Tag: Universal

Bridesmaids

Burning up box offices around the world, Bridesmaids builds on the tradition of outrageous comedies that have formed the basis of director Paul Feig and Judd Apatow’s career. Apatow’s films have largely looked at the strong platonic bonds that form between men, in particular in Knocked Up and Funny People. Similarly, Feig’s comedy pedigree is unquestionable, having worked on seminal television series Arrested Development, the US version of The Office and Nurse Jackie. Yet this new wave of comedy, particularly Apatow’s, has been largely criticised for not only being male-centric, but in making unlikeable characters out of the women. Enter Bridesmaids.

When the dysfunctional Annie (Kristen Wiig, Paul) is asked to be a bridesmaid for her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph, Grown Ups), it couldn’t come at a worse time. Following the collapse of her bakery during the recession, and an unsatisfying “sex buddy” relationship (with an uncredited Jon Hamm of TV’s Mad Men), Lillian must also compete for the bride’s attention with her new BFF, the wealthy and beautiful Helen (Rose Byrne, X-Men: First Class). With a tentative relationship growing between Annie and highway cop Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd, Gulliver’s Travels), will anybody make it to the church on time?

Bridesmaids may be a clear response to the male-centric comedies such as the The Hangover series, but this doesn’t diminish an iota of its own hilarity. While there are undoubtedly a number of “all men are jerks” moments, and the type of man-hating comedy that female comedians are all-too-often relegated to, Bridesmaids appears to speak more to what women really think about other women. Earlier Apatow comedies, in particular Knocked Up, have given very defined and borderline-unlikable portrayals of women. Even Apatow’s own wife, Leslie Mann, was given the role of the suspicious wife who’s goal for the majority of the earlier film was to crush the fun out of her husband’s life. It is perhaps no fluke then that the script this time was written by women for women. Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who cameos as a nervous flyer in the film, tap into something that might be observed but is rarely spoken about.

Essential to the success of a film like Bridesmaids is the casting, and here it is impeccable. The roles that women are given are clearly defined and played with in the film, as even the marketing campaign continues to milk this. There is the Innocent One (Ellie Kemper, Somewhere), who pities her unwed friends; Little Miss Perfect (Bryne); A Real Mother (Wendi McLendon-Cover, The Search for Santa Paws) and the real standout performance from the rotund Wild Card (Melissa McCarthy, Life As We Know It). Playing to and against type, these are just funny women doing incredibly funny things. In what will no doubt be one of the most remembered scenes from the film (outside of the infamous food poisoning sequence), a very intoxicated Annie lets her guard slip whilst talking to Helen, telegraphing the climax of the film. Bridesmaids doesn’t pull any punches on its way to the inevitable, and unlike the recent Hangover sequel, doesn’t dilute its formula for mass appeal. One of the strongest comedies in a long time.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]Although it’s inevitable, gender shouldn’t enter into the discussion with Bridesmaids, as this is one of the rare comedies that spans demographics and splits sides in equal measure.[/stextbox]

Bridesmaids was released in Australia on 16 June 2011 from Universal.

June 22, 2011
Your Highness

Over the last five years, Danny McBride and Ben Best have crafted a fruitful partnership, with the comedian and writer / actor / producer duo combining across a range of projects. From the cult feature The Foot Fist Way to television series Eastbound And Down, and including appearances alongside each other in Superbad, Observe And Report and Land Of The Lost, the pair have maintained a considerable connection over their brief yet lucrative careers. Your Highness represents their latest effort, with the constant collaborators sharing scripting duties of the fantasy offering. Directed by fellow long-term colleague David Gordon Green, the purported parody apes and spoofs everything from the Lord Of The Rings to Star Wars, Monty Python to Blackadder, The Princess Bride to Labyrinth, Indiana Jones to Harry Potter and The Sword In The Stone to King Arthur as it presents a tale of two brothers thrust into an epic adventure.

