Bobby and Peter Farrelly, collectively known as the Farrelly brothers, have been producing mass chuckles for almost two decades. Getting their big break on the classic Seinfeld episode “The Virgin”, they broke through and conquered Hollywood with the Jim Carey/Jeff Daniels flick Dumb & Dumber.
Through a string of hits including There’s Something About Mary, Me, Myself and Irene and Shallow Hal, the brothers became known for pushing the boundaries of good taste from semen hair gel to making Gwyneth Paltrow fat. Yet being almost a decade since their last film of any note (Stuck on You), one begins to wonder if the glory days of the brothers are behind them.
Friends Rick (Owen Wilson, How Do You Know) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis, TV’s 30 Rock and The Bounty Hunter) lead contented married lives with their respective wives Maggie (Jenna Fischer, US TV’s version of The Office) and Grace (Christina Applegate, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore). After a series of misadventures, the wives agree to give their partners a ‘hall pass’: a week off marriage in which they have the freedom to choose to live up the single bachelor lifestyle or remain faithful to the wives. Teaming up with their friends, they attempt to paint the town red but still turn in for bed at a reasonable hour.
When the Farrelly brothers were at the top of their game, they were known for their irreverent brand of comedy. Yet the intervening years have seen the line between good taste and bad blurred, crushed, trodden on and generally subverted by the likes of Adam McKay, Judd Apatow, Kevin Smith and practically anything that Seth Rogen has been involved in. There are a series of scenes in the first half of Hall Pass when the less-than-dynamic duo attempt to get back into the bachelor saddle, but merely wind up eating large meals and going to bed by 9:30. This seems to be what has happened to the brothers Farrelly, as they attempt to return to the kind of ‘outrageous’ comedy that they were once known for, but merely wind up bloated and obviously out of touch.
Ironically, it is these earlier moments in the film that actually work the best, with Wilson and Sudeikis’ sheer cluelessness charmingly appealing. Wilson downplays his typically over-the-top hapless persona, comfortably fitting into the role of the husband and father going through an early mid-life crisis of sorts, and Sudeikis is not so different so as to cause us to ponder why these people are friends in the first place. However, unlike Todd Phillips The Hangover (and to a lesser extent Due Date), Hall Pass does not so much provide us with a wild escape from this suburban lifestyle, so much as an embarrassing mirror akin to the ones in clothing store change rooms.
There is surprisingly very little sex – or even sexual humour – in Hall Pass, despite the obvious set-up for the subject matter. Much of the film meanders around the various exploits of Rick and Fred’s ragtag group of friends. Tried-and-true hash brownie gags abound, coupled with a completely unnecessary scene in which comedian Larry Joe Campbell (Killers) defecates on a golf course, may have played back in 1997, but by 2011 they seem as tired as the supporting cast who are clearly going through the motions. An angry barista (Derek Waters) comes across as just plain stupid in his attempt to capture a certain demographic, but outstays his welcome by several scenes.
In two major crimes against cinema, Richard Jenkins (Let Me In) is bafflingly cast as the party-hard friend with the tradition role of teaching them the secrets of getting laid, while the criminally underused British comedian Stephen Merchant (from The Office and Extras, but most recently heard on Gnomeo & Juliet) is really only given one good scene after the end-credits have rolled. Hall Pass is an amalgam of these kinds of wasted opportunities and missed marks, and it is disappointing to see that while audience tastes may have moved on (for better or for worse), the Farrelly brothers have not.
The Reel Bits: A disappointing effort from a team that is collectively capable of so much more. Hall Pass not only fails to find an audience, but fails to identify who that audience is. It is enough to make you want to get a nice long hall pass from comedies.
The night of nights was held today in Hollywood, as the 83rd Academy Awards were given out. The King’s Speech was the winner of Best Picture, which also went on to win another 3 awards for director Tom Hooper, it’s leading man Colin Firth and Writing (Original Screenplay).
Hosted by actors Anne Hathaway and James Franco (also nominated for his role in 127 Hours), other big winners on the night included Inception (4 awards), The Fighter (2 awards), The Social Network (3 awards), Alice in Wonderland (2 awards) and Toy Story 3 (2 awards). Critical favourite Black Swan only took the one award for actress Natalie Portman.
Australia came away with an award for Best Animated Short for The Lost Thing, and Kirk Baxter who accepted one for Film Editing The Social Network. One of the producers of The King’s Speech, Emile Sherman, is also Australian and its director, Tom Hooper, thanked his Australian mother on the night.
