Film Review: Get him to The Greek

Get him to The Greek. 109 minutes. MA15+. Written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, from the Forgetting Sarah Marshall characters created by Jason Segel.

The world of rock ‘n’ roll – both onstage and behind the scenes – has resulted in a veritable goldmine of unforgettable films including A Hard Day's Night, The Rose, Almost Famous and This Is Spinal Tap. Something deep within the abyss between the drug-addled, booze-soaked, carnivalesque existence of rock musicians and the inspirational and unique concert performances that feed their souls, can fire an audience’s imagination like little else.

With his latest song and music video “African Child” labelled "the worst thing to happen to Africa since apartheid" and then banned, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, pictured on the right) suddenly finds his previously lucrative career charting toward oblivion. Meanwhile, Pinnacle Records talent scout Aaron Green (Jonah Hill, pictured left) remembers a time when Snow was a big star. When Pinnacle boss Sergio (Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, pictured in the background) charges him with delivering the luckless Snow to the Los Angeles concert venue “The Greek” for a comeback concert, Aaron must race against the clock to ensure Snow makes it onstage for the most important gig of their lives.

With lashings of irreverent charm and laugh-out-loud hilarity, Get him to The Greek is a refreshingly unpretentious gem that plays it big, vulgar and broad from start to finish. The fantastic cast make absolute meals out of Stoller’s wicked screenplay, with Brand (who first played Aldous Snow in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall), turning in a powerhouse performance as the bewildered, recalcitrant rock star. Hill is magical as the earnest but determined young talent scout, and it is this unlikely pairing that provides the film with its big-hearted, Laurel and Hardy-esque core.

Australian actress Rose Byrne does some of her best work to date as Snow’s girlfriend ‘Jackie Q’ – revealing a flawless talent for perfectly-timed comedy, while Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olsen in Mad Men) is equally ideal as Aaron’s girlfriend ‘Daphne’. Cinematographer Robert Yeoman (Whip It) keeps us deliciously on the spot with all the action, while William Kerr and Michael Sale’s (both back from Forgetting Sarah Marshall) editing ensures the film clips along at a marvellously engaging pace.

While Stoller’s skilful and assured guiding hand certainly holds the hedonistic and narcissistic rock star world to account with some brilliant observational comedy (the 'African Child' music video and the Today Show sequence in New York are just two brilliant examples), he does so with genuine affection for the very human element that ties it all together – honesty. Yes, there is the universality of music and its power to unite us in a rare and uncommon ecstasy – but there is also the attendant power to exploit our unconditional surrender to its multi-faceted intrigues.

As Get him to The Greek powers along to the possibility of a big concert conclusion, it unexpectedly reveals itself to also be concerned with the importance and value of honesty – both to oneself and each other. As our rock star idols take to the stage and perform, they do so with the purest of intentions: to create and share with us the power of a thrillingly raw, loud and inhibition-shedding connection with honesty – both in the music and of the moment.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

Film Review: The A-Team

The A-Team. 118 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Joe Carnahan. Written by Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom and Skip Woods. Based on the television series by Frank Lupo and Stephen J Cannell.

Hollywood, with the persistence of a really bad toothache, has been raiding the archives of successful television series for years (Starsky and Hutch, Miami Vice) – hoping against all hope, that one of the big-screen adaptations will become a runaway box office bonanza. And while it possibly won’t be this one, Carnahan and Co’s big-screen adaptation of the much-loved, breakaway television series (which originally ran for 98 episodes from 1983 to 1986) is a great, big, roller-coaster ride of thrills, spills and gravity-defying spectacle. And it’s impossible not to succumb to the frustratingly limited joys of its messy, shambolic boisterousness.

Unlike the inexcusable liberties taken with the appalling Bewitched, for example, Carnahan (possibly taking his lead from the hugely successful Mission: Impossible franchise) wisely approaches The A-Team with a serious amount of near-reverent respect – resisting the temptation to tamper with the series’ winning blueprint. Our heroes have still been framed for a crime they didn’t commit. They, again, escape from prison with imaginative and spirited inventiveness, and they are still on the run from the authorities and trying to clear their names.

