The inaugural YAWNIES

On the one hand, the privilege of going to the movies once a week to share our thoughts and responses with you can be an exhilarating and thought-provoking affair. On the other hand, here is the list (in alphabetical order) of the films that made it really hard going – the inaugural YAWNIES, published today in the Geraldton Guardian.

Green Zone
Hopes were high for Paul Greengrass’s (The Bourne … movies, United 93) ‘Iraq War film’. Fatally, Green Zone mistook floating a raft of opinions about the Iraq war for storytelling and paused for a moment as two great big pieces of anti-war propaganda crashed to the ground like 10-ton slabs of cement. Truly regrettable.

Law Abiding Citizen
Revenge dramas don’t come more predictable and self-indulgent than this. Complete with the worst line of dialogue in memory, this unapologetic mess of a film tried too hard to mean (and achieve) anything and ended up meaning (and achieving) nothing whatsoever. The result? Cinematic-flatlining.

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief
Suffering from a serious case of Harry Potter envy, this bland offering struggled with the basics of storytelling and resulted in a boring, over-produced effort that had my companion opting for all the colour and movement of the cinema foyer instead. I couldn’t leave too because reviewers have to stay until the end. Talk about hard yards!

Skyline
No list of cinematic turkeys for 2010 would be complete without this dud – the worst movie of the year. Only distinctly morbid curiosity kept me in my seat – fascinated by just how cringe-inducingly bad a film script (and the acting of it) could be.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Poor Alice was kidnapped, bound, gagged, nearly suffocated and eventually handcuffed to an old oil heater in an abandoned warehouse. Gemma Arterton had the unenviable task of spending much of the movie handcuffed to a bed with a bag over her head in this grimy and morally suspect, handcuff-obsessed little flick.

The Killer Inside Me
Michael Winterbottom’s pretentious, nihilistic, exploitative, dead-end of a movie disappeared under a tidal wave of controversy. The violence against women (with which this film was pornographically-afflicted) wins the YAWNIE for the film that left the nastiest taste in the mouth all year.

The Last Exorcism
Director Stamm and screenplay writers Botko and Gurland had a great idea to make a film that was as fantastic as the films it was trying desperately hard to be: The Blair Witch Project (1999), Cloverfield (2008), The Exorcist (1973) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968). It wasn’t.

The Wolfman
This blustering adaptation of the 1941 Claude Raines and Bela Lugosi horror classic tripped over itself to end up being slightly less thrilling than receiving a postcard, and infinitely less horrifying than opening your bank statement. Or your phone bill. A complete failure at generating genuine tension, suspense, meaning or interest.

Up in the Air
This lithe, mercilessly fatuous, one-note romantic comedy starred the effervescent George Clooney. This wins a YAWNIE for being one of those well-made, precise Hollywood flicks that bathes in the excesses of its own conceit and leaves you, well, up in the air about what we were supposed to make of it all. Instantly forgettable.

The inaugural YAWNIES were commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels. Rated PG (mild violence, coarse language and some crude humour). 85 minutes. Directed by Rob Letterman. Screenplay by Joe Stillman and Nicholas Stoller. Based on the novel by Jonathan Swift.

Promised in June 2010 and (after countless delays) finally hitting the screens on Boxing Day (and more 2D than 3D), comes a more fully-stuffed turkey than any that graced dining tables around the world this Christmas.

Loosely based on Jonathan Swift’s much-loved, epic parable of politics, war, humanity and religion comes this regrettable, shambolic mess that chiefly serves to cynically attempt to bolster the career of funny man Jack Black (King Kong, Kung Fu Panda), who is also credited as one of the film’s producers.

Apart from the sequence where Gulliver (Black) awakes to find himself prisoner in the Court of Lilliput (home to people less than six inches high), Letterman (Monsters vs Aliens, Shark Tale), Stillman (Shrek) and Stoller (Get Him to the Greek) – quite astonishingly given the creativity of the source material – find themselves similarly washed-up with nowhere to go. And with rare respite, it’s nowhere with a capital N – especially given how quickly the magic of the ‘little people’ effects wears thin.

Not even the work of four supremely experienced editors – Alan Edward Bell, Maryann Brandon (How to train your dragon), Nicolas De Toth (Die Hard 4) and Dean Zimmerman (Jumper) – can save it. Emily Blunt (Princess Mary), Jason Segel (Horatio), Amanda Peet (Darcy), Catherine Tate (Queen Vera) and Billy Connolly (King Benjamin) act with ever-increasing levels of extreme discomfort and desperation, while Black does his thing – which on this occasion, includes a sequence where Gulliver urinates on a burning Lilliputian palace. Yep, hilarious.

You might forgive the film’s serious shortcomings if you could actually find something to like and enjoy about it. But lovers of the novel will be nothing less than appalled, while everyone else will more than likely feel utterly ripped off. I was both – in equal measure.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group

Film Review: TRON: Legacy

TRON: Legacy. Rated PG (mild science fiction violence). 125 minutes. Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Screenplay by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.

If Avatar set the benchmark for 3D wonderment, then TRON: Legacy gives it a hefty nudge and in many, if not all, of its sequences, is equally as impressive as its environmentally-inspired sibling. In a spectacular directorial debut, Kosinski masterfully (with the exception of a couple of boring sequences of laboured exposition) brings the vision to life.

It has been 20 years since Sam Flynn’s (Garrett Hedlund) father (game creator Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges) disappeared. One night, he is visited by his father’s friend, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), who informs Sam that he has been ‘paged’ from the disconnected number belonging to his father’s long-abandoned gaming arcade. When Sam goes to explore the arcade for any trace of his father’s reappearance, he finds himself transported to “The Grid” – a virtual world where his father is trapped in a battle for supremacy with his clone, Clu.

The futuristic environments are a triumph of state-of-the-art digital 3D technology – especially the multi-layered, glossy black glass gaming ‘grid’ onto which young Sam makes a dazzling debut. Hedlund is great as Sam, and receives wonderful support from Olivia Wilde (TV’s House) as Kevin’s confidant Quorra. Both Bridges and Boxleitner reprise their roles from the prequel (1982’s TRON), and bring authority and a perfectly-matched casting synergy to the story.

The original score by Daft Punk is fantastic, while the cinematography by Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), editing by James Haygood (Fight Club, The Panic Room) and inspirational production design by Darren Gilford are absolutely faultless.

Ultimately, there are few words that can describe the astonishing amount of artistry that is on show here – other than “Wow!”, which I predict you will find yourself saying over and over again.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

2010: The Top 10 Films

If there’s anything that can start a fiery and passionate debate, it’s a list of the Top 10 Films of the year. My only rule for this list (in alphabetical order) is that they had to have been released in Australian cinemas during 2010 (which means 2009’s Avatar was not in contention).

Animal Kingdom
This near-perfect, landmark Australian film was an extraordinary debut from writer and director David Michôd. Featuring a career-defining turn from Jackie Weaver, Animal Kingdom continues to win a sleigh-load of national and international awards wherever it is in contention. Last stop – Oscar night.

Harry Brown
Daniel Barber (also in his feature film debut) delivered an angry, impatient vision of a community in extreme danger of self-annihilation. Sir Michael Caine delivered one of the performances of the year, while Gary Young’s screenplay viciously fashioned the ‘good’ from the ‘evil’ with razor sharp authority.

How to Train Your Dragon
Dreamworks’ stunning animated feature was built around the friendship between young Viking ‘Hiccup’ and his wounded Night Fury 'Toothless'. The marvellous script powered along – resulting not only in a gloriously imagined and rendered animation adventure, but a captivating film of immense heart and soul.

Inception
Just scraping in, it has to be said, is Christopher Nolan’s curious, layered, intellectually engaging, visually arresting and superbly crafted mind-bender. While it was certainly no masterpiece, it was a film that revelled in grand and adventurous epic story-telling and managed to pull it off.

Precious
Lee Daniel's gruelling drama of every possible form of previously unimaginable abuse somehow managed to isolate the essence of the human spirit – the truth of what it takes to break the cycles of violence and destruction. Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique waged an epic battle with themselves (and each other) in a film of immense emotional clout.

Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie returned to form with his thrilling, white-knuckled ride, melded to the screen with absolute relish and conviction, and a blisteringly good performance from Robert Downey Jnr in the title role. Ritchie proved the first rule of filmmaking: surround yourself with people who really know what they’re doing.

Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese’s fierce, passionate and wildly-involving psychological thriller was an absolute screen-scorcher. Moody, furious and featuring great performances from an all-star cast, Shutter Island was, as I predicted at the time, the most exciting and rewarding couple of hours I spent in the cinema this year.

The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow’s incredible cinematic journey plugged itself into every one of our senses and played mercilessly with our ability to comprehend risk. Mark Boal's rock-solid screenplay fuelled an ensemble of fearless performances – resulting in a painfully intimate experience of a war that continues to define the perilous misadventures of our time.

The Lovely Bones
Could Hobbit Master Peter Jackson pull off an intimate family drama? Yes, he could. Confronting, powerful, beautiful and moving, this extraordinarily potent snapshot of how the disappearance of a young girl can tear a family apart boasted a superb cast, a challenging, fluid script, and a hugely rewarding, entirely cathartic ending.

The Social Network
One of the most perfect films of the year, David Fincher’s film of Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay was a sensational piece of cinematic story-telling featuring brilliant performances from an exceptional young ensemble. Powering along for every one of its 120 minutes, The Social Network never looked or felt like anything less than a monumental labour of love for everyone concerned. Look for it everywhere at next year’s Oscar ceremony.

This list was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Due Date

Due Date. MA 15+ (strong coarse language, drug use and sexual references). 95 minutes. Directed by Todd Phillips. Screenplay by Alan R Cohen, Alan Freedland, Adam Sztykiel and Todd Phillips.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Todd Phillips’s smash-hit comedy The Hangover (2009), will find themselves in incredibly familiar territory with his latest broad brushstroke, bromance-inspired road movie Due Date.

Wound-up architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is desperate to get home from Atlanta to Los Angeles in time to witness the birth of his first child. When his life, both literally and metaphorically, collides with that of Hollywood-wannabe Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) – the two new ‘friends’ find themselves on a “no fly list”. Their only choice is to hit the road in a hire-car and travel across the US.

While it owes a considerable debt to John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), in which Steve Martin and John Candy lit up the screen with their hilarious cross-country travails, Due Date, similarly, succeeds largely due to the performances of the magnificent Downey Jr and Galifianakis (who also stars in The Hangover). Without their absolute dedication to the task at hand, Due Date would more than likely have fallen flat on its flabby face.

As is often the case with these kinds of storylines, much of the comedy is derived from the catalogue of opportunities on hand when two mis-matched, self-absorbed individuals find themselves trapped in each other’s company, dealing with the results of often extremely complicated situations and mis-understandings. There are fantastic cameo appearances from Danny McBride as a Western Union employee and Juliette Lewis as a drug-dealing mother of two, whereas the subplot involving Jamie Foxx as Peter’s friend Darryl, is just a time-wasting diversion from the main game.

Peculiarly (especially with the wealth of talent on show) Due Date appears to be much longer than its 95 minutes, although the saggy pace is buoyed by a spectacular sequence in Mexico, a poignant scene on the edge of the Grand Canyon and a catastrophic series of events while Tremblay is ‘asleep at the wheel’.

So while we wait for The Hangover Part 2 (which is currently in production), Due Date is a perfectly guilt-free way to indulge in our enjoyment of Mr Phillips’ blokey, coarse, get-me-there-on-time shenanigans.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Night Chronicles: Devil

Devil. Rated M (horror themes and violence). 81 minutes. Directed by John Erick Dowdle. Screenplay by Brian Nelson based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan.

Film distributors, it would seem, have decided that it’s the season to scare us out of our wits – and while watching concrete crack would be preferable to revisiting some of the latest attempts – M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil, on the other hand, delivers relentless nail-biting suspense that had me peeking at the cinema screen through the gaps between my fingers a great deal of the time.

Also known as The Night Chronicles: Devil, this is the first of M. Night Shyamalan’s (The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village, The Last Airbender) planned Night Chronicles trilogy that will explore the existence of supernatural forces in the lives of people going about their (on the surface, anyway) day-to-day existence.

While Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is investigating the death of a man who has fallen through the window of a skyscraper, five people find themselves trapped in one of the building’s elevators. At first, the plight of Ben (Bokeem Woodbine), an elderly woman (Jenny O'Hara), Vince (Geoffrey Arend), Tony (Logan Marshall-Green) and Sarah (Bojana Novakovic) appears to be nothing more than the result of a random elevator glitch – but before too long, events take a serious turn for the worse. Much worse.

Shyamalan’s Grand Guignol-inspired story, with generous lashings of a good, old-fashioned fright-fest, is fashioned into an extravagant (yet potently efficient) screenplay by Mr Nelson (Hard Candy). Dowdle’s (Quarantine) direction, Tak Fujimoto’s (Silence of The Lambs) cinematography and Elliot Greenberg’s (Quarantine) editing, account for the material masterfully, while the entire cast embrace every possibility to go-for-broke in true horror movie territory.

While, again, the film doesn’t quite deserve its almost quaint ending, horror genre afficionados will find themselves right at home.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Last Exorcism

The Last Exorcism. Rated MA 15+ (strong horror themes and violence). 87 minutes. Directed by Daniel Stamm. Screenplay by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland.

It’s eleven years since the game-changing The Blair Witch Project (1999) – in which the filmmakers’ hand-held camera swooped about in a seemingly entirely random fashion. Blair Witch also set the precedent for ‘mockumentary’ cinematic storytelling – a story told through the experiences of people making a movie about their ill-fated trip into the haunted woods near Burkittesville, Maryland. Unscripted, improvised and featuring the famous video diary sequence from the terrified ‘camper’ Heather Donahue, Blair Witch also delivered an ending of such sickening and heart-stopping terror, that horror movie fans the world over rightly celebrated a new milestone in their beloved genre.

In 2008, Matt Reeves delivered his masterstroke Cloverfield, in which the science-fiction and horror genres were brilliantly welded to the hand-held camerawork. As a group of desperate young New Yorker’s find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game of survival with a marauding alien/monster invader and its offspring, Cloverfield’s compelling narrative was captured and provoked by the brilliant idea of having the video camera carried throughout the apocalyptic events by the archetypal nerdy best-friend ‘Hud’ (TJ Miller). Like Blair Witch, Cloverfield delivered an ending of utter hopelessness in the face of the might of a military hell-bent on annihilation of the monstrous enemy invader.

In 1973, director William Friedkin delivered the genre-defining The Exorcist. William Peter Blatty’s screenplay (adapted from his novel), provided Friedkin and his outstanding cast (including the late Jason Miller as Father Karras and Max von Sydow as the exorcist, Father Merrin) with the perfect showcase for a chilling and unforgettable story of the possession of the innocent Regan (Linda Blair) and the efforts of her increasingly desperate mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn). Still the most talked-about and revered movie of its kind, The Exorcist arguably owes a debt (in structure and tone, at least) to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Writer Ira Levin worked brilliantly on our primal fears (and increasing incomprehension) as the optimistic world of young Rosemary (Mia Farrow) was influenced by evil, supernatural forces seeking to control the destiny of her unborn child.

Watching any (or all) of the movies I’ve discussed in this review on DVD would be preferable to sitting through The Last Exorcism – the most unoriginal and derivative movie of the year, complete with the worst ending of any movie from this complex, fascinating and celebrated genre.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Wild Target

Wild Target. Rated M (Violence and infrequent coarse language). 98 minutes. Directed by Jonathan Lynn. Screenplay by Lucinda Coxon. Based on the French film Cible émouvante (1993), written and directed by Pierre Salvadori.

As quirky, British comedies go, Wild Target is a diverting little gem – thanks mostly to the charming performances of its leads Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt and Rupert Grint who, both individually and together, light up the screen with truck-loads of charisma.

Victor Maynard (Mr Nighy) is a professional hitman who finds himself increasingly captivated by his latest target – con-woman Rose (Ms Blunt). When it becomes obvious that Victor has no intention of carrying out the ‘hit’, another hitman, Hector Dixon (Martin Freeman), is sent to do the job instead. With young stoner Tony (Mr Grint) along for the ride, Victor and Rose escape to Victor’s country estate to hide and work out how they can resolve their major life-and-death problem.

