Tag: 2012

Review: Killing Them Softly

Some filmmakers get in close, forcing you to cry, plead and call out for your mothers. Andrew Dominik kills us softly, from a distance.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Killing Them Softly (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Andrew Dominik

Writer: Andrew Dominik

Runtime: 97 minutes

Starring: Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Sam Shepard, Vincent Curatola

Distributor: Hoyts

Country: US

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

Of all the groups impacted by the global financial crisis, organised crime has been the least represented by the media. Andrew Dominik makes amends for this in his adaptation of the 1974 George V. Higgins novel, Coogan’s Trade. Focusing on what he has referred to as a criminally unregulated business scheme run on gambling, transplanting that into an era impoverished by the same on a global scale, provides Dominik with fodder for the same dark humour that made his debut Chopper (2000) a local success. Since then, Dominik has ingratiated himself with the art houses of the world with his magnificent sophomore effort The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (2007), and it is through this often magical filter that Killing Them Softly comes to provide a unique twist on more than one genre.

Looking for a way to make some cash in these troubled economic times, Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) brings in two guys to help him knock over a high-stakes card game run by the mob. The twitchy Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and the far-too-laidback Australian Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) pull off the job, for which Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta) is immediately blamed, mostly because he has done it before. The mob, a dysfunctional organisation seemingly run by committee, sends spokesperson Driver (Richard Jenkins) to commission hitman Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to clean up the mess. Of course, the bosses are a little squeamish when it comes to killing, forcing Cogan to go to great lengths to bring in his targets.

Shifting the setting from 1970s Boston to New Orleans circa 2008 not only changes the whole meaning of an ‘economic crisis’ for the tale, but also gives us the frightening backdrop of a post-recovery city suffering decades of financial and natural hardships. Taking its time to reveal its cool anti-hero in Brad Pitt, Dominik consciously eschews tried and true heist-drama clichés and shows a decidedly unglamorous crime lifestyle. It may have the witty dialogue and body count of its recent cousins, but the whoring and alcoholic failing hitman Mickey (a cleverly cast James Gandolfini) bursts any delusions of grandeur in a gangster’s way of life. Yet lensed by veteran Australian cinematographer Grieg Fraser, there is beauty in the violence, beaming an ethereal glow through the slow-motion collision of glass, bullets and blood as a kind of twisted ballet.

The politics are as subtle as a shotgun to the face, especially during a blatant closing monologue, that declares “America’s not a country. It’s just a business.” Yet this often cynical film is most welcome in a year of partisan bickering and decades of slick crime dramas. Dominik’s third film may not have the unsettling outrageousness of his first film, nor the Terrence Malick inspired majesty of his second, but it maintains a delicate balance of humour, drama and even pathos throughout that is rare in ‘chase’ films. Dominik continues to be one of the most interesting filmmakers working today, and let’s hope we don’t have to wait so long between this and his next picture.

Killing Them Softly was released in Australia on 11 October 2012 from Hoyts. It is released in the US on 30 November 2012.

November 7, 2012
Review: Robot and Frank

The relationship between man and machine is explored with new levels of intimacy in this charming Sundance-winning film.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Robot and Frank (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Jake Schreier

Writer: Christopher D. Ford

Runtime: 90 minutes

Starring: Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, James Marsden, Liv Tyler, Jeremy Strong

Distributor: Sony

Country: US

Rating (?): Better Than Average Bear (★★★½)

More info

[/stextbox]

Every year, the Alfred P. Sloan Prize is given out at the Sundance Film Festival for “independent film projects that explore science and technology themes or that depict scientists, engineers and mathematicians in engaging and innovative ways”. This year, it couldn’t have been given to two more different films. On one hand, there was Musa Syeed’s insightful, tender and beautiful Valley of Saints, a film set during a time of civil turmoil in northern India. Then there’s Robot and Frank, the debut film of Jack Schreier, one that explores the relationship between an ageing man and his robotic assistant. Yet it shares many of the same qualities as its Sundance stablemate, offering a rare glimpse into the more tender spots of the human psyche.

Set in the not-too-distant future, Robot and Frank is a film that is entirely within the realms of possibility. Ageing ex-con and former cat burglar Frank (Frank Langella) lives alone in his remote home, but is increasingly suffering the effects of dementia and general befuddlement. Tired of making the trip up to the mountains every week, his son Hunter (James Marsden) gives him a robotic companion (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) designed to aid in his rehabilitation and household maintenance. Resentful of the robot at first, Frank comes to grow used to his companionship and begins his own regimen of mental stimulation with his new house-mate. Falling back on old cat burgling habits, his regular patterns of behaviour are disrupted when the local library is being “reimagined” by a young hipster (Jeremy Strong), forcing him to act on his feelings for the local librarian (Susan Sarandon).

