Tag: 2012

Review: The Campaign

Like his character, Will Ferrell has run unopposed for many years. Yet the vote’s in on his latest, and you won’t be demanding a recount.

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Director: Jay Roach

Writer: Chris Henchy, Shawn Harwell

Runtime: 85 minutes

Starring: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, Katherine LaNasa, Sarah Baker, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, Brian Cox

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): Rental for Sure (★★)

More info

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Quite separately, producer/director Jay Roach and Will Ferrell have carved out their own comedy empires. While the former has guided Ben Stiller and Mike Myers into their own successful franchises, Ferrell has similarly created a cavalcade of dysfunctional characters who are almost interchangeable with one another. Having rapidly run out of obscure sports and British secret agents to spoof, the duo turn their comedic eyes towards the increasingly ridiculous world of US politics, with the Eastbound & Down team of Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell behind the erratic screenplay.

Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is an unopposed long-term North Carolina congressman, but has recently fallen out of favour with the community. Not paying attention to adviser Mitch (Jason Sudeikis), Brady continues his hedonistic behaviour. However, when shady businessmen the Motch brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) decide they want control of the district so they can sell it off Chinese, they choose the naive Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) as their puppet. Guided by the ruthless Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott), it’s on for young and old as the race for congress heats up.

Modern politics is such a public circus that it barely needs a satirical skewer, and public slinging matches have become the expected norm rather than the quirks of the radical fringes. Indeed, it is the bureaucracy of democracy and spin-doctoring of policy that has served as the basis for The Thick of It from the UK, its US equivalent in Veep and Working Dog’s The Hollowmen here in Australia. Yet with The Campaign, the creative team eschews any notion of subtlety, and instead chooses to firmly clip viewers over the back of the head with an alleged comedy of errors, rather than any real attempt at satire.

Just as the superior Zoolander derived much of its humour from the cluelessness of the protagonists, strung along as puppets of big business (don’t tell Fox News), so too does The Campaign rely on the singular personalities of Ferrell and Galifianakis. Ferrell’s public persona has run without opposition for several years, and so too has his comedy. The semi-improvisational stylings reveal the limits of a persona honed through Anchorman, Blades of Glory, Talladega Nights and The Other Guys, highlighting the fact that the freshness of this approach is also dependent on the quality of the material. With The Campaign, it simply isn’t there.

Overly reliant on crude humour and ‘shock tactics’, such as an underwhelming dinner conversation between Galifianakis and his family, most of the jokes are telegraphed before they even get to the set-up. Missing a golden opportunity to skewer a political system that is as broken as the script for The Campaign, even the presence of John Lithgow and the reliable Brian Cox fail to lift this out of mediocrity. This is one campaign that fails to live up to its promises.

The Campaign is released in Australia on 9 August 2012 from Roadshow Films.

August 9, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Tabu

A fable mixed with nostalgic surrealism, Miguel Gomes delivers poetry on film in an homage to cinema that defies conventional storytelling.

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Director: Miguel Gomes

Writer(s): Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo

Runtime: 110 minutes

Starring: Ana Moreira, Carloto Cotta, Henrique Espirito Santo, Teresa Madruga, Laura Sovera

Festival: Melbourne International Film Festival 2012

Distributor: Palace Films

Country: Portugal

Rating (?):Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

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Everything old is new again in cinema, with the past just as much a portal to other worlds as the most technologically advanced science fiction. Indeed, it is difficult to not feel at least a little bit of The Artist in Miguel Gomes’s latest feature, sharing a strong sense of nostalgia and retro aesthetic that is clearly in love with the very notion of cinema. Yet Tabu should not be mistaken for a lighthearted romp through the golden era of filmmaking, despite sharing a title with F.W. Murnau’s 1931 Tabu: A Story of the South Seas. Instead, former film critic Gomes weaves a tale out of Africa that is romance wrapped in a fable, dissecting Portuguese colonialism in the process.