Jonathan Lynn (perhaps better known as the writer and creator of the acclaimed British television series Yes, Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister), has the good sense to leave his actors alone and they never let him down. While it occasionally feels a little too conveniently contrived, Ms Coxon’s English-language version of the French original is pretty much a case of more hits than misses, and Nighy’s perfect comedic timing is absolutely delightful to behold.

Ms Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, the unfortunate The Wolfman, the soon-to-be-released Gulliver's Travels) is fabulous as the feisty ‘wild’ target, while Mr Grint (currently also onscreen in his continuing role as Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1) is totally endearing as the orphaned young apprentice who Victor takes under his wing (to tutor, yet again) in the hope that he might one day take his place in the ‘family business’. Dame Eileen Atkins absolutely revels in her wonderfully offbeat cameo as Victor’s not-to-be-trifled-with mother, Louisa.

While Wild Target occasionally drags its heels as far as pace and action is concerned, it is a perfectly entertaining distraction from the mayhem that signifies this time of year.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Skyline

Skyline. Rated M (Science fiction violence and infrequent coarse language). 93 minutes. Directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause. Written by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell.

Yes folks, it’s finally here: the worst movie of 2010 – and the only thing that kept me sitting in my seat was wanting to see just how much worse it could get. And my distinctly morbid curiousity was extremely well-rewarded: Skyline is an absolute dud.

It all starts promisingly enough, with a group of friends and business acquaintances recovering from a big night partying in a Los Angeles apartment (cue first distracting thought; ‘Oh, I must watch Cloverfield on DVD for the 100th time’).

As shafts of blue light descending from the clouds announce the arrival of a hostile alien force, our cast (including TV ‘actors’ Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, David Zayas and Donald Faison) test the boundaries of ineptitude in order to survive the invasion.

They don’t stand a chance – and it’s not because (as you might have imagined) the fearsome aliens have superior firepower. No, it’s because our dreary, dopey ‘actors’ insist on running around in broad daylight, trying to drive away (cars vs aliens just never ends well), going on to the rooftop of the apartment building (yes, great idea guys), running around in the garden (very sensible) and constantly talking about trying to get to the marina where they will be able to get into a boat and sail away!

‘Why is it so terrible?’ you might well ask? The directors (who were also jointly responsible for 2007’s regrettable AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem) are primarily special effects gurus. Through their FX company – Hydraulx – they have designed and supervised the visual effects departments on a collection of the most FX-intensive films in recent memory (including Avatar, 2012, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Jumper).

Skyline (filmed almost entirely in Greg’s apartment complex and entirely financed by the brothers themselves, presumably because no studio was interested), represents nothing more than a laughable demo reel to showcase their negligible film-making skills – independent of people who really know what they’re doing. And with the exception of one sequence where the inhabitants of LA are ‘hoovered’ up into an alien spacecraft, there is absolutely nothing else to redeem this film. Unless, of course, you want to go along and be amazed at just how cringe-makingly bad a film script (and the acting of it) can be.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Red

Red. Rated M (Action violence and infrequent coarse language). 111 minutes. Directed by Robert Schwentke. Screenplay by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber. Based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retired ‘black-ops’ (covert operations) CIA Agent, living alone in peaceful, if relatively boring, seclusion. He passes the time by flirting on the telephone with Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) who works in the agency’s Kansas City-based pension department. When Frank’s life is interrupted by the arrival of a hit-squad of assassins, he realises that he has become a target – and after kidnapping Ms Ross for her own safety, reassembles his crack team of retired colleagues to take on the CIA at their own game.

Much like playing Solitaire on your computer, Red has its moments of distracting charm. John Malkovich (Burn After Reading), Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Morgan Freeman (Invictus) as Frank’s colleagues bring a certain megawattage of star power to the proceedings – even if they mostly appear to be simply going through their paces, while William Cooper (as über-baddie CIA operative Karl Urban) does a mean line in vein-popping frustration. Ms Parker (perhaps best-known for her work in the television series Weeds), is totally engaging as the wide-eyed, stunned and amazed Sarah who gradually begins to relish the unpredictable excitement these dedicated has-beens have brought into her previously tedious life.

But in spite of the glittering cast (which also includes Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox and 93-year-old Ernest Borgnine) and lots of good intentions, the end result is a film that absolutely fails to equal the sum of its parts. Mr Willis (who has done some brilliant work over the years including the Die Hard franchise, Hostage, The Sixth Sense, The Fifth Element and the unforgettable Moonlighting), never gets anything to really sink his teeth into and is, like the rest of the cast, acted off the screen by Mr Malkovich’s marvellously paranoid and deluded ‘Marvin’. Apart from lacking any sense of originality, the Hoebers’ muddled but occasionally humourous script doesn’t stand up to too much interrogation – which is probably just as well because Mr Schwentke’s join-the-dots direction doesn’t ask very much of it. Sadly, it all ends up feeling a little more like Try Hard than Die Hard.

Pictured: Bruce Willis having a "how the hell did it all go so horribly wrong" moment in Red.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Social Network

The Social Network. Rated M (coarse language). 120 minutes. Directed by David Fincher. Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Based on the novel The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.

When contemplating the game-changing social-networking website ‘Facebook’, the statistics are staggering. Consider, for example, the following: more than 500 million active users; 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day; and people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

And while the debate rages regarding the extent of The Social Network’s authenticity, you can’t take anything away from the film as a sensational piece of cinematic story-telling. Fincher (Alien 3, Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Sorkin (The West Wing, Sports Night, A Few Good Men) have absolutely nailed the complexity of what just may have happened behind the scenes as the behemoth website was created.

The Social Network boasts the most brilliant performances from an exceptional young ensemble, with Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) and Andrew Garfield (Boy A), in particular, superb as Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin respectively. Justin Timberlake proves he can, in fact, do anything with a fantastic turn as Napster founder and Facebook interloper Sean Parker.

But anyone familiar with Sorkin’s uncanny ability to write in often surprising detail about the intricacy of human interaction, will recognise the rich layering of emotion that gives much of The Social Network its cinematic torque – all spun masterfully from the simple premise of the extent to which Zuckerberg has to defend the proprietary rights over his much-loved creation.

With flawless cinematography from Jeff Cronenweth (Fight Club), pace-perfect editing from long-time Fincher collaborator Angus Wall and Sydney-born Kirk Baxter (… Benjamin Button), and a brilliant original score from Atticus Ross (The Book of Eli) and Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), The Social Network powers along for every one of its 120 minutes – never looking or feeling like anything less than a monumental labour of love for everyone concerned – resulting in one of the most perfect films of the year.

Pictured: Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife. Rated MA15+ (Strong horror violence, blood and gore.) 97 minutes. Written and directed by Paul W S Anderson.

Fans of the phenomenally successful undead/horror/survival game series Resident Evil (Biohazard) and fans of high-concept (with an equally high body count) film-making, will find hours of enjoyment arguing over the merits of Resident Evil: Afterlife – the fourth in the series of films adapted from the popular video game.

Since its debut on the Sony PlayStation in 1996, in excess of 40 million games have been sold – making the series one of the most popular and commercially successful in the world. The equally successful film adaptations that followed are Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007).

Anderson (who has written all the screenplays and also directed the first movie) returns as director, as does Milla Jovovich as the series’ heroine ‘Alice’. Having defeated the evil Umbrella Corporation’s tyrant and witnessed the awakening of thousands of clones at the end of Extinction, Afterlife begins with a dazzling sequence as Alice and her clones infiltrate the corporation’s state-of-the-art underground facility where the human tests of the deadly virus continue. Alice intends to free the humans and take them to ‘Arcadia’, a safe-haven where the infection-free survivors have apparently fled.

Filmed using the 3D technology pioneered by James Cameron for Avatar, Afterlife unquestionably has its moments, with cinematographer Glen MacPherson (The Final Destination), editor Niven Howie (Extinction, Dawn of the Dead) and production designer Arvinder Grewal (Exit Wounds, Dawn of the Dead) responsible for all of them.