Like Lars and the Real Girl or The Beaver before it, Robot and Frank is less about the object than what that thing reveals about the person who interacts with it. The film is actually simple in its setup, and taking out the high-concept of the central relationship, the film is firmly rooted in character-based drama. Almost structured like a ‘coming of age’ film, except at the extreme opposite end of the scale, the joy is in watching Frank open up to his new friend. Likewise, while the ‘not too distant future’ setting makes this technically science fiction, this is firmly a nostalgic piece. Indeed, were it not for the future setting, this is a story that could take place at any time or place.

Langella’s performance is understated, but wonderfully crafted. Avoiding the all-too-often excessive takes on dementia, his is filled with moments of clarity and forgetfulness that exhibits in other ways: repetition, the holding of cutlery in awkward ways and displacement of time. For anybody who has ever watched a loved one slip into dementia, it is heartbreaking, more so as his relationship with Susan Sarandon plays out. James Marsden and Liv Tyler as Frank’s children both give terrific performances as well, but they are little more than cameos. Peppered with liberal doses of good-natured humour, the core relationship is the one between man and machine, and you will believe a robot can care.

Robot and Frank is released in Australia on 15 November 2012 from Sony.

November 5, 2012
Review: The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is a thinly veiled, and thinly plotted, examination of the forces around Scientology.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”The Master (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson

Runtime: 137 minutes

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): Wait for DVD/Blu-ray (★★½)

More info

[/stextbox]

There is a moment in the opening scenes of The Master where the troubled Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) simulates sex on a model of a woman his navy buddies have made out of sand. It begins as a revealing moment to the viewer and amusing to the party, but rapidly becomes uncomfortable as Freddie takes it one step too far. The same could be said of Paul Thomas Anderson’s highly anticipated follow-up to his award winning There Will Be Blood (2007). Keen to replicate his previous successes in terms of scope and nuance, Anderson appears to have forgotten that his greatest strength is in the ensemble, here failing to imbue a talented cast of actors with any meaning beyond the superficial.

Following the end of the Second World War, Freddie suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, an issue not aided by his alcoholism. While we suspect that his trauma may go deeper than that, it is a chance encounter with the charismatic Lancaster Dodds (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his wife Peggy (Amy Adams) that alters his destiny. Introducing Freddie to intense questioning known as Processing, Dodds is revealed to be a notable author of “The Cause”, a philosophical movement that is gaining its followers and detractors across America with its claims of being able to cure terminal diseases. With Freddie’s erratic and violent behaviour escalating, he soon clashes with the principals of the movement, and continues to be haunted by the demons of his past.

Just as Freddie becomes increasingly frustrated with the repetition and pointlessness of the exercises from “The Cause”, so too is Anderson’s film filled with agonisingly meandering moments. Never fully committed to its own cause, the film begins as a tale of a lost soul, drifting from one job to the next without direction or an ability to control his own rage. At times, Phoenix is completely incomprehensible, speaking out the side of his mouth in a painfully conscious performance, giving the audience every reason not to care one iota about him. The appearance of Dodds, not named for the first third of the film and simply referred to as ‘The Master’, electrifies the picture momentarily. A regular of Anderson’s ensembles, having appeared in four of his five previous outings, his move from supporting player to centre stage is reflective of his own rising star over the last decade or so of award-winning roles. Yet beyond pontifications and his own occasional bouts of semi-provoked rage, Dodds is as ill-defined as the philosophy of “The Cause”.

As a result of Dodd’s lack of definition, Freddie remains deliberately lost. The struggle between two opposing wills is clearly something that fascinates Anderson, have previously explored the dichotomy in There Will Be Blood with the incredibly detailed portrayals of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) and Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), and to a lesser extent the magnetic personality of T.J. Mackey in Magnolia (1999), played by arguably the world’s most famous Scientologist, Tom Cruise. Anderson is avoiding those looming questions around the wider impact of Scientology and other similar cults, even if the film is rooted in those obvious comparisons to the well-publicised teachings of science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. His focus on these particular characters leaves a substantial gap between Anderson’s understanding of what it is he is trying to say, and an accessible narrative for audiences. Anderson merely sets up the opposition between his leads, and they don’t so much clash as rub against each other in mild irritation. Indeed, far more interesting is the apparent true strength behind the throne, Lancaster’s wife Peggy, played with unwavering conviction by Adams, but sadly under-explored by Anderson.

