If ever there was a movie made for movie critics, it is Hugo. Directed by Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island), the film, based on the children’s book by Brian Selznick, is on its surface a bright and colourful 3D fantasy about a Parisian orphan boy in the 1930s, whose friendship with the granddaughter of an enigmatic toy-shop owner yields secrets about his own relationship with his father. But peel back that layer and what you’ll find is a love letter: a love letter to early cinema and one of its foremost pioneers; a love letter that has been immediately embraced by a critical community who have fallen head over heels with the pictures reverence for an art-form – movies – that they themselves also revere. In the face of such earnest and unabashed celluloidal enthusiasm, it’s perhaps understandable that those same critics have failed to recognise one thing. On some very basic levels, Hugo just isn’t very good.

It’s an easy mistake to make. Indeed, opening shot – which begins amidst the whirring cogs of a gigantic clock which then slowly fade to reveal the lights of Paris by night – is so utterly breathtaking that it alone might be enough to permanently dumbfound the less discerning. In the same singular take, Scorsese’s camera zooms through the streets and across the bustling halls of Gare Montparnasse railway station before settling on another clock-face. And behind this clock-face lives Hugo (Asa Butterfield; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas). Once the son of a clockmaker (Jude Law; Contagion), the sudden death of his father in a museum fire left Hugo orphaned, with nothing to remind him of his old life other than a human sized mechanical figure – called an Automaton – the he hopes might contain a message from his father.

What surprises most about Hugo is how lacking it is in both stakes and momentum. Despite the fact that our hero spends a lot of time running from the cruel-hearted station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen; Bruno), there is hardly any sense of peril to this film, and zero sense of conflict. When the secret of the automation is eventually uncovered, the story swings abruptly off in another direction, resulting in awkward pacing problems and a climax that feels forced and underwhelming. All the while, the unrelated exploits of minor characters – such as the romance between a café-owner and her chubby patron – recalls Amélie so distinctly that it would be distracting even if I wasn’t one of the few people on earth who considers that movie overrated as well.

As Hugo himself, Asa Butterfield’s line delivery is stilted and awkward; as the wide-eyed owner of a heart-shaped key that will bring the automation to life, Chloe Grace Moretz is even more disappointing. After three times impressing us as girls wise far beyond their years in Kick-Ass, Let Me In and (500) Days of Summer, perhaps she’s just not capable of simply acting her age? But neither child is as cringe-worthy as Sacha Baron Cohen, whose high-voiced performance – meant to be funny – is quite simply unbearable to watch. Ben Kingsley (Shutter Island) on the other hand plays the toy-shop owner, an elderly man whose past is connected to the birth of an art form, with a quite sadness and dignity. The other highlight is Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) who enters the picture in its second half as an enthusiastic film historian whose presence is vastly endearing.

Eventually — spoiler alert! — Hugo is revealed to be a movie about the birth and history of movies themselves, and particularly the work of Georges Méliès, the silent film pioneer. Unfortunately Scorsese – so caught up in his adoration of Méliès – wades far too deep into romanticism. Time and time again characters speak about the magic and wonder of going to the movies, to the point that the effect becomes diminishing – self sabotaging even. Similarly, as much as I, a student of cinema, enjoy catching glimpses of classic films like The Great Train Robbery and Trip to the Moon when they flash across the screen, they don’t serve a whole lot of narrative point. Indeed, the second half of Hugo frequently feels less like a story and more like a lesson in film history.

Scorsese regains some ground with his visual filmmaking. Hugo is by far the directors most CG laden project to date, and new technologies have allowed him to craft some absolutely sumptuous images: alongside the opening, a time lapse shot of a building disintegrating under the elements is one of the most memorable sequences of the year. Unfortunately, it is diminished by the 3D. People have called this the best use of live-action 3D since Avatar, and they’re right. But it doesn’t matter. I will repeat this mantra until the day that I die: 3D filmmaking does not replicate how the eye sees three dimensions. 3D films look less like reality than 2D films. With the exception of certain animations, 3D films are NEVER WORTH PAYING FOR.

As I wrote in my review of this years likely best picture winner The Artist, 2011 may well be remembered as the year that Hollywood’s obsession with its own history reached new and unprecedented heights. Movies about movies are in vogue at the moment, although the disastrous box-office takings of this film suggest that viewers don’t care for the trend in the same way that critics and filmmakers do. In any case, where films like The Artist, Super 8 and even Hobo with a Shotgun all trump Hugo is in their narrative. Those films all pay tribute to a style of cinema – be it silent movies, Spielberg movies or gory, nasty Grindhouse movies – that their directors love and cherish. But they also tell a compelling story. Hugo simply does not. Scorsese’s latest is well-meaning nostalgia, but hollow.

Competition: Win HUGO tix + the bestseller it’s based on!

The Artist (Review)

The 10 Best Films of 2011

New Movie Releases 30/09/10: Dinner for Schmucks, Legend of the Guardians

Our picks of the 2012 Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR)

In the back of an ambulance, a paramedic tries to keep a critically injured car-crash victim talking. He asks her name, and if she has any siblings. At first it seems like he’s just trying to help her remain conscious, but then his questions grow more obscure and personal. It’s just one of many early clues in Alps that something in this world is seriously amiss. This new film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos shares many similarities his previous Oscar nominated feature Dogtooth, the least of which is an obscure title that offers no information about the road of social and moral dysfunction that viewers will soon be travelling. A film of carefully muted tone and technique, Alps unwinds with the same slow tension and detached absurdity of its predecessor.