Tabu begins in modern-day Lisbon, in a chapter called ‘Paradise Lost’, where the otherwise ordinary Pilar (Teresa Madruga) tries to console her over-the-top and bitter neighbour Aurora (Laura Soveral), who believes that her maid is practicing voodoo on her. When Aurora’s health begins to fail, she summons Gian Luca (Henrique Espírito Santo), who is slowly revealed to be her long-lost lover. The initial and thoroughly modern sequences seem sterile in light of what is to come, so thankfully the film segues into a darkened Africa for the second act simply called ‘Paradise’. In the shadows of the foothills of Mount Tabu, the beautiful young “big-game hunter” Aurora (Ana Moreira) embarks on an affair with the young Gian Luca (played in flashback by Carloto Cotta), altering them both and perhaps even the world around them.

Illuminated in a glorious 16mm vision by cinematographer Rui Poças, and framed in the 4:3 ratio that immediately evokes yesteryear, the second half of Tabu is entirely silent, save for the narration by Santo and a selection of Phil Spector tunes. The landscape in Tabu is one of memory and loss, and the journey through it is a mesmerising one. The non-traditional narrative is aimed at keeping audiences slightly off-balance throughout, perhaps to suggest that we are intruding on the most personal moments of these doomed lovers. Without the aid of dialogue, we are simply left to interpret what conversations they are having through gesture, movement and an assortment of ambiguous sounds that serve as a secondary narrative. One of the closest comparisons would be the soundscape of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, where the internal and external sources of sound are often reversed for the purposes of disorientation.

Just like the recurring symbolism of crocodiles, Tabu hints at what lies beneath the surface. While the images themselves might be indicative of the follies of a group of privileged colonials, these images belie the complex web of emotions that can’t be described in something as clumsy as words. Bathed in the unreliable glow of sentimental reminiscence, made more so by the age and bias of the narrator, Gomes wears this emotional misdirection on his sleeve, playing on romantic notions of the dark heart of Africa.

The winner of the FIPRESCI Prize and the Alfred Bauer Award at Berlinale, it is a film that is destined to split audiences straight down the middle, not least of which because the same nostalgic notion of story could also work as an initial hurdle for modern audiences. Yet this also keeps in line with the conscious commentary on the subjective nature of storytelling. Tabu is a film to get swept away by, to live a life vicariously and to soak in at leisure.

Tabu played at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2012 and at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2012. It will be distributed in Australia by Palace Films.

August 6, 2012
Review: The Sapphires

The sweet feel-good Australian film mostly charms with its broad appeal, mixing politics in between the song and dance numbers.

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Director: Wayne Blair

Writer: Tony Briggs, Keith Thompson

Runtime: 100 minutes

Starring: Jessica Mauboy, Deborah Mailman, Shari Sebbens, Miranda Tapsell, Chris O’Dowd

Distributor: Hopscotch Films

Country: Australia

Rating (?): Worth A Look (★★★)

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Australia loves a song and dance number, from the neo-renaissance of Priscilla Queen of the Desert through to Bran Nue Dae. Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires has already enjoyed international success at Cannes, garnering the requisite standing ovations and Weinstein Company attention that most films only dream of, mirroring the protagonists own rise to fame in the 1960s. Based on the stage play of the same name by Tony Briggs, whose own mother, Laurel Robinson and aunt, Lois Peeler toured Vietnam as singers, the film about the first all-girl Aboriginal singing group is sure to be as pleasing to a homegrown audience as it was abroad.

Gail (Deborah Mailman), Diana (Jessica Mauboy) and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell) are trying to get into a local pub talent contest, but are met with racism and the stern words of their mum (Kylie Belling). However, they are spotted by the alcoholic Irish talent quest host and soul survivor Dave Lovelace (Chris O’Dowd) who they convince to take them to Vietnam on the condition they stop singing country music. A quick trip to Melbourne to pick up cousin, Kay (Shari Sebbens), estranged from the family when she was removed from their Cummeragunja mission by force, and the girls are off to Saigon to become overnight sensations.

Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the late 1960s, the politics of The Sapphires are not subtle, but rarely have they been explored in such a broad Australian musical comedy. Institutionalised racism, the Stolen Generation and the familial turmoil it caused, the assassination of Martin Luther King and the war itself are explored between songs, and not in any depth. By contrast, their Cummeragunja mission is a place of comfort, and this not only sits in contrasts with the war zone they perform in, but in other depictions of missions in Australian cinema. This gives the girls a sense of home and belonging to cling to, rather than undermining the message Blair brings to the table.

The cast works well as an ensemble, the experienced Deborah Mailman naturally taking the lead as the eldest sister. While she may have been slightly miscast as the “20-something” that the press notes imply, she is also able to provide the gravitas needed to form the emotional core as the angry “mother hen” and successfully play off the romantic tension with Chris O’Dowd. Miranda Tapsell is the standout of the four, her flirtatious character providing many of the laughs and easy charm of the film, while the powerful voice of Australian Idol runner-up Jessica Mauboy carries impressively staged versions of “What A Man” and “I’ll Take You There”. O’Dowd effortlessly slips into this world, his affable charms telegraphing some of the jokes, but to humorous effect nonetheless.

The Sapphires does get weighed down in the sticky treacle that it constantly wades through, from maudlin visits to injured troops to the obligatory evacuation-under-fire sequence. Yet where the film excels is in the musical numbers, either in practice or on stage. It may mirror the Oscar-winning Dreamgirls, but the combination of Warwick Thornton’s warm cinematography, a roster of popular tunes and generally rosy outlook are sure to make this the local crowd-pleaser of the year.

The Sapphires is released in Australia on 9 August 2012 from Hopscotch Films.

August 5, 2012
Review: Cosmopolis

A musing on our troubled economic times as only David Cronenberg could tell it: inside of a limousine with the odd giant rat.

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Director: David Cronenberg

Writer: David Cronenberg

Runtime: 109 minutes

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Juliette Binoche

Distributor: Icon

Country: Canada

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

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Although known for his pioneering work in the realm of “body horror”, Canada’s David Cronenberg has shown an equal fascination with the limits of the human mind. In last year’s A Dangerous Method, he addressed the preoccupations of the psyche more directly, exploring Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud’s very awakening to the concepts of psychoanalysis and dream interpretation. Yet it is equally true that the director has long been enthralled with the meeting of machine and body, and with Cosmopolis, based on Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name, he muses on the union of all three of these totems in the context of the global financial crisis.

Cosmopolis has a freewheeeling and disjointed narrative, but primarily focuses on 28-year old billionaire Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) as he travels across a New York City in chaos to get a haircut. He keeps his watchful eye on the yuan, as it rallies despite his bet against it, resulting in great personal financial loss to himself. As his empire crumbles, the real world begins to invade his high-tech cocoon and his paranoia increases at the same rate as the actual threats to his life. In many ways, this is Cronenberg emerging from the other side of his own eXistenZ (1999), quarantining Packer from reality, his virtual world now his tomb rather than being one of symbiosis.

Films about the nature of capitalism have become prevalent since its apparent stumbling of the last few years, but none have explored the nexus between the organic, the psychological and the technological. In the 21st century, body, mind and machine are inexplicably intertwined, creating an arena in which we are simultaneously in a state of ubiquitous connectivity and yet more alone with our thoughts than ever. Cosmopolis may not be the first film to try to guide us through the digital morass, but it posits itself as a type of narrative that aims to acknowledge the failure of machine and man to psychologically carry us through the darkest chapters of our corporate history.