The photography, originally shot for an intended 70mm projection, is at times stunning. The opening shots of the frothy trail of a boat as it cuts through open water serves as a powerful motif throughout the film. The Master‘s look is more in line with There Will Be Blood than his previous films, although it lacks the stunning vistas that gave that earlier film such a grand design. The photography is yet another element that fails to achieve any level of consistency, never transcending the often ugly nature of the subject matter. Mihai Malaimare Jr’s cinematography has been featured in Francis Ford Coppola’s films of the last few years, yet following the stunning mixture of digital imagery in Twixt, the photography here seems sub-par. Jonny Greenwood’s overbearing score is arresting from the start, reminding us of an impending doom that is already evident from Freddie’s behaviour, although often feels out of step with the shell of a narrative. A similar style worked for his previous collaboration with Anderson, yet here something like his slightly melancholic score for Norwegian Wood would have been the subtler approach

Much like L. Ron Hubbard’s children, Lancaster Dodd’s son Val (Jesse Plemons) doubts the legitimacy of his father’s cause. “He’s just making it up as he goes along,” he notes to an outraged Freddie. It is difficult not to feel that Anderson was doing the same thing with The Master, breaking us down with silent repetition until we have no choice but to take his film on face value. As a polemic on Scientology, or anything like it, Anderson doesn’t take a firm enough stance either way to suggest what the next step might be. Filled with indulgences during its bloated running time, including a incongruous scene where all the women of the room become suddenly naked, Anderson continues to prove that he is certainly an auteur with something to say, but hasn’t quite become a master.

The Master opened the Cockatoo Island Film Festival in Sydney in October 2012. It is released in Australia on 8 November 2012 from Roadshow Films.

October 25, 2012
Review: Argo

A thrilling and fascinating chapter of US-Iranian relations serves as Ben Affleck’s third directorial outing, proving his prowess both behind and in front of the camera.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Argo (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Ben Affleck

Writer: Chris Terrio

Runtime: 95 minutes

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): Certified Bitstastic (★★★★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

As America sat glued to Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans from the American Embassy in Tehran were held hostage for 444 days, another drama played out behind the scenes. The so-called “Canadian Caper” saw the rescue of six US citizens who had taken refuge in the Canadian ambassador’s residence (played in the film by Victor Garber), remarkably using an elaborate cover story of a Hollywood production to get their people out. Based in part on the memoirs of CIA disguise and exfiltration expert Tony Mendez, Argo follows the acclaimed films Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010) from director Ben Affleck, rapidly ensuring that his days of being known as the actor from Reindeer Games, Gigli and Surviving Christmas are well and truly over.

Following the incident at the US embassy, Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) assesses all of the CIA’s extraction plans as completely unrealistic. After catching Battle for the Planet of the Apes, where all good ideas are born, he strikes upon the idea of using a Hollywood science-fiction film as an excuse to enter the troubled region. With the help of Oscar winning make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), he convinces Tinsel Town that he is making a giant Star Wars inspired film, set in the exotic locales in and around Tehran. The harder part is making the Iranian officials believe in that same story.

From the unlikely (but almost entirely true) events that inspired the film comes a taut and thrilling drama that plays on audience expectations of spy thrillers. Affleck’s strengths as a filmmaker have always been in crafting character-based pieces, from his screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997) through to heist film The Town. With Argo, he gives himself the plum role of Mendez, a slick operator who doesn’t allow himself to doubt his own cover story for a moment. Yet he also wisely chooses to surround himself with equally talented supporting players, working together seamlessly as an ensemble. The inspired casting of the previously underused Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan, Scoot McNairy and Kerry Bishé as just some of the Canadian six is a welcome mix of approximately familiar faces and new stars, creating the believable intimacy necessary to sell the urgency of their plight.

It’s through the cast that Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio also manages to deliver some often hilarious moments as well, never playing down to the audience. Much of the humour comes from the interplay between Goodman and particularly Alan Arkin, with the oft repeated refrain of “Argo fuck yourself” serving as something of a battle cry for this eclectic group. Numerous film references pepper the piece, and the irony of the dilapidated Hollywood sign crumbling over the hills of Los Angeles isn’t lost on anybody.