Although his life is filled with the luxuries befitting his station, Prince Thadeous (McBride) remains steeped in the shadow of his older brother Fabious (James Franco, 127 Hours). Content with womanising and drinking whilst his sibling impresses with his military prowess, Thadeous remains a disappointment in the eyes of their father, King Tallious (Charles Dance, Starter For 10). When Fabious returns with the beautiful Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel, (500) Days Of Summer) as his bride to be, Thadeous’ jealousy continues to simmer. Alas, the intervention of the evil Leezar (Justin Theroux, Megamind) stalls the ceremony at the last minute, forcing the brothers and their offsiders (including Saxondale’s Rasmus Hardicker, The Rite’s Toby Jones, The Escapist’s Damian Lewis and Bunny And The Bull’s Simon Farnaby) on a quest to reclaim Belladonna with the help of feisty fighter Isabel (Natalie Portman, Black Swan).

Your Highness tries to be a stoner version of The Princess Bride, but fails to live up to the dizzying heights of either genre or film. In fact, it just fails for the most part, producing an unreliable mixture of homophobic humour, anachronistic puns and the kind of dick jokes that most audiences grew out of by the early years of high school. The problems begin with the fundamentally broken script, from frequent collaborators McBride and Best, that telegraphs its tone from the opening scrawl that mocks fantasy epics with the throwaway voiceover line “and other important shit”. In this briefest of moments, Your Highness has the promise of being the parody that some of the more recent bloated sword and sorcery epics deserve. However, the only thing that separates this film from the run-of-the-mill spoof films (Scary Movie, Vampires Suck, Superhero Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans) is the stellar cast that has attached itself to this mostly awful joke-fest. Oscar nominee James Franco may have deserved this after his co-hosting stint at the Academy Awards this year, something he painfully reminds us of during his song sequence in Your Highness, but poor Natalie Portman can committed no cinematic sins of late. Unless you count No Strings Attached.

Your Highness has its (very rare) moments, and McBride makes a likeable enough leading man, and the visual effects are at times quite good. Yet it is not a role he slips into comfortably, masking his uncertainty with the role in a phony British accent and quite literally dangling a phallus around his neck to distract from the lack of substance. Like last year’s Gulliver’s Travels, all of the of the US cast members have chosen to adopt a faux British accent, perhaps presuming that this alone would ensure that the sometimes offensive gags about paedophilia, rape, homophobia, and masturbation would translate as chuckle-worthy. There are a number of lines that may have actually worked if delivered in their native accents, particular Zooey Deschanel, who seems contractually obliged to sing in every film now. Yet like the rest of the film, it is desperately trying to be something that it is not.

The Reel Bits: A misguided misfire of a fantasy spoof, that only occasionally manages to raise a smile, let alone a chuckle. Even the talented cast can’t rescue this damsel in distress. Best enjoyed under the influence.

Your Highness was released in Australia on 12 May 2011 from Universal.

May 13, 2011
Fast And Furious 5

Although it is common to see the content of books, plays and television programs make the leap to the big screen, the translation of magazine articles to cinema occurs with less frequency. Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront provided one of the earliest examples of the phenomenon, with fellow classics Dog Day Afternoon, Urban Cowboy and Saturday Night Fever following the same trend.

In the past thirty years a selection of other features have originated from reportage, including obvious (The Killing Fields, The Insider and Proof Of Life) and more obscure (Coyote Ugly, Blue Crush and Die Hard 4.0) culprits. Amongst an assortment of films that includes Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, Almost Famous and Shattered Glass sits The Fast And The Furious series, with the original installment inspired by a piece entitled “Racer X”, as seen in the Vibe publication. Over a spate of sequels spanning ten years, the street racing franchise has continued to bloom from its humble printed origins. Hence we now have Fast And Furious 5 (known as Fast Five in the rest of the word), the latest continuation of the high-octane story.

Reunited after a daring daylight prison break, ex-con Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and ex-cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) are fugitives from the law. Hiding out in Rio De Janeiro, they take a job to help out old pal Vince, (Matt Schulze), however things take a turn for the worse when the henchmen of city kingpin Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) spring a change of plans on them at the last moment.

When the fallout of the failed mission brings hard-nosed U.S. federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Faster) down south, the trio are forced to think big to secure their freedom. With Reyes’ men and Hobbs’ strike team on their trail, Dom, Brian and Mia assemble a crew of familiar faces – including Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges), Han (Sung Kang, Ninja Assassin), Gisele (Gal Gadot), Leo (Tego Calderon) and Santos (Don Omar, best known for his musical talents) – to pull off one last heist.

