Atonal Musings, now atonalFILM!

Hi all,
This site has now been replaced by a new site:

http://www.atonalfilm.com/

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Josh

News: Atonal Musings - The Sequel

Just an update for those few cats who've been following my adventures in cineland on this site. I'm currently working a new site, with its own domain, hosting and all that jazz. All the film related content here will be transferred over.

In addition, there will be even more new content - reviews, news and interviews from the world of Film and TV, charting my adventure in the world of film and film journalism.

The site will go live in a few weeks. The short of it is, I will still be updating this blog until then, but posts will be more sporadic while I sort out the teething issues on Atonal Musings 2: Bigger, better, and with more Tina Fey (wait, that's not entirely accurate, but on the upside, there's only four more days 30 Rock returns to the airwaves).

Look forward to seeing everyone on the new site.

Happy filmgoing!

Review: Accidents Happen (2009)

Released April 22, 2010

The struggling family of Accidents Happen

Geena Davis’s career imploded after Cutthroat Island, the 1995 pirate movie that holds the dubious honour of being the biggest ever box-office flop. After an intermission involving Olympic archery and matters presidential (TV’s Commander in Chief), she returns to the big screen in this numbing British-Australian co-production about a family torn apart by unfortunate happenstance.

In tone and theme, it’s a less charming version of Pushing Daisies, the wonderful series that combined wacky Tim Burton-esque whimsy with morbid dark humour. There’s some of that here: “Some people wouldn’t know their ass from an air-conditioner,” our know-it-all narrator informs us as a man goes up in flames on a sunny morning in suburban Connecticut. Beautifully shot in poetic slow-motion, it’s the best scene in the film. This event is observed by the young Billy Conway (Harrison Gilbertson), the son of Davis’s Gloria, a boy struggling to find his place within his fractured family after a car accident kills his sister and places one brother into a coma.

He’s too bland a protagonist for us to really invest in his coping strategies – dabbling in girls, drugs and the odd nude streak through the local supermarket. Davis is however fine as the distraught mother, who spends most of the time on the verge of crying and muttering overly-scripted, inane wisecracks like “I’m so hungry I could eat a crowbar and shit a jungle jim.”

First-time feature director Andrew Lancaster shows a flair for painterly images but is saddled by a mess of a script by Brian Carbee that never settles on a consistent tone. Things turn all serious at the end when the story focuses on the real psychological cost of the family’s loss, and even though the ethereal indie-rock soundtrack encourages us otherwise, it’s hard to care when the catharsis isn’t earned.

Review: The Book of Eli (2010)

Released April 15, 2010

Denzel and Mila Kunis wandering the plains in The Book of Eli

Post apocalyptic movies are all the rage (The Road, Children of Men) and why not – there’s few concepts that are inherently dramatic and provide the platform for existential angst. There’s plenty of the latter in the latest movie from the Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, From Hell), though the point of its confused religious grandstanding is anyone’s guess.

Eli, the man-with-no-name wandering though the generic but oddly beautiful American wasteland, is played by a stoic Denzel Washington. He’s a wizened old survivor who’s become adept at dispatching cannibalistic thugs with his workhorse blade slung over his shoulder. He needs it, especially, to ward off the aggressive Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who launders over a ramshackle town like Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen in Deadwood. Carnegie may delve into a Mussolini biography and have a paperback copy of the Da Vinci Code on his desk, but what he’s really after is the crucifix-adorned book in Eli’s possession. It doesn’t take a great leap of faith to guess the book’s subject and, as per the historical precedent, The Book of Eli follows the battle over this divine text, complete with wildly excessive, but gloriously stylish action scenes.

For two-thirds of its length Eli maintains this enjoyable B-movie Western vibe, replete with a classic high-noon style standoff. But it then turns to serious philosophizing and final act twists which are simply baffling. These WTF moments, weirdly, do not commit the M. Night sin of invalidating all that happened prior, but just act to make it more fascinating; The Book of Eli is nothing if not ambitious. The ideas are silly, but the oddball sincerity is kind of charming, and there’s a stylized exuberance to the images seemingly inspired by graphic novels.

Aside from Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and, presently, Date Night), the very pretty Mila Kunis often feels miscast. Here, her young Solara, a woman intrigued by Eli’s sturdy conviction, is an odd foil for the Washington’s grizzled survivor. A hoot, though, are Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour as a couple of cannibalistic outlanders.

Review: Beneath Hill 60 (2010)

Released April 15, 2010

Brendan Cowell's Captain Woodward somewhere under Hill 60

Spoilers for history: in 1917 members of the 1st Australian tunnelling Division detonated 19 mines under the German front lines in Belgium, resulting in the biggest ever man-made explosion. The blast, it is said, was heard as far away as Dublin. The lead up to this momentous event is the subject of this awfully old fashioned war movie set in the muddy misery of World War I. Don’t expect cries of “war is hell,” existential crises or sharp political comment, Beneath Hill 60 tells its story with a straight face and minimal reflection.

Our band of heroes, plucked from working in the mines back home, are lead by the soft-spoken Captain Oliver Woodward (Brendan Cowell). Tunnelling and explosive experts, they’re literally “diggers,” not soldiers. Before their reassignment to Hill 60, the movie skirts with tensions within the squad and between them and the more highly trained regular soldiers, but the underdeveloped characters are non-descript and expendable. As perfunctory is a relationship between Woodward and sixteen year-old farmgirl Marjorie Waddell (Bella Heathcote), told in flashback, which is low on romance but high in creepiness.

Despite impressive production values and cinematography (and a budget of only $9 million), director Jeremy Sims’ heavy theatre-trained hand is bludgeoning. Music swells, men fall in a slow motion swath of bullets and heroes make the necessary scarifies for the greater good. It’s undone, too, by some peculiar self-conscious acting from men who feel more like NIDA grads than working class miners. An exception is Steve Le Marquand’s as the gruff Fraser, a man who is not afraid to state his mind.