Shot with the rapid proximity of handheld, Argo is nothing less than compelling at every turn. Affleck deftly spins a tale of a mismatched group of people every bit as powerful as The Town, and indeed exceeding his previous efforts with a heartfelt exploration of a tense political situation that still has ramifications to this day. While minor issues of historical inaccuracy may mar the over overall impact of the film upon closer exploration, particularly the opening monologue and the heavy emphasis on the US involvement in the “Canadian Caper”, this does little to diminish the impact of this award-worthy film.

Argo is released in Australia on 25 October 2012 from Roadshow Films.

October 25, 2012
Review: Dredd

Fun and bloody, the latest adaptation of a classic comic-book character revels in ultra-violence and takes no prisoners in the process.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Dredd (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Pete Travis

Writer: Alex Garland

Runtime: 95 minutes

Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris, Lena Headey

Distributor: Icon

Country: UK, South Africa

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

Judge Dredd first appeared in Britain in the pages of 2000 AD’s second issue in 1977, but was ultimately a response to the seemingly fascist police state being created by Margaret Thatcher in the following years. So it is entirely appropriate that the latest version of John Wagner’s creation should reappear when law enforcement bodies have even more power than ever to be judge, juries and executioners in a response to the global threat of terror. With the bad taste of the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Judge Dredd (1995) still lingering in the back palate of both film and comic fans everywhere, the not inconsiderable talents of writer Alex Garland have been brought in to render one of the most brutal screen versions of a comic book character to date.

Garland’s Dredd draws from a number of different sources, but is most effective as a straightforward narrative about a veteran Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) forced to take the psychic rookie Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) under his wing on a very bad day. In the massive irradiated wasteland of futuristic America, the vast metropolis of Mega-City One stands, housing 800 million citizens and 17,000 crimes daily. The Judges keep what order they can by immediately punishing infractions with on-the-spot death. Plagued by a new drug known as Slow-Mo, which tricks the brain into seeing the world at a fraction of its normal speed, Dredd and Anderson are called into the 200-story slum tower block Peach Trees, where several murders have been reported. They find a tower run by Ma Ma Madrigal (Lena Headey), a former prostitute turned gang lord, who runs the biggest distribution of Slow-Mo out of her fiefdom. Locked in the tower with scores of itchy trigger fingers, and a prisoner (Wood Harris) in tow, the Judges must fight their way to the top and see that justice is done.

Dredd has a number of similarities to last year’s surprise Indonesian hit The Raid (2011), and indeed their basic premises of a handful of cops in a well-armed block are identical. Yet Garland’s script immediately distinguishes itself by taking itself far less seriously, not treating the material lightly but rather finding the ironic humour that serves as a major selling point in the original comics. The concept of the “block wars” has long been a staple in the Judge Dredd source material, and here it serves as a playground for an endless series of bloody deaths, each one escalating in the splatter factor. Rather than feeling like a relentless video game, one where everybody is a NPC, the black-and-white attitude of Dredd grounds the picture with an unwavering brutality that doesn’t let up until the very end.

Much of this is attributable to the compelling central character, Urban makes a terrific Dredd, all the more impressive given that he is acting entirely from the bottom half of his face. Wearing his trademark helmet for the duration of the film this time around, Urban gives a masterclass in economy of movement. Thirlby, in a rare relatable performance, is there to provide accessibility for the average audience member, and achieves this without excessive exposition. Dredd further distinguishes itself from The Raid with the addition of a suitably compelling villain in the Patti Smith inspired character from Heady. Already a genre favourite thanks to her Game of Thrones role, the scarred block lord exudes a cruel and casual indifference, but her immediately at odds with the black-letter law Dredd. Yet it is in watching the Judge begin to realise the folly of his totalitarian system over the course of the film that is one of the real joys for fans.

With a look that is equal parts Blade Runner (1982) and western, Dredd is a satisfying union of comic book and cinematic flair. Largely said to be co-directed and edited by writer Garland, instead of director Pete Travis, we finally get a reasonable use for slow-motion and 3D, giving us a visual interpretation of the comics that could only exist on film, but is wholly indebted to its origins. Shot in South Africa with a comparatively small budget of $45, every bit of it can be seen on-screen, not wasting a single moment of this opportunity to get it right. While some might have cause to complain about the excessive nature of the violence, it would be like calling the sun “too hot”. Dredd is a film that knows its audience and fulfils its promise and purpose, gleefully kicking down the door and leaving doubters in a bloody pulp.

Dredd is released in Australia on 25 October 2012 from Icon Film Distribution.

