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Ghostbusters (2016)
Don't let the crybaby misogynists and racists put you off
This film is extremely good fun. It has its tongue firmly in its cheek as it makes reference to the schlock from the first film. There are some fun cameos from Bill Murray etc. and Chris Hemsworth hamming it up over the closing credits is a hoot. Far from "spoiling my childhood", this remake brought back fond memories of the original. You'd have to have to be very insecure to think that this remake is going to ruin your enjoyment of the original. That said, maybe this modern version *will* make people recall the flaws in the original (of which there were many) and think more poorly of that - which would of course mean that they should rate this new version more highly. Anyway, haters gonna hate :) Go see it, if only because the internet trolls don't want you to, but also because you will really enjoy yourself.
Noise (2007)
A very well crafted and subtle film
I loved this film. It's a subtle, layered and measured work with good performances and a wonderful use of music and sound design. The story is well paced and again I see it in musical terms with the crescendos and diminuendos carefully crafted and motifs re-occurring throughout. I also found it a visual pleasure - well lit and photographed.
For a lot of the time, the soundscape echoes the tinnitus of the lead character. Constable McGann is a man isolated in several senses and the film hovers for the most part, like he does, on the periphery of a horrendous and senseless crime. This isn't really a police procedural, but an exploration of the lives affected by the event - the locals sitting just outside the event horizon and in danger of getting sucked into the vortex.
There's knowledge hidden from us, the audience, and also events and motivations that are hidden from the protagonists - even those directly affected by them and involving them. To that extent, this movie reminds me a lot of Memento.Meaning unfolds and understanding grows as the film progresses, but at the end, you are deliberately left with pieces missing from the jigsaw puzzle. It seems to me that you are meant to be left with a sense of the fragility of society; a sense that there will always be gaps in the way we understand our relationships to others and in the way our lives play out.
I love the way that the movie ends with austere credits rolling over a couple of minutes of silence, before sound in the form of an orchestra creeps back into our perception, instrument by instrument. We share the hero's aural affliction throughout the movie and the silence and re-introduction of sound offers a sense of change and resolution - and maybe hope.
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Clearly wonderful
Sometimes a film can hit you on a visceral level, taking a known story and augmenting it. That's what happened to me watching this film. The book was strange and fun, and I appreciated it as telling a powerful story about addiction and power and paranoia. My lack of personal experience with addiction and the drug culture diminished my appreciation for the power of the storytelling though, I think.
The movie brings a visual rawness, with the combination of the performances and the animation allowing for those elements in the book like the scramble suit and the hallucinations to be better conveyed. All the main performances, especially those of Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr., were great. Perhaps the personal experiences he and Winona Ryder had were major factors in how they portrayed their characters, but that's not to diminish from Philip K. Dick's great writing.
If you're happy in your bourgeois suburban lifestyle; if you don't want to be challenged about your beliefs in the goodness of the institutions that you trust to protect and provide for you, you should avoid this movie. If you have a feeling that not all is right with the world; that law enforcement and the fight against terrorism is flawed and can even be a danger to society; that drug companies may not be out to serve our best interests; that parts of our society are willing to sacrifice us for their own selfish interests, then this film will appeal to you.
By the way, the animation is inspiring. This is a top-notch film.
Fast Food Nation (2006)
Go read the book
Fast Food Nation is a film that maybe shouldn't have been made. It fails to be either a documentary worthy of the subject matter, or a piece of fiction that holds your attention. There are snippets of nice storyline and characterisations, but they are few and far between.
Catalina Sandino Moreno, as the main female character does a great job, and the storyline about the Mexican workers is well done, but the way the focus shifts between three main narratives, and some of the picayune detail of those stories is unwarranted, I feel.
Some of the younger actors give the better performances, but Bruce Willis in particular is over the top and plays an almost clumsily drawn character. Greg Kinnear's performance is fairly dull, and has no real force as a leading character and the purported means to thread the film into some cohesion.
If you want a film that talks about the way that the realities of a workplace and the search for a place in the world intrude into our happy fantasies, this might be your film. It certainly doesn't work as a exploration of the fast food culture or the meat packing industry, and too much of the interesting depth in the book was glossed over, or missed altogether.
Suburban Mayhem (2006)
Best Actress award?
Apparently this film is nominated for several AFI awards including Best Actress for Emily Barclay. I can understand why - her performance is mesmerising and impressive given her public comments about the problems getting in character. The rest of the cast is very solid as well, and it was good to see Steve Bastoni on screen again, as he haven't been in much lately.
