the national at the sidney myer music bowl

Saturday was the kind of day that brought on low expectations for Sunday; late in the afternoon, when I'd tried to convince the Rocket to come play with me instead of banging on her father's laptop, she wailed, "No, mummy!" and physically pushed me away. It's not the first time she's done that - actually whenever he's around I am about as useful to her as a pair of shoes she's grown out of - and I don't take it personally. (In fact, I love that they adore each other. It's like when your two best friends get along, and then you all get to hang out together.) But this time, it was hot, and I was frustrated, and stressed - I can't even remember why - and I yelled, "Fine!" and stormed out of the house, thundered down the street to the park and then continued the metaphor by raining all over my face on the swings. After about five minutes of furiously not tweeting vague things about my feels (and one minute of doing exactly that), the Rocket and Chris came down the path. She sang, "Mummy!" and then came over and pushed me on the swings until I swung back and knocked her over with my ass. By that time, I was done with my rage. Apparently when I left she called out for me, and when Chris asked her which direction I went, she led him straight there. (Though, you know, it was also the playground, so I'm not trying to get too deep here.) Later, I rained on Chris about how hard it can be to have the same relationship when the affection is shared with another, and our time together is so short, and sometimes, around work and the creative outlets that are exploding for both of us this year, we are just so bone tired. We don't have movie marathons, or go out for dinner all the time, or spend all day in the city just wandering around. We laugh with our daughter and love each other completely, but it is not the same.

Sunday dawned into a bright hot forty degree day, and my eyes still hurt from the day before, crying and then sitting in front of the air conditioner, all my moisture leached from my face. I took my headache into work, and it was fixed slightly by coworkers trying pressure points and three of us pitching in to buy the biggest serving of hot chips from the sushi place across the road to eat upstairs in the kitchen (we called it "a managerial conference about salt"); I took all the crispy ones and they didn't even fight me for them. Still, when I left, the headache was there, at the front of my forehead. I still had to get home, clean, facilitate two babysitter changeovers, then get ready to go out for our date, and it was one of those days when those very simple things seemed unexpectedly hard.

At six thirty we were on the train. It was quiet, and the heat had mostly left the city, though still stagnated in warm corners without airflow. We were alone together, and there was no one between us to yell for food or ask us to read Dr Seuss' Hop on Pop over and over again. We got to talk about work, and about our days, and about his band and my committee, and we got to hold hands. We ate Lord of the Fries in the Alexandra Gardens and watched the slow migration of humans from Flinders Street Station to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, before walking alongside them.

I'd never been before; I couldn't even place it in on the map in my head. It's so big, I couldn't believe I'd missed it. I poured water out of my bottle over the fence and we went in, snaked our way through the picnic blankets set up on the grass, and found a patch of grass. Usually, we get to gigs early, and I go straight to the front. It's the curse of the five-two adult; someone taller is always in front of me anyway. This time, even though Chris said we could go find a spot by the fence, I was happy to stay further back. The crew setting up were far away enough to be featureless, but it had never mattered less. The sky was clear, the temperature just cool enough to make me idly wish I'd worn an extra layer but not so cold that I could justify spending eighty dollars on a hoodie from the merchandise stall. We nudged up against one another and listened to Luluc, the support band, watching them on the screens set up on either side as they filled me with mellow. I went and got us some Cokes, thought about a pizza, or banh mi, or anything - the whole concept of food vans at a gig was new and dizzying, but I was in that kind of mood, where the smell of smoked garlic was enough to make me giddy just about everything. And Melbourne was putting on her best face, the buildings lighting up the sky, the moon three-quarters-full and centred directly above the stage, bats flying overhead, and everyone around us was beautiful, every single person, even me. The people in front of us had brought a picnic with corn chips, crackers, dip, jaffa cakes, chocolate wheatens. I considered giving them two dollars for a handful of chips, maybe making some new friends.

Eight thirty, and The National took the stage. Everyone stood up. They were tiny, and the sound was big. I had to Google the setlist, right now, to see what they played, and I looked at that list and couldn't remember all the moments that broke into me. I love The National, more than almost any band, but I can't tell you the names of their songs, even though I can sing them, even though they don't always make sense. I know they sang everything I wanted them to. I know that I almost cried when they performed Demons from Trouble Will Find Me; I know that when Matt Berninger hollered Squalor Victoria that I almost burst out of my skin. I know that I couldn't remember loving Melbourne as much as I did when we all sang along, even when everyone sang that we were evil to Conversation 16, but especially when everyone closed their eyes and turned Bloodbuzz Ohio into something new, and when it ended, as it had last time we saw them, with an acoustic singalong to Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. There were times when songs ended with me applauding hard and then hitting Chris excitedly on the arm. When I was a kid, I used to express joy by flapping my arms like a bird (now let us all never mention this again), and this was full of moments where, for the first time in a while, I had to hold onto something - Chris, my pockets, my drink - to prevent the urge from breaking through.

I couldn't sustain the heightened emotion for the entire two hours. During a spate of songs that weren't my favourites I started looking around, thinking of getting a cider, wishing people wouldn't smoke, measuring by city skyscrapers where the moon had moved to, losing the moment that I had immersed myself in so much. Then there was England, and everyone was singing again, and I was too, and the trumpet player belted out an incredible solo and the notes cut me into pieces. There was more, there was a lot, there was dusk and night and stars, not many because it's the city and the state was on fire, but they were bright and they were there, and by the end of it everything had been solved, all my problems were over, and all my sorrows were left behind on the grass with the crushed Heineken cans and banh mi wrappers.

As we sat together on the train home, humming songs and swapping gifs we'd found on the internet, I finally noticed that my headache had gone. 

47 ronin

Man, it's been so long since I last posted a review here that the entire dashboard has changed and I am confused. What's with these new buttons? What is this thing you call "Publish"? I'm pretty sure when I last posted the option was "Chisel into stone". Anyway, with my beloved on school holidays we have manipulated many of our relations into babysitting for us and seen quite a few movies ("quite a few" in the way that parents of young children see nothing new unless they illegally download it and then watch it over three days over the periods where said kids are not throwing cornflakes on the floor or finding glasses of water to knock over.)

47 Ronin has received many terrible reviews. On Metacritic, its score was 29 (out of 100, for those sensible people who don't care about review sites that aren't, obviously, this amazing one right here.) I assumed it was going to be so awful that I would spend most of it composing mean tweets in my head, should I ever see it. And then I scored some free tickets, which meant that I could see it, with no guilt. Score!

Keanu Reeves plays Kai, a "half-breed" found almost dead in a river as a youth and brought up by the compassionate Lord Asano (Min Tanaka), though all around him treat him badly apart from Asano's daughter, Mika (Ko Shibasaki). The town they live in is visited by the Shogun, who is accompanied by a rival lord, the constantly smarmy Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano). Kira has dire plans for the town, however, along with the magical, nameless shapeshifter played with absolute alarming creepiness by Rinko Kikuchi, whom I will love forever after being in Pacific Rim. After manipulating the event and causing Lord Asano to commit seppuku to restore his now-bad name, the town's army, left as ronin--masterless samurai--decide to fight for Asano's honour, despite the quest meaning certain death.

About halfway through I leaned over and whispered to Chris, "What is everyone talking about? This is a perfectly serviceable movie!" At the end, I cried. (Don't read the Wikipedia entry on the true story of the forty-seven ronin, it is spoiler central.) This is a movie that had a good pace, knew how long to make the action scenes without giving the viewer fight fatigue, was populated by a large amount of handsome male actors with long hair (swoon), and never once made me look impatiently at my watch. The acting was all marvellous--Keanu wooden as per usual but it works as a stoic samurai-type--and it even passed the Bechdel test, with both Rinko Kikuchi's witch and Ko Shibasaki's Mika princess tough as nails.

Of course it has flaws: it's a Japanese myth made by Hollywood, with Reeves as a half-breed when there was no such person in the original story. It's frustrating, because Hollywood is so obsessed with white people saving the day in every nation, and Reeves' closest tie with Asia is being one-quarter Chinese-Hawaiian (Hawaii having a large Japanese influence, however.) At least the rest of the cast were Japanese and not from a variety of unrelated Asian countries *cough*Crouching Tiger*cough*; also, Asano's 2IC, Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada, my boyfriend from Sunshine) is just as much the hero, and mostly more useful, than Kai. The one ronin who is more big-boned than the rest supplies comic relief through his weight alone, which also feels out of place. The Japanese witchcraft doesn't add much to the tale, so could be done without; one frighteningly large silver samurai is mysterious right until it is unmysteriously dispatched but without an explanation for its origins. Also, that all-over-tattoo dude from the posters has like one line and ten seconds of screen time, would it have killed advertisers to put Sanada or Shibasaki on it? Jeez.

But kudos to the filmmakers for staying fairly close to the bones of the original story, for totally surpassing my low expectations, and for the most un-Hollywood ending I've seen in a long time. I give this 47 out of 70 Ronin.

bachelorette

Movies like Bachelorette, The Hangover and Bridesmaids make me feel like getting married is a complete lapse of judgement that will end with you in some kind of physical or emotional pain on what is touted as the best day of your life. I also am beginning to think that I have a very rare thing in my life: friends who are not assholes. Is it really that hard not to be an asshole? Bachelorette says: apparently it is very hard. 

