Movie Reviews by Tom Clift

IFFR Review - The Comedy

2012-02-13T00:16:00.001+11:00

Director: Rick Alverson

Running Time: 90 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

From the opening scene, in which lead character Swanson (Tim Heidecker) describes in detail the effects of an anal prolapse before insulting the sexuality of the male nurse whose job it is to take care of his barely breathing invalid father, Rick Alverson’s new film does everything it can to be as aggressively alienating as humanly possible. An ugly tale of a fat, over-privileged, middle-aged New York hipster stuck in the most dismal form of self-pitying arrested development, the title of the film is proclaimed in an apathetic opening credits sequence that reflects the cynical outlook of its protagonist. Whether The Comedy is an ironic name for the movie is debatable – it’s sometimes funny just as it’s sometimes repugnant. Most of the time, it’s both.

Overweight, directionless and unrepentantly dickish, Swanson, had the film had more money, might have been played by Zach Galifianakis. Instead he’s played by Tim Heidecker, famous for being one half of cult comedy duo “Tim & Eric” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Assured in his finances thanks to an inheritance he’ll receive from his wealthy father once the old man kicks the bucket, Swanson spends most of his daylights hours drinking in the homes of his equally pathetic and repulsive friends, and most of his moonlight hours drinking alone in bars, or on the small yacht that serves as him home. The rest of the time, he wanders aimless through a world that has long grown tired of his once invigorating screw the system attitude.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Shorts Programme

2012-02-11T17:06:00.000+11:00

This year, the 41st annual International Film Festival of Rotterdam screened over 450 short films in addition to its 268 features. With films in every conceivable style, the shorts programme offered audiences the chance to witness exciting and experimental works from directors ranging from seasoned veterans to filmmakers whose careers are still in their infancy.

While my time over the past two weeks has been primarily concerned with features, I still managed to catch a few dozen short films, many of which screened in as part of fourteen hour marathon on the final Saturday of the festival. Sadly scheduling issues saw me ducking in and out (who can sit still for that long anyway?), which meant I only got to see a fraction of what was already a fraction of what this year’s shorts programme had to offer. Nevertheless, below is a list of – and in some cases, clips from – a few of my favourites in what was certainly an eclectic and vibrant selection of short films.

MOURIR AUPRÈS DE TOI

France, 6 min. Dir. Spike Jonze & Simon Cahn

A charming felt animation set in a Parisian bookshop where the cover-art comes to life after dark. On this particular night, the skeleton of Macbeth finds himself yearning for the company of Dracula’s bride. But his journey across the shelf is more complicated than expected. Co-directed by Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are), the handcrafted style is marvellous, while the story is sweet, funny and also a little raunchy.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Soundtrackcity Rotterdam: The Hive

2012-02-09T10:59:00.000+11:00

Running Time: 45 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

If I eschew traditional film reviewing conventions here, it’s because the work I’m reviewing isn’t really a film at all. One of the features of the “Signals: For Real” section at this year’s International Film Festival of Rotterdam – a programme designed to challenge and subvert the ways viewers think about cinema – Soundtrackcity Rotterdam is in a lot of ways more like an audiobook than a movie – although it isn’t really much like an audiobook either. A forty-five minute walk accompanied by a specifically composed soundtrack, the idea behind the project is to get viewers – that is, listeners – in a different headspace. In the case of The Hive, it’s the headspace Korean actress Choi Jin-sil, who committed suicide after extensive online harassment. While the projects very conceit does in some way limit its success, my participation in Soundtrackcity Rotterdam was a memorable and thought-provoking experience.

Crafted by Dutch film journalist Jereon Stout and composer Jan-Bas Bollen, The Hive – one of four different walks at the IFFR – mixes music, ambient sound and narration in order to recount the story of Choi Jin-sil. A popular actress in South Korean film and television Choi Jin-sil became the centre of a feverish tabloid controversy when she was accused of being involved in the suicide of another actor. Having already been the victim of one media scandal after accusing her ex-husband of domestic abuse in 2004, the bombardment of rumours become too much for Jin-sil to handle. On October 2^nd 2008, she killed herself by hanging.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - When the Lights Went Out

2012-02-07T22:05:00.000+11:00

Director: Pat Holden

Running Time: 85 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Any ghost story that claims to be “based on a true story” is already fighting an uphill battle, but when it’s as middling and generic as Pat Holden’s When the Lights Went Out, it’s even easier to dismiss. A stock standard haunted house story, the film follows an English family who experience paranormal disturbances upon settling in to a new home. Although not entirely lacking in creepy images or suspense, When the Lights When Out comes across for the most part as little more than a pale, timid and generally unscary reflection of the more iconic genre entries – Poltergeist, The Exorcist – which it somewhat unavoidably copies.

Pointing a mirror somewhere in the direction of the economic crisis of today, When the Lights Went Out takes place in Yorkshire, England in the early nineteen seventies, a period where the country was stricken by black-outs as a result of industrial strikes, and (implied) financial difficulty has seen the Maynard family – father Len (Steven Waddington; TVs Robin Hood), mother Jenny (Kate Ashfield; Shaun of the Dead), and moody thirteen year-old daughter Sally (Tasha Connor) – forced to move to another house. Soon after arriving in their new home, Sally begins to suspect that they are not alone – a suspicion that is largely confirmed when a grandfather clock goes hurting down the stairs, pushed by an invisible hand.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Black's Game

2012-02-05T11:15:00.000+11:00

Director: Óskar Thór Axelsson

Running Time: 104 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A gangster movie out of Iceland, Black’s Game [Svartur-Leik] was executive produced by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. As such, comparisons to his recent Drive — the best film of last year — are inevitable and perhaps not unwarranted. Both films are unashamed in their attempts to make every frame as cool as humanly possible. But while Drive employed ice-cold restraint and was a success, Black’s Game goes the opposite direction, and fails rather spectacularly as a result. Stealing plot and technique from far superior crime films including (but not limited to) Run Lola Run, Goodfellas, Refn’s own Pusher trilogy and the combined filmographies of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino, Black’s Game is a spastic blur of violence, drug use, frenzied editing and plagiarism.

The film begins with a title card that reads “inspired by some shit that actually happened”. It’s not clear whether this is a reference to real life or just the movies that first time writer/director Óskar Thór Axelsson borrows heavily from – in any case, the plot of the film largely follows the rise of inexperienced gangster Stebbi (Thorvaldur David Kristjansson) in the Icelandic drug trade in the months before the new millennium. The script peddles in all the typical clichés, from Stebbi’s induction by a charismatic thug (Johannes Haukur Johannesson), his ill-fated tryst with a lascivious blonde (María Birta, a dead ringer for Elisha Cuthbert), an inevitable addiction to the narcotics he peddles, and his eventual downfall brought about by the increasing violent behaviour of the gangs half-psychotic leader (a very creepy Damon Younger).

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - 38 Witnesses

2012-02-04T02:27:00.000+11:00

Director: Lucas Belvaux

Running Time: 104 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

“All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing”. Never has this famous saying been truer than in the case of the brutal stabbing murder of Kitty Genovese in New York in 1964, a crime that occurred within earshot of thirty-eight people, none of whom lifted a finger to prevent it. A grim indictment of human cowardice and apathy, the case has been referenced and recreated in numerous forms of media, most recently in the film 38 Witnesses [38 Témoins], which opened this year International Film Festival of Rotterdam. Belgian director Lucas Belvaux has a strong eye, and his cold visual aesthetic compliments the bleakness of the subject matter. Unfortunately, the script’s underdeveloped characters and over reliance on tiresome relationship drama ensures that 38 Witnesses never really manages to compel.