From the start, with a cheesy special effect and the killer soundtrack, you have to either accept the proposition put to you, or walk out there and then. I found the loudness of the music almost physical - it was as much a character as Katrina. Mick Harvey has done some wonderful film-score work before, on Australian Rules and Chopper, not to mention his time with Nick Cave and this one adds to his reputation.
Thinking of films in this genre, that I would compare Suburban Mayhem to, I'd have to go with Natural Born Killers as the top of the list. I don't think that this is quite in the same league as a work by Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, but it's still very well done.
Jindabyne (2006)
A sublime film
Ray Lawrence has done it again. This film has made me see the Australian landscape in a way that I haven't really since seeing Picnic at Hanging Rock. The feeling as the lads start on the fishing trip is somewhat Hitchcockian, since we know that we're going to see the body sometime soon - we just don't know when. There's a sense of oppression and expectation overlaid on the natural beauty, that holds you transfixed.
The film may be criticised since it doesn't try and resolve anything on a a material level. However, Lawrence is more interested in the internal lives of his characters - all of them. He also doesn't want to hand us the exposition on a platter. There's back-stories that are unfolded gradually, making us think about the characters as we are pointed to knowledge of what lead them to their current lives. I'm glad to see a film made for people to think about, rather than spoon-feeding us some clichés about how hard life can be for the protagonists.
Water plays a significant role throughout the movie, from the river where the fishermen find the body, to Lake Jindabyne, and the ghost stories about the drowned town. We're made to dive into the lives of the characters, finding deeper and deeper layers of motivation as we move from the warm surface of their lives to the colder and more fragile hidden depths. We see that the body in the river acts as a sort of stand-in for each character's transformation in a death and rebirth of the spirit.
This is another masterpiece work from a master film maker.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Jack Sparrow has jumped the shark
What was comedic and cute in the first movie has become tedious parody in the second. While the technical effects were good, the story must have been actually written by the Hollywood executives who initially rejected the first movie. I was bored beyond belief.
The only reason that the actors prostituted themselves for this must have been an awful lot of money for the three picture deal. While they appeared to try to give some character to the parts, the only one I felt was really doing more than going through the motions was Naomi Harris.
I just hope that they can get decent roles in the future, and this people forgive them this piece of crap.
V for Vendetta (2005)
True to the intent
Finally - an Alan Moore story that hasn't been butchered by Hollywood. Unlike The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this film has been made by people who like and understand the themes within the novel, and it's good to see what is arguably the best graphic novel (disregarding Neil's Sandman series ) brought to the general public who - by all accounts - seem to be very receptive to the themes (for some strange reason).
It's not obviously as good as the novel which includes more and varied themes that are not even touched on in the movie. The end is let down by the Wachowski treatment which wants to make some sort of superhero matrix-like fight sequence as a highlight of a big-bang action ending. Totally unnecessary, as is a bit of Hollywood schmaltz at the finale. However, overall, the writing is tight and sharp and it's still so much a film for our times, as it was one for the Thatcherite period. Obviously fascist tendencies are an integral part of government - that desire for total control over the population, which is increasingly seen as little more than a tax base and a means of supporting privilege among the few who deserve it (since they were the ones smart enough to rise to a position of power).
Mirrormask (2005)
Mirrormask is sublime
It's possibly the best film I've seen all year.
Serenity was great, but it was an action film without the depth of narrative that this one does. Lasy year's Finding Neverland was touching and openhearted, but no more than a wonderful tribute to J. M. Barry. MirrorMask is visually stunning and inventive and audacious in ways that neither of the others were.
Mirrormask has been compared in one review to a poor man's Alice In Wonderland, and the author seemed to expect that all children's stories should pay homage to it, as if it were the final word in such stories.
While I love Alice, I don't want or expect children's' stories to stay the same as that - I expect an evolution, and Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean have done a wonderful job at delivering a story that combines wonderful dream imagery with a more sophisticated narrative for a more sophisticated audience. Helena is no pre-teen virginal English country girl - she is a teenager on the cusp of womanhood with depressions and arguments and love for her parents, yet wanting to gain some level of independence from them. Someone who both is attracted by and yet repulsed by the idea of growing up.
This film is both her flight away from and towards responsibilities, away from and towards accepting consequences for her actions and her desires. She is a child in a circus, yearning to run away to the real world, yet not wanting to accept that the real world is all around her. The duality of her situation is made more concrete in the fantasy world and she gains a power to act that she did not notice in the real world so that finally she can take control of her life.
Dave McKean's artwork is amazing, gorgeous, and visually a perfect complement to Neil Gaiman's rich story-telling. Themes are expounded and re-molded and replayed in new variations in both narrative and imagery, giving us a deliciously satisfying tale. The actors are all wonderful as well - Stephanie Leonidas as Helena provides a subtle, yet rich performance while Rob Bryndon as her father confirms his reputation from Human Remains as a brilliant character actor. The others are all equally good. Iain Ballamy's score is perfect and the version of Close To You is one of my favourite scenes from the movie.