Robert Pattinson makes a complete break from his fangy persona, in a role that is more likely to repulse his legion of fans than it is to shock them. It is a measured performance, tightly under the rein of Cronenberg, but that is true of the rest of the cast as well. The stilted and existential conversations between Packer and a stream of business associates (including Samantha Morton), lovers (such as Juliette Binoche), wife of convenience (Sarah Gadon) and other professionals is as cold and calculated as his business dealings, at odds with the growing anarchy outside. As something resembling the Occupy movement mounts, and threats are made against Packer’s life, Packer is duly influenced, plunging himself into a personal chaos and spiral of self-destruction.

Cosmopolis is a difficult film to penetrate, but this is only partly due to the deliberate way in which it was constructed. Cronenberg treads a fine line between portraying isolation and actually detaching his film completely from audiences, but his curious mixture of sci-fi sheen with real-world problems grounds Cosmopolis in a way that a surface scan may not reveal. The implication is that the corporate disengagement from reality is partly to blame for the financial crisis, but far more fundamental is the wider apathy that has allowed this to happen.

Cosmopolis is released in Australia on 2 August 2012 from Icon Distribution.

August 1, 2012
Review: Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Hunter

A film that delivers on everything it promises in the title. Big and fun, the impressively staged action and an earnest cast lift this out of B-territory.

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Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Writer: Seth Grahame-Smith

Runtime: 105 minutes

Starring: Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, Marton Csokas

Distributor: Fox

Country: US

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

More info

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After a series of parody and non-fiction books, writer Seth Grahame-Smith struck upon gold with the mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The success of the film was parlayed into the 2010 novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which relied on the ‘secret diaries’ of the 16th president of the United States, giving an alternative history from his childhood through to his assassination. The high-concept speculative fiction is something that has been sorely absent from cinemas of late, and the fun (if uneven) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter aims to return this to audiences.

As a young boy, Abraham Lincoln sees his mother (Robin McLeavy) attacked by vindictive plantation owner Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), and she later dies. Waiting until his father shuffles off the mortal coil, the adult Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) unsuccessfully seeks revenge on Barts, who overpowers him with unnatural speed. Catching the attention of the mysterious Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), Lincoln learns that not only do vampire exist, but Barts and his powerful master Adam (Rufus Sewell) are some of the baddest of the breed. Trained by Sturgess in the art of vampire slaying, Lincoln continues to fight the good fight, even as his life progresses in different directions with new love Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and a blossoming political career.

Grahame-Smith has always insisted that with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the joke ends with the title, and it is immediately striking just how seriously the film takes itself. Mixing historical fact with speculation, as all good biopics do, Grahame-Smith’s script is careful not to betray the legacy of one of the most famous presidents in US history. Indeed, many of the background elements mirror significant moments in Lincoln’s past, recreating the period faithfully, albeit one that has vampires in it. Sure, it takes the same liberties with the material as any filmmaker would, such as glossing over the fact that Abe’s closest confidant, the African-American William Johnson (Anthony Mackie), was his valet and barber and actually died of smallpox he contracted from Lincoln. Yet the film posits itself as a secret history, rather than an alternative one, and some of the fun comes in seeing how Grahame-Smith weaves milestones such as the Gettysburg Address into a vampire narrative.

Walker, who previously played the seventh US president Andrew Jackson in the comic Wild West Broadway rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, embraces the role of “Honest” Abe. Portrayed as a stickler for the truth above all things, Walker’s unwavering earnestness sells the more outlandish elements. Cooper effortlessly plays the roguish mentor, while Sewell has to do very little to convey cat-stroking sinisterness at this point in his career. The capable Winstead and Mackie are both underused, although the pair bring an unmistakable screen presence that belies their supporting roles.

Above all things, it is the stamp of the mad Russian Bekmambetov that defines the film stylistically. Full of stop-start slow-motion sequences, this technique is starting to feel all played out, although a climactic sequence aboard a train ranks highly with recent action films. The film certainly jumps around narratively, Grahame-Smith cutting out the guts of his original novel and giving us the Reader’s Digest version. Regardless, even if the plot holes are big enough to sink several fangs into at once, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a joyously over-the-top mash-up, and there is much enjoyment to be had if you just let yourself go with it.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is released in Australia on 2 August 2012 from Fox.

