Tag: Kristen Stewart

Review: Underwater

William Eubank’s (Love) film will go down in history as the last film to be released under the 20th Century Fox banner following its acquisition by Disney. Despite shooting back in 2017, some of those machinations have kept it on the shelf until 2020.

The basic premise has all the makings of a cult favourite. Mechanical engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart) is aboard a deep sea drilling operation/laboratory. When unexplained shaking starts to bring the structure apart, Norah must journey with Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel) and the surviving crew (T.J. Miller, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, and Gunner Wright) and walk across the ocean floor for a chance at rescue.

The tension around the underwater escape is enough of a ticking time bomb to sustain a film, especially one that is only 95 minutes long. Yet a sharp left turn is taken into creature feature territory, and this creates a disconnect further down the trail.

Despite the various delays and behind the scenes machinations that kept this in release hell for a few years, the final product is a pacey thriller. Of course, some of that is due to entire swathes of plot being evidently excised in the pursuit of brevity. Following the introduction of Lucien, for example, there’s a noticeably abrupt cut that sees rest of the cast turn up. It’s not an isolated incident either.

Which is a shame because this is one of the more attractive pieces of production design I’ve ever seen. Take the deep sea diving suits, for example. Dorotka Sapinska’s designs combine Alien with the complexity of a Japanese influenced manga design. Later in the film, there’s a scene where the group attempts to enter a building surrounded by creatures and it is one of the most beautifully subtle pieces of horror staging in recent memory.

Major props also need to go to Stewart, who continues to forge a path as a badass action hero. It’s a little unfortunate that Eubank keeps her in her underwear for large chunks of the film, although I’ll take this as another tip of the hat to the original Alien.

Without getting too much into spoiler territory, the ending gets a little bit Lovecraftian. By itself this would be fine, even if it doesn’t quite gel with what’s come before. One has to wonder what the original vision for this film was, as the coda – a series of headlines and redacted documents – continue to tell the story long after the film has given up on it. Which is where UNDERWATER ultimately lands: as a potentially bold new sci-fi that someone let slip through the cracks.

2020 | US | DIRECTOR: William Eubank | WRITERS: Brian Duffield, Adam Cozad| CAST: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, T.J. Miller | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 January 2020 (AUS)

January 23, 2020
Review: Café Society

It’s an interesting time to follow the work of Woody Allen. His half-dozen feature films in as many years have been critically praised (Midnight in Paris, Blue Jasmine) and slammed (To Rome with Love, Irrational Man) in equal measure. His life was recapped in a 3-hour PBS documentary in 2011, but that was hardly the end-point of his career. in 2016, he made his debut as a television director in the Crisis in Six Scenes series for Amazon Studios. With CAFÉ SOCIETY, there’s a distinct return to form for Allen, even if that form is a wholly familiar one.

The plot itself could not be more Allenesque. Set in the 1930s, New York native Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) heads out west to Los Angeles where he gets a job running menial tasks for his uncle Phil (Steve Carell). However, he soon finds himself falling for Phil’s secretary Veronica, nicknamed Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), despite her “journalist boyfriend.” However, when the identity of her lover becomes apparent, Bobby heads back east to run an exclusive nightclub with his gangster brother Ben (Corey Stoll), meeting beautiful divorcée Veronica Hayes (Blake Lively) in the process.

It’s hard to criticise a film for being too consciously like a Woody Allen film, when the filmmaker himself set the standard for his own whimsy almost 50 years ago. Coming off the intellectually focused Irrational Man, the mostly lighthearted CAFÉ SOCIETY is filled with some incredibly funny moments. An impassioned conversation between Carell and Stewart that’s constantly interrupted by mundane interactions is some seriously sharp writing, the kind of thing that wouldn’t look out of place in his “early, funny” comedies. By the same token, the over-the-top portrayal of a stereotypical family is laid on pretty thick, as though it is a hangover from those same highly-constructed films of Allen’s so-called “golden age.”

Allen continues to attract top-notch actors to his films, working with one of his largest budgets in years. Eisenberg once again shows that he is a convincing proxy for Allen, stopping just short of imitation in his earnest neuroses. A subdued Carell gives a mostly straight performance as the Hollywood bigwig, and Blake Lively simply oozes old Tinseltown elegance. Kristen Stewart initially feels like a walking anachronism, like a modern character who has stepped through the portal and into The Purple Rose of Cairo. Yet as the film progresses, she too becomes as much a part of the titular society as the rest of the sycophants Allen skewers, almost playing two distinct characters by the film’s end.

