Aussie accents in a Hollywood trailer: TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN
Jun 19
So often you’ll hear Australian film enthusiasts and aspiring independent filmmakers complain about the poor state of the Australian film industry and proclaim that, perhaps if Aussie films were a little more ‘Hollywood’, more people would care about seeing them.
They are wrong.
Mate, this, is what happens when they take the Australian outback, our accent, our ‘brand’ of acting and our production values and try to wrap them in a Hollywood blanket. We end up with a trailer (and therefore likely a film) that’s trying too hard to be something it can never be. It’d be nice if the film actually delivers, but all we have to go by is this trailer and, well… perhaps just read the book again for desired results? We all read it in school, right?
Written by John Marsden’s and based on his hugely successful teen novel of the same title, Tomorrow, When The War Began is the directorial debut for Aussie screenwriter Stuart Beattie who is actually responsible for writing such Hollywood films as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, Derailed, 30 Days of Night, Australia, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. If these aren’t good enough clues to make you weary of the trailer you are about to see, you deserve the punishment.
Tomorrow, When The War Began will be released on our cinema screens 2 September 2010.
Based on John Marsden’s popular and critically- acclaimed novel which has sold over 628, 863 copies in Australia alone, THE AGE refers to the series of books as “The best series for Australian teens of all time”
TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN’ follows the journey of eight high school friends in a remote country town whose lives are suddenly and violently upended by a war that no-one saw coming. Cut off from their families and their friends, these eight extraordinary teenagers must somehow learn to escape, survive and fight back.
source: slashfilm
GET HIM TO THE GREEK review: rock, roll, and regret
Jun 14
I have to be honest: I’ve never liked Russell Brand; there’s something inherently nasty in his delivery that grates with me. I used to like Jonah Hill back when he played man-children, like in Superbad; but as he tries his hand at more mature roles the schtick starts to wear thin. A movie starring both of them was never high on my to-see list, but I thought I’d give Get Him To The Greek a chance anyway.
The concept for Greek seemed like fun when I first heard about it — take a narcissistic, drug-addled rock-star and rush him through various amusing situations in order to get him somewhere in time for a big gig; the trailers backed this idea up, and my hopes for the project rose. The finished movie, though, is a completely different beast from what was advertised, focusing more on strange, irritating characters than the time-limited plot device that made Greek sound so interesting to begin with.
Let’s look first at Brand’s eccentric rockstar Aldous Snow, feeling here like re-heated leftovers from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, rather than a true continuation of the character. Apparently he does drugs, but we never actually see that happening. He talks about kicking the habit and being clean, but then he later contradicts himself. His musical performances sound suspiciously auto-tuned, like he’s just lip-syncing to a backing band. There’s no talk of how involved Aldous Snow is in the process of writing his own songs. There’s barely a whimper about Aldous’ past relationship with another popstar (Rose Byrne), and the possibly illegitemate child Aldous helped to raise.
There’s no rhyme or reason to any single thing Aldous Snow does — and he does some bafflingly strange things towards the end of the film — and the sheer otherness of the central character damages Greek almost beyond repair.
Now for Jonah Hill’s fast-talking bumbler Aaron Green. I can’t imagine a record company exec hiring someone who looks or sounds as ridiculous as Jonah Hill does, but this is a comedy, so we’ll let it slide. What’s up with Aaron’s rude girlfriend, then? Does his low self-esteem dupe him into staying with someone who’s more like a leech on his existence than a true life-partner? Does Aaron like any music besides Aldous Snow’s?
Aaron Green is supposed to be the straight man, the cipher through which the audience interprets Aldous’ zany behaviour, but Aaron is just as slippery and alien as Aldous, so he doesn’t really fill the role required of him.
Let’s address the comedy elements of the film, then. The best moment in the film for me came with Lars Ulrich’s cameo at the end, because it was something I could relate to real life, something that was funny outside the context of the film. The rest of the laughs — mostly derived from Sean Combs’ high-energy performance as Aaron’s boss — feel forced and hollow.