July 30, 2012
Review: Magic Mike

The winning combination of Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum continues in this layered and impeccably acted piece. The flawless choreography on the stripping sequences doesn’t hurt either.

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Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writer: Reid Carolin

Runtime: 110 minutes

Starring: Channing Tatum, Matthew Mcconaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Olivia Munn, Matt Bomer, Riley Keough, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez , Gabriel Iglesias

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

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Everybody has to start somewhere, and actor/producer Channing Tatum certainly did more that wait tables on his road to stardom. It’s now widely known that Tatum worked several odd jobs after dropping out of college, including an eight-month stint as a stripper under the name “Chan Crawford”. Encouraged by director Steven Soderbergh, who he had previously worked with on Haywire (2011), Tatum has helped writer Reid Carolin craft his own origin story into a semi-autobiographical tale that is refreshing honest and (mostly) free of sensationalism.

Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) lives in Tampa, working a series of menial tasks to earn enough money to realise his dream of a custom furniture company. He meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer) on one such job, and recognising something special, introduces ‘The Kid’ to his nightlife and a job as a stripper for manager Dallas (Matthew Mcconaughey). In turn, Mike meets Adam’s sister Brooke (Cody Horn), and begins to realise that his life may not be everything he always dreamed of.

Two decades and over twenty films after sex, lies and videotape (1989), Soderbergh shifts his gaze on male sexuality and identity from middle-class Louisiana to the nearby Florida. On the surface, Soderbergh’s latest outing could be cynically viewed as an attempt to exploit the reverse objectification of well-oiled men. Yet Magic Mike is a ‘stripper’ film about as much as Boogie Nights (1998) is a ‘porn’ film. Set against an exotic and still somewhat taboo world, despite its mass consumption by men and women alike, Carolin’s screenplay uses the background to explore the far more interesting characters that populate that world. Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s ensemble, this dysfunctional family sails together on the same sinking ship, forever fated to travel on their singular path until somebody hops off.

The suitably endearing Pettyfer is the analogue for Tatum’s own experiences, and is perhaps a parallel version of him, still caught in a starry-eyed spectacle of the vampiric lifestyle. Tatum himself continues to impress in one of his most down-to-earth and sincere performances to date, albeit one that involves some spectacularly staged semi-nude dance sequences. His relationship with Horn’s character, one in which neither will admit a mutual attraction, is tentative but never juvenile. Horn and Internet celebrity Olivia Munn, who plays Brooke’s opposite number in the more flirtatious Joanna, offer Mike flip sides of a coin, making for a far more intriguing love triangle than most romances. Yet it is McConaughey at his extroverted best that steals the show, reveling every moment on stage and in front of the camera, not even attempting to restrain his manic persona.

Following the multi-narrative, hyperlinked style that Soderbergh used to mixed results in Contagion and Haywire, it is pleasing to see the filmmaker return to a more straightforward mix of drama and spectacle, playing to his strengths as a keen observer of intimate human interaction. That the impressively staged dance numbers and casual sexual encounters are as beautifully orchestrated and shot as the Tampa locations is the cherry on top.

Magic Mike is released in Australia on 26 July 2012 from Roadshow Films.

July 24, 2012
Review: Katy Perry – Part of Me

Whether you are a fan of Katy Perry or not, this engaging look at the nature of stardom in the twenty-first century is illuminating, along with being a terrific concert film.

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Director: Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz

Runtime: 97 minutes

Starring: Katy Perry

Distributor: Paramount

Country: US

Rating (?): Highly Recommended (★★★★)

More info

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In 2010, Katy Perry became the first female artist, and second after Michael Jackson, in history to have five Number 1 singles from the same album. This unprecedented success rode the wave to 37.6 million digital tracks sold in the United States and 11 million albums worldwide by the 27-year-old performer to date, an amazing achievement for an artist who seemingly only appeared in 2008. With Katy Perry: Part of Me, the singer follows in the footsteps of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never in creating a 3D event film that is part biopic, concert film and exploration of the effects of constantly being put under the spotlight by media, the inner circle and fans alike.