Ms Jovovich is, as one might expect, perfectly serviceable in the lead role, and there is fine support from Ali Carter as the feisty ‘Claire Redfield’ – while the rest of the cast manage to look suitably dazed, confused and bewildered on cue. Sienna Guillory’s mid-end credits cameo as ‘Jill Valentine’ will ensure you either leave the cinema delighted or rolling your eyes – but you’ll certainly have had some serious gun-toting, daredevil, sci-fi razzle-dazzle in the process. And that can never be an entirely bad thing, can it?

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Let Me In

Let Me In. Rated MA15+ (strong horror themes and violence). 115 minutes. Written and directed by Matt Reeves.

One of the many problems with English-language adaptations of foreign films (in this case, the Swedish vampire thriller Let The Right One In – adapted for the screen from his novel by John Ajvide Lindqvuist and directed by Tomas Alfredson), is the extent to which much of the original’s impact is lost in translation.

In the case of Mr Reeves’ (the sensational pop-cult masterpiece Cloverfield) hypnotically beautiful rendering of Lindqvist’s compelling ‘rites of passage’ story – the answer is both everything and nothing.

Owen’s (Kodi Smit-McPhee) parents are going through an acrimonious divorce and he is being bullied at school. The sensitive boy escapes the misery of his bleak existence fantasising about how he might take revenge against his tormenters. When young Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her guardian (Richard Jenkins) move in to the apartment next door, Owen and Abby begin a friendship that will evolve into the most extraordinary bond – built of love, trust, courage and self-determination.

Reeves and his creative team (including Melbourne-born Cinematographer Greig Fraser) infuse their adaptation with many of the original’s visual motifs – none more so than by successfully transplanting their version from an isolated, snow-bound town in Sweden to an equally isolated, snow-bound Los Alamos, New Mexico. The intoxicating, wintery landscape provides the film with some extraordinary moments (such as the sequence where the body of a murder victim is retrieved from a frozen lake), while providing Fraser with limitless opportunities to create some equally extraordinary lighting. Oscar-winning composer for Up (2009) Michael Giacchino provides a brilliant score that rages against the sequence of events as the film powers toward its gripping conclusion.

The performances are superb, with young Australian Smit-McPhee (The Road) and Moretz shining as the young leads, while Elisa Koteas delivers a beautifully under-stated performance as the policeman investigating the strange turn of events. Editor Stan Salfas ramps up the relentless tension by rarely letting the film’s pace settle into a recognisable rhythm for very long.

Let Me In is an absorbing, visceral cinematic experience that will reward lovers of beautifully-made, superbly acted coming-of-age dramas – with a stunning (and perversely rewarding) sting in its tail.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Buried

Buried. Rated MA15+. 95 minutes. Directed by Rodrigo Cortés. Screenplay by Chris Sparling.

Like The Premature Burial (1962) and The Vanishing (1988), Spanish-born Cortés (The Contestant) plays with one the horror genre’s greatest trump cards: being buried alive. What he also does, courtesy of an punishing, rock ‘n’ roll screenplay from Mr Sparling, is shine a spotlight on the subject of foreigners being taken hostage in Iraq – and the desperate efforts by the US Department of State’s Hostage Working Group to free them.

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is a US contractor working as a truck driver in Iraq. When his convoy is attacked by insurgents, he wakes to find himself buried alive in a crate with a mobile telephone, a cigarette lighter, a torch, a hip-flask, a pen and flick-knife.

Depending entirely on how impressed you are by the concept of a film shot entirely in a wooden crate starring only one actor, Buried may possibly elicit one response: ‘an actor in a box with some props – so what?’. But Sparling’s screenplay, Cortés’s rivetting direction and editing, Reynolds’s dazzling star turn and Eduard Grau’s (A Single Man) cinematography, all combine brilliantly to ensure that Buried is rarely less than an entirely engrossing experience.

Conroy’s only contact with the outside world is through the mobile phone, with Robert Paterson as Hostage Working Group representative ‘Dan Brenner’, in particular, providing excellent support to Reynolds’ desperate and ill-fated victim of circumstance.

Peversely, the day after I saw this film, the UK’s The Guardian newspaper reported that aid-worker Linda Norgrove – a 36-year-old British hostage being held in Afghanistan – was killed as Nato troops were trying to rescue her. What, only the night before, had been a marvellously escapist, cinematic tour de force, suddenly became a compelling ‘anti-war film’ – a powerful statement about the horrific possibilities that confront civilians working in conflict-stricken war zones. Hostage-taking, either to influence the outcomes for countries that send in their armed forces or companies that send in their workers, remains a potent consequence of both criminally- and politically-motivated opportunism.

The review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Rated M. 133 minutes. Directed by Oliver Stone. Written by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff.

The allure of riches associated with a career as a corporate high-flyer on New York’s Wall Street were perfectly encapsulated in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987). Michael Douglas won the Best Actor Oscar® for his performance as the unscrupulous market manipulator and corporate raider Gordon Gekko, whose motto “greed is good” was almost immediately enshrined in the global financial services vernacular.

Fast forward to 2008 – and Gordon is being released from prison where he has served time for insider trading. In a mastertroke of contextualisation, the possessions he had to hand over when he entered prison are returned – and his “gold money clip with no money in it” and “one mobile phone” say it all. The financial world (and the world at large) he re-enters are vastly different but eerily similar beasts to the ones he left behind. His daughter Winnie (the stunning Carey Mulligan) is running a “lefty website” and enjoying the beginnings of a relationship with young gun Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf in top form), who is determined to kick some serious goals in the big money stakes. The next generation of ‘Gordon Gekkos’ is represented by the steel-framed Bretton James (Josh Brolin) who has learned nothing from history – and it is this character (and his like) who Stone holds directly to account for what we now know as the Global Financial Crisis.

As a director, Stone’s curiosity is forensic (no more exemplified than in his Vietnam War masterpiece Platoon), and it is precisely this kind of attention to detail that makes this Wall Street sequel absolutely engrossing. His passion for detail is equally-matched by the ensemble of superb performances he elicits from the outstanding cast, who all attack the urgency of the work with absolute flair, skill and dedication. Their characters’ egos, ambitions and aspirations are flawlessly realised, with Susan Sarandon shining in a small role as young Jake’s mother. Her dalliance with the real estate market that suddenly begins to collapse around her, is deeply-affecting, as is the decline and death of Jake’s old-school mentor Louis Zabel (the brilliant Frank Langella). It is in these characters, in particular, that Loeb and Schiff’s powerhouse of a screenplay delves into the real private and personal horrors resulting from the sudden and terrifying collapse of the once all-powerful American economy and the rapidly disintegrating ‘American Dream’ in all its seductive guises.

Pictured: Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

The Disappearance of Alice Creed. MA15+. 96 minutes. Written and Directed by J Blakeson.

Sometimes, reviewers need to display a little show of complete subjectivity, and in the case of this arch, restless little British psychological thriller, it is to declare that I am a little tired of seeing movies where women get beaten up. Actually, I’m really sick of it. The main reason I’m sick of it is because I’ve suddenly found myself in an extremely unorthodox position of having to tell you all about a film where, yes, the ‘Alice Creed’ of the title, gets kidnapped, bound and gagged, nearly suffocated and eventually handcuffed to an old oil heater in an abandoned warehouse where she is left for dead. Great!

Actually, it’s not great. The best thing about it is the performances from the only three actors in the film: Martin Compston as ‘Danny’ and Eddie Marsan as ‘Vic’, the kidnappers, and Gemma Arterton (unrecognisable from her glamour turns in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Clash of the Titans) as Alice. Whether this has something to do with the fact that Ms Arterton gets the unenviable task of spending the better part of the movie handcuffed to a bed with a bag over her head might, however, be cause for serious conjecture. The characterisations of these three, morally dubious individuals are, however, incredibly strong – and it is this that manages to keep our attention. Curiously though, the end result is more like some kind of over-produced peep show at which we, rather reluctantly, perve – as opposed to have any deep and meaningful connection with or investment in. I walked out of the cinema feeling more than a little bit grimy, which can never be a good thing.

Philipp Blaubach’s grainy, rough and ready cinematography and Marc Canham’s original score are great, while Mark Eckersley’s editing keeps it all moving along swiftly – ensuring that even though there are only three actors and one primary location, it never appears as though we’re in the same place for too long. Blakeson’s script, which twists and turns like the captive Alice, wears out its welcome towards the end when the pacing slumps and, even in spite of the filmmakers’ best intentions, it all starts to seem faintly predictable.