In the early hours of the morning, a young woman is murdered in the lobby of her apartment building. The movie begins just afterwards, as the police arrive to cordon off the street and interview the surrounding neighbours, who all claim to have seen and heard nothing. Their investigation soon stalls, as does that of a hard-nosed reporter (Nicole Garcia), despte being convinced that there’s more to the crime than initially meets the eye. It’s only when introverted harbour pilot Pierre (Yvan Attal) admits to his girlfriend Louise (Sophie Quinto) that he heard screaming but did not call the police that a whole new insidious element to the crime is revealed, one that implicates thirty-eight people in the death of an innocent woman.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Hugo

2012-02-03T19:07:00.000+11:00

Director: Martin Scorsese

Running Time: 126 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

If ever there was a movie made for movie critics, it is Hugo. Directed by Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island), the film, based on the children’s book by Brian Selznick, is on its surface a bright and colourful 3D fantasy about a Parisian orphan boy in the 1930s, whose friendship with the granddaughter of an enigmatic toy-shop owner yields secrets about his own relationship with his father. But peel back that layer and what you’ll find is a love letter: a love letter to early cinema and one of its foremost pioneers; a love letter that has been immediately embraced by a critical community who have fallen head over heels with the pictures reverence for an art-form – movies – that they themselves also revere. In the face of such earnest and unabashed celluloidal enthusiasm, it’s perhaps understandable that those same critics have failed to recognise one thing. On some very basic levels, Hugo just isn’t very good.

It’s an easy mistake to make. Indeed, opening shot – which begins amidst the whirring cogs of a gigantic clock which then slowly fade to reveal the lights of Paris by night – is so utterly breathtaking that it alone might be enough to permanently dumbfound the less discerning. In the same singular take, Scorsese’s camera zooms through the streets and across the bustling halls of Gare Montparnasse railway station before settling on another clock-face. And behind this clock-face lives Hugo (Asa Butterfield; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas). Once the son of a clockmaker (Jude Law; Contagion), the sudden death of his father in a museum fire left Hugo orphaned, with nothing to remind him of his old life other than a human sized mechanical figure – called an Automaton – the he hopes might contain a message from his father.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Alps

2012-02-02T10:00:00.000+11:00

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Running Time: 93 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In the back of an ambulance, a paramedic tries to keep a critically injured car-crash victim talking. He asks her name, and if she has any siblings. At first it seems like he’s just trying to help her remain conscious, but then his questions grow more obscure and personal. It’s just one of many early clues in Alps that something in this world is seriously amiss. This new film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos shares many similarities his previous Oscar nominated feature Dogtooth, the least of which is an obscure title that offers no information about the road of social and moral dysfunction that viewers will soon be travelling. A film of carefully muted tone and technique, Alps unwinds with the same slow tension and detached absurdity of its predecessor.

While the conceit is not immediately apparent – it takes several scenes like the one already mentioned before you piece things together entirely – Alps is about a group of four people – a paramedic, a nurse, a gymnast and her trainer – who offer their services to grieving families as fill-ins for recently deceased loved-ones. For a small fee they’ll be your daughter, your father, your wife. They’ll watch TV with you, hold your hand, tell you they love you. Of course while it takes a certain amount of despair to consider hiring an “alp”, it pales in comparison to the psychological issues it takes to be one. As conflicts within the group start to surface, the distinction between their actions and flat-out prostitution becomes increasingly difficult to make out.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Kotoko

2012-02-01T03:47:00.000+11:00

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Running Time: 91 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a man’s penis turns into a power-drill while having sex with his wife. She’s into it. In the sequel, Body Hammer, a man’s arm ruptures and transforms into a gun, which he then uses to shoot his infant child. Japan’s answer to David Cronenberg (The Fly), the films of Shinya Tsukamoto have always been horrifically confronting. But his latest outing – Kotoko – deals less with corruption of the body than it does with corruption of the mind. Which is not to say it is any less hideous or bizarre. Exactly like its protagonist, with whom the movie shares its name, Kotoko is insane. Wild, beautiful, random, intense, surreal, suffocating, confusing, funny, disgusting, upsetting… and completely and utterly mad.

In a nerve-wracking performance, Japanese singer Cocco plays the title role of Kotoko, a frail, mentally disturbed single mother who hallucinates about strangers attacking her, and fantasizes about dropping her baby son off of a roof. It’s not long before social services take the child away from her, leaving her to descend even further into madness and mistrust. Yet in spite of her insanity, love is not off the cards for Kotoko: a famous novelist, played with adorable persistence by director Shinya Tsukamoto himself, soon begins to seek her hand in marriage.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Room 514

2012-01-31T09:12:00.001+11:00

Director: Sharon Bar-Ziv

Running Time: 90 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In Room 514, a young, idealistic military investigator tries to get to the bottom of alleged abuses of Palestinian civilians by a decorated Israeli commander. A minimalist low-budget drama set largely in the eponymous interrogation room, the picture is earnest in its attempts to explore the difficult issues it raises, and is at times compelling in its storytelling. But the ugly camera-work and unpolished script are such a constant hindrance that it makes the movie impossible to recommend.

Room 514 is the first film from writer/director Sharon Bar-Ziv, and unfortunately, it shows. The central conflict of his script is really engaging, especially thanks to a determined performance from lead actress Asa Neifeld, and a terrific supporting turn from Udi Persi as the soldier she is interrogating. But the cinematography is unforgivably poor. Bar-Ziv jitters and wobbles his handheld camera – always uncomfortably close to the actor’s faces – in a typically misguided attempt to add realism and grit. He’d have been better off just sitting the thing on a tripod and letting the actors do the heavy lifting.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Ace Attorney

2012-01-30T02:19:00.000+11:00

Director: Takashi Miike

Running Time: 135 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Prolific Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike is best known for ultra-violent, controversy-sparking pictures including Audition, Ichi the Killer and last year’s 13 Assassins. His most recent film, however, might be most readily described as a family comedy, based on a popular Nintendo video game called “Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney”. Well, as it turns out, when it comes to Miike I’ll take bloody over funny every time. Goofy without being amusing, loud without being exciting, and arduously long without any reason to be so, Ace Attorney is completely intolerable, from start to painfully-protracted finish.

Narimiya Hiroki stars as Phoenix Wright, a low on the totem-pole defence attorney called up to the big leagues when he signs on to defend a young woman he believes has been wrongfully accused of murdering her sister, a woman who was also his colleague. As it turns out, this is only the first of several trials that make up Ace Attorney’s two hour and fifteen minute runtime – after going head to head with Phoenix in round one, star prosecutor Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saito) also finds himself on the stand for murder. As things progress, it slowly becomes clear that all the killings are somehow connected to a cold case from more than fifteen years ago, which Phoenix must solve in order to clear the names of his clients.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Kill List

2012-01-29T19:49:00.000+11:00

Director: Ben Wheatley

Running Time: 95 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The Wicker Man by way of Pulp Fiction, Kill List does not go where you expect it to. Shot on an indie-film budget by sophomore director Ben Wheatley’s (whose debut film Down Terrace garnered considerable acclaim), the film follows two contract killers driving around the English country-side with a list of people they’ve been hired to rub out. But mysterious things are afoot, and soon the mission takes a nightmarish left turn. Smartly written, acutely acted, with a surreal atmosphere and some deliciously grizzly visuals, this is a smart and sinister concoction that comes out of the oven as one of the most fascinating thrillers of the past few years.

Jay (Neil Maskell; The Football Factory) doesn’t want to go back to work. Eight months after a traumatizing “incident” in Kiev, he’d rather spend time at home with his seven year old son, or work on installing a Jacuzzi in his backyard. But his wife Shel – a beautiful, fiery Swede (MyAnna Buring; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) – says they need the money, and she’s right. Unlike most films of this ilk, Shel knows what Jay has to do to earn a living. This idealistic family, like this film, is not what it appears. A dinner party with Jay’s old colleague Gal (Michael Smiley; Burke & Hare) – a good humoured Irishman – turns hostile when the issue of work arises. But it’s enough to prompt Jay to go back on the road, taking a job that Gal nonchalantly refers to as “nothing too strenuous”.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Still Life

2012-01-28T19:29:00.001+11:00

Director: Sebastian Meise

Running Time: 75 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

When twenty-something Bernhard (Christoph Luser) discovers that he father is sleeping with a prostitute, he thinks that’s bad enough. But after learning that his father asks to call the woman “Lydia” – the name of his own daughter and Bernhard’s younger sister – the reverberations threaten to tear apart his entire family. Still Life, from Austria, boasts a challenging but fascinating conceit, only to waste it amidst long stretches of wordlessness that quickly drown out brief moments of greatness.