As Perry prepares for one of her biggest global tours in 2010, the documentary cameras capture just how much work goes into an overnight sensation. The costumes, choreography, dancers, lights and over-sized props have come to define Perry’s oeuvre, and the aim of the film is to portray the person behind the makeup. Mixing an impressive amount of archival footage with interviews, behind the scenes moments and concert footage, the film’s main thrust is around those elements that drove Perry to want to be a star. The child of evangelical preachers, and her own first album a Christian record, it sits in stark contrast with the icon she is today.

It is difficult to know just how much a part of Katy Perry we are seeing in Katy Perry: Part of Me, as it is essentially a one-sided discussion of her rise to stardom. Yet the same factors that might keep this film from being a completely open book are actually more telling than any autobiographical confession. We see a young woman shuffled around record companies until she was a hit, only to be constantly surrounded by well-wishers, close friends and public relations people. If she had a dollar for every person who claimed to be her best friend in the film, she would be able to retire without recording another song. In those more emotional moments, particularly around her very public divorce from comedian Russell Brand, all of her grieving is quite literally done in front of the cameras. Yet her generosity to the fans appears genuine, and there is not reason to no take this at face value. However, scores of kids who believe that she is alternative to mainstream may need a lesson in indie rock.

First and foremost, this is a celebration of Perry’s music and global concert off her record Teenage Dream, and the film is a visually spectacular realisation of this lengthy tour. Regardless of your levels of fandom, it is difficult to not get caught up in the sheer spectacle of it all. Hits “I Kissed A Girl”, “Hot N Cold”, “E.T.” and “Firework” have been difficult to avoid, and whether she is dancing with a giant purple cat named Kitty Purry or spraying her audience with a whipped cream cannon, Katy Perry: Part of Me has raised the bar for what modern audiences can expect from 3D concert films.

Katy Perry: Part of Me was released in Australia on 2 July 2012 from Paramount.

July 23, 2012
Review: The Dark Knight Rises

The epic end to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy that many will seek. Yet it will also leave other long-term followers with mixed emotions as the saga comes to a conclusion.

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Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan

Runtime: 165 minutes

Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman

Distributor: Roadshow

Country: US

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

More info

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Regardless of how The Dark Knight Rises turned out, the third and final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s set of Batman films comes pre-burdened with expectation. With Batman Begins (2005), Nolan didn’t simply pull one of DC Comics mainstays back from the depths of Joel Schumacher’s camp kistch, but he and screenwriter David S. Goyer redefined the comic book movie for fans and mainstream audiences alike. Paving the way for the massive success of The Dark Knight (2008) and countless imitators, Nolan has left himself in the unenviable position of having to find an ending to something that is bigger than he could have possibly imagined almost half a decade ago.

The final chapter can’t be faulted for a lack of ambition, but the multi-talented Nolan occasionally needs reminding that they are making a Batman film. It has been eight years since the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, and the world at large believes it was at the hands of the vigilante Batman. Of those who know the truth behind Dent’s villainy, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is waning in political favour and billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a reclusive shut-in. Yet when cat-burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) appears as a Robin Hood figure in Gotham City, just as the infamous mercenary Bane (Tom Hardy) makes his presence known, Bruce realises that he must once again don the mantle of the Bat.

While The Dark Knight was able to gloss over some of its indulgences with the clash of two great villains, with Heath Ledger’s Joker to remain unsurpassed for some time to come, this darker world not only misses that anarchy, but ironically its sense of cohesion as well. The Nolans spend a sometimes ponderous first hour carefully constructing the new Gotham, partly through the eyes of idealist cop Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). This clever delaying of Bruce Wayne and ultimately Batman’s appearance make their inevitable entrances all the more pleasurable, but it is all smoke and mirrors. Absent from the screen for much of the second act, Nolan asks us to sit through an hour or so of board room meetings, police drama, somewhat forced commentary on the ‘Occupy’ movement and villainous planning before we return to the title fight. Of the three different types of film that Nolan was getting out of his system, the only one that truly satisfies is that of Bruce Wayne’s redemption.