Ultimately, however, it’s got nothing on the benchmark of this genre – Extremities – which starred the late, great Farrah Fawcett in a career-defining performance as the woman who turns the tables on her assailant. Lacking any real sense of dread or fear – The Disappearance of Alice Creed ends up being a little bit too clever for its own good. Approach with extreme caution.

Theatre Review: Bare Witness

Bare Witness. Written by Mari Lourey. Directed by Nadja Kostich. Performed by Isaac Drandic, Daniela Farinacci, Adam McConvell, Todd MacDonald and Maria Theodorakis. A La Mama Theatre presentation at fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne until September 26.

The cultural influence of photojournalism on the battlefield has resulted in some life-changing images. Some, like the Associated Press’s Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked little girl running along a road immediately after a napalm attack during the Vietnam War – are defining images of a generation.

Controversy, too, has challenged the reputation for authenticity of both written and photographic journalism that has emerged from places to which few of us would dare travel – especially given the life and death stakes that exist in constantly unpredictable war zones. Renowned war photographer Robert Capa’s iconic “The Falling Solider” – a photograph of a ‘soldier at the moment of death’ – has long been the subject of controversy, with a Spanish newspaper declaring it a fake in 2009. Capa, who most memorably (and miraculously) photographed World War II’s D-Day Landings in 1944, also once wrote: “If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough.” Ironically, Capa was killed by a landmine in 1954 while on assignment for Time-Life magazine covering the first Indochina War. He died, it has been reported, “with his camera in his hand”.

Mari Lourey’s epic Bare Witness script (with dramaturgy from Julian Meyrick, Michael Carmody and Ms Kostich) is an extraordinarily layered, insightful and passionate testament to the monumental dedication and primal survival instincts of the people behind the lens. It is also, initially, coloured with an affecting optimism and engaging sense of ribald (if circumstantial) camaraderie amongst the correspondents, who meet the demanding negotiations for safety, translation, proximity, information, infrastructure and technology with determination, efficiency and an unhealthy cynicism.

Ms Kostich’s direction is busy early on – mistaking lots of activity for action. In spite of every best intention to create some memorable movement-inspired vignettes, the cast (who uniformly lack physical literacy, fluidity and powers of elevation) seem ill-at-ease with what unfortunately begins to resemble something more like vaudeville than a revelatory physical vocabulary complicit with the text. The ‘squaring the shot’ motif and the twee ‘clapping of the hands to signify the shutter in action’ just become repetitive, while leaping, twirling actors’ bodies achieve nothing like the exhilarating potential of leaping, twirling dancers’. Ultimately, the issue of how movement informs this determinedly stage-bound piece of theatre remains a considerable dilemma.

This is quite obviously an ensemble deeply connected to the material and the performance of it – and their memorising of this Herculean text is never less than outstanding. But while such clear and present subjectivity and intention does wonders to increase the worthiness of a piece, it does little to increase its powers of effective communication. The overall result is a piece of theatre that teeters uncomfortably on the precipice of self-reverential indulgence.

What hauls it back from the edge of that slippery precipice, are the moments when Ms Kostich trusts her ‘big picture’ instincts and everyone stops wandering and/or running around and flinging themselves all over the place. These moments of rare, potent stillness and introspection reveal a heightened level of engagement and focus with and on the characters and the subject. These fantastic moments of breath, space and stillness are when Bare Witness really comes into its own as an epic piece of theatre – while also revealing the true powers of a finely-tuned ensemble. This ‘air’ is no more beautifully incorporated than in the ‘telephone home’ sequences – the only moments we have to connect with the characters on a level and in a circumstance we implicitly relate to.

Jethro Woodward’s soundscape is marvellous – not only its pure inventiveness, but also in its complicity with the text. It’s just a real shame it all took place up in the corner where it became an absolute strain to watch him at work. It was frustrating to be denied the opportunity to become absorbed in the myriad of significant aural possibilities he was contributing.

Mr Carmody’s video, too, is far too conspicuously contained to realise any of its potential to influence the physical environment and is all rather too neatly incorporated and accounted for (as opposed to Mr Woodward’s random aural interjections and under-scoring) to be really effective. Emma Valente’s lighting, on the other hand, is intricately incorporated into the action, and the use of various different light sources throughout the performance are particularly arresting.

Ultimately, one might say the angles are all strange – which may well make for an interesting photograph, but not necessarily a great one.

Pictured: Maria Theodorakis, Daniela Farinacci and Todd MacDonald in Bare Witness. Photographed by Marg Horwell.

This review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine @ www.stagewhispers.com.au

Theatre Review: If, as … and Stranger in the Corridor

If, as … and Stranger in the Corridor. Two short plays by Mammad Aidani. Directed and Designed by Lloyd Jones. La Mama Theatre, Melbourne until September 19.

For people who like their theatre about refugees making new lives for themselves in Australia to be mostly variations on the theme of how ‘they’ can be more like ‘us’, then Mr Aidani’s powerfully brutal ode to the despair associated with a disintegrating mind desperate for comfortingly familiar reference points is not going to be your chai latté.

The mandatory detainment of asylum seekers is a controversial and internationally-criticised ‘policy’ of consecutive Australian Governments (from every philosophical spectrum) and in our reckless and self-serving political climate, it is difficult to separate these acts of governmental-ordained discrimination from the act of theatre-making. In a country that steadfastly and blindly refuses to acknowledge the essence of humanity and difference, the cultural relevance of the act of theatre-making assumes a profoundly necessary responsibility.

Consider this statement: “A boat-load of Sri Lankan Asylum-seekers”. Eerily familiar, isn’t it. Why? Because somewhere, in the favoured national fortress-like psyche, and a lazy, time- and resource-poor media, it is simply too complex to even begin to address the truth of the issues regarding refugees: which is that every person onboard that boat is a human being – a human being who has witnessed and experienced acts of torture, horror and destruction, to the extent that their only choice is to board a leaky boat and sail across the sea to a faraway island where, they hope, their lives will be better. There is a point, one might imagine, where the issues of refugees must become less about some kind of abstract scorecard (in the same way in which one year’s road toll competes with another’s) and more concerned with humanity.

The act of making theatre, especially as a result of its very close proximity to us at La Mama (and in Mr Jones’s ‘V-shaped corridor’), has the power to engage specifically with explorations of humanity – the psychological aspects of curiosity and fear we all share. And these two short plays currently on at La Mama are, make no mistake, powerfully illuminating theatre.

Mr Aidani’s two short extraordinary plays make immensely powerful statements about what is at stake for the human condition and the act of mental and emotional endurance. Directed by La Mama Elder, Lloyd Jones (who can trust a text to flower like few directors I know), our senses are starved of visual feeders, and instead, it is Mr Aldani’s words that take us through the stark reverie of a shell-shocked mind, and a once-abundant imagination struggling to filter and finally determine the truth and newfound relevance of haunting memories of colour, people, music and familiar sounds: the “invisible story”.

Every word is sacred, highlighting the fascinating juxtaposition of the first (If, as …) to the second (Stranger in the Corridor), where we are left contemplating which of the two male characters in the second play might be the male character in the first. Unless, of course, 'he' is 'us'.

In the first play, Mr Jones also makes a typically pertinent design statement about the occasional futility of language and effective communication with a clever and strategically placed sign which potently highlights the pointlessness of it all and begs the question “who tells us what we should do and why?”. In the second play, the projector that never works – and, in fact, is not even assembled – is another jewel of design detail of great significance.

In spite of the text’s references to “melody”, Mr Aldani’s text and Mr Jones’s direction of it, are determinedly anti-melody – with the exception of Shahin Shafaei’s haunting singing.

Elnaz Sheshgelani and Mr Shafaei (both originally from Iran) and Majid Shokor (pictured, who was born in Iraq and who was a member of the Iraqi National Theatre Company) deliver superb, committed performances. Their undeniable unity with the text lends this performance a rare authority and an invigorating authenticity. Mr Shafaei inhabits La Mama’s tiny staircase in a way that becomes almost too painful to watch, and the analogies with the character’s situation come hard and fast. In its complicity to the text and the study of enforced inaction, it is a beautiful performance. Mr Shokor’s ‘reading’ of the text is an inspired directorial choice, and Mr Shokor rises to meet the challenge with an almost innate level of respect and wonder that becomes increasingly difficult to endure.