Franchises that reach their fifth installment are clearly doing something right with audiences, with a cumulative worldwide gross of just under $1 billion at the box office. Viewers new to the series may be a little spun about at the start of the film, as we catch the returning cast members right in the middle of the action. This soon becomes completely irrelevant, as the only information is that these people are running from one place to the next, and that journey necessarily involves mass vehicular destruction. Indeed, the opening caper – which sees cars being driven off a moving train – sets the tone up for the film.

This extended exposition quickly segues into an old-school heist film, the kind that requires the assembly of an eclectic group of thieves and scoundrels that tick all the right boxes in its knowledge of action movie archetype. Does it make sense? Of course not, but this doesn’t really matter. The almost review-proof film is flipping a middle finger to critics, daring them to drive a large truck through the massive plot holes and point out the laughably bad dialogue. It’s as if Fast and Furious 5 is aware of all of this, and is saying “You know what? Whatevs. We’ve got Diesel. And The Rock”.

If audience reaction is anything to go by, Fast and Furious 5 may be the comedy sensation of the year. Some of this is at the unintentional laughs that the spectacularly batty action offers, not to mention those elicited from the derivative and unconvincing plot turns. Yet most of the reaction is celebratory: Justin Lin knows what the target audience wants and provides it in spades. Fast cars, big guns and even faster women, it is the kind of film that would be right at home in the exploitation genre in the 1970s.

In fact, if we were to put Fast and Furious 5 up on bricks in our workshop, and take it apart piece by piece, we’d find that it is fundamentally of the same build and make that constitutes Robert Rodriguez’s Machete. Where Rodriguez was parodying the genre, the appeal of Lin’s film is that it is unabashedly proud of its bottom-feeder heritage. The Rock remains inexplicably moist throughout much of the film, even when other characters appear to be dry, although this shouldn’t come as a surprise to a film that has thrown caution to the wind in the logic stakes. Capping it all off with one of the most spectacularly destructive car chases since The Blues Brothers, there is something akin to pure joy in watching seasoned vets Diesel, Walker and Johnson mix it up in a whole new backdrop. This is movie-making without restraints, and the best advice we can give is to just go with it.

The Reel Bits: It may be the result of a mass brain-storming session after a Top Gear marathon, but Fast and Furious 5 is unapologetic in the joy it derives from piling as many cars, scantily-clad actors of both genders and guns into one two-hour carnival of explosions and fast-driving. This does everything is promises in the driver’s manual, before tossing it out the window and turning the whole thing up to 11.

Fast And Furious 5 is released on April 20, 2011 in Australia by Universal.

April 20, 2011
Hop

Once upon a time, seasonal event films were a staple of every growing child’s diet. Every Easter, Christmas and even Valentine’s Day, there would be a steady stream of stories about how Santa or the Easter Bunny was in imminent threat of losing the holiday, and it was up to one very special person to save the day.

For children of the 1970s and 1980, the Rankin/Bass television special such as Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971), The First Easter Rabbit (1976) and The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town (1977) counted amongst some of the most watched viewing on the small screen for children everywhere. Providing much more than something to watch between stuffing their faces with chocolate eggs, the decline of the specials saw the rise of generic direct-to-DVD features, substituting whatever franchise happened to be popular at the time. Director Tim Hill (Alvin and the Chipmunks) brings the tradition back to the silver screen with Hop.

On Easter Island, young rabbit E.B. (voiced by Russell Brand, Despicable Me) is the heir apparent to the Easter Bunny throne, but he has other ideas. Determined to make a career out of playing the drums, his father’s (voiced by Hugh Laurie, House) disapproval drives E.B. to runaway to Hollywood. There he encounters the equally hapless Fred O’Hare (James Marsden, The Box), a slacker still living at home dreaming that he has not yet found the right calling in life. Despite hitting it off on the wrong foot (paw?), the pair help each other realise their dreams of glory and ultimately work to save Easter.

