DVD Review: G-Force

G-Force. 88 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Hoyt Yeatman; Written by Cormac and Marianne Wibberley.

When a young Hoyt Yeatman Jnr (the Director's son) used to dress his pet guinea pig up in combat gear borrowed from his GI Joe doll, little did he know that this simple distraction would become the nucleus of an idea pitched to live-action uber-Producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Carribean).

The result is a dazzling tour de force of flawlessly combined live-action and computer-generated animation so entirely captivating that adults will adore it as much as the children do! Mr Bruckheimer (whose trademarks are excessively high stakes and cinematic wonderment), obviously threw everything he could at this fantastic idea about a special squad of highly-trained guinea pigs who are intent on preventing billionaire Leonard Saber (a perfect Bill Nighy) from realising his diabolical plan to rule the world by creating a global regime of networked electrical appliances. And yes, the "killer cappuccino" line is one of many peppered throughout the hilariously witty script that will be guaranteed to delight audiences of all ages.

From the spectacular opening sequence, when Darwin (perfectly voiced by Sam Rockwell) leads his crack team of special agents Blaster (Tracy Morgan), Juarez (Penelope Cruz) and computer expert mole Speckles (Nicholas Cage) on a mission to infiltrate Mr Saber's enviable mansion (there's always one of those!) to the explosive finale, the miniature world of high-tech gadgets and gizmos is both magnificently imagined and superbly realised.

While the storyline and characterisations might contribute to Hollywood's seemingly never-ending love affair with stereotypical characters in stereotypical situations, you can't take anything away from the spirited performances of the stellar cast and the extraordinary production values – resulting a film of great escapist entertainment value; complete with a punchy (and at times quite affecting) through-line about belonging, individuality and a modern notion of 'family'. And I guarantee you won't ever be able to look at a guinea pig in quite the same way again!

This review was commissioned by The Geraldton Guardian and published in the print edition.

Review: Fantastic Mr Fox

Fantastic Mr Fox. 87 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Wes Anderson; Written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach; Based on the novel by Roald Dahl.

Lead by the ground-breaking Pixar Films, the development of computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation techniques has arguably been most influential in the genre of films made ostensibly for children. With their first film, Toy Story (1995), Pixar single-handedly raised the bar and catapulted their young audiences' demandingly boundless imaginations into photo-realistic environments of captivating brilliance.

By comparison, Wes Anderson's (The Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums) subversive and quirky stop-motion Fantastic Mr Fox – based on a novel by the incomparable Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach) – at first presents as some kind of idle, farm-bound curiousity; a bewildering artifact from a bygone 'hard drive and gigabyte-free' age.

Mr Fox (over-bearingly voiced by George Clooney) is suffering a severe bout of affluenza. Tired of being poor and having to live underground, Mr Fox shops well beyond his means and buys a beautiful big tree where he, Mrs Fox (Meryl Streep) and cub Ash (Jason Schwartzman, a Wes Anderson regular) can live in picturesque tranquility. Mr Fox has also promised to stop his marauding, chicken-murdering ways, but his new proximity to three mega-farms brings his family (and a delightful collection of animal neighbours) into direct confrontation with the farmers – triggering a chain of events which threatens to destroy their world.

While Fantastic Mr Fox suffers from an uncomfortable collision of style over substance and a cloying, 'seen-it-all-before' subplot about the need for parental approval, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny the joyful effects of the lovingly-crafted puppets as they battle to save their world from destruction. Beautifully filmed by Wallace & Gromit Cinematographer Tristan Oliver and helped enormously by Nelson Lowry's (Corpse Bride) visually rich production design, the film's quintessential theme of the merits of a peaceful co-existence – even if you have nothing whatsoever in common with your neighbours – is a timely, and in fact, timeless, one.

This review was commissioned by The Geraldton Guardian and published in the print edition.

Review: Bran Nue Dae

Bran Nue Dae. 85 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Rachel Perkins; Written by Rachel Perkins, Reg Cribb and Jimmy Chi.