While the conceit is not immediately apparent – it takes several scenes like the one already mentioned before you piece things together entirely – Alps is about a group of four people – a paramedic, a nurse, a gymnast and her trainer – who offer their services to grieving families as fill-ins for recently deceased loved-ones. For a small fee they’ll be your daughter, your father, your wife. They’ll watch TV with you, hold your hand, tell you they love you. Of course while it takes a certain amount of despair to consider hiring an “alp”, it pales in comparison to the psychological issues it takes to be one. As conflicts within the group start to surface, the distinction between their actions and flat-out prostitution becomes increasingly difficult to make out.

The four key cast members, including and especially Dogtooth carry-over Aggeliki Papoulia, do an excellent job playing characters who, ironically enough, are pretty terrible actors. Watching the group members awkwardly attempt to fill the shoes of a sixteen year old tennis prodigy or a husband of fifty years is ludicrously unconvincing, and frequent tongue-in-cheek references to Hollywood actors and movies only highlights this fact. Whether it’s parents asking their “daughter” about her day, or a lamp salesman re-enacting the end of his marriage with a happier ending, comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin in a Lanthimos production, and are communicated with the exact same deadpan indifference.

With its somewhat lethargic pace and consciously alienating premise, Alps will not be for everybody. But the direction – tiresome out-of-focus backgrounds aside – also creates some fantastic scenes of uncomfortable suspense. A single moment of violence is timed for perfect effectiveness, while the climax blends the bleak and bleakly comedic with incredible skill. Given its obvious tonal similarities to Dogtooth, one wonders if this film is meant as a part two in a surreal, depressive thematic trilogy. Fingers crossed.

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Alps was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)

Room 514 (IFFR Review)

Kill List (IFFR Review)

Kotoko (IFFR Review)

Our picks of the 2012 Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR)

In Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a man’s penis turns into a power-drill while having sex with his wife. She’s into it. In the sequel, Body Hammer, a man’s arm ruptures and transforms into a gun, which he then uses to shoot his infant child. Japan’s answer to David Cronenberg (The Fly), the films of Shinya Tsukamoto have always been horrifically confronting. But his latest outing – Kotoko – deals less with corruption of the body than it does with corruption of the mind. Which is not to say it is any less hideous or bizarre. Exactly like its protagonist, with whom the movie shares its name, Kotoko is insane. Wild, beautiful, random, intense, surreal, suffocating, confusing, funny, disgusting, upsetting… and completely and utterly mad.

In a nerve-wracking performance, Japanese singer Cocco plays the title role of Kotoko, a frail, mentally disturbed single mother who hallucinates about strangers attacking her, and fantasizes about dropping her baby son off of a roof. It’s not long before social services take the child away from her, leaving her to descend even further into madness and mistrust. Yet in spite of her insanity, love is not off the cards for Kotoko: a famous novelist, played with adorable persistence by director Shinya Tsukamoto himself, soon begins to seek her hand in marriage.

Truthfully, Kotoko barely has a plot. Not much actually occurs in the film, and what does makes very little sense. Tsukamoto, who writes, directs, produces, acts and edits, is aiming more to cultivate an atmosphere; a kind of Black Swan style intensity that captures the total chaos of his heroine’s brain. In that he is successful. His frantic camerawork, editing and sound-design overwhelm the senses, while tranquil interludes accompanied by children’s music box music or the sound of Kotoko singing only increase the audiences suspicions that they themselves are going crazy.

The film has no discernible genre either. Kotoko is frequently violent and disturbing, yet at other moments it’s downright hilarious (in the darkest of ways, mind you). But what’s most surprising is how touching it is. When Kotoko is given permission to visit her son, now living happily in the care of her sister, their interactions are heartbreaking. The interplay between her and her suitor, meanwhile, almost resemble that of a romantic screwball comedy… if Katherine Hepburn repeatedly stabbed Cary Grant with a fork, that is.

One criticism of Kotoko is that, even at only ninety-one minutes, it feels a bit too long. The film is a weird and wonderful assault on sense and sensibility alike, but the mind can only take so much, and the last fifteen minutes could have been cut entirely without any real damage to the story (what story?). Even so, as an exercise in madness, Kotoko is kind of incredible.

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Kotoko was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Ace Attorney (IFFR Review)

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)

Room 514 (IFFR Review)

Alps (IFFR Review)

Kill List (IFFR Review)

In Room 514, a young, idealistic military investigator tries to get to the bottom of alleged abuses of Palestinian civilians by a decorated Israeli commander. A minimalist low-budget drama set largely in the eponymous interrogation room, the picture is earnest in its attempts to explore the difficult issues it raises, and is at times compelling in its storytelling. But the ugly camera-work and unpolished script are such a constant hindrance, and make the movie impossible to recommend.

Room 514 is the first film from writer/director Sharon Bar-Ziv, and unfortunately, it shows. The central conflict of his script is really engaging, especially thanks to a determined performance from lead actress Asa Neifeld, and a terrific supporting turn from Udi Persi as the soldier she is interrogating. But the cinematography is unforgivably poor. Bar-Ziv jitters and wobbles his handheld camera – always uncomfortably close to the actor’s faces – in a typically misguided attempt to add realism and grit. He’d have been better off just sitting the thing on a tripod and letting the actors do the heavy lifting.