CAFÉ SOCIETY is one of Allen’s most beautiful and stylish-looking films to date. Legendary Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, known for his photography for Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola and Warren Beatty to name a few, collaborates with Allen for the first time for spectacular results. The film opens on a beautiful blue-tinged poolside party sequence, and continues on as a highly stylised snapshot of an era. A love-letter to the films of the 1930s, with references to a slew of titles and stars such as Rudolph Valentino, there’s always a lush, golden glow to scenes surrounding Carell in particular. With glory shots of the New York skyline, it’s almost like a Woody Allen fan film.

The film’s conclusion is as unassuming as the Windsor typeface and black backgrounds Allen favours for his credits. Despite all the moving parts, and healthy doses of comedic charm, there’s a melancholic thought left unfinished by the end. It’s as though Allen was simply done with picture, or perhaps felt there was nothing else left to say on the topic. Either way, it’s an enjoyable outing while it lasts, and definitely one for the film literate fans in the audience.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2016 | US | DIR: Woody Allen | WRITERS: Woody Allen | CAST: Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, Ken Stott | DISTRIBUTOR: eOne (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 October 2016 (AUS) [/stextbox]

October 19, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Personal Shopper

At times a tense thriller, but this ghost story has too many ideas going on at once to be effective.

There’s a lot to unpack in PERSONAL SHOPPER. Too much in fact. Indeed, the winner of the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival is difficult to even categorise. Maureen (Kristen Stewart) works in Paris as a personal shopper for a celebrity. She’s also a medium trying to communicate with the spirit of her recently departed twin brother. If the concepts seem like an odd mix, they do on screen as well, lurching between the supernatural and Olivier Assayas’ penchant for the artwork of Hilma af Klint. When the film takes a sharp turn into something more terrestrially sinister, Stewart – returning for another collaboration with Assayas following Clouds of Sils Maria – takes on the role of the hapless victim. It then spirals into more standard thriller fare, with any tension dissipated by what feels like hours of text messages being exchanged between Maureen and a mystery third party. After floating into a listless third act, PERSONAL SHOPPER ultimately doesn’t have the courage of its own convictions, with a head-smacking ending that is far too clever-clever for its own good.

2016 | France | DIR: Olivier Assayas | WRITERS: Olivier Assayas, Christelle Meaux | CAST: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz | DISTRIBUTOR: Rialto Distribution (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes | RATING: ★★½ (5/10)

June 18, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Certain Women

Kelly Reichardt’s deliberate pace emphasises the strength of the characters in this measured study.

The long and slow shot of an approaching train sets the pace for CERTAIN WOMEN, something that followers of the “quiet filmmaker” Kelly Reichardt should be well familiar with. Meek’s Cutoff, Reichardt’s exploration of women travelling across the Oregon Trail in 1845, used a measured pace to tell the story of forgotten pioneers in an unconventional way, never giving the audience easy answers. So too is the case with this film, based on Maile Meloy’s collection of short stories, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. A series of vignettes follows lawyer Laura (Laura Dern), who must deal with a client who feels his workers compensation claim is unjust. Couple Gina (Michelle Williams) and Ryan (James LeGros) are attempting to build a new house, but their attempt to buy sandstone from the elderly Albert (René Auberjonois) are fraught, shining a light on their relationship issues. Finally, an unnamed ranch hand (Lily Gladstone) becomes infatuated with Beth Lewis (Kristen Stewart), a lawyer who drives four hours twice a week to teach an adult education class in a small town.

CERTAIN WOMEN is almost the antithesis to hyperlinked films, exposing connections between seemingly disparate people but never using them to unveil a universal truth or heavy-handed meaning. Instead, Christopher Blauvelt’s authentic 16mm photography of the mountains and plains of Montana, coupled with a leisurely pacing, creates a hypnotic effect that draws the viewer into the worlds of the four women. Relative newcomer Lily Gladstone is the most tangible creation of this motif, her monotonous and lonely life of tending to animals and farming represents by the repeated imagery of opening a barn door onto otherwise spectacular mountains. From her point of view, the connection she makes with Stewart’s Beth is a significant break to her routine, and the subtle performance in her expression as she proudly rides Beth to a diner on a horse speaks volumes about the size of her world. The heartbreaking reality of their relationship comes later, but Reichardt’s understated tempo leaves no doubt as to the pall of desperation and loneliness that hangs over their fate. Presented without comment or condescension, Reichardt’s film simply lays out these stories in a row as lasered character studies. She once again leaves us with no conclusive answers to her character’s dilemmas, and like all things she does, allows us to come to our own conclusions at a distinct pace.