While it's possible to fault, it is equally as impossible not to like Bran Nue Dae; Ms Perkins' (One Night The Moon, Radiance and the Logie Award-winning documentary First Australians) fearless and irreverent adaptation of Jimmy Chi's ground-breaking 1990 stage musical.

It is 1965, and 'Willie' (an engaging Rocky McKenzie) is an Aboriginal boy on the cusp of manhood who is juggling his carefree life in Broome, his burgeoning romance with 'Rosie' (a delightful Jessica Mauboy) with his mother Theresa's (the wonderful Ningala Lawford) dream that he become a Catholic Priest. Reluctantly, Willie returns to boarding school and the tutelage of the fearsome Father Benedictus (a robust Geoffrey Rush). Following an altercation, Willie runs away to return to his beloved Broome (and Rosie) – helped along by 'Uncle Tadpole' (Ernie Dingo), and hippy, combivan-driving backpackers 'Annie' (a charming Missy Higgins) and her German boyfriend 'Slippery' (an hysterical Tom Budge) … with Father Benedictus in hot pursuit.

Beautifully filmed by Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie (The Lovely Bones, The Lord of The Rings), Bran Nue Dae belts along with never a dull moment, helped enormously by the immediacy of its fantastic score, its complete lack of pretentiousness and the spirited performances by an outstanding cast. There are wonderful cameos from Magda Szubanksi (as the gun-toting 'Roadhouse Betty') and Deborah Mailman (as the insatiable 'Roxanne') – but the film belongs to Ernie Dingo (who created the role on stage), and whose performance reaches entirely unexpected depths. Dingo's is a marvellously authoritative presence, and one that is critical to the film's cultural resonance – particularly in a startlingly haunting 'dream' sequence when our adventurers find themselves locked up for the night and an hilarious 'bone-pointing' scene.

Critically, Bran Nue Dae also contributes to the increasing wealth of Australian films made by Indigenous Australians. But while it flirts with the harsh realities of alcoholism and sexual promiscuity, Bran Nue Dae is ultimately far more concerned with the grand theme of freedom: freedom to find your own particular joy amongst the mess of humanity and all its wonderful inconsistencies. The sea-side denoument is a celebration of the crucial role mutual understanding and forgiveness play in resolving life's conflicts, and it is the resolution of this big-hearted theme that makes Bran Nue Dae supremely entertaining.

This review was commissioned by The Geraldton Guardian and published in the print edition.

Review: Avatar

Avatar. 162 minutes. Rated M. Written and Directed by James Cameron; Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox; Cast includes Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana and Sigourney Weaver.

As a genre, science-fiction has contributed to the cinema in a host of inspirational ways. Ultimately, it all comes down to Fear, Faith, Fate, and Trust: big emotional journey states which underpin the great work in the genre – of which James Cameron’s Avatar is a perfect example.

The year is 2154. On the planet of Pandora, the Resources Development Administration (RDA) is spending billions to mine the mineral 'Unobtainium' – a key to solving a dilapidated Earth's energy crisis. Home to the indigenous Na’vi, Pandora’s atmosphere is lethal to humans, so the RDA's scientists have created the Avatar Program (led by Dr Grace Augustine – a magnificent Sigourney Weaver), in which humans have their consciousness linked remotely to a genetically-engineered Avatar. Grace and her colleagues have little time to encourage the Na'vi to peacefully relocate before Col. Miles Quaritch's (Stephen Lang) security forces are permitted to use military force to "shock and awe" them into submission. As the mining giant's administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) tells us with potent, contemporaneous efficiency: “One thing the RDA stockholders hate worse than bad press is a bad quarterly statement”.

Self-belief in the face of immense odds is a common thread in Mr Cameron's work, and here he has created a sweeping story of engrossing emotional, cultural and spiritual conflict set within an environment of epic beauty. But while Avatar is an astonishing display of technical genius, it is the rite of passage allegory that powers the story: no more beautifully realised than the dazzling 'Banshees' – dragon-like beasts which the Na’vi must tame before they become their ‘wings’ for life.