And the winners of the 83rd Academy Awards are:
Best Picture: The King’s Speech Actor in a Leading Role: The King’s Speech, Colin Firth Actor in a Supporting Role: The Fighter, Christian Bale Actress in a Leading Role: Black Swan, Natalie Portman Actress in a Supporting Role: The Fighter, Melissa Leo Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3, Lee Unkrich Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland, Robert Stromberg and Karen O’Hara Cinematography: Inception, Wally Pfister Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood Directing: The King’s Speech, Tom Hooper Documentary Feature:Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs Documentary Short Subject: Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon Film Editing: The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter Foreign Language Film: In a Better World (Denmark) Makeup: The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey Music (Original Score): The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Music (Original Song): Toy Story 3, Randy Newman (“We Belong Together”) Short Film (Animated): The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann Short Film (Live Action): God of Love, Luke Matheny Sound Editing: Inception, Richard King Sound Mixing: Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo & Ed Novick Visual Effects: Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin Writing (Original Screenplay): The King’s Speech, David Seidler
So did we get it right? The Reel Bits made its picks last week, and we are pleased to say that our crystal ball needs very little polishing.
The 83rd Annual Academy Awards were held 27 February 2011 in Los Angeles, California. They aired in Australia on 28 Monday 2011 due to the time difference.
The Farrelly brothers’ brand new comedy, Hall Pass, saw its red carpet premiere in Sydney tonight at the Entertainment Quarter, also the site of Fox Studios, and The Reel Bits were on site despite the holes in our shoes. The brothers, Bobby and Peter, were in attendance, and the main reason for the larger crowd was its star Owen Wilson (How Do You Know), pictured left and below.
Hall Pass is currently the number one film at the US box office, making this another commercial winner for the brothers and actor Wilson. Co-starring Jason Sudeikis (30 Rock, The Bounty Hunter), it follows the pair as their wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) give them a week off marriage or a ‘hall pass’, allowing them to pursue a single life for seven days.
The special guests walked the carpet and introduced the film to press and winners of a Facebook competition, although were fairly brief in their comments. Joining them was Australia’s Nicky Whelan (Scrubs, Halloween II), who stars in the film alongside Wilson and Sudeikis. Other stars dotting the red carpet included actor Marcus Graham, hosts Trevor Marmalade and Russell Gilbert (whose job it was to keep talking inanely until everybody was inside) and a host of other people you’ve probably never heard of.
Hall Pass is released in Australia on 3 March, 2011 by Roadshow Films. A full review of the film will be up on The Reel Bits by the end of the week.
It is possible to trace to the moment where it all started going wrong for Nicolas Cage of the Royal Coppola Dynasty. At the very least, it is possible to trace it to the year. After memorable roles in Peggy Sue Got Married and the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona, he was nominated for his first Golden Globe for Moonstruck in which he starred alongside Cher. He turned heads and earned an Independent Spirit nomination in Vampire’s Kiss, infamously eating a cockroach on-screen, and continued to impress directors like David Lynch (Wild at Heart) and earned another Golden Globe nomination for Honeymoon in Vegas.
Yet 1995 was where it all changed for Mr. Cage. Earning a slew of awards, including a Best Actor statuette at the Oscars, for his portrayal of a doomed alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, Cage apparently turned his back on acting and ran into the loving arms of Jerry Bruckheimer. A string of commercially successful, albeit critically questionable, films followed including The Rock, Con Air and Face/Off, and more recently he has enjoyed major leading man status in the successful National Treasure series. Yet despite a few recognised turns in Adaptation and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, his equally memorably flops Ghost Rider, Bangkok Dangerous and the not-too-bad Sorcerer’s Apprentice have tarnished his reputation. Let’s not get started on the hair.
In Season of the Witch, Cage stars as 14th century Knight Crusader Behmen who, along with his colleague Felson (Ron Perlman, Hellboy) chooses to desert the war rather than commit any more acts of violence in god’s name. Returning home to a land ravaged by pestilence and plague, they flee from the authorities and the suspicious minds of villagers who are willing to label any misfortune witchcraft. Eventually discovered by the local church, Behmen and Felson are asked to escort a girl accused of witchcraft (Claire Foy) to a nearby monastery for a trial. While Behmen does so in the interests of protecting the girl from the hysteria of the Church, he and the group that accompanies them are about to be plunged into a world of darkness.
