Tag: 2012

Review: Seeking A Friend For the End of the World

The sweetest story about the end of the world, and an unlikely exploration of the meaning of humanity in a romantic package.

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Director: Lorene Scafaria

Writer: Lorene Scafaria

Runtime: 101 minutes

Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

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The world has either been destroyed or under threat of destruction so many times it has almost lost meaning. This is where debut director Lorene Scafaria, the writer of the hipster rom-com Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, begins in some ways. Devoid of Aerosmith songs or roughnecks trained as astronauts, Scafaria muses on the nature of love and human relationships when they are put under the ultimate strain. Seeking A Friend For the End of the World is a continuation on a theme for Scafaria, although here she does it within the context of the most extreme of time constraints. Her goal is to find that meaning within the apocalypse by taking the most intimate approach possible.

Following the announcement that asteroid heading towards Earth is unstoppable, Dodge Petersen’s (Steve Carell) wife Linda (real-life spouse Nancy Carell) leaves him without a word. While all of Dodge’s friends and colleagues spend their end days indulging in hedonism, including guilt-free sex and drugs, Dodge finds that his life is exactly the same, but wants something more meaningful in his life for his last moments on the planet. After meeting Penny Lockhart (Keira Knightley) crying on his fire-escape, unable to return home to the UK to be with her family, Dodge’s life begins to change. They soon embark on a mission across country to find someone with a plane for Penny, while Dodge wants to re-connect with the great lost love of his life.

Scafaria’s previous film placed two unlikely companions on the path to romance during an impromptu road trip, and in many ways Seeking A Friend For the End of the World is a variation on this same theme. That there is a predetermined end-point to this saga, one that begins as a gloomy tragedy, only heightens the romance. Scafaria’s script is also incredibly funny, and while it may occasionally fall back on the episodic nature of the road movie, it nevertheless fills its running time with a plethora of great cameos and amusing moments. The most memorable of these is friendly trucker (William Petersen), who goes from creepy to tragic on a dime, and a love-in at a roadside diner featuring well-placed cameos from comedian T.J. Miller and Community‘s Gillian Jacobs.

Yet the heart and soul of the film lies with Carell and Knightley, who respectively bring warmth and humanity to this most uplifting of tales. Carell often plays characters who are losers, but just as he did with Crazy, Stupid, Love, he restrains his typical dysfunctional characters and remains true to the script and to the character he is portraying. Knightley stays on the right side of twee, breaking hearts with her fragility and charming with her quirks and pretty amazing record collection. Seeking A Friend For the End of the World might be about the death of all life on Earth, but it will remind you of the beauty of love and the simple pleasures of living.

Seeking A Friend For the End of the World was in limited in release in Australia on 23 August 2012 from Roadshow Films.

September 4, 2012
Review: The Expendables 2

The boys are back in town, and they’ve brought guns: lots of guns. Yet they also back some laughs and a healthy sense of self in their arsenal, making for one of the most enjoyable action outings in years.

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Director: Simon West

Writer: Richard Wenk, Sylvester Stallone

Runtime: 104 minutes

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Yu Nan

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

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

More info

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The idea behind The Expendables was genius in its simplicity. Led by Rambo himself, veteran action stars from the 1980s and 1990s were gathered together for the ultimate piece of fan-service, the largest collaboration of its kind since the opening of Planet Hollywood. You know their names: Stallone, Lundgren, Van Damme, Willis, Schwarzenegger. Between them, the jungles and deserts of the world would never be safe for the megalomaniacal despots or direct-to-video villains. These days, it seems that almost anybody can be an action hero, from former child star Christian Bale to Jude Law. Not content to let this less than manly behaviour slide, the original badasses return to bring pain to a whole new generation of henchmen. The first film was an old-school action extravaganza that knew its market and played to those strengths, yet sometimes sacrificed self-effacing laughs for bigger explosions. With The Expendables 2, writer/director Stallone knows his target audience a little bit more, and plays evenly to the fans and ironic viewers alike.

Led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), the mercenary team known as The Expendables are sent to Nepal with new recruit/sniper Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) to rescue a Chinese businessman. When they return, CIA operative Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) approaches them with a mission, claiming that they still owe him one for the events of the first film. Reluctantly saddled with technical expert Maggie (Yu Nan), their simple mission of picking up the contents of a safe inside of a downed plane goes south when the supercriminal Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) gets involved. This time, it’s personal.