Avatar is anchored by revelatory performances from Sam Worthington (Jake Sully) and Zoë Saldana (Neytiri). The success of how instantly we accept the remarkable computer-generated characters is achieved not only in Mr Worthington's exhilaration when he inhabits his Avatar for the first time, but entirely throughout his and Ms Saldana's extraordinary performances.

Ms Weaver's 'Grace', Ms Saldana's 'Neytiri' and a red-hot cameo from Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon, a feisty tilt-rotor pilot, also contribute to the grand Cameron tradition of powerful female action heroines (The Terminator’s Sarah Connor and Titanic’s Rose). What is new territory for Cameron devotees (quite apart from the state-of-the-art performance capture technology he has developed for this film), is the fascinating and vast spiritual world that nourishes, guides and informs the Na'vi's existence. The highpoint is the stunning 'Tree of Souls', which, even for the most cynical non-believer, will give pause to the concept of a life-enhancing, faith-based connection that exists beyond our messy, Earth-bound religious contradictions.

Avatar is a unique cinematic experience, and one you should rush to share in – because one viewing will not be enough.

Pictured: Sam Worthington and Zoë Saldana in Avatar.

This review was commissioned by The Geraldton Guardian and published in the print edition on Wednesday, 30 December 2009.

Review: One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view

One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view, Platform Youth Theatre. Written by Adam J A Cass (assisted by Andrea Jenkins, Neil Triffett, Justin Grant and Caitlin Dullard in collaboration with the Platform Youth Theatre Ensemble); Director Caitlin Dullard; Set and Costume Design Tanja Beer; Lighting Design Geoff Adams; Music Composition Amanda Coventry and Samak A Sangi. Fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne, 3–13 December.

There was a moment, very early on in this Platform Youth Theatre production, where I became hypnotised by what was unfolding. The delightful Kayla Roberts (The Unknown) stands completely still, staring – full of wonderful curiousity – at Andrea Jenkins (The Bitter) as Ms Jenkins literally hurled a firey and defiant monologue about her painful relationship with a higher authority straight to the audience from about three feet away. There was no earnest, self-concsious, well-meaning 'youth-on-stage-instead-of-on-the-streets' worthiness at play here. This was Theatre: and quite possibly an example of the best Youth Theatre I have ever seen.

An epic allegory on Faith, rich in contemplation, ideas and characterisation, One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view boasted a luxury of riches, and made ample use of each and every single one of them.

Ms Beer's brilliant set was not only startling in its conceptual simplicity, but it managed to serve the demanding production at every point: from the early clarity of its quintessential reference to The Bible's 'Eve' to its later almost hallucinatory transformation into the vast and deadly 'Poisonous Point' – traversed by the ensemble in a journey of biblical proportions.

Ms Dullard's direction was, initially, applied in beautifully broad brush-strokes and, perhaps most importantly in youth theatre, the ensemble were delivered to the stage with great confidence, knowledge and respect – ripe, and of their time and place. This is no mean feat within an ensemble of some 20 young actors with varying degrees of experience on stage, but Ms Dullard kept the work honest, engaging, truthful and connected. She was rewarded by magical and commited performances from every single member of the ensemble – which, more often than not, was incredibly powerful and yes, hypnotic.

Mr Cass's outstanding script was burning with symbolism, ambition, insight, wit and observation – but where it was its most powerful was in its stunning use of vocabulary – and in not being even remotely shy of demanding punishing changes in rhythm, tone, structure and breadth of vision. Tricky counterpoints, juxtapositions and metaphors – in the hands of a lesser talent – would have risked falling into ponderous, laboured conceit; but Mr Cass's obvious belief in the strength and purpose of this work (and his role in it) resulted in a beautifully complex script that completely provided, and then accounted for, every possibility – exploring, at times, a language of its very own.

It is impossible to single-out individual performances within this ensemble; such was the strength of unity in permission that signals a fine ensemble at work. What was clear was just how much these young actors love the Theatre and the opportunity to tell their stories. On this very special night, the Theatre loved them back.