All together, I couldn't have wished for a better movie.
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Still good after all these years
I just finished watching Stranger Than Paradise on DVD - the first time I'd seen it since its year of release. I'd always recalled the film with fondness, although I could never remember why I liked it. Several years after seeing the movie I came across the John Lurie soundtrack and bought it without stopping to listen, and been slightly taken aback by it. The haunting pieces were more emotionally esoteric than I expected, and it took some time for the album to grow on me.
Seeing the movie again, I understand why. The only piece of popular music in the film is Screamin' Jay Hawkin's "I Put a Spell on You" and, although I had forgotten that it was there, I guess that I had expected the soundtrack to be more like those of mainstream movies and have songs and such-like. I think that Lurie's music is perfect in situ and, as I've said, the soundtrack has also grown on me as standalone pieces.
The movie itself is a masterpiece. The black and white images present a starkness and a clarity that heightens the alienation of self in a land that was supposed to be the new hope for immigrants from a decaying old world. Instead we see Eva walking through a deserted ghost world of New York where the graffiti says "Yankee go home". America is only a dream, a collective vision of a better world; paradise somewhere on earth.
As Willie and Eddie journey west after winning some money, we see that the supposedly beautiful city of Cleveland is cold and desolate with a frozen lake. The further trip to Florida ends in the middle of nowhere next to a bleak and windswept ocean. Paradise is still somewhere out of reach. I think that's why the movie appeals to me. It shows that the America of popular mythology - the home of the brave, land of the free, protector of the downtrodden, guardian of democracy in the free world - is merely a construct. Too many people these days believe in the child's fantasy of America being some paradise that Iraq and Afghanistan should emulate. Jarmusch reminds us that it is people who give meaning to a symbol, not the other way around. He allows for the ability of people to make their own meanings and evolve beyond the stagnation of popular culture.
At a time I originally saw this movie I had recently left home and got my first job, moving from the country to the city, and maybe to some extent I identified with Eva - moving from Budapest to America. It was also my first taste of grownup film, if I recall correctly, and confirmed me with a lifelong fascination with the cinema. I have a lot to thank Jim Jarmusch for.
Must Love Dogs (2005)
One of these things is not like the other ones
* The screen play (in general) * The script (in general) * Diane Lane * John Cusack
Diane is seriously cute; the others are dogs.
Maybe John wasn't given as much to work with, and I generally enjoy his work, but this role felt like he was sleepwalking through the performance. At times he had the manic intensity he can use so well, but I became sick of the one-note moping character he played through most of the movie.
The highlight was the interaction between Diane, Christopher Plummer and the rest of the immediate family, including Stockard Channing as Dolly. There was a real honesty and joy that was lacking from a lot of the rest of the story.
That brings me on to the screenplay and the script. So much of it seemed to be words on a page (betraying the book origin of the story), not dialogue that would be seriously spoken. This was most apparent with John Cusack's part. The movie also seemed to try and squeeze too much into the last half an hour and the pace seemed both forced and on hold at the same time as they dealt with Sarah's fling with Bob (which ended in an almost abruptly artificial manner), and then had the tedious wait before they almost literally threw Sarah into Jake's arms.
There were some really nice moments, however: the initial meeting in doggie park; Jake's obsession with Doctor Zhivago (although maybe it's just my emotional resonances to that work at play here); the sisterly bickering and the family warmth.
I wanted to like this more than I did. 6/10
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Absolute rubbish
Although I found this movie marginally better than the previous two, I find that the utter disappointment I feel in seeing Lucas throw away a great opportunity to tell the story of Anakin's descent warrants the death sentence for this film. So - onto the rant:
George Lucas is a talentless hack, whose only ability seems to be that of depriving me the enjoyment of going to the movies. There is no redeeming feature of Episode 3 - the writing is puerile and undeserving even of a children's pantomime. Lucas obviously has no idea about the portrayal of human interactions, and even less of an idea about how to show a character's descent into darkness. Of course, I've seen nothing in Hayden Christensen's resume to show that he could have handled such a role, even if it was well written. Trying to do it when you're handed this junk of a screenplay must be a thousand times worse.
Any scene between Anakin and Padme was embarrassing for its shallowness, and there was no way I believed that Anakin had any real motivation to turn to the dark side. I suspect that Lucas may indeed be a robot as he seemed to give the best lines to R2D2, incomprehensible to me as they were, and the obvious fascination he has with the animation of the robotic devices and characters indicates an avoidance of any serious attempt to deal with actors and with humanity.