The film is perfectly cast (with Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson sharing the ‘A-Team’ honours), while Patrick Wilson (Passengers), Jessica Biel (Easy Virtue) and Brian Bloom all shine in their cartoon character-like ‘bad Federal Agent, good cop’ supporting roles.

Cinematographer Mauro Fiore’s (Avatar, The Island) keeps his camera up-close and intensely personal with all the chaotic goings on, while Roger Barton (Transformers, Speed Racer) and Jim May’s (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) editing keeps the pace set at ‘fast and furious’ from go to whoa.

Ironically, the extreme close-up visual and frantically disjointed editing styles are (especially considering the extent of the onscreen and behind-the-camera talent involved), revealed to be peculiarly naïve and short-sighted choices. This is no more obvious than in the film’s penultimate sequence (set in a deserted, ice-bound cabin by a lake) where we finally (and memorably) pause for calm and considered character development. It is also the point at which everyone involved are revealed to be better at sustaining our interest than Carnahan had previously either believed or permitted them to be. The climactic dockside sequence is just too much of a “how many angles can I shoot this from?” shambles to have ever been worth the wait.

Updated from the Vietnam War (in which TV’s A-Team heroes served) to the Iraq War, The A-Team, perhaps un-ironically, makes another interesting point: which is that America is involved in yet another seemingly un-winnable and increasingly unpopular conflict on foreign soil that, while severely challenging the national psyche, also presents its filmmakers with all sorts of marvellous, militaristically-informed story-telling opportunities. So I guess that as long as nobody mentions M*A*S*H or F-Troop too loudly, we should all be fine.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

DVD Review: Daybreakers

Daybreakers. 94 minutes. MA15+. Directed and written by Michael and Peter Spierig.

With Undead (2003), their marvellous, low-budget sci-fi/horror film about aliens who arrive to save the residents of a small-town from a zombie plague, the Queensland-based Spierig Brothers – twins Michael and Peter – launched their filmmaking careers. Here was a fantastically imaginative addition to the celebrated genre that literally sparkled with invention, broad brushstrokes of tongue-in-cheek humour and great affection for zombified chaos. What, genre aficionados eagerly anticipated, would they do next?

It’s 2019, and a mysterious plague has turned most of the world’s population into vampires. The remaining humans are hunted and farmed for their blood, but as the human race nears extinction, vampire scientists – lead by haematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) – become involved in a race against time to develop a blood substitute before the vampires, themselves, become extinct.

While there is certainly a huge amount to enjoy about this occasionally clever, big-budget blood-fest, unhappily, all the sheer, unbridled creativity that defined Undead appears to have been shoe-horned into a slick, genre treatment that just ends up feeling disappointingly derivative and unoriginal. It’s not helped, either, by the miscast Hawke (Gattaca) or the unengaged performance from a sedate Willem Dafoe, who both appear uncomfortably ill-at-ease with the material.

On the other hand, Michael Dorman is great as Edward’s tortured, human-hunting brother Frankie, while Sam Neill has a field day scowling and prowling around all over the place as Charles Bromley, the head of his human-farming corporation. Isabel Lucas feasts on her cameo as his activist daughter Alison – and there’s a strong sense that this much more interesting relationship was somewhat strangely abandoned in the scriptwriting process.

Ben Nott’s steely grey cinematography, George Liddle’s (Evil Angels) production design and Bill Booth’s (The Proposition) art direction stylishly account for the handsome, sleek, futuristic science-fiction environments. Matt Villa’s editing manages to ensure that the script’s obvious fractures and structural flaws don’t seriously derail the whole affair – even if you do get the feeling that, particularly in the ultra-gory, blood-soaked sequences, it’s all getting a little too indulgent and out of control.