The action, however, is truly magnificent and The Dark Knight Rises builds towards one of the most intense final thirty minutes to ever grace the screen. Yet is also so crammed full of activity that it falls into the fatal flaw of trying to slot in all the fan favourites prior to the series end. By rights, Catwoman doesn’t even need to exist in this story, with Marion Cotillard’s mysterious Miranda Tate providing a more than ample love interest for Bruce Wayne. Hathaway and her criminally underused sidekick Juno Temple are often auditioning for their own spin-off. Indeed, it is actually Gordon-Levitt who provides the worthy companion to the Bat, along with the emotional and dramatic core. Other favourites, including Gary Oldman and Michael Caine, are virtually sidelined. The unavoidable white elephant in the room is Bane’s voice. In comic lore, Bane is the man that broke the Bat, yet from the moment he opens his mouth, or rather doesn’t, his vox-box pitches a comical whine that disguises any of Hardy’s natural charisma.

The Dark Knight Rises is exactly how one would expect a saga as sprawling as Nolan’s to end, Hans Zimmer’s score operatically drowning out any naysayers in its knee-trembling wake. Shot with large chunks in IMAX, it is the kind of storytelling that demands an over-the-top showcase of those wonderful Bat-toys. Overlong, overblown and over-saturated, taken on its own, The Dark Knight Rises is not the conclusion the series deserved, but perhaps the one it needed. Regardless, when held up together with its predecessors, Nolan’s films form a visionary cinematic realisation of an iconic character that will unmatched for years to come.

The Dark Knight Rises is release in Australia on 18 July 2012 from Roadshow Films.

July 18, 2012
Review: The Door

A muddled effort from even the most talented of its cast members, The Door remains firmly shut in this consciously mannered adaptation of Magda Szabó’s novel.

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Director: István Szabó

Writers: István Szabó, Andrea Vészits, Magda Szabó

Runtime: 97 minutes

Starring: Helen Mirren, Martina Gedeck, Károly Eperjes

Distributor: Rialto

Country: Hungary

Rating (?): It’s Your Money (★½)

More info

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In constructing his adaptation of Magda Szabó’s prize-winning Hungarian novel The Door, veteran filmmaker István Szabó has given into the temptation of relying too heavily on the performance of a central actor. Set in 1960s Hungary, the film touches briefly on some of the subjects of state control that has intrigued the director in the past, yet the focus here is on an unlikely bond between two women, and the equally unbelievable set of events that unfolds around them.

Magda (Martina Gedeck) and her husband, Tibor (Károly Eperjes), have come to live in a remote manor, largely so that Magda can concentrate on her writing. They invite elderly washerwoman Emerenc (Helen Mirren) to do their housework, and Magda is initially put off by Emerenc’s gruff attitude. Despite this, and a seemingly endless series of mood-swings and eccentricities on Emerenc’s part, not to mention the secrets she keeps behind the door to her apartment, the pair form a kind of friendship.

Yet film struggles to explain why Magda and Emerenc develop a relationship at all, perpetually feeling as though every other scene has been removed to keep us in a state of confusion. Emerenc’s wild mood swings, from gruffness to turning up at early hours with breakfast in bed and poetry, are difficult enough to tolerate, but a completely unlikely bond forms between the two women regardless. It’s a battle of wits between two unarmed opponents. Magda is painted as an otherwise cultured writer, so it is difficult to comprehend why she would even tolerate Emerenc let alone form a strong friendship with her. It is a gap that Szabó never bridges, leaving a empty space in the middle of the barest shell of this drama of manners.