Becky (Rebel Wilson) tells her dear friend Regan (Kirsten Dunst) that she is engaged to her high school sweetheart, Dale (Hayes MacArthur). Despite this piece of apparent good news, Regan calls their mutual friends Katie (Isla Fisher) and Gena (Lizzy Kaplan, who also starred in a previous mean girl movie called Mean Girls) to immediately anguish over the fact her boyfriend hasn’t proposed to her (because in Hollywood, relationships aren’t real unless you’re married), and why does Becky deserve a decent husband anyway? 

Then the movie fast forwards to the day before the wedding. Regan, as maid of honour, has declared herself in charge of the wedding and is cruel to the help. Katie assists by bringing a vast amount of cocaine. Gena is pouting because her ex Clyde (Adam Scott) will be there and she has Unfinished Angst about him. Together, the girls ruin Becky’s bachelorette party with an obnoxious stripper, get told by Becky to grow up, and proceed to Become Mature People by laughing about how they can fit two people in Becky’s wedding dress, which they then tear. Can they fix it in time to not ruin Becky’s wedding? Will they encounter handsome men? Will they all die at the end in a fiery explosion? WE CAN ONLY HOPE SO. 

Bachelorette fails because the cast is so vehemently unlikeable. Regan does nothing but shout, and when she whines about not getting proposed to, you assume it’s because she’s a monster. Katie is painted as the ditz and really is so ridiculously stupid, which she exacerbates by being almost constantly high, that she is entirely unrelatable. Gena is the one I think the audience is supposed to bond with, and harbours a fairly grim secret with Clyde which adds some romantic tension in a sea of pricks (see: Dale’s friend Trevor, played with jerky abandon by James Franco) and needs to move on with her life and perhaps not be so horrible. But lord, you just don’t care about what happens to them. You wish for them to succeed because Becky seems like a nice person who suffered through high school and who clearly isn’t great at picking acquaintances, but otherwise, just...sigh. Many of the characters (Regan, Katie to an extent, most of the men) don’t get enough backstory to connect with the viewer, and some of the lessons—like, bulimia saves lives!—will make you shake your head. 

There are some great lines, Adam Scott is totally a babe who does one of the best wedding speeches you’ll ever hear, it passes the Bechdel Test easily and I’m super pleased Rebel Wilson is getting famous. Also, she kills with the line: “People think I’m too fat for Dale.” Regan’s response is good, but Becky is right. Her friends are horrible. That is the only lesson to take away from this. 

I give it three out of six bridesmaids. And even those three bridesmaids are wearing dresses that they will never wear again.

ruby sparks

In a plotline that feeds into the fantasies of 90% of people who work in cafes, an author defeats writer’s block by writing about a woman he dreams of, who then comes to life and is able to be controlled by said author’s typing. I mean, this guy—Calvin, nearing thirty, played by Paul Dano—had already written a bestseller at age 19, and lives off his writing. This is more unrealistic than bringing a girl to life with your mind, but is strangely not the topic of the movie. 

Calvin is moping about, friendless, dateless, and not writing but being harassed about it, when he dreams of a girl and they have a nice conversation without any usual weird dream things like it being in your old bedroom but actually on Mars or anything. Inspired by that and his therapist Dr Rosenthal (Elliot Gould), he writes about her, and thus Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan, also the writer and one of the producers) springs to life one morning as Calvin runs about panicking about being late. Reacting perfectly to the presence of a strange woman in his house by hiding from her and freaking out, it takes a while for him to comprehend that she is real, really real and wonderful and fun and just the girl for him. Which is grand, until their relationship hits a few minor speed bumps and Calvin, in a panic, gets back onto his typewriter and changes her course. 

What are the ethics of controlling someone, even when they’re not entirely real? What about if you think it’s for their own good, to make them happy? What would you do in the same situation? (We discussed it while we were watching: write them a huge trust fund and a bright red convertible Cadillac.) What is behind Calvin’s need for control over those in his life? Ruby Sparks is thrown around as a lightweight comedy but has a lot of depth and seriousness; you won’t always be laughing, and everyone is not perfect. While it outright discusses (without the name) Manic Pixie Dream Girls and how they are not practical as human beings, it raises other questions, for me anyway: why are men compelled to write women with sexually turbulent pasts? Did it not pass the Bechdel Test on purpose to make a point about women being idealised? 

Well now that serious contemplation is out of the way, I will say that it’s a great movie: the acting is sincere, the characters bounce off each other well—Calvin’s much more normal brother Harry (Chris Messina) is a good straight logical man without coming across as boring because of it; Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas (sigh) as Calvin’s mother and stepfather are an interesting look into Calvin’s psyche; Calvin’s dog Scotty is suitably fuzzy—and make it a believable situation in a believable world. When Calvin tries to alter Ruby’s personality and finds things inevitable screw up, it makes for both humorous and slightly-to-very depressing situations. It’s an interesting idea and it’s been done well. As a bookseller, one of my favourite things about it was that the book covers in the movie were actually great instead of the crap they usually put out in films—mostly, the author’s name IN VERY BIG LETTERS in case you weren’t sure the book they were signing was their own. If these books turned up in my store, I would buy them. Kudos to their art department then, and to their set designers for Calvin’s stepfather’s forest-like house, which is the most divine place you’d ever want to live in armed with lots of bug spray. 

Ruby Sparks is quirky and delightful while avoiding cliché and never straying into comedy for the sake of it. You could do a lot worse than this film next time you’re out and about. I give it four out of five houses with swimming pools.

rock of ages

It was my thirtieth birthday last Wednesday, and I was determined to take myself and the kidlet out and do A Thing during the day instead of sitting around incessantly shaking a stuffed robot at her and singing songs about Masterchef contestants. Unfortunately, the only option was the terrible-looking Rock of Ages (I’ve already done 1987 once, and that was enough.) But after a scare where we thought the babes in arms movie option was instead Adam Sandler laugh-an-hour fest That’s My Boy, suddenly it seemed like a perfectly serviceable film, and, thanks to a lovely new mother-type friend who also jumped at the chance to go to the flicks during daytime hours, off we went to see it with our best perms and midriff-baring band t-shirts. (Haha I’m kidding, my stomach looks like I was in the last Freddy Kreuger movie.) 

Peachy blonde bubble of enthusiasm Sherrie (Julianne Hough) arrives in Hollywood from the town of Dreamsquasher USA and within minutes is mugged then saved by mop of curly hair Drew (Diego Boneta), an employee of the famed Bourbon Room who also kindly nabs her a job there. Both are musicians, and the Bourbon Room is a haven for rock music lovers after giving Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise, channelling Axl Rose et al) his big break. But the Room is in trouble, with owner Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin, greying) and his cohort Lonny (Russell Brand as the only person who didn’t need a wig) running out of cash and fame. In the meantime, Mayor Whitmore’s wife Patricia (Catherine Zeta-Jones, underused) is on a mission to destroy rock music because sex, Stacee is going through a career crisis, and Drew and Sherrie’s fledging relationship is threatened by Drew’s shot at fame. And all this is conveyed through songs you probably know the words to. 

While the music generally grated on me, it was a pretty entertaining film, relentless in its mashed-up tunes and enthusiastic actors. Tom Cruise is a good choice as Stacee, who is a tool, so you don’t have to force yourself to get behind him. He’s all excess, big-haired groupies and dragon-head codpieces, swanning about in a grotesque manner that will make you squirm and laugh and squirm. The singers are all passable to great, with Sherrie and Drew smiley endearing kids you want to see live happily ever after. The highlight, however, is the surprisingly touching relationship between Dennis and Lonny, two meathead looking dudes harbouring a lot of secret Feelings. The lowlight, though, is the other two hours of the movie. 

Rock of Ages is terrible. They should have just done a live covers concert and be done with it, because the plot is so thin on the ground I’m not sure why they bothered. One or two lines of dialogue are in between each song and are so earnest and ridiculous that you’ll sigh and wish for the next dose of Bon Jovi. There are decade errors like the hipster-style underpants worn by Malin Ackerman’s Rolling Stone journalist Constance Sack, who also suffers from a painful dose of cliché when she turns up in glasses and a hairclip and is only attractive, apparently, after she loses both. Patricia’s plan to demolish rock is never a threat, not even for a moment, and everyone seems to know it, making Zeta-Jones a pointless addition who also has the most redundant song and dance routine in a rendition of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” that looks like it’s been choreographed by someone who never read the screenplay to see what was going on. (Lucky them.) Sherrie, down and out after leaving the Bourbon Room, stalks angrily out of a job at a diner when someone slaps her on the ass, only to go directly into a waitressing job at a strip club and then be told by boss Justice (Mary J Blige, talented but another unnecessary part) that the only way to get respect is to become a pole dancer. (Obviously pole dancers and everyone in the sex industry deserve respect, but deserving more than a waitress is a bizarre concept and has no relation to the rest of the movie anyway. I was tuning out completely by this point.) I also dislike the way the movie mocks the late-eighties angular-primary-colours pop that was blooming on the radio—anyone who makes fun of another’s musical taste is a jerk. As Stacee Jaxx’s agent, Paul Gill (Paul Giamatti) is such a complete idiot that I assumed he deliberately wanted to be broke and despised. You know what, I actually have a lot of rage for this movie, I think I have to stop before I set my keyboard on fire. 