With only a handful of locations and half a dozen actors to work with, it’s obvious that the limited budget informed the script and has restricted Bar-Ziv’s ability to dive more deeply into the issues he is trying to explore. Instead, he offers up a boring subplot involving Anna’s sexual affair with her engaged superior officer, a thread which does little more than pad out the runtime, and inadvertently kill any momentum that the central conflict might have been gathering. The same is true of the seemingly random black-and-white cut away sequences of Anna in private (eventually revealed to be part of an ending that feels tacked on and redundant).

Although not without its strengths, Room 514 ultimately suffers due, mostly, to lack of money and experience. Other movies – Park Chan-Wook’s phenomenal Joint Security Area, for example – have done this concept better. As have most police shows.

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Room 514 was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Kill List (IFFR Review)

Joint Security Area [2000] (KOFFIA Review)

Alps (IFFR Review)

Clip [Klip] (IFFR Review)

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)

Prolific Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike is best known for ultra-violent, controversy-sparking pictures including Audition, Ichi the Killer and last year’s 13 Assassins. His most recent film, however, might be most readily described as a family comedy, based on a popular Nintendo video game called “Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney”. Well, as it turns out, when it comes to Miike I’ll take bloody over funny every time. Goofy without being amusing, loud without being exciting, and arduously long without any reason to be so, Ace Attorney is completely intolerable, from start to painfully-protracted finish.

Narimiya Hiroki stars as Phoenix Wright, a low on the totem-pole defence attorney called up to the big leagues when he signs on to defend a young woman he believes has been wrongfully accused of murdering her sister, a woman who was also his colleague. As it turns out, this is only the first of several trials that make up Ace Attorney’s two hour and fifteen minute runtime – after going head to head with Phoenix in round one, star prosecutor Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saito) also finds himself on the stand for murder. As things progress, it slowly becomes clear that all the killings are somehow connected to a cold case from more than fifteen years ago, which Phoenix must solve in order to clear the names of his clients.

It’s likely that some of the appeal of Ace Attorney lies in its cultural roots. There is a distinctly Japanese flavour to the movie, and from the over-the-top character mannerisms to the increasingly ludicrous hairdos, Ace Attorney frequently resembles a live action anime, manga or video game. Some audiences might find the pictures unabashed silliness endearing or entertaining, but from my perspective – a Westerner with no familiarity with the source material – the total absurdity of the picture almost immediately begins to grate. Wright himself goes from incompetent to legal genius then back to incompetent without a seconds notice, while minor comic characters, with names like Larry Butz and Dick Gumshoe (he’s a detective, get it?) stay excruciating useless throughout.

Miike is an extremely talented filmmaker, and occasional moments throughout the film – a shot here, a sequence there – reflect this fact. But that only makes Ace Attorney all the more baffling. Was this a passion projects of his, or did he simply do it for the paycheck? And why, for the love of all that is good and holy, is this movie over two hours long? At least comparable American “comedies”  like Zookeeper or Jack & Jill  (yes, it’s that bad) have the decency to keep things close to ninety minutes.

A lot of Miike’s movies feature torture. Watching Ace Attorney is torture. Avoid at all costs.

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Ace Attorney was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Kotoko (IFFR Review)

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)

The Lincoln Lawyer (Review)

13 Assassins (MIFF Review)

Kill List (IFFR Review)

The Wicker Man by way of Pulp Fiction, Kill List does not go where you expect it to. Shot on an indie-film budget by sophomore director Ben Wheatley’s (whose debut film Down Terrace garnered considerable acclaim), the film follows two contract killers driving around the English country-side with a list of people they’ve been hired to rub out. But mysterious things are afoot, and soon the mission takes a nightmarish left turn. Smartly written, acutely acted, with a surreal atmosphere and some deliciously grizzly visuals, this is a smart and sinister concoction that comes out of the oven as one of the most fascinating thrillers of the past few years.

Jay (Neil Maskell; The Football Factory) doesn’t want to go back to work. Eight months after a traumatizing “incident” in Kiev, he’d rather spend time at home with his seven year old son, or work on installing a Jacuzzi in his backyard. But his wife Shel – a beautiful, fiery Swede (MyAnna Buring; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) – says they need the money, and she’s right. Unlike most films of this ilk, Shel knows what Jay has to do to earn a living. This idealistic family, like this film, is not what it appears. A dinner party with Jay’s old colleague Gal (Michael Smiley; Burke & Hare) – a good humoured Irishman – turns hostile when the issue of work arises. But it’s enough to prompt Jay to go back on the road, taking a job that Gal nonchalantly refers to as “nothing too strenuous”.

“Nothing too strenuous” turns out to be assassinating three people – a priest, a librarian and an M.P. Yet for Jay and Gal, it really isn’t that big a deal. Like Pulp Fiction’s Jules and Vincent, or Ken and Ray from 2008s phenomenal In Bruges, these two go about their business with calm professionalism, keeping themselves entertained in the interim with highly amusing banter. Minimalist and clever, the script is credited to Wheatly and Amy Jump, with additional dialogue “by the cast”. Maskell and Smiley have fantastic chemistry, and their naturalistic improvisation lends the picture an authentic feel that sticks around even as their missionbecomes increasingly bizarre.