Any dramatic tension in the film lies around the titular door to Emerenc’s small apartment, and what lies behind it remains a mystery for much of the film. Drowning all activity in an overbearing score, the ultimate dramatic reveal is predictably underwhelming, and leads to an incredibly rushed dénouement. Crafting itself as an artificial stage play, there is nothing in The Door for audiences to hold onto. Some obvious dubbing of the local cast into English gives the film another intangible distance to bridge, diminishing the flow of dialogue and forcing the principal cast to emphasise every word in an unnaturalistic way. In many ways Mirren’s is a brave performance, shedding her “still sexy at 66” image in favour of someone nearing the end of their life. Yet she also seems to be most guilty of the same strategic mannerisms, stiffly and conscious delivering every line, perhaps to remind us that she is acting. The Door is an intriguing premise poorly executed, and any chance of connection remains locked away.

The Door is released in Australia on 19 July 2012 from Rialto Distribution.

July 16, 2012
Review: The King Is Dead

Rolf de Heer returns his gaze to suburban Australia, and instead of melodrama he finds a quirky, murderous and very welcome dark side.

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Director: Rolf de Heer

Writers: Rolf de Heer

Runtime: 102 minutes

Starring: Gary Waddell, Dan Wyllie, Bojana Novakovic, Luke Ford

Distributor: Pinnacle

Country: Australia

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

More info

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For the last few decades, Australian cinema has been roughly divided between middle-class suburban angst and what can be broadly classified as ‘bogan comedy’. So it comes as little surprise that the eclectic filmmaker Rolf de Heer, best known for Bad Boy Bubby (1993) and the Cannes winning Ten Canoes (2006), traverses the genres with the same audacity that brought us the retro silent comedy Dr. Plonk (2007). The King Is Dead is as difficult to classify as anything else in de Heer’s filmography, as the Dutch-born director has long had a tradition of looking at his sunburnt home from the outside in.

De Heer’s script begins with a familiar scenario as upwardly mobile couple Max (Dan Wyllie) and Therese (the seemingly ubiquitous Bojana Novakovic) move into what appears to be an idyllic suburb. On one side, they begin to form a bond with a very relaxed couple and their young daughter. However, on the other side of their fence is the drug addled King (Gary Waddell), who allows loud parties and violent behaviour to continue to the chagrin of the neighbourhood. As a series of events engenders more spite from the street, and the police seem powerless to do anything. Max and Therese have no option but to take matters into their own hands.

Frost’s maxim of good fences making for good neighbours could never have imagined the complexity of twenty-first century Australian suburbia. In The King Is Dead, the fence provides the thinnest veneer between civility and hostility, and is a barrier than ultimately neither party respects. “We’re useless against the barbarians,” a resigned Max comments, in a role from Wyllie that plays with the darkly comic threads present in de Heer’s tale. In fact, he is mostly right, with the ‘correct’ channels of dealing with noisy neighbours not yielding any results, and actually making matters worse.

Equal parts thriller and comedy, de Heer’s script takes a darker turn somewhere in the middle following repeated attempts at home invasion. It never crosses the line into horror, but there are moments when de Heer plays with us by using familiar thriller tropes of that genre, almost encouraging our complicity in the comical violence that is to follow. This wouldn’t be possible without an impeccable cast, and everybody comes to the table in this regard. Wyllie downplays his more outgoing persona, while the flexible Novakovic effortlessly slips into paranoid suburgatory. Yet it is veteran character actor Waddell, as the titular King, who makes the surreal a stony-faced reality.

Even when de Heer somewhat frustratingly and deliberately labours the point, and the conclusion is delightfully over-the-top, The King Is Dead manages to keep audiences off-balance throughout, both through content and Ian Jones’s arresting photography. Satirically dissecting the middle-class as much as it is mocking ‘the other’, de Heer is commenting on the current climate of fear through a very funny, and sometimes quite spooky, examination of the suburbs.

The King Is Dead was released in Australian cinemas on 12 July 2012 from Pinnacle Films.

July 13, 2012