When Bernard reveals his father’s secret, the characters – mother, son, sister and father himself – quickly splinter off and wander aimlessly, alone. It’s meant to demonstrate how each member of the family deals with the revelation, and yet each reaction seems more or less the same: shock, disgust, sadness. In individual moments, first time Austrian director Sebastian Meise uses silence to incredible effect, but as the quiet stretches on and on, you increasingly want the characters to speak, to argue, to weep. In brief conversations the actors are shown to be strong and willing, but their director never lets them really demonstrate their talents.

Towards the end of the film the siblings come to a kind of reconciliation, and it seems at last that Meise will get around to exploring the effects of their fathers actions on the family as a unit whole. But then, abruptly, the movie simply ends, and the audience is left with no explanation or catharsis. Which is, I suppose, the intention: the movie is called Still Life after all. But one never finds much point amongst the stillness.

Read the rest of my IFFR coverage at Cut Print Review »

IFFR Review - Clip

2012-01-27T20:48:00.000+11:00

Director: Maja Miloš

Running Time: 100 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Clip is a Serbian film that I found more disturbing than A Serbian Film. The latter picture gained notoriety last year for its graphic depictions of rape, incest, paedophilia and necrophilia, and was the result of additional controversy in Australia after it was refused classification – banned – by the Australian classification review board. Personally however, I found the content of director Srđan Spasojević movie to be so ludicrous – and so explicitly designed to generate controversy – that it never really provoked much of a reaction. Not so with Clip. The directorial debut of twenty-eight year old filmmaker Maja Miloš, the sexual content in Clip is less extreme than in Spasojević’s film, although its depiction is no less graphic. But unlike A Serbian Film, there is gravity to Miloš’ picture; a severity – if not a realism – that is genuinely challenging, and provokes a far more visceral reaction.

Protagonist Jasna (Isidora Simijonovic) is a teenage girl who seeks to drown her misery in the desolate shallows of sex, drugs and alcohol. Alienated from her home life, she treats her family – younger sister, overworked mother and terminally ill father – with hostility and contempt. Her nights are spent in dingy clubs or wandering the desolate streets of her decaying Serbian town with her friends, camera phone permanently recording in her hand, trying desperately to gain the favour of Djordje (Vukasin Jasnic), a popular boy in her class. And she’s willing to commit the most humiliating sexual acts in order to do so.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - War Horse

2012-01-25T18:56:00.000+11:00

Director: Steven Spielberg

Running Time: 146 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Boy meets horse. Boy looses horse. Boy gets horse. It’s the classic formula for a Hollywood love story – albeit with a slightly equestrian twist –and also the plot of War Horse, the latest film from director Steven Spielberg (Tintin), based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo and the award-winning stage production by Nick Stafford. The story follows a horse, named Joey, in a war, named The Great War, and recounts all the ways in which peoples lives were changed through their encounters with the eponymous animal. Like most Spielberg productions, War Horse is populated with many great scenes – scenes of horror, heartbreak, triumph and joy. Unfortunately, they’re trapped in a film that is far too long, and helmed by a director who has failed to differentiate between genuine feeling and cheap emotional manipulation. A little bit of sentiment is one thing, Steven. But this is simply labourious.

From the moment that Albert Narracott (newcomer Jeremy Irvine) lays eyes Joey, he feels a connection that is destined to last a lifetime. A gift to Albert from his father (Peter Mullan; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1), Joey is a strong, wilful but loyal young horse, one who Albert must train to plough the fields lest their home be repossessed by their heartless, money-grubbing landlord (Peter Thewlis; Deathly Hallows Part 2). These first thirty minutes of War Horse are the most insufferable of the lot, as the script drags us through and across every syrupy valley and peak – Joey’s initial failings as a plough-horse to his eventual, plot-assured success – with laughable indulgence. Spielberg shoots scene after scene against the orange sky of dusk – the so called golden hour – as if too lend his story additional dramatic weight. Similarly, John Williams’ tirelessly mawkish score feels explicitly designed to turn every wistful gaze between boy and horse into a tumultuous rollercoaster ride of cloud-parting, earth-shattering emotion.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

My 10 Most Anticipated Films of the 2012 International Film Festival of Rotterdam

2012-01-24T22:16:00.000+11:00

I don’t know much about Rotterdam. Wikipedia tells me – now that it’s back in action following that rather terrifying twenty-four hour blackout – that it’s the second largest city in The Netherlands, as well as one of the busiest ports in the world. The Rotterdam tourism board website tells me that it’s “a trendy, dynamic city” that you really need “to experience for yourself”. And a Google search tells me – and this might be the most important information of all – that the average temperature in Rotterdam during the month of January is a chilly 4°C, meaning visitors – especially those used to spending January on the beach – would do well to rug up tight.

But what I do know about Rotterdam is that between January 25^th and February 5^th, it becomes a hotbed of cinematic activity. Celebrating its 41^st birthday this year, the International Film Festival of Rotterdam is one of Europe’s largest and most illustrious film festivals, alongside Cannes, Venice and Berlin. In 2012, the IFFR will screen a whopping 268 feature films and 469 shorts, receive esteemed directors including Michel Gondry (The Green Hornet), Takashi Miike (13 Assassins) and Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre), and welcome members of the press from all around Europe and the world. Somewhere in that crowd of critics, wrapped in woollen scarf, Richmond F.C. beanie and heavily insulated parker, will be me, ready to cover all the action for Cut Print Review.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Artist

2012-01-23T23:58:00.000+11:00

Director: Michel Hazanavicius

Running Time: 100 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

From Abrams (Super 8) aping Spielberg, Allen (Midnight in Paris) namedropping Bunuel and Scorsese (Hugo) paying homage to one of cinema’s earliest icons, lately we’ve seen filmmakers increasingly looking back. It’s a trend born, one suspects, of a desire to return to what many perceive as a simpler, more innocent time; a time when artists, not accountants, decided when and how a movie was to be made. Call it narcissistic if you will, but it’s a persistent pattern, and one that reaches a whole new extreme in Michael Hazanavicius’ The Artist. A bona fide silent movie set amongst the glitz and glamour of Hollywood in its Golden Age, the film is a crafty exercise, one that is explicitly designed to exploit feelings of nostalgia to a degree that they’ve rarely been exploited before. Well guess what? It worked. The Artist, as calculated as you know it is, is simply impossible to resist. It’s a spirited slice of old time movie-making that is sure to leave film fans a-beaming.

Hollywood, 1927. It’s a prosperous time to be a movie star, and no star shines brighter than that of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin; The Little White Lies). As handsome and charismatic as he is vain and self-centred, Valentin – with his pencil thin moustache reminiscent of real life silent movie sensation Douglas Fairbanks – along with his long time co-star, a talented Jack Russell terrier, is the biggest thing in movies since, well, ever, and has audiences, reporters and money hungry executives all eating out of the palm of his hand. But all good things must come to an end. For Hollywood, it’s the end of the silent movie, booted abruptly from the screen to make way for the next big thing: the talkies. For Valentin, it’s the end of his career, as he too is cast unceremoniously aside, usurped by fresh young talents like Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo; A Knight’s Tale), whose path soon crosses with Valentin’s own.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Darkest Hour

2012-01-20T20:26:00.000+11:00

Director: Chris Gorak

Running Time: 89 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A group of American youths are besieged by invisible attackers in the Russian capital of Moscow in The Darkest Hour, an alien invasion movie so woefully written, directed and acted that it makes Cowboys & Aliens, Battle: Los Angeles and Skyline all look positively award worthy by comparison. That this movie exists makes me sad. That I’m writing about it makes me sadder. But is does. And I am. So why don’t we get things over with?