But amidst the laughter, Wheatly lets us know early that something is amiss. Before the job even begins, a dead rabbit appears in Jay’s backyard. Later, Gal’s seemingly normal dinner date carves a demonic symbol on the back of a mirror when she’s left alone. Once the duo are on the job, the isolated locales – vacant hotels, rustling woods – carry an ominous emptiness that creates sensations of dread that are then heightened by jumpy editing and a wonderfully eerie score. Slowly these feelings begin to wear of Jay and Gal, who begin to doubt the nature of an employer who makes them sign in blood. When they discover a secret about their second target, Jay looks increasingly likely to snap.

When things change, they change dramatically. An absurd but wholly terrifying cavalcade of occult images that sear themselves into your brain, the climax of Kill List is the finest kind of gut-clenching, white knuckle horror. You’ll have questions regarding the ending – I certainly do. But “was it worth it?” won’t be one of them.

Kill List is currently available in Australia on DVD.

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Still Life was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Room 514 (IFFR Review)

Alps (IFFR Review)

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)

Ace Attorney (IFFR Review)

Kotoko (IFFR Review)

When twenty-something Bernhard (Christoph Luser) discovers that he father is sleeping with a prostitute, he thinks that’s bad enough. But after learning that his father asks to call the woman “Lydia” – the name of his own daughter and Bernhard’s younger sister – the reverberations threaten to tear apart his entire family. Still Life [Stillleben], from Austria, boasts a challenging but fascinating conceit, only to waste it amidst long stretches of wordlessness that quickly drown out brief moments of greatness.

When Bernard reveals his father’s secret, the characters – mother, son, sister and father himself – quickly splinter off and wander aimlessly, alone. It’s meant to demonstrate how each member of the family deals with the revelation, and yet each reaction seems more or less the same: shock, disgust, sadness. In individual moments, first time Austrian director Sebastian Meise uses silence to incredible effect, but as the quiet stretches on and on, you increasingly want the characters to speak, to argue, to weep. In brief conversations the actors are shown to be strong and willing, but their director never lets them really demonstrate their talents.

Towards the end of the film the siblings come to a kind of reconciliation, and it seems at last that Meise will get around to exploring the effects of their fathers actions on the family as a unit whole. But then, abruptly, the movie simply ends, and the audience is left with no explanation or catharsis. Which is, I suppose, the intention: the movie is called Still Life after all. But one never finds much point amongst the stillness.

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Still Life was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Funny Friday: ‘The Social Network’ Parodies

Funny Friday: Twilight…for guys!

Interview: Jonathan Teplitzky, writer/director of BURNING MAN

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Video Review)

The Hangover Part 2 (Video Review)

Clip is a Serbian film that I found more disturbing than A Serbian Film. The latter picture gained notoriety last year for its graphic depictions of rape, incest, paedophilia and necrophilia, and was the result of additional controversy in Australia after it was refused classification – banned – by the Australian classification review board. Personally however, I found the content of director Srđan Spasojević movie to be so ludicrous – and so explicitly designed to generate controversy – that it never really provoked much of a reaction. Not so with Clip. The directorial debut of twenty-eight year old filmmaker Maja Miloš, the sexual content in Clip is less extreme than in Spasojević’s film, although its depiction is no less graphic. But unlike A Serbian Film, there is gravity to Miloš’ picture; a severity – if not a realism – that is genuinely challenging, and provokes a far more visceral reaction.

Protagonist Jasna (Isidora Simijonovic) is a teenage girl who seeks to drown her misery in the desolate shallows of sex, drugs and alcohol. Alienated from her home life, she treats her family – younger sister, overworked mother and terminally ill father – with hostility and contempt. Her nights are spent in dingy clubs or wandering the desolate streets of her decaying Serbian town with her friends, camera phone permanently recording in her hand, trying desperately to gain the favour of Djordje (Vukasin Jasnic), a popular boy in her class. And she’s willing to commit the most humiliating sexual acts in order to do so.

The callousness of Djordje treatment of Jasna is abhorrent, but what disturbs even more is her continual compliance. Miloš shoots the sex scenes as she shoots the rest of the film: with a detached stillness that neither judges the characters or spares their audience from discomfort (the depiction of sexual activity in this film is extraordinarily explicit). She also frequently intercuts footage from Jasna’s phone, which the misguided girl uses to document every facet of her life. This is a particularly brilliant touch that not only adds a sickening layer of realism to the film, but also raises questions of viewer culpability in regards to the contemporary cultural obsession with viral videos…and amateur pornography.

Simijonovic performance – a debut – is haunting. Beyond obvious compliments about her unflinching bravery in going through with such a role, there is a clear internal sadness to her portrayal of Jasna that is profoundly moving. Specific reasons for her characters behaviour are never outlined – is it her failure to deal with her father’s illness, poor parenting, or just a typical teenage desperation to belong? Her horrible treatment of her family makes it hard to like her, but her suffering makes her pitiable.

Clip falls into the same category of recent films like Snowtown and The Human Centipede 2: brave in its content, compelling in its bleakness, impressive in its artistry. The kind of picture you can appreciate and be glad you saw, then never watch again.