I cannot wait to see what they do next.

Pictured: Clare O'Shannessy, left, (The Woman) and Kayla Roberts (The Unknown) in One is warm in winter, the Other has a better view. Photographed by Sophie Neate.

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

Review: Black Marrow

Black Marrow, Chunky Move and The Melbourne International Arts Festival. Direction, Choreography and Concept by Erna Ómarsdóttir and Damien Jalet; Set and Costume Design by Alexandra Mein; Lighting Design by Niklas Pajanti; Original Music and Sound Design by Ben Frost featuring Oren Ambarchi; Sound Design/Operator Byron Scullin. In collaboration with, and performed by, Sara Black, Paulo Castro, Julian Crotti, Alisdair Macindoe, Carlee Mellow and James Shannon. The CUB Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne until 24 October.

Dance, perhaps more than any other creative discipline, has to work exceptionally hard to define, and maintain, its contemporary relevance in an increasingly cynical, impatient, overloaded and (dis)connected society: such is the burden of expectation and borrowed observation that increasingly litters the everyday dialogue throughout Melbourne's currently unrestrained creative democracy.

Black Marrow opens against Alexandra Mein's intriguingly spare vision of a post-apocalyptic wasteland (simply, if later counter-intuitively, lit by Mr Pajanti): huge sheets of black plastic providing an instantly recognisable garbage dump. Gradually, shape-shifting bodies scurry underneath what turns out to be a huge piece of black latex covering the stage. Grunting, heaving, fearful and desperate angular 'creatures' meet centrestage before scurrying off to the periphery again. It is a masterstroke: and in a spine-tingling coup de theatre, the near-naked dancers are revealed to us as the entire black latex floor covering is stripped from the stage and out of sight in a heartbeat.

I hold my breath for the stunning pieces of isolation (I have never seen shoulder blades isolated to such powerful effect – at one with Mr Frost's otherwise indecisive score), and some superb work on the theme of contorted mutation with the dancers' heads tucked forward, somehow completely out of sight between their shoulders; as their bodies morph, entwine and pulsate across almost every inch of the stage. The artistry and execution is exceptional: and it is a scintillating promise of what is to come.

Sadly, it is a promise that is soon broken.

Almost immediately, and with then only rare respite, Black Marrow collapses and falls apart under the weight of its clichés (think carnivalesque, ringleader, circus, toy dinosaurs, Mythology for Preschoolers) and is reduced to a twee playground aesthetic: even though it is entirely lacking in a child's unquestionable and fearless curiousity about how the end of our world will look, feel and sound. For the rest of its 60 minutes running time, it becomes increasingly stage-bound – resulting in a strangely one dimensional landscape.

The exceptions are the brilliance of the thrilling 'last gasp' full body extensions from the floor against the repetitious beeps of a heart-monitoring machine, and the fights against flat-lining that accentuate the dancers' ultimate physical prowess and powerful physical fluidity. Their floorwork is exceptional ... which only highlights the fact that there is little further exploration of full extension: especially at the end, when covered in black oil (yes, an environmental message delivered with the subtly of a fire-hydrant), they only stand to collapse again, even if it is into magnificent Pompeii-inspired frozen corpses, recoiling in horror from the pain of their demise. Minutes from the end, it is a frustratingly fleeting, powerful whiff of all that might have been.

The Spoken Word in the context of Dance in performance has always been a complicated affair, and in this case, it results in a kind of ill-considered, pseudo homoerotic, egocentric and indulgent monologue that only serves to fail the physical vocabulary that wants to fuel the work: and the less said about the grotesquely misogynist birthing sequence … and a silly machine sequence (that immediately reminded me of my own Contemporary Dance classes at Rusden Drama College in 1980-something), the better.

Ultimately tentative, earnest and essentially unfulfilling, Black Marrow delivers little of the thought-provoking, edge-of-the-seat, incisive choreographic adventure we expect from Melbourne's premiere dance company. The dancers are faultless and meet the precise physical demands of the work's rare and momentary highpoints to absolute perfection. This only makes the extent to which they are starved of the raw, truthful creative exhaustion and repetition (to which the work makes what turns out to be spurious claims in the program) even more obvious. And bitterly disappointing.