“From the director of Alvin and the Chipmunks” (not to mention Garfield 2) is perhaps not the most awe-inspiring tag to grace a promotional poster, although their continued popularity (with a third installment, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked, due out later this year) gives them a marketing appeal well beyond what common sense would dictate. Yet Tim Hill’s expertise goes beyond pairing the animated with the real, earning his bones on cult animated series Rocko’s Modern Life and more recently, SpongeBob SquarePants. While nowhere near as edgy as the Nickelodeon series, and certainly not as outright funny as either of those shows, Hop maintains a certain level of fun and cuteness that is hard to completely dismiss. From the opening shot in which a proportionally small E.B. plays drums atop an Easter Island moai statue, there is straight-shot attempt at eliciting ‘awws’ and ‘oohs’ from the audience in what the Japanese might call kawaii. Everybody loves bunnies and chicklets right?

Hop is infused with the same sense of the modern that has spoiled many an animated series of late, attempting to ‘funkify’ beloved characters such as Yogi Bear by 20% or so. Apart from the obvious comparison of the ‘rock ‘n roll’ Alvin and the Chipmunks, a more apt comparison might be to the Cats & Dogs franchise, in which the audience is exposed to a secret animal world existing parallel to our own. Hop is undoubtedly extremely derivative, borrowing a storyline from practically every Santa Claus or Easter Bunny film that has ever graced the screen. Yet despite this, and the occasionally condescending and over-the-top plot ‘twists’ and acting, Hop manages to mostly land on its two large feet thanks to a sense of fun. Hop knows that it is silly, and the appearance of David Hasselhoff parodying his own America’s Got Talent appearances is in this spirit of the show.

There are definitely some cringe-worthy moments in Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio and Brian Lynch’s ‘modern clever-clever’ screenplay – and James Marsden seems to be slumming it until the release of the Straw Dogs remake, and multi-voiced Hank Azaria now seems to be permanently stuck on ‘that voice he does’ – those imbued with a sense of the chocolatey spirit are likely to come away with at least a little spring in their step.

The Reel Bits: Despite treading familiar ground cautiously, and inevitably tainting the timeless quality of Easter specials with an unnecessarily modern approach, Hop represents a welcome and fun return to the holiday tradition of humans and animals working together to save capitalism. U.S.A! U.S.A!

HOP was released in Australia on 7 April 2011 by Universal Pictures.

April 11, 2011
Paul

After tackling zombies and police action, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s take on the sci-fi genre is what fans have been waiting for since Spaced. While some of the intrinsic British humour is lost in the relocation to the heartlands of America, Paul is a comedy for people who know their sci-fi.

Like so many famous comedy duos before them, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have always worked best as a unit. Both had appeared on various British comedy series in the past, but the touching, funny and geekified Spaced, written by and starring Pegg and Jessica Stephenson (and directed by Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World helmer Edgar Wright), was the show that launched them both into the limelight.

Although both have had appearances at home and in Hollywood – Pegg in the high-profile Star Trek and taking a lead role in Run Fatboy Run and How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, Frost less prominent in The Boat That Rocked Penelope and Wild Child – when they have come together (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) it has been pure gold.

British fanboys Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost) travel to the US to attend the annual San Diego Comic-Con Convention, before embarking on a cross-country pilgrimage of famous UFO sightings. Along the way they encounter a variety of oddballs and rednecks, but the chance encounter that alters their destinies is with Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet), a wise-cracking grey alien who is looking for a way home. Hotly pursued by Agent Zoil (Jason Bateman, Extract) and his henchmen Haggard (Bill Hader, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and O’Reilly (Joe Lo Truglio, Gulliver’s Travels), they only have the help of the Bible-bashing Ruth (Kristen Wiig, Despicable Me) in returning Paul to his mothership.

Written by Pegg and Frost, the duo secured the directorial stylings of Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), Paul is jam-packed with the same kind of visual and audio references to other sci-fi films as Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were for their respective genres. We see the desert locations of the original Star Trek television series, dialogue from Star Wars, the Devil’s Tower mountain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and countless nods to Alien, Predator, Back to the Future and so on. Remember Mac and Me? Frost and Pegg do, and they want you to as well.