Where to begin? For starters, The Darkest Hour is one of the most poorly directed movies I have ever seen receive a theatrical release. To be fair, some of it is beyond filmmaker Chris Gorak’s control – it’s clear the production budget was woefully inadequate, and a result most of the special effects and green-screened backgrounds look like they were put together in Photoshop (which is probably not far from the truth). But it’s not just the CGI. From the continual fade-to-black scene transitions to the hideously disconcerting manner with which he frames even the simplest scenes of dialogue, Gorak demonstrates a level of amateurism here that I can only describe as Wiseauian.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Iron Lady

2012-01-19T20:57:00.005+11:00

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

Running Time: 105 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A politician whose tyrannical conservatism earned her the nick-name “The Iron Lady”, the life and career of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first and only female Prime Minister, was destined to be made into a movie. Mired by controversy from the moment she stepped into office, over her eleven year tenure Thatcher started a war, survived an assassination attempt, and made sweeping changes to Britain’s political and economic landscape that made her a legend to her supporters, and a monster to her oppositions. Now that the inevitable biopic has finally arrived, it shouldn’t come as much of a shock that much of the focus has been put on Thatcher the icon: the adversity she faced, her sacrifices, and the way her personality affected her time in office. But if the drama is occasionally soapy and the politics slightly simplified, The Iron Lady still works thanks to its disarming narrative structure and a brilliant lead performance by the wondrous Meryl Streep.

When we get our first glimpse a doddering old woman out to buy a pint of milk, it’s hard to believe that she was once one of the most divisive political figures of the late twentieth century. Well into her eighties, she spends her days bickering with her doctors and state appointed carers, and attempting to resist the slowly creeping fingers of senility. It’s a disconcerting, unexpected portrayal, but effective in cultivating the audiences sympathies. It’s only after we’ve gotten to know this elderly Maggie Thatcher – who her husband (Jim Broadbent; A Good Year) affectionately calls “M.T.” – that director Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!) introduce, via flashbacks, the woman that history remembers; a woman whose political beliefs were handed down to her by her father, and whose unwavering determination and refusal to compromise saw her climb the greasy pole to become the most powerful person in the country.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-16T21:35:00.001+11:00

Director: David Fincher

Running Time: 158 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A chilling murder mystery set against the haunted nights and frozen days of the Scandinavian tundra, the American adaptation of Swede Stieg Larsson’s bestselling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo seems, at first glance, like the perfect material for renegade filmmaker David Fincher. One of Hollywood’s most celebrated and sought-after directors, Fincher’s resume already boasts two of the best serial killer films of the past twenty years in Seven and Zodiac, as well as two veritable modern masterpieces in Fight Club and last years The Social Network. All of Fincher’s films – even the slightly maudlin The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the critically under-appreciated Panic Room – are recognizable for their icy aesthetic, sinister subject matter, and examination of themes including fear, rage and social disillusionment; themes that, if its supporters are to be believed, Larsson’s novel deals with in considerable detail.

Personally, I have not read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and therefore cannot speak to its quality. But after watching both the laborious 2009 Swedish version, and now Fincher’s English language remake, I am beginning to suspect that Larsson’s book just isn’t very good. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it outright bad, as the core murder mystery is gripping in a Agatha Christie meets Hannibal Lecter kind of way. Furthermore, at the hands of Fincher, the screenplay’s disjointed first act, bloated runtime and pandering sexualisation of its protagonist all seem like far smaller problems than they might otherwise have. Still, I’d be lying if I called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo anything other than a serviceable thriller, or a glossy waste of a talented filmmaker’s time.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Albert Nobbs

2012-01-13T23:25:00.000+11:00

Director: Rodrigo Garcia

Running Time: 113 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In Rodrigo Garcia’s Albert Nobbs, Glenn Close (The Stepford Wives) stars as a buttoned down manservant working in a posh Dublin hotel who lives in constant fear of losing his livelihood due to the secret fact that he is actually a woman. A fascinating premise for a period film one might think, but alas what could have been an off-kilter examination of the social and sexual hang-ups of 19^th century Ireland is hamstrung by all the expectedly dreary formality of a middling BBC costume drama. Despite the clear enthusiasm of Close – who first played the part on stage in 1982, and is listed not only as the film’s star, but also as its co-writer and producer – this thirty-years-in-the-making passion project is tepid and totally lacking in feeling, remarkable only for its technically impressive lead performance and how criminally it squanders its fascinating conceit.

Based on a little known short story by Irish novelist George Moore, Albert Nobbs concerns itself with the comings and goings of guests and employees of the luxurious Morrison’s hotel, and particularly those of the eponymous Albert Nobbs. Albert’s well-mannered professionalism makes him a favourite of the establishments matron (a simpering Pauline Colins; Bleak House) but his false persona, one he has been wearing for over thirty years, has left him sad, lonely and incapable of connecting. But Albert’s world is sent into a tail-spin after a chance encounter with Hubert (Janet McTeer; Tideland), another male impersonator, whose happy married life inspires Albert to pursue a similar situation with a spritely young housemaid named Helen (Mia Wasikowska; Alice in Wonderland). Unfortunately for Albert, there’s competition for Helen’s affections, in the forms of the handsome but unscrupulous Joe Macken (Aaron Johnson; Kick Ass) who promises to whisk her away to America.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

2012-01-10T00:18:00.001+11:00

Director: Guy Ritchie

Running Time: 129 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

While it might not have been what Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind when he first put pen to page, 2009s Sherlock Holmes was a rip-snorting action picture that was hugely popular with audiences and critics alike. Two years later and to the surprise of no one, Hollywood has decided it’s time for a sequel, reuniting director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) with stars Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 2) and Jude Law (Contagion) and setting Holmes and Dr. Watson – as well as ticket paying audiences – off on another globetrotting nineteenth century adventure. What does come as a surprise is that, unlike most Hollywood sequels, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows does not disappoint, but rather delivers on all the humour and excitement (and vaguely homoerotic banter between its leading men) that made its predecessor such a delight.

This new Holmes adventure sees the obsessive detective (Downey) face off against his greatest foe: Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris; TVs Mad Men), a cunning criminal genius that matches Holmes’ own intellect. With the reluctant assistance of the recently married Dr. Watson (Law) and a fortune-telling gypsy (Noomi Rapace; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) that he saves from an assassins blade, Holmes’ pursuit of Moriarty takes him from Baker Street London to the opera houses of Paris and the snow covered mountains of Switzerland, as he races to unravel an international conspiracy that could throw all of Europe into a cataclysmic world war.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Adventures of Tintin

2012-01-04T02:01:00.002+11:00

Director: Steven Spielberg

Running Time: 107 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Based on the timeless Belgian comics by Hergé, directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) and brought to life using the same motion capture technology popularized by Robert Zemeckis (The Polar Express) and perfected by James Cameron (Avatar), The Adventures of Tintin bears, in theory, all the promise of a cinematic event. Not so in execution. Part gumshoe mystery, part animated Indiana Jones, for all the abundance of talent involved, the initial chapter in what many might have hoped would be the Tintin movie franchise is astoundingly middle of the road. Inoffensive and mildly entertaining at best, and thoroughly underwhelming at worst, Spielberg’s first animated film is hampered by a fan-pandering script, and is dragged down by a boring hero who would have been better served remaining on the page.

In our first glimpse of Monsieur Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell of Billy Elliot fame), he appears as we’ve always known him: rendered in the simple but endearing 2D strokes of Herge’s original artwork. It’s a cheeky little moment, and is sure to bring smiles to the faces of Tintin aficionados. More to the point, it demonstrates both the affection and the obligation Spielberg, Jackson and the rest of their collaborators feel towards Herge’s beloved material. The script for Tintin’s big screen 3D adventure is based on three of Herge’s graphic novels (The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure), and sees its hero – a baby faced investigative journalist with unwavering determination – contend with pickpockets and pirates in a race to locate a mysterious sunken treasure.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

My Top 10 Films of 2011

2012-01-03T07:35:00.000+11:00

It's that time of year; where the cinematically inclined cave in to that biggest of list-making urges and arbitrarily rank their favourite movies of the past twelve months. 2011, like all years, has been an enormous blend of films ranging from the good to the bad, the excellent to the atrocious, and of course, the atrociously overrated. For my money, no film has received more absurdly hyperbolic attention than the one sure to top many top ten lists: Terrance Mallick's phenomenally boring The Tree of Life (review here). That said, my own personal number one has already seen quite a backlash, and for every number one spot it takes, it's just as likely to be cast aside.