If the original film could be faulted for a sometimes scattered story, sandwiching in a love sub-plot for Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and the baffling presence of Mickey Rourke, The Expendables 2 is all about stripping it back to basics and more importantly, giving fans what they want. From the bombastic and superfluously explosive opening through to the inevitable showdown of a conclusion, Stallone and Richard Wenk’s basic screenplay rarely disappoints. The action set-pieces are flawlessly executed, including a particularly impressive sequence inside a period recreation of New York by way of the Soviets. Indeed, this sets the tone for the film, which in turn models itself on the best (and worst) of the 80s and 90s, taking ridiculously overblown action, cranking it up to eleven and winking at the audience in the process.

Where The Expendables 2 mostly succeeds is in this self-awareness, synthesising the last few years of pop-cultural discussion and web-based memes and effortlessly tipping their hats to them in the process. The highly publicised cameo of Chuck Norris, a cause for applause on its own, directly references the Chuck Norris Facts Internet meme, and Norris is in on the joke. Of course, there are no such things as Chuck Norris jokes, only Chuck Norris facts. Additionally, Chuck Norris once made a joke, and ten people died laughing. Yet The Expendables 2 should not be mistaken for simply being a plethora of gags, although there are countless references made to the catchphrases of the various stars right throughout the film. This is not a parody, and what Stallone and director Simon West has done instead is build a better mousetrap, combining all of the tropes we have laughed at over the years into something that is actually more than the sum of its parts.

The real joy of the film comes in seeing familiar faces back in the limelight, and the cause for the most elation is the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the exception of his cameo in the first film, he has been absent from our screens for the better part of a decade, and the film is at its most comfortable when it is playing to his reputation. Arnie slides back into the fray without blinking, his taken-for-granted presence being one of the better running gags of The Expendables 2. In fact, if we don’t see a spin-off with Arnie and Bruce Willis as an action odd couple, then there is no justice in the world. Hitting the ground running, the franchise proves that age shall not weary them, especially with the wonders of modern cosmetic surgery. The boys keep it light until it gets dark: then they go pitch black.

The Expendables is released in Australia on 30 August 2012 from Roadshow Films.

August 29, 2012
Review: The Bullet Vanishes

A briskly paced action suspense that will keep audiences guessing until it’s final twist, the film offers drama in the Sherlock Holmes tradition. Beautifully filmed, and with a cast that includes some familiar faces of Chinese Cinema, this is a big budget genre film that is aimed at a popular audience.

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Director: Chi-Leung Lo

Writer: Chi-Leung Lo, Sin-Ying Leung

Runtime: 107 minutes

Starring: Nicholas Tse, Ching-Wan Lau, Yang Mi, Liu-Kai Chi

Distributor: China Lion

Country: Hong Kong

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

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Set in Shanghai and its outer provinces between the two world wars, a young factory worker is accused of stealing bullets from an arsenal factory. Proclaiming her innocence, she is put on trial by her employer, and is forced to shoot herself. Six months later a series of murders take place within the factory and its surrounding district. All the evidence of the murders lead back to the dead factory girl. While the crimes continue and the mystery deepens a local legend begins to resurface. The legend involves the remaining factory workers and the curse of “Stealing Bullets”. Investigating the case is district Inspector Gou (Nicholas Tse) who is teamed up with the newly arrived Inspector Bao (Ching-Wan Lau), an outsider who brings with him his own unique method of solving crimes. As the two men continue their investigation which takes them from the city opium dens, to the local police commander’s office a trail of greed and corruption makes itself known. As the victims continue to mount, the real mystery is just beginning to make itself apparent: just who is the real villain?

Chi-leung Lo’s most successful films in the past had been with the late and must missed Leslie Cheung which included 2000’s Double Tap and 2002’s Inner Senses. Since then he has produced a string of dramas in the same vein, but by all appearances not nearly as successful. The Bullet Vanishes is the director’s latest offering, and cinephiles could do a lot worse than investing time into this film.

Nicholas Tse and Ching-Wan Lau as Gou and Bao respectively have an interesting chemistry on screen. Instantly likable, Lau particularly appears to have made a sort of career out of playing these sorts of roles. Johnnie To’s 2007 film Mad Detective shows that this film is familiar territory for him. Nicholas Tse on the other hand is currently one of Hong Kong’s most popular young actors. These two appear to be very much modelled on Yun-Fat Chow, and Nicholas Tse is no different, but serves his purpose well in this case. Both of these actors in the same film make a particular interesting drawcard: the established character actor, and the rising new personality. Together they work with a very physical script that relies a lot on the timing of their performance to get the most out of what is taking place on screen, and they succeed perfectly. Of note is a supporting cast that included the reliable Liu-Kai Chi as a nasty villain named Ding and mainland actress Min Yang, as Guo’s love interest.