October 20, 2012
Review: Frankenweenie

Tim Burton’s triumphant return to Disney animation is a beautiful love-letter to monster mash-ups.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Frankenweenie (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Tim Burton

Writer: John August

Runtime: 87 minutes

Starring: Charlie Tahan, Frank Welker, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Robert Capron, Atticus Shaffer

Distributor: Disney

Country: US

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

Although Frankenweenie is listed as director Tim Burton’s first official animated film for Disney, his history with the House of Mouse goes back to the earliest days of his career. Working as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and Tron for Disney, his own style never really gelled with the conservative studio. They did, however, allow him to complete work on a live action short called Frankenweenie (1984), in which a young boy brings his dog back to life. Essentially being fired over this film, being deemed too dark for audiences, it is one of the best examples of how Hollywood changes over the course of several decades. His production on The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), released under the Touchstone banner, remains one of Disney’s top merchandising franchises, and following the $1 billion global box office of Alice in Wonderland (2010), the once unseemly short is now the basis of a full-length stop-motion animated classic.

Young Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) is a bit of a loner, dedicated to science and as faithful to his dog Sparky as the pooch is to him. Worried that he isn’t more social, his parents (voiced by Catherine O’Hara and Martin Short) encourage him to play baseball. However, tragedy strikes on his first game, when Sparky chases a ball onto the road and is killed by a car. Partly inspired by the creepy science teacher Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), Victor resurrects his dearly departed dog. However, when troubled kid Edgar “E” Gore (Atticus Shaffer) reveals Victor’s secret, his entire class develops a fascination with reanimation.

Unlike Tim Burton’s recent live-action films, which are very much a thinly veiled redux of what he has done before, Frankenweenie is a consciously retro choice. Time warping not only back to his own earlier film but also to an entire history of schlock cinema. Apart from the obvious influences of James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), there are also some giant love letters to Daikaijû Gamera (1965), Gremlins (1984) and The Mummy (1932). On the surface, it is a pastiche of those films, keeping in line with the current animation trend of celebrating the pop of culture at the speed of light. Yet at all times there is a sense that regular Burton collaborator John August’s script is anything less than an affectionate homage to monster pictures, but keeping the same level of character development and investment that one would expect from Pixar’s best work. What’s most impressive is that all of these elements, from the vaguely racist Toshiaki (James Hiroyuki Liao) to the childlike Peter Lorre in Edgar, all seem like they should be exactly where you find them.

Frankenweenie immediately distinguishes itself by going against the grain and rather boldly being entirely in monochromatic hues, but nevertheless having an each way bet and being in 3D as well. Stripped of colour, the artistry behind the stop-motion animation and the level of character detail becomes even more evident. Take for example the rings around Sparky’s eyes, a perfect approximation of Burton’s original sketches brought to life in a way that would make Victor proud. While the 3D is perhaps unnecessary, it adds a layer of depth that is now expected in modern animation.

Burton’s animation over the last two decades has kept alive the childlike wonder that has been absent from his live-action pieces. What remains true in this latest version of his almost three-decades old story is the heartwarming tale of a boy and his dog. Genuinely and proudly weird, it celebrates the goofy nature of its characters but imbues them all with relatable attributes. Except for Weird Girl. She’s a freak.

Frankenweenie is released in Australia on 25 October 2012 from Disney.

October 18, 2012
Review: The Words

This story-within-a-story needs more words to flesh it out beyond its contrived self-satisfied narrative.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”The Words (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal

Writer: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal

Runtime: 96 minutes

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Olivia Wilde, Zoe Saldana, Jeremy Irons, Ben Barnes, Dennis Quaid

Distributor: Becker Film Group

Country: US

Rating (?): Rental for Sure (★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

For anybody that has ever put pen to paper, or fingers to their keyboard, there follows a perpetual cloud of angst as to whether it is any good. Some struggle with this forever, crippled by self doubt, while the rare acolytes amongst achieve greatness. It is a shame then that writer/directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal didn’t sweat a little longer over their script for The Words, or perhaps even read it, following the same contrived conventions that their central figure strives to overcome. The narrative equivalent of a Russian nesting doll, except at least one of them has a wobbly bottom and doesn’t quite sit right.

Famous novelist Clayton Hammond (Dennis Quaid) gives a public reading of his latest book, The Words. It focuses on Rory (Bradley Cooper), a struggling writer who lives with his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana). Thanks to his father (J.K. Simmons), Rory gets a job in the mailroom of a publisher, but fails to get his first script sold. However, after a honeymoon trip to Paris, Rory finds an unpublished manuscript in a briefcase. After retyping it, he sparks an irreversible chain of events that leads to the successful publishing and acclaim of the novel. Rory soon forgets his deception, until he encounters an elderly gentleman (Jeremy Irons), who has his own story to tell. Meanwhile, at the reading of The Words, Clayton meets beautiful student Daniella (Olivia Wilde), a pseudo-stalker who has a few questions of her own.