Aside from that pick, my list contains a little bit of everything: comedies, action movies, genre flicks, mainstream blockbusters and obscure foreign films, as well as at least one film that no one else seems to have liked. In total I made a total of one hundred and twenty nine trips to the theatre this year, including thirty four at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In spite of these personal record breaking numbers, I can't help but feel that 2011 has been a pretty weak year for cinema. Of my top ten films, only the top four might have challenged any of the ten from last year’s list. And unlike last year, where a good five movies might have snuck in in place of my number ten, this year I don't have a single honourable mention.

The only other thing I have to add is my usual caveat about how, living as I do on the far side of the world, I have yet to see many of the year’s most hyped about films. Some notable movies yet to make it to Australia include The Artist, The Descendants, J. Edgar, War Horse, 50/50, Shame, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tyrannosaur, The Muppets, Young Adult, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Hugo. Look for my revised list in July 2012, once I've caught up with all these stragglers.

So, without further adieu...

MY TOP 10 OF 2011 (Numerically Ranked)

10. THE YELLOW SEA (review)

A slow burning thriller for the first half, an all out action movie for the second, The Yellow Sea is a chaotic South Korean crime movie in the vein of Oldboy and I Saw The Devil, filled with audacious and often blackly comedic violence, as well as savage social commentary about immigration, modernity and the dogfight of urban decay.

9. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (review)

Woody Allen’s best film in years is a fantastical comedy about art, artists and the beauty they inspire. Bolstered by wonderful endearing performances, and set against the splendour of the most romantic city in the world.

8. ATTACK THE BLOCK (review)

The debut film from British comedian Joe Cornish manages to balance laughs, suspense, and heart-pumping extra-terrestrial action, and is also one of the most genuine portrayals of contemporary youth put to the screen in quite some time. A blast from start to finish, with an awesome soundtrack to match.

7. CONTAGION (review)

Stylistic chameleon Steven Soderbergh balances a multitude of characters, plotlines and ideas in this methodically shot and emotionally chilly medical thriller that features an all-star cast and is driven along by Cliff Martinez’s electric metronome of a score.

6. WARRIOR (review)

My inner cynic urges me to dismiss this clichéd story of two brothers fighting out their differences in the ring. But I can’t deny the boldness of the performances – nor the raw emotion they provoke – in this heart-pounding sports movie about family, loyalty and mixed martial arts.

5. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (review)

Even without a single moment of onscreen violence, We Need To Talk About Kevin is one of the most viscerally unsettling movies of the year. But while the viewing may not be pleasant, it is certainly rewarding, both for the craftsmanship displayed by director Lynne Ramsay, and for the bravura performance from Tilda Swinton as the mother of the titular teenage sociopath so desperately in need of discussion.

4. SENNA (review)

This documentary about famed Brazilian Formula One driver Ayerton Senna is as moving as it is exhilarating. Constructed entirely from archival footage, even those with no interesting in racing will find themselves swept off their feet.

3. RED STATE (review)

An unexpected departure from Clerks director Kevin Smith about a church versus state showdown of bloody biblical proportions, Red State is every bit as broad, unpleasant and cynical as its critics proclaim. But it is also thrilling, visceral, mercilessly satirical and completely and utterly unpredictable. A messy film, but a compelling one.

2. A SEPARATION (review)

A gripping, tragic and sublimely moving human drama, A Separation uses its intimate story – about two families on the brink of falling apart – to explore issues of religion, gender and class in contemporary Iranian society.

1. DRIVE (review)

A film that hypnotizes with slow burning intensity and drips with glossy neon artistry, Nicholas Wending Refn’s version of a Michael Mann style action movie is a vibrant mural of colour, music, carnage and sly cinematic homage. The most thrilling, fascinating and mesmerizing motion picture of the year.

Of course I'm not the only one with an opinion. Sound off below with your favourite films of 2011 (and feel free to include links to your own lists!)

Review - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

2011-12-26T21:04:00.002+11:00

Director: Brad Bird

Running Time: 132 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Although far from seminal, there are a few Hollywood franchises I enjoy more than the Mission Impossible series. Laden with spectacular stunts and driven by a Lalo Schifrin’s sensational main theme, each film bears the unique stylistic stamp of the director at the helm – Brian De Palma (Scarface) for the original, John Woo (Face/Off) and J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) for the sequels – while at the same time succeeding as fun, fast paced action movies guaranteed to excite and entertain. Most recently, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol sees another new filmmaker take the reins: The Incredibles director Brad Bird, in his very first live-action film. And while the plot may be slapdash and characterizations frequently feeble, this new mission once again delivers what audiences really want: ambitious, gripping, fantastically conceived action.

Ghost Protocol kicks off with IMF agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton; Precious) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg; Paul) breaking team leader Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) out a Russian prison so that the three of them might infiltrate the Kremlin and recover files that will help them identify a criminal known only as Cobalt (Michael Nyqvist; Abduction) who is bent on instigating a nuclear war. But the mission is soon revealed to be a set-up, and after a bomb destroys a large part of the Russian presidential complex, Hunt and his team, as well as the mysterious Agent Brandt (Jeremy Renner; The Hurt Locker) find themselves labelled as terrorists, disavowed by their agency, and with no choice but to clear their names by whatever means they can.

Keep Reading at Row Three »

Review - The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence

2011-12-25T03:42:00.002+11:00

Director: Tom Six

Running Time: 88 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Note: The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence received a brief theatrical release in Australia this November with an R18+ rating, before it was reviewed and reclassified RC (refused classification) by the Australian Classification Review Board at the behest of conservative lobby groups and the New South Wales Attorney General. An RC rating is tantamount to a ban, and means the film cannot be screened, sold or hired anywhere within Australia. An edited version of the film, with approximately thirty seconds of footage removed, recently received an R18+, and is due to return to screens in December. The following review is of the full version of the film, which cannot currently be legally obtained in this country.

While it’s revolting premise and some ingenious marketing has earned The Human Centipede much notoriety online, the 2009 Dutch horror film about three unfortunate tourists sewn anus to mouth by a maniacal German scientist isn’t really all that difficult to stomach. Indeed, the relatively small amount of gore and bodily fluids that director Tom Six actually depicts in the film – along with the general crumbiness of the dialogue, plotting, acting and directing – left many horror aficionados, myself included, feeling extraordinarily underwhelmed. Not so with the sequel. No matter what your feelings towards the first film, I can almost guarantee that the newly released film – fully entitled The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence – will not underwhelm. The Human Centipede Part 2 is repulsive. Gleefully, nastily, unrepentedly repulsive. It also ain’t half bad.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Attack the Block

2011-12-20T17:46:00.001+11:00

Director: Joe Cornish

Running Time: 88 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A timely tale of disenchanted youth and criminal culture set against a sci-fi genre backdrop, Attack the Block is a fresh, energetic, spectacularly original and wildly entertaining debut feature film full of wit, suspense, action, terrific characters, awesome monsters and a totally bad-ass score. Written and directed by English comedian Joe Cornish (who also co-wrote the recent Steven Spielberg directed Tintin movie), the film sees a gang of south London teenagers go head to head with savage extra-terrestrial monsters that lay siege to the council estate they call home. Thrilling and funny from start to finish, with some savvy political commentary thrown in; Attack the Block is one of the year’s smartest and most giddily enjoyable films.