An adequate movie that you’ll enjoy more if you’re a fan of cock rock. If you’re not, watch it with a sarcastic friend for much more fun. I give it 500 out of 1987 years.

prometheus

One of the cinemas at Hoyts Victoria Gardens has this perfect little oasis called the Crying Room. Maybe nine seats, soundproof walls and glass, tinny sound piped in through speakers, and the opportunity to take any small children you may have to see a film where someone’s helmet is melted onto their face. Yes, I am an amazing mother. 

Prometheus is a prequel of sorts to the Alien franchise, started by Ridley Scott and continued by numerous directors in varying levels of excellence and shambles detouring into the Predator universe. Seemingly deciding there was no way forward to pursue, Ridley jumped back into his unicorn-leather director’s chair and helmed a movie set before it all. Drs Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Devil’s Logan Marshall-Green) discover the world’s oldest cave drawings—edgy sketches by the skinny-loinclothed hipsters of 40,000 years ago—and one more piece of a puzzle they’d been collecting. Artworks from diverse cultures and times all had one thing in common: a constellation unable to be seen by the naked eye. Shaw believes she will find her maker in this place, and with a rocket full of shipmates (including a robot, a bureaucrat, some comic relief and a stack of dispensable people you won’t miss when they get splattered), funded by the Weyland Corporation they head off on the two-year journey to this planet. Will they find happiness, peace, and a flowery sunny utopia? Seems likely. 

Prometheus hasn’t been receiving the most favourable of reviews, and I can’t say I adored it either. There weren’t any moments of surprise in the film. Spoiler alert: they don’t find happiness, peace, and a flowery sunny utopia. They find dark caverns and goo and aliens so like sexual organs you won’t be able to do any bonking for days. (The penis-worm with the vagina-mouth is a good example noted by my friend Brett.) People have secret agendas on the mission but the agendas of the aliens themselves are never fully explained. Apparently Mr Scott wanted to leave a lot of loose ends to keep people interested in Prometheus 2: The Flubber Returns, but by the end I just assumed he’d done what I do frequently and interrupted his own story with a tangent and interrupted that and so on until he’d forgotten what he was originally talking about. Don’t worry, Ripley, it happens to the best of us. I don’t get paid tens of million dollars to do it though. While I’m on the whiny paragraph, I was thrown by the ship Prometheus itself: it has technology that far surpasses the 8-bit technology on Alien’s mining ship—I mean, my car has more advanced technology than the Nostromo—so even taking into account the fact that the Nostromo isn’t a luxury vessel it seems likely that anything that can make it into space will have a better font. But that’s not a huge problem—it’s not early-80s-Ridley’s fault that technology became amazing, and the audience would hardly believe shitty tech on a ship when our phones alone have Google Earth on them. I was also annoyed by the characters’ lack of emotions—their expressions when discovering alien lands were about as enthusiastic as when you discover a two-dollar coin in your car when you need to pay for parking. You know, pretty pleased, but nothing you’d talk about when you got home to your spouse. Their motivations were confusing at times, with crew member Millburn (a timid Rafe Spall) freaking out at the sight of a long-dead corpse then suddenly not being concerned about reaching out to the aforementioned penis-worm (and calling it “beautiful”, I mean, ew), and the ship’s captain Janek (Idris Elba) not at all worried about leaving Millburn and tattooed redhead Fifield (an unfriendly Sean Harris) in a corpse-ridden hellhole overnight even when the storm keeping them apart only lasted long enough for an (excellent) action scene. The only character whose emotions seemed right was Weyland’s representative Vickers (Charlize Theron, stony), though I guessed her role on the ship right from the start. Most frustrating of all, a particular character undergoes some dramatic stomach surgery, limps around for a bit, then is suddenly sprinting about and flinging themselves onto ledges. I don’t care how advanced medical surgery is in eighty years...just no. 

On the upside, though, I was never bored, and the effects of the ship and the aliens and space itself were marvellous (and I saw it in 2D, for the record). There are numerous scenes of dramatic tension that had me clutching at arm rests and people’s hands. The stomach surgery I discussed above was so suspenseful that I was almost climbing the soundproof walls to get to the other end of the scene. All the bad reviews in the world weren’t enough to stop me from seeing this, and the many reviews that list what I’ve discussed above, and probably some smarter or more subtle flaws as well (apparently Holloway yells “Noomi!” instead of “Ellie!” during a particularly sandy part of the movie), shouldn’t be enough to stop you either. It’s not terrible, it’s just that the errors were numerous and obvious. Just about anyone who’s seen this will feel compelled to see the sequel to figure out what the hell’s going on—me included—so it can’t be that bad. Go in with low expectations and you might be pleasantly surprised. 

I give it forty out of a hundred jars of black primordial goo.

the avengers

Since Captain America came out last year and Chris Evans’ upper-arm circumference became a bigger number than his paycheque, I—along with a good chunk of the population—have been nigh on frantic for the release of The Avengers. We knew it was going to star all of our favourite Avengers from previous Marvel-funded flicks—1940s transplant Captain America (Evans), metal-suited “billionaire genius playboy philanthropist” Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Russian spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Norse god Thor (Our Chris Hemsworth), candidate for anger management Hulk (previously Edward “Jerkface” Norton, now played by Mark “Unshaven Face” Ruffalo) and a new-to-this-series arrow sharpshooter Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). We knew the bad guy was going to be Loki (Tom Hiddleston), a god with a big stick and hair that flicks up at the ends. (How I wish I knew his secret.) We knew Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) would bring them all together into a great big tasty Avengerrific pie. But would it live up to the hype felt by full- and quasi-nerds everywhere? 

When Loki, brother of the more Earth-friendly Thor, arrives on our planet, he leaves a trail of destruction and borrows a few good guys on his path to global domination. When the person you’re fighting is as powerful as Loki, you need to band together the best of the best—the superheroes that have been defending our beautiful world (read: North America). But when they’re all together, it’s a clash of egos and personalities—will they band together to defeat a god, or will their group fracture and disperse the power they have as a team? 

If that sounds trite, it’s because it is. Yes, I’m aware that in some circles (aka mine) anything but adoration for this movie is controversial. I’ve already been threatened with death, or maybe a sulk, I forget which. It has caused discord even in my own relationship, which will hopefully survive this conflict like it survived the great Sultanas: Yes Or No debate of 2004. But while it was perfectly serviceable, well-acted and fun, it wasn’t as good as it should have been. Much of this comes down to having a plotline that has been done countless times before. The heroes bouncing off each other is part of the fun, and the infighting isn’t even a problem—of course they’re all going to grate on each other. (Have you met Thor? He’s an asshole.) When they all start getting suspicious of each other and of Nick Fury, it’s ridiculous, especially when someone even points out in the film that Loki will try and prise them apart. While they can get to the group’s split (not really a spoiler, come on) in an interesting way, it’s just not a fresh concept. Yes, superheroes aren’t “fresh”, they’re comic characters that have been around for decades. It doesn’t matter. We’re sick of seeing these things happen. Get a new plot. 

Despite director Joss Whedon’s habit of making women kickass characters, the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. There are three major female characters: Black Widow, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, recently seen 400 times this week as Robyn from How I Met Your Mother). They never talk to each other, though they are all very cool. Black Widow, while having the best introductory scene, is also the only character to break down after a confrontation. Seeing the female hero shaking in a corner, while everyone else just picks themselves up and gets over it, was a disappointment, especially after she’d flipped that idea in an earlier scene with Loki. It’s corny—Bruce Banner falls on a “contents under pressure” sign at one point—and the effects are pretty average, with a lot of blur. Because I am tragic, I saw it in 3D, which might explain some of the wonky FX, but if you’re going to market a movie like Avengers as a 3D movie, do it properly—this is one of the first movies I wish I’d seen in 2D instead. Even though the Hulk was utterly entertaining, is he able to hold a conversation while Hulky or not? Because he was coherent in convenient moments, but not others. Whedon didn’t bother avoiding that frustrating, easy-out trope where an enemy—numerous and flying—vanishes for just long enough for an important conversation to happen. There are also some continuity errors (can I just hit my past self about the head for forgetting to take a notebook, I am clearly out of practise), including the frequent amount of times that Tony Stark can be seen swanning about without his chest glowing even though it had been just a minute earlier. These are all things I could get over separately if the movie’s excellence had otherwise blinded me to them, but sadly (and I’m genuinely sad, I wanted so desperately to love this) it just didn’t. 

To the movie’s credit, the characters are all staunchly excellent and the casting blissful—Ruffalo is a brilliant Banner, and made all Banner/Hulk scenes my favourite, even though I’d assumed I’d be squealing every time Cap opened his mouth. (Actually, he was kind of sulky.) The fight scenes were a knockout, and there are a few one-liners and comedic tussles that kept me smiling. Working with a great cast and acclaimed director meant it was never going to be a terrible film, but it should have been a brilliant one. The characters shared a mostly equal amount of screen time, though it could have been retitled Iron Man 3 in a pinch. Hawkeye, being the only entirely new addition to the movie franchise, suffered from lack of a backstory, but time constraints—the movie is already nearly two and a half hours long—make it understandable. 