Season of the Witch is very much a return to the glory days of Hammer horror films, or the type of supernatural or paranormal flick you’d seen Roger Corman, Vincent Price or Christopher Lee attached to. Indeed, the latter appears briefly as a plague-stricken cardinal who charges the group with their holy quest. While the title recalls the George Romero and Halloween films of the same name, the film is allegedly inspired by the Igmar Bergman masterpiece The Seventh Seal! While the film has a witch’s hope in medieval Europe of making that stretch, the film is built around an interesting premise. The “is she or isn’t she” suspense around the levels of witchiness that the unnamed girl possesses is where much of the drama in the film lies, and as members of the escort part start dropping off like flies, the evidence swings wildly in both directions. For the most part, this is an effectively simple technique in audience engagement.
Set against the beautifully shot vistas of Austria, Hungary and Croatia, there is a feeling of authenticity to the film. One still can’t help but chuckling the first time Cage and his luxurious hair appears, but this subsides to a cheeky grin by the time the end credits roll. Dominic Sena (Swordfish and Gone in 60 Seconds, where he previously collaborated with Cage) directs the action scenes capably, and while some of the opening Crusades sequences do seem like a low-rent Lord of the Rings at times, most of the CGI is convincingly done on the film’s relatively modest $40 million budget. The film loses momentum in the final act, which comes about all too quickly and thus diminishes much of the tension created to that point, but for the most part Season of the Witch is the type of fantasy-suspense film that we don’t see enough of these days.
The Reel Bits: Season of the Witch is a sword and sorcery mini-epic that has thankfully avoided consignment to the direct-to-DVD bin. While never revolutionising the canon, it nevertheless has enough character and supernatural appeal to keep genre fans happy.
Season of the Witch was given a limited release in Australia on February 24, 2011 by Roadshow Films.
In an increasingly crowded festival circuit in Australia, giving local audiences the chance to sample otherwise unseen films from around the world, there is a festival that is dedicated to giving unseen Australian films a screening. For the second year in a row, Sydney historic Randwick Ritz cinema is hosting the Australian Film Festival, a showcase of unreleased Australian features, short films, seminars, workshops and other fringe events, all in and around the Eastern suburbs of Sydney. Starting on March 2 and running through March 13, the event kicks off with a gala screening of Amanda Jane’s The Wedding Party, starring Josh Lawson, Isabel Lucas and Steve Bisley.
Delving into the lives and loves of a group of curious Melbourne characters, everyone here is either in a relationship (with varying degrees of success), wanting to be in one, or making a mess getting out. At the centre is Steve (Lawson), a thirty-something battler who more than earns the description “down on his luck.” His business is failing, the bank is threatening to repossess his home, and his relationship with Jacqui (Morassi) has hit a flat spot.
Enter Ana (Lucas), a Russian refugee with a pragmatic solution: a marriage of convenience in exchange for much-needed cash. Against his better judgment, Steve takes the plunge—but his plans for a quick and quiet wedding are upended when his family catches wind of it. The resulting chaos forces everyone to reassess their own relationships. Thanks to a handful of genuinely funny lines, the film takes a small step in the right direction compared to the usual Aussie rom-com fare. Unfortunately, it never quite manages to bring anything new to the table.
The Wedding Party has its New South Wales premiere on 2 March at the Randwick Ritz, complete with special guests and your chance to rub shoulders with the stars.
Week One continues with Ano Bisiesto (Leap Year), which may actually be shot and produced in Mexico, but was written and directed by Australia’s Michael Rowe. It also won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, showcasing the international success of Australian filmmakers. It screens on 3 March. Also screening that night is Michael Bond’s Passengers, set in Los Angeles and starring Cameron Daddo and Angie Miliken (Solo). The weekend of Week One kicks off on Friday night (as weekends tend to do), with Michael Henry’s Blame, a tale of the perfect murder going horribly wrong. It stars Sophie Lowe, who wowed audiences as the titular character in Beautiful Kate. On Saturday 5 March, the unlikely pairing of Yu-Hsiu Camille Chen’s dramatic Little Sparrows at the Ritz with perennial Pixar favourite Finding Nemo is the perfect way to end the weekend. The latter will screen at Coogee Beach at 8pm and is FREE, so get in early to secure your spot.
Sunday 6 March sees the start of Week Two of the Festival, kicking off with the supernatural thriller Needles, featuring a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Australian thesps: Jessica Marais (Packed to the Rafters), Tahyna Tozzi (Wolverine), Travis Fimmel (The Beast, The Valley), Ben Mendolsohn (Animal Kingdom) and John Jarratt (Wolf Creek). Monday 7th sees Joseph Sims’ Bad Behaviour, also withJohn Jarratt, Roger Ward and Jean Kittson. Australia’s latest superhero, Griff the Invisible, starring Ryan Kwanten (Red Hill and TV’s True Blood) as an office worker with interesting nocturnal hobbies.
