The Great Gatsby or: "Meh"

That's really all it boiled down to for me. A loud, resounding glitter cannon of "…meh."

Yes, it's Baz Lurhmann's interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic and yes, of course I expected it to be a visual spectacle on hip hop blasting, Charlston-dancing, technicolour steroids. That said, the fact that "everyone knows what to expect from a Baz Lurhmann film" (something uttered to me in various forms in the days after I saw The Great Gatsby) doesn't reduce, or excuse for that matter, the glaring faults within the Event Film of the Year. Or at least, that's my opinion. Old sport. Etc. Glitter cannon.

So, let's start with what I did like.

Firstly, The Great Gatsby is amazing to look at. Obviously. It's a sumptuous feast for the eye-holes, in 3D that - while a probably-rather-ostentatious stylistic choice - actually serves to enhance the visual goings-on. By that I mean things (mercifully) don't fly out of screen AT YO FACE in 3D wankery. Call it "classy 3D".

More than the thankfully-not-obnoxious 3D though, the costumes design in The Great Gatsby is a sight to behold. It's more than a little staggering to ponder exactly how much time and effort and dollars went into the styling of the film; everything looks damn-flippin' spectacular.

Secondly, the party sequences are just about worth price of admission. If someone else buys your popcorn, and if you BYO 3D glasses, that is. (side note: trips to the ol' cinematorium are getting EXPENSIVE AS FUCKERY. How expensive is fuckery? $25 for snacks, that's how) In any case, if you came for a visual spectacle, you could probably doze off - or leave - after the giant, sprawling party in which we're introduced to the titular Great man himself (complete with actual fireworks and fanfare heralding the moment). The party, or as I'd like to call it, The Peak of the Movie, is all tasselled dancers rocking out to dubstep, whooshing quick-cut camera movements over seas of people, fireworks, and a lot of booze. It made me want to go drink about five more cocktails and have a D-Floor rampage, so I suppose that's a successful party set piece.

As something purely to look at, and to take in as purely a visual spectacle, The Great Gatsby succeeds. Unfortunately, two and a half hours of pretty dresses and spectacular set-pieces a good film does not make.

Maybe if The Great Gatsby weren't based on a classic book so well-loved by so many (myself included), I'd be less critical. Maybe that'd be the case, but unfortunately The Great Gatsby did begin its life as a book. It's interesting to note that it's at this point that I'm compelled to write anything regarding the plot, or the character-related goings-on. It's pretty indicative of Lurhmann's Gatsby; the fact that style is favoured over substance, visual spectacle and aesthetic fappery over character and emotion. So yeah, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) rents a place next door to Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). His - Nick - cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) has married Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), and Tom's fooling around behind her back. Gatsby's bought a giant palace to be near Daisy after five years apart. Nick falls "half in love" with Daisy's friend Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki). Everyone wonders who Gatsby is. Gatsby and Daisy reconnect for a fleeting moment, but it's not to be. Sigh, etc.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's book is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, who describes his dealings with his neighbour Jay Gatsby, his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom with a detachment and subtlety. Beautiful moments filled with emotion bubbling just between the lines ("I've never seen such beautiful shirts!") are here handled with all the subtlety of a drunken bull riding a cannon. A glitter cannon.

Here, Nick annoying narrates the film, telling the audience exactly what's going on, and exactly how/why it's happening. Those aforementioned beautiful moments occur - featuring some great performances, just FYI - but are then ruined by narration then describing to the audience what just happened.

My biggest gripe with The Great Gatsby was the incessant heavy-handed nature in which EVERYTHING goes down. The audience is basically pistol-whipped with the point/meaning of every action that happens. At one point Gatsby tells Nick about a letter he wrote Daisy, and as he describes it, Daisy's image appears in the night sky like some sort of giant, human, simpering Jazz Age Mufasa. When things like that happen it doesn't matter how much of a beautiful spectacle a party is, because a bejewelled Fonz just jumped the gold-plated shark. I actually struggled to hold back laughter at a couple of points.

Good one, Baz. 

Which is SUCH A SHAME. Because the cast assembled here is really good, and Baz Lurhmann at times just doesn't trust them to just act. I mean, Leo's good in just about everything he does, and certainly he's a charming and charismatic Gatsby (his refrain of "old sport" doesn't even sound ridiculous) but I didn't find myself giving as much of a shit about him than I would have liked. Same goes for Carey Mulligan. Tobey Maguire fares even worse; he's required to look in turns tired, bewildered, and then slightly less bewildered. Joel Edgerton's the only one who really gets to do anything, and as such, really shines in his hulking, grunting Tom Buchanan. Elizabeth Debicki too, is a standout (although at times I found it distracting watching her, as we happened to go to high school together...fun fact) in her tall, aloof badassery.

And to those who told me "Yeah, it's fine if the movie is all style over substance, it's supposed to be, because that's what the 1920s were like!", I reply with "NO". That's like saying a movie about racism/misogyny/something else is all good in the hood to be racist/misogynistic/something else in its own (the film's) depiction/view/POV/stance/all-seeing eye because that's "what it was like" during point in history it's depicting.

I probably could've articulated that better, but it's late and a bathroom mirror fell on my head yesterday (true story). What I'm trying to say is that I would've liked at least a little bit more character/substance/actual chances to give a crap about the characters during The Great Gatsby.

I feel like I'm doing a little too much griping. Honestly, I enjoyed The Great Gatsby. Even though my mind began wandering to the weekend ahead at about the two-hour mark, it was a rollicking and entertaining ride through the 1920s. And it was beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. The party sequence is worth price of admission. The performances were solid, albeit via an underused cast. Let's face it, the lead pair are good in just about everything they do, and the core cast does actually manage to elevate the film. This is definitely the event film of the year, and as an Event Film it lives up to the spectacle. However, I don't often get into films that are as heavy-handed, obvious, melodramatic and as prone to bitch-slapping audiences in the face with "the point" with a chain-mail gauntlet as this one.

Don't re-read the book before seeing The Great Gatsby like I did.

Review - NO

Note: This is actually a review from last year's MIFF that I thought I posted but inexplicably never actually got around to. Which is truly stupid, because it was definitely one of my highlights of the festival. 

Over the course of MIFF '12, I managed to catch two Chilean films. Both films concerned themselves with matters of national importance (a national hero and a momentous decision, respectively), but could not have been further apart in terms of tone and method of delivery. 

Violeta Went to Heaven was a passionate, emotional, and endlessly sombre film littered with alienating moments of magic realism. Frankly (and disappointingly), I wasn't nearly as affected by it as I'd liked to have been. NO on the other hand, is emotive without being heavy-handed, is stylistically and aesthetically bold without being alienating or pretentious. Surprisingly moving and littered with solid performances, NO has managed to be a personal highlight over the fortnight or so of films on offer at MIFF ‘12. Woah! 

Without descending into a history lesson, Pablo Larraín’s NO concerns itself with the referendum held in 1988, after fifteen-odd years of Augusto Pinochet getting his dictatorship on and seriously cramping the style of just about all of Chile. The referendum (which I believe must have been a result of international pressure) asked Chileans to vote YES or NO to General Pinochet ruling for another eight years. Each side would receive a certain amount of TV airtime in order to convince the average Chileno to hand over their vote. 

In charge of the NO campaign is René Saavedra (Gael García Bernal), a young advertising hotshot. In a risky move that angers those who would fill the allocated fifteen minutes with pictures of death and destruction, René chooses instead to simply use the strategy he favoured to sell soft drink and microwaves. The message of the NO campaign becomes one of positivity, looking to a brighter future for Chile sans Pinochet - full of young people on the beach, dancing and rainbows. Of course, there’s always going to be more factors involved in a dictatorship being overthrown than an effective campaign, but NO does compellingly detail the way a positive message, a catchy jingle and good advertising strategy can play a monumental role. “CHILE! HAPPINESS IS COMING!” the videos declare, in a tune that takes up residency in your head long after the film’s ended. Let's hear it for advertising! Yeah, Don Draper! 

NO was shot on era-appropriate U-matic video camera, which gives the film an authentic feel, and which also means the actual ads, campaign spots and news bulletins seamlessly interwoven with the film. The use of said actual footage makes for often wryly funny, and at times moving, viewing. The YES campaign ends up taking some "they actually did that?" directions, in which it becomes clear sometimes history really is more bizarro than fiction. And that TV in the 80s was fucking weird. In turn, footage of actual riots in Chile’s streets makes for some emotional scenes. It’s a bold, effective decision to interweave the footage, one that ultimately pays off - even if NO ends up looking murky and weirdly square (4:3? In 2012?). 