The text is laced with sharp, penetrating observations about the toll being trapped or enclosed in a limiting physical space takes on our imagination and will to survive it, but perhaps the most telling is this one: “I don’t have anything to prove”. Or this one: “Silence”.

Some years ago in Sydney I met an Iraqi refugee who, while in detention, had sewn his lips together. Today, I am a little closer to understanding why. That is the power of theatre.

This review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine @ www.stagewhispers.com.au

Film Review: Tomorrow, When The War Began

Tomorrow, When The War Began. 104 minutes. Rated M. Written and Directed by Stuart Beattie. Based on the novel by John Marsden.

Writer Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, Australia) makes his directorial debut with this slippery account of John Marsden’s best-seller about the impact of a hostile invasion of Australia on a group of fun-loving teens on the cusp of adulthood. While it’s certainly no masterpiece (great slabs of dreary and repetitious romantically-inclined exposition should have ended up on the cutting-room floor), the talented young cast work hard to engage us and the big action set-pieces are expertly handled and hugely effective.

Ellie (Neighbours’ Caitlin Stasey) and her best friend Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood) invite their friends Lee (Christopher Pang), Homer (Deniz Akdeniz), Kevin (Lincoln Lewis), Fiona (Phoebe Tonkin) and Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings) on a weekend camping trip to ‘Hell’ – a beautiful, isolated grotto in the nearby mountains. One night, asleep under the stars, the group are awoken by the ominous roar of fighter planes overhead. Unable to even contemplate that these are enemy aircraft beginning an invasion of their country, the group continue to relax and enjoy their time away together. When they return home, they find that everything about their world has changed for the worst – and together they must find the strength and resolve to do their bit to fight for the freedom they have, until now, taken for granted.

Beattie’s inconsistent script provides little real insight into the minds of Marsden’s resourceful warriors and focuses too heavily (and far too literally) on what becomes tedious romantic angst. Ms Cummings gives the best performance as a young girl having to resolve the conflict between her strongly-held religious beliefs and the ultimate price she must pay to protect the safety and wellbeing of her friends, while Ms Tonkin, too, is great as the innocent city girl who finds herself more than capable of rising to meet the enemy when faced with no other choice.

Beattie’s direction, Ben Nott’s (Daybreakers) cinematography, Marcus D’Arcy’s (Sea Patrol, Babe, Lorenzo's Oil) editing and Robert Webb’s (Rogue, The Caterpillar Wish) production design are at their best in the war and resistance sequences (particularly an amazing night-time sequence when the house the teenagers are hiding in is visited by an enemy helicopter). The scenes of a previously vibrant Australian country town and its population decimated by the horrors of occupation are extremely well done and confronting – and it is these sequences that mark Tomorrow … as an occasionally arresting experience. Overall, it’s a well-intentioned but frustratingly patchy affair, even if the pay-off is certainly worth the wait.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Theatre Review: The City

The City by Martin Crimp. Directed by Adena Jacobs. Red Stitch Actors Theatre, Melbourne until 25 September.

There’s a stunning moment in Ms Jacobs’ adventurous, counter-intuitive direction of Mr Crimp’s edgy, tense, efficient if unremarkable elegy to inner-urban, fringe-dwelling fatalism for the Red Stitch Actors Theatre. When Clair (the captivating Fiona Macleod) has returned from a conference in Lisbon, she has gone straight upstairs to bed. A bright red alarm clock rings incessantly, bringing her downstairs to resume her tranquillised existence of manufactured empathy with her world and, particularly, her husband Christopher (a fearless Dion Mills). All of the elements – Ms Jacob’s razor-sharp direction, Danny Pettingill’s lighting design, Dayna Morrisey’s set design and Jared Lewis’s sound design – converge to make this a singularly riveting moment. And how I hoped it was all going to end there.

In the impossibly dense, concrete-laced, inner-urban sprawls of London (where this play is set), one constantly struggles with claustrophobia – a certain sky-lessness – which leads to a heightened awareness of how our spirit-sucking proximity to others in the high-density world of semi-detached fortresses exists in London like nowhere else I have experienced. (This is not to say that my experience is vast, but London’s inner-urban environments are pinched and cramped to the point of occasional bouts of immense paranoia.) Perhaps unsurprisingly, paranoia and neurosis are the constant feeders to Mr Crimp’s characters who are all really just in desperate need of a weekend by the sea. Or in the country.

Playwrights who fashion their plays as structure to action (or in Ms Jacob’s adventurous interpretation, inaction) run the risk of being found to be suddenly transparent – which on this occasion is no more clearly articulated than in the long-overdue appearance of the ‘Girl’ (Georgie Hawkins on this occasion). The young girl’s arrival opens a Pandora’s Box of, now, truly horrific possibilities. Regrettably, no sooner have the demons been released, than they are back in their box with the lid firmly closed. It is just one of the many points in this performance at where the calibre of what was happening on stage departed from the reason they were there. The trend of British playwrights exploring their quasi-autonomous habitational quagmires might well be interesting for them (or anyone who has ever lived in Islington), but the lack of universiality in the themes at play results almost immediately in an outstanding production in conflict with its source and, ultimately, superior to it on nearly every level.

Ms Morrisey’s set design which, while perfectly functional and cleverly multi-dimensional, is all too easy-on-the-eye to connect us to the environment in which Mr Crimp’s tortured characters might exist. More East Malvern than Eastgate Estate. But Clair and Christopher’s home is made of sterner stuff – blood, sweat and tears – as was cleverly articulated in the artfully contained and beautifully studied and composed performances from Ms Macleod and Mr Mills as the uptight couple in need of some serious marriage guidance counselling sessions.

Meredith Penman is superb as the next-door neighbour ‘Jenny’, and escorts the role to well beyond the pinnacle of its potential – particularly in her ‘this is how you act a monologue’ moment, downstage centre and delivered with the full force of an actress possessed. This is how good the acting is at Red Stitch – but the point at where the actors leave the characters behind says two things: yes, the writers give the actors their permission, but ultimately, the play itself is found to be wanting.

Curiously, one of the plays many structural flaws fails to reward the fascinating ‘Jenny’, Ms Penman (or us) with any kind of meaningful denoument. Strangely (and it may have all become a little too obscure for me by this stage), the essence of ‘Jenny’ is assumed by the ‘Girl’ (they wear identical costumes) and ‘Jenny’ is reduced to anesthetised wallpaper. So, you assume, ‘Jenny’ is the grown-up daughter. Or something.

Spoiler alert: The final scene, which plays with the deadening weight of a self-conscious epilogue, is incredibly anti-climactic and leans heavily (and deflatingly one-dimensionally) on the “then I woke up and realised it was all a dream” analogy. Playwrights ‘writing about their characters in their play talking about how the play came to be written’ might, some years ago, been considered marvellously illuminating post-modern de-constructionism. Today, it’s just pretentious – and in this case particularly, only serves to whip the rug out from under everything and everyone, including us.

So to all those playwrights out there beavering away on their inner-urban, Global Financial Crisis-infused, pre-apocalyptic nightmare piece: please know how to finish.

This review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine @ www.stagewhispers.com.au

Film Review: The Killer Inside Me

The Killer Inside Me. 108 minutes. Rated MA15+. Directed by Michael Winterbottom. Screenplay by John Curran. Based on the novel by Jim Thompson.

If ever there was a film to reignite the debate about sex and violence on film – and particularly violence against women with which this film is pornographically afflicted – then Winterbottom’s nasty, nihilistic, exploitative, dead-end of a movie is it.

It has pretensions to being a stylish, psychological thriller in the classic film noir tradition of the 1940s and ‘50s, where gangsters, thugs, detectives and femme fatales ruled the silver screen in monochromatic splendour and intrigue. The grand noir tradition was almost always powered by a masterful manipulation of light, sound, suspense and suggestion. Winterbottom, instead, has opted for splice and dice – and the result is often repulsive.