2016 | US | DIR: Kelly Reichardt | WRITERS: Kelly Reichardt | CAST: Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, Laura Dern | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes | RATING: ★★★★½ (9/10)

June 10, 2016
Review: Snow White and the Huntsman

Borrowing from virtually every fantasy film of the last thirty years, Rupert Sanders’ debut is the lesser of the Snow White films out this year.

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Director: Rupert Sanders

Writer(s): Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini

Runtime: 127 minutes

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsden, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones

Distributor: Universal

Country: US

Rating (?): Rental For Sure (★★)

More info

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It’s a Hollywood certainty that serendipity comes in twos, from the great Iron Eagle/Top Gun face-off of ’86 through to the Deep Impact/Armageddon explosiveness of 1998. With the current box office caché in the realms of fantasy and swordplay, it was only a matter of time before fairy tales became all the rage again. Following Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror by only a matter of months, and the Walt Disney animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by a mere 75 years, commercial director Rupert Sanders attempts to take this simple morality tale and spin it into an action epic.

Grimm’s tales were always fairly dark, but Snow White and the Huntsman takes it up a notch, standing in stark contrast to the brightly lit Mirror Mirror. This Snow White (Kristen Stewart) has been imprisoned in a tower since the beautiful and wicked Ravenna (Charlize Theron) murdered her father and took the crown for herself. The land has become impoverished and decayed, but when Snow White escapes from her prison and into the dark woods, the Queen realises that she is the key to her eternal youth and power. She sends the one man who knows his way around the enchanted forests: Eric (Chris Hemsworth), a drunken Huntsman lamenting his dead wife.

The three screenwriters on Snow White and the Huntsman – Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini – have some decent credentials between them, not least of which is Amini’s Drive for Nicolas Winding Refn. Yet even they can’t seem to come to any agreement on a narrative direction. Cherry-picking from The NeverEnding Story, the Chronicles of Narnia and a bit of Tolkien for good measure, Sanders tries to tack on a mighty battle to what should be a fairly straight story. Sanders inexperience with features is evident in the clumsy shooting of almost every action sequence, a series of close-ups that obscures the bigger picture and anything else that might be happening. This disturbing trend in modern action pervades the film, with Sanders aping style without the corresponding knowledge of how to execute it.

Not helping much are the thinly drawn characters, and Stewart’s limited range can only do so much with such meek food to feed it. The attempt to give a modern twist to the ill-fated heroine, but the emo-friendly Stewart doesn’t have the presence to command an army. Hemsworth and Theron are far more compelling, but both are reduced to shouting matches and mugging the camera in place of real emotion. Some strengths lie in the introduction of the seven dwarfs, who include digitally shrunken versions of Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsden, Ray Winstone and Toby Jones in their number. A feature could have been struck around this goldmine of talent, but instead they are relegated to supporting players at best, and comic relief at worst. It also bears asking: on what planet Stewart is considered “fairer” than Theron?

The film is otherwise beautifully dressed, with the lavish costumes by the multiple Oscar-winning Colleen Atwood. The mirror on the wall is also one of the most innovative to date, and the creature effects are impressive. Yet despite this surface sheen, of all the Snow White films this year, Snow White and the Huntsman is not the fairest of them all, lacking the fun and sparkle of its competitor and in dire need of some direction.

Snow White and the Huntsman is released in Australia on 20 June 2012 from Universal.

June 21, 2012
Full Trailer for Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

Following this morning’s 10-second teaser, Summit Entertainment has now released a full trailer (via Yahoo! Movies) for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.

The conclusion to the Twilight Saga series of films, this final chapter illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions. As will the first half, it will be directed by Bill Condon and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is released in Australia on 15 November 2012 from Hoyts.

June 20, 2012
Teaser Trailer and Hi-Res Photos from Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

Just as the The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 saw the release of a 13 second teaser to the March teaser trailer, so too does the official trailer due to be released later this week. In the 9 seconds or so of actual footage, we see a baby being passed about and at least two unhappy vampire families. We’ve captured those moments for you in video and photographic form.