Aldous’ abusive dad (played by Colm Meaney — he’s a long way from Deep Space 9 now, isn’t he?) viciously berates his son, and we’re expected to laugh, but there’s no pay-off for the relationship. Aldous just cops it on the shoulder and moves on, not digesting anything or changing himself, and Aldous’ dad remains this creepily antagonistic force hovering over Aldous’ character like an oppressive cloud, halfway through pure comedic device and genuinely important character.
A big element of successful comedy films is their sheer quotability. Genius comic timing combined with a genuinely funny line in context creates memorability. I can drop half a dozen comedy lines off the top of my head (“It’s just soccer!”, “Holy Santa Claus shit!”, “But isn’t Betty a woman’s name?”, “Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus”, “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley”, and “You have just been erased”, or anything else that comes out of Arnie’s mouth, ever) but I can’t remember a single line from Get Him To The Greek.
This isn't in the movie, but it looks pretty funny.
I know it’s hard to marry larger-than-life characters with a cohesive plot, but you only have to look to Superbad to see a good model of the marriage working just fine. There you had a few sharply-defined characters struggling to get somewhere by a certain time in order to fulfill the biggest goal in their teenaged lives. There was humour, heartache, and genuine character — but here in Greek, there’s half-finished characters funneled quickly through a half-baked plot, and nothing ever really feels like it gels.
To be fair, though, Sean Combs is initially amusing as the record company exec with serious yelling problems; some of Aldous’ songs echo Spinal Tap numbers, so that’s kind of amusing; Rose Byrne gives an earnest if completely tangential performance as Aldous’ ex-wife; and Russell Brand manages to dial down the Brand-iness of his performance, resulting in a more restrained, slightly less irritating character.
But the small amount of positives hardly outweigh the raft of negatives plaguing this depressingly flat film. What could have saved Get Him To The Greek was a fresh writer coming at the latest draft and injecting some life and direction to the plot and characters, and a complete re-structuring of the plot, axeing the elements that don’t work (the ex-wife, the abusive father, Aaron’s depressingly belligerent girlfirend) and substituting good old-fashioned comedy set-pieces in their place. Either that or some good old-fashioned extended improv comedy.
What could have been a tight and hilarious romp through the world of a self-absorbed nitwit stumbled somewhere along the line, and instead we ended up a loose and infrequently amusing tumble through the world of Russell Brand’s mind — not exactly my idea of a fun way to spend 90 minutes of my life. Hopefully now that we’ve got him to the Greek, we can leave him there. Forever.
Get Him To The Greek
Reel Short: MORTAL KOMBAT — REBIRTH
Jun 13
When Mortal Kombat: Rebirth first hit the net a few days ago, eyebrows were raised all over the world. The short film is slick and polished, with professional lighting and choreographed fight-scenes; it even features a couple of almost-celebrities, in the form of Michael Jai White and Jeri Ryan. But no studio would claim responsibility for the short video game adaptation — it wasn’t commissioned by anyone as proof of concept, it just existed, in all its professional accomplishment, and all its authorless mystery.
The next day, news broke that Kevin Tancharoen (who directed last year’s Fame) had directed the short. It was shot for $7,500 on a pair of RED cameras over two days, and edited over the following couple of months. Tancharoen was so passionate about the project that he pulled together a script, cast and crew, pulled out all the stops and showed the world what a Mortal Kombat movie directed by Kevin Tancharoen would look like. Warner Bros., who currently holds the rights to the Mortal Kombat franchise, would do well to pay attention, especially if rumours of their interest in rebooting the franchise are true.
The short film is in no way perfect. The overbearing seriousness of the actors’ delivery becomes grating very quickly, and some of the character intros could have been tightened for maximum efficiency, but there’s no denying the professional quality on display here. The result is much more watchable than something like the original Mortal Kombat movie, or the more recent Prince Of Persia adaptation. Why? Because Tancharoen was so passionate about this project that he built it from the ground up, sacrificing his own blood, sweat and tears in the process; big-screen video game adaptaions are commissioned by studios, with directors shoehorned into helming them regardless of their passion or interest in the project.