Based on Thompson’s 1952 pulp fiction novel about a small town Deputy Sheriff/serial killer ‘Lou Ford’ (a chilling performance from Casey Affleck), Curran’s screenplay is a faithful adaptation of Thompson’s typically bleak novel in which there isn’t a redeeming feature to be found in anyone, anywhere. Winterbottom has been reportedly defending his film against the outrage from people who have been deeply affected by the gruelling, long sequences of violence by saying that all he did was film the book. Ironically, if animals were treated in a film the way Jessica Alba’s big-hearted prostitute ‘Joyce’ is, the filmmakers would probably be facing criminal charges.

As a reviewer, one is always challenged to find the context – the reason and purpose in the films we go to see. Marcel Zyskind’s gorgeous cinematography is stunning and Mark Tildesley’s (28 Weeks Later, Sunshine, The Constant Gardener) production design is incredibly evocative of ‘small-town USA’ in the 1950s (the cars are fantastic!). Mags Arnold’s skilful editing ensures the film’s languid pace matches the increasingly disturbing plot developments to perfection.

But like the time I saw a dog hit by a car, this film is something I wish I had never seen. It will haunt me for a very long time, and entirely for all the wrong reasons.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Theatre Review: Outlaw

Outlaw by Michael Healy. Directed by James Adler. Eagle’s Neat Theatre. Northcote Town Hall until September 3.

There’s a really interesting play to be written about the complexities of ‘Green politics’, but this inert, one-dimensional drama by Mr Healy isn’t it. It doesn’t garner any favours, either, from Mr Adler’s almost perfunctory ‘walk-on during the blackout, stand and/or sit around, walk-off during the blackout' staging which appeared determined to disengage with the play’s all too fleeting and momentary moments of imagined intrigue and reduce it to a banal, self-interested and self-reverential soap opera.

In Germany (for some inexplicable reason), there is a tyre-slasher making a real nuisance of themselves within the local community, but the cast seem to treat the whole thing like the rest of us treat a pesky fly at a BBQ. As the play drags on, the head of the environmental activist organisation ‘Greenfriends’ (get it?) Tillman (Will Ward Ambler) is increasingly suspected of being the tyre-slasher. What doesn’t increase, sadly, is our interest in why it matters. What does increase, however, is our frustration with thinly-drawn characters standing and/or sitting around wrapped up in their own self-absorbed, dreary lives while Mr Healy takes to the media with the most unrelenting, tedious and ultimately pointless amount of ‘media bashing’ since the last Joanna Murray-Smith play I saw. The irony is that the indefatigable Phil Zachariah gave the best performance as ‘Ludo’, a journalist. David Loney as ‘Andreas’, Tillman’s “Right Hand Man” literally burst onto the stage with an abundance of energy, characterisation and audibility, which only made him seem more and more out of place – as though he was acting in an entirely different production of an entirely different play. If anyone else had made even the slightest effort to rise to meet him, we might have had a performance on our hands.

The bits of design by Meri Hietala were great, albeit very literal – especially her use of tyres as an ottoman and as parts of the over-used sofa. I especially liked her knife chandelier.

Ultimately, the real dramatic irony of this performance was that only a day later, Australia had its first ‘Green’ MP in our House of Representatives (even if it was with Labor and Liberal preferences) and an increased number of seats in the Australian Senate. Now that’s fascinating. But I’m only a self-serving journalist, so what would I know?

The review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine at www.stagewhispers.com.au

Theatre Review: Pin Drop

Pin Drop. Created and performed by Tamara Saulwick. Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall until Sunday August 29.

Sometimes, but only very occasionally, theatre-makers redefine what’s possible. Sometimes, the often fraught act of ‘collaboration’ evolves to result in a piece of theatre so hypnotic that you can’t actually believe what you are seeing. But rarely, in my experience, does a piece of theatre-making get so entirely under my skin that every single sense is startled into being in ways that I had never imagined possible.

With what can only be described as pure genius, Ms Saulwick and her expert team of artists and eleven additional recorded voices, has created one of the most extraordinarily involving and rewarding theatrical experiences. Every one of my senses was awoken by this intoxicating and hypnotic symphony of sound and light from the exceptional Ms Saulwick – and anyone who has any interest whatsoever in sensory perception or a stunning showcase in breath-taking technical skill should rush to the Arts House at the North Melbourne Town Hall this weekend to experience this supreme example of it.

Even with a grueling review schedule in the punishing Melbourne mid-Winter, I was compelled to walk home from North Melbourne with every one of my senses newly awakened to anything and everything that was going on around me. The sound of a creaking door in a shop across the road, distant voices, my heels on the footpath, screeching tyres and trundling, clanging trams – every familiar sound was highlighted in a totally new and unique way, such is the sensory power harvested and elucidated in this magnificent performance of immense theatrical adventurousness.

Sound Artist Peter Knight (composition, sound design and operation) is a genius. The intricate, other-worldly qualities of Mr Knight’s soundscape are astonishingly good, and in all my theatre-going experiences, I have never experienced technical artistry of such profound sensory invigoration like this. Ever. The design – credited to Bluebottle – Ben Cobham and Frog Peck – is extraordinary, deceptively simple yet masterful and remarkably perceptive. It makes me almost grieve for that way sound and light is so unjustly mis-used in the theatre (where even just turning a couple of lights on and pointing them at the stage seems to be considered ‘design’).

But it doesn’t stop there – such is the determination of Ms Saulwick for her peformance to be one of such alarming originality that even (and one might say especially) the good old theatre term ‘blackout’ takes on an entirely new dimension. Michelle Heaven’s movement is absolute and performed by Ms Saulwick with such a heightened level of skill and awareness that it is almost brutal in its sparsity, constantly surprising in its invention and never less than entirely of service to the soundscape and the almost filmic visions that unfold with pure poetic beauty.

Unforgettable. Go.

This review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine @ www.stagewhispers.com.au

Film Review: Salt

Salt. 100 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Phillip Noyce. Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer.

No amount of flashy but unexceptional production values can disguise the inordinate amount of silliness going on in this unrelievedly calculated, one-note political/spy thriller from Australia’s Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Patriot Games, Dead Calm).

Kurt Wimmer’s (Law Abiding Citizen) inert screenplay seems trapped in the dim, distant past with its terribly dated ‘Russian Spy Cold War Nuclear Political Assassination’ mash-up of convoluted plot-lines – and while there’s one genuine moment of intrigue early on, everything that follows is so obviously sign-posted and strangely predictable that there is hardly a thrill to be had. Great contemporary examples of this genre (Enemy of the State, The Informant, The Recruit) have plots that can turn on the head of a pin. Regrettably, this one doesn’t and ultimately you leave the cinema with the distinct impression that here is a film that believes it is cleverer than it actually is.

CIA Agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is on her way home from the office to celebrate her anniversary with her husband Mike (August Diehl) when her departure is interrupted by the arrival of a ‘walk-in’ – a Russian defector Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) who has some important information he wants to share. Salt agrees to a brief interview with Orlov, who promptly declares that Salt is a Russian Spy who is going to assassinate the Russian President when he visits America for the funeral of the Vice-President. Salt must quickly discover how to prove to her CIA colleagues that this is not the case.

Ms Jolie is on auto-pilot throughout and is never as good as she was in Wanted, Mr and Mrs Smith or even her first venture into this action-packed genre – Lara Croft and the Tomb Raiders. Ms Jolie is a much better actress than this (The Changeling is just one example of her outstanding range) and Liev Schreiber’s performance as her partner/defender/foe ‘Ted Winter’ is deadly dull – appearing by the end to be only marginally more interested by the whole thing than we are. Chiwetel Ejiofor (2012) as CIA Mastermind ‘Peadbody’ tries hard to generate some interest in the proceedings, but only Mr Olbrychski and Mr Diehl manage to bring any kind of class to what turns out to be a very long, bloody, noisy, panicked, violent and instantly forgettable 100 minutes.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group and appeared in the printed edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

Theatre Review: The Boy From Oz

The Boy From Oz. Music and Lyrics by Peter Allen. Book by Nick Enright. The Production Company, State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne. Returning 5 to 16 January, 2011.

Before Bette Midler performed the final song of her “Kiss My Brass” concert in Sydney in 2005, she told us that Australia had been responsible for the gift to the world of some of the best songs she had ever sung. Then, as the stage became awash with pink, Ms Midler sang Peter Allen’s Tenterfield Saddler. Ms Midler is always at her best with a thoughtful and considered ballad, and her performance of this iconic Allen tune was perfection.