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Clip was reviewed as part of our coverage of the 41^st International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

You can read all of Tom Clift’s coverage of the festival here.

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)

Room 514 (IFFR Review)

Ace Attorney (IFFR Review)

Kotoko (IFFR Review)

Kill List (IFFR Review)

In 2004, Australian filmmaker Stephan Elliott fell from a cliff whilst skiing, breaking his back, pelvis and legs. He was given 20 minutes to live, but given that this is not a posthumous interview, live is what he did. The road to recovery was long, but this near-death experience renewed Elliott’s vigour to make movies, much of which he’d lost after a decade of disappointing followups to his breakout hit The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

I doubt it’s a coincidence, then, that Elliott’s new screwball comedy A Few Best Men  is set against the backdrop of a sheer cliff overlooking the Blue Mountains, on the edge of which a bride and groom blissfully plan to unite. Of course, much like Elliott’s own cliff experience, the result is nothing short of disastrous. Only this time it’s hilariously disastrous.

Unmistakably written by Death at a Funeral‘s Dean Craig, A Few Best Men follows a trio of brash British groomsmen as they attend — and destroy — their best friend’s lavish Australian wedding. It’s a rapid-fire farce that rivals the snowballing absurdity of The Hangover and Bridesmaids, but as the film’s Australia Day opening suggests, A Few Best Men is uniquely and proudly a home-brew production.

Whilst Elliott was promoting the film in Adelaide, I was given the opportunity to sit down with the candid Aussie filmmaker and talk about the ins and outs of making people laugh, from filming one of the most dangerous and hilarious stunts of the movie, to his  traumatic teenage years as a wedding videographer where he saw it all, and then some.

You can watch our interview below:

Funny Friday: ‘The Social Network’ Parodies

Funny Friday: Twilight…for guys!

Interview: Jonathan Teplitzky, writer/director of BURNING MAN

The Hangover Part 2 (Video Review)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Video Review)

Boy meets horse. Boy looses horse. Boy gets horse. It’s the classic formula for a Hollywood love story – albeit with a slightly equestrian twist –and also the plot of War Horse, the latest film from director Steven Spielberg (Tintin), based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo and the award-winning stage production by Nick Stafford. The story follows a horse, named Joey, in a war, named The Great War, and recounts all the ways in which peoples lives were changed through their encounters with the eponymous animal. Like most Spielberg productions, War Horse is populated with many great scenes – scenes of horror, heartbreak, triumph and joy. Unfortunately, they’re trapped in a film that is far too long, and helmed by a director who has failed to differentiate between genuine feeling and cheap emotional manipulation. A little bit of sentiment is one thing, Steven. But this is simply labourious.

From the moment that Albert Narracott (newcomer Jeremy Irvine) lays eyes Joey, he feels a connection that is destined to last a lifetime. A gift to Albert from his father (Peter Mullan; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1), Joey is a strong, wilful but loyal young horse, one who Albert must train to plough the fields lest their home be repossessed by their heartless, money-grubbing landlord (Peter Thewlis; Deathly Hallows Part 2). These first thirty minutes of War Horse are the most insufferable of the lot, as the script drags us through and across every syrupy valley and peak – Joey’s initial failings as a plough-horse to his eventual, plot-assured success – with laughable indulgence. Spielberg shoots scene after scene against the orange sky of dusk – the so called golden hour – as if too lend his story additional dramatic weight. Similarly, John Williams’ tirelessly mawkish score feels explicitly designed to turn every wistful gaze between boy and horse into a tumultuous rollercoaster ride of cloud-parting, earth-shattering emotion.

Things pick up to a canter once war breaks out, and Joey is sold off to a young Major (Tom Hiddleston; Thor) in the British cavalry and is shipped across the English Channel to fight the Germans in France. But with the tides of war constantly changing, it’s not long before Joey changes hands again. And then again. And again. This is the crux of War Horse’s problems. While Joey remains constant, his human owners are constantly changing, and with each new one – be they soldier or civilian, French, English or German – it gets harder and harder to become invested in their stories. Joey, meanwhile, remains consistently a horse. The “performances” of the fourteen different animals that play Joey are fantastic, yet try as I might, I cannot put as much stock in a horse’s life as I can in a person’s.

The reason for the film’s structure – really a series of vignettes – is obvious. Spielberg (and Stafford before him, and Morpurgo before him) wishes to communicate the far reaching devastation of war. In that, the film is successful, and many of the battle sequences, although bloodless, are so intense that parents would do well to leave small children at home. Conversely, there are moments in War Horse that communicate the goodness and humanity that exists in all people, regardless of country or creed. In these moments, War Horse is truly touching.

But the reality is that these scenes would have been so much more powerful if the film wasn’t attempting – and failing – to provoke that same teary sensation for literally its entire runtime. Predictably, the last ten minutes of the movie slide right back into deplorable treacle, ensuring that it is the film’s weaknesses, rather than its strengths, that are on your mind when the end credits role.

Secretariat (Review)

Australian Box Office Report 18-21 Nov 2010: Harry Potter 7 dominates

Australian Box Office Report: Nov 25-28 2010

WTF: Is Voldemort Harry Potter’s tamest villain?