Gael García Bernal gives a fine, understated performance is the maverick ad man at the film’s centre. However, given the amount of time given NO to the workings of the campaign, the relationships and subplots at the human core of the film aren’t given enough attention. As a result, many of the characters within NO remain underdeveloped, including René’s estranged wife, Veronica. If I’m going to have another small gripe, it’d be that the film was slightly too long, and that without some prior knowledge of Chile’s history, one might feel slightly lost at times. However, neither of those things were enough to detract from the film as a whole in a majorly irritating way. 

Pablo Larraín’s film about a pivotal moment within the long and skinny South American country's history is a fascinating one. NO is an arresting snapshot of a time and a place not often visited, and is a compelling look at where and to what extent advertising and social upheaval can intersect. It's also moving, surprisingly funny, and despite its occasional slow moments, ultimately rewarding.

Gangster Squad or: The Untouchables Do LA

"C'mon Josh. I'll do my De Niro if you give us a cuddle."

The Untouchables Do Los Angeles. That's what Gangster Squad is in a nutshell, and I say that without a hint of exaggeration. A hard-ass monster mob boss played by an Oscar-Winning giant of the cinema giant tightens his stranglehold on a decaying city and is taken down by a rag-tag group of misfits led by an idealistic honest cop. Along the way, families are attacked, the brainiac gets killed, and the mobster does a throat-destroying amount of yelling. Sound familiar? Of course it does!

To his credit, Ruben 'Zombieland' Fleischer's take on the gangster movie provides all the eardrum shattering shoot-outs, be-suited men in hats, and the montages of jazz music and violence that you'd expect and probably thoroughly enjoy. Unfortunately, despite the stellar cast and eye-catching design, Gangster Squad is also riddled with cliche and ends up being the kind of flick you soon forget.

Like I said, if you've seen The Untouchables - and for that matter, just about any lawmen-take-on-the-mob film - you'll know the score An upstanding war veteran cop John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) is recruited by the chief of police (Nick Nolte) to use methods of badassery outside of the police handbook to put the spanner of the law in Mickey Cohen's (Sean Penn) gangster doings. One by one, we're introduced to the rag-tag bunch of misfits chosen to bash saunter away from explosions, and who mostly never become more than one-dimensional caricatures defined by singular characteristics.

There's the black beat cop (Anthony Mackie), old Wild West quick-draw type (a sorely underused Robert Patrick), his plucky upstart hispanic sidekick (Michael Peña), the brainy intelligence/electronics expert (Giovanni Ribisi), and lastly and most charismatically, Ryan Gosling as womanising slacker-cop Jerry. Of course, Jerry soon becomes involved with Cohen's current squeeze Grace (Emma Stone), although sadly the chemistry of Crazy, Stupid, Love is never quite recreated. In any case, a intelligence-gathering montage there, a shooting practice scene there, a botched first attempt at a hold up there, and BAM - you've got yourself a crack squad of gangster interrupting law enforcement brothers. Now we just sit back and place bets on who's going to die first.

Under-developed relationship, but still very nice to look at.

It's to Gangster Squad's great benefit that the cast assembled is of the calibre that it is. While there's hardly chance for any of the characters (with the exception of Brolin and Gosling) to do any sort of growing or to actually become interesting, the core ensemble and the a handful of supporting players are certainly enjoyable to watch. They even manage to mostly rise above the gangster cliches that abound, as well as the dialogue, which at times seems to have been lifted straight from the Gangster Movie 101 handbook. Of particular note is Mireille Enos as Brolin's pregnant wife, who manages to get a fair amount of warmth from a potentially thankless role.

Gangster Squad walks a constant and very fine line between taking itself seriously, and being utterly and completely ridiculous. Sure, there are a few good one-liners, but when the film attempts to delve into the moral dilemmas of being "outside the law", it stumbles awkwardly. There's a great smattering of bullet-ridden set-pieces, but when at least one of the dramatic moments is so clichéd you literally laugh out loud, it doesn't exactly bode well for the rest of the film.

The two sides of Gangster Squad are somewhat personified by its villain, Mickey Cohen. His gangster accent alternates between "kind of normal" and "truly absurd cartoon villain". He's sinister yes, but without any redeeming features or warmth, he becomes a caricature so over-the-top that it's hard to reconcile even with the more ludicrous elements of the story. "HERE COMES SANTY CLAUS!" he yells, before mowing down Christmas decorations with a machine gun in slow motion. Why is Sean Penn here? Is it to pay for a divorce? Did he just want to ham it up and chew some scenery? You know what though? Once you get used to the ridiculous accent, he's pretty fun to watch as a screeching villainous maniac.

Here's the thing about Gangster Squad. It's incredibly predictable, it's probably instantly forgettable, and it's uneven. However, it's also a lot of fun. It's visually lush, it's surprisingly funny, it's full of blood-spurting, gun-toting violence and the solid cast makes the most of less-than three dimensional characters. It's violent, stylish and entertaining instant gratification, and you'll most likely have a good time watching it. Especially if you're a fan of Ryan Gosling.

2.5/5 (I'm being generous)

Breaking Dawn Part Two is so bad it goes past good and back to bad again.

I'm not even kidding.

Look, I know I'm supposed to be writing a long-winded post about Meredith. I definitely still am. Definitely.

HOWEVER, tonight I was ripped away from my laptop in order to partake in a strange tradition Alice and I have going: to head to a screening of the latest Twilight movie in order to laugh our asses off, choking with barely contained guffaws while pretending to vomit into our popcorn.

You may of course, remember my little rant about the last installment of the Twilight Saga ... Breaking Dawn: Part 1. 

Look, I enjoyed Breaking Dawn: Part 1. That is to say, I enjoyed it in the same way that I enjoy watching any insanely bad movie. We laughed at the inane dialogue! We gasped with terror at the atrocious performances! We cringed at the awkward attempts at "sexy" from anyone involved! We vomited at just about everything that happened!

Part 1 was truly a joy to watch, simply because it was filled with characters and plot points and performances so far beyond comprehension, there was nothing else to do in the face of it but to laugh. Of course, afterward came the bewilderment and shock that millions of young girls around the world take The Twilight Saga to be the Best of the Best as far as romance goes, but that's an entirely different story.

To re-cap, Part 1 contained the following:

• Vampire/Human sex
• Teen wolf inter-gang politics
• Half-human half-vampire spawn communicating with its folks from the womb
• Said baby being EATEN OUT OF THE WOMB by its VAMPIRE FATHER
• A teen wolf falling in love with newborn baby

Amazing, right? Yes. It is. It's ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. Can you imagine if David Cronenberg or John Waters were to direct that? Food for thought, no?

Lamentably, tragically, goddamn annoyingly Breaking Dawn Part 1's one saving grace - the fact that it's FUCKING ABSURD and therefore HILARIOUS - is the very thing that's missing from Part 2.

This means that I spent the last couple of hours or so being repulsed, bored, puzzled and occasionally slightly amused (at all the wrong moments, of course). The rest of the time, I tried to block out all sounds of Kristen Stewart's mumbly monotonous delivery in order to gaze at Lee Pace.

He does look like the slightly goth frontman of a
band of magicians, but you know... slim pickings.

To give you some context, Part 2 picks up where Part 1 left off. Revelatory. Renesmee (snigger snigger snigger) has just been born, and Bella has just been turned into a vampire. Bella wakes up and she's suddenly super hot and super strong and has super red eyes. The fact that she's so strong is basically the only place from which Breaking Dawn Part 2 attempts to glean some light moments of humour so you know, look out. Bella learns to hunt, she learns to be around humans, she meets her kid, and she finds out her furry be-muscled pal Jacob has "imprinted" on her newborn daughter. Lo and behold, it looks like our heroes might finally get some peace and quiet in their new little cottage of domestic bliss.

Bella and Edward even get to have some full-blown, no-holds barred vampire sex! Funnily enough though, full blown no-holds-barred vampire sex proves to be just as awkward and boring and un-sexy as Bella and Edward's human/vampire sex, so frankly I can't tell what all of the fuss is about. Luckily for us though, someone spots their rapidly growing half-vampire spawn and dobs the Cullens in to the vampire big bosses and so ensues the build up to a potential vampire showdown for the ages.

Of course, the build-up to a potential vampire showdown for the ages is basically an excuse to bring in some cool-lookin' vampire types from around the world. Call it the chance to put attractive faces to one-dimensional minor characters so obsessive fans can write horny teen fan-fiction to their hearts' content. Because really, that's gotta at least be part of what it is. All the promo shots floating around the internet, the token bits of dialogue, the cool powers, the fact that they're all actuall completely useless as characters ... In between gazing at Lee Pace, that's what was running through my head during most of the "GET TO KNOW THE OTHER VAMPIRES" section of the damn film. WHO WILL GET THE MOST FAN FICTION? I'm almost slightly curious. Almost.