And on Wednesday night, as we filed out of the State Theatre having witnessed the opening night performance of the Production Company’s The Boy From Oz, I overheard someone say “just perfect” … and how right they were. Great performances of theatre sometimes appear to take place inches above the stage, not on it – such is the unquestionable dynamic certain ensembles of performers bring to the presentation of their craft.

Blessed with an amazing script by the great Nick Enright, Nancye Hayes’s direction is all pure theatrical animal instinct and the tableaus that meld her vision of the show together are stunning. The fluidity and precision with which this enormous undertaking moves across the huge State Theatre stage is seamless, and Ms Hayes fills the stage with immensely beautiful stage pictures, painted with people, that – at times – are just breathtaking. Andrew Hallsworth’s sensational choreography is faultless and delivered with great vigour and passion by the never less than outstanding cast.

And what a cast! Christen O’Leary and Fem Belling have the unenviable task of bringing Judy Garland and Liza Minelli to life, respectively, and both manage to do so with considerable impact. Robyn Arthur was divine as Allen’s mother Marion Woolnough, and her show-stopping, tear-inducing performance of Don’t Cry Out Loud was magic. David Harris, was equally divine as Allen’s lover for 15 years Greg Connell, owning I honestly love you with a show-stopping interpretation that was so good and so beautifully performed, that it was as though the song was existing for the very first time. Fletcher O’Leary (one of the two boys who will play Young Peter throughout the season) gave the performance of a seasoned veteran, and his melding with the older Peter in the recreation of the famous Radio City Music Hall Rockettes kick-line was yet another show-stopper. Wonderful support was provided by the razzle-dazzle trio of Claire George, Samantha Morley and Sun Park who, apart from being very handy with moving the white grand-piano, also conquered the vocal demands with artful precision and flair.

Musical Director John Foreman championed the big, challenging score into one dazzling unit and his band, including members of Orchestra Victoria, was the best it is possible to be. In Music Theatre, there’s an unspoken anxiety in the relationship between the music, the work and the audience. It’s that moment when an instrument slips out of tune or off the beat. It’s that tempo that trips over itself or drags. It’s that startled cringe when the magic and slippery bond that unites great ensembles of musicians falls away. But not here. Mr Foreman and his band were in complete command, and the result was electrifying, particularly much of the tempi which showcased not only Mr Allen’s fantastic tunes, but powered the work of the entire company. From the complete Broadway tuner When I Get My Name In Lights to the intricacy of every heartbeat of Quiet Please, There’s a Lady Onstage, Mr Foreman and his band were pure trust, and more perfect than the greatest expectation.

Shaun Gurton’s impressive and marvelously versatile set design served the work at every turn and Trudy Dalgleish’s lighting of it was brilliant. Kim Bishop’s wonderful costumes brought the showmanship and the pizzazz to life beautifully, but also served to reinforce the era in which Peter Allen lived – a life of such immense passion, dedication and total commitment to the pursuit of his dreams.

Some performers are simply perfect for a particular role – and Todd McKenney brings Peter Allen to life as though they share every piece of one another’s DNA. McKenney’s is a must-see performance of music theatre fire, passion, artistry, flair and great intelligence. Quite apart from the fact that he rarely leaves the stage (and only then to change into another of Mr Allen’s signature outlandish shirts), Mr McKenney reads every beat to perfection and is so alive to every nuance of his character’s journey through this thoughtfully structured show, that at times, it becomes quite overwhelming. When the archival footage of Mr Allen playing the piano and singing Tenterfield Saddler is projected onto a large screen that descends from the fly tower, Mr McKenney sits on a step and watches him with such admiration and understanding that it becomes an incredibly powerful moment of pure pathos – the kind that is only possible in the theatre when ‘theatre people’ are doing what they do best.

And it’s hard to imagine a better example of it than this.

This review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine @ www.stagewhispers.com.au

Theatre Review: She's Not Performing

She’s Not Performing by Alison Mann. La Mama Theatre, Melbourne until September 5.

There’s an important new voice in Australian Theatre – and it is the voice of young playwright Alison Mann, whose first full-length play She’s Not Performing is an absolute ripper. ‘Issue-based’ theatre always has the potential to be sabotaged by its own worthiness, but not in the hands of this adventurous and marvelously talented young playwright and her dramaturg – Melbourne’s Mistress of psychosexual invention and efficiency, Maude Davey. Stripped away is all the sometimes attendant cloying and wearying victim association, and what we are left with is a script of immense perception, totally lacking in sentimentality and one that not only does complete justice to the stories of the birth mothers of adopted children whom have shared their intimate secrets with Ms Mann – but entirely alters the hackneyed old clichés associated with our condescending and entirely ignorant perceptions of their act of often supreme personal sacrifice.

If Tanya Beer is not one of Melbourne’s hottest and most inventive designers (beautifully illuminated by Darren Kowacki and Lisa Mibus’s captivating lighting design), then I have no idea who is. Ms Beer’s eventual loss to the mainstages of not only this country, but I predict others, will be a great loss to Melbourne’s independent theatre scene. Her signature and singular abilities to substantially alter our perception of spatial relationships within the theatre space is without peer on the independent scene, and her design for this play (like her visionary work for Platform Youth Theatre Company’s One is Warm …) is unerringly brilliant, responsible, evolved and in complete service to the text. Her catwalk structure for She’s Not Performing is possibly representative of the finest use of La Mama’s demanding little space I have ever seen – and to walk into the theatre and suddenly find it not only unrecognisable but appearing to be about twice as big, is no mean feat. Ms Beer never forgets the ceiling and all the wonderful creative possibilities that exist between it and the floor. And like that wonderful piece of advice a seasoned traveler gave me before I left for my first trip to Europe – “Don’t forget to look up” – this is completely involving design for theatre.

Kelly Somes’s direction, it might be argued, could not have failed, but Ms Somes’s wonderfully inventive use of the space and the skillfully guided and riveting rawness of the honesty of the performances she has harvested here mark her as a director to watch. Yes, there are a good too many comings and goings and, as usual, it’s impossible to determine exactly how much of the extraneous fizz was the result of opening night nerves – but there’s nothing to be nervous about, because the piece moves with undeniable force of honesty, skill, understanding and a profound need to be seen and heard.

Andrea Close as ‘Margarite’ gives one of the best performances of the year as the woman who gave away her child. Fearless, shameless and utterly committed to the enormous task at hand (Margarite is only offstage for a costume change), Ms Close’s performance is a must-see. It would be a mistake to discuss it in too much detail here, because the range of emotions you will feel watching Ms Close bring the complex Margarite to life should unfurl for you in the same startling, profound and hypnotic manner in which they unfurled for me. Her precise stillness, her charming and child-like optimism and abandon and her immense sadness and regret, eventually compound into a grand scene between her and 'Hamish', the father of her only child – beautifully realised by Christopher Bunworth.

Interestingly, the weakest character is young ‘Iain’, Margarite’s earnest and erstwhile suitor, played by Mike McEvoy. Whether Mr McEvoy was determined to play the subtext or whether the character really does appear on the page as a bit of a ‘wet-nappy’, is impossible to tell. It was only these scenes that revealed a hint of Ms Mann’s lack of experience and, perhaps, dominant vision that her play would be about the stories of the women, almost at the expense of the emotional needs of the men in their lives and in her play. It was fascinating that the women were beyond ‘victim’ but both the male characters were still very much anchored in their woe and pouty, disempowered misfortune. It is the same gender deficiency that spoiled Jane Campion’s The Piano for me, and quite possibly, Mr Bunworth and Mr McEvoy might need to actually be less-intimidated by Ms Close’s Margarite and more responsible for their place in her life as truths awaken in all of their hideous beauty.

Rachel Purchase is superb as ‘Annie’, and the joy of watching her scenes with Ms Close are as memorable as it gets. Again, it would be remiss of me to say too much about Ms Purchase’s challenges throughout the evening – but she rises to meet them all with star power, divine physical literacy and a genuine and affecting naivety.

I cannot recommend this short season highly enough. Rug up, and go. You’ll be sorry you missed it.

Photo by Talya Chalef.

This review was commissioned by Stage Whispers magazine @ www.stagewhispers.com.au