The real joys of watching this kind of intertextual comedy is that, unlike the lowbrow Scary Movie franchise and its brethren, is that it rewards smart and attentive viewers. Like a live-action version of The Simpsons, or more accurately a feature-length episode of Spaced, Paul can be enjoyed as a simple comedy road trip (or a stoner version of E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial if you like), but the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it approach to laughs ensures that whatever goes over the heads of younger audiences will be picked up by the geeks. Still, as the classification rating and strong language would imply, this is aimed squarely at an older audience and is loving every minute of it.

Paul himself is such an ordinary creature, the kind that Seth Rogen has played so many times before in the likes of Knocked Up, Pineapple Express or Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Yet it is hearing and seeing the laconic voice and behaviour in the body of something extraordinary that is one of the principle jokes here, and for the most part it works. The college humour goes a little over the top at times, and the ‘pressed ham’ type gags and redneck jokes seem to be Pegg and Frost attempting to appeal to a broader US audience, but there is plenty to love about Paul.

A terrific support cast, which is basically a who’s who of decent US comedy – Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Jane Lynch (Glee), David Koechner (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy) to name a few – give the film a real energy that help overcome some of infrequent lulls in the narrative. There are even a few surprise appearances in there for you sci-fi fans. Paul is a joy, and if it isn’t a major hit for Pegg and Frost, then there simply is no justice in the world.

Paul will be released in Australia on 14 April 2011 by Universal Pictures.

April 9, 2011
Sanctum

If you are having trouble sleeping, try drowning yourself. If that fails, see Sanctum. It’s the cinematic equivalent of slowly filling your lungs with water.

With James Cameron attached to the film, there was some hope that this derivative-looking thriller would at least benefit from The King of the World’s flair for over-the-top theatrics, albeit ones that seem shallow upon reflection. Yet from start to finish, Sanctum may single-handedly take out the top slot for the most tedious film of the year – and it’s only February. Adopting one of the most uninspired uses of 3D since the craze took hold, viewers can actually watch much of the film sans glasses with few adverse effects. With glasses, however, Sanctum suffers a similar fate to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, with much of the film being a big blue and brown mess on occasion. Although the format is in its relative infancy, at least in terms of digital 3D, there have been few films that have managed to overcome the limitations of the format in live-action, and Sanctum is no exception. Despite the odd nice use of O’Loughlin’s cinematography, especially in the opening helicopter shots (which are starkly reminiscent of Avatar, by the way), we are largely treated to shot after shot of wet brown rocks. In 3D.

Inspired by true events , Sanctum explores the relatively underexposed extreme sports activity of caving. Set in the surrounds of Papua New Guinea, most of the action takes place in an elaborate system of underwater caverns, known as the most inaccessible on the planet. Veteran diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) is intent on discovering the inner-most areas of the formidable formation, with wealthy adventurer Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd) financing the operation. With Frank’s resentful son Josh (Rhys Wakefield), Carl’s inexperienced girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson), and colleagues Jude (Allison Cratchley) and George (Dan Wyllie) along for the ride, the team remain optimistic about the mammoth task ahead of them, until the storm of the century is thrown into the mix.

It is entirely possible that Sanctum is a parody of exotic exploration movies that tend to be fraught with danger, as this may be the only way to explain away the ridiculous plotting and nonsensical characters. Certainly, a cameo appearance from The Chaser‘s Andrew Hansen adds weight to this theory. One can only assume that the film is going to be dubbed for overseas markets, as this is the only explanation for every single person OVERACTING AT THE TOP OF THEIR VOICES. When they aren’t killing or being killed, emotion tends to be conveyed by verbalising every thought that passes through their perfectly coiffed noggins, with hairstyles and makeup that appear to remain in place despite 17 days without sunlight and frequent underwater excursions. The largely Australian cast does an admirable job of carrying this unwieldy action film, despite being saddled with ockerisms like “it fizzed like a dropped tinny.” Yet even they can’t overcome rather pedestrian plotting, dire dialogue and claustrophobic cinematography.

Sanctum is a deeply flawed movie, and most of the blame can be labelled on writers John Garvin and Andrew Wight and director Alistair Grierson. The scribes are content to meander from scene to scene, tacking in a bit of tried and true familial tension and ‘important’ character deaths to keep us on our toes. Grierson is very much (pardon the pun) out of his depth, not really knowing what to do with the admittedly limited characters he has been given. The miscast and hammy Roxburgh has very publicly complained about the problems with working with 3D cameras and looks lost when he isn’t yelling every line. At best, Sanctum is a nature documentary with some actors getting in the way, but for the most part we can tell it was filmed inside a water tank in Queensland – and haven’t they suffered enough water disasters lately?

