignoring the stigma, there are still some terrific ones being produced. Worth looking into: LONGFORD, INTO THE STORM, GREY GARDENS, BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, YOU DON'T KNOW JACK and my latest Hidden Gem entry: RECOUNT.RECOUNT embodies all the best things about the made-for-TV movie. It's based on a true story with an event still fresh in people's minds; it's a divisive tale that's likely to draw controversy; it features big name Hollywood stars that you might consider 'slumming it' but end up giving one of their best performances; it's made rather cheap but it doesn't matter cause it's mainly just people talking in offices; and finally, it has a WTF choice for a director... Let's explore those points in that order.
The story, the event, the division, the controversy: The 2000 US Presidential Election. The film takes place entirely in Florida where whoever wins this state, wins the Presidency. Initial reports suggest George Bush has clinched it, but it appears the numbers are a lot closer than first thought; so close in fact, that a manual recount is triggered. But you know all this. You were alive for it. You've read articles since. You've seen plenty of documentaries and 60 MINUTES specials. What RECOUNT has to offer are all of those facts and curiosities and butterfly ballots... in a dramatized form. To put it plainly: it's a hell of a lot of fun. It's not here to convert you, it's here to entertain you. If you approach the film thinking Gore was robbed, you'll leave with the same opinion. If you approach thinking Bush won fair-and-square, this film isn't going to sway that belief. The narrative may be driven by Gore's campaign managers but the Bush camp is just as well represented and well-rounded. No villains here, just two opposing parties who are convinced they're in the right.Kevin Spacey, Dennis Leary and Ed Begley Jr. are in the blue corner playing Ron Klain, Michael Whouley and David Boies respectively, and in the red we have Bruce McGill, Bob Balaban and a phenomenal Tom Wilkinson playing Mac 'The Knife' Stipanovich, Ben Ginsberg and James Baker. I can't speak highly enough of Wilkinson's James Baker. It would be too easy to turn the character into a villainous cartoon, but Wilkinson grounds him as a man following his principles and belief in his favoured version of government. If you're scratching your head going, I don't remember any of these people? don't worry, the film quickly brings you up to speed and transports your mind back a decade.
The action mainly takes place in offices full of whiteboards and ringing phones, cutting back and forth between both camps to see how everyone's thinking. There's plenty of talking and the dialogue is often whip-smart. At one point Klain and Whouley are in an alley discussing hanging chad (“the plural of 'chad' is 'chad'?”), butterfly ballots and dimples. Klain asks Whouley: “how hard is it to punch a paper ballot?” His response: “It's pretty goddamn hard when you're eighty-something years old, you're arthritic, and you're blind as a fucking bat. Unfortunately for us, blind fucking bats tend to vote Democratic...” Later, Klain asks him if anyone's every told him he says 'fuck' a lot. So what of this director? This WTF choice, as I put it?
Jay Roach.
Who? You might know him as the director of MEET THE PARENTS and FOCKERS? Or every AUSTIN POWERS movie? Or perhaps 2010's DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS? Although RECOUNT is often quite funny, we clearly have someone operating outside their usual comfort zone and nailing it. I hope he returns to more serious fare at a later date. He did opt out of LITTLE FOCKERS... that's a good start.
This film is just liquid entertainment that goes down smooth. It may leave a slightly bitter aftertaste for those unhappy with the outcome (I'm thinking that's 98% of my readership) but that's a small price to see a great cast and creative team operating at their peak potential.