The music is overbearing, and demands that you experience simplistic emotions in line with the bombastic themes, and it's constantly trying to force its way into your brain - there is almost no respite from the din. As an attempt to escape from it, I found myself singing Weird Al's "The Saga Begins" as a mantra in my head.
The only reasons I didn't walk out ten minutes into the movie were that: one, I don't walk out of movies; two, paying the full price for this offal (as I was forced to) means that I felt obligated to get as much as I could for the money; three, I couldn't authoritatively report on the full horror of the experience unless I had experienced it.
What I'd like to know is if there is some mechanism under consumer-protection legislation that allows for a refund if you find a movie unwatchable. Surely the industry is based around providing an entertainment service and, if you fail to be entertained, they haven't done their job. I expect the only way this would work is if you left in the first 15 minutes or so, but I would love the ability to punish Hollywood for producing such rubbish.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
3rd worst in the universe
It's bad when you feel you could walk out of a movie when the opening credits are playing. Even worse when you have to sit through trailers for some crappy movies that make you feel like asking for a refund on the last three minutes of your life.
British comedy shows re-done by Americans are, of course, the third worst in the universe. The second worst are those of British comedy shows turned into American movies. To survive those you have to remember that Hollywood has no sense of humour and that you're lucky for small mercies when any trace of the original brilliance survives at all. The absolutely worst shows of all are done by Americans who feel that they have to replace brilliant comedy with a love story and a big-screen kiss.
Having got that out of my system, there were some cute things. Mos Def as Ford Prefect showed us why the towel is so important; Martin Freeman is a good Arthur; and the Improbability Drive effects were very cute and funny. Some of the Vogon scenes were good, and others were just humdrum. I found that the contractions of the wordy wittiness from Douglas Adam's book appalled me, but I recognise that it's hard to make that work on screen.
I don't know how much the script and production changed after Adam's death, but I think he would have been slightly embarrassed at the end result.
One final thing - what size was Marvin meant to be? When we first met him, it appeared that his size changed between shots. Sometimes he appeared to be about 1 metre tall, and then he looked almost 2 metres tall. Strange... He certainly didn't have the same (lack of) charm as the Marvin from the TV series for me.
Overall, pass marks. I would not recommend this movie to any committed fan of previous incarnations of Hitchhikers, but it's good to finally see Adam's work on the big screen.
The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
well worth it
I've read the comment stating that those who knew the book would be disappointed. I disagree. Sure, some of the additions were less than satisfactory (eg. the tattooing), but in general the triviality of them sits fine with me in the Wildean tradition of lampoonery. I would rate this adaption highly above that of "Minority Report" which (in my opinion) sucked big time.
Even though the treatment seemed at times to almost overshadow the text, it's hard to stop Wilde's gems from shining. Much as I was amused at the frivolities the cast engaged in, it was still Oscar's dialogue that was the highlight. Of course, I think that the casting was the best think about this movie. Perhaps any half-decent attempt at making this movie would work, but the luminosity of performance these actors (especially the women - especially Judy Dench) give is wonderful to see.
Beneath Clouds (2002)
beautiful film
This is a small film but the cinematography is beautiful. The performances of the two main actors is also wonderful and it quite deserves the awards it won. This film tells no big stories of the interaction between the white and aboriginal communities (although it shows the inherent racism of the mainly white police force). What this film does leave me with is a sense of two real, marginalised, teenagers trying to make sense of their place in the world and willing to undertake what journeys are necessary to find those places.
The Hard Word (2002)
Australian larrikins better than Tarantino
This film demonstrates a larrikin-ness that differentiates Australian films within a genre from their American equivalents. There are some scenes that are Tarantino-like, but I don't think that there is meant to be any real comparison. There is a lightness here and what appears to be a refusal to take itself seriously as a genre piece.
The main performances are stand-out, especially Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths. However, some of the minor characters appear to be there only to support plot movement. The best of these is Kate Atkinson as a ditzy blonde, but the rest are cardboard-cutout caricatures.
From an Australian perspective, it was nice to see Paul Sonkilla reprising his police hardman roles from some of my favourite TV series, although he appears to be slightly typecast.
I found the cinematography and the sound production quite well done and overall I really enjoyed this regardless of the small flaws, which end up looking more like positive traits - keeping the feel of the movie real and not produced to death, which is a problem I find with so many Hollywood films.