Wednesday 8 March will see the Ritz host a Q & A with the legendary Jack Thompson for a special Popcorn Taxi screening of The Sum of Us, co-starring Russell Crowe. It all gets a bit Jucy at the Ritz the following night as Louise Alston (All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane) turns the ‘chick pic’ into a ‘womance’ in what was a surprise hit at the Toronto International Film Festival. One of the fan favourites of the Melbourne International Film Festival was Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed!, on Filipino genre films of the 1970s and 1980s. It finally comes to Sydney with a special Q & A from the director, who previously explored Australian exploitation (or ‘Ozploitation’) in the excellent Not Quite Hollywood. Another Q & A session will be for The Reef (11 March, Randwick Ritz) Andrew Traucki’s all-too-reel tale of survival in shark infested waters. This is not one to be missed!
The festival closes on a joyous note, with musical comedy A Heartbeat Away aiming to get your toes tapping on the closing night (12th March) of the Australia Film Festival. It will also feature a Q & A from star Roy Billing.
The Australian Film Festival runs from March 2 through 13, and also includes a selection of short films on the Sunday 13 at the Ritz.
Another year has gone by, and we are well into the 2011 awards’ season. Unlike many years, in which a group of ragtag entries form a popular collective around a clear tent-pole winner, this years ceremonies have highlighted just how many great films were released in 2010 – and how many different opinions there were on those great films. Where the Golden Globes gave the nod to The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right, the BAFTAs handed out the golden mask to home-grown favourite The King’s Speech. Indeed, a few months ago, we may have predicted that the Globes had it right with David Fincher’s film about Facebook, but a lot of recent buzz about the royal majesty of The King’s Speech has seen it emerge as a late favourite. So we gaze deep into the office crystal ball and ask the two most pertinent questions of our time: “Who will win?” and “Is there an app for that”?
Best Picture
The big award of the night is always Best Picture, and since 2010 it has gotten even bigger. Raising the nominations to 10 from 5 was seen by some as a cynical move so that big budget blockbusters like Avatar could be included. Of course, there is historical precedent: in 1933 the Academy went from 5 to 8 nominees, to 10 in 1934 and a whopping 12 in 1935, before returning to a humble 10 in 1937. It returned to 5 in 1945, where it remained until last year. What does all this mean? Well, it makes it harder for us to pick a winner!
The nominees this year are Darren Aronofsky’s psycho-thriller Black Swan, David O. Russell’s biopic The Fighter, Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending Inception, Lisa Cholodenko’s unconventional family drama The Kids Are All Right, Tom Hooper’s royal favourite The King’s Speech, Danny Boyle’s fast-paced one-man drama 127 Hours, David Fincher’s Facebook film The Social Network, Lee Unkrich’s animated piece of perfection Toy Story 3, the Coen Brothers’ remake of western True Grit and Debra Granik’s criminally underrated Winter’s Bone. And the Oscar goes to…
Richard says: The King’s Speech (Personal Pick: Black Swan)
Best Director
Unlike the Best Picture category, there are still only five slots for the top director of the year. So of the ten best pictures of the year, only five of their helmsmen (and women) can win for their contributions. This is disappointing for those who’d love to see Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo) finally recognised for his outstanding contributions to the medium. Despite a phenomenal track record, David Fincher has been often overlooked in the Oscar stakes. Perhaps it has been his choice of cinematic fodder, such as serial killers (Se7en and Zodiac), anarchistic schizophrenics (Fight Club). The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated 13 times, including Fincher’s first, but failed to take any of the top spots. If 2010 saw Mark Zuckerberg named Person of the Year, we reckon this year is the Year of the Fincher.
Richardsays: David Fincher, The Social Network (Personal pick: Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan)
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Having a first name that starts with the letter J seems to be the prerequisite for securing a best actor nomination this year, with four of the five actors boasting such a moniker (Javier Bardem for Biutiful, Jeff Bridges for True Grit, Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network and James Franco for 127 Hours). Yet, the man hotly tipped to take home the statuette is the sole competitor breaks this rule in his second nod in as many years, with The King’s Speech‘s Colin Firth likely to be victorious. Indeed, 2008 supporting actor winner Bardem (for No Country For Old Men) is considered the least likely challenger, and 2010 winner Bridges and first-timer Eisenberg have lost momentum of late. Surprisingly, host Franco is firming as a contender, however anything other than a win to Firth would be an upset.