I give The Avengers three and a half out of six superheroes. How do you get half a superhero? Well, Bruce Banner, but not the Hulk.

chronicle

Before I’d even seen this movie, I’d seen enough previews for it that I’d planned the review in my head. I was going to draw a comic which had three stick figures and went something like: THREE GUYS HAVE A WEIRD THING HAPPEN (picture of figures next to whatever gave them powers), GET POWERS (picture of them freaking out, waving their little stick arms), EVERYTHING IS FUN (picture of them doing fun thing), OH NO IT ALL WENT HORRIBLY WRONG WHAT A SHOCK (picture of them all dead with crosses for eyes). And look, my prediction wasn’t far off, because I have been to movies more than three times in my life and I know how these things go. But instead of cursing you all with my awful drawing skills, I’m actually going to give this a proper review, because it deserves one.

Chronicle opens with high school senior Andrew (Dane DeHaan, appropriately sulky and gawky) setting up his new video camera to record his life: his physically abusive, alcoholic father; his dying mother, strapped to machines in her bed; his school life, where bullies torment him mercilessly and the only person who gives him any time is his philosophical-stoner cousin, Matt (Alex Russell). Andrew doesn’t do himself any favours by bringing a video camera to school and creeping everyone out—in fact, he’s generally unlikeable, but wholly sympathetic regardless—but it comes in handy when, at a warehouse party, he’s summoned by Matt and the school’s gosh-darn endearing Mr Popularity Steve (Michael B Jordan) to a strange hole in the ground. They go underground, the camera gets fuzzy, things are weird, then bam: they are back in the sunlight and suddenly the three of them have developed telekinetic powers. All right! Awesome! This could never go wrong!

The movie succeeds because the three do exactly what you (well, I) would do if you had telekinetic powers. There’s a nod to the Lego video game franchise as they build things with their mind; they skim rocks over rivers; they use a leaf blower to blow up the skirts of the pretty girls. (Hey, I didn’t say they were mature about it.) They start small as they learn to control their powers, and the three develop a close bond—but it doesn’t take long before a harmless prank gets dangerously close to a fatality and the three lay down some ground rules, including the most important: don’t use the powers when you’re angry. However, teenagers do angry really well, and when things go wrong, it happens on an epic scale.

The movie centres around Andrew, as the one with the camera, but all three characters feel convincing: they dress and act like normal people, are occasionally jerks and frequently humane. Matt’s squirm-worthy attempts to prove to a girl that he’s, like, cool, but, like, above being like popular and stuff are painfully endearing; Steve’s determination to be a good politician see him take on Andrew as a challenge, where they use their powers to gain him popularity in the most wholesome way possible. Even Andrew’s jerk of a father has some depth: you hate him, but you have some understanding of him. This, all told in what is essentially a found-footage film (though both Chris and I had thought of the phrase “lost-footage”, as the movie uses footage from cameras that are destroyed, CCTV footage, people’s iPads and so on) is very impressive; it even dodges the problem of Andrew never being on camera when he gets the idea to control it with his mind so it is always looking at the scene from a short distance. The special effects are faultless, which makes the movie’s many tricks—small or large—great fun. The boys never break from character, and Chronicle tracks in an hour and a half the path to villainy that George Lucas barely achieved in the first (second?) three Star Wars movies.

Chronicle doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test—there are women, but they never talk to each other—and you do occasionally want to take Andrew by the ear and get him to the counsellor’s office for a thorough discussion about emotional control and dealing with turmoil at home (and finding somewhere new to live—or a way to get his father in jail.) But on the whole, Chronicle is a surprisingly excellent film that doesn’t bother too much with the why of getting superpowers (because really, who cares?) as much as what kind of person you are, and how you deal with them when you have them.

I give it four out of five car rides to school.

the girl with the dragon tattoo

David Fincher: he’s great, isn’t he? The Social Network was one of my favourite movies of recent years and he also made this little-known flick called Fight Club that you can’t mention in a sentence without everyone in the vicinity falling over themselves to sputter out their adoration of. He’s a talented director who knows how to craft addictive movies with an original edge.

So why, oh lord why, did he choose to remake Niels Arden Oplev’s Swedish film that was perfectly capable of telling the story already? Why did he waste months and years of his precious filmmaker time to give everyone a third outing of the Millennium Trilogy? 30 million people worldwide have read the books; the first film made over a hundred million smackers. This is not some obscure gem that needed a fresh facelift: it’s all tremendously modern and already available in literary and film formats. So the question is: what did Fincher hope to achieve with his version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and did he succeed? He claims that it is a completely different film from the Swedish version, but it’s not, of course. When they both work off the same source material, a dense brick of a novel with elaborate backgrounds for each character and incident, they are going to hit the same beats. Yes, it is different, because someone different directed it and the actors are different. Yes, it’s different because everyone speaks in English with Swedish accents (though they read Swedish-language newspapers.) But honestly, apart from a small change in the ending, it is the same film told the same way, and you’ll feel exactly the same by the end as you would at the end of the Swedish version. (That is: paranoid about government agencies, horrified by all men and never able to have sex again.)

It’s hard to see past that to judge the film on its own merits. Of course, it’s wonderfully cast: Rooney Mara captured the damaged (and thin) look wonderfully to be computer hacker/ward of the state Lisbeth Salander; Daniel Craig is the perfect age to be disgraced but excellent investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist; and Christopher Plummer is expansively patriarchal as Henrik Vanger, the wealthy industrialist who inadvertently brings the two together to solve a forty-year-old crime: the loss of his beloved niece. It’s not all Agatha Christie innocence, however: you will be disturbed, by the outcome and also by many scenes disturbing in both sexual and non-sexual gore (Lisbeth’s relationship with her new guardian Bjurman—Yorick van Wageningen—is especially something you’ll want to cover your eyes for.) The growing friendship between youthful Salander and craggy Blomkvist is convincing and enjoyable to witness; the peripheral characters are portrayed just about as you’d imagine them. On a visual level, Fincher perhaps overtakes Oplev purely because where Oplev sees the place he lives and conveys it in a natural way, Fincher sees it from our non-Swedish perspective, revealing the white, icy beauty and Ikea-white angles of homes and buildings. His intro, also, is quite mind-blowing, as a soft, tender tinkly piano barrels into a tar and sweat-soaked Karen O intro as Mara and Craig sex things up in an edgy, oiled-up way along with an eagle, a snake, and some raunchy flowers. Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor score the whole flick with requisite rage and gentleness.

Lisbeth’s use of Google and Wikipedia to track someone down seems to undermine her enormous talent in the hacking field; the Swedish accents sometimes slip; I felt that despite the epic running time—nearly three hours—Lisbeth’s storyline was not given enough time; during a Eureka moment for Blomkvist he makes such a ridiculous show of taking off his glasses in mute shock it seemed like a cliché in what is otherwise a very cliché-free movie; and in frustratingly Hollywood way of thinking, female Rooney is given countless crotch shots and appears fully naked frequently while male Blomkvist (who is polyamorous and hardly a prude) reveals his chest and the barest hint of butt-crack.

Still, these facts don’t at all ruin the film. Fincher’s use of actors in their natural, often makeup-free state is commendable (and something I enjoyed about the first movie trilogy); the long running time doesn’t mean the movie drags—it’s enthralling from start to finish; Mara’s Salander, like Noomi Rapace in the Swedish version, is an absolute treat of a character, scarred from a lifetime of people screwing her over but with a raspy charm all her own: wearing a t-shirt saying “Fuck you you fucking fuck”, explaining Blomkvist’s background to the man who has hired her: “Sometimes he performs cunnilingus. Not often enough in my opinion”—she really is amazing and is the new style of heroine everyone says she is. It passes the Bechdel Test (barely) and, in Sweden, is called Men who Hate Women, so the women are smart and not underwritten.

By all means, go see it if you’re unable to see the Swedish version—it’s a well-crafted film telling a wholly interesting and grotesque family crime story. But without it showing me anything new about the story (which admittedly, I have possibly overdosed on), it is still a vaguely pointless exercise. Because of this, and my clear ragey bias about it, I’m not going to give this movie a rating. See it for yourselves and let me know what you think.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is out January 12.

don't be afraid of the dark

It may be a remake of a 1973 film, but it’s a good title, isn’t it? Of course we’re afraid of the dark; most scary movies would be nothing without shadows for bad guys to jump out of. And these bad guys are smaller than the ones you’re probably used to being scared of: tiny, withered monsters, freed from the grate of a basement. (These movies always make me glad that I’ve never been in a house with a basement, surely why Australia constantly tops “Liveable Country” Lists.) To be honest, this is pitched more at a younger market so most adults won’t be scared to go to the car in the dark after seeing the movie, but there’s a few scenes of genuine terror that might scare your kidlet out of losing the nightlight for, oh, fifteen years or so.