Produced by director Derek Yee and with a 12 million dollar budget, the results are there to be seen on the screen. The Bullet Vanishes, strangely enough, is a beautifully filmed drama which was shot by cinematographer Chi-Ying Chan. In this film, the viewer finds themselves looking at what is taking place on screen from the most particular places, so watch out for the surprises. Stylistically the camera work has more in common with Philippe Rousselet who worked with Guy Ritchie on the Sherlock Holmes films. Continuing the influence in this fashion are the action sequences director Nicki Li Chung Chi, and these are very well presented and at times very exciting.

The Bullet Vanishes is a great piece of entertainment. Running at 107 minutes, the narrative moves at a brisk pace that is never dull. Visually impressive, and always interesting to the eye, the story is satisfiying, and at times disturbing. While definitely not in the league of, for example, Chin-Po Wong’s recently reviewed 2010’s Revenge: A Love Story, Chi-Leung Lo’s film twists and turns at any given moment to keep the interest current, and is not afraid to take narrative risks when it’s called for to sustain the tension. If you spent $18 dollars for a ticket to see this film, it would be money well spent.

The Bullet Vanishes is in limited release around Australia on 30 August 2012 from China Lion at the following locations:

SYDNEY – Event Cinemas George St, Sydney – Event Cinemas Macquarie Megaplex – Event Cinemas Burwood – Greater Union Hurstville

MELBOURNE -Cinema Nova, Carlton

BRISBANE – Birch Carroll & Coyle Garden City Mt Gravatt

ADELAIDE – Palace Nova Eastend

August 26, 2012
KOFFIA 2012 Review: All About My Wife

An affable rom-com that takes a spin at the love triangle with the scientist, his wife the cook and her lover.

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Director: Min Kyu-Dong

Writer(s): Heo Sung-hye, Min Kyu-Dong

Runtime: 121 minutes

Starring: Lim Soo-Jung, Lee Sun-Kyun, Ryoo Seung-Ryong

Festival: Korean Film Festival in Australia 2012

Country: South Korea

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

More info

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There are few films that can claim to have knocked The Avengers off its box office pedestal, and while they may be Earth’s mightiest heroes, they couldn’t stand up to the might of a Korean romantic comedy in its home market. In May this year, All About My Wife took out the superhero film and went on to become the fourth South Korean film to pass the 4,000,000 ticket sales mark during the 2012 calendar year. The broad rom-com, oestensibly a remake of remake of the 2008 Argentinian film Un Novio para Mi Mujer (“A Boyfriend for my Wife”), has easy box-office appeal, and is bolstered by some incredibly capable leads. However, the path to true love was never destined to run smoothly.

After meeting in Nagoya, Japan during the midst of an earthquake, the seemingly timid and attractive Jung-In (Lim Soo-Jung) meets seismologist Doo-Hyun (Lee Sun-Kyun), and their mutual attraction quickly turns into a full-bloom romance. Seven years later, they have settled into comfortable domesticity as a married couple, and despite Jung-In’s good looks and passion for cooking, Doo-Hyun is miserable but is too timid to ask for a divorce. Feeling smothered by his wife, he asks for a transfer to a remote outpost, but his elation and his sudden freedom turns sour when Jung-In turns up to his new abode unannounced and resumes the pattern. In desperation, Doo-Hyun turns to his neighbour, a notorious Casanova named Sung-Ki (Ryoo Seung-Ryong), asking him to seduce Jung-In so that she might leave him on her own volition.

The set-up for this successful comedy is actually quite charming, and the first act of the film easily slips into an old-fashioned screwball comedy as Doo-Hyun repeatedly complains about his wife. While the screenplay could be criticised for overly burdening Lim Soo-Jung with relentlessly horrid character, spending much of the first act of the film being the nagging, cloying and outright hostile woman her husband makes her out to be. Of course, this section is told entirely from the perspective of Doo-Hyun, perhaps revealing more about him that he would care to admit. As is the way in these things, the tables are eventually turned as Doo-Hyun’s plans come unfurled, and he begins to look the fool.