Ultimately, however, it is Steven Boyle’s superb, Nosferatu-inspired ‘Subsiders’ design (with Bryan Probets, Sahaj Dumpleton and Kellie Vella turning in memorable ‘Subsider’ cameos) that steals the show – and it is this sub-plot concerning near-death vampires turning into marauding, cannibalistic savages (together with some particularly gruesome scenes of their extermination) that really lifts Daybreakers into genre-defining territory.

It’s just a real shame that the comparatively boring human characters (including Claudia Karvan as a stereotypical heroine) keep getting in the way of all the action and real excitement – to the point where you end up wishing they’d just drive off into the distance a lot sooner than they do, never to be seen again.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

Film Review: Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom. 113 minutes. MA15+. Written and Directed by David Michôd.

When David Michôd’s debut feature Animal Kingdom was catapulted into the international spotlight by winning one of the Sundance Film Festival’s prestigious Grand Jury Prizes, the anticipation accompanying its release in Australia became intense. Here was an Australian film from an unknown writer and director that had taken the film world entirely by surprise. Absent were the big name drawcards, the massive production and marketing budgets, and the almost pre-requisite tourism tie-ins.

Michôd’s near-perfect film is an astonishingly accomplished debut – nurtured by, one suspects, devoted and complete attention to every creative detail by Producer Liz Watts (Little Fish). Brave producers are rare beasts, and they can make or break a film’s chances of escaping anonymity. The intensive script development process to which Michôd’s script has been subjected, has paid rich dividends. It’s the most engrossing piece of writing for the camera in recent memory – and the creative team, including Art Director Janie Parker (Somersault, Little Fish) and Production Designer Josephine Ford (My Brother Jack) have responded to its lean, purely cinematic muscle with absolute relish and conviction.

The allegorical ‘animals’ of the title are the Cody family, led with chilling efficiency by matriarch Janine (Jacki Weaver, in a career-defining performance). When her daughter dies from a drug overdose leaving her teenage son Joshua (James Frecheville, pictured) orpahaned, Janine takes responsibility for the boy’s future. What he will learn – and quickly – about life as the youngest member of a criminal family, results in a story of extreme levels of constant and increasingly unbearable anxiety and fear.

Everything about Michôd’s direction and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw’s photography is measured, considered and necessary, while editor Luke Doolan ensures the deceptively languorous pace – reminiscent of a recurring nightmare – renders the story both relentlessly and utterly compelling. Antony Partos’s score and Sam Petty’s sound design combine perfectly to create a soundscape of such soul-tearing complicity with the material that, at times, it was just impossible to hold back the tears.

The entire cast are outstanding and never put a foot wrong – with Ben Mendelsohn, Luke Ford, Guy Pearce, Joel Edgerton and Sullivan Stapleton all delivering career-best performances. But Frecheville – whose stunning turn as the cub of the pride – is a revelation. His scene, alone, in a suburban bathroom will break your heart.

Stripped of all the crime genre’s recently attendant glamour and neon, Animal Kingdom owes more to The Godfather than it does to Underbelly – but if you aspired to live the life that this family lives, regardless of what trimmings and advantages you might think came with the territory, you’d have to be seriously fooling yourself. This is an unmissable, landmark Australian film. See it.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition (Wednesday 16 June, 2010) of the Geraldton Guardian.

DVD Review: Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray. 107 minutes. MA15+. Directed by Oliver Parker. Written by Toby Finlay. Based on the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde’s grand, gothic fairytale about vanity, hedonism, narcissism and the combined destructive powers of youth and beauty – has long been considered an important and influential literary achievement. It was Wilde’s only published novel and, like his most famous play – The Importance of Being Earnest – is considered an indisputable classic. It was also memorably (and some might say rather perfectly) adapted for the screen in 1945 by writer/director Albert Lewin, and our generation of filmmakers appeared to have had the good sense to leave it alone.

Until now.

Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) has everything going for him: he’s young, attractive, rich and poised to take on the world. When an artist, Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin), paints a portrait of the young man that will take pride of place on a wall in his recently inherited mansion, Dorian becomes increasingly obsessed with his own beauty and the luxury of riches and choices such good fortune bestows upon him. Under the tutelage of a sinister Lord Henry Wooton (Colin Firth), Dorian embarks on a journey of earthly (and unearthly) delights that will risk delivering him to the very depths of despair.

With all the subtly of a landmine, Parker’s contemporary retelling of Wilde’s fantastically complex, inventive and – most importantly, timeless – morality tale entirely misses the point: which is what you see is often not what you get. Here, instead, is an adaptation so startlingly lacking in imagination and intellect that you ‘see’ and ‘get’ everything.

Roger Pratt’s (Troy, Harry Potter, Twelve Monkeys) cinematography, John Beard’s (The Last Temptation of Christ) production design and Ruth Myers’ (The Golden Compass) costuming are all magnificent – but while the way a film looks can often account for the way it feels, all the mysterious and menacing subtly, sophistication and suggestion that powers the novel (and its previous cinematic incarnation) have been recklessly abandoned by both Parker and first time screenwriter Finlay.

Barnes (pictured, who played the title role in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) tackles the difficult lead role with great charm and good grace – even if his performance suffers from the same desperately frantic quality in which the entire film eventually drowns. The supporting cast tackle all the reductively self-indulgent nonsense with an ever-increasing air of desperation, while an almost impossibly understated Firth spends much of the film reciting the dialogue as though he’s trying to remember what he needs to get from the supermarket.

As Lord Wooton says to our young antihero: The only two things worth having are youth and beauty. Add another: Respect.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

Film Review: Sex and The City 2

Sex and The City 2. 146 mins. Rated MA15+. Written and directed by Michael Patrick King. Based on the book by Candace Bushnell and characters created for television by Darren Star.

There is no denying the influence and popularity of the award-winning, game-changing ninety-four episodes of Sex and The City (1998–2004). Here was a brash, honest, confronting and engaging series about the lives of four women living in New York City that boldly engaged with issues such as sexuality, promiscuity, self-esteem, love, relationships, careers, family and responsibility – grand themes matched by an equally grand wardrobe budget.

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and John ‘Mr Big’ Preston (Chris Noth) are firmly ensconced in momentary wedded bliss. Spurred on by the publication of her book I Do! Do I?, the ‘marriage diet’ of takeaway dinners and hours spent lying around watching black and white movies hasn’t quite matched her expectations of what being married would bring to her life. When Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is invited to devise a PR campaign for a luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi, she accepts the invitation of an all-expenses paid vacation – on the proviso that Carrie, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) can come with her. What they discover about loyalty, love, individuality and choices, leads each of them to a greater appreciation of all that they have and the very essence of who they are and what they value.

As one might expect after twelve years, Parker, Cattrall, Davis and Nixon are so entirely ‘as one’ with their characters that the dynamics of their performance interaction is constantly alive and buzzing with an unmistakable chemistry and flair. And where one might have expected it all to have become a little tired, Sex and The City 2 is actually never anything less than hugely entertaining.

King’s confident, character-driven screenplay delivers a generous dose of philosophical charm and plenty of laughs. The ‘Abu Dhabi’ sequences (shot in Morocco), deliver plenty of surprises – especially when our sassy New York City girls collide with the customs and culture of the Middle-East, and particularly the role women play in Middle-Eastern society. The scene where the contents of ‘Samantha’s’ handbag are strewn all over the ground at the feet of a group of men is spectacularly played out, as is the sequence where the ‘entire Spring Collection’ is unveiled in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Oscar-nominated Costume Designer Patricia Field (The Devil Wears Prada, Ugly Betty) who was responsible for the cutting-edge, avant garde fashion statements that were one of the most talked-about features of the TV series, returns to lead her team in the creation of some truly extraordinary outfits – all worn with absolute, head-spinning panache by the leads.