Australian Box Office 16/12/2010: Tron trumps Megamind

Released back in 2003 when twilight was still a time of day, the original Underworld was a mildly entertaining B-movie that did the whole vampire vs. werewolf thing before, you know, doing the whole vampire vs. werewolf thing was considered uncool. The film was made on a comparatively small budget of $22 million, lending it a certain underdog appeal as it went up against box-office goliath Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Of course, the film’s biggest drawcard remained pale British beauty Kate Beckinsale decked out in skin-tight leather, gunning down hordes of Lycans (aka werewolves) with dual pistols and deadpan diligence, much like an S&M Lara Croft.

But then came the rote sequel Evolution (2006), followed by the pointless prequel Rise of the Lycans (2009). Somewhere in between Twilight happened, singlehandedly destroying centuries of vampire mythology with a single sparkle.  And now we have Underworld: Awakening, a 3D sequel that proves, yet again, that whatever cultish charms the original had, it’s all but ashes now.

After her absence from the prequel, Beckinsale is back in black as Selene, a vampire who previously betrayed her species by falling in love with a hybrid named Michael (Scott Speedman). As the title implies, humanity has finally awakened to the existence of Vampires and Lycans and has systematically begun to exterminate them, prompting Selene and Michael to try and escape the city. Admittedly, I found myself rooting for the humans during these early scenes, as for all the excuses mankind have used to justify the culling of a subspecies, I think “because they drink our blood and maul our faces!” is one of our better ones. Either way, it’s not long before the film reverts to just being about vampires and werewolves again, with humanity back to believing that the purge was successful and the two no longer exist.

While I admit there is slightly more plot to it than that, I hope you’re not seeing this movie for the story. The end credits, if you make it that far, reveal that the film is the work of Swedish duo “Mårlind & Stein”, which sounds more like an accounting firm than a pair of filmmakers. I suppose that would explain their cold and clerical direction, profit-raising addition of needless 3D and a screenplay about as creatively written as a tax return. Perhaps these are the same guys who do the bookkeeping for Paul W. S. Anderson’s similarly awful Resident Evil series?

Clocking in at 88 minutes, at least it’s over quickly. The writers come up with any old excuse for Beckinsale to flip around the room in her black leather outfit, which is seemingly as indestructible and flexible as she is. It clings to her slim figure like Glad Wrap, so I shudder to think where she keeps her endless supply of ammunition and grenades. Doesn’t it get sweaty in there? Come to think of it, do vampires even perspire? According to Google, the answer is no, no they don’t.

These are the things you ponder when, for the umpteenth time, someone is sliding down a corridor in slow-mo like it’s 1999. The film even has the nerve to steal that silly scene from The Matrix Reloaded where Neo kick-starts Trinity’s heart by squeezing it with his bare hands. Honestly, if you’re going to steal stuff from The Matrix, at least steal the good bits.

Still, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is coming out later this year, right? So at least this will only be the 2^nd worst vampire vs. werewolf movie of 2012.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (Review)

Cinema Releases – January 22, 2009

Win a TWILIGHT – NEW MOON Prize Pack!

Jonah Hill considering directorial debut with ‘The Kitchen Sink’

Resident Evil: Afterlife (Review)

The sophomore effort of writer/director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories), Take Shelter calls to mind the story of Noah, only to repaint the biblical hero as a paranoid schizophrenic. It begins when a Middle American family man named Curtis LaForche, played with ground-shaking intensity by Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road), becomes convinced that an apocalyptic storm is just beyond the horizon and is compelled to take drastic action in order to save his family.

Early scenes around the kitchen table demonstrate the relative contentment within the LaForche household. Curtis has a steady job managing a construction site, while his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain; The Tree of Life) makes hand-sewn crafts to sell at a weekend market. Their pre-school aged daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) is deaf, but an upcoming operation aims to restore her hearing. There is love in this family; real, tender, easy-going love. But the threads begin unwind once Curtis starts to suffer from intense nightmares and hallucinations. Fearing that the same mental illness that consumed his mother in her thirties has begun to affect him, he hides his paranoia from his friends and family, and becomes obsessed with expanding the hurricane shelter in his backyard.

The dream sequences in Take Shelter are reminiscent of the very best kind of psychological horror films, as Nichol’s combines sights and sounds to create a climate of suffocating tension. Eerie images of oily rain and darkening thunder clouds fill Curtis’ head, and as his mind deteriorates further, the hallucinations turn violent — first his dog attacks him, then it’s people. The sublime score by David Wingo combines low strings and what sounds like wind chimes, as if the music is signalling the approaching storm.

Unfortunately, Nichols’ changes tact after the opening act, scaling back the nightmares to focus more on the family drama. There’s subtext in spades, as the film discusses not just mental illness, but also climate change, faith, economics and the American healthcare system. But the drop-off in intensity is noticeable, and the low-key narrative is not always enough to hold your attention when the atmosphere ceases to build.  That said, when the climax touches ground it is nothing short of spectacular, and rocks the picture with hurricane force.

Speaking of force, Michael Shannon has never been better. At one point Curtis mentions how he was raised by his father, and it is clear that he has inherited the typical male inability to express his feelings. When the delusions start, the terror and desperation is present in his eyes even as he tries to mask it with stoicism and deceit. As Curtis’ paranoia increases, Shannon’s performance grows grander and grander, before exploding in a whirlwind of fear, frustration and rage. As a counter point to Curtis’ maleness, Jessica Chastain plays Samantha with maternal understanding and steady determination. Between her work in The Tree of Life, The Help and now Take Shelter, there is little doubt that the heretofore unknown Chastain is one of the great discoveries of 2011.