It’s a familiar comedy of errors, perhaps only let down by the somewhat dragging middle act, when All About My Wife isn’t quite rom and it isn’t quite com, but its drama is all of the melo variety. It doesn’t take a seismologist to figure out that a love triangle will form, and its all going to end up at a pre-determined place. Yet for the most part its a pleasant journey, with Ryoo Seung-Ryong and Lee Sun-Kyun making an unlikely but likeable duo vying for the attentions of the same woman. The film manages to crack open little tidbits on each of the principal cast members, including some genuinely touching moments. The only real drawback might be the film’s length, at just over two hours, but there’s definitely enough here to make this an enjoyable festival outing.

All About My Wife played at the Korean Film Festival in Australia in August/September 2012. Full disclosure: The Reel Bits is a media partner of KOFFIA, but opinions on films are unswayed by this relationship.

August 26, 2012
Review: Finding Nemo 3D

Pixar’s classic returns in a whole new dimension, adding depth to the deep blue world so lovingly created by these masters of animation.

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Director: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich

Writer: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds

Runtime: 100 minutes

Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush

Distributor: Disney

Country: US

Rating (?): (★★★★★)

More info

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When Finding Nemo hit cinemas in 2003, Pixar could do no wrong. Indeed, almost a decade later – with the possible exception of Cars – there has been nary a misstep in the cinematic canon. The winners of no less than three Best Animated Feature Oscars, a number of their recent films (Up and Toy Story 3) have even been nominated for Best Picture of the year by the same Academy. While their debut Toy Story may have been the film that put the then-radical Pixar Studios on the map, and was the impetus for birth of a number of other rival computer-generated animation houses, it is arguable that Finding Nemo was the film that shot them into the stratosphere. Coming only second to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at the box office that year, and remains one of the highest grossing animated features of all time.

When clownfish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) loses his wife and most of his spawn to one of the ocean’s more sinister creatures, he becomes the overprotective father his sole surviving son Nemo (Alexander Gould). After reluctantly letting Nemo attend school, tragedy strikes when Nemo is snatched by a group of human divers. Frantic, Marlin swims out into open waters in search of his boy. Teaming up with forgetful but optimistic blue reef fish Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), Marlin must face sharks, jellyfish and other ocean dangers in the quest to find Nemo.

Regardless of the increasingly outlandish settings of Pixar’s films, more recently taking us into space and away on a balloon-powered house, the attraction of the films have always been their emotional core. Just as the Toy Story films were about dealing with mortality or outliving one’s usefulness, Finding Nemo deals with the very human issue of dealing with children growing up and knowing when to let go. Marlin may be the quintessential overreacting parent, but whether we are parents or not, we can completely relate to the pain and angst this orange clownfish feels. Pixar have an incredible ability to make audiences cry within the first ten minutes of a film, most notably in Up and Toy Story 3. The opening scenes of Finding Nemo are devastating, but are also fundamental in helping us identify with Marlin’s pain and providing a sense of urgency and immediacy to his quest, which begins not too long after the initial tragedy. Part of the reason Pixar is still spoken of in revered tones is not simply because of the quality of their animation, which is sublime, but because their ability to evoke feeling in everything from fish to robots falling in love is genuine and heartfelt.

Despite nine years having passed since Nemo first went missing, a relative century in animation turns, Finding Nemo is as fresh as the day it was released. It is by no means a major departure from Pixar’s earlier (or subsequent) works, essentially sticking to the same mismatched buddy comedy formula that has worked so well in Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Up, Cars, Ratatouille and to a lesser extent, WALL-E. Once again, this reliance on formula has worked for the studio and there was no reason they should depart from it: they have become very good at showing us a secret world unbeknownst to humans. It also provides much of the accessible comedy for both kids and adults: the little ones may laugh at the sheer ditziness of Ellen’s Dory or surfer dude Crush the turtle, while adults will find much to like about a group of vegetarian sharks (voiced by Australia’s own Barry Humphries, Eric Bana and Bruce Spence). Australians are actually depicted as a functioning nation of adults as well, with genuine Aussie voice Bill Hunter as a dentist and Geoffrey Rush as Nigel the pelican. Non-Australian voices, including Willem Dafoe, give additional weight to the film without overwhelming it with their infamy.

Finding Nemo will long remain one of Pixar’s classics, with a timeless quality that will ensure it finds a new audience every generation. Having been the better part of a decade since the film was released, it is time for a whole new audience to discover the wonders of the magical world beneath the ocean. The 3D for this re-issue may smack of a cheap cash-in on the back of the highly successful The Lion King 3D box office run, but there is nothing sub-par about this release. Adding a whole new layer of depth to the already immersive environment, you’ll want to reach on in and grab hold of some shell, dudes. Finding Nemo just keeps on swimmin’.