In any case, a bunch of the Cullens' vampire pals trek over from all corners of the earth to help their brethren out. There are a pair of Brazilian Amazon vampires, who you can spot because they're not wearing much and they're tall, fit ladies. They grab a trio from India, who you'll spot because they're darker and are wearing scarves. There's another trio from Ireland and, even though they don't say anything, you can tell they are Irish because they're all have red hair. Yes, that's how layered, complex and interesting each of Stephanie Meyers' characters are. You can tell the vampires are Irish because they have red hair.

At this point in the film, I was thoroughly bored. Each moment of heart-wrenching emotional weight left me feeling nothing. Each pronouncement from one vampire to another that they'd always love them, forever forever forever, I yawned and wished Lee Pace would grace the screen again soon. Alice too, leant over at one point to say much the same to me.
"I don't think I have enough emotion for this film..." she murmured.
No, I thought, the problem is that we don't have enough shit tolerance for this film.

With solemn looks and intense pacing and vows to always love each other in place of crazy-ass supernatural antics, there's really nothing to distract from the fact that The Twilight Saga is basically filled with incredibly unlikeable characters being incredibly selfish, and is filled with actors barely acting, uncomfortably staggering through truly insipid dialogue. I say this with no hint of hyperbole: there are next to no redeeming qualities to be found in this film. 

My biggest moment of excitement (again, I'm not even kidding) actually came when out of nowhere WENDELL PIERCE of The Wire appeared as an inconsequential character that's on-screen for all of about a minute. When he appeared, I began to laugh and clap my hands with geniuinely surprised glee. That, my friends, was the highlight of Twilight Breaking Dawn: Part 2. I half expected him to throw a beer can at Bella's head.

Bunk's in Twilight? Shiiieeeeeeet. 

What should have been the highlight was the inevitable showdown between the Cullens and the Volturi. That should have been the incredible climax to the entire goddamned saga, or at the very least a somewhat entertaining distraction from the dreary bore-fest that had been the preceding hour and a half. To the film's credit, it does actually manage to muster a few moments of badassery and surprises. For instance (I don't give a shit about spoilers), a number of major players get killed off quite quickly during the snow-field battle that ensues, and in pretty grizzly and graphic fashion to boot. I remember suddenly snapping my attention back to the screen (I could see my phone lighting up and was tempted to check it) and mentally congratulating Twilight for pulling a rabbit out of its undead hat right at the eleventh hour. Cojones! Badassery! Heads being ripped from bodies! I almost felt something there! Well done!

Almost immediately after I thought my prayers might be answered though, we cut back to THE PRESENT, to see Michael Sheen (who spends the entire film attempting to be as over-the-top as possible) looking confused at the vision he'd just had.

That's right.
It was all a dream.
The entire battle did not occur.

The only good bit in the movie didn't actually happen.

EXCUSE ME. PRIMARY SCHOOL CALLED, IT WANTS ITS "AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM" BACK.

I'm not even kidding. The entire showdown was a vision, given to one vampire to another. In the end it all seems like a bit too much trouble to have an epic showdown, so everyone parts ways and lives happily ever after.

THAT'S THE END OF THE FILM.

THEY DECIDE TO CALL IT A DAY AND THEY ALL GO HOME.

When that happened, I actually began to laugh properly for the first time during the film. The theatre was silent, and I couldn't help myself from laughing at how truly and utterly stupid this film was proving to be. Yeah, cool. You can do the, "KIDDING! WE WOULDN'T KILL YOUR FAVOURITE CHARACTERS! EVERYONE'S FINE!!" right when it looked like this wasn't going to be the Worst Thing I've Ever Watched.

To make matters worse, Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 rambles on past the point - ALICE HAD A VISION OF RENESMEE STANDING BY SOME CRASHING WAVES WITH WOLF BOY - where any other film would have began to roll some end credits in order for Bella to give Edward a telepathic flashback montage of THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP. 

"Is this actually happening?" asked Alice, wide-eyed and disgusted.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuucking hell."

When that enjoyable recap of all four preceding films finished, and the film proper finally dragged itself over the sappy, vapid finish line, we found to our horror that it was still almost another ten minutes before we were able to leave. For it's at this point that Breaking Dawn Part 2 launches into a truly, truly awful sequence in which every minor character we've encountered throughout ALL FIVE MOVIES is shown. Even the ones that weren't even in Breaking Dawn. It seemed to last for years. Long, agonising years. Obviously, this is a film for fans. But believe me when I say this: I have never, ever seen something as equal parts ludicrous and vomit-inducing as the last twenty minutes of Breaking Dawn. Never. And I've seen some pretty shitty films in my time.

Finally, the credits rolled in earnest and the ordeal was over. The saga had ended, the curtain drawn on perhaps the most puzzling franchise that's ever managed to make millions of dollars and turn millions of girls into vampire-worshipping zombies with skewed views on romance.

Again, it was one of the worst things I've ever seen. And I admit, this is probably not one of the best things I've ever written but I just had to get all of the confusion and disgust and pure, undiluted terror out of my system before it all faded. I suppose written vomit is all that Breaking Dawn Part 2 really deserves now that I think about it, so frankly I don't feel like I'm going to lose any sleep about it. I just hope that the memory of what I just saw fades into the background of my mind quickly, because I sure as shit don't want to ever think about Bella, Edward, and their pals ever, ever again. Fans take this shit very, very seriously indeed, but if you're not a teenage girl who swoons at the very thought of a vampire then you won't be able to take it seriously in the slightest.

So shit, it goes past good and back to shit again. That's exactly how shit it is.

Review: Safety Not Guaranteed

Right off the bat: Safety Not Guaranteed very swiftly stolen the mantle from all others as my highlight from this year's Melbourne International Film Festival. 

Not for a long while has a film completely and utterly charmed the bejeezus out of me, and sent me from the theatre with such an elated spring in its step. Colin Trevorrow's somewhat-sci-fi romantic comedy isn't to be congratulated merely on its ability to elicit a good mood however; while far from perfect, Safety Not Guaranteed is littered with stellar performances, a whip-smart delightful script, and is surprisingly touching. 

Unless you're the type of person who spends far too much time on Reddit than is probably healthy, you may not have been aware of a joke ad that did the rounds online. It was a wanted ad, seeking a partner to go back in time with. "MUST BRING OWN WEAPONS." it declared, "SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED. I HAVE ONLY DONE THIS ONCE BEFORE". Trevorrow and screenwriter Derek Connolly - both of whom make their feature debut here - as the question, what if this guy’s for real? Is he crazy? Does he actually think he can go back in time? 

Those sent to discover this are self-absorbed journalist Jeff (Jake M Johnson), and his two interns, nerdy and awkward Arnau (newcomer Karan Soni) and our heroine, Darius (Aubrey Plaza). The trio head to a seaside town outside of Seattle, to track down Kenneth (mumblecore veteran Mark Duplass), the weirdo who believes he has harnessed the secret of time travel. Jeff has taken the assignment in order to track down a high school sweetheart, bringing along the two interns to carry out the assignment for him. The trio find Kenneth a mulleted grocery store clerk, and Darius introduces herself - sarcastically, and challenging Kenneth’s “calculations” - as a willing partner in time travel. As it turns out, he’s deadly serious about his mission, and his “training”, and the fact that he’s being monitored by agents of some sort. As the slightly jaded and quietly unhappy Darius becomes increasingly intrigued with Kenneth and deeper embroiled in his plan, the lines between investigative journalism and personal mission become progressively more blurred. How much of the goings-on are in Kenneth’s head? Does it matter? 

Where Safety Not Guaranteed draws its strength is from a strong cast, great chemistry between the leads, and a whip-crackingly intelligent script. One might believe the trajectory of the film to be an easily identifiable one, but Derek Connolly manages to mostly avoid cliches successfully, and keeps things  Each character is a three-dimensional whole person, even the douchey Jeff, who could very well have ended up an utterly unlikable fella. While it’s obvious Kenneth and Darius will get together, the romance is a touching and understated one. Hell, the efforts of those at the helm of Safety Not Guaranteed result in it being difficult to tell whether time travel will actually occur even as the film reaches its last few minutes. 

Aubrey Plaza is essentially playing a slight variation on April Ludgate, her character in Parks and Recreation, but in this instance one can forgive her for playing to her strengths. Plaza appears slightly shaky during the film’s opening scenes, but as the story progresses she proves herself as more than capable in a lead role. Duplass too, has of late proved himself to be an on-screen presence to be reckoned with. In a role that could have descended into caricature, Duplass plays it straight, to poignant effect. To be honest, Safety Not Guaranteed is very much Duplass’s show. 