The conclusion to the Twilight Saga series of films, this final chapter illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions. As will the first half, it will be directed by Bill Condon and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is released in Australia on 15 November 2012 from Hoyts.

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June 20, 2012
SFF 2012 Review: On the Road

Are we there yet? A classic American novel takes just as long to get going as it has getting to the screen.

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Director: Walter Salles

Writers: Jose Rivera

Runtime: 137 minutes

Starring: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams

Festival: Sydney Film Festival 2012

Distributor: Icon

Country: Brazil/France/US

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

More info

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As far back as 1957, author Jack Kerouac reportedly wrote a letter to actor Marlon Brando, suggesting his involvement in film adaptation of Kerouac’s largely autobiographical novel On the Road. While Brando never responded, perhaps due to Kerouac’s desire to play opposite the well-known actor, his concept was to shoot the film “with the camera on the front seat of the car showing the road (day and night) unwinding into the windshield, as Sal and Dean yak”. The film failed to eventuate, and following Francis Ford Coppola’s acquisition of the rights, decades were spent trying to realise the project that many thought was unfilmable. The Motorcycle Diaries director Walter Salles proves them all right.

A seminal text for a Beat Generation that was still discovering the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Jose Rivera’s screenplay strives to remain faithful to the monotony of life on the road, and this is where its problems begin. Following the death of his father, Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) meets the charismatic wildcard Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund). Yearning to be free of what they see as the prison of a domestic life, they begin several years of travelling across country, enjoying the benefits and downfalls of that freedom. Blowing in and out the lives around them, their many journeys always seem to return to two women: Marylou (Kristen Stewart) and Camille (Kirsten Dunst).

Adapting On the Road is like filming an abstraction or a poem: the structure might remain in some form, but all of the cadences and rhythms belong to another format. The monotony of Salles’ film might capture the isolation and the same nomadic spirit of Kerouac’s novel, but in order to do this in the abbreviated language of film, Salles has also sapped any of the life out of the piece. Taking on Kerouac’s form doesn’t necessarily equate to function, and this hampers any chances we do have of getting beneath the surface of its three main wastrels.

While the women play an important role in the tale, the focus is undoubtedly on the ‘important’ men in the world, and the ones who lit a fire under Paradise, and by extension Kerouac. Riley’s Sal Paradise sees the once promising actor as the American cousin of his Brighton Rock persona, and like the brawny Hedlund, carries an affected accent that borders on parody. Both men speak every line as though it was being dictated, recalling the same thin line James Franco walked in his portrayal of contemporary Allen Ginsberg (HOWL). Carlo Marx (Tom Sturridge) and Old Bull Lee (Viggo Mortensen), stand-ins for Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, have more impact in their brief moments on screen. Amy Adams, as Lee’s junkie “wife”, and Steve Buscemi are delights, but like most of the supporting cast, are given little more to do than breeze in and out.

Much of the public attention will be focused on Kristen Stewart’s performance, building on her non-Twilight roles such as The Runaways, and her frequent nudity will keep Google in business for some years to come. However, she brings the same dull-eyed insincerity to Marylou as her more famous vampiric character, yet she is not solely to blame. Even Kirsten Dunst, saddled with a glorified cameo of a housewife role, is forced to simply exist alongside the travellers. At its best, On the Road brings with it the dust and sweaty closeness of the gypsy life, but more often than not runs out of gas before it reaches its destination.

On the Road played at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2012. It will be released in Australia on 4 October 2012 from Icon. It does not currently have a US release date.

June 15, 2012
9 New Images from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

Entertainment Weekly has posted a nine new photos from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, the fifth and as far as we know final chapter in the vampire series.

The conclusion to the Twilight Saga series of films, this final chapter illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions. As will the first half, it will be directed by Bill Condon and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is released in Australia on 15 November 2012 from Hoyts.

June 14, 2012
3 Character Posters Revealed for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

In a sure sign that a trailer is just around the corner, Summit Entertainment (via Upcoming Movies and IMPAwards) have passed along three new character posters for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2,, what is probably not the last we’ll hear from the fanged shiny ones.

Naturally, these one-sheets feature Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. The posters are a typical airbrushed close-up of the film’s three main assets, neither commenting on the content or the film or the potential motivations of the characters. If only all posters were so spoiler free!

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is released in Australia on 15 November 2012 from Hoyts Distribution.

May 25, 2012