Finding Nemo 3D swims back into Australian cinemas on 30 August 2012 from Disney.

August 26, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: For Love’s Sake (Ai To Makoto)

Takashi Miike gives West Side Story a Japanese spin, and the results are one of his most flat-out entertaining films of the last decade.

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Director: Takashi Miike

Writer(s): Takayuki Takuma

Runtime: 134 minutes

Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Emi Takei, Sakura Ando, Takumi Saito, Ito Ono

Festival: Melbourne International Film Festival 2012

Country: Japan

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

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Prolific Japanese filmmaker has navigated countless genres over his career of almost 90 film and television credits, although few would have picked a West Side Story inspired musical as his next outing. Continuing his journey into the past, following period pieces 13 Assassins and Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, his latest film is based on Ikki Kajiwara’s popular 1970s manga Ai To Makoto. Previously adapted as three live action films and a TV series, it is one of his most energetic films of the last few years, fusing music, unrequited love and the occasional ultra-violence for a curious hybrid that is never anything less than entertaining.

In an anime opening sequence, a familiar motif but one that sets the tone for the film, we are introduced to Ai and Matoko during their collision of a first encounter. Eleven years later in 1972, Matoko (Satoshi Tsumabuki) quite literally still bears the scars of that meeting, and once again encounters Ai (Emi Takei) in the notoriously troubled streets of Tokyo’s Kabukicho district. Matoko is the consummate bad-boy, but nevertheless helps Ai with a gang of thugs troubling her. As a reward, he is sent off to remand school for beating them all half to death. Rich girl Ai, who has built up Matoko as her knight in shining armour over the years, puts in a good word with her parents, and instead gets her dream lover enrolled in her prestigious school. This doesn’t sit well with the school authorities, and it certainly doesn’t gel with bespectacled nerd Iwashimizu (Takumi Saito), who adores Ai. When Matoko is kicked out of the academy and winds up in a graffiti covered school controlled by youth gangs, Ai blindly follows him, and is in turn followed by Iwashimizu. There Makoto attracts the attention of both Gumko (Sakura Ando), the gum-chewing leader of a gang of female delinquents, and the quiet Yuki (Ito Ono). This love story just got very complicated indeed.

Miike has certainly delved into the musical form before, and after so many films it would be difficult to imagine a genre he has yet to touch on. For Love’s Sake sits somewhere between the campy musical The Happiness of the Katakuris and the street violence of Crows Zero, yet that description barely does it justice. The songs appear out of nowhere at first, as a street brawl descends into a sparkling song and dance number that would have made both the Sharks and the Jets put aside their aggression and grooved to the 1970s beats. Miike’s vision of the period is wholly one gathered from memory, his own back-catalogued as a mish-mash of cultural references. Stylistically, Tsumabuki’s rumble in the urban jungle number is a world away from the very retro-parody love song that Takei dances merrily to, but Miike somehow manages to make them part of a cohesive whole.

Miike has a triumph on his hands with For Love’s Sake. Coupled with the spectacular design of the film, with production designer Yuji Hayashida and cinematographer Nobuyasu Kita working in perfect harmony, For Love’s Sake is certainly the most visually engaging Miike film in years. When the film briefly loses momentum in the second half, it is due to a noticeable absence of musical material. Yet the frenetic pacing of the film, coupled with a wonderful cast of characters, manages to make this one of Miike’s most universally appealing films in years, an impressive feat for a musical that contains random acts of violence. Or is it a violent film that contains random acts of music? Therein lies the beauty of Miike, and if nothing else, you won’t be able to get the tunes out of your head for weeks.

For Love’s Sake played at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2012.

August 24, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Teddy Bear

The tale of a big cuddly bodybuilder looking for love might be slim on story, but there is nothing lightweight about this emotionally satisfying character study.

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Director: Mads Matthiesen

Writer(s): Mads Matthiesen, Martin Zandvliet

Runtime: 93 minutes

Starring: Kim Kold, Elsebeth Steentoft, Lamaiporn Hougaard

Festival: Melbourne International Film Festival 2012

Country: Denmark

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

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Danish director Mads Matthiesen’s debut film Teddy Bear (10 timer til Paradis), expanding on his own 2007 short Dennis, won the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance this year, and the restrained nature of this emotionally powerful film gives us a clear indication why. Using a cast of non-professional actors, Matthiesen contrasts the impossible largeness of a super-heavyweight bodybuilder with his socially crippling shyness. Digging into the fluffy filling at its heart, this film manages to quietly show the gradual development of a man’s self-confidence, catching up with his already impressive physique.