If you, like me, don’t give a hoot about the original video game, you can still marvel at the level of polish $7,500 and a lot of friendly favours can get you these days, and you can still be impressed by Tancharoen’s sheer commitment to the project.
REEL SHORT
Each Sunday Reel Thinker shares a short film we have enjoyed.
As independent filmmakers ourselves, we enjoy a good, wholesome, well-told short film. Not only do they provide something for us to aspire to, quality short films demonstrate that the format can achieve wonderful, memorable film experiences for the viewer. We look forward to sharing the short films we’ve discovered & enjoyed.
THE A-TEAM review: it’s like I’m really in the 80s!
Jun 11
The A-Team is a movie about blokes killing other blokes. It’s got explosions, macho posturing, silly antagonists and only one token female character. It’s based on the 80s TV show of the same name, and it mixes such established actors as Liam Neeson and, er, Jessica Biel, with relative newcomers like Sharlto Copley (District 9) and “Rampage” Jackson, a big, intimidating wrestler-type. It walks a narrow line between comedy and silliness, character and caricature, action and noise, and miraculously manages to pull off the tricky balance on every count — just.
The first act of The A-Team is easily the best. It’s jam-packed with genuine humour, solid character establishment, and some particularly stunty action. The A-Team wastes no time in drawing to your attention its focus on character: four short character-intro vignettes quickly and sharply define the characters, bring them together for the first time, and unleash them on some fun and unpredictable action set-pieces. After the bombastic opening, though, the film shifts gear, and this is where the cracks start to show.
Hannibal, Murdock, Face and BA (collectively the A-Team) walk a tricky line between Schwarzenegger-esque stunty physicality and Bourne-ish globetrotting espionage. Expanding the key roster of characters from one to four helps the film retain an interesting texture, but robs it of some heart: with so many characters going on so many short, shallow arcs, it’s hard to become really invested in any of them.
But then when there’s parachuting tanks, stereotypically jaded-but-still-in-love ex-girlfriends, and some jerkish CIA types involved, you know the bulk of the audience’s focus is going to be on the action rather than the characters. Here The A-Team is something of a mixed bag. Some action scenes are shot too tight, too dark, and cut too loose to make any coherent sense, while others are thrilling in their physicality and choreography; a more consistent and measured style would have gone a long way.
What doesn’t sit so well is Jessica Biel’s erstwhile antagonist character, apparently the only woman in the entire US Army. Her past, off-screen relationship with polyamourous Face feels more like a convenient last-minute-kiss set-up rather than an organic and realistic relationship — but then again, you’d probably assume that going into a movie like The A-Team.
Just like the 80s actioners of yore, The A-Team‘s villain is typically dull and somewhat predictable. There are some very minor spoilers involved here (as there are technically three bad-guys, and you don’t find out who they all are till about half-way through), so I’ll just say that the puppetmaster behind the A-Team’s predicament is performed with refreshing and amusing gusto, but essentially his character is just a tool, a barrier for the A-Team to violently throw themselves against, with barely a whiff of character to call his own.
I’d feel remiss if I didn’t point out how goddamn funny The A-Team is. I hadn’t expected to find myself laughing out loud, but I actually did it — several times, in fact, and found myself frequently missing lines because I was laughing over them. The last time that happened to me in a cinema was during Tropic Thunder. While the humour in The A-Team mostly fizzles out after the first turning point in the script, it still lends the movie a real sense of fun, and brings a sense of camaraderie to the characters.
The only big bugbear I have with the film is that it assumes I’m a moron. The “laying out the plan” scenes are intercut with the “executing the plan” scenes, which robs those scenes of some of their tension. The film also replays snippets of earlier scenes during pertinent “oh god I just realised this” moments. This is okay when the film calls back to its opening minutes, but at least one of these flashbacks flashed back to a scene not yet five minutes olds; I appreciate the reminder, I’m not that stupid.
Other than that, the film is consistently solid. The cinematography is oddly idiosyncratic for such a paint-by-numbers action flick, and though much of the film is graded an ugly shade of brown it still manages to squeeze in a varied and interesting palette. The music is perfectly serviceable, at once recalling and redifining the iconic “dun duh-dun duuuuun” of the original TV, and like so many Hollywood movies, it’s hard to fault it technically, either.