Safety Not Guaranteed is one of the smarter, more ambitious and genre-defying films I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a long while. It’s touching and intelligent, kind-hearted and very, very funny. As to whether the heroes actually achieve time travel, that is not something I’ll be divulging.

I give Safety Not Guaranteed 4 out of 5 time-travel denim jackets. 

Magic Mike Night: Girls' Night.

I totally thought Channing Tatum was in One Tree Hill. Honestly, I did. Apparently I was mistaken; that's Chad Michael Murray. Apparently they are completely different people. The more you know, right? And, as we all know, knowing is half the battle. What I definitely know to be true however - while we're on the topic of Channing Tatum - is that during high school, one of my good friends was OBSESSED with him. The way Evee felt about ol' Channing was much the same as the way I felt about Star Wars, namely the character of Wedge Antilles (but please, let's not go there). A passionate thing, the affections of a teenage girl.

When I heard about Magic Mike, and more specifically that it's directed by Mr Steven Soderburgh, I immediately thought to invite my old pal. She'd see some shirtless gyrating Tatum, I'd see me a good film while not feeling a complete loser sitting in the cinema by myself surrounded by many ladies all hot under the collar. Not that I have anything against being in the cinema by myself (it's one of my Favourite Activities), but I'd already heard rumours of the intensely filled theatres full of ladies wanting some intensely naked and muscly men. So I asked her. She immediately responded by making a Facebook event, entitled "MAGIC MIKE NIGHT".

TIME FOR A GIRLS' NIGHT! 

I inwardly laughed when I clicked the "accept" button. I suppose if there was ever a perfect instance to be involved in a cliched/quintessential girls night (not usually one of my preferred activities, if we're being perfectly honest), it was this. Cocktails, then seeing a movie abut male strippers, starring Channing Tatum. 

As I drove over to Evee's house with the necessary ingredients for a vessel of sangria balancing on the passenger seat, I wondered what would the film be like. Certainly I knew the girls would be expecting non-stop stripping, with the few non-stripping scenes beholding nary a shirt in sight. I, on the other hand, was hoping and expecting Steven Soderbergh to dish out a smart, entertaining sojourn into a world I knew nothing about. The closest I've been to a strippers' is a sex show in Amsterdam, and I'm pretty sure that's something entirely different. I'm certain strippers don't have sex on stage, and that there's more in the way of teasing going on than actual penetration of any orifice. I'd apologise for that imagery, but frankly I was the one with balls very near my face while the two people were fucking onstage so I can assure you that I'm the one with the worse image in my head.

We arrived the box office, five ladies in our twenties looking very excitable.
"Let me guess" said the girl behind the desk, grinning. "Magic Mike?"

"YES!!" responded one of my companions, in her best "LADIES OUT ON THE TOWN!" voice.

My palm went to my face, but I couldn't help but laugh as well. If there was a high number of females milling about outside the cinema, then inside it was truly alarming. The cinema was FULL. FULL OF WOMEN. There was exactly one dude, who looked like he wanted to run a mile in any direction away from the movies. This dude was swimming in pussy, and not in a good way. He was drowning in high-pitched voices declaring exclamations of how fucking hot Channing Tatum was going to be at all times but especially when he's de-robed. This poor unfortunate guy was obviously there with his significant other, and my guess is that the promise of post-movie sex was the lure that had brought him to this apparent hell-hole. Poor guy. You can bet your easily-removable britches that every girl that saw him sitting there glowering was thinking the same thing. Wh-pssh, wh-pssh! Poor unfortunate soul. 

It's interesting to note that as we walked out of the theatre, I turned to Evee and asked what she'd thought of the film.
"I was unimpressed. I don't know if I liked it...I wanted more stripping!" Was her response.
"Are you serious??" I replied, shocked. "They stripped like, EVERY FIVE MINUTES."
"I know. But I wanted MORE CHANNING."

Don't let that deter you however. After all, the very dear friend that uttered that also - earlier in the night - asked me (and I quote):
"So what other movies has this Stan Sourdough made?"

Sourdough.

I guess what that says is the following: If you were expecting a film that essentially adds up to one, really long dance sequence (a la all those terrible dance movies/TV shows proliferating our screens), you'll be disappointed. You might be disappointed, but you shouldn't really be disappointed at all, given the amount of stripping that does actually occur during Magic Mike's running time. Hot tip: there's lots of stripping.

Basically, Magic Mike is about a stripper named Mike. He's been stripping for a while, and is saving up all those scrunched up one dollar bills in order to pursue his real dream: owning a custom furniture business. He also occasionally works in construction, which is where he meets Adam. Adam has no money but he has a nice bod, so when Adam happens to end up at the strip club where Mike works, he's thrust (haha...thrust) onstage in the place of a stripper who is unable perform. This happens and that happens and voila! Adam is dubbed The Kid, and Mike takes him under his very beefy wing.

The trajectory of the film is an easy one to foresee: young bright eyed and bushy tailed youngster enters a crazy world of sex and drugs, becomes corrupted. Rise and fall! Betrayal! Love interest! You know there's going to be sexual tension between Adam's sister Brooke and Mike. You know Adam's going to get tainted by all the money and sex, and you know Mike's headed for a fall. That being said though, Soderbergh (Sourdough) executes everything in a really compelling, mature, interesting way. It's a vivid and increasingly dark look into an at times fairly seedy universe. For every victorious night onstage, there's eventually going to be a house party visit that descends into a drug-fuelled brawl. As we've learned from countless backstage musicals, what goes up must inevitably come down. The owner of the club where much of the film is set, Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) is not only a charismatic frontman and master of ceremonies, but also a shrewd businessman who knows how to get the most out of his troupe and the dollars they deliver. That being said, Magic Mike is also an incredibly enjoyable romp, with many a moment of comedy to be had.

The performances are all good, nothing's ham-fisted, the motivations and flaws of characters aren't rammed down your throats. I mention this because if you were expecting something along the lines of Step Up or Generic Dance Battle Romantic Journey, you'd most likely also be expecting something very easy to digest. Mercifully, Magic Mike isn't Dance Dance Step Up Revolution. Nuance! Subtlety! Showing not telling! These things you will find.

Channing Tatum has really, really made me rethink the way in which I consider him. So long, I'd thought him as merely a somewhat potato-like guy who either danced a lot or looked sad in Nicholas Sparks adaptations. Or was that Chad Michael Murray? Fuck, I can't remember. In any case, I was laughing near-uncontrollably at points during 21 Jump Street, and I found him to be an immensely likeable presence onscreen. As in, distinctly more interesting and well-imagined than a potato.

Credit goes to Miguel for this one.

Magic Mike is no different. Ol' Tatum's able to be the emotional heart of the film, makes for a solid (YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN, said all the ladies) leading man, and proves himself to be a guy you can't help but root for. In addition to that, he can really, really bust a move. By that I mean to say I'm unsure how he manages to be so agile and jump so high with a body that big. I for one, am convinced that he's some sort of really svelte wizard type.

There's no denying he's got a body for which the laydeez are wont to go weak at the knees for. Word on the street (next to me in the cinema) is that Tatum actually began his career as a stripper. The stripping sequences during the film are all super entertaining, well choreographed, and are really conducive to the sort of shrieking giggles that were happening onscreen. Like I said, I've never been to a male strip joint, but I can only imagine they're filled with hens' nights, birthday posses and intoxicated women. At any rate, the stripping sequences within Magic Mike are probably damn deserving of the hooting and wolf-whistles that were erupting around the cinema. Construction workers, firemen, a fourth of July theme; I'd wager there's something for every lady in the mood for some nudity.

Hell, I'm usually one for the scrawny nerdy dudes but at times even I'm sure even I burst into giggling fits of "Shiieeeeeeeeet". Especially during this one sequence where Matthew McConaughey takes to the stage, I distinctly remember turning to the pal beside me and flicking my fingers in approval "That McConaughey still got it!"

So sue me.

So. What did I think? 

I enjoyed Magic Mike. It was entertaining, interesting, vivid and mature. Channing Tatum is definitely earning points in my book. Let's hope he doesn't do any more Nicholas Sparks adaptations and sticks to being funny and dancing well in between Acting. 

Also, I did enjoy GIRLS' NIGHT. I won't soon be heading to a LADIES AT THE CINEMA type film again any time soon, but it was a highly enjoyable experience. I do adore the girls I went with, so I suppose it wouldn't really matter what movie I saw with them, I'd probably have a rad-ass time. I tell you what though, judging by car-ride post-movie banter amongst the boyfriended girls, I know at least three guys got very lucky that night. HEY-O!

I give Magic Mike 3.5 out of 5 martini glasses full of muscle and dollar bills. 