BH60, while delving into the procedures of war rather than its ideology, is no Hurt Locker. That film used specific details to illuminate Jeremy Renner’s adrenaline junkie protagonist. The characters in BH60, on the other hand, exist only at the service of the insufficiently explained plot. Not every war film needs to be a meditation on violence, but they do have to pass the most basic litmus test of any film: making the audience care, something Sims, despite his smooth and earnest production, struggles to achieve.

Review: Clash of the Titans (2010)

Released April 1, 2010

Sam Worthington as the demi-god Perseus

The original 1981 Clash of the Titans was a plodding fantasy epic made enjoyable by the special effects of stop-motion wizard Ray Harryhausen. The creator of innumerable beasts in the Sinbad movies and, most famously, the skeletons at the climax of Jason and the Argonauts, his designs were masterpieces of creativity and subtlety. These are qualities absent from Louis Leterrier’s frenetic remake, a wash of bland CGI monsters, ADD action and self-important dialogue.

Current bigshot Sam Worthington (still struggling with his pseudo-American accent) plays a non-descript, monosyllabic Perseus. The son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), he is none too pleased with his demi-god status after his adoptive parents are inadvertently killed by the malicious god of the underworld, Hades (Ralph Fiennes, in slithering Voldemort mode). As punishment for their rejection by man, the gods decree the city of Argos to be destroyed by the monstrous Kraken – inflated this time to Bruckheimer-sized proportions – unless the beautiful princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) is offered up as a sacrifice. It’s up to Perseus and his disposable band of warriors to avert disaster.

The plot makes little sense, especially since Perseus’ affection lies not with the in-peril Andromeda but towards the helpful demi-god Io (Gemma Arterton). Saving the princess, hence, seems like a plot convenience. Worse are the messy visuals. Already a victim of Leterrier’s poor spatial sense, the post-conversion to 3D is at best perfunctory and at worst, downright atrocious, simply too dim and muddled to be coherent.

Technical ineptitude aside, it’s the creature design and scene construction that reek of laziness and indifference. The suspenseful Medusa confrontation of the 1981 version is here replaced by an improbable battle in a cavern that’s a cross between the gravity-bending maze of Labyrinth and the fires of Mount Doom. It might have worked if, Mads Mikkelsen’s Draco aside, the characters were not already made of stone. I was cheering for Medusa, her demonic cackle one of the few moments of original inspiration.

There’s a joke early on about the absence of Bubo the mechanical owl, the R2D2 cash-in from the original. Bubo’s presence would have helped this movie. And that’s saying something.

Review: Kick-Ass (2010)

Released April 8, 2010

Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl prepare to pummel some baddies

Even with more than half a dozen superhero projects in development (including the all star The Avengers movies), it’s easy to feel the genre reached its artistic peak with The Dark Knight. Instead of following the formula to a tee, this adaptation of Mark Millar’s latest creation deconstructs it by making its characters comic book readers. In other words, it is to the superhero genre as Scream was for horror movies. It’s as much as success too, funny and surprisingly sweet yet featuring an 11-year old girl snarling the C-word and indulging in some cartoonish ultra-violence. Cue the uproar from family watchdogs. For the rest of us heathens, Kick-Ass is a thrilling piece of visceral cinema with a gleeful disregard for political correctness.

Traditional elements are shredded in a pop-culture blender resulting in characters who are familiar yet unique. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is your average masturbatory teenager who would rather be anywhere but English class. A green wetsuit and myspace page later and he’s become Kick-Ass, amateur superhero and star of the most watched YouTube video on the web, a bloody and messy beating of local thugs. He’s Spiderman by way of McLovin. Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) is the scene stealing purple-haired assassin, a mash of Natalie Portman from Leon and The Bride from Kill Bill. Her father is Big Daddy, whom a wacky Nicolas Cage defines indelibly as his own by way of Adam West’s Batman. McLovin himself (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) also appears as the son of supervillain Mark Strong, who should be getting good at it after Holmes, Stardust and Sunshine.

Director Michael Vaughan (Layer Cake) gives each action scene a distinct character – one brutal and circular, one in a continuous take and, in one of the film’s many nods to the iPod generation, one in video game-esque first person. He understands a mash of cuts doesn’t work without continuity, and that the best action advances character. Solidifying the endorphin rush is the deliberate choice of music, largely pillaged from composer John Murphy’s previous work (28 Days Later, Sunshine).

The buoyant thrills are matched by a genuine heart that lies less with Lizewski and friends’ Superbad antics than it does the unconventional Hit Girl/Big Daddy relationship, which optimistically purports how love can flourish even amongst the most peculiar of circumstances.

Review: How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

Released March 25, 2010

Hiccup and toothless give Jake and Neytiri a run for their money

Pixar has had a string of animated hits, critically and commercially, unrivalled since Disney’s heyday. DreamWorks animation was never going to challenge that dynasty but their latest is spritely and energetic, and revels in the 3D joy of simulated flight. That it doesn’t strive for the wit, invention and subtlety of Up or Wall-E is a mute point.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (Jay Baruchel) is an 11-year old Viking whose vernacular seems acquired from too many viewings of Juno. He lives on a coastal village under constant threat from the vicious, titular fire-breathing reptiles. Instead of raping and pillaging, it has been tradition amongst the clan of enormous bearded warriors, which include Hiccup’s father Stoick (Gerard Butler), to hunt these feared creatures. To do so is a rite of passage for every young Viking.

Hiccup is not so sure after downing the dreaded “Night Wing,” who, upon closer inspection, is less a feared predator than a cross between a crafty cat and a lizard. His budding friendship with “toothless” is at odds with his training as a dragonslayer, though his first hand knowledge gives him an edge over the impetuous tomboy – and romantic interest – Astrid (America Ferrera, Ugly Betty).

The story, which wears its young heart on its sleeve, goes where it must. Both adults and children will instead be focused more on the colourful 3D animation (famed cinematographer Roger Deakins is credited as visual consultant), clever humour and the magnificent, heroic score by John Powell; only the most jaded and cynical could not be roused by its energy and scope. An over reliance on action – however well constructed and animated – at the expense of character is the only dampener.