The acting is mixed, but skewing towards positive. Liam Neeson, Sharlto Copley and Bradley Cooper nail their respective characters; Jessica Biel manages not to embarrass herself in the only female character of note in the film; and only Quentin “Rampage” Jackson lets the team down, favouring line-readings over more in-the-moment performance, but, when you’re comparing the guy to Mr T, it’s hard to begrudge the mediocrity of his performance.
Having never really watched an episode of The A-Team, I didn’t really know what I was walking into when I sat down to watch this movie adaptation. Fortunately, the film managed to nail the crucial opening hook, and from that point on, I was sucked into it. I can forgive the script’s and actors’ shortcomings, and I can forgive some poorly-shot action scenes, because on balance the movie is just too much fun to deny.
To paraphrase Hannibal and erstwhile protege Face, I love it when a plan comes together; while The A-Team doesn’t quite nail all aspects of the blueprint, it gets enough of the plan right to feel like it’s “come together,” and what more can you ask of a formulaic 80s style actioner such as this?
The A-Team
What is this “genre” thing people keep talking about?
Jun 08
Action. Adventure. Comedy. What do these words mean? Crime. Drama. Epic/historical. Horror. Who decided that what criteria would demarcate these styles? Musical. Thriller. Science fiction. War. Western. Since when did a film’s target audience and target genre feed back into the production of the film itself?
When you browse your local video store, you’ll find the DVDs organised into strictly segregated shelves according to their genre. Die Hard is on the Action shelf, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind is on the Sci-Fi shelf, There’s Something About Mary is on the Comedy shelf. That’s all well and good. But where does Jaws go?
Jaws is a monster mystery movie, a movie that scares you by showing mauled bodies and giant, nightmarish beasts; it’s also a movie about humans and their relationships and interactions, and there are even a few sparse jokes thrown in for good measure. It echoes Moby-Dick in its men-on-a-boat style, and brings to mind the old Western archetypes: the sheriff, the doctor and the outlaw band together to rid the community of a potentially ruinous problem.
So Jaws is a monster-mystery-thriller-action-comedy-Western-adventure-drama. But what shelf is it on? I’m pretty sure it’s on the Thriller shelf at my local; god only knows why.
The point I’m making is that movies are rarely about just one thing, and the ones that are are usually relatively shallow or generic. So why do we insist on classifying the movies we watch according to some preconceived ideals of setting, tone, content, themes and characters?
A lot of the currently prominent film genres got their start in literature. Comedy has its roots in Ancient Greek plays, later deconstructed and recombined by William Shakespeare into a more Anglo-centric “comedy of manners” style; horror reaches back to folk tales of yore, myths of hideous beasts, whispered tales of possession, and religious superstition, greatly aided by 19th Century novels like Dracula and Frankenstein.
Science fiction has its roots in late 19th / early 20th Century works by the likes of HG Wells and Jules Verne, and takes further inspiration from the scientific explosion of the 20th Century; drama films, and particularly melodrama films, hark back to the Ancient Greek tragedies, designed to elicit sadness and tears from an audience; Sherlock Holmes novels and rampant criminality throughout the United States’ first few centuries inspired the crime, noir and Western genres; while musicals are holdovers from a bygone era of stage and theatre.
Action stands alone as being one of the few purely cinematic genres. The advent of editing, in combination with stunts, music, and the sheer energy of film, gave rise to the set-piece, and to a whole genre of films driven almost solely by action set-pieces.
Truly great films often transcend their genre; Jaws is just one example. Star Wars is a regurgitated mess of Western archetypes, Greek tragedy, high fantasy, and serialised space opera, yet it always winds up on the Science-Fiction shelf, much to the chagrin of SF fans.