Dennis Peterson (played by actual bodybuilder Kim Kold) is a 38 year-old man who has worked all of his life to achieve physical perfection. A monolith of a man, his physically imposing body towers over everyone. Despite this, he has been unsuccessful in finding the love of his life, an awkward first date showing us how uncomfortable he is around women. Explaining this somewhat is his comparatively diminutive mother, Ingrid (Elsebeth Steentoft), who passive-aggressively dominates much of his life. When she isn’t making pointed comments about his social activities, she refuses to eat or come out of her room in response to anything that doesn’t please her. However, after attending the wedding of his Uncle Bent (Allan Mogenson) to his new Thai wife, Dennis resolves to take his first steps towards independence by heading to Thailand. Once there, he begins looking for love in all the wrong places, perhaps finding it where he is most comfortable.

Teddy Bear is a film effectively split into twin sets of two-handers, the first between Kold and Steentoft, the latter half principally concerned with budding romance between Dennis and Toi (Lamaiporn Hougaard), the widowed owner of a Thai gym, and someone that he is instantly able to be comfortable around. Despite this, the film actually posits itself not as a romantic film, in the face of the protagonist’s primary aim of finding someone to be with, but rather as a late coming of age drama. Dennis searches for a female companion, but what he is really looking for is a way to sever the maternal ties that are keeping him in a state of arrested development. Indeed, once the connection is made with Toi, things begin to move quite quickly for Dennis. His mother reacts violently to her son’s progress, revealing that it is actually Ingrid who is stuck in her own limbo. Yet Teddy Bear is also a film that takes its time coming to these conclusions, allowing both the viewer and the characters to settle into a new scene before proceeding. This allows for an incredibly amount of intimacy with these otherwise unfamiliar faces.

Kold is an amazing acting discovery, filling the frame not just with his physical bulk, but with his unlikely screen presence, moving with equal ease in the gym just as much as he does on the Thai streets. The leisurely pace of the film mirrors his own simple grace, another surprising element to the film. His size is the cause of some visual gags throughout Teddy Bear, telegraphing that this often contemplative and sometimes depressing film is actually more uplifting than the shop-front would indicate. One of the better character-based pieces of the festival, it is also one of the most uplifting.

Teddy Bear played at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2012.

August 21, 2012
Review: Total Recall

Total Recall is back to mess with our memories, as history alters our vision of the future in this lightweight blockbuster.

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Director: Len Wiseman

Writer: Kurt Wimmer, Mark Bomback

Runtime: 118 minutes

Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, John Cho, Bill Nighy

Distributor: Sony

Country: US

Rating (?): Worth A Look (★★★)

More info

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As the Total Recall reboot reminds us, all memory is subjective. It has been 22 years since Philip K. Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale was first adapted to the screen as Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990). In that time, our vision of the future has vastly changed, partly from the turmoil of world events but largely because we now inhabit much of that same future that was once only imagination. Len Wiseman’s recreation of that world may have gone back to the themes of the source material, but this second recollection is just as much inspired by the first film as it is by 1960s sci-fi. The result is an occasionally uneven hybrid of the two, but nevertheless entertaining.

At the end of the 21st century, a cataclysmic war has divided the world into two remaining areas: the powerful and elitist United Federation of Britain, and the Colony (a place we know lovingly as Australia). Despite his beautiful wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale), Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker who dreams of a more adventurous life, travelling each day via a gravity-elevator as it journeys through the Earth’s core from his Colony home to a menial job in the UFB. When he gets the idea of going to Rekall, a company that implants synthetic memories, everything changes. He is descended upon by a highly trained SWAT team, but is somehow able to take them out on instinct. Quaid soon finds himself on the run from the forces of the powerful Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), discovering his life has been a lie. Aided only by Melina (Jessica Biel), a woman literally from his wildest dreams, Quaid must race against the clock to find the mysterious resistance leader Matthias (Bill Nighy).