Set over a single night in London, Attack the Block kicks off when a gang of teenagers consisting of Pest (Alex Esmail), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Biggz (Simon Howard) and fifteen year old leader Moses (John Boyega) mug a young nurse named Samantha (Jodie Whitaker; St Trinian’s), only to have their crime suddenly interrupted by an attack by a four foot monster clearly not of this earth. Being the hooligans that they are, the gang give chase and soon make short work of the alien, and drag its corpse back to their twenty story housing estate, appropriately nick-named “The Block”. But the night turns ugly – or rather, uglier – when more aliens start appearing; not of the four-foot variety, but gigantic wolf-life creatures with jet black fur and luminescent blue fangs.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Waste Land

2011-12-18T09:09:00.003+11:00

Director: Lucy Walker, Karen Harley & João Jardim

Running Time: 99 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

From far away, Rio de Janeiro is beautiful. Nestled into the mountains and spilling over onto postcard beaches, the popular tourist destination appears as a bustling metropolis full of sound, colour and life. But get a little closer and you’ll find a city struggling with a vast socio-economic divide, where a significant portion of the population make their homes in enormous favela’s, stricken by poverty and surrounded by garbage. For a small section of the population, the trash is their livelihood; Rio de Janeiro is home to one of the biggest landfills in the world, and siphoning recyclable materials from the rubbish earns many some of its people just enough money to sustain themselves.

Few people escape the slums of Rio, but one who did is Vik Muniz, who went on to make a name for himself in the New York art scene, especially for his use of everyday substances – sugar, wire, paper, chocolate sauce – in his artwork. In 2007, filmmakers Lucy Walker (Countdown To Zero), João Jardim and Karen Harley documented Muniz as he returned to the city where he grew up to undertake a new project: to create portraits of the garbage pickers – or “catadores” – using the very same material that they pull from the dump, with profits from the arts sale to be used to improve the lives of the impoverished community. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2010 Academy Awards, Waste Land is an earnest and moving film that conveys the importance of dignity, the value of community and the power of artistic expression.

Immediately upon arriving in the enormous landfill of Jardim Gramacho, Muniz meets a host of colourful characters who make their living amongst the waste. Tired and dirty, but full of smiles, what surprises is how much pride the pickers have in their work. Even as the rest of Rio looks down on them, there is a wonderful sense of unity amongst the catadores; one man has begun a public library from discarded books, while another, an idealistic youth named Tião, even started a garbage pickers union, so that the government might recognize their rights. So inspired is Muniz by these men and women that he decides to employ several of them as his artistic assistants, making them not only the subjects, but the creators of the art.

Enormous faces made up of plastic, paper and discarded metal, the portraits they create are phenomenal. The films’ three directors shoot the arts assembly in time-lapse to the ethereal tunes of music by Moby, and seeing the images come together – and witnessing what it means to the catadores – is both fascinating and uplifting. Yet the film never glosses over the tragic reality of life for the pickers. One woman, too young a mother, reflects that the landfill is all that stands between her and a life of prostitution. And although certainly an altruist, Muniz is far from perfect himself, and at one point needs to be reminded about the potential moral stickiness of offering the pickers a temporary escape, only to ask them to return to the dump when the art project has been completed.

Near the end of the film, Muniz takes Tião with him to London to display several of their pieces in an upscale art gallery, as Waste Land dovetails nicely into an exploration of the value and meaning of art. As the camera follows the star-struck young man as he walks along London’s affluent streets, and later through the sterile halls of the gallery – neither of which could be more different from his home – you may dwell on how often modern art is dismissed by critics as “garbage”. It’s a comparison that Muniz is certainly aware of, and it is with bittersweet irony that the portraits, made of actual trash, sell for more money than their subjects could earn in a lifetime.

Review - Moneyball

2011-12-13T05:09:00.002+11:00

Director: Bennett Miller

Running Time: 133 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Bennett Miller’s Moneyball is not like most other sports movies. In most sports movies, no matter which game they concern, the drama takes place in the arena – on the basketball court and the football field, in the boxing ring and the baseball diamond. It is there that muscular athletes conquer pain, adversity and inevitably sharp odds to steal victory (or occasionally suffer honourable defeats) in front of lights, cameras, disbelieving commentators and the caterwauling of the crowd. Not so in Moneyball. Based on the non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, with a script by Academy Award winners Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network), Moneyball sets it’s drama not just in stadiums, but also in offices and in boardrooms. While its compatriots focus on strength, Moneyball celebrates strategy, recounting the unlikely true story of how brains triumphed over brawn, and mathematics changed America’s favourite past-time forever.

In 2001, the Oakland Athletics baseball team were knocked out of the American League series finals by the New York Yankees, a side with nearly four times the A’s budget. With the next season just around the corner, the A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt; Inglourious Basterds) is left in charge of fielding a competitive team with a less than adequate funds, while also faced with the departure of three of his star players for more profitable pastures, and a coach (Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Miller’s Capote) understandably concerned about the single year remaining on his contract. Driven to desperation, Beane hires Peter Brand (Jonah Hill; Get Him To The Greek), a fresh-faced Yale economics graduate who has devised a radical method of team selection using statistics – called sabermetrics – that flies in the face of the conventional wisdom of the scouts.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Ages of Love

2011-12-04T21:00:00.001+11:00

Director: Giovanni Veronesi

Running Time: 125 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Ages of Love is the third part in the Italian “Manuel of Love” trilogy, and is itself made up of three separate chapters. These segments, christened “youth”, “maturity” and “beyond”, overlap and intertwin, as men and woman all over the Italian capital flirt and fornicate under the sparkling eyes of a taxi-driving, vest-wearing cupid. And it is truly appalling. Styled by its Australian marketers as an Italian Love Actually, and sold primarily on the presence of out-of-place Hollywood actors Robert DeNiro (Little Fockers) and Monica Bellucci (The Whistleblower), Ages of Love is a bloated film loaded with unsympathetic leads and woeful attempts at both romance and humour.

In the first story, our supposed hero is Roberto (Riccardo Scamarcio), an ambitious young lawyer with a beautiful, kind and devoted fiancé. Roberto is sent to a small town by his heartless property developing employers to con an old couple (with a mentally challenged son, depicted with an astounding lack of taste) out of their lifelong home. However, not long after he arrives in the quaint little village, Roberto spots the beautiful town flirt Micol (Laura Chiatti), and before you know it his feelings for his fiancé are out the window. Director and co-writer Giovanni Veronesi provides Scamarcio plenty of opportunities to gaze wistfully over the ocean and muse about the power of love, but his characters behaviour is reprehensible no matter how hard you try to sugar-coat it.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

On vacation

2011-11-27T03:53:00.003+11:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know that for the next ten or so weeks, I'll be on holiday overseas - first in Bangkok (where I spent a year living when I was a child), and then on to travel around Europe, with stops in England, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and The Netherlands.

Unfortunately, this means you can expect fewer posts on the blog during December and January (although I'm hoping to remain at least semi consistent). That said, I am planning to attend the International Film Festival of Rotterdam in late January and early February, so look forward to coverage of that.

In the mean time, you can keep track of me on twitter at twitter.com/tom_clift, where I'll be keeping people updated on both my travels and any movies I get around to watching.

Final Results of Double Feature Friday 2011

2011-11-25T23:58:00.000+11:00

After twelve weeks and a ton of great entries, Double Feature Friday has come to it's end. Thank you all for playing, if for no other reason than because you've given me a bunch of new titles that I need to track down and see. The winner of this three month competition will be awarded a DVD of their choice, valued at up to US$30 on Amazon.com.

But before we get to the big result, we have the winners of the final round:

Castor Troy, who paired Breaking Dawn Part 1 with Splice.

Danny, who paired We Need To Talk About Kevin with Home Alone.

Travis McCollum, who paired The Future with The Science of Sleep.

Courtney Small, who paired The Legend of Drunken Master with Kung Fu Panda.

Helen Geib, who paired Lawrence of Arabia with General Allenby's Entry Into Jerusalem.

Congratulations to all those competitors. And a big congratulations to Ryan McNeil of www.thematinee.ca, who takes home the big prize with a grand total of six wins. Ryan, I will be in touch shortly to work out your prize.

For those of you interested, Ryan's winning choices were Requiem for a Dream with A Clockwork Orange, Anonymous with The Ghost Writer, Con Air with Leaving Las Vegas, Cave of Forgotten Dreams with The Descent, O Brother Where Art Thou? with Nun's on the Run, and Final Destination 5 with Ten Little Indians.