What lingers are the swoops and rolls of soaring flight as Hiccup and toothless skip over the waves and climb into the stratosphere. For those few moments, you’ll feel like you’ve come along for the ride.

News: Scream 4 + Wes Craven = Official

It's official, Wes Craven is to reunite with Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette in the fourth Scream movie to shoot in May. The film will be set ten years later in Woodsboro and reportedly be the beginning of a new trilogy with a new bunch of characters. The original writer, Kevin Williamson, is to pen the script.

Even through Scream 3 had problems and was easily the weakest of the three (also the only not written by Williamson), Sidney's overall story was nicely bookended, so I hope they do it justice here. It's not as if there isn't plenty of new horror territory - torture porn among them - to mine, and with Craven now officially in as director, there's much potential.

Scream 4 is set for release April 12th, 2011.

Review: She's Out of My League (2010)

Released April 1, 2010

Molly, a perfect ten, and Kirk, a modest six in She's Out of My League

This is a slight, occasionally charming broad comedy that would feel more at home on the mouldy video store shelf than at the multiplex. There, it feels like a cheap copy of the Judd Apatow films (Knocked Up, The 40-Year Old Virgin); another valiant attempt to give hope to losers everywhere.

Stuck in dead end jobs, the 20-something male leads pass the time making crass jokes and rating people on a one to ten scale of sexual desirability. Kirk (Jay Baruchel), is a self-professed six, and works as a security guard at an airport. He and his three buddies, who are like the understudies of Jonah Hill, Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd, agree he has no chance with the gorgeous Hard Ten, Molly (Alice Eve). In a refreshing twist, it’s she, blond locks blowing in the breeze, who makes the first move. Family awkwardness, self-inflicted angst and sexual hijinks ensue.

League's concept is tired, but the jokes, when they’re not an American Pie level of crass, sometimes amuse, and nice-guy Kirk’s trepidation with his budding romance will be familiar to many. But his paltry self-esteem is more frustrating than endearing, especially since the traditional boy-meets-girl, boy-looses-girl structure hinges entirely on this character flaw.

Like Zack Galifianakis in The Hangover, it’s the chubby and lovable sidekick who is the funniest creation, in this case an overgrown child played by Nate Torrence. Krysten Ritter, who recently made a memorable appearance on TV’s Breaking Bad, also steals her scenes as Molly’s snappy best friend. They enliven but don't ignite this routine rom-com which, despite its second-tier charm, fails to achieve the elusive sweet-and-sour Apatow mix.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #6

6. Two Lovers

Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix unhappy in love in Two Lovers

Reputedly this was to be Joaquin Phoenix’s final film before embarking on a rapping career, complete with compulsive beard growing and weird talk-show appearances. Whether or not his career switch is genuine or a stunt for a Casey Affleck mockmentary may soon be revealed, with recent rumours that he is return to acting, playing gothic writer Edgar Allen Poe in an adaptation of Daniel Stashower’s book, The Beautiful Cigar Girl.

Either way, his "final" performance in James Gray’s romantic drama, Two Lovers, is extraordinary. His Leonard is borderline suicidal, but also a romantic with a crush on the blond beauty hauled up in the apartment across the courtyard (a brilliant Gwyneth Paltrow). Though it appears otherwise at first, she's as damaged as he is. They're contrasted by the normal girl played by Vinessa Shaw, who is attractive but is missing the allure of her more volatile competition. Leonard's caring mother outwardly disapproves of his little crush, and is played with grace and subtlety by Isabella Rossellini.

It’s rare to find a "romantic" movie that dares to treat its characters like real people, flawed and complex, instead of succumbing to the romantic comedy clichés that have all but killed the genre. Beautifully shot in a cold, icy Brooklyn, Gray's film is a beautiful, moving and heartbreakingly realistic gem. It certainly deserved more than a limited cinematic release.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #7

7. Watchmen

The Comedian and Ozymandias, dsyfunctional superheroes of Watchmen

The audacity of Zack Snyder. It was the most celebrated graphic novel ever written, and also deemed “unfilmable,” by Terry Gilliam, who was at one point attached to the project when it was stuck in developmental hell. And yet the director of 300, with a tremendous respect for the source material, has fashioned an exhilarating comic book film like no other.

It is remarkable that this movie even exists. With no name stars, a meandering non-linear narrative, brutal violence, sex, and, god forbid, such a thing as character complexity, Warner Brothers and Paramount firstly deserve credit for green-lighting a $130 million dollar comic-book movie with uncertain box office potential.

As a movie, it has its problems. The plot doesn’t have a totally satisfying structure, there is one retched performance (a stone dry Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre) and Snyder is slavish, to a fault, to the source text. Yet to do otherwise would result in a movie that does a disserve to the immense achievement of the original novel. This movie is the unadulterated Watchmen, rough edged, complex and provocative. It retains the shades of the book while delivering an exhilarating visceral ride of image and sound. Be sure to check out the more robust director’s cut, which contains 24 minutes of extra footage that brings the running time to a more satisfying three hours.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #8

8. In the Loop

Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), keeper of the curse words

One feels a review of this scathing British political satire is not complete without a requisite dose of expletives. Whether it’s lubricated horse-cocks or a fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers, manic PR spin doctor Malcolm Tucker has a curse word for all occasions. And they flow freely as he attempts to manipulate UK and US power figures into a war in the Middle East.

While a satire of politics and the random decisions that can sometimes lead to war, In the Loop is genuinely hilarious. Aside from Tucker (played brilliantly by Peter Capaldi), there’s Tom Hollander as Simon Foster, a bumbling British politician who draws laughter through his ineptitude, and the US Assistant Secretary of State Linton Barwick (David Rasche), who perplexingly mutters random inanities such as “All roads lead to Munich.”