Wiseman’s Total Recall owes a lot to its forebears, not just in its narrative but in the aesthetics of the future world as well. The Colony home is appropriately like Ridley Scott’s vision of Blade Runner (1982), also inspired by a Philip K. Dick novel, a beautiful mish-mash of Asian future noir that is perpetually soaked in rain. Eschewing the Mars plot of the earlier versions, the UFB is something new to this world, but it too has the same clean look of recent sci-fi adaptations I, Robot (2004) and to a lesser extent, George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels. Future London is a curious blend of old architecture and future modern, making for a mostly pleasing set of visuals. This is the first major departure of the film, with Wiseman not building a better future world but recreating one, remembering the future for us wholesale, as it were. With the grunginess and exotic nature of Mars gone, so too is much of the intrigue and paranoia that ran through the first version of the film.

Yet romanticising the original would also be folly, and to remember Verhoeven’s take as a high-end example of the genre would be tampering with falsely implanted memories. Wiseman acknowledges that film, tipping his hat to fan-favourite moments and even whole scenes from the 1990 film. Verhoeven’s ’90s style is just as outdated today as some of Dick’s notions, but what it retains in that film is a sense of mystery that the Total Recall reboot has little need of. Once the identity dilemma is established, the mystery is abandoned in favour of a series of increasingly ambitious set-pieces, with Quaid and Melina running, gunning and fighting their way across the UFB. These are all meticulously staged, and while we have seen it all before, the elevator chase sequence is a knuckle-whitener. This Total Recall is an action film first, and its speculative fiction is merely the set-up.

Total Recall is still an incredibly fun if unnecessary outing, with enough adrenaline to carry it through to its spectacularly staged conclusion. Farrell makes for a far more convincing lead than Schwarzenegger ever did, bringing a more human quality to the character, albeit toning down the puns in favour of furrowed brows. There’s little doubt that Bryan Cranston was going to bring some great villainy to the role, but he is unfortunately sidelined somewhat by the expansion of wife Beckinsale’s role, proving that nepotism is still alive and well in Hollywood. This latest version may not be as memorable as the earlier blockbuster, but it would be a shame to dismiss this for what it isn’t.

Total Recall is released in Australia on 23 August 2012 from Sony.

August 21, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Mine Games

A predictable mish-mash of familiar horror movie characters and devices, you won’t want to go back into the mine.

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Director: Richard Gray

Writer(s): Ross McQueen, Richard Gray, Michele Davis-Gray

Runtime: 91 minutes

Starring: Briana Evigan, Julianna Guill, Ethan Peck, Alex Meraz, Joseph Cross, Rafi Gavron, Rebecca Da Costa

Festival: Melbourne International Film Festival 2012

Country: US

Rating (?): It’s Your Money (★½)

More info

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Australian filmmaker Richard Gray made his break onto the local scene with his Project Greenlight runner-up Summer Coda (2010), a film the distributors billed as a being in the vein of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty. With his follow-up Mine Games, Gray plunges into the depths of a well-worn genre, and fails to come up with anything new. This completely unremarkable spin on the ‘spam in a cabin’ genre fails to learn anything from the countless imitators and cookie-cutter films that have come before, outright borrowing from a number of them, making this sophomore effort feel more like an awkward debut.

Seven young friends head out to a remote cabin in the woods (stop us if you’ve heard this one before), but a car accident forces them to abandon their car and walk the rest of the way. Arriving at what they assume is the correct house, they await the owners with a growing sense of dread that something is not quite right. Repeatedly reminded that Michael (Joseph Cross) hasn’t taken his ‘pills’, things take a turn for the completely expected upon the discovery of an old mine in the middle of the woods.

In the wake of this year’s superb The Cabin in the Woods, the bar for all horror films was raised by several notches. While it would be unfair to criticise Mine Games purely for its unoriginality, a finger that can surely be levelled at virtually any genre pic, if you are going to make a vanilla cupcake, then it has to be a superb one. Taking itself far too seriously, the set-up follows the rules to the letter, burdening every character with explanatory speech and exposition, so much so that there is an expectation that there will be a ‘twist’ coming at any moment. This too is built into the narrative with the discovery of the mine, yet all it manages to do is add another layer of convolution to this paper-thin outing. In using the symbol of the ouroboros as a recurring motif, a serpent that eats its own tail, Gray has also graphically demonstrated what this film is fundamentally doing to itself.