MIFF: Pure

Dir. Lisa Langseth 


"Mesmerising" is an adjective I've been known to use often. Or at the very least, I find that I use it on a regular basis, to describe a variety of things. Performances, long takes, certain ridiculous gifs found in the dark underbelly of the internet. However, while watching Pure late last week I found myself truly mesmerised by the film's young lead, Alicia Vikander. I say that I was truly mesmerised because I actually COULD NOT tear my eyes away from her. Her eyes, her face, and the myriad emotions bubbling just beneath the surface.

In fact, I was so busy scribbling gushing notes on the tram going home that I managed to get on the wrong tram. True story, and testament to the extent of Pure having whisked away with my thoughts.

Alicia Vikander is Katarina, a twenty-year-old former prostitute, who lives with her boyfriend in the scummy part of Sweden (I guess). A troubled youth who despises her alcoholic mother, she's constantly dealing with social services, and constantly getting fired. She's prone to bursts of rage, in between long stretches of quiet, bottled up emotion. After stumbling upon a piece of music by Mozart on Youtube, Katarina is immediately and deeply affected by it. To her, the music represents (and sends her to) a place where even those she hates can't reach her.

After Katarina somewhat accidentally lands herself a job as a receptionist at a concert hall where she'd previously attended a performance, she promptly sets about burning all of her bridges and becomes involved with the egotistical resident conductor. The conductor (Samuel Fröler) is a pompous, arrogant, selfish ass, but it's easy to see why Katarina would become enamoured of him. Which she does, immediately. It's immediately after this, that Katarina's sojourn into the world of the upper class and classical music begins to take a turn for the dire.

The recurring use of Mozart's Requiem - a performance of which Katarina attends - is incredibly effective. It imbues Pure with a sense of impending doom, with the overriding feeling that this is all going to end badly for at least someone involved. Indeed, as Katarina's life spirals further and further out of her control Requiem seems to represent all of the boiling rage and despair sitting just underneath Katarina's beautiful yet increasingly haggard exterior.

Pure is made by Vikander's performance. It's an incredibly natural, nuanced, graceful performance. Every small victory, every instance in which Adam the conductor slights her, they're all reflected with a subtlety and maturity. It's at times somewhat painful viewing, as Katarina is pushed further and further to her limits. "Courage is life's only measure" Adam tells her, and one can't help but wonder how far Katarina might be able to get before she or her world snaps.

Pure is my surprise hit of the festival so far, and is well worth a look, if only to become absorbed with Alicia Vikander's superb portrayal of a young woman pushed to her edge.

4/5

MIFF: Violeta Went to Heaven

Dir. Andrés Wood

My experience of seeing Violeta Went to Heaven was an interesting one. Being a biopic of Chilean national hero and folksinger Violeta Parra, the film is one entirely spoken in Spanish. However, Saturday's screening managed to be devoid of subtitles. Due to the mix-up, understandably about half of the audience had to depart after half an hour of failed attempts to couple the digital print with some English words. Lucky enough to have two Chilean parents, I was able to watch Violeta unimpeded by the lack of subtitulos. I was pretty chuffed with myself about that, I have to admit. That being said though, I found myself fumbling along at some points, namely the points in which characters spoke with lightning-quick urgency.

Perhaps it was the fact that at certain points I was unable to quite catch exactly what was being said, or perhaps it was Andrés Wood's choice to distractingly interweave moments of magic realism into the story, but I didn't find Violeta Se Fue a los Cielos resonating with me like I'd hoped it would.

Violeta Parra was born in 1917, growing up in rural Chile with her siblings and her widowed schoolteacher/musician/alcoholic father. In adulthood she traveled around Chile collecting folk songs before moving to Europe with her much younger lover, Swiss flautist Gilbert Favre. Before committing suicide in 1967, Parra had time to be a poet, singer and artist (she had her work exhibited at the Louvre) as well as a member of the Chilean communist party. I knew next to nothing about Parra's life before watching Andrés Wood's biopic of the singer's tragic story, which is at times irritating in its chronological choices. As a result, I had trouble piecing together the sequence of onscreen events, as well as being clear on what was actually happening and what was a more fantastical scene. Held together by an television interview from the mid-1960s, Violeta Went to Heaven jumps around various points in Parra's life, as well as instances of characters thought dead gazing directly down the barrel of the camera and of Parra striding through a misty wood.

Even if the film's structure and more over the top poetic choices were at times frustrating, the music that would inevitably fill a movie about a Chilean singer is astoundingly beautiful. Indeed, I found myself being moved to the point of teary-eyed sniffling at more than one point. While that probably says more about me than anything else, there's no denying that the music within Violeta is consistently gorgeous and buoys the film a great deal. As far as I'm concerned, I find that I'm very often moved to tears by South American folk music so there was never any doubt that I was going to find some sort of emotional connection to the onscreen proceedings.

Fransisca Gavilán's depiction of Parra is an emotional, passionate one. It's also a tiring one, wanting in nuance. She carries the film though, and is dynamic enough to portray someone whose life was so tumultuous and full of tragedy and hardship. Thomas Durand too, is solid as the Swiss flautist that Parra falls in love with. However, not many of the other characters that inhabit Parra's life are given enough screen time to make a lasting impression.

Violeta Went to Heaven is a solid biopic of a fascinating character within Chilean history. While at times moving, it is also uneven and lacks the emotional weight that it could have had. This is in part because of unnecessary expressionistic sequences. The music that propels the film though, is crazy-good, and Violeta is greatly improved for its inclusion.

2.5/5 (an extra .5 given because I loved the music so goddamn much)

MIFF: Moonrise Kingdom

I almost feel foolish, all this posting of invariably positive reviews from MIFF. I mean, it's obviously not a bad thing. I'd much rather spend a fortnight watching films I enjoy over films I think are bad/boring/inconsequential. That being said though, I feel still like I'm being won over very easily by these nuggets of cinematic bliss. What a slurry, no? Gimme some good performances and some lush visuals and suddenly I'm all hot and bothered, all "WANNA LIKE, GET OUT OF HERE? BACK TO MY PLACE SO I CAN WRITE A GUSHING BLOG?"

But I digress.

Moonrise Kingdom was the MIFF equivalent of my over-the-top excitement about The Dark Knight Rises. Mercifully, Moonrise Kingdom managed to live up to my lofty expectations, and then exceed them with flying colours. In short, I really enjoyed it.

The long version of that succinct little statement is this:
Wes Anderson has crafted a really magical story. Admittedly, he does have a real propensity for telling slightly fantastical tales that happen to be somewhat set in a reality we're familiar with, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise that he's done it again. In the case of Moonrise Kingdom, it's a story of first love, of the last summer before adulthood rears its ugly head.

Sam is an orphan, and by far the most unpopular member of his khaki scout troupe. Suzy is also a misfit without friends, a bookworm who's been deemed a "troubled child". They meet the summer before this one and instantly become pen pals, confiding with each other about their social misfortune and familial woes. We pick up the story as Suzy looks out her window with her ever-present pair of binoculars. She's on the look-out for Sam, with whom she's planned to meet and run away into the wilderness of the small island where they live.

They bust out of their respective prisons, Sam armed with his scouting skills and a giant backpack, and Suzy with a bunch of books, her kitten and a battery-operated record player. While Suzy's lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), the local policeman (Bruce Willis) and Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) pursue the young couple, Sam and Suzy trek across the island to a secluded beach. As an orphan, Sam's also being followed by a character known only as "Social Services" (Tilda Swinton), and all the while we the audience of a monumental hurricane that's about to hit the small island thanks information given to us to the narrator/chorus (Bob Balaban). After the small community is torn apart by the actions of the young lovers, the storm promises to set the stage for a monumental showdown.

Moonrise Kingdom is full of the dysfunctional characters, meticulous composition, nostalgic colour palette, quirky musical choices (the use of Hank Williams pleased me greatly) and humour that one would expect from Wes Anderson.

Anderson's films tend to follow the stories of quirky, intelligent underdogs. This is no different, with Jared Gilman's Sam being pretty reminiscent of a previous Anderson hero, Rushmore's Max Fischer. Both are supremely confident in themselves and their abilities, despite being unpopular and labelled as somewhat of a failure by some. I often find myself being unconvinced by young performances onscreen, yet Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward give really lovely performances. They're solemn and serious yet full of life, and ready to defeat any obstacle that dares stand in their way. You can't help but root for the young pair. They embody what it's like to be young and completely fearless.

As one would expect, Moonrise Kingdom is an ensemble piece, with each character probably being interesting and entertaining enough to warrant a story of their own. Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand are all great. Bill Murray is, as ever, playing his usual Wes Anderson role, that of the slightly bored and slightly disappointed curmudgeon. Bob Balaban is quietly hilarious as the narrator, resplendent in a vaguely Life Aquatic-esque getup. Jason Schwartzmann makes a quick yet hilarious appearance as Cousin Ben, a smooth-operating contraband-selling scout leader. Even Harvey Keitel appears, as the commander of a neighbouring khaki scout troupe.