Richardsays: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech (Personal pick: Javier Bardem, Biutiful)
Best Actress in a Leading Role
The case for the dwindling number of strong roles for women may be a strong one, with a clear leader emerging early and sticking there until the awards season is over. The nominees this year are especially strong, and are almost evenly divided into old school and new school Hollywood leading ladies. Representing the former camp are veterans previous multiple nominees Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right) and Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), who won for The Hours in 2002. Previously nominated for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) has been largely hailed as one of the new shining lights of the silver screen and newcomer Jennifer Lawrence should be accepting offers left right and centre after her amazing turn in Winter’s Bone.
Richardsays: Natalie Portman, Black Swan (Personal pick: Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
If you are still looking for patterns in nominees, if you were a supporting actor in a film starting with ‘The’, there was a fairly good chance you’d be nominated for an award this year. Christian Bale, in what is surprisingly his first nomination, has seen an almost clean sweep in his awards wins to date, winning the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Golden Globes, the National Board of Review and countless critics associations for his body-shifting performance in The Fighter. Will this pattern hold? With Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech), the underrated John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone), Jeremy Renner (The Town) and Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right) also up for a statuette, the game is still afoot.
Richardsays: Christian Bale, The Fighter (Personal pick: Christian Bale, The Fighter)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
History has not been kind to fellow acting nominees from the same film (with only two of the last thirteen instances resulting in wins, both in this category), however that may change in 2011. Although Up In The Air‘s Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga were unable to overcome the stigma of competing against each other in 2010, The Fighter‘s Melissa Leo and Amy Adams may have more than a fighting chance. The former is considered the more likely winner, although three-time nominee Adams (for Junebug and Doubt prior to this year) may be the wildcard. If they do split the vote between them, expect True Grit‘s Hailee Steinfeld to join the chorus of young recipients, or The King’s Speech‘s Helena Bonham Carter to ride the film’s wave of success. Sadly, although she has the weight of a nation behind her, veteran Australian actress Jacki Weaver is considered an outsider for crime drama Animal Kingdom.
While nobody put the name of the original author in the title this year (see: Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire), there was some quality reading going on in Hollywood over the last few years. Something we all learned this year was that sequels, even if they are wholly originally creations, are considered ‘Adapted’ from their previous entries. As such, the tear-jerking Toy Story 3 (written by Michael Arndt, with a story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich) was considered an adapted screenplay. It faces incredibly stiff competition from Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network (adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 nonfiction book The Accidental Billionaires), Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy’s 127 Hours (from Aron Ralston’s autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place), the Coen Brothers’ True Grit (not only a remake, but an adaptation of Charles Portis’ lyrical book of the same name) and Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini’s script for Winter’s Bone, based on the Daniel Woodrell book.
Richardsays: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network (Personal pick: Michael Arndt, Toy Story 3)
Best Screenplay (Original)
Always a category of interest, the original screenplay field for 2011 is populated by yet another close bunch of nominees. With Mike Leigh securing his fifth nomination in the field for Another Year, he faces stiff competition from playwright David Seidler, the BAFTA winner for The King’s Speech. The remaining three films represent a vast departure in terms of tone and theme, with The Fighter (written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington), The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg) and Inception (Christopher Nolan) hailing from the biopic, comedy and action genres. With Nolan overlooked in the director category, a nod here is not unexpected, particularly given his triumph at the recent Writers Guild Awards.
Richardsays: David Seidler, The King’s Speech (Personal pick: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington, The Fighter)
These have been our picks for 2010/2011, but it’s all in good fun. Let’s see how many we got right, and we’ll see you on the other side. We will also be LIVE TWEETING the Oscars at @DVDBits. Hope some of you will join us!
The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be held 27 February 2011 in Los Angeles, California. They will air LIVE in Australia on 28 Monday 2011 due to the time difference.
Not content with plumbing the depths of vampire fiction, Hollywood will leave no stone unturned in tapping the wallets of pre-teen punters. Based on the young adult science fiction novel by Pittacus Lore, the collective pen name of Jobie Hughes and James Frey (the controversial author “A Million Little Pieces”), I Am Number Four joins the likes of Twilight and The Vampire Diaries in making the transition from teen page to teen screen. Yet director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, Eagle Eye) has seen the writing on the wall for fanged emos of the night, and has turned to troubled aliens instead.