But while Take Shelter is a marvellously composed film, it is also one that holds you at a distance. You are asked to admire the craft; to appreciate the immaculate framing, the beautiful music, the thought-provoking metaphor and the career best performances. But the amalgamation of these qualities never comes close to the sum total of its parts, and as a result the film is rarely as compelling or capable of conjuring the same emotion of a Black Swan or Shutter Island. To be fair Nichols isn’t trying to make those films, but at times I wish he had been. Those films grip you on a visceral level, one that the clinical Take Shelter simply does not equal.

–

Take Shelter is playing at the Mercury Cinema, Adelaide as part of the Summer Scoops Festival. For more information, visit their website.

(This review was originally posted on Oct 23, 2011.)

2011 Online Film Critics Society Awards

Australian Box Office 13/3/2011: Rango has The Rite

Burning Man (Review)

The Tree of Life (Video Review)

Australian Box Office 20/2/2011: Audiences loveth Gnomeo & Juliet

From Abrams (Super 8) aping Spielberg,  Allen (Midnight in Paris) namedropping Bunuel and Scorsese (Hugo) paying homage to one of cinema’s earliest icons, lately we’ve seen filmmakers increasingly looking back. It’s a trend born, one suspects, of a desire to return to what many perceive as a simpler, more innocent time; a time when artists, not accountants, decided when and how a movie was to be made. Call it narcissistic if you will, but it’s a persistent pattern, and one that reaches a whole new extreme in Michael Hazanavicius’ The Artist. A bona fide silent movie set amongst the glitz and glamour of Hollywood in its Golden Age, the film is a crafty exercise, one that is explicitly designed to exploit feelings of nostalgia to a degree that they’ve rarely been exploited before. Well guess what? It worked. The Artist, as calculated as you know it is, is simply impossible to resist. It’s a spirited slice of old time movie-making that is sure to leave film fans a-beaming.

Hollywood, 1927. It’s a prosperous time to be a movie star, and no star shines brighter than that of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin; The Little White Lies). As handsome and charismatic as he is vain and self-centred, Valentin – with his pencil thin moustache reminiscent of real life silent movie sensation Douglas Fairbanks – along with his long time co-star, a talented Jack Russell terrier, is the biggest thing in movies since, well, ever, and has audiences, reporters and money hungry executives all eating out of the palm of his hand. But all good things must come to an end. For Hollywood, it’s the end of the silent movie, booted abruptly from the screen to make way for the next big thing: the talkies. For Valentin, it’s the end of his career, as he too is cast unceremoniously aside, usurped by fresh young talents like Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo; A Knight’s Tale), whose path soon crosses with Valentin’s own.

To those who might be made hesitant by the prospect of a silent movie, don’t be. Yes, the story is simple, and the acting over-the-top. But Hazanavicius and company have done a marvellous job of capturing the spirit of the erstwhile art-form, whisking you through film – and the films within the film – with near unbridled exuberance. Dujardin and Bejo, who have the advantage of being total unknowns to English speaking audiences, both give terrific performances – big and bold by necessity, but also charming and full of heart. The same is true of Ludovic Bource’s score, always present to heighten the emotion, punctuate the comedy, or simply fill in the silence where words cannot be heard.  Visually, the film is just as impressive, with cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman working wonders with light and shadow in a classic 4:3 aspect ratio.

But while enormous effort has gone into recreating the style and feel of Hollywood productions at the height of the silent age, Hazanavicius is certainly not above have fun with his gimmick. The Artist is littered with clever little-self aware moments that play on the conventions of silent features, from Peppy being “overheard” in a restaurant, to a fantastic dream sequence in which Valentin is tormented by a cacophony of sounds.  The appearance of recognizable Hollywood faces in smaller roles – John Goodman (Red State) as a cigar chomping studio boss, or an endearing James Cromwell (Surrogates) as Valentin’s loyal chauffeur – will delight knowing audiences, while the especially savvy may notice a dinner table sequence that steals directly from Citizen Kane. One rather major misstep in this regard is the use of Bernard Herrman’s Vertigo score in a key emotional moment towards the pictures’ end. It’s a great piece of music, but so recognizable that it immediately becomes distracting.

As fun as it is, it must be pointed out that a great deal of The Artist’s appeal comes from its novelty – in being a silent film in a noisy age, and a recreation of a style that has all but been forgotten. Still, maybe there’s nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia. It’s hard to think too critically about a film as joyous as The Artist. It simply sweeps you away.

Hugo (Review)

War Horse (Review)

Midnight in Paris (Review)

Super 8 (Video Review)

The 10 Best Films of 2011

I don’t know much about Rotterdam. Wikipedia tells me – now that it’s back in action following that rather terrifying twenty-four hour blackout – that it’s the second largest city in The Netherlands, as well as one of the busiest ports in the world. The Rotterdam tourism board website tells me that it’s “a trendy, dynamic city” that you really need “to experience for yourself”. And a Google search tells me – and this might be the most important information of all – that the average temperature in Rotterdam during the month of January is a chilly 4°C, meaning visitors – especially those used to spending January on the beach – would do well to rug up tight.