After the jump, you can also find the complete final score listings. And once again, thanks for competing.

FINAL SCORE TALLY:
Alex Withrow (2 points)
Andrew Robinson (1 point)
Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Castor Troy (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (5 points)
Dan Heaton (4 points)
Dan O. (1 point)
Danny (1 point)
Dylan Fields (4 points)
Helen Geib (5 points)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (2 points)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Nolahn (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Relinquo Spes (2 points)
Ryan McNeil (6 points)
Sam Fragoso (2 points)
Simon Columb (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Travis McCollum (4 points)
Univarn (4 points)

Review - The Ides of March

2011-11-23T23:14:00.000+11:00

Director: George Clooney

Running Time: 101 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A first-class tale of political intrigue, The Ides of March offers a glimmer of hope to those people fed-up with the state of American politics, only to dash those hopes upon the jagged rocks of ambition, secrecy and betrayal. The story, based on the play Farragut North by Beau Willimon, concerns an idealistic junior campaign manager who gets a crash course in pragmatism when he discovers the man he is striving to get elected is less than the knight in shining armour he appears to be. Directed by George Clooney, who also co-stars alongside a stunning ensemble cast, The Ides of March is a terrific political drama that growls with low tension and the cynicism of the disillusioned.

The Ides of March follows the campaign of Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris (Clooney; The American) against Arkansas Senator Ted Pullman (Michael Mantell; Ocean’s 13) for the Democratic nomination for the Presidential race. Morris is a rare breed of politician; determinedly forward thinking and unwilling to compromise on his ideals, he is the kind of man who inspires faith and loyalty, even from men like Steven Meyer (Ryan Gosling; Drive), a young but talented junior campaign manager who works under Paul Zara (Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Moneyball) doing everything he can to get Morris that one step closer to the Whitehouse. But as Meyer soon discovers, temptation lies everywhere in the political battlefield, be it in the form of the opposition campaign manager Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti; Win Win) who aspires to lure Meyer over to the other side, or embodied by the flirtatious young intern (Evan Rachel Wood; The Wrestler), the keeper of a secret that could derail Morris’ entire campaign.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - We Need To Talk About Kevin

2011-11-21T22:20:00.000+11:00

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Running Time: 112 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

One of the year’s most difficult to watch films is also one of its finest. Adapted from the award winning novel by Lionel Shriver, We Need To Talk About Kevin is a stunning psychological drama and thriller that will set crawling the skin of anyone who watches it… and it will do so without a depicting a single moment of violence. With mesmerizing control over her craft, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Cellar) has crafted a rare movie where the story and the direction are in near perfect harmony. Every shot, edit and moment of soundscaping in this film contributes to a single overwhelming sensation. And that sensation is nausea.

The Kevin of the film’s title is played by three young actors: Rocky Duer as an infant, Jasper Newell as a six year old, and Ezra Miller (City Island) as a teenager. All three boys wear the same cruel smirk of a sadistic child who delights in manipulation and cruelty, and whose fascinations grow increasingly violent as he grows older. The film picks up a few years after Kevin commits a mass killing at his high school, and follows Kevin’s mother Eva – played by the always fantastic Tilda Swinton (Burn After Reading) – as she tries to rebuild her life in spite of the persecution from the community her son tore apart. But a majority of the narrative takes place in flashbacks, as Ramsay offers us glimpses into Eva’s marriage and Kevin’s upbringing, urging us to try and pinpoint the moment when things first started to go wrong.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in the final Double Feature Friday for 2011

2011-11-18T22:00:00.000+11:00

Welcome to the final edition of Double Feature Friday for 2011. This time next week, I'll announce the winner of the competition. It's still a tough fight for the top stop, so be sure to give it your all in this final round!

But first, last weeks winners:

Dylan Fields, who paired Moneyball with Major League.

Helen Geib, who paired The Debt with The Boys from Brazil.

Dan Heaton, who paired Shark Night 3D with Jaws 3D.

Courtney Small, who paired This Is Not A Film with Exit Through the Giftshop.

Ryan McNeil, who paired Requiem for a Dream with A Clockwork Orange.

Congratulations to the winners - the full tally of competitors at the bottom of this post and the leaderboard in the sidebar to your right have both been adjusted accordingly. Bad luck to everyone who missed out, but of course, you can always compete again this week. Those of you unfamiliar with the rules of the game click here - for everyone else, here are your films:

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

We Need To Talk About Kevin

The Future

Bonus: The Legend of Drunken Master

Bonus: Lawrence of Arabia

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:
Alex Withrow (2 points)
Andrew Robinson (1 point)
Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (4 points)
Dan Heaton (4 points)
Dan O. (1 point)
Dylan Fields (4 points)
Helen Geib (4 points)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (2 points)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Nolahn (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Relinquo Spes (2 points)
Ryan McNeil (6 points)
Sam Fragoso (2 points)
Simon Columb (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Travis McCollum (3 points)
Univarn (4 points)

Review - Burning Man

2011-11-17T16:26:00.000+11:00

Director: Jonathan Teplitzky

Running Time: 109 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In both its non-linear structure and its astounding visual composition, Burning Man is a bit like Terrance Mallick’s The Tree of Life. Written and directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (Better Than Sex), the Australian drama presents a series of beautifully composed images and scenes that make up the memories from the life and marriage of it’s lead character, a cocky English chef living in Bondi, Sydney. However, where Teplitzky’s film differs from Mallick’s is in its resolute sense of directorial purpose, one that ensures that its artful images actually converge into a discernible and satisfying whole. Although the overt sense of construction does take some of the emotion out of what is eventually revealed to be a deeply tragic tale, Burning Man remains an elegant looking and uniquely assembled Australian film that doesn’t fail to tell a substantive story.

Our first glimpse of Tom (Matthew Goode; Watchmen) comes as he is stands masturbating over a naked woman. It’s an audacious way to introduce ones hero, and just the first of many instances of misdirection that Teplitzky employs to keep audiences on their toes. A rapidly edited montage takes us from moment to seemingly unconnected moment; the only constant is Tom, an irritable, arrogant, womanizing Englishman whose life is a blur of cooking, drinking, arguing and shallow sex. The structure of the film is intentionally designed to challenge, as Teplitzky deliberately points you in one direction and then merrily leads you in another. But the speed and energy that dominates these early sections of the film – like the frantic kitchen of Tom’s exclusive restaurant – is such that it is impossible not to be engaged.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Tall Man

2011-11-15T10:16:00.001+11:00

Director: Tony Kravitz

Running Time: 79 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In 2004, Cameron Doomadgee, a resident of an Aboriginal community in Queensland’s Palm Island, was arrested after swearing at police. Forty-five minutes later he was dead in custody, with injuries consistent with a severe beating. The arresting officer, a 6’ 7’’tall senior sergeant named Chris Hurley, denied any wrongdoing, but after an investigation – one that was hampered by extensive media coverage and frequent accusations of bias and corruption – Hurley was eventually charged with manslaughter. Based on the non-fiction book by Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man offers a thorough documentation of Doomadgee’s tragic death and the subsequent trial, but in other respects feels somewhat lacking.

Director Tony Kravitz has crafted a film that is elegant looking and expertly edited, but one that also feels somewhat rote in its storytelling. The interviews subjects – who include a police union representative, a pro-bono lawyer and various members of Doomadgee’s family and community – all offer surface insight into the events of Doomadgee’s death. But Kravitz rarely pushes them further, never asking the hard questions that really needed to be asked. The dark storm-cloud of Australian race relations hangs heavily over the entire film, but Kravtiz seems more interested in recounting the story than exploring the issues behind it. As a result, The Tall Man plays more like a vaguely exploitative mystery than it does a social indictment of any kind.

The story of Cameron Doomadgee and Sergeant Christopher Hurley is a tragic one. But without much of a thesis, and running only seventy-nine minutes long, the movie about it feels more like a television doco than it does a theatrical film.