Moonrise Kingdom is Anderson's most ambitious work to date, full of all the humour, sadness, fantasy and stylistic flourishes that one would expect from the director. It's beautiful viewing, and it's distinctly Anderson, but it's never annoying about it. Given how much Anderson's style has evolved and grown since his 1996 debut, I was a little worried Moonrise Kingdom was going to risk edging into the territory of over-the-top. Not so however, as this particular ode to young love and innocence manages to be just the right amount of just about everything.

4/5

MIFF: The Sessions

I admit that I initially bought my ticket to The Sessions because I am a fan of John Hawkes. I admit it, so sue me. I saw his name and my eyes lit up. Then I saw a picture of him in bed with Helen Hunt and thought something along the lines of, "Oh? John Hawkes as a romantic lead? I'll take ten!"

It was only after that I read up on what I'd be seeing on over the weekend. Written and directed by Ben Lewin, The Sessions is based on the autobiographical article by Mark O'Brien, On Seeing a Sex Surrogate. Stricken by polio at a young age (as was Lewin), O'Brien seeks to live his life to the fullest, graduating from university even while being confined to a gurney with his only limited use of his head and neck available to him. At the age of 38 though, thinking he's getting close to his "expiry date", he decides he'd like to lose his virginity. As a deeply religious man, he feels it necessary to consult a priest (William H. Macy) in order to proceed with a clear conscience. After some deliberation, Father Brendan gives O'Brien the go-ahead, believing the man upstairs will give the poet/writer/journalist a free pass on extra-marital sex. It's at this point that Helen Hunt enters the picture, as the article's titular sex surrogate.

It's not difficult to see why The Sessions won big at Sundance, including a prize for ensemble acting; the film is made by the performances within it. John Hawkes gives an Oscar-worthy turn as Mark O'Brien, managing to give a natural, warm, riveting performance with only the (limited) use of his face. His body too, is a sight to behold, twisted upward with the use of a contraption dubbed onset as the "torture ball". It's the type of performance that invites attention from the Academy, yet doesn't scream "HEY YOU. GIMME AN OSCAR. LOOK HOW OSCAR-WORTHY I AM." Helen Hunt too, gives her best performance in many an outing. It seems a bold portrayal initially, getting her gear off constantly. Yet it is noteworthy more so because of the restraint and maturity she projects, and the initial iciness she brings to a role that could have been all warmth and nurturing. Those are the two worthy of a poster, but a film doesn't win big for an ensemble with two good performances. Moon Bloodgood and Annika Marks as O'Brien's assistant/carers and Jennifer Kumiyama as a friend with Arthrogryposis who lends her bed all give great supporting turns. And of course, William H Macy is great. But then, his default state is probably usually somewhere in the "pretty great" area of description. His priest though, is understated while at the same time being darn funny. 

Back to the funnies though. Which is the one of the other really noteworthy things about The Sessions: it's as heartwarming and emotionally stirring as one would expect given the premise, but it's also incredibly funny. All the awkwardness and terror that so many would remember vividly from their first time "attempting full intercourse" with another human being is perfectly captured, to often hysterical result. The Sessions does this though without being crude or stepping into gross-out territory...which is no mean feat given how much ejaculation is involved. Apart from all the torture ball stuff, the emotional resonating, all that bizzo, John Hawkes should probably also be commended on his comedic timing.

Ben Lewin too, should be commended. He's made a - as much as I hate this phrase - life-affirming film, that urges all to live theirs to the fullest, and does it without being cheesy. It addresses O'Brien's Catholic guilt with regard to sex while managing to avoid casting a negative shadow on Catholicism. It's Oscar-worthy without Oscar-baiting, and moving without ever descending into schmaltz. Is there nothing this film can't do? I don't know. I do know this though: it's most definitely worth your while checking out when it inevitably gets a nation-wide release. 

4/5 

MIFF: V/H/S

Directors: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence

I was hoping to be terrified. I was hoping that I'd barely make it home with my sanity intact out of every shadowy alleyway I'd be expecting doom and death and some sort of dark hellish creature to leap forth. Unfortunately, that was not to be the result of watching V/H/S.

At no point did I feel like I was on the verge of chundering up my pre-movie dumplings as a result of the pure, undiluted terror onscreen. While that's probably a good thing for those sitting around me, I found that fact to be a bit of a downer. A far more accurate description would be this: that V/H/S is at times genuinely, at times darkly hilarious, quite often very suspenseful, and while at times uneven, is definitely a welcome breath of fresh air to an increasingly stale genre.

V/H/S is an anthology of five short stories of horror, realised by as many directors, and held together by a flimsy premise about a bunch of petty criminals being hired to steal a VHS tape. "When you see it, you'll know" they're told, and so the obnoxious group of guys begin to rummage around a run-down old house. The creepy location also houses a dead guy seated in front of a bunch of TV screens, as well as (of course) a creepy-as-hell basement. They watch the tapes, stories unfold, we get terrified.

Given that V/H/S is of the increasingly popular "found footage" horror sub-genre, it's all a hand-held, shaky, dizzying affair. The opening ("Amateur Night") proves to be especially difficult to decipher, although it is true to the antics of a group of obnoxious creeps in their twenties. While the hand-held style will no doubt infuriate some, for the most part it's used pretty effectively within the shorts.

The content of the short stories themselves range from vampires to Halloween rituals to a cabin-in-the-woods massacre and a haunting captured entirely via Skype. They all feature stock-standard characters, and conventions of the horror genre. The guys out on the town, the honeymooning couple, four friends at a cabin, a Halloween turned sour. Conventions they may be, but each vignette manages to bring a refreshing spin to the well-worn characters and locations. A mood-shift, or a dark moment of wicked humour, or an intriguing use of the hand-held POV form; the directors involved all obviously know their horror, and what works.

A film comprising of six stories will inevitably be home to a couple of weaker links to sit alongside the gems. Happily, even those that inhabit the lesser positions of terror and effectiveness still manage to be entertaining, and bring something refreshing or inventive to the table. In an age where the horror genre is so prone to mediocrity and stupidity (not in the good way), that in itself is surely worth the price of admission. Hell, all six of the films did actually contain moments of real suspense. At times I even found myself peeking at the screen from within fingers while laughing at what was going on.

Even if I was able to get to sleep that night without a care in the world, I'd be lying if I said V/H/S was devoid of scares and the ol' sense of dread/impending doom. Particular standouts included the Radio Silence collective's spectacular Halloween haunted house romp 10/31/98, as well as Second Honeymoon, which manages to be equal parts suspenseful, surprisingly graphic, and darkly amusing. In addition to that, I found myself rather surprised at how unsettled I was by the deceptively simple Skype romp, That Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger.

V/H/S isn't likely to send hardened horror fans home with The Fear. It's also slightly too long. That being said though, it does give hope to lovers of the genre. It's inventive, refreshing, entertaining and smart. Even when it's not so great, it's pretty damn enjoyable, and better than much of what else is going in the horror world at the moment. It also made me hide behind my hands and put my knees up to my face a couple of times, something that certainly warrants consideration.

3/5

 

MIFF: Shut Up and Play the Hits

The first film to hit my eyes at MIFF '12 was akin to a great opening track of a kick-ass mix-tape. I think it was High Fidelity, where someone declared the opening track must be "a killer, an attention-grabber". That's a given of course, but as I tapped my foot and resisted the urge to have a little seated boogie, I couldn't help but make take note of how well Shut Up and Play the Hits ticked that particular box. In one fell swoop, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace's documentary/concert film managed to be just the sort of exhilarating, poignant and highly enjoyable way I prefer to begin fortnights spent at the cinematorium.

Shut Up and Play the Hits chronicles the 48 hour period before and after the final LCD Soundsystem show. It's part funeral, part farewell party, and entirely a move very consciously orchestrated by the band's engine, James Murphy. Apart from the obvious inclusion of footage from the concert itself - at a sold-out Madison Square Garden - Southern and Lovelace also follow Murphy around during preparations for the gig, throughout the day after, as well documenting an interview with Chuck Klosterman. All the while however, Murphy doesn't address or acknowledge the camera. We watch him as he shaves, as he potters around his apartment, takes his adorable dog for a walk, visits a friend. Even the Klosterman interview which provides the film's narration, is filmed at times almost voyeuristically. As a result, one does end up wondering to what extent each shot was constructed and deliberate. Like the death/end/demise of LCD Soundsystem as a project, much of Shut Up and Play the Hits seems to be highly controlled. And like the at times melancholy and quite introspective lyrical content of Murphy's songs, it's all interestingly juxtaposed with the no-holds-barred exhilaration of their live performance (oh boy oh boy is it ever fun), as well as the moments in which Murphy's emotions in the day following bubble to the surface.