The screenplay (the movie is derived from the BBC series The Thick of It), written by director Armando Iannucci, among others, was nominated for an Oscar, and was a more deserving than the eventual victor, Precious. There’s few witter, funnier and outrageously satirical scripts around, and it’s a perfect antidote to the flag waving, idealistic portrayal of Washington we usually see. Instead In the Loop presents a political world closer to reality, one that is, in the words of its director, “a bit rubbish.” The film itself, though, is quite the opposite.

Review: Cop Out (2010)

Released March 18, 2010

A game Tracey Morgan and a bored Bruce Willis in Cop Out

Kevin Smith’s (Clerks, Chasing Amy) peculiar blend of witty dialogue-driven humour and sly observation is completely absent from this tired attempt to revive the buddy-cop genre. Those movies, epitomized by minor classics of the 80s such as 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop, worked both as action and as comedy. Cop Out works as neither, and can’t decide if it would rather be a homage or parody.

Take Tracey Morgan. Playing a variation of his manic 30 Rock character, in one scene he’s playing the good cop during an interrogation, endlessly quoting movies in an improvised sequence that could have been born as a Saturday Night Live skit. In another dramatic (TM) scene, he’s having a heart-to-heart with his wife (Rashida Jones), whom he suspects of cheating with their hot-and-single neighbour. This juxtaposition could have worked if either were (a) funny or (b) dramatic, but neither is the case.

Both Morgan and Bruce Willis, who sleepwalks through his role as the more sensible partner, are likeable stars at the whim of a mediocre script by Robb and Mark Cullen. Why Kevin Smith was inspired to make this his first directorial effort from material other than his own is baffling. He admitted that it was “not MY movie,” but “a movie I was hired to direct.” In which case, I would ask, why bother at all?

If it was a test of his directorial ability, then the pacing and sloppy handing of the few action scenes reveal areas for improvement. The plot, meanwhile, is based around the coincidence of Willis’ search for his missing baseball card – worth over $40k and to fund his daughter’s wedding – and a drug dealing ring.

Despite its problems, I didn’t want to flee from the theatre. Both Morgan, and Seann William Scott as a childish petty thief, have their moments, and the score by 80s-synth master Harold Faltermeyer is a snug fit. But Smith, at his best, is capable of greatness, whereas the best I can say of this soulless project is that it lives up to its title.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #9

9. A Serious Man

Larry Gobnick and his reaction to the universe

The Coen brothers have always been adept at creating dark, inquisitive comedies with an intellectual edge, and A Serious Man is no exception. It tells the story of Physics professor Larry Gopnick, an ineffectual man with more questions than answers. The movie is structured around his increasingly futile attempts to understand why the universe seems to have it in for him. All he can come with, as is suggested by friends, rabbis and his insensitive wife (who would rather be with a pretentious nitwit by the name of Sy Ableman) is “accept the mystery.”

A Serious Man works on several levels: as a satire of Jewishness, as a philosophical treatise, and, if one has the stomach for awkward situations, as a comedy. It’s also the Coens’ most personal film, set in their home town of St. Louis Park, Minnesota and based on experiences of their childhood. The cast is superb, with relative unknown Michael Stuhlbarg (robbed of an Oscar nomination) the standout as Larry, the bewildered and passive Serious Man of the title who is of good intentions but no conviction.

I first saw the movie at the Canberra Film Festival and the partisan crowd was already in on the joke. But it’s easy to see how audiences could be perplexed by its blacker than black comedy. Who can blame them when the sum total of Larry’s pleadings to the powers that be is, not a catharsis of answers, but an ominous, gathering storm.

News: Top Ten Movies of 2009 - #10

If there’s one thing movie geeks love to do it is to create lists. Everyone’s doing them. Top ten of the year. Top ten of the decade. Top ten blockbusters with the worst CGI. It’s completely perfunctory of course, and ranking them is, especially, absurd. But it satisfies our natural human instinct to ensure everything is categorized and easily referenced. With that spirit in mind, I will be revealing my Top Ten Films of 2009, in order, each weekday, beginning now with J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek.

10. Star Trek

Kirk and Spock on the iBridge

From the outset of 2009, Star Trek as a film series, and as a TV franchise, was dead. The last two films (Insurrection and Nemesis) were awful, and Enterprise was a valiant, but failed attempt to make hip a property widely known for the opposite. Leave it to J.J. Abrams, the skilful TV auteur behind Alias and Lost, Mi:III and, in concept at least, Cloverfield, to achieve just what Enterprise failed to do: make Star Trek cool again.

Hardcore fans may be upset that Abrams has fashioned Trek into an action-driven space-opera more akin to its fanboy rival, Star Wars. I am not, nor have ever been a serious Trek fan, my familiarity with series extending no further than many: First Contact, The Wrath of Khan and the odd episode of TNG or DS9. In other words, precisely the audience at which the 2009 revisioning takes aim.

With a gleeful energy and abundance of lens flares, this new Trek seamlessly blends thrilling action with a well drawn Spock/Kirk origin story. After Abrams, it is a success is largely because of its cast, especially Chris Pine as Kirk, paying homage to Shatner but making it his own, and Zachary Quinto, a surprisingly good Spock given his bland work as Sylar on the troubled Heroes.

The screenplay (by blockbuster go-to team Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) has its contrivances, but it’s also deft at establishing over a half dozen characters, and doing so with clever nods to the original series. Star Trek is not a great film, but it’s an exciting and polished refashioning of a beloved property, and that’s why it’s my tenth best film of the year.

Review: Brothers (2009)

Released March 18, 2010

The bad brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) and good wife (Natalie Portman) in Brothers

This remake of the Susanne Bier’s critically acclaimed drama has little new to say about the effect of war on its participants. What it does have are three strong performances from big Hollywood stars and a smattering of raw, emotional truth.

Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) is a solider about to embark on another tour of Afghanistan, leaving behind his loving wife Grace (Natalie Portman) and their two daughters. Sam is the favoured and high-achieving son of the grouchy Hank (Sam Shepard), an alcoholic Vietnam-vet who would prefer to ignore the existence of his other trouble-making son, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal).