Sanctum was released on February 3, 2011 in Australia by Universal Pictures.

February 5, 2011
The Dilemma

Opening with a dinner conversation that discusses the very topic of knowing one’s friends and family, the film unravels the dynamic between smooth-talking salesman Ronny Valentine (Vaughn, Couples Retreat) and his scientist buddy Nick Brannen (James, Grown Ups). With Ronny’s girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly, Creation) and Nick’s wife Geneva (Winona Ryder, Black Swan) the pair make a pleasant foursome, with the former duo on the cusp of a more substantial commitment and the latter seemingly comfortable after many years of marriage. When Ronny spies Geneva in the arms of the much younger Zip (Channing Tatum, Dear John), his loyalty to his friend is stretched to the limit. The longer Ronny keeps his discovery a secret, the more the situation deteriorates, threatening to overcome his relationship with Nick on the personal and professional levels.

The film certainly presents a dilemma for the audience. The characters we are presented with in the early scenes of the film are genuinely likeable. While Vince Vaughn doesn’t deviate much from the like-him-or-hate-him cocky persona that he has been offering audiences since Swingers, his relationship with Jennifer Connolly in the film appears to be one of genuine affection. Similarly, what Vaughn’s character describes as the “hero couple” of James and Ryder actually works on-screen in a way that wouldn’t be suggested on paper. Yet having convinced audiences that we should care about the fate of these people, it takes an incredibly long time for anything to come along and challenge the warm and fuzzy feeling engendered by the opening moments. Indeed, it is a good 30 minutes or so before the dilemma of the title presents itself, and like all romantic (or in this case, bromantic) comedies, it takes a frustratingly long time to resolve itself.

The Dilemma never quite decides what it wants to be. While those same opening moments might lead audiences to believe that this is going to be a cut above the typical rom-com – especially when Ron Howard’s name floats by with all of the authority that Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind might suggest – it is not long before the schtick of Vaughn’s one-man stand-up routines peppered throughout key moments remind us of Wedding Crashers or Couples Retreat. Yet every other scene is one of schmaltz so severe that you may literally not know whether to laugh or cry. Just when the film appears to have made an emotional breakthrough, we are once again returned to a ‘bit’. The violence of the confrontation between Vaughn and Tatum could be referencing some of the latter’s roles to date, but it too feels like it belongs in another film altogether. Similarly, the entire sub-plot about the revolutionary engine that the boys are working on serves as an unnecessary distraction at best, but in reality stretches the already flimsy premise out to an incredibly bloated two-hour running time. Like the cars that Vaughn and James are working on, The Dilemma appears to have been assembled in a factory full of people who don’t seem to know they are working on the same movie, but have a rough idea of what one should look like.

For all of its schizophrenia, there are some genuinely amusing moments to The Dilemma. Queen Latifah’s contribution of “lady wood” to the cultural milieu may be the work of pure genius, even if it doesn’t gel with the rest of the film in any way whatsoever. Tatum’s emotional reaction to Vaughn’s harsh confrontation is similarly amusing, and some scenes around Vaughn’s attempts at a complicated cover story provide some crazy non sequiturs. Ryder may have also found a second-wind to her career playing emotionally disturbed psycho bitches, especially after her powerful performance in Black Swan, although like the rest of the cast, she may need to check her contract to see if there are any other studio obligations that must be fulfilled in rom-com form over the coming years. If The Dilemma is a failure, it is a borderline noble one, as if it had simply picked one of the many genres it skirted, it had all the makings of a good film.

The Dilemma was released on January 13, 2011 in Australia from Universal Pictures.

January 15, 2011
Review: Somewhere

Sofia Coppola is the product of a bona fide Hollywood dynasty. As the daughter of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola (Tetro), granddaughter of composer Carmine Coppola (Apocalypse Now), sister of Roman Coppola (best known as a music video director), a niece of Talia Shire and cousins with Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World), it is fair to say that Sofia’s life is a little bit different to most folk.