On the surface, The Words seems like an intriguingly clever concept. The three stories within one that it presents might be a tried and true literary device, but formulas tend to keep getting used for a reason. The issue here is that Klugman and Sternthal never get beyond the conceit, filling each of its three stories with only the barest of character detail and never allowing any of them to penetrate any deeper than that surface sheen. Cooper and Saldana certainly imbue their characters with the enthusiasm of young love, albeit with Cooper only a few shades away from his similar turn in Limitless, but their struggle is undermined not only by their lack of development, but by the lingering possibility that they may not actually exist outside of fiction. When a creaking Jeremy Irons turns up to spin his own tale, we are transported away to another time with a younger self (Ben Barnes), to a story which may have also been engaging if we have more than a few precious moments of screen time with his younger self.

The framing technique uses Dennis Quaid narrating the story in two parts: to an audience, and then less reliably to the gorgeous Olivia Wilde, whose motives remain ambiguously irrelevant to the end. She seems to be after something from Clayton, but neither she nor the audience can be bothered articulating it further. Like The Words itself, she is frustratingly close to something important and intriguing, but never manages to get any closer to her subject that its architects will allow.

The Words was released in Australia on 11 October 2012 from Becker Film Group.

October 17, 2012
Review: Shadow Dancer

A reminder of the impact of terror and violence on people everywhere, this thriller takes us inside the world of the IRA in the 1990s.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Shadow Dancer (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: James Marsh

Writer: Tom Bradby

Runtime: 101 minutes

Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, David Wilmot

Distributor: Potential Films

Country: UK

Rating (?): Better Than Average Bear (★★★½)

More info

[/stextbox]

In a post-9/11 world, it is often easy to forget that terrorism is something that existed prior to the toppling of the Twin Towers. Not to diminish the impact of that event on the lives of people around the world, but violence and the threat of terror is something that people everywhere have been experiencing for eons. The political separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of the country in the early part of the 20th century divided factions into a war over home rule, something that reignited with renewed violence in the 1960s. “The Troubles”, which roughly encompass the period between the 1968/1969 riots in Londonderry and Belfast and the 1990s, accounted for the deaths of thousands of British and Irish troops and civilians, before the lengthy peace process began in the mid part of that decade.

Based on his own novel, Tom Bradby’s screenplay is set in that tumultuous period in the early 1990s. Opening with a minimum of dialogue, a 12-year-old Colette McVeigh is asked to buy cigarettes for her father. Preoccupied by her craft exercise, she instead sends her younger brother, who is killed in the crossfire of a clash in Belfast. Flash forward two decades to 1993, and the now adult Colette (Andrea Riseborough) is caught after dropping a suitcase in the London underground. She is set upon by two men who escort her to a hotel, where she is handed over to a MI5 agent who only identifies himself as “Mac” (Clive Owen). He blackmails her into spying on her family for him, rather than go to jail and lose her son. She returns home amidst suspicion to her mother (the excellent Brid Brennan), and her two brothers, Gerry (Aidan Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson). Both men are dominant by the ruthless IRA Kevin Mulville (David Wilmot), who doesn’t take to those who betray him kindly.

Director James Marsh is best known for his documentaries Project Nim and Man on Wire, but also for the highly regarded Red Riding: 1980, the middle chapter of the British TV mini-series. For his latest feature, Marsh takes a leaf out of post-War Hitchcock and creates a multi-layered thriller in which fear is a way of life. After shocking the senses with an explosive opening sequence, impressive for its silent tension, Bradby and Marsh spend the remaining time building a slow-burning narrative that rewards patience. If his documentary work has been to find the story within the fact, exposing the truth to the harsh light of day, then Shadow Dancer in many ways takes the opposite approach, deliberately obfuscating its meaning until its final knuckle-whitening moments.

Sharing much with last year’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, including the same deliberately desaturated slate to create the same sense of clinical objectivity, raising reasonable arguments for both sides of the war. Gillian Anderson, now fully committed to her English accent, is present to keep the MI5 side on track, tempering “Mac’s” emotions, ones that occasionally push the film into melodrama. Wilmot may represent the extremes of IRA fundamentalism, but the fragility of Gleeson’s Connor – and more importantly the stoic matronly portrayal by Brennan – show that the culture of fear was just as much a way of life in 1993 as it is post-2001.