Gone With The Wind deals with war, romance, drama, tragedy, and takes a historical setting, but it always winds up on the Classics shelf (a useless genre if ever there was one). The Godfather is a historical epic dealing with crime, death, revenge, family relationships, love, and the nature of violence, but it usually winds up under the catch-all Crime. The Shawshank Redemption is a slow-boiling character study, and a tale of loss, friendship, and redemption, while also taking a very close look at the reality of the American prison system, dealing with institutionalisation, corruption and (briefly) false justice. So why is it on the Drama shelf?
Because the vast majority of films produced in Hollywood are pushed through cookie-cutters into pre-determined shapes. It’s easier to market a film to someone if you can compare it to a film they already saw, and enjoyed, rather than saying “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before in your entire life!”
A recent example is Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, whose marketing dropped Jerry Bruckheimer’s name while reminding viewers of his relationship with Pirates Of The Caribbean. Notice they avoided mentioning that Bruckheimer also produced adventure films (National Treasure), action films (Transformers, Con Air), crime flicks (Bad Boys) and bad films (all of the above); they specifically mentioned Pirates so that you’d subconsciously link Prince Of Persia to swashbuckling, fun characters, over-the-top production design and a supernatural element linked to the whimsical and romantic story.
Prince Of Persia was conceived to cash in on the success of Pirates by following the same blueprint. Prince failed spectacularly, for various reasons; most importantly, it should have been a creative gamble, instead of a safe business plan.
This example is played out ad nauseum across Hollywood. Die Hard gave way to a never-ending raft of tough macho blokes shooting and punching their way through hordes of foreigners. Star Wars and Close Encounters saw a resurgence of science fiction in the 80s, some of which were good, most of which were inept. There’s Something About Mary kick-started the teen-comedy gross-out, where perennially hilarious bodily functions are combined with comedies of error and manners to create the prevalent comedic genre of the noughties.
So what’s the remedy to this constant pre-production pigeon-holing? After all, the studios wield all the power. If 20th Century Fox wants three superhero comic-book films a year, that’s exactly what it’ll get. If Universal wants two romantic comedies and an espionage flick by winter 2011, then you can expect a couple of chick-flicks and a new Bourne reboot to hit screens pretty soon. What’s missing from this equation?
Creative honesty. If you really want to tell a story about something, or someone, you don’t care about genres. You might be mindful of other artists who have tread similar ground before you, and you might accept or reject some of their ideas and techniques. You might be vaguely mindful of the type of demographic who will eventually buy your product, and look at the kind of stuff they’re buying to gauge what they’ll be interested in.
But ultimately, filmmakers need to make films for themselves, and studios need to stop regurgitating the same guff purely for the sake of profit, and have faith in talented filmmakers to do the right thing and bring them money with creativity, originality and honesty. That’s why non-genre-defined flicks are often better than even the best cookie-cutter genre films.
One of the few Hollywood filmmakers who can do whatever he wants and get away with it.
The article is done now, but here are some more examples for you anyway, just in case you don’t believe me:
American Beauty – postmodern comedy, satire, with narrative voice-over and dream sequences; dealing with everyday characters in everyday settings. On the Drama shelf.
Schindler’s List – a war film, a character study, a melodrama, and a historical epic. On the Drama shelf (because of all the Oscar nominations?).
Fight Club – a postmodern comedy, satire, and mystery, with a heavy narrative style, serving as a damning exploration of consumerism and the American Way. On the Thriller shelf (because of the twist ending?).
Starship Troopers – a heady examination of the political and moral nature of war, a rollicking sci-fi yarn heavy with symbolism, violence and vicious satire. On the Action shelf (because the violence is cartoony?).
Watchmen – a strongly sci-fi slanted tale of vigilantism and the nature of humanity, with scenes of graphic and disturbing violence, some romance, and overtones of rape and prejudice. On the Action shelf (because that’s where all the comic-book movies go, right?).
Pirates Of The Caribbean – a supernatural adventure film. On the Action shelf (because there are explosions and people dying in it, right?).
Jurassic Park – a thrilling exploration of the moral and physical implications of cloning extinct animals; an adventure with elements of horror. On the Action shelf (because there are guns in it, right?).
Unforgiven – a complex and dark character study set in 19th Century America, with strong performances and heavy elements of drama. On the Western shelf.