Her debut film The Virgin Suicides was characterised by a lyrical melancholy that perhaps comes from being raised in this partially artificial environment, and she has been observing the pains of the upper class ever since through spot-on Lost in Translation and the impressionistic but flawed Marie Antoinette. The prospect of Coppola appealing to us about the burdens of the rich, as a surface examination of Somewhere might suggest, is not a terribly appealing one. Indeed, it is safe to say that Coppola has a very different view on the world of Hollywood to the rest of us. Yet perhaps because of a life surrounded by film, Coppola knows the power of observation and the gaze all too well. Supermarket tabloids have proved that as much as we want to turn away from the celebrities and their so-called problems, the possibility of a secret window into their lives is irresistible.

Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a movie star staying at the prestigious Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, his life a series of one-night stands and strippers. With the arrival of his eleven year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Johnny is given a different perspective on the way his life has turned out through the introduction of what is possibly his only human credential in the world. Devoid of all but one friend, Johnny has clearly left a string of annoyed ladies across the world, as a series of random encounters and anonymous angry text messages attests. When Johnny and Cleo part ways, albeit temporarily, Johnny wonders if he can go back to living the life to which he has become accustomed.

In the hands of anybody other than Coppola, this probably would have wound up being a wacky comedy with a series of misunderstandings leading to a saccharine resolution. However, in her pursuit of observational truth, Coppola is not seeking to illicit any emotion out of a scene. More accurately, Coppola does not attempt to illicit any one emotion from a scene, again recognising the power and nuance that can be found in the truth of the observation – and observe Coppola does. Every scene, every lingering moment, almost feels as though it has overstayed its welcome by a minute or so, but as we are taken to the next moment in Johnny and Cleo’s life (much as the jet-setting life of a Hollywood actor is) the jolt is palpable. Although only brief in its running time, Somewhere feels incredibly measured and carefully constructed. In a complete contradiction, it also feels loose and unstructured at other times, as though we are on the verge of something happening, but it is almost impossible to put one’s finger on. Perhaps it is because that like the characters Johnny plays on-screen, he is not actually being a father, but playing the part. Indeed, a broken arm and the presence of his daughter do little to chance his hedonistic behaviour.

Coppola’s films are often difficult to penetrate, perhaps because there is that level of distance between her experience and that of the audience. In many ways, this is why Lost in Translation was so successful: the lead characters were strangers in a strange land, and we were there along for the ride with them. Yet while one could jokingly observe that Somewhere is the latest in a series of Coppola’s films on Rich People Hanging Around Hotels, the more that life is considered, the less important it becomes to place these weighty meanings to the actions of those being observed. Coppola continues her impressionistic observation of the rich that was so blatant in Marie Antoinette, yet because these characters are so much closer to home than the French court, Somewhere comes across as less clever-clever than a pair of Converse in a wardrobe full of period costumes. Still, Coppola can’t help but show off her indie record collection, which seems to be permanently set to the early 2000s, with brother Roman’s favourite band The Strokes featuring prominently.

Buoyed by terrific performances – with Stephen Dorff potentially claiming the comeback kid of the year award and Elle “we hope there’s another” Fanning completely natural and refreshingly down-to-Earth – Somewhere is the type of film that needs to be washed over you several times before it is fully appreciated, but may also leave you feeling damp and uneasy on the first few passes. Although it may be too early in Coppola’s career to compare her with the greats of Yasujirō Ozu or Terrence Malick, the combination of Harris Savides’ (Greenberg) straightforward photography and Coppola’s gazing patience strikes a certain balance that Coppola is yet to fully make her own. Indeed, Coppola needs to be liberated from her own style at times. The ‘poor little rich boy’ motif can be frustrating, especially given that unlike the character of Marie Antoinette, Johnny Marco was probably not born into the life and is not the prisoner of society that Antoinette was. Yet even as he tries to walk away from it, one gets the impression he will also tire of fatherhood after a time and be inevitably be drawn back to the high life. In many ways, it is these same factors that invariably draw audiences back to the observation of the lives of rich people on a daily basis.

Somewhere opens nationally in Australia on 26 December 2010.

December 21, 2010