Shadow Dancer may favour minimalism, including Riseborough’s lost soul and Owen’s taciturn agent, but delivers a great deal in its quick run through the Troubles. For a film that features long (and gorgeous) shots of simple human interactions, it remains surprisingly gripping for the duration. Yet even the final surprising moments are downplayed by Marsh as par for the course, making this one of the most understated, albeit no less dramatic, thrillers of recent memory.

Shadow Dancer is released in Australia on 11 October 2012 from Potential Films.

October 10, 2012
Review: Looper

An intriguing concept that offers a unique twist on the time travel genre, but also spreads its ambitious ideas too thin.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Looper (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Rian Johnson

Writer: Rian Johnson

Runtime: 118 minutes

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, Paul Dano, Pierce Gagnon

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): Worth A Look (★★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

Bruce Willis is constantly being sent back in time. If he isn’t visiting his own past in 12 Monkeys (1995), or being visited by an 8-year old version of himself in Disney’s The Kid (2000), he is repeatedly forced to relive the 1980s through a series of creaky Die Hard sequels. Kind of like Quantum Leap, without the benefit of Harry Dean Stockwell as his guide. For writer/director Rian Johnson‘s third feature, following the acclaimed noir Brick (2005) and the schizophrenic The Brothers Bloom (2008), Willis is returned to the realms of science fiction in another missive on the duality of the self. Aided by some prosthetics, it-boy Joseph Gordon-Levitt picks up where Spencer Breslin left off in being incredibly disappointed in how the old man turns out.

In the not-too-distant future of 2044, economic collapse has led to severe social and urban decay. Sections of the population have developed telekinetic powers, and crime is rampant. Thirty years after that, time travel is invented but outlawed immediately. It is still used by criminal organisations to send their victims back in time to waiting ‘loopers’, who kill their perps in the past where they have no records or identity. Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper, who collects his silver and lives a hedonistic lifestyle. However, when his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back to be killed, both Joes are on the run from the mob when the younger Joe fails to carrying out the hit, or ‘close his loop’. The older Joe is on the hunt for a person he believes to be a future mob boss called The Rainmaker, and he suspects it is the young boy Cid (Pierce Gagnon), who lives with his mother Sara (Emily Blunt). Young Joe hopes to protect the boy and change the future for everybody.

The very idea of meeting your future self, or vice versa, is a powerful storytelling motif. Being able to change your destiny by informing your ‘other self’ of different decisions to make comes with the paradoxical realisation that you would not have that knowledge without the corresponding experience. Indeed, humans time travel every day by looking back in a nostalgic fashion, reliving past events through the distorted goggles of memory. We look forward to the future, imagining what will be, the most ambitious of us making those dreams a reality through sheer determination. Looper directly acknowledges this view of time travel, using a narrative tool where the actions of the past self immediately impact on the future self once they become aware of one another. Words cut into the an arm appear spontaneously on the corresponding appendage of a future self as a message or warning, and more importantly, memories of loved ones falter as new memories are created.

The notion that the ‘future is what we make it’ is not unique to Johnson or Looper, with parallels in other American time travel classics from Back to the Future (1985) or the more recent dramatic piece Safety Not Guaranteed (2012). This sits in contrast to the current run of UK’s Doctor Who series, where time is said to be a fixed entity once the future is acknowledged. While volumes could be written on what this says on the psyches of the American and British concepts of self-determination, but if you pick at the threads of Johnson’s film, there sits inside a minor parable about older selves betraying the ideals of youth. This is where the film is at its most interesting, wholeheartedly running (quite literally) with the notion of time travel paradoxes, Johnson crafting his story around these quagmires.

The other major success of Looper is in world-building, envisaging a future that is wholly familiar not simply due to the science fiction touchstones it marks off along the way, but because it’s also rooted in the preconceptions of the present. Technology is thrown in as a matter-of-fact detail about the world, just as it is a fact of our own lives. The supporting players, particularly in Jeff Daniels as the grizzled gangster Abe, world-weary from travelling from a future even stranger than the one we are presented. Indeed, we only glimpse the distant future in an alternative telling of Joe’s destiny, one that the older Joe wishes to maintain up until a point.