Nine youngsters are exiled from their home planet of Lorien to hide out on the planet Earth due to the invading Mogadorians. Given a number and a guardian, they must be protected until their latent superpowers (or ‘legacies’) are fully developed. When numbers One through Three are killed, the titular Number Four (Alex Pettyfer, Tormented) and his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant, The Crazies) pack up and move to small-town Paradise, Ohio. Disguised as a high-school student, Four soon develops a relationship with local girl-next-door Sarah Hart (Dianna Agron, Burlesque), which is complicated by his emerging powers. When he is found by the Mogadorians, Four decides enough is enough and makes a stand against the alien invaders.
If the description sounds familiar, it’s because it appears to come from the same generic space that Twilight inhabits. Taking virtually the same premise of an otherworldly creature hiding out in small town America, hunted by the bad versions of his kind, I Am Number Four does nothing to distinguish itself from the glut of similarly plotted films that substitute teen angst and hormonal imbalance for untapped super abilities. Just like Edward, Four glows at inopportune moments and has the habit of flipping over automobiles to save the woman he loves/has just met. However, it is not so much the lazy set-up that disappoints, but rather that it fails to exploit the rather exciting ad intriguing elements of that premise. Placing itself deliberately in that YA space, the movie immediately sets itself up for unfavourable comparison. To carry the Buffy analogy a little further, it is more like something from the last three seasons of the show, as opposed to the sublime first three, making it a little bit average on all counts. There: successfully insulted Twilight, Joss Whedon and I Am Number Four fans in one paragraph. Commence the angry emails and Tweets.
Model-turned-actor Pettyfer has hung up the Burberry for a few years to concentrate on the acting, and while it would be cruel to say that he shouldn’t give up his day job, he should certainly keep the model agencies in his Blackberry for a few more years. It’s not entirely his fault that his character is fairly wooden and carved from familiar blocks, but it isn’t just the material that is limiting his range. Even Timothy Olyphant looks confused, and his presence should normally ensure a certain air of cool that even the obligatory alt.soundtrack (featuring The Xx, Beck, Jimmy Eat World, The Kings of Leon and The Black Keys) can never hope to achieve.
Female characters, from Agron’s sweet country girl to Australia’s Teresa Palmer (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) as the leather-clad badass, simply cater to the male gaze. The title of the film is perhaps indicative of the mediocrity that it aims for, as given the number of flicks vying for tween attention, it falls far from the top slot.
The Reel Bits: A gag about number two would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? If this was the late 1980s, it would have been relegated to the VHS bargain bins, and despite some spectacular special effects, this never raises its profile to anything more than an average teen outing.
I Am Number Four is released on February 24, 2011 in Australia by Walt Disney Studios.
What the hell happened to Liam Neeson? For a while there, things were looking good: Schindler’s List and Michael Collins were great showcases for the actor’s talents, and he seemed poised to be an actor’s actor, the kind you speak about in reverential tones and hotly tip every year to take out yet another award. Yet a string of cinematic missteps befell the poor actor (not to mention his off-screen tragedy), and he seems to have been playing for the lowest common denominator since at least 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
With the possible exception of his turns in Kinsey and Batman Begins, Neeson has taken Nicolas Cage-esque turn (without the dodgy hair) by wallowing in the depths of After.Life, The A-Team, Chloe, Clash and of the Titans. Indeed, Neeson most distinguished role of late has been the voice of an animated lion. So Neeson has saddled up for some European action again with Unknown, from director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphans).
Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson) arrives in Berlin with his wife Elizabeth (January Jones, Mad Men) for a forthcoming conference. Shortly after arriving at the hotel, Neeson realises he has left a briefcase containing his documentation at the airport, and without telling his wife hops into a cab to retrieve them. However, when cab driver Gina (Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds) swerves to avoid a road accident, she drives them both off a bridge and into the river. When Martin awakens, he remembers little of what happened, but is determined to find his wife. However, when he finally tracks Elizabeth down, she does not seem to remember him, and another man (Aidan Quinn, Sarah’s Key) is claiming to be Martin Harris.