The cast of young actors have all seen their share of screen time over the last few years, including actual Friday the 13th (2009) star Juiliana Guill, and their failure to elevate the film is scarcely their fault. Gray’s script, co-written with Michele Davis-Gray and Ross McQueen, gives them little to do beyond running around and looking scared, and while the looping nature of the story might be ostensibly a clever idea, it also lacks a clear antagonist. Devoid of an immediate threat, the decision of the characters to repeatedly return to the mine becomes increasingly ponderous and unlikely, with an unseen force acting as more of a catch-all god-machine. It certainly eschews having to adhere to that pesky notion of a story arc or character development. Particularly insidious is the fall-back ‘Latino mystical chick’ (Rebecca Da Costa), the only one who can see some of the strings behind the scenes, and the seemingly mandatory inclusion of the ‘annoying British guy’ in Rafi Gavron.

While Mine Games uses the rather interesting location of a mine to stage its terror, the flat photography shines too much of a light on the dark corners, electing for a ‘show it all’ approach and thus sapping any of the remaining suspense. Indeed, Mine Games feels like a bad student film, and not the work of a group of internationally recognised filmmakers who have been working together for several productions. As the film repeatedly reminds us, we need to break the cycle, and this is where audiences can take control and demand a better class of horror. Filled with thoughts that never play out, this is one film that should remain buried.

Mine Games played at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2012. At the time of screening, it did not have a distributor.

August 20, 2012
Review: The Bourne Legacy

The legacy of Bourne falters with a series entry that follows rather than leading, and an overall product that is less than the sum of its parts.

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Director: Tony Gilroy

Writer: Tony Gilroy, Dan Gilroy

Runtime: 135 minutes

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach

Distributor: Universal

Country: US

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

More info

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The original Bourne films, based loosely on the novels of Robert Ludlum, unquestionably changed the face of the spy/action genre. Influencing the style of James Bond reboot Casino Royale, directors Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass crafted a visual style that was based heavily in real-world issues and scenarios. The refreshingly intelligent scripts came from Tony Gilroy, who directs the series for the first time with The Bourne Legacy. Yet while all the pieces are still there, this latest outing fails to live up to its predecessors.

Gilroy’s screenplay has one thing in common with its stablemates, merely lifting the title from Eric Van Lusbader’s novel but designing its own direction within the cinematic universe. Following the events of The Bourne Ultimatum, the CIA scrambles to cover up its loose ends. The previously unseen puppet master Eric Byer (Edward Norton) orders the termination of all black ops, along with their agents. However, supercharged spy Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), an agent of Operation Outcome, escapes his bullet and begins looking for answers. With the help of scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), Cross hopes to expose the organisation for its nefarious deeds.

With neither Matt Damon or Paul Greengrass electing to return to the series, Gilroy was left with the dilemma of how to move on from the effective conclusion to the saga in the previous film. This film may be about the consequences of that earlier outing, but it is also very much a retread of what came before. Exchanging one action hero for the next is the primary achievement of The Bourne Legacy, which more or less brings a similar ensemble cast mixed with neck-breaking action. Like the rest of the series, an otherwise smart women is dragged along for the ride, and several explosive chases later, both parties are in the moral right against a powerful government agency who wants to keep doing bad things in the name of liberty.

While all the moving bits of the mechanism are the same, what ultimately undermines The Bourne Legacy is the protagonist’s lack of a compelling quest. Where Jason Bourne’s journey was clear, a literal voyage of self-discovery against the odds, all Cross wants to do is get more of his government issue medication. On this most tenuous of premises, we are bounced from Alaska to New York and the Philippines and back again, with a conclusion that leaves us far from satisfied. Indeed, as the first strains of Moby’s familiar “Extreme Ways” begin to play again, you’d be forgiven for wondering if that’s all there is.

Renner is a capable lead, stepping up from second fiddle action hero in The Avengers to deliver on the promise of The Hurt Locker and similar franchise entry Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Not having to do much beyond running and gunning, we don’t get the same emotional connection that we did to lost boy Bourne, and the relationship Cross has with Shearing never approaches the genuine romance of the original series. However, new additions Edward Norton and veteran Stacey Keach slide effortlessly into the world of espionage as if they were always there, pulling the strings throughout the first three films. A string of cameos from returning cast members helps give this some sense of continuity as well.

As the film builds to a predictably spectacular chase sequence, this time trading Mini Coopers for motorbikes, an impressive set-piece plays out that make actually matches the earlier chases inch for inch for pure adrenaline. Yet it is difficult to shake the feeling that we’ve been here before, and that’s mostly because we have. Devoid of the originality of the first films, and further evidence that you can’t force lightning to strike twice, The Bourne Legacy is merely another disciple of the Bourne-school of action filmmaking, instead of being the industry leader it once was.

The Bourne Legacy is released in Australia on 16 August 2012 from Universal.

August 11, 2012