Sex and The City’s Cinematographer John Thomas, Editor Michael Berenbaum and Production Designer Jeremy Conway all return to work their magic on the sequel, and Art Directors Miguel López-Castillo (27 Dresses) and Marco Trentini (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) render the intoxicatingly beautiful locales with great flourish and attention to every glorious, colourful detail. Grab a girlfriend and go!

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.

DVD Review: Zombieland

Zombieland. 88 mins. Rated MA15+. Directed by Ruben Fleischer. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

Since 1932’s White Zombie, the ‘living dead’, in their many ghoulish incarnations, have been staples of the horror genre – largely thanks to George A. Romero’s … of the Dead films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005) starring Australia’s Simon Baker (The Mentalist).

Considered the ‘Zombie Master’, Romero’s films have deservedly won themselves a cult following and are celebrated worldwide, not only for the way in which they push every single one of the celebrated horror genre’s buttons, but for how they can be enjoyed as satirical commentary on the worst of human excesses: consumerism, greed and blind-sided military aggression respectively.

Comedy, too, has been increasingly integrated into flesh-munching, zombie scenarios – no more successfully than Shaun of The Dead (2004), in which Simon Peggs’s charming, nerdy shop assistant ‘Shaun’ becomes a hero by taking on the local zombie community in order to win back his ex-girlfriend.

Zombieland is the story of Columbus (Jess Eisenberg, pictured) – a phobic young man who, with the help of a set of rules for withstanding the zombie apocalypse, has managed to survive. When he sets off to try and find other survivors, he meets Tallahassee (Oscar-nominated Woody Harrelson) who is in search of Twinkies – a particular brand of American cream-filled cake. When their vehicle and weapons stash is high-jacked by the resourceful Wichita (Emma Stone) and her young sister Little Rock (Oscar-nominated Abigail Breslin) who are on their way to a theme park, the men must chose between going their own way or following the girls.

While it certainly has its moments (the opening budget-draining few minutes are extremely promising), Zombieland rapidly disintegrates into a cheap, tedious, half-baked road movie with self-conscious pretensions to comedy, social commentary and relevance. Bill Murray (Ghostbusters) has a moderately (and momentarily) appealing cameo as himself, but Harrelson (The Messenger, The People vs Larry Flynt), Eisenberg (The Squid and The Whale), Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Stone, just flounder haplessly all over the place in one unengaging, undirected and unfulfilling scene after another – all tacked together with the strength of a daisy chain by editor Alan Baumgarten (Meet the Fockers).

When, minutes from the end of the muddled and predictable theme park sequence, you realise that the same particularly insipid and uninspiring line of dialogue (“nut up or shut up” … whatever that’s supposed to mean) has been repeated more times than you care to remember, you know that the scriptwriters have really hit a brick wall. Hard.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

Theatre Review: King Lear

King Lear by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Directed by Marion Potts, Designer Dale Ferguson, Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper, Composer/Musician Bree van Reyk, Sound Designer Stefan Gregory. The Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne, then His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth from 18 June.

Poor Shakespeare. His works have been trussed up, borrowed, abused, paraded as ‘chocolate box confection’ and shoe-horned into any and every possible ‘modern dress’ incarnation at the whim of directors the world over.

“Shakespeare,” wrote Peter Brook, “never lingers very long on the same scene, his style changes constantly … so the process of preparing Lear … was elimination – of scenic detail, costume detail, colour detail, music detail …”. And Brook would know. His 1962 Royal Shakespeare Company production starring Paul Scofield as Lear, is revered as the benchmark by which all other productions are measured – even by people like me, who weren’t even there.

But on Wednesday night, every Lear I have seen or imagined was swept aside by an ensemble of performances and a production so profoundly, beautifully complex that not since I melted, hypnotised, into the wall during a Kabuki performance in Tokyo has a piece of theatre stunned me with its textual and visual complicity and simplicity. That it should be this grand, torrid family drama of insanity, insecurity, betrayal, greed and envy is an absolute credit to Ms Potts, who has quite obviously staked her reputation, and that of Bell Shakespeare, on it. And how magnificently well-rewarded for the courage of that vision she is.