Obviously it helps that I've been a great fan of LCD Soundsystem for many years now. Hell, I very clearly remember watching the final concert, streamed live via Pitchfork.com. I was in my pyjamas (it must've been the early afternoon), chatting to a friend streaming it from London. He was at a hostel computer, I was at my parents' house, and LCD Soundsystem were ending their career at a sold-out Madison Square Garden. I recall consciously thinking that I was watching something special, something that would never ever happen again. Watching it on the big screen, sumptuously photographed with tracking shots and focus pulls - no buffering, or cries of "FUCKING LAG" - that feeling seemed to be creeping back.

I'd hazard to say that one doesn't need to be a fan of LCD to enjoy the musical segments of Shut Up and Play the Hits, but I'm obviously fairly biased. I've put their songs on mix-tapes for everyone from romantic interests to family members to a metal-loving pals. I'd put that down to James Murphy's propensity to make eloquent, mature, introspective, hilarious music. But you know, I am a fan. I'll say this much though, I found it difficult to keep myself (flying solo, of course) from dancing around in my seat, and by the film's close I'd long given up on trying to keep my feet from tapping. The concert captured is a worthy last hurrah - the crowd swarms beneath a huge disco ball, the band cut loose (Al Doyle in particular, never remains still and upright for more than a couple of seconds). It kind of makes you want to run out into the night and find a gig to attend and have an emotional attachment to. Highlights (for those of you playing at home) included "All My Friends", "Dance Yrself Clean", "Movement", a guest appearance by Reggie Watts, and the concert's closing number: "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down". If it's in an indicator of how amped up I was after leaving the cinema, I sent a message to a friend that read: "GO SEE SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS. JAMES MURPHY IS A FUCKING BOSS. SO GOOD. GO SEE. GOGOGOGOGGOGO."

Murphy is a dynamic frontman, and makes for an intriguing, articulate and thoughtful protagonist. Via his interview with Klosterman, we see how thoroughly he's considered the reasoning behind ending the band, as well as his preoccupation with aging, his awareness and fondness of pretensions, his sense of humour. At the same time however, Klosterman often seems to have far more to say than Murphy himself on the band's trajectory and legacy. Perhaps it's the intellectualizing and the somewhat performative aspect of some scenes that make the instances in which Murphy sheds tears over the band's death surprisingly poignant and moving. As balloons fall from the roof, on the phone to a friend,  visiting the gear for a last time before it's all sold off are just a few instances.

Shut Up and Play the Hits is for fans of LCD Soundsystem. The same way someone unfamiliar with The Band might enjoy The Last Waltz because it's so damn entertaining and beautiful however, I'd put it out there that music fans in general are likely to get a kick out of LCD's funeral party. Shit, I hope my funeral's as much fun.

3.5/5 stars (As a fan, I'm tempted to bust out a 4/5)

 

It's MIFF Time.

It's that time again. The time of year when I disappear for a few weeks, into a cloud of little sleep and many movies. In case any of you were hoping to hang out with me over August, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint. I'll be unavailable for comment IRL, unless of course you want to meet up with me at the ol' cinematorium. The Melbourne International Film Festival is well and truly filling up my schedule.

It appears that in the last few posts of note on here I've been a little overly excited. I don't know how to feel about that. Perhaps it's a genuine enthusiasm for the things that are going on around me. Perhaps it's the fact that I usually blog when I'm highly caffeinated and as a result uncomfortably energetic. Perhaps it's a little from Column A and a little from Column B. Either way, I look at my calendar and I can't help but be very pleased with my upcoming movements. I actually haven't been to MIFF since 2009; both last year and the year before I was overseas. Which is fine of course - don't even get me started on what I was doing this time last year - but I can hardly wait to get stuck back into it.

SO.

In case anyone was wondering where I'll be spending my time over the next two and a half weeks, here you are:

SHUT UP & PLAY THE HITS
LCD Soundsystem's farewell concert. This is one of the few films I wish I had to foresight and good thinking to find a buddy for. I usually prefer to get my moviefilm on solo, but I think this one'll be a ripper of a film to see in a team.

VHS
Horror film, something about finding a VHS tape. Perhaps it is a haunted VHS tape? Will terrify. Hopefully. I hope to be terrified. I hope I barely make it home with my sanity because everything is so terrifying after walking out of the theatre.

THE SESSIONS
I like John Hawkes, so I'm seeing The Sessions. Guy who has a #dark disease of some sort wants to have sex, so enlists Helen Hunt to help him out. 

MOONRISE KINGDOM
I wouldn't be a self-respecting hipster type if I didn't see Moonrise Kingdom as soon as is humanly possible. So I am. While this isn't the sort of Dark Knight Rises anticipation that's been all the rage in my brain recently, I am really pumped for this. My love of Wes Anderson began right about the time I accidentally watched Bottle Rocket when I was about fourteen. So, a while ago. Hence the excitement.

THIS AIN'T CALIFORNIA
Skateboarding in East Germany! Same as the way I am attracted to people who understand physics and math, I'm one of those rather cliched ladies who find themselves drawn to skaters. This is probably because numbers make no sense to me and I'm far and away the most uncoordinated person I know. As in, I'm no good at skating. I'm attending this with a like-minded lady, and I'm looking forward to it immensely.

VIOLETA
I originally saw the trailer for Violeta while actually in Chile, and cursed the fact that it was to be released there after I returned to Australia. As you can imagine, I was very pleased to see it on the program for MIFF. I'm not so pleased with the international title it's received - Violeta Went to Heaven - but I guess them's the breaks. The titular Violeta is Violeta Parra, the Chilean singer. I heard her music for the first time earlier this year at a barbeque celebrating my mother's family's 30th anniversary of arriving in Australia. By about halfway through one of her tunes the majority of the family was in tears, so I suppose she's a significant figure in Chilean history. 

Seriously though, I'm going with my family and I think we'll fill the cinema. 

INTERNATIONAL SHORTS #1

Short films. I'm not sure what's on, but I'm looking forward to the surprise.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED 

I've been a fan of Mark Duplass since I saw Humpday at MIFF '09. I am currently re-watching Parks and Recreation. This looks pretty damn cool. Reporter and a couple of interns track down a guy who takes out an ad searching for a time travel companion. Romance and hilarity ensue.

THE ANGELS' SHARE
Ken Loach. Down on his luck soon-to-be-father Scottish dude on probation steals whiskey. Looks fun.

NO

Another Chilean flick! Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, about Pinochet's 1988 referendum. Won big at Directors Fortnight at Cannes. 

So. Those are the flicks I have tickets to currently. As soon as payday rolls around, I'll be buying tickets to Bestiare, War Witch and an animation shorts screening. I also feel like my list is currently a little too heavy on the American side so I'll be looking to check out something Swedish, as well as at least one of the films screening as part of the Accent on Asia program. Basically I'm seeing the ten listed, plus at least five more. 

See you on the other side!

Dark Knight Rises or: I grinned for nearly three hours.

Like I detailed in my last post, my excitement regarding the release of The Dark Knight Rises has heralded a level of anticipation and gleeful hand-clapping. It's a level almost unheard of even for me, someone known for constantly unrealistically high expectations when it comes to things I'm looking forward to. But at along last, I finally got around to seeing DKR a couple of Sundays ago, an agonising four days after it was released. Four days. Pure torture, it was.

So. What think?

Right off the bat, I'll declare this much: it blows The Avengers and Prometheus out of the water. I know that during Prometheus I was a bundle of cinema good-time joy, and was speaking very loudly with wildly waving limbs after leaving the cinema. However, in the days that followed I couldn't help but notice all of the gaping plot holes that had abounded. The Avengers was fun, but I distinctly remember thinking during the first act "Man, I hope this gets good, and soon". That isn't to say that I didn't get a giant kick out of it, but I suppose my stupidly high expectations weren't met. However Dark Knight Rises had me giggling hysterically and grinning like a madman throughout the entire running time. Not because I found what was going on particularly amusing - although there are a couple of choice comedic moments - but more because the excitement I felt was such that it had to physically manifest in some way. No mean feat that, with the film clocking in at a Lawrence of Arabia-esque 165 minutes.

The film began, and my arms actually began to make sharp, excited gleeful, jerky movements. My hands were balled up into fists and I was trying to stifle giggles of wound-up excitement. I am not even exaggerating, not one smidgen. The anticipation! The expectation! The Batman love! The pressure resting on the shoulders of Nolan and co, to do justice to this generation's and/or century's defining trilogy. The Matrix, if you will, if it hadn't ended up sucking. 