Baise-moi (2000)
make up your own mind
I went to see this film primarily because of the storm of protest brewing in Australia over its classification, and whether or not it will be given an X rating - thereby banned. While it does not belong to a film genre I see much of at the moment, I used to regularly haunt the Valhalla while it was the independent film centre of Sydney and saw many cult films - compared to which this is neither the tamest or wildest example.
As an adult, I desire no more of a film regulatory framework than to accurately inform me of the existence of things like sex and violence and the levels thereof. On a personal level, I would also like some indication of execrable acting as I find that more offputting than sexual or violent content. However, I suppose that one can't have a perfect system. What I *don't* want is a censorship regime.
This film to an extent rises and falls on the marketing which is applied to it. Unfortunately the distributor was advertising the film as being banned in France which is not correct - it has *never* been banned in France. This marketing tool certainly gave the moral majority (the bulk of whom I would assume have not actually seen the movie) an excuse to call for a ban. Of course, the allegation also increases film receipts by provoking the curious (such as me) to attend a screening. Another case in point is the title which can also be translated into English as "Kiss Me" - that's just not as provoking as "Rape Me". There's nothing like a good controversy surrounding a film to create a box-office success.
I've read the comparisons between Baise-Moi and Natural Born Killers and I agree that there is a general confluence of themes. The Thelma and Louise comparison is also reasonable on a limited level. I disagree with comments that the either the sex or the violence in Baise-Moi is gratuitous. Both are often the only expressions of power available to those society has trodden into the ground. They are honestly depicted, with a raw savagery that comes when a lifetime of frustration explodes into action.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
The Emperor has no clothes
Never mind about polarising the reviewers (or at least the professional ones) - this movie polarised me. The production is spectacular and lavish, the set design is outstanding but stylistically I was left cold.
It's not entirely Baz's fault. He's more of an addict than a pusher, even though I know it was him sliding the needle under my skin. I felt dirty and used, even as (or because) I enjoyed the spectacular. Was I being cynically exploited (as other reviewers have suggested) by someone that was simply out to sell a product, or was I being offered something that the purveyor believed was a valuable insight into the inner workings of society?
I can cope - cringeworthy as it was at the time - with 'The hills are alive with the sound of music'. I have more trouble with the love scenes. It appears that both Christian and Satine are incapable of expressing their emotions except through the regurgitation of lyrics from popular music. I find it hard to empathise with characters who pledge their undying love for on another by using phrases equivalent to 'In the words of Dolly Parton, "I will always love you"'. To be sure, musicals are based around scenes where emotions are expressed in songs, but they also have love scenes where the characters talk to each other rather than quote each other song lines.
I am not immune to having had a song stuck in my head, or to associating songs with emotions and relationships. However, I do not confuse the song for the feelings. If being a romantic is shorthand for ringing up radio stations to get them to play 'our song', I'd have to say that I'm not a romantic. To me, being romantic involves a lot more - and at the very least it means refusing to express emotions at second-hand, which I see as a form of dishonesty.
Baz's characters are emotional vampires, with no emotion but what they can suck from the carcass of popular culture. Maybe that was done deliberately. Maybe Baz meant this film as a satire on our obsession with living life vicariously. Certainly the overall effect was of a caricature, something larger than life - a fairy tale romance - which our post-modern sensibilities will judge as no more than pleasing fiction. The problem is that everyone has to be in on the joke for this to work properly.
I feel that the film faultlessly panders to the lowest common denominator, where love becomes its own caricature and is debased in the process. Technically the film is a work of art, but it ends up feeling like a rock video clip - all style and no substance. I liked this film but hated doing so. Maybe the style was a cynical attempt to manipulate the audience. Maybe Baz believes that there is nothing new to be said artistically and that all new art can be no more that pastiches of existing works. In any case, I was left in awe of the technical achievements but untouched emotionally.
I'm giving this a score of 6/10. That said, I think that it's a great film - possibly a classic, and it makes me wonder why I've given better scores to worse films. See it and marvel. Just don't leave your brains at the theatre door.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Film of the year?
I know it's early days, but this is definitely on the short list. It's so evocative of Nosferatu, and carries the conceit that Schreck was played by a vampire convincingly to the end. The main two performances were outstanding and the supporting cast, especially Eddie Izzard, did a great job. If only Hollywood would produce more films like this instead of the usual garbage...
Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
beautiful and true to the book
I enjoyed the book and felt, based on the shmaltzy shorts that I would not really enjoy the movie. However, from the first shots, I really enjoyed just watching the film. The music score was also very good and underscored the events nicely.
I was also pleasantly surprised how close the narrative was to the way the events unfolded in the book. While I haven't changed my opinion that derived works don't match the original, I feel that this movie has been quite carefully constructed to complement the book. Overall I'm very impressed by Scott Hicks' second offering.