Yet if the strength of Looper is in its acknowledgement of the notion of duality, Johnson squanders its dramatic promise by getting sidetracked by other concepts that intrigued him along the way. A secondary sci-fi concept acts as a deus ex machina to get the script out of a few tight spots, and when it unleashes its full fury, it takes the film into places that bring a shark back in time to jump over itself. It erodes the impact of the more straightforward and clever take on time travel, and is almost as if Johnson was so keen to leap into sci-fi that he threw all of his ideas in at once. An action-drama masquerading as a sci-fi film, there are some provocative concepts in Looper, just don’t study them for too long.

Looper was released in Australia on 27 September 2012 from Roadshow Films.

October 9, 2012
Review: Mental

Australian cinema gets sent to Wollongong as P.J. Hogan returns to our shores with a semi-autobiographical tale that’s simply nuts.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Mental (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: P.J. Hogan

Writer: P.J. Hogan

Runtime: 116 minutes

Starring: Toni Collette, Liev Schrieber, Lily Sullivan, Rebecca Gibney, Anthony LaPaglia, Deborah Mailman

Distributor: Universal

Country: Australia

Rating (?): Worth A Look (★★★)

More info

[/stextbox]

P.J. Hogan first gained mainstream attention with his now iconically Australian Muriel’s Wedding (1994), the film that also put actress Toni Collette on the map. Since then, Hogan has spent most of his time in the US market with rom-com My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), a big-budget version Peter Pan (2003) and adaptation Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009). Returning to work in Australia for the first time in almost two decades, Hogan draws heavily on his own family history for another slice of suburban life in Queensland. Like the characters in Mental, Hogan’s own family history of mental illness informs his latest venture, and it lives up to its title.

Mental follows the lives of five out of control children emotionally rescued by the outrageous Shaz (Toni Collette) when their mother Shirley (Rebecca Gibney) has a mental breakdown. Their unavailable father Barry (Anthony LaPaglia), a local politician running for re-election tells the children and anybody else who asks that she has gone on holiday to Wollongong. He finds Shaz hitch-hiking and brings her home, where she begins to radically change the lives of the kids. While the eldest daughter Coral (Lily Sullivan) desperately wants her own perceived insanity acknowledged, Shaz teaches them that nobody is ‘normal’.

The film, as the title suggests, is suitably mental. Australian cinema typically has an on/off switch that flips between suburban drama and broad comedy, and very rarely does it push the envelope any further. An unconventional take on The Sound of Music, which serves as a motif throughout the film, it is unlikely that Mental could have been made anywhere else other than Australia. It’s unusual for an Australia film to be so celebratory of the local, and darkly comic about the nature of the Australian suburbia, and this is a refreshing take on local films that feel the need to be somebody else’s view of the Antipodes.

It’s this kind of approach that allows the film to cut loose with the Harold Holt gags, even if it does rely on American import Liev Schrieber for one of the most “Aussie” roles in the film. It does go too far sometimes, and a scene in which a group of girls have a simultaneous collective menstrual emission on a neighbour’s clean couch is glaringly out-of-place. Likewise, as the emotional core of Shaz’s journey comes to a head, Hogan doubts the audience buy-in and doubles back with some more gags that culminate in a fiery coda. Perhaps it’s Hogan’s proximity to the material, which he admits to being “a documentary really”, that prohibits this from being something more than an extended in-joke. The stereotypes that surround the family are more ‘mental’ than anyone in it, but they are also so far removed from reality as to diminish the impact of Shaz’s true impact on the family. When the third act turns to a more serious set of revelations, just as it did with Muriel’s Wedding, we are missing the emotional hook that Hogan already has in his own mind by virtue of having lived some of it.

Much of the attention will be on the return of Toni Collette to Australian screens with the director that put her on the map, but it’s an almost unrecognisable Rebecca Gibney that really shines in this film. She is the natural successor to Muriel’s mother Betty (Jeanie Drynan), a character who was taken for granted by her children and abused by her husband and ultimately commits suicide. While her end is not so tragic in Mental, she is part of the same cycle that is still a sad reality almost two decades on. Newcomer Sullivan is also a real find, bringing a fresh-faced enthusiasm to a familiar role, and actually acting like an adolescent rather than a preconceived notion of one.

Vividly shot, chaotic in nature and making full use of its Queensland backdrop, Mental is not always successful as a comedy or a drama, but it is an entertaining and unabashedly Australian take on a family in crisis. Finding the right tone to laugh with, rather than at, mental illness is a difficult task, and Hogan accomplishes this. Just go with it: it’s more fun that way.

Mental is released in Australia on 4 October 2012 from Universal.

October 5, 2012