The central character of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’s all-round excellent cast is headed up by Bailee Madison as Sally, a young girl shipped from her mother’s possibly-over-medicating arms to her architect father Alex (Guy Pearce, not quirky for once), who is working on restoring an enormous mansion in Rhode Island. She’s instantly miserable, especially when she realises that her mother got rid of her indefinitely rather than briefly and that Alex’s girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes, mostly dressed in sacks) is going to be sticking around. Just when living in a gigantic, beautiful mansion with two people who love you and a maid who makes apple pie seems like it couldn’t get any worse, the family uncover a basement hidden under the house, and unleash a tribe of stabby little gremlin-type monsters who love to feast on people. Well, specifically, people-bones. But will anyone believe a kid with a history of hardcore sulking? I mean, what would you believe if your clothes were found cut up: that it was your angry stepdaughter, or monsters that eat teeth?

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is getting some pretty bad press but it’s not really a terrible movie. Like virtually all recent horror flicks, it has a lot of flaws, but you could do worse than seeing this at the movies one night when you’re bored. The set design is amazing, the house’s landscape beautiful (with touches of Pan’s Labyrinth, thanks to the obvious touches from producer Guillermo del Toro) but unfortunately under-utilised. The actors, mostly Australian, are top-notch (and include, peripherally, Garry McDonald, apparently finally broken by his Mother & Son matriarch; Nicholas Bell as a greying therapist; Jack Thompson as the cranky but wise gardener), including Madison, who is an absolute treasure, delivering glares like a seasoned child-of-a-divorce but who ultimately just wants to be loved. (Aw.) A grotesque opening prologue delivers some serious cover-your-eyes squick straight away, and, as with all these types of films, it is endlessly frustrating yet understandable when people—especially adults—won’t believe you when you tell them there’s monsters out to get you. And these monsters are pretty damn icky, perfectly rendered special effects-wise with not a moment when they don’t seem physically there. They are revealed early and come out in dim enough light to be seen pretty clearly; they hold up in the light but as with many monster-flicks lose something in the reveal. The ending, as well, is a shock when you are hoping for the happy-la-la ending of many teen-aimed horror films. One thing absolutely worth mentioning is that it passes the Bechdel Test repeatedly, with women talking a lot about a variety of things, and that I was unexpectedly thrilled to see that when the family got around in a car, Kim did all the driving and Alex sat in the passenger seat.

On the downside, the tension isn’t directed all that well; you’ll be nervous, but not scared. The creatures can take on a grown, ragey man but when confronted with a sobbing nine-year-old swipe at her without making contact just long enough for her to be saved. When people fall, it’s always right on their head so they get knocked out. (Why is this? Do they not know that if they stay unconscious more than a few seconds it usually means some serious brain damage? Pretty much everyone gets tripped/falls and bonks their head instead of breaking their outstretched arm like a normal person.) Not enough is made of Sally’s mental state; she turns up to the house on Adderall and a comment is made on her past, but instead of making this an interesting discussion about child mental illness they brush it away, assume the medication isn’t necessary and even after a violent incident, suspicion doesn’t fall on her (or anyone, even when the particular incident is clearly not self-inflicted. It’s actually really frustrating.) Kim comes across as pretty selfish at the start, which makes her hard to relate to; also, she and Alex have inappropriate conversations that Sally overhears at more than one different moment, the repetition of which which cheapens Sally’s initial hurt through the amazing power of cliché. Important moments become plot holes—why does Sally not point out the twitching critter arm to a crowd after she victoriously squashes one? Why do critters that like to eat children’s teeth NOT ONCE get referred to as Tooth Fairies? And to top it off, the survivors’ underwhelming reaction to the horrific ending left me full of a rage I dare not elaborate upon, because, well, spoilers.

It’s not excellent but not appalling, well produced and quite a pretty film. I wouldn’t take anyone younger than, say, twelve to see it, but it might really hit the mark for a youthful audience. Don’t avoid it, and don’t be afraid of it. I give it eleven out of twenty baby teeth.

in time

In Time has a good idea behind it: everyone’s now genetically engineered to age only until 25, when they then have one more year of life they can add to only through hard work (or robbery or theft). The poor, like Will Salas (Justin Timberlake, shorn) live in a ghetto in one timezone, scrimping for every minute and trying not to be robbed by gangsters like Fortis (Alex Pettyfer, rough) and supporting his mother (Olivia Wilde, are you kidding? So hard to get behind this idea.) However, just over in another timezone, you have people with more time than they know what to do with, including businessman Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser, perfect) and his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried, not blonde.) What happens if someone like young Will gets pissy enough—and lucky enough, thanks to an unexpectedly timely (haha oh god there are many time puns to be had here) donation, to try and level the playing field?

It’s an interesting concept ruined once you try to think about it longer than thirty seconds. It’s an allegory for the power money has over people: after all, if you can’t afford shelter, food, or medical care, what hope do you have? And in this current economic climate, it’s true that few people hold most of the money just because they’re horrible examples of humanity. And it’s a pretty fun movie on a very base level, with a man hell-bent on revenge, a beautiful young woman who can’t help but be attracted to a man from the wrong side of the tracks with superior morals, an oily bad guy, some horrible thieves with cultured accents and a (time)cop who just wants to uphold the law, no matter who’s breaking it. But ultimately, it fails, because:
1) They never explain why society evolved like it did. I’m happy to take leaps of faith, but you have to give me something.
2) There are so many corny time/money jokes, it’s like someone as cheesy as me wrote the damn thing.
3) Why does everyone stop aging at 25?
4) Who would agree to have their child implanted with an under-the-skin digital clock that has a timer?
5) Cillian Murphy, while awesome, cannot pass as twenty-five.
6) Why does a civilisation advanced enough to be able to pass time through skin contact not have any other technological advances apart from a CCTV system that conveniently follows no one but important characters?
7) Why does everyone drive 70s-noir muscle cars like they’re in Mad Max?
8) Honestly, it is just really, really impossible to ever believe that a society would turn out this way, even being as pessimistic as I can muster.
9) You only ever see one evil fat cat in Kartheiser’s Philippe—does no one actually rule this world, or the countries, or the timezones? Is no one actually in charge?
10) And seriously, why the hell is everyone in this world skinny? This just makes no sense at all.
11) The future doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test.
12) How does it all WORK??

On the upside, there’s some good casting (Alex Pettyfer and Vincent Kartheiser are stand-outs), it trundles along nicely, and the Robin Hood aspect of Will and Sylvia’s criminal spree is something you can really get behind. It really has to be said that having everyone’s timers on the verge of running out half every second scene makes for some seriously intense viewing: anyone can die, at any time.

In Time isn’t the worst thing you could spend your afternoon watching, but if you really want something juicy this week, go see Drive.

I give it twelve out of twenty-five years.

the thing

Back in the best year of all, 1982 (three guesses when I was born, folks), a movie came out known as The Thing. With the release of 2011’s The Thing, 1982’s The Thing has been referred to frequently (well, by me at least) as The Original The Thing, though people have been saying there’s an Even More Original The Thing that came out in 1951. But that was called The Thing From Another World, so I’m going to continue by calling John Carpenter’s smack-down-great movie The Original The Thing and Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s new actually-pretty-good-prequel The New The Thing. Though it’s set before Carpenter’s. Ahem.

For those who have seen The Original The Thing, you’ll know it starts with two Norwegians in a helicopter chasing a dog at the South Pole, and the subsequent shitstorm that follows, because aliens. The New The Thing tells the story of how things got to that point, and luckily, it’s not really a spoiler to know the beginning of The Original The Thing.

The Norwegian base camp at the South Pole has made a discovery: there is an alien structure beneath the ice, one dated from a very, very long time ago. And alongside this structure, something else is found: the inhabitant. It’s the most important discovery in science, and the Norwegians need to assemble a team to make sure everything goes according to plan. [insert scoff here].

The worry of creating a subtitled Norwegian blockbuster is neatly sidestepped by hauling in a bunch of Americans to help solve the problem, and then making everyone speak English about 80% of the time. It’s corny, but better than hiring A-list actors to pretend to be a certain culture and then failing miserably (I’m looking at you, Scottish lead of 300.) Norwegian scientist Dr Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) brings his research assistant, Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen, one of my favourite people: he played both Vaughn in Community and Austin “Jakey Jakey about to make a big...mistakey” in Not Another Teen Movie) who then suggests his friend, palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who will forever be known to me as Ramona from Scott Pilgrim). Helicoptered over to the South Pole by able pilot Sam (Joel Edgerton), tensions arise early between sensible Kate and Sander, who is making rash decisions out of excitement. Her cautiousness is proved right when the alien, brought in a block of ice to their base, thaws out and instead of sitting down for a cup of tea and a chat about interplanetary politics, goes on a murderous, stabby, regenerative rampage—because it’s a creature who can take on the form and nature of those it imbibes.

It’s the are-they-aren’t-they tensions that make these movies so fun: who has become The Thing and is hiding it behind their poker face, and how can the others figure it out? Scenes in The Original The Thing involved an excellent tense moment when blood was tested, and because that scene is so grand I’m pleased they didn’t recreate it, and instead went for a punchier version, opined by Kate, whose know-how and level-headedness almost instantly sees her grab control of the situation. This upsets some—namely Sander, who clearly has issues—and mutiny is afoot, like they don’t already have enough damn problems.