Sam heads off to war but is quickly captured. His family presumes him dead –but of course, he’s not – and when he eventually returns, psychologically damaged from his ordeal, he resents the tight family unit that has formed in his absence.

The second half of Brothers is an emotional sucker punch, with a series of powerful yet oddly manufactured scenes. While tapping into a timely problem facing many military families, the characters feel more like movie creations than living, breathing entities. This is despite a nuanced performance from Portman, who is wonderful in an underwritten role; the frightening frenzy of Maguire’s paranoid veteran and, most real of them all, Gyllenhaal’s well-meaning but dysfunctional Tommy.

Brothers is not a war movie, but a family melodrama about guilt and acceptance. Its heightened emotions, minimal score and austere direction are a difficult mix. Director Jim Sheridan knows this, and cleverly uses the gentle humour of the family's delightful young girls to offset the tension. It's just enough, together with the performances, for Brothers to maintain its delicate balancing act, but it remains less than the sum of its quite substantial parts.

News: The Oscars 2010

Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and Greg Shapiro lap it up

Here we are again, another year, another Oscar ceremony, one that is possibly destined to go down in history as the one where Avatar did not win best picture. It certainly won't go down as one of the more memorable, with little drama outside of obnoxious producer Elinor Burkett stealing the microphone from Best Documentary Short winner Roger Ross Williams, who won for Music by Prudence. Even Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's jokes fell flat (except for a pearler about Christoph Waltz's Jew hunter having arrived in Hollywood at "the mother lode") and were seemingly reading off a telepromter and without their usually spot on comic timing.

Are they looking for jokes which are actually funny?

But it wasn't a total loss.

Memorable moments include:

- Neil Patrick Harris' Busby Berkeley opening number

- The dances to the original score nominees, the first bunch in years to actually be good scores.

- Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr. presenting together, the only paring to achieve any sort of zing.

Tina Fey and Robert Downey, Jr. making with the funny

- Best score winner (for Up) Michael Giacchino telling budding artists to ignore the naysayers and that creativity is not a waste of time.

- A tribute to (American) Horror movies. Roger Ebert (in a live tweet from the show) called it "Shameless pandering to fanboys & girls." Accurate maybe, but it's still good to see them getting some love.

Christoph Waltz, due next to star in Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet

- Chistoph Waltz's "uber-bingo!" Was it ever even in question?

- Every cut away to George Clooney looking bored.

- The tribute to John Hughes. I've barely seen any of his movies, but the heartfelt words given by Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald, among others, make me want to.

Less memorable moments or moments memorable for the wrong reasons:

- Elinor Burkett's aforementioned mic-stealing incident.

- Jeff Bridges for best actor. Well deserved (and received with a standing ovation), but as George Clooney joked on the red carpet, "Well, he's gonna win, right?"

The Dude with his prize

- Avatar for cinematography? Virtual cinematography over the old-fashioned film of Inglourious Basterds? Tarantino must be flipping out.

- Sandra Bullock's Best Actress for The Blind Slide. Expected, yes, but with her winning a Razzie the previous night for All About Steve, one can't help but feel this is a newcomer vote for starring in a popular tear jerker. But too her credit she joked about it in her acceptance speech, "Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?" Kudos.

Moments that made you say WTF?

- Precious' adapted screenplay win over In the Loop? District 9? An Education? AND Up in the Air? The first three perhaps were never going to win (though In the Loop is the most hysterically foul-mouthed linguisting masterpiece in memory), but Jason Reitman's sublime Up in the Air? That great film got no love at all. Precious' win however, did give screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher the chance to give the most heartfelt speech of the night.

A surprised and moved Geoffrey Fletcher

- The Hurt Locker win for original screenplay is more understandable, though I wish Tarantino had gotten more love for his dialogue heavy WW2 yarn.

- El secreto de sus ojos winning best Foreign Film over the favourites The White Ribbon and A Prophet.

- The double Twilight presenting teams pandering to the young audience. The at best polite applause when Martin pointed them out in the audience speaks volumes (though Anna Kendrick is wasted in New Moon and magnificent in Up in the Air. She's the most talented of the quartet, by far).

The boys from The Hurt Locker in celebration

Overall it was an evening with few surprises and, despite many expecting James Cameron's epic to nab Best Picture (instead winning Cinematography, Art Direction and - gasp! - Visual Effects), it was Kathryn Bigelow's night. Her intelligent and sweaty-palm-inducing Iraq war film The Hurt Locker was a deserving winner, but one still wonders if her ex-husband's blockbuster won't have more lasting significance.

You can find the full list of winners over on IMDb.

Review: Green Zone (2010)

Released March 11, 2010

Matt Damon on the prowl in Green Zone

They might as well have called it The Bourne Zone. Reuniting that franchise’s star and director (Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass), Green Zone is a tense thriller set against the still ongoing war in Iraq. While flirting with the war’s politics and the false justification for the U.S. lead invasion, it is first and foremost an action picture, shot in the director’s typically ragged, hand-held style. Haters of the Bourne sequels’ shaky-cam be warned.

The title refers to the international safe zone in central Baghdad that at one time was the home of the transitional government. Set around 2003, it is there we find U.S. soldier Roy Miller (Damon) on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. He begins to question his intel when his MET – Mobile Exploitation Team – fails to find any of the offending devices. Surprise, surprise. The military’s source, he learns, is only known by the name “Magellan”, and has leaked information to an embedded Wall Street Journal reporter, Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan). Local C.I.A. chief (Brendan Gleeson) also feels something is amiss. A machine gun rattle later and Miller finds himself an ally-deprived rogue on a quest for the truth. Sound familiar?