It is impossible to deny the influence of the time-honoured Japanese theatrical traditions of Kabuki, Noh and Butoh on Ms Potts’s paper-cut precise and bewilderingly painful ritualistic exorcism of Shakespeare’s greatest play. One of the fundamental Noh disciplines is that each member of the ensemble contributes to the performance their individual, impulse-driven instinct – resulting not in an ordered structure of a well-rehearsed ensemble – but a unique performance of spirit and rhythm that exists, like the act of theatre itself, for the very first time. Independence from all that has gone before.

Nor are there ‘stars’. Instead, the discipline demands – insists – that actors deliver a truthful instinct so pure and ego-less, that the performance dynamics are constantly in a rarified and exhilarating state of continual flux. It’s an enormously risky choice – and here, it is realised with something close to Zen-like perfection.

In Jane Montgomery Griffiths’ astonishing ‘Goneril’, this discipline was absolute. Her twitching, grotesque, lusty, power-hungry Princess was as bold, as risky and as adventurous as any performance I have ever seen. Josh McConville’s Butoh-inspired ‘Edgar’, was a mind-blowing marriage between physical vocabulary matched with an astonishing vocal range and prowess. As the blinded ‘Gloucester’, Bruce Myles was riveting and heart-breakingly raw and honest in his connections to the text and his dismal circumstances. Tim Walter’s sexy ‘Edmund’ was nothing less than the perfect object of the Princesses’ (and, audibly, most of the audience’s) desire. It can be hard to be sexy in Shakespeare – but not for Mr Walter, whose flirtation and silly, juvenile, power-hungry fantasies are brought bone-baringly to life, resulting in the deaths of practically everybody. His desperate, panicked admission of guilt – like a spoilt little boy who has accidentally burnt the house down playing with matches – capped off a brilliant, passionate performance. Peter Carroll’s ‘Fool’ will be remembered as, if not the, then certainly one of the finest of any actor’s on a Melbourne mainstage. It is, for my money, his career’s best, and should be seen to be believed.

The ensemble are inspired and supported throughout this immensely challenging performance by the divine, playful, inventive and intuitive percussion from Bree van Reyk. Dale Ferguson’s set and costume design is constantly startling – perhaps no more so than the devastatingly simple use of fur coats scattered about the huge stage, to represent the casualties on the battlefield. Symbolic in its minimalism, here is design that is never less than entirely of service to the vision, the performances and the text. The utilisation of the large, round revolving disc that sits centre stage provides the ensemble one opportunity after another to revel in their complete command of this production’s adventurous, intricate and deceptively simple stagecraft. At turns, with consummate ease, it becomes music box, throne, clifftop, vast castle chambers, indoors, outdoors and, with something like centrifugal force, it takes centre stage as Lear and his Fool battle and rage against the elements during a stunning storm sequence. Nick Schlieper’s amazing lighting design is so intrinsically at one with the production design, and as the play moves to its icy, barren second act, the lighting sends both visual and literal shivers right across the stage with some fascinating use of what looks like huge, white sheets of latex. The effect is mesmerising.

But at the heart of King Lear, there is Lear. And John Bell’s performance is one of such beautiful, heartfelt purity that one can only imagine it’s possible from an actor so entirely within a character’s skin that anything more would risk tearing it. It is a beautiful, intelligent, understated performance that, while successfully providing the massive text with its pulse, steadfastly refuses to corrupt the emerging performance dynamics with showy self-indulgence. His wondrous, wide-eyed stare ahead of him in the seconds before he died, brought tears to my eyes.

For a company celebrating 20 years of performing the works of William Shakespeare, this is an inspirational and unforgettable night at the theatre. See it.