The New The Thing is a good prequel to The Original The Thing because it could have easily been terrible—many, including myself, adore John Carpenter’s version and were hesitant to like anything new. But it’s got a cracking pace, good effects, hair-chewing tension, and a woman with a flamethrower. It also passes the Bechdel Test, admirable considering there wasn’t a single female in The Original The Thing. Kate is the Ripley of this piece, taking charge and rightly so and saving cowering menfolk from getting dead. It’s quite inspiring.

Alas, there really isn’t enough character development in this—to have enough characters to be able to (not really a spoiler) kill a bunch of them off, you’ve got to care somewhat for everyone, which you do, at the expense of caring particularly hard for anyone. There’s a hint of a romance between Kate and Sam, and some clear friendship lines that, when broken, make you sad, but that’s about all they give you. There aren’t any of the mindblowing set monster pieces from The Original The Thing—walking head, anyone?—but it more than adequately steps up to the monster plate with some pretty gross stuff. Otherwise, my only real issues were a pixelated spaceship drive that does not at all look like it’s there, and the 1980s costuming that is basically nonexistent—not a mullet or a teased fringe in sight, and Adam dresses about the same as a 1980s scientist as he does a 2011 hippy, though with, sadly, less nipples showing.

I give it five out of eight disgusting stumpy limbs.

drive

To the sound of retro-eighties musical styling and lashings of bubblegum-pink opening credits we are let into the world of The Kid: straight-faced Ryan Gosling, pulling on his driving gloves and preparing for a stint as a getaway car driver. The following driving scene, while breathtaking, isn’t quite the chase scene we’re used to—it’s more tactical driving than 6 Fast 6 Furious or whatever car movies the kids are watching nowadays—and it’s also one of only two real chase set pieces in the film. Don’t let that fact dissuade you, as Drive is a brilliant film, and Gosling just proves that he can do anything. But mostly he can out-smirk anyone.

The Kid is a getaway driver by night and a Hollywood stunt driver by day, spending his other waking hours as a mechanic working for ideas man Shannon (Bryan Cranston). He also appears to be indescribably lonely, never seeing anyone outside of those he drives around, Shannon himself, and his shyly smiling neighbour, Irene. It’s an eventual encounter with Irene in the car park that leads to the relationship that—while beautifully touching—changes the life of everyone in the film. As the friendship between The Kid, Irene, and Irene’s young son Benicio develops (and you’re never entirely sure what it develops into; it’s mostly told through five long silences, three big smiles and some hand-holding), their lives are disrupted when Irene’s husband Standard (Oscar Isaac, and, yes, a “deluxe” joke is made) returns from prison. Nothing does noir better than a plotline that involves one last job before everyone lives happily ever after (and involves someone called Blanche—Christina Hendricks, who is dressed down and wonderful but not worthy of her top billing); nothing makes movie like a situation going wrong in spectacular, bloodthirsty fashion.

Drive keeps up a cracking pace despite the fact that you get no hint of the violence to come for quite some time, until the Kid is at a bar and encounters someone he’s driven previously. There are moments of such tension that I gripped the seat handles and closed my eyes; there are moments I wanted to last forever. It’s a world so ridiculous that you can’t tell if it’s realistic, or if it’s just that the Kid is so wrapped up in his own world that he believes he’s in a movie. The crimes he assists in seem victimless and he helps people to do good, then gets revenge when people are bad.

The choices of direction are interesting; the car chases are often told via the expressions on those inside rather than panning shots of the outside of the car; the Kid’s calm enthralling against the panic of others. Moments of violence you expect the camera to pan away from actually stick around for more splattering than you thought you could bear. Small touches—the cleaning of a prized knife after it’s been used by a character to kill a friend; the sun-dappled family moment by the river; a shark-like murder by the sea—they’re all perfectly handled and indicative of an excellent movie.

Rounding out the flawless cast is Hellboy, aka Ron Perlman as a bad guy whose best moment is laughing uproariously in front of a bored blonde (and who has more lower face than any other actor but it makes him completely irresistible, to be honest) and Albert Brooks, Shannon’s benefactor and one of the few characters to show genuine emotion. The movie on the whole is an unexpected delight—I say unexpected because I included this smaller-than-usual movie poster to show that the Australian poster looks all WHOO DRIVING MOVIE VROOM VROOOOOOM when really, that leads you totally astray, and I recommend going off this next one.

I give it nine out of ten stomps to the head. I might even give it ten out of ten but I haven’t done a perfect score yet and am not sure if I’ll ever be able to bring myself to do it. Also, even when they’re appropriate, long silences and people enigmatically not replying to questions just makes me want to tear my hair out.

real steel

When I first saw the preview for this Hugh Jackman robot fighting movie I was so underwhelmed that it was possible for a while I was covered in all the whelming in the world. But as good films are still thin on the ground at the moment, and the last thing I’d seen was massively depressing The Whistleblower (pro tip: do not see a movie about Bosnian sex trafficking as your anniversary date) so I was ready for something stupid. The big surprise was, however, that Real Steel isn’t actually that stupid, and when you readjust your preconceptions of the film, it’s actually quite smart and a hell of a good time.

It’s 2020 and robot fighting has superseded human boxing (hooray! I knew the future would be good for something), and Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman, unexpectedly jerky) is a total asshole who wrangles said robots for a living. He isn’t actually that good at it, and owes money to boxing promoters all over America, and is on the run from yet another one—the film’s cowboy-hatted villain Ricky (Kevin Durand, slimy)—when he gets a life-altering piece of news: his ex-girlfriend is dead, and their son Max (Dakota Goyo, awesome), who he abandoned years before, is now is his care. While trawling for robot parts, Max—after a heartstopping accident—finds an retro (read: 2014-era) sparring bot named Atom in the mud and digs it out with his bare hands, and is then determined to put him in the ring and show his dad that he has the nous to win. Will Charlie be able to stop being an asshole long enough to turn his life around? Will he stop ruining the lives of those who care for him, including old pal and robot mechanic/boxing gym owner Bailey (Evangeline Lilly, wise and hot)? It seems obvious, but actually Charlie is such a horrible person for the first half of the film that you really doubt it, and don’t even want him to get custody over Max’s rich aunt Debra (Hope Davis).

The movie is basically a kids’ fantasy: robots, fighting, a dad who takes you on the road to grungy underground fights, lots of money, hamburgers for dinner. So when I went in thinking it was a typical blockbuster, it did seem a little cheesy in parts, until Chris whispered, “This is basically a kids’ movie.” And it’s true. Like the equally fun Super 8, it’s the story of the kid’s troubles almost more than the adult’s—it’s devastating as Max tries desperately to forge an emotional bond with the robot that he is lacking in his own life—and follows a plotline where the kid is pretty much smarter and more savvy than all the adults at just about anything, including building a championship-quality robot out of dumpster parts. Real Steel, however, succeeds because of these childlike touches rather than in spite of them, and means you’re much more willing to dismiss plot holes and strange moments (why are more people not using these old robots if they are so damn excellent? Why does literally no one else ever turn up at Bailey’s gym? Also, isn’t it totally creepy when Charlie sneaks into Bailey’s bedroom at night? etc etc), because kids don’t always care about such stuff, and maybe adults shouldn’t either. At the risk of sounding like a prude, it’s actually nice to see a film where someone drives 1200 miles just for a kiss, women can be smart instead of nude and where blood is actually a very rare sight. It means you could take your twelve-year-old nephew as well as your eighty-year-old grandpa and everyone would have fun, though the word “shit” is said maybe three times if that’s something you’re concerned about.

The acting is top-notch—Jackman is a truly horrible person but still appealing because he’s basically the world’s favourite person; Dakota Goyo is someone you may literally cheer for (I sure as hell did) and Evangeline Lilly is a bit weepy, as women typically are in movies (but as a habitual weeper I can totally relate—I mean, I cried in a hospital ad showing before the movie today), but is also tough and smart. The special effects are great, the robots utterly convincing in the presence of the humans; the sets are huge and fun—glitzy arenas, jungle-based underground fights populated by future-punks (still wearing Ramones t-shirts), rodeo-style Texas fights with a bull. The last of those was the only thing I can really say I didn’t enjoy—of course the bull was CGI in most parts (assuming bulls aren’t good at dealing with green-screen acting) but pitting an animal against a hunk of metal still made me uncomfortable and it was horrible when it got thrown around. (Vague spoiler: the bull wins that fight, but still.) The dance scene where Atom shadows Max’s moves should suck but is actually quite hilarious. The robotic rival/final boss Zeus is huge, terrifying and smashes lesser robots instantly, all while being commanded by enigmatic maker Tak Mashido (Karl Yune, moody) and icy owner Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda, tight ponytailed). It doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test, but the movie’s full of women who are perfectly capable of doing their own thing, even including a bunch of little girls at the start who give Charlie attitude when he richly deserves it.