Say what you will about his frantic style, but Greengrass knows how to construct visceral action. His hard-hitting, quick cut realism is just as effective, in its own way, as The Hurt Locker’s slow-burning suspense. Closely resembling the standard man-out-of-his-depth-and-doesn’t-know-who-to-trust thriller, Green Zone fictionalises and condenses years of revelations and debate about the Iraq war into an easily digestible and highly-entertaining format.

Aside from its telling final shot, the film is not interested in judging the war’s legality, only that it is deplorable to deliberately deceive and manipulate. Miller stands in for those courageous individuals who are unwilling to simply accept dogma without question or justification. Early on a seemingly honest Iraqi citizen tells him there's a meeting of high ranking officials up the road. An ambush could be feasible. Despite the danger, Miller chooses to take him up on his suggestion, to which one of his subordinates responds: “Chief, we’re here to do a job, the reasons don’t matter”. “They matter to me,” he replies. I don't think he's alone with that sentiment.

DVD Review: Mao's Last Dancer (2009)

Released March 4, 2010

The elegant lines of Chi Cao (as Li Cuxin) in Mao's Last Dancer

It's a shame that Mao's Last Dancer has been barely seen outside Australia. Only garnering a release in Germany (oddly) and appearing at a few film festivals, this DVD may be the first chance many have had to see Bruce Beresford’s latest, a broad biopic of ballet-dancer extrodinarre Li Cuxin.

Aside from his dancing exploits, Cuxin became well known because of his 21 hour long detention at the Houston Chinese Consulate in 1981. An exchange student reaching the end of his term, Li had fallen for his adopted capitalist home (not to mention, his pretty girlfriend) and wished to stay. The communist Chinese authorities did not approve.

His story, from a difficult childhood in 1960s China, to his training at the grueling Beijing Dance Academy, to his subsequent stay in the United States, is related in his autobiography which became the basis for Jan Sardi’s (Shine) screenplay.

Dramatic and uplifting, it is an enjoyable but conventional rags-to-riches tale. Beresford is not afraid to tug at the heartstrings or enounciate the blatant themes of race, culture and ambition. But it’s also weak, without the conviction of thoroughly depicting the hardships enforced on him as a child.

That would perhaps have been a better film. As it is the melodrama of Mao’s Last Dancer is painted in broad strokes with touching performances from Joan Chen as Li’s mother Niang, and company director Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood, Star Trek), a soft fatherly figure and champion of his biggest star. Everyone else, including Chi Cao as Li are just servicable, though his dual-language role and superb dancing ability impresses.

Cinematography Peter James gives the Chinese scenes a grimy, grainy quality which contrasts well to the colourful dance sequences. The film’s biggest weakness is the superficial love story between our hero and attractive dancer Elizabeth Mackey (Amanda Schull), which seems to exist solely to allow Li to play marriage card when the communist officials come knocking.

News: Creative Boredom

Never let it be said that boredom prevents creativity. It's quite the opposite, as Saul Steinberg describes:

The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.

For one of my co-workers today, avoiding boredom involved "reviewing" me. Apprently my exploits in the fine-art of film criticism have spread beyond the electronic borders of this blog and into my workplace; I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this collision of worlds. With a penchant for naming me BLACKMAN (my surname, if you're wondering) and the relentless questions of "are you going to review it?" regarding everything from the latest blockbuster to the pencil I'm holding, he took it upon himself to write this awfully well-wrtten gem:

JOSHUA BLACKMAN – A HARRY LAM REVIEW

5 stars

As Tom Jones once sang, it’s not unusual to feel inadequate, inferior and insignificant in the presence of film reviewing greatness. However, due to record company pressure the Welsh crooner was forced to alter these lyrics in an attempt to appease the mainstream listener. But for anyone who has ever been involved in film or its study, dabbled in art or writing, or indeed ever picked up a pen or held an opinion, one cannot help but feel the icy, unforgiving chill under the looming shadow of one master critic. Newton once famously played down his own achievements indicating that his work was only possible by “standing on the shoulder of giants.” Undoubtedly, one such giant was Joshua BLACKMAN.

An enigma, an unsolvable riddle, Joshua BLACKMAN is a man shrouded in mystery and contradictions. His surname – changed to capitals via deed poll in 1986 – is as confronting as it is misleading. Indeed the name BLACKMAN reflects the duality in his ageless writing: ferocious yet subtle. All sightings of this genius recluse suggest that he is actually white, but is definitely a man: a thinking man’s man. He is noted for his slow leisurely gait, yet those closest to him confirm that it is the sheer weight of his movie reviewing mind baring heavily upon his frame that affects his carefree, noble stride. Constantly reviewing, everything from the quality of his coffee, the colour of his desk and even the weather is given a rating out of five. His literary force has been likened to “ten Robert Christgaus strapped to cannons, and fired relentlessly and indiscriminately into the art world”. Such is his influence, that with as little as a simple turn of phrase, BLACKMAN can reduce a multimillion dollar film into a multimillion dollar flop. A master of punctuation, Joshua BLACKMAN once submitted a critique of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet consisting only of punctuation marks. Time Magazine hailed it as the “mark of a fearless mind”. He was only three years old.

Whilst his writing has grown to the same stature as that of Wordsworth and Hemingway, it is his common touch that marks him as a peerless reviewer of films and art. When asked to describe an overcast day in three words, his now immortal response was: “cold, wet and rainy”. Such was the genius and depth of these three seemingly simple words that it has become a staple in the Australian secondary school curriculum in no less than four subjects: English, History, Religious Studies and Physics.

His confronting writing style is at once innovative, challenging and complex. BLACKMAN’s now legendary critique of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor appeared at first to be a wordless indecipherable doodle. Fearing the backlash from a BLACKMAN obsessed public if a review not be made available that week, the editor published this seemingly crude black and white drawing under the title PEARL HARBOR: A JOSHUA BLACKMAN REVIEW. Understandably, the public was confounded by such a brash display of movie reviewing arrogance, yet this startling image was analysed and scrutinised by millions for months on end. Finally, seven months after its publication, Allan Thomas, an English major from Princeton University stumbled upon its meaning, revealing completely the true genius of its creator. Thomas found that by turning the image upside down, what was once an impenetrable jumble of lines and shapes was actually a Michelangelo-esque drawing of a chimpanzee eating its own excrement.