Follow Up: Zombie Star Wars

2010-11-23T02:04:00.004+13:00

I was in my local library the other day when an image jumped out at me from one of the shelves. Specifically, this image: For those of you who have been around since the beginning of this blog, you might remember that I wrote about STAR WARS: DEATH TROOPERS for one of my earliest posts. Naturally, I hired the book out and started reading. It tells the story of several characters aboard a prison barge on the way to an Intergalictic jail. The barge comes across an abandoned Star Destroyer and a party explores it for resources. Then everyone starts dying (except for our heroes, who are immune) and coming back as flesh-hungry zombies. It's pretty standard zombie fare. I was a little bored by it all until the halfway point when something happens to kick things up a notch: Han Solo shows up.
Seriously! Han and Chewbacca happen to be in solitary confinement on the barge so our heroine doctor manages to give them both an antidote before the virus infects them. Genius. At this point you're probably thinking this all sounds a bit like demented fan-fiction and to be honest, I can't argue with that. It's not terribly well-written; feels like something cooked up for NaNoWriMo. The book runs 234 pages with 44 chapters and an epilogue. That's an average of just over 5 pages a chapter. The whole thing feels rushed and amateurish. It might help to give you a sample of the writing so here's some Han Solo inner thoughts for you:
“She was easy on the eyes, he had to admit, but fear didn't do much for her face. In his experience women and secrets mixed together to form something only slightly less volatile than an unstable fusion reactor.”
You get the idea.
Still, I read it all. It was interesting enough for me to see through to the end. After reading this and Stephen King's CELL a couple of months ago, I'm more convinced zombies can actually work in novels. (Okay, so they weren't exactly zombies in CELL, but close enough. To quote Alan Partridge “[Frankenstein's Monster] is a type of zombie...”)
If you love zombies and you love STAR WARS, you might as well go for it. It's a short read and rarely dull. It's worth noting that author Joe Schreiber has written a follow-up: If I walk into the library and that cover stares back at me... I doubt I'll be able to help myself. I mean, come on! It's STAR WARS + zombies! I'm only human.

Is THE SOCIAL NETWORK the First Film to Reference Facebook?

2010-11-13T00:31:00.005+13:00

The documentary CATFISH obviously bet THE SOCIAL NETWORK to the post by premiering back in January but with this article I'm only interested in whether it's been portrayed in films with fictional narratives (even if based on a true story, it's still a work of fiction).
Launched in 2004 and opened to anyone with an email account in 2006, Facebook hit the 500million user mark earlier this year. Amongst my own peers, it's at the point where the person who doesn't have an account is the outlier and based on its intense popularity I can only assume this is the case for many others. Facebook was *everywhere* even before October 1st 2010. On this date, David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK [below] premiered and quickly became an Academy Award frontrunner and commercial success (to date, it has grossed over $150million worldwide). So if Facebook really is as ubiquitous as it seems, why does this feel like the first movie to even make so much as a passing reference to it? Surely every film about teenage life should feature at least one scene where a character updates their 'news feed'? Or posts details of a party in 'events'? Or checks the object of their affection's 'relationship status'? I think Facebook and youth films are a bit like cellphones and horror movies. Contemporary horror tends to have an obligatory scene where cellphones are rendered useless for the rest of the film, either by being destroyed or lost or having no signal. Ten or fifteen years ago, filmmakers didn't have this problem as cellphones weren't nearly as popular; it wasn't that unlikely for their characters to simply not own one. I think in the last four years it's been easy to assume that certain characters simply don't use Facebook. Seth and Evan (SUPERBAD) might never have used it and it's probably a little beneath Juno. Just as filmmakers had to start explaining away cellphones if they couldn't be incorporated, the same will probably happen with Facebook. I predict that contemporary teenage protagonists are going to get poorer (“You can't afford the internet? What a loser!”) and/or quirkier (“You don't use the internet? What an outsider!”).
You can't really blame current films for not knowing how popular Facebook would be today. It can take years for a story to go from script to screen and social networking is constantly evolving. Television has it a little easier. With a lot shorter time between an episode's idea and its airing, TV has an easier job of reflecting contemporary fashions, including social networking. On 30 ROCK it's called YouFace and on THE I.T. CROWD it's called FriendFace. SOUTH PARK recently did an episode called “You have 0 friends,” which was a hilarious parody of the social politics surrounding the site's use. The internet itself has an even shorter period from inception to broadcast. Type 'Faceboook' into YouTube and you'll find literally millions of videos, many of which seem thrown together quickly or created with no budget whatsoever. I don't exactly recommend watching a lot of these, they're often quite dire.
So it would seem that the first film to ever reference Facebook would probably have been made very quickly and very cheaply. It would probably be of low quality and odds are, it's pretty terrible. With that in mind, allow me to present the earliest feature film I could find that references Facebook... Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer's 2008 offering: DISASTER MOVIE [below].You're welcome.