Photo: Black Marrow, photographed by Alexandra Mein.

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

Review: High Society

High Society, Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter, Book by Arthur Kopit, Additional Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, CLOC Musical Theatre. Directed by Chris Bradtke; Musical Director Bev Woodford; Choreographed Movement by Tailem Tynan; Set Design by Brenton Staples; Costume Design by Nancy Matthews; Lighting Design by Stelios Karagiannis; Audio Design by Alan Green. With Kelly Windle, Trevor Jones, Richard Perdriau, Rachel Juhasz, Peter Dennis, Peter Smitheram, Anne Pagram, Pip Smibert and Madeleine Corbel. Alexander Theatre, Melbourne until 17 October.

In our precious world of Music Theatre, there are people who really know what they're doing and people who don't: and from the moment you set eyes on Mr Staples' stunning (and magically transformational) set and Mr Karagiannis's utterly flawless lighting of it, you will rightly anticipate that CLOC Musical Theatre's production may just well set a new benchmark. And so it does, eventually, to become a wonderful achievement of which the company should be incredibly proud.

Which only leaves the bit about the people who don't know what they're doing.

Watching and listening to High Society on stage is like watching a grave being robbed: a sorry mess of a show that somehow manages to take theatrical and cinematic icons (Philip Barry's stage play, and then film, The Philadelphia Story and Sol C Siegel's film High Society), add some trusted, then obscure and then some even more obscure Porter tunes to a leaden, and (surprisingly given the wit and prestige of the material's sources and original casts) humourless 'book' to come up with a compilation musical of the worst kind. It's as though people without any creative ideas of their own sat around the kitchen table, opened a well-thumbed "Cole Porter Songbook" and went "I know! Let's make a musical! A really, really long musical!" Cole Porter's terrific and efficient songs for High Society (the film) are considered to represent his last truly great score … and one might have expected them to be delivered, unaltered, to the stage. What did Mr Kopit and Ms Birkenhead think was missing? Unfortunately, we soon get to find out … and we're only left to wonder what Mr Porter would have thought if he'd been alive to witness it.

The lumpy Ridin' High (lifted from Red, Hot and Blue) becomes, in this context, a pointless piece of fluffy exposition which seems to exist only to have our heroine, Tracy Lord, run around in jodhpurs for some inexplicable reason. Regrettably, it also gets the additional burden of having to open the show … after a mannered and unengaging nod to the title song. Songs that open shows (just stop for a moment and think about some of them) have to be really good. Ridin' High just doesn't cut it. I Love Paris and It's All Right With Me (both from the much better Can-Can) are also jammed in, and the Porter classic – Just One of Those Things (from Jubilee) – also gets a run. Now, True Love is a wonderful song … a standard … but it ain't no end of Act One number. Instead, Act One just stops … as though someone who meant the world to us suddenly dropped stone cold dead right before our very eyes. It's a very uncomfortable moment to which the audience appeared to have no idea how to respond. The experience of witnessing this extraordinarily beautiful production, performed by a uniformly excellent cast, orchestra and crew and yet still suspecting that something important was absent, was truly difficult to comprehend.

Mr Bradtke brings a skilfully crisp guiding hand to the proceedings, and even though the pacing on opening night was uneven, it's impossible to determine whether there was anything further he could have done or if it was the musical's inherent dead weight that kept dragging it down. Ms Woodford's orchestra, with the exception of some rogue strings and uneven sound mixing, acquitted what passes for a score beautifully – even if the orchestrations are, mostly, deadly dull.

In the end, I realised I wish I'd been at the company's recent production of Miss Saigon: a piece of music theatre equal to their incredible talents and abilities.

Pictured: (L to R) Trevor Jones, Kelly Windle and Richard Perdriau in a publicity photograph from CLOC's High Society. Photographed by Richard Crompton.

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