‘Hitchcockian’ is the adjective that springs to mind, and while the producers of Unknown would love to use that as a pull-quote in a slick TV spot or DVD release, Collet-Serra’s film is a far cry from any of the slick McGuffin’s that the Master of Suspense would throw our way. Descending from the noble heritage of a genre that North by Northwest perfected in 1959, the apple falls pretty far from the tree here. More of a spiritual successor to Pierre Morel’s Taken, the surface-level twists that Unknown takes us on are not necessarily predictable, as there are a few genuine surprises throughout, but standard thriller fodder nevertheless. As our stranger in a strange land uncovers yet another layer of his onion of intrigue, you may feel the tears of frustration coming on as it simply doesn’t go far enough at times. Simple connections are made on flimsy clues, and if there is an immense cover-up going on (as we are led to believe in the early parts of the film), then there have been some rather sloppy cleaners keeping tabs on the loose ends. Yet as far as formulaic thrillers go, Unknown doesn’t so much transcend the genre as play its familiar notes with workmanlike competence.
The casting is actually pretty spot-on though, with Neeson (on a particularly bad roll at the moment) still delivering a deliberately intense piece of acting. The casting of the German-born Diane Kruger as an illegal Bosnia immigrant living in German is a little odd, but as a veteran of two National Treasure films, she has become a natural at going with the flow of these roller coaster plots. A surprising inclusion to the cast is the German national treasure Bruno Ganz (The Reader), no worse for wear after appearing in countless Downfall parodies on YouTube, as an ex-Stasi private investigator. He, along with the transparently sinister Frank Langella (The Box), provide a bit of old-school weight to the film but are all simply tools in a predestined conclusion.
The Reel Bits: We know there are known unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. Yet if Hollywood has taught us anything, there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know. Unknown ticks all the rights boxes for a genre thriller, although never draw outside the lines of the boxes.
Unknown was released on February 17, 2011 in Australia by Roadshow Films.
The global financial crisis, as it has grown to be called, is said to be the worst financial crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis cost over $20 trillion, along with the loss of millions of jobs and homes. Yet while that era immediately raised the public consciousness with a number of great films on the subject – most notably It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), the sublime Sullivan’s Travels (1946) and of course, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – we are yet to see the great financial crisis film of our time.
Documentarian Michael Moore took his typically personal approach to the financial crisis in Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), trying to work out how things like sub-prime lending led to the collapse of not only banks, but people’s lives as well. Oliver Stone even returned to his great creation of the ‘Greed is good’ 1980s, with the lacklustre Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps last year.
Charles Ferguson had previously grabbed attention with the multi award-winning 2007 documentary, No End in Sight: Iraq’s Descent Into Chaos. With Inside Job, Ferguson turns his critical eye on the root causes, ongoing issues and future consequences of the global financial crisis. Narrated by Matt Damon (Hereafter), the film paints a picture of a crisis that was completely avoidable. Although the reasons for the meltdown were many, Inside Job focuses on the increased deregulation of the financial sector over the last three decades – from the beginning of the Reagan era, through uncontrolled mergers and laws banning the regulation of derivatives – and the rise of securitisation of mortgages and speculative credit swaps. (It might be easier to go look that up than have us explain it to you). Via interviews with a number of politicians, market analysts, financial bigwigs and academics, we get to see a level of corruption and out of control behaviour that threatens to undo capitalism itself.
For the size of the global financial crisis, very little has been said about it until recently. Sure, you couldn’t turn on the television or read your news feeds without hearing about the collapse of a bank, or which European country was about to be consumed by a black hole of debt, but the fundamental questions about what caused the crisis and why weren’t the warning signs heeded. Indeed, with bailouts successfully passed, there has been no reappraisal of regulatory laws or unconscionable practices that led to the crisis in the first place. It is, for most big firms, business as usual. Although the concepts of mortgage-backed securities are complex, and viewers of Capitalism: A Love Story may have already had their CDOs 101 lessons, these are only the merest surface level of the intricate web of perfectly legal corruption that continues to this day. The film competently explains, and more importantly keeps the audience engaged, via a series of helpful graphics and talking heads who cooperate at varying degrees.
The film is at its strongest when it ably dissects and connects the superficially disparate issues that range from Iceland’s financial crisis to the problems in the US, putting a number of the aforementioned talking heads on the ropes, ducking and weaving to avoid any personal culpability. What may surprise some viewers, this reviewer included, are the number of levels of society that influenced the crisis. For example, Larry Summers – who as Treasury Secretary was crucial to the deregulation of derivatives – became President of Harvard in 2001. During this time, he made millions consulting to hedge funds and in speaking fees, much of it from investment banks. Harvard, as the film points out, does not require disclosures of financial conflict of interest in publications.