Any other examples you can think of? Or am I completely off track; is the concept of “genre” vital to the conception and production of big-budget films?
The top 5 female film protagonists
Jun 05
Sometimes, white-male-dominated Hollywood freaks out and breaks the rules and accidentally makes a movie with a woman instead of a man in the lead role. Sometimes, these movies don’t even objectify or ogle their subjects, they just treat them like regular people. Sometimes, these movies are even good.
In the wake of the culturally disastrous Sex And The City 2, I felt it was prudent — nay, necessary – to look to some more promising leading ladies in order to a) wash my brain out, b) remind myself that the XX-chromosomed world isn’t all glitter, high-heels, and awful one-liners, and c) remind myself of those rare good movies that accidentally swapped their male protag for a woman at some point in development.
So without further ado, here’s a list of my five favourite female protagonists from the past few decades:
5 – Sarah Connor (The Terminator & Terminator 2, 1984 & 1991)
I liked Sarah Connor better when she was just a regular gal, in The Terminator, than I liked her as the verging-on-insane mother-on-a-mission she became in Terminator 2, but either way, she makes a compelling protagonist. Plucked seemingly at random from a phonebook by a creepy Austrian bodybuilder — isn’t that everyone’s worst nightmare? — she carried herself well through all the crazy time travel bullshit, and came out at the end of it still resembling a realistic — if damaged — human being. Shame she suddenly and inexplicably succumbed to leukemia in time for the third one, though.
4 – Rosemary Woodhouse (Rosemary’s Baby, 1968)
Before I watched Roman Polanski’s classic horror film, I hadn’t really understood just how scary men could be — even regular blokes, like husbands, friends, and fathers. But as Rosemary’s paranoia escalated, I empathised with her every single step of the way, sampling a mere inkling of the constant fear some women are forced to live in. The fact that Roman Polanski is a convicted rapist only adds to the horror.
3 – Maggie Fitzgerald (Million Dollar Baby, 2004)
The realm of boxing biffo in film is one usually reserved exclusively for men, but with Million Dollar Baby Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank showed us that it can be equally compelling to watch a couple of women knocking the stuffing out of each other as it is a pair of blokes. On top of this refreshing gender-swap, Million Dollar Baby isn’t your garden variety underdog sports film, either: it’s a gripping narrative and a rollercoaster of emotions, with a whole raft of memorable characters. Swank deserves every gram of that little gold statue she won for her performance here. God only knows why she went on to do crap like The Reaping, PS I Love You and Amelia.
2 – Ellen Ripley (Alien franchise, 1979 – 1997)
Before James Cameron got to the character and morphed her into some warrior-goddess-mother caricature, Ellen Ripley was just another member of a non-descript space crew. She may have been near (or at) the bottom of the pecking order aboard the Nostromo, but she was the only crewman with the balls to go toe-to-toe with the xenomorph… and live to brag about it. Ripley was still a strong woman in the sequels, but it was her quiet determination in 1979′s Alien that really set her apart.
1 – Ellie Arroway (Contact, 1997)
Being the first human ever to make contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence is kind of a big deal, but the obstacles Ellie had to go through just to say “G’day” to our interstellar neighbours — institutionalised misogyny, religious fanaticism, and terrorist attacks — only serves to make her an even bigger deal. Ellie’s passion, love and sheer unadulterated enthusiasm for science and the unknown is inspirational. It’s rare to see a woman in movies so passionate about something that isn’t shoes, so Ellie easily swipes my number 1 spot.
The fact that I struggled to put together five different female characters for this list is troubling. Browsing lists of the most commercially and critically successful movies, very few of them are driven by women. Fifty percent of the people on this planet are of the double-X variety; you’d think that would show up in our culture and our art, wouldn’t you?
I hope this has been as cleansing an experience for you as it has been for me. Why, I’ve nearly forgotten just how bad Sex And The City 2 was! Nearly…
Any suggestions for who you’d include in the list, or who you’d exclude? The first person to mention Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft wins a box full of sarcasm.
OPINIONS COUNT