But what I do know about Rotterdam is that between January 25^th and February 5^th, it becomes a hotbed of cinematic activity. Celebrating its 41^st birthday this year, the International Film Festival of Rotterdam is one of Europe’s largest and most illustrious film festivals, alongside Cannes, Venice and Berlin. In 2012, the IFFR will screen a whopping 268 feature films and 469 shorts, receive esteemed directors including Michel Gondry (The Green Hornet), Takashi Miike (13 Assassins) and Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre), and welcome members of the press from all around Europe and the world. Somewhere in that crowd of critics, wrapped in woollen scarf, Richmond F.C. beanie and heavily insulated parker, will be me, ready to cover all the action for Cut Print Review.

As one of the first major international film festivals of the calendar year, the IFFR offers young and upcoming filmmakers a unique opportunity to showcase their work. Under the “Bright Futures” banner, festival organizers have highlighted sixty-eight films from first and second time directors from nations as disparate as Indonesia, France, India and The Ukraine. Of these films, thirteen will have their world premieres at the IFFR. In addition, fifteen budding filmmakers will compete for the Tiger Awards, the most prestigious prize that the festival bestows

Of course no film festival would be complete without a bit of star power. Undoubtedly some of the most sought after tickets will be to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Steve McQueen’s Shame, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and Alexander Payne’s Oscar forerunner The Descendants, all of which will have their Dutch premiere’s at the festival in 2012.

There are even a couple of Australian films on the schedule, including documentary filmmaker Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s (Bastardly) first narrative feature Hail, as well as the closing night film, Daniel Nettheim’s The Hunter, starring Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe.

But one of the truly unique things about IFFR 2012 is the way it seeks to challenge notions of what cinema can be. From 100 Meters Behind the Future – a live film that is shot, acted, directed, edited and screened in real time – to Michel Gondry’s “Home Movie Factory” – a workshop in which festival attendees are given three hours to shoot a short film of their own – this year’s festival is pushing boundaries into the way we watch, make and appreciate movies.

Regrettably, with over seven hundred films to choose from, as well as numerous panel discussions, director Q&As and experimental installations, it’s simply impossible to get to everything. Choices have to be made, schedules have to be juggled, and many intriguing looking films must unfortunately go unseen. But then again, browsing through the programme is all part of the fun. CPR’s coverage of the IFFR will kick off in earnest once the festival gets under way. In the mean time, here’s a list of ten titles that happened to catch my eye.

TOM’S TEN MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF THE IFFR (ALPHABETICAL):

ALPS

Alps is the new film Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose previous film Dogtooth shocked and disturbed audiences all the way to an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. His follow up boasts a similarly bizarre conceit, about people who rent themselves out as temporarily stand-ins for families whose loved ones have passed away.

BLACK & WHITE & SEX

Another Australian picture on the festival programme – and what kind of person would I be if I didn’t try to promote local films? – Black & White & Sex sees eight actresses play the same woman in an experimental mockumentary about a verbal game of cat and mouse between a filmmaker and a prostitute.

BLACK DOVE

I’m on the record as being a big fan of South Korean cinema. Black Dove, from director Roh Gyeong-Tae, utilizes a non-linear timeline to show how four lives intersect following a horrific car accident.

CLIP

One of the fifteen films competing in the Tiger Awards category, the Serbian drama Clip is described on the IFFR website as a “non-judgmental portrait of teenagers caught in sexual and social turmoil. Sexually explicit and emotionally disturbing, it goes beyond borders and even further.” Colour me intrigued.

A DANGEROUS METHOD

I’m generally planning to steer clear of the festivals high profile features, as I know I’ll get the chance to catch up with them later on. But I love director David Cronenberg. His latest effect, about the twisted rivalry between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, played by Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen respectively, looks fascinating.

THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE + A TRIP TO THE MOON

A Trip to the Moon, George Méliès’ revolutionary fourteen minute silent film from 1902, received its due diligence this year in Martin Scorsese’s 3D fantasy Hugo. Personally though, I’m far more intrigued by this French documentary that charts the movies’ influence and restoration, and will be screened in conjunction with Méliès’ original short.

KILL LIST

A British horror film about two contract killers on job that takes a surreal turn, I sorely regret missing Ben Wheatley’s Kill List when it played at MIFF back in July. It’s not a mistake I’ll be making twice.

NICK

The IFFR is a Dutch festival, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t include at least one Dutch movie on the list. Nick is a part character study, part road movie about a conceited chef looking for truffles in a Croatian forest. Sounds bizarre, but why not?

OSLO, AUGUST 31^ST

A Norwegian drama about a drug addict and suicide survivor on a one day excursion from his rehab facility, Oslo August 31^st  received extremely positive critical notice when it played at Cannes. It’s also directed by a distant cousin of Lars von Trier (although that doesn’t necessarily score it many points in my book)

STILLLEBEN

A minimalist family drama from Austria, Stillleben explores themes of guilt and shame after a father is discovered by his son to have begun a disturbing relationship with a prostitute.

Room 514 (IFFR Review)

Kill List (IFFR Review)

Alps (IFFR Review)

Ace Attorney (IFFR Review)

Still Life [Stillleben] (IFFR Review)