Read more of my reviews at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Yellow Sea

2011-11-13T18:40:00.000+11:00

Director: Na Hong-jin

Running Time: 140 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The Yellow Sea recently played at the Fantastic Asia Film Festival in Melbourne. It opens in select Australian cinemas on December 1.

You can officially add Na Hong-jin to the growing list of South Korean directors outdoing ninety-five percent of their Hollywood counterparts. After debuting with the critically acclaimed The Chaser in 2009, Na’s follow-up is an artful, absorbing and exceedingly violent crime thriller called The Yellow Sea, a film that bears all the style and splatter that characterizes the work of Park Chan-wook (Oldboy), Bong Joon-ho (The Host) and Kim Ji-Woon (I Saw The Devil), filmmakers who have made South Korean cinema one of the most exciting national cinemas out of Asia, if not the entire world. Beginning as a suspenseful film noir before exploding with violent, frenetic mayhem, The Yellow Sea is an awesome genre exercise with a bitter undercurrent of social commentary to go along with it.

Ku-Nam (Ha Jung-woo) is a down-on-his-luck cab driver living in Yanbian, a Korean prefecture in North-Eastern China. Chronically in debt, his wife left for South Korea a year ago, but her promise of sending money back has gone unfulfilled. Plagued by nightmares that his wayward spouse is having an affair, Ku-Nam spends most of his time drinking or loosing at Mah-jong in dingy gambling halls, while his elderly mother is left to look after her son’s infant child. An opportunity to finally make some money is presented by a local gangster Myun-Ga (Kim Yun-seok), who offers Ku-Nam $60 000 and the chance to travel to South Korea to track down his wife. All he has to do is kill somebody. Both Kim and Ha previously starred in The Chaser, and both are excellent here; the bearded Kim is especially watchable as the jovial Myun, a gangster whose easy going manner masks his grisly ability with an axe.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-11-11T23:43:00.000+11:00

It's that time of the week again folks, where you get to show off your cinematic ingenuity you are by competing in Double Feature Friday. This week is the penultimate round for 2011, so be sure to give it everything you've got.

But first, last weeks winners:

Ryan McNeil, who paired Anonymous with The Ghost Writer.

Dan O., who paired Don't Be Afraid of the Dark with The House of the Devil.

Relinquo Spes, who paired Our Idiot Brother with The Big Lebowski AND I Don't Know How She Does It with Phar Lap (zing!)

Dan Heaton, who paired Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Strange Brew.

Congratulations to the winners - the full tally of competitors at the bottom of this post and the leaderboard in the sidebar to your right have both been adjusted accordingly. Bad luck to everyone who missed out, but of course, you can always compete again this week. Those of you unfamiliar with the rules of the game click here - for everyone else, here are your films:

Moneyball

The Debt

Shark Night 3D

This Is Not A Film

Bonus: Requiem for a Dream

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:
Alex Withrow (2 points)
Andrew Robinson (1 point)
Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (3 points)
Dan Heaton (3 points)
Dan O. (1 point)
Dylan Fields (3 points)
Helen Geib (3 points)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (2 points)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Nolahn (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Relinquo Spes (2 points)
Ryan McNeil (5 points)
Sam Fragoso (2 points)
Simon Columb (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Travis McCollum (3 points)
Univarn (4 points)

Review - This Is Not A Film

2011-11-08T07:17:00.000+11:00

Director: Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb

Running Time: 75 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

It is surely no coincidence that most prominently displayed amongst Iranian filmmaker Jafar Pahani’s DVD collection is a copy of Rodrigo Cortés’ Buried starring Ryan Reynolds. The story of a man trapped against his will and being slowly suffocated by his surroundings, the similarities between the plot of Buried and the real life predicament of Pahani are all too readily apparent. Director of critically acclaimed films such as The Circle and Offside – both of which are banned in Iran — Pahani was found guilty by an Iranian court of creating “propaganda against the regime”, forcing him to spend most of 2011 languishing in his Tehran apartment under house arrest as he awaits the results of a court appeal against a six year jail term and twenty year media ban. Not only does the ban prohibit him from giving interviews or leaving the country, but also from engaging in the writing or directing of a film.

In brave defiance of the ban – an act that may very well have contributed to the rejection of his appeal just a few weeks ago – Panahi collaborated with another Iranian filmmaker named Mojbata Mirtahmasb (also now imprisoned) on a documentary project that is sardonically, or perhaps cautiously, entitled This Is Not A Film. Documenting a day in Panahi’s life, we watch as he attempts to strike some small, perhaps foolhardy blow against a dictatorial system that seeks to silence his voice — and the voice of countless others — in an admirable work of life affirming, art affirming, freedom affirming creative expression.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

New Melbourne film festival highlights the extreme side of Asian genre cinema

2011-11-07T12:38:00.004+11:00

With advertisements proudly emblazoned with the words “exotic, erotic and just plain psychotic” and a programme headlined by films with titles like Karate-Robo Zaborgar and Invasion of Alien Bikini, the first annual Fantastic Asia Film Festival promises to bring a very different breed of Asian filmmaking to Melbourne’s Cinema Nova.

Screening a combined twenty films from Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines, FAFF aims to shine special attention on the more obscure, absurd and extreme edges of Asian genre cinema which so often goes ignored by the programmers of Australia’s more high-minded film festivals.

Kicking off on Thursday November 10th, the opening night film – Yoshihiro Nishimura’s zombie movie Helldriver – will surely set the gold standard for four days worth of bad special effects, copious fake blood and plenty of scantily clad women brandishing really big swords. An acclaimed effects artist, Nishimura’s previous films Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl have seen him labelled “the Tom Savini of Japan”. His latest effort is described as a “hard rock psychotic, psychotropic future epic.” Nishimura will be in attendance for a post film Q&A along with New York Asian Film Festival director Marc Walkow.

Project director Kwenton Bellette describes the FAFF programme as containing “the latest and most innovative cinema from Asia that is guaranteed to shock, offend, surprise and every other describing word I can think of.” Certainly, it’s shocking to think that the Nova – Melbourne’s home of art house and the cinematically high brow – will play host to soft core Japanese pinku films like Erotibot, or crudely titled horror movies such as Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead (a film that even Bellette concedes “only a small sect of humanity will enjoy”).

But while some of the programme might best be reserved for the most die-hard of fans, Bellette also points out some more approachable titles. From China, Wu Xia is a period piece that mixes film noir with martial arts extravaganza. It stars international sensation Donnie Yen (Ip Man) and seriously impressed audiences at this year’s prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Similarly, two other films on the programme - The Yellow Sea, Na Hong-Jin’s crime epic from Korea, and Guilty of Romance, Sion Sono’s eerie sexual thriller from Japan – had their Australian premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July, where both garnered considerable critical praise.

Donnie Yen in Peter Chan's Wu Xia

Perhaps the most acclaimed film on offer is also the most violent: Kim Ji Woon’s I Saw The Devil continues the tradition of stylized Korean revenge thrillers in the vein of Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy and will not disappoint fans of Kim’s previous films, which include A Bittersweet Life and The Good, The Bad and the Weird.

But with no intention of letting film snobbery win out over a raucous good time, the Fantastic Asia Film Festival will close with perhaps it’s most eyebrow raising selection of all: Underwater Love, an aquatically themed pornographic musical shot by award winning cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Rabbit-Proof Fence) about a half man-half turtle who returns from the dead to win back a former love.

And what, I ask, is not fantastic about that?

The Fantastic Asia Film Festival runs from Thursday November 10th through to Sunday November 13th at Cinema Nova in Melbourne. The full programme can be viewed at the festival website, where you can also book tickets.

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-11-04T23:58:00.008+11:00

It's that time of the week again folks, where you get to show off your cinematic ingenuity you are by competing in Double Feature Friday.

But first, last weeks winners:

Alex Withrow, who paired Drive with Taxi Driver AND The Hills Have Eyes with Deliverance.

Marc Ciafardini, who paired Warrior with The Fighter.

Helen Geib, who paired In Time with Logan’s Run.

Dylan Fields, who paired Hunger with Thirst (sorry, I just couldn’t resist).

Anonymous

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Our Idiot Brother

I