Top effort to director Shawn Levy for making me care about robots without actually giving them any personality. It probably has to do with Atom representing all of the Kanters’ hopes and dreams, and all behind a sad little stitched-together mesh face and in a future that looks pretty much exactly the same as right now. I don’t want them to make a sequel, but if they do, I’d see it. I give Real Steel four out of five punches in the nuts.

crazy, stupid, love

I’m going to rename this Crazy, Stupid, Advertising because pitching a preview screening as a “Girls Night In” event—offering free drinks upon arrival and giving you a goodie bag at the end filled with such gender-neutral awesomeness as Libra pads—was a huge mistake. Even the title is pretty ridiculous, because make no mistake: this flick is about the guys, namely middle-aged schlub Cal (Steve Carrell), who’s just been asked for a divorce by his bored wife Emily (Julianne Moore), and serial smoocher Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who picks up more women than he picks up peanuts at the bar both men now frequent. When Jacob sees Cal muttering to himself in (gasp, apparently) New Balance trainers, he takes it upon himself to give Cal a makeover and turn his life around. But does Cal want to shag attractive women like Kate (Marisa Tomei, slightly batshit as per usual), or does he want his old life back? Is Jacob really happy in his life as a man bedding attractive women on a regular basis? Will it take the movie’s other sassy redhead, Hannah (Emma Stone), to make him see the horror that is his life as a rich man who is also charming and accompanied by a sensual bass track and a camera that wants to have sex with him every time he’s on screen?

Crazy, Stupid, Advertising is actually a pretty fun movie; there are a lot of laughs, and some really touching moments too. The set pieces make this film what it is: the gentle, sexy humour of Jacob and Hannah’s first “date”; the flat-out hilarious slapstick scene when all our characters finally meet; a quietly poignant moment when Cal, secretly weeding his family’s backyard at night, sees Emily fake a phone call to him just to talk. Add to that the glorious cast, all who ping off each other wonderfully, and who include Hannah’s equally-sassy best friend Liz (Liza Lapera); Cal’s rival for Emily’s affections, David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon) Cal and Emily’s lovelorn teenage son Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who can’t hide his adoration for his gangly babysitter Jess (Analeigh Tipton), while she is nurturing love for Cal himself. It’s basically an ingredient list for a recipe that can’t go wrong, like toasted cheese sandwiches. Comforting, funny, and a good night spent at the flicks, it doesn’t have the perfect Hollywood cookie-cutter ending but definitely won’t leave you wanting to impale yourself with a Coke straw.

It’s debatable due to forgetfulness whether it passes the Bechdel Test (Chris claims there was a tickle fight between Jess and Robbie’s younger sister Molly where they didn’t talk about boys, and also an initial scene between Hannah and Liz which possibly began discussing jobs before it derailed into boy-talk, but I don’t remember for sure—and even so, that’s pitiful if I have to dredge memories to clarify) and there is a scene that tries to be cute in the movie’s graudation finale that would be actually a bit halp-call-the-police if the genders were reversed; also, women just seem like objects waiting for Ryan Gosling to hit on them (which, let’s face it, is mostly true) and then vanish from the movie, never to get emotionally involved again. Also, what does Jacob do for a living? Why did Cal and Emily even break up if they’re going to spend the rest of the movie staring wistfully after each other? (It’s the movies, haven’t these people heard of therapy?) But hey, dramedies are rarely perfect and if you feel like love is possible at the end they’ve pretty much done their job, and I’m still happy to give Crazy, Stupid, Advertising the following rating: three and a half out of five pairs of jeans not bought at The Gap. (Chris, surprising everyone, gave it five out of five putts at a mini golf course.)

final destination 5

What better film to return to blogging after an unplanned (and mostly inexcusable apart from my distractingly entertaining pregnancy) hiatus than something less needing of a review than Final Destination 5? If there’s any film franchise that is as steadily predictable and passable as the FD series, I don’t know it. But with everything else out this week—The Help, One Day—being a bit too schmaltzy for my tastes, it was really all I could do. And it’s in 3D. How was I supposed to resist?

As per the other movies in the series, Final Destination 5 starts with a set piece in which all the major characters are killed off swiftly and bloodily—in this, our main characters are on a bus on the way to a work retreat, when the suspension bridge they are crossing collapses. As they escape the bus, they meet their ends in a variety of ways you wouldn’t even know were possible. Then it turns out the collapse isn’t real at all, just a vision of our main character Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto), who then manages to flee the bus before the bridge actually collapses and saves a bunch of his co-workers in the process. As is to be expected, the invisible hand of Death isn’t happy that this pack of one-note characters didn’t die as planned, and picks them off one by one thereafter in tense and theatrical ways.

3D is used to such effect in this movie I feel like it should only be used in schlocky horror films from now on. Intestines fly at the screen; blood coats the camera; bones stick out through skin right in your face. It’s glorious. The very first death in the film, as the camera follows a body as it falls towards the water but then encounters an unexpected obstruction, was so violent and bloodthirsty and surprising that the entire cinema audience fell apart with shock and glee, thereby setting the tone for the movie. The outlandish premise is enough to have you enjoy the film without ever thinking it’s real enough to get upset about. And the way all the deaths are set up—with the camera panning over every dangerous device in the room, which it turns out, is basically everything—makes for such exquisite tension as to what is actually going to cause the upcoming carnage that I occasionally had to close my eyes and pretend I was somewhere else so my heart didn’t burst out of my chest or I didn’t go into spontaneous early labour.

It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but luckily, the cast themselves do. Played by a bunch of up-and-comers who frequently look a lot like someone more famous, they are given all of their development time at the start of the film as they meet up to get on the bus for their trip. Sam (D’Agosto, looking like a sibling of Andrew Garfield) is a friendly office worker who really wants to be a chef; his girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell, from the excellent creepy movie Frozen) has reconsidered their relationship; Peter (Miles Fisher and quite possibly the love child of Christian Bale and Tom Cruise) is the high-flying crisply-suited hard-worker; his girlfriend Candice (Ellen Wroe, with a cutesy Ginnifer Goodwin vibe) is the peaches-and-cream gymnast with a slightly nasty personality; Olivia (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, a blend of Megan Fox raunch and Jennifer Keyte primness) is the punk-rocker quick with a curse word and struggling with her eyesight; Nathan (Arlen Escarpeta, familiar from bit-parts on countless television shows) is the recently-promoted man trying to prove his worth to the factory workers who don’t like change; Isaac (PJ Byrne, similarly snivelly in Horrible Bosses) is the self-absorbed stalker-type creepy enough to be the one guy you actively hope dies; and their boss, Dennis (perfectly-balding David Koechner, from just about everything, most recently Paul) is satisfyingly passive-aggressive and full of his own self-importance. Rounding out the cast is the deep talking wise man coroner Bludworth (Tony Todd, who played the man-of-my-teenage-nightmares Candyman) and the policeman on the case Jim Block (Law and Order stalwart Courtney B Vance).

The two-dimensional aspect of the characters is a flaw in the film, but barely a concern in the scheme of such fun, especially when you consider the extra dimension they are otherwise seen in. The only real problem I had was that when characters started to die, the first people on the scene, called by police or our heroes themselves, seemed to be our friends the co-workers—what, no parents, no siblings, just call the office and get everyone to come over? The lack of the other people was unrealistic, but adding them would probably have detracted from the lightness of the film and made you feel emotional towards the families when really you didn’t have the time or inclination to actually care.

Happily, Final Destination 5 ends with not quite a twist, but a surprise for sure—especially when you consider the others don’t finish with anything like that at all. It’s an ultimately thrilling finale that makes you reflect on the whole film differently, but probably not enough to have to suffer through the death of Candice again (by far the one that scarred me the most) to see if it’s actually obvious and we just completely missed it.

I give Final Destination 5 four out of five poles through the head.

cowboys and aliens

Much like Snakes on a Plane, it is physically impossible to stay away from a movie with a title so tempting. Cowboys? And aliens? In the one movie? Grab the smelling salts, I’m feeling woozy. How could a movie called Cowboys and Aliens not be ridiculous fun?

Well, apparently the equation to make it not ridiculously fun is this: Jon Favreau + Daniel Craig + Harrison Ford = No. Which is surprising, as Favreau directed the stellar Iron Man (though is tarnished by Iron Man 2), Daniel Craig made an excellent Bond, and Harrison Ford is [insert your favourite character of his here]. And clearly the people in the cinema who applauded at the end of the film thought it was great. I did not. Actually, by the end, I was so busy crossing my arms and sighing theatrically that I can’t believe I wasn’t punched in the face by an audience member.

The movie begins in dusty silence as Jake Lonergan (Craig) wakes up in some dirt and has no idea who he is, or why he has a mysterious metallic wristband on. After an altercation with some no-good-criminals he winds up in a single-road town with the vital elements (saloon, jail, porches to lean against) and gets into an altercation with a bratty kid called Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), who holds the town in fear as his father Woodrow (Ford) is the only reason the town still survives. After another altercation with wide-eyed Ella (Olivia Wilde), Lonergan is about to get smacked down by protective father Woodrow when aliens come and ruin what could have been an interesting Western and steal half the townsfolk. Banding together despite their differences, Lonergan and Dolarhyde Snr. go to rescue everyone, followed by town doctor Doc (Sam Rockwell), preacher Meacham (Clancy Brown), Dolarhyde’s Native American sidekick Nat (Adam Beach), Ella, a kid, a dog, and some other people who are totally irrelevant. Fighting with aliens ensues, as does fighting with some bad cowboys and a band of Native Americans. Somehow, it’s still not interesting.