Hello Darkness 2010: AMER

2010-11-12T04:16:00.004+13:00

I never wanted to turn this blog into a place to post reviews. There are fifty-thousand other sites out there for that sort of thing, so I wanted to use this space to promote thought and discussion more about 'film' than 'a film'. However during MIFF, I enjoyed doing a write-up for each and every film I saw and received a good response from those who read them. When it comes to film festivals, often the fifty-thousand reviews dwindle down to a handful and I know how frustrating it can be to struggle finding multiple opinions of a film you've just seen because it's still so fresh and rare. With that in mind, I'm going to start/keep doing a write-up for the various films from the various festivals I attend throughout the year.
Melbourne's Hello Darkness film festival has just wrapped and sadly I could only make one film. WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, WOUND and Gaspar Noe's IRREVERSIBLE were three of interest but the film that seemed unmissable to me was AMER.

Directors Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani have crafted a cryptic horror film that oozes style from every frame. Inspired by the Giallo films of the 60s and 70s and shot on vintage stock, AMER immediately strikes you as a film so in love with its source material it feels like it could easily slot into that time period and not seem anachronistic (see also: Ti West's HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, which was also playing at the festival). There is however, one aspect that makes this film feel very contemporary: it's narrative structure. It's divided into three different sections each containing important events in one woman's life. The first takes place when she's a child; the second, a teenager; and the third, an adult. The first segment is the closest to horror, with a young child roaming around a villa at night after the death of one of the house guests. I think. Don't expect any definitive answers in this film (or this review!) as this near word-less first act provides a lot of visual clues but no final explanation.
There's probably even less dialogue in the second act... there's certainly less action. It featuures our now teenage protagonist and her mother walking to the salon, then waiting outside while the latter gets her hair done. While this part doesn't contain any actual horror, it has loads of sexual tension. The eyes of many men watch the pair and later the girl on her own as they walk; the breeze gently and ever so slightly lifting their summer dresses, not so much as to show anything, but the camera gets so close it still feels very provocative.

The third act combines the horror of the first and the raw sexuality of the second into what feels more like a pure Dario Argento picture. Black gloves, first person camera work and chase scenes on foot through overgrown gardens all feature as our heroine returns to the now-abandoned villa of her childhood and finds herself stalked by two individuals (or perhaps only one? What do you think, those who have seen it?). This section had plenty of hard blade pressed against soft skin and when it finally broke the surface, it was not for the squeamish!
Sex and death, death and sex. To our protagonist, these acts are forever linked. Highly entertaining and extremely stimulating, I implore you to check out AMER when the chance arises.

For a little more reading, Bloody Disgusting has a great interview with the directors where they list some films AMER directly references, including my personal favourite Giallo: PROFONDO ROSSO aka DEEP RED!

Five Anthology Films

2010-11-10T21:41:00.006+13:00

Anthology (or 'portmanteau') films have been on my mind recently. FREAKONOMICS is currently playing at the Brisbane International Film Festival but sadly I don't live there, NEW YORK I LOVE YOU was playing recently at the Astor but sadly I missed it, and LITTLE DEATHS is currently playing in Melbourne cinemas but sadly it sounds terrible. Though I'll get around to watching all three of those at some point, below I've catalogued some films I have actually seen. Anthology films can be a bit like sketch comedy shows in that you have to wait out some of the lesser parts to get to the good stuff and although Chapter Menus and YouTube make it easier to watch the segments individually, I think each of these films works as a whole.
Here are five films with sixty-five different directors:

THREE... EXTREMES
Number of segments: 3
Directors: Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, Takeshi Miike

Three directors from Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan get together to tell us a horror story each. Fruit Chan extended his disturbing segment 'Dumplings' into a feature film, that I'm yet to seek out. I'm also yet to seek out the film that came before this simply called THREE. It features a segment directed by my favourite Korean director, Kim Ji-woon (A BITTERSWEET LIFE).
My favourite segment: 'Cut' by Park Chan-wook. A film extra holds a famous director and his wife hostage, forcing him to play a sadistic game at the cost of his pianist wife's fingers.

TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE
Number of segments: 4
Directors: John Landis, Steven Speilberg, Joe Dante, George Miller

I can't express enough how much I love the original Twilight Zone series: such amazing storytelling! Having such strong feelings for the original would usually turn me off a remake like this, but I like what they've done here. This film contains three remakes and an original segment (which is probably the weakest of the four).
My favourite segment: Maybe I'm still on a Joe Dante high from MIFF, but I'm calling it for his 'It's a Good Life'. Every incarnation of this story (including the SIMPSONS' parody and the 2002 sequel) has been great.

GRINDHOUSE
Number of segments: 6
Directors: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, Eli Roth

Yes, I'm counting the trailers as segments. I understand that some versions also had another trailer for 'Hobo with a Shotgun', but I haven't seen that version. Tarantino and Rodriguez' experiment in a genre they seem to love a lot more than the average cinema-goer is still a rewarding experience if you can catch it on the big screen. Watching it at home, the desire to just take in PLANET TERROR or DEATH PROOF is pretty high.
My favourite segment: Edgar Wright's trailer for 'Don't'. How awesome is Will Arnett's voice-over? (Answer: very.)

PARIS, JE T'AIME
Number of segments: 18
Directors: Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydes, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant

When I asked for a ticket to this film back in 2007, the person behind the counter corrected my pronunciation. How embarrassing. Luckily, I was able to get over that and enjoy this fantastic collection about the City of Love. Each segment represents one of the twenty arrondissements of Paris (two parts were cut, which is why there's only eighteen).
My favourite segment: Although it would be very easy to pick Joel and Ethan Coen's hilarious 'Tuileries' starring Steve Buscemi, my favourite belongs to Wes Craven's surprisingly restrained 'Père Lachaise' where a man gets some advice from the ghost of Oscar Wilde.

TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA
Number of segments: 34
Directors: Raymond Depardon, Takeshi Kitano, Theo Angelopoulos, Andrei Konchalovsky, Nanni Moretti, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Joel and Ethan Coen, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Zhang Yimou, Amos Gitai, Jane Campion, Atom Egoyan, Aki Kaurismäki, Olivier Assayas, Youssef Chahine, Tsai Ming-liang, Lars von Trier, Raoul Ruiz, Claude Lelouch, Gus Van Sant, Roman Polanski, Michael Cimino, David Cronenberg, Wong Kar-wai, Abbas Kiarostami, Billie August, Elia Suleiman, Manoel de Oliveira, Walter Salles, Wim Wenders, Chen Kaige, Ken Loach, David Lynch

Wow, that's a lot. Before you get the impression that this film runs for two and a half days, each segment is only three minutes long. It was commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival and I saw it at the New Zealand one. Each film is about cinema itself and perhaps offers a glimpse into how some of your favourite directors view their craft.
My favourite segment: Takeshhi Kitano, Lars von Trier and Roman Polanski all have very funny offerings but the best of this lot has to belong to David Cronenberg's 'At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World'. A single stationary shot sees Cronenberg himself prepare to commit suicide while two news anchors offer commentary about what's going on and how the world is a much better place without cinema. It's very haunting and highly recommended.

Other anthology films to explore: FEAR(S) OF THE DARK, NEW YORK STORIES, FOUR ROOMS... There are also some interesting ones done by a single director such as COFFEE AND CIGARETTES, EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX* *BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK, THE TEN, SIN CITY...
Out of every single one of these segments, are there any that stand out for you?