Perhaps it is only fitting that the final word should go to the great man himself. In a 1997 interview, a Village Voice journalist made the mistake of referring to BLACKMAN as the “Descartes of modern film critique” in an attempt to flatter his uncompromisingly temperamental interviewee. Offended at what he felt was a slight which did not truly encapsulate the breadth of his genius, Joshua BLACKMAN concluded the interview with this remark: “I think, therefore I review.”
Harry Lam


Epic, my friend. Epic.

And now, for my response:


JOSHUA BLACKMAN – A HARRY LAM REVIEW
A JOSHUA BLACKMAN REVIEW

5 stars

It was by pure chance of fate that today I stumbled across a great man. A man with so refined a writing style I feel inadequacy brewing in my very being; a life's work thrown into chaos in a second of startling revelation; a vocation so ingrained in one's existence that one feels their soul, ragged and heavy, being torn asunder.

The piece responsible is a stunning work of penmanship published in the Facebook Journal of Literary Criticism. His review of this humble reviewer is the purest expression of the reviewing art yet created by the mortal hand of man.

In it he claims that I, Joshua BLACKMAN, am "an enigma, an unsolvable riddle." And yet it is he who is this enigma. Hidden behind his undying love for the mythical Rabbitos and hatred for L.A. hip hop is a remarkable writing talent. Who knew what was hidden behind that peculiar smile and those uniquely forceful eyes.

When I muttered my description of the weather that cold, wet and rainy day, I felt I had reached the pinnacle of literary expression on a level unmatched even by Hemingway, Dickens or J.K. Rowling, And yet I have been upstaged. The phrases flow easily from his delicate keyboard: "the icy, unforgiving chill," "wordless indecipherable doodle," "a chimpanzee eating its own excrement." It is as impossible to comprehend the complex mind conjuring such sublime turns of phrase.

Goethe said that perhaps "only a genius is able to understand a genius." Accordingly I cannot be a genius, for the complexity of this master's pen is equally breathtaking and baffling, the raging fire of inspiration burning beneath untouchable and unknowable.

I once said "I think, therefore I review." I now realize such a description is inadequate. In this case of this great man, who's name is Harry Lam, it should have read: "I AM, therefore I review."


Like I say: never let it be said that boredom prevents creativity.

News: Chauvel Argento Festival Night #1

The Chauvel cinema in Sydney is having a mini-horror film festival with a focus on the movies of Dario Argento. First up was Argento's 1977 classic Suspiria , followed by George A. Romero’s zombie flick, Dawn of the Dead (1978).

I'll get to the films below, but the main disappointment of these screenings is that they seemed to be projected digitally, which is frankly blasphemous. The images were astonishingly clear, but with no visible grain or tangible film quality, one feels the experience was more clinical than it should have been and, especially for Argento, that the deep colours of 35mm would have added to the experience. A disappointment, but it's still a rare treat to be able to appreciate these movies on the big screen with other film fans.

Next week I'll report on the screenings of Tenebre (Argento, 1982) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974). Following that are Phenomena (Argento, 1985) and The Last House on the Left (Craven, 1972), and finally Deep Red (Argento, 1975) and Eaten Alive (Hooper, 1976).

Details can be found on their website under the events and festivals tab.

SUSPIRIA (1977) trailer


Before these screenings I had never seen an Argento film and I hence approached his most famous creation with great anticipation.

A surreal mind-trip of a movie, Suspiria has laughable dialogue, virtually not plot and some atrocious acting. But it’s also one of the most artful, beautiful and frightening horror movies I have seen. Argento has a way of making ever frame look like an opulently coloured painting, with vibrant use of the primary colours, especially (not suprisingly), red. Not afraid to pile on the blood (as in the famous opening slaying which involves a close up of a knife entering a girl’s heart), the scare quota is somewhat muted by the low-budget effects and too-red-to-be-real blood.

But these characteristics help give the film its disturbing hyper-real atmosphere. Instrumental is the setting of the freakish dance studio - one that could only ever exist in the movies - with its unnerving hallways and dream-like trimmings.

While the acting fluctuates between the stilted and the camp, our American heroine played by Jessica Harper, has the right mix of curiousity and vulnerability. Also in the cast is genre favourite Udo Kier, who turns up in a perfunctory and absurd exposition scene in which he explains the psychology of witches (or something).


But never mind that, with some frightening suspenseful sequences, beautiful photography and a demonic repetitve score, Suspiria is a legitimately great horror film from a period when filmmakers were not afraid to take risks.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) trailer

In contrast with the beauty of Suspriria are the low-budget thrills of George A. Romero's second zombie movie (the first being Night of the Living Dead). Classic zombies don't exactly make for interesting or scary villains with their trademark slow hobble and groans. Hence, despite the occasional intestine-spewing gore, much of Dead plays more like a comedy, replete with aspirations of social satire.

Four survivors of the global outbreak hole up in the ceiling of an abandoned shopping mall. With the entire complex as their playground and an impressive arsenal of weapons at their disposal (some obtained from the convenient gun store in the mall; only in America, you think...), hundreds of zombies are dispatched as the three men and one woman argue over their next move.

There's a wonderfully rebellious tone and some great one-liners that could only have come from the 70s: when discussing Franciene's pregnancy, the tough self-appointed leader Peter says proudly, "Do you want to abort it? It's not too late, and I know how."

The wacky analogies of zombies to shoppers and consumer culture set to innocuous musak is also a nice touch, as is the latter incursion by bikies that suggest the greater threat my still lie in the land of the living (an aspect also explored in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later).


I'm no zombie movie expert, but Dawn of the Dead has clearly earned it's stripes as a seminal film of the genre. A very enjoyable, bloody piece of work.

Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Released March 4, 2010

George Clooney and a goat seeing who will blink first

Do you believe you could stop the heart of a goat with only the power of your mind? The men in The Men Who Stare at Goats think so, and, apparently, some real soldiers in the US military believed they could too.

Based on a sort-of-true story in Jon Ronson’s book on the same name, the film depicts the bizarre training of the First Earth Battalion, a New Age version of the military dreamed up in the 70's in reaction to the Vietnam war.

George Clooney stars as one of the original members of the movement, Lyn Cassady, who is currently on a mission in present day Iraq. He claims to have psychic powers and keeps in shape by bursting clouds with his mind. In flashback we see his training under hippie flower-loving leader Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Most seem to accept the group’s airy Earth-loving philosophy, except for Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who would rather use his powers to learn the ways of the dark side.

That’s not just a snappy pop-culture reference either as Cassiday likes to call himself a “Jedi Warrior”. He speaks knowingly about his bushido to an embedded reporter, played indifferently by an American-accented Ewan McGregor, who thinks he’s stumbled upon the story of a lifetime.

I know what you’re thinking: surely this can’t be a true story? Despite a Fargo-esque claim at the outset, the farce on screen certainly isn’t. More a series of offbeat gags than a coherent satire, it’s a case where the actors seem to have had more fun making it than an audience does watching it.

It’s tricky material, and director Grant Heslov, Clooney’s producing partner, never finds the right balance between flippancy and sincerity. Clooney, however, is entertaining playing a variation of his Coen-brothers dumb guy act, and Spacey gets all the best moments as the angry rebel.

Goats is an amusing diversion (with an appropriately loopy title) but enjoyment wears thin as it becomes clear that none of the characters are keen to wake from their deluded LSD-induced slumber.

Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Released March 4, 2010

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) wandering in Wonderland

Tim Burton's version of Lewis Carroll’s classic is surprising for the wrong reasons. Updating it for today’s 3D craving audience, and with a story shoehorned into the hero’s journey archetype, the director that made the near-masterpiece Ed Wood or even the overblown but terrific Sweeney Todd seems curiously absent.

His usual elements are in play: Johnny Depp as the loopy Mad Hatter, the Danny Eflman score, the emphasis of visuals over story and his wife, Helena Bonham Carter, tearing it up as the manic Red Queen. But despite them and a wonderland that looks like Pandora on acid, it's too conventional, as if Burton was reporting to a committee, rather than the other way around.

Most startling is the screenplay by Linda Woolverton. Drawing more from Through The Looking Glass than its predecessor, the curious young protagonist has been refashioned into a post-pubescent young adult. In this guise her story becomes a simple coming-of-age tale about empowerment and responsibility.

Given this approach, a Jane Austen-lite framing story, in which Alice (Australian Mia Wasikowska, vash-ee-kov-ska) is the impending victim of an arranged marriage, works well enough. But as soon as she tumbles down the rabbit hole, she – and the audience – are thrown into a deliriously excessive 3D imagining of Wonderland.

The art direction and some of the effects are magnificent but, unlike Avatar, 3D was added after principal photography and it shows. The technology has not yet been refined, or at least implemented well, and Alice is an incomprehensible, haphazard mess.

Alice encounters all the usual suspects on her journey: the evaporative Cheshire cat, the wise Caterpillar, the waddling Tweedledee and Tweedledum and, ultimately, the nasty Jabberwocky. They are voiced by luminaries – and half the fun is guessing who is who – including Christopher Lee, Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman. Some of this is wackily amusing but the finale degenerates into a CGI battle that could have been pulled from any recent fantasy blockbuster.

The only unique element is Wasikowska as Alice who, behind her pale beauty and youth, belies an emotional strength otherwise absent from the film. Other than Carter’s scene stealing monarch, it’s only she that offers a lasting impression.

DVD Review: Shrink (2009)

Released February 18, 2010

Kevin Spacey asleep on the job in Shrink

Shrink is a distinctly indie feature with aspirations of being a scathing Hollywood satire. In truth, its jabs at the industry that gave it life are less scathing than familiar and trite – we’ve seen all this before, wittier and more assured, in Robert Altman’s The Player.

From the opening montage set to an ethereal Coldplay clone it’s clear Shrink really wants to be about something, and wants us to know about it.

Henry Carter is the titular psychiatrist, played by Kevin Spacey with his usual magneticisim. When recording his new audio book “Happiness Now!” he says “Happiness is a word for a feeling. Feelings are rarely understood in the moment, they are quickly forgotten and almost always misremembered. And besides, feelings are totally full of shit...”

His misery stems from the recent death of his wife, who committed suicide, and of the frustrating self-obsessive problems of many of his patients. These include an obnoxious movie producer (Dallas Roberts), a sex and alcohol addicted celebrity (an uncredited Robin Williams) and an actress (Saffron Burrows), the most sensible of the three, but who is still struggling with her career and destructive husband.

Carter is awoken from his self-indulgent, pot-smoking slumber by the arrival of Jemma (Keke Palmer), a troubled school student with filmmaker aspirations. Will this be the trigger to make him finally stick his neck out for somebody? In a less conventional film, maybe this wouldn't happen. This is not that film.

The screenplay suffers from its parallel structure – a difficult thing to pull off – which valiantly ties its threads into a big happy knot, but the narrative lacks dramatic drive. A few of the punchlines about Hollywood’s current obsession with vampires ring true, but is it really wise to have not one or two, but three obvious references to The Graduate? (literally, as Jemma observes a revival screening) All it does it remind you of a better movie you could be watching.

Shrink did not garner a theatrical release in Australia, but is now available on DVD. It’s only notable feature is a 22 min interview with Director Jonas Pate and Producer Braxton Pope, who discuss the birth and evolution of the project. Like the film, the video quality of these special features is poor, with aliasing and artefacts in almost every scene.

Diluted by absent direction and a script that resolves everything and nothing, Shrink is occasionally funny but ultimately vapid. By trying too hard to be sincere, you sometimes end up achieving the opposite.