I have a lot of problems with this movie; so many, I can’t even really think of good parts. Wait, I know: I jumped twice at surprise alien appearances. It did a good job of feeling very 1873. (I assume.) That’s about all I can say on the positive side though. The score was nonexistent; sure, great movies don’t need false soundtracks to move them along, but this isn’t a great movie. It needed a crescendo for victorious moments to bring some emotion to the piece. The lighting, while accurate, meant that scenes shot at night (ie when the aliens most love to attack) were almost impossible to see and gave me a headache within about fifteen minutes. (Said headache may have contributed to my eventual grumpiness.)

As far as gender politics go, the movie doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test, and the three women actually in the movie are either a) a whore b) naked or c) kidnapped. As far as political correctness goes, our major interaction with a Native American community has them initially appearing as terrifying savages happy to throw a now-deceased main character into a fire; shortly afterwards, they become mystical and wise healers. It dehumanises the culture and makes you think they must be bored when they don’t have white people to attack; it just made me want to cringe.

The cast, while serviceable, were not stretched in the least—Harrison Ford is old and cranky, along with being a racist, violent asshole who lets a whole town suffer for his financial gain; Daniel Craig is as reserved, quietly violent and shirtless as he is as Bond; Paul Dano is another annoying Western caricature (though his turn in There Will Be Blood is, of course, brilliant); Olivia Wilde is as wide-eyed and other-ish as she was in Tron. Actually, Olivia Wilde’s character Ella annoyed me most in this film, I think: she stood around being frustratingly cryptic when it was clear she knew something. Instead of saying, “Right, guys, here’s what I know,” she just hung around being obtuse until the moment came—post many loved characters dying—when she felt like sharing her story.

The script was dull and predictable; no one was fun or funny, bar Rockwell’s Doc who made one flimsy joke that fell flat even on my accompanying Saturday night drunk crowd; the directing wasn’t even that great, noted by both the ridiculous pacing of the ending (with accompanying pretend danger) and one scene full of every character’s inital reaction shot to the aliens showed. Which is another point—there wasn’t nearly enough discussion about what the hell was happening, from a world where aliens were so far removed that not even ET had screened on television yet. The lack of discussion about aliens was about as surprising as the lack of horror of everyone who had just had a loved one snatched by demons. Were there no emotions in the past? Was sadness not mined until the 1890s?

The trouble is that a movie called Cowboys and Aliens calls to mind something much more fun than what was ultimately made. It takes itself far too seriously without having any stand-out parts to make it work as a serious film. It’s bleak, dark, completely boring and full of characters so horrible you honestly couldn’t care if aliens killed everyone but the kid and the dog.

I give it one out of four gross alien arms.

rise of the planet of the apes

While I was stoked to get invited to an advance screening of the new Apes movie, and was jumping around like a kid at the zoo waiting to see it this afternoon, we really have to get past the most pointed flaw in this movie, don’t we? I mean, seriously, repetition doesn’t have a place in the titles of well-crafted big-budget movies. Using “of the” twice in one title is overkill. I understand it gets to the point—everyone knows exactly where this movie is going—but really, they couldn’t spare a few thousand dollars of the budget to get a bunch of eight-year-olds to think up a cooler simian title? It could have been called something like MONKEYS ARE EXCELLENT or AN ACTION MOVIE WITH AN AWESOME LACK OF KISSING SCENES or APES R BETTER THAN BEN 10 ARE NOT ARE TOO or something equally lengthy that doesn’t become boring halfway through saying it.

Beyond the title, which I should probably shut up about, is a well-crafted movie that—like all prequels—has an ending you know is coming as long as you know there’s a movie out there called Planet of the Apes. Still despite you knowing the Titanic is going to sink it remains a relentlessly tense and thrilling action movie. Young neurologist Will (James Franco) is desperate to find a cure for the Alzheimer’s that his father Charles (John Lithgow) suffers from, and has a breakthrough with the drugs he is working on at the lab. One mistake leads to all the chimps that have been experimented on to be put down, bar one tiny baby chimp Will takes home and names Caesar (Andy Serkis with some help from the SFX team). Caesar, after inheriting his mother’s altered genes from the powerful drug, grows big and smart, until he becomes too damn big and smart for his own good and is banished to an animal sanctuary, where he finally has a meet and greet with some other simians.

This movie is a four-star ape movie and a two-and-a-half-star human movie, making it meet somewhere in the middle and be average-to-good. The ape scenes, especially when Caesar winds up in the animal sanctuary to be tormented by Dodge (an aptly-named and stereotyped Tom Felton, aka Harry Potter’s Malfoy), are fantastic in scope: with the limits of no dialogue, director Rupert Wyatt still makes you understand the dynamics of the relationships. While the humans also have their emotions—Will’s care and distress for his father is honest but necessarily short—his blossoming relationship with zoo doctor Caroline (Freida Pinto) has very little drama and his arguments with boss Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) over the development of the drug are fairly superficial.

Apes is Serkis’s—or Caesar’s—movie, and he glows every time he is on-screen. I did feel that he was often accompanied by dramatic music that wasn’t always necessary but left me in a state of heightened anxiety. Not knowing his own strength, or that he is different from the humans he is desperate to play with, he is frequently in danger or putting others in danger and I was so tense that I often let out little shrieks and spend half the movie with my hand over my mouth like a perfect little emotive audience member. This strain did mean that the payoff—namely a certain scene with a recognisable phrase and the perfect response—was downright exhilarating, to the point where the audience let out cheers and applause and even I joined in, though I usually think that’s a bit corny. It was sweet release, and changed the tone of the movie to the point of no return.

From an animal rights perspective, it’s a painful and depressing movie to watch. The reactions of virtually all the humans to the conditions of the apes is disappointing and there is never a moment where they fall to their knees moaning “Why did we treat such beautiful animals like this?” While Will is painted as the humanoid hero, he still keeps Caesar in his own home for his own selfish reasons, and never bats an eye at the other apes who are locked in sterile glass cages at his workplace. It makes for a strange juxtaposition when the animal sanctuary, where Dodge actively harms the animals, still seem much more fun, because at least Caesar is able to make some new pals and jump around on a tree, and none are experimented on.

Altogether, it makes for a frustrating though understandable viewpoint where you’re not sure who to root for. The humans mostly seem like a pack of selfish brats, except for the sadly declining Charles, and Caroline, who does not have much to say until she says of Charles’s illness, “Some things aren’t meant to be changed”, though I doubt many people in the audience feel that the cure for Alzheimer’s is worthless. But it’s also tricky to be on the side of the apes and their monkey associates, who are strong, kind of scary and a touch violent even despite Caesar’s best efforts to reign them in, and, well, become fascist slave-drivers. By the end, all you can definitively hope for is that the car park won’t be too full on the way out.

The effects are fantastic but not perfect—a few scenes are flawed, but I could count them on one hand, and that’s not bad for a movie where humans and special effects are interacting so frequently. It of course helped that the apes were played by people (it also made me feel better as a super-vegetarian to know no animals were harmed in the making of this movie), which meant they were physically present—the flaws were mostly in fully-digitised scenes, but aren’t noticeable unless you’re horribly critical like I am and trying to disassociate from such an ultimately depressing movie.

It is hard to remove my own strong emotions about animal care from the movie itself, and the fact that no human wanted to campaign for general increased ape care left me feeling a bit cold towards them. It means that my opinion of the film is clouded by this, and if I was a better reviewer I would cast them aside and be a erased blackboard of emotions. But it’s a grim movie. Apes’ very infrequent moments of humour are so vastly spaced that it almost seemed redundant to have them; more generally humorous but actually quite devastating is the idea of Will’s poor neighbour being the unluckiest man in the world.

I do sound critical of what is really a very good blockbuster movie with all the right elements—cracking pace, heart-attack-worthy action, some mindless city destruction, a hilarious orang-utan. The material ultimately made it hard for me to enjoy because I spent so much time being sad. There are some cheesy plot-points, like death scenes at the most coincidentally poignant of times (and one character surviving a fiery blast long enough to sigh, unsinged, and die in someone’s arms); there are red herring moments never explored; the above mindless destruction is a tad unwarranted and the human damage goes unmentioned. But with the scenes at the animal sanctuary so amazing, it almost doesn’t matter.

Go see The Rise of The Etc and let me know what you think. I am especially interested to hear if anyone else agrees it’s the prequel not only to Planet of the Apes but also to 12 Monkeys, depending on what mood you’re in for a movie marathon that day. Also, while there’s no curse words and limited blood, I spent so much of the movie clutching at Chris’s hand that I still wouldn’t recommend it for kids, unless you want them to have monkey-based nightmares for eternity. And hey, if you’re that type of parent, more power to you.

Today’s arbitrary score: two out of three bananas.