Now I'll attempt to keep this a spoiler-free zone, but you'll please forgive me if I overstep the bounds of what you don't want to hear. 

The third installment of Christopher Nolan's re-imagining of the Batman movie franchise opens with Bruce Wayne looking more on the Rescue Dawn area of the Christian Bale body bulk spectrum than in the two Batman outings that came prior to DKR. Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but certainly Mr Wayne looks somewhat more haggard than usual. This surprising transformation is a result of the eight-year gap in time between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises; Master Wayne has holed himself up in Wayne Manor, seeing and speaking to no one. Thanks to the Dent Act (Harvey Dent! Remember him? Isn't it all coming back to you now? Isn't this exiciting??), Gotham City's found some semblance of peace, but oh my, is it still ever gritty gritty gritty. Organized crime is at an all time low, prison populations are at a high, and poor old Bruce is wallowing in despair, self-loathing and a leg injury.

"Michael Caine talks like this"

It's at this point that - obviously - the time is nigh for characters, overlapping plots, intrigue and danger to begin stacking up like the piles of rubble that inevitably litter Gotham City at each film's close.

Seriously, as a citizen of Gotham wouldn't you get sick to death of having your neighbourhood totalled on a regular basis?

I'm tempted to say that the first half of DKR suffers from an over-abundance of characters - new and old - and a slight murkiness of plot that makes it difficult to distinguish how and why things and people are doing what they're doing. I didn't find that to be detrimental while watching the film and almost jumping out of my seat whenever Bruce Wayne did anything vaguely cool, but certainly it's something to consider. There's Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a driven young cop, Gary Oldman as the police commissioner, and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, a millionaire do-gooder who might be able to save the struggling Wayne Enterprises. There's ever-present Alfred (Michael Caine), and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), as well as Matthew Modine as another cop type, and a couple of other billionaire types. That's not even counting the other two pivotal "superheroes" of the film: Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), and Bane (Tom Hardy, looking about the size of a truck). It really is a cast of thousands. 

To describe what ensues would be complicated and fairly long-winded, as well as rife with spoilers. This much I hope will suffice: Bane is operating out of an underground stronghold, Miranda wants to help Wayne Enterprises with an energy source, Catwoman meets Batman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt begins helping the commissioner snooping around. Bane extorts some money, seems hell-bent on destroying Gotham, but also in inciting a monumental class war/revolution. What's his Bane's true motivation? Will Bruce Wayne don the Batman cape again? Will Gotham be saved? Will Batman survive this one? How did Tom Hardy get so BIG?

Dark Knight Rises does clock in at the monumental 165-minute mark, but I for one didn't feel like I was sitting through anything vaguely marathon-like. That's even taking into consideration the fact that I desperately had to pee for most of the film's running time (but that's a different story entirely). The film rollicked along at a steady pace, the set-pieces were exciting as all hell - albeit slightly shorter than The Dark Knight. It's almost a given that the performances in DKR are pretty spot on. You could say they're as solid as Tom Hardy's Bane. To say he's doing the two-suitcase walk would be an understatement...

Seriously though, the merry band of Nolan's acting posse are all in top form. Special mention to Michael Caine, who spends just about all of his scenes on the verge of tears, delivering monologues. Not that tearful monologues are an instant tick in the "GOOD ACTING" box, but he does it pretty damn well.

Christian Bale - badass. Boss. I was always going to think that of him, but goddamn, I'm continually rediscovering/re-remembering how much I enjoy his Batman. Okay, here's how much I enjoyed the performances: I usually find Anne Hathaway to be incredibly annoying. Sure she's hot, but you know ... hit and miss in my opinion. Here though? Badass. She brings just the right amount of the crazies and the right amount of something likable to Catwoman. Am I gushing? Apologies. I did warn of the fact that I spent most of the film giggling with excitement and doing that stupid finger-flicking move that indicates one being impressed by something badass or epic or worth expressing in a way more immediate than waiting until the credits roll to grab the arm of the person next to you and hiss "THAT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD" with wide-eyed manic excitement.

What was I talking about? Performances. Performances, they were good. 

With regard to the inevitable comparison between Bane and the Joker, I have this to say: it is futile to compare them. They're different villains. For Nolan, Hardy et al to attempt to one-up the Joker would be an exercise in failure. Sure, Heath Ledger's Joker was the type of performance that doesn't often come around, but let's not forget the truly awful abundance of guys dressed in purple jackets and shitty face paint at EVERY HALLOWEEN PARTY that The Joker inspired. I am sure it'll be those wannabe Jokers who have "Why So Serious?" in their Facebook quotes section who'll be most vocal about that particular gripe. In all seriousness though, it is unlikely that Bane was ever destined to have that same manic, malicious humour, nor the sense of dangerous unpredictability. Nor was it ever going to be wise to attempt that sort of character again. Bane is menacing and terrifying, but in a more hulking, sense-of-doom, what-the-hell's-his-story kind of way. The pounding clang of his footsteps as he storms toward a very battered Batman (I promise that's not a spoiler, of course they're going to have at least a couple of showdowns), it sent me into a knees-up-on-seat stressed out wail. I wasn't kidding when I said my reaction to the film was a very physical one...

If I'm going to allow myself one beef with Bane though, it's undoubtedly with his voice. In his initial scenes especially, his voice seems almost comical. I am certain the first few trailers I saw for DKR, Bane's voice was rather more menacing, gravelly, terrifying. Also slightly indecipherable, which I guess prompted the change. Surely though, there's a happy medium somewhere in the middle of "indecipherable" and "cheery Darth Vader". His slightly smart aleck-y, Darth Vader with less asthma-esque voice to me seemed to be at odds with the hulking, formidable frame of Bane, as well as the menace in his eyes. They say the eyes are the window of some description, but coupled with that voice the two halves of Hardy's performance occasionally just didn't add up. I refer to the first act for the most part in this gripe; as The Dark Knight Rises rollicks towards its conclusion, I completely forgot about my issues with Bane's voice. Perhaps that's because his voice became as menacing as his actions, perhaps that's because I was swept up in the goings-on. 

I can see some elements of Dark Knight Rises as being destined to irritate people, some leaps of faith/suspensions of reality I'm sure some won't be willing to take. And it's true, I suppose I was always going to attempt to see the best in Dark Knight Rises. I was always going to take that leap of faith. I took those couple of occurrences glaring with unbelievability and I just went ahead and rolled with 'em.  After all, this was the film that I'd been counting down until for months. Honestly, DKR could have probably been at least half an hour shorter. I mean, I'm not complaining - I looked at my watch at one point and rejoiced that there was still SO MUCH FILM LEFT. But yes, it definitely could have been shorter. Furthermore, the last act could have been a bit less confusing. In my defense I did have to pee and it was completely excruciating and I even undid the belt and the top button of those stupidly tight jeans in order to hang in there BUT at times I was unsure of why certain things were happening and exactly to whom.

Then again, even while saying that I can't help but only remember how much of a good time I was having. Multiple times I jumped forward in my seat and actually exclaimed, "Oh, SHIT!" because someone onscreen just did something super cool. Personally, I think any time a film incites that sort of a reaction from someone is no mean feat. The action set-pieces aren't quite as long as those in Dark Knight, but certainly they do showcase the myriad ways in which Batman is a complete badass. Eluding cops, attending charity galas, hanging out in the Batcave; he really does do all sorts of things quite well.

I'm afraid this has turned from "review" into something more closely resembling "ramble". For this I make no apologies - just the way I make no apologies for being so fidgety in my seat while in the cinema. Firstly, I really needed to pee. Secondly, The Dark Knight Rises was exciting! I enjoy being immersed in Gotham's dark, gritty, fucked up world full of fucked up people feigning at being superheroes. I totally get a kick out of delving back into Bruce Wayne's damaged psyche, seeing what drives him to don the cape again. I love a good showdown. I love explosions and Anne Hathaway beating up dudes and cities getting leveled and I really do dig me some Gary Oldman. And Christian Bale. Boy oh boy, is Christian Bale good. Somewhere within me a part of me had a bit of a problem with the ending of The Dark Knight Rises but most of me was giggling and grabbing at the sleeve of a viewing companion. Can I just take this moment to assure you all that I'm not usually obnoxiously loud and hyperactive while at the movies. It's just that THIS WAS BATMAN. The end of the trilogy.

There are things wrong with The Dark Knight Rises. Of course there are. But at the end of the two-and-a-half hour sojourn in Gotham (while getting visually punched in the face by an Imax screen) I immediately turned to Mike and Ev and exclaimed "Let's do that again! Seriously. I want to see that again. Right now. Fuck me, I'm going to see it again THIS AFTERNOON."