At its weakest, Inside Job attacks the illegal practices and sociopathic behaviour of the executives, who are said (according to a high-class call girl) to go to strip clubs, use cocaine and prostitutes on company accounts. Yet it is the perfectly legal behaviour that these corporate risk-takers engage in that is the most worrying moral of this true tale, with those activities remaining unchecked on this side of the ongoing crisis.
The Reel Bits: A well-constructed, engaging and thoroughly holistic examination of the recent financial crisis, with frightening possibilities still to come.
Inside Job is released on February 17, 2011 in Australia by Sony Pictures Entertainment..
The greatest love story every told was first performed in the late sixteenth century by the bard we all know and love as Billy Shakespeare. Quite prolific in his day, he’s become even more so with the advent of talking pictures, and what is arguably his most famous play has been adapted countless times in last century of flickering images in darkened rooms.
Perhaps the most filmed of all Shakespeare’s plays, the most famous of the adaptations are undoubtedly George Cukor’s (1936), Franco Zeffirelli’s (1968) – the first to cast teens in the lead roles – and Baz Luhrmann’s fast-paced, music-inspired piece that anticipated the mash-up generation. Of course, there have been other off the wall adaptations including the inspired West Side Story (1961), the less-inspired martial arts Romeo Must Die (2000) and the anime Romeo X Juliet (2007). Yet in all of this, nobody has thought of attempting to retell the story using garden gnomes. At least until now.
Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene. Both little English cottages are virtually identical, with one very important difference: one house is ensconced in blue, and the other in red. When the antagonistic owners are away or asleep, the inhabitants of the garden come to life and wage a secret war against each other. Gnomeo (voiced by James McAvoy, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) is a headstrong Blue, having already lost his father and secretly egged on by his mother Lady Blueberry (Maggie Smith, Harry Potter) in the war against the Reds. Juliet (voiced by Emily Blunt, Gulliver’s Travels) is a feisty Red, despite her father Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine, Inception) quite literally placing her on a pedestal.
Although released by Disney internationally (under the Touchstone banner), this is actually from Rocket Pictures, the production company that superstar Elton John and his husband David Furnish formed in 1996. The animation was done by Starz Animation, who have previously worked on a patchy lot of titles including Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (the sequel nobody asked for), Veggie Tales (the Christian success story nobody understands) and 9 (the critically acclaimed film nobody saw).
Gnomeo & Juliet is consistent with the patchy history of this studio, although still has much to offer the casual animation fan. The film is peppered with classic Elton John songs, such as “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”, romantic faithful “Your Song” and, course, “Tiny Dancer”. Others are reworked versions of “Hello, Hello” (with Lady Gaga) and “Crocodile Rock” (with Nelly Furtado), while composer James Newton Howard (the guy you go to when Howard Shore is unavailable) weaves selections of John’s tunes into his score. While these are possibly a none-too-subtle attempt at boosting the royalties off producer Elton’s back-catalogue, they do provide a retro energy to the film consistent with the anachronistic musical choices that can be found in Dreamworks animated films.
Director and co-writer Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) – along with a cornucopia of writers including Mark Burton, Kevin Cecil (Robbie the Reindeer), Emily Cook, Kathy Greenberg and Andy Riley (uncredited on Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride) – throws in everything including the kitchen sink, and that isn’t always a good thing. While there are certainly enough wall-to-wall pop-cultural references to make sure you are paying attention, many of these will fly over the heads of the little ones. There’s even a musical reference to the Disneyland attraction, The Enchanted Tiki Room. Far more worrying is the structural defects to these two houses, with the gimmick really not having enough to warrant a feature-length film. Indeed, this may have been an excellent short before a feature.
Yet for all of this there is an essential charm to the story, and despite not being made directly by the House of Mouse, this is a very sanitised version of the classic tale. There will be no double suicides here, that much you can be sure of, but as the Patrick Stewart-voiced William Shakespeare statue notes, his ending was better anyway. A massive cast of actors – including Ozzy Osbourne, Dolly Parton, Jason Statham, Hulk Hogan to name but a few – bring ample life to the lifeless characters, but despite the cheeky edge it tries to bring to the tale (a gnome in a mankini, anyone?), it still plays it very safe.
The Reel Bits: A novel take on the greatest love story ever told has a great deal of fun in it, but even with the 3D, bits of it fall a flat. The Elton John soundtrack and wonderful cast of actors buoy this above some other direct-to-DVD efforts, and there is still a few chuckles to be had in this off-beat romance.
Gnomeo & Juliet is released on February 17, 2011 in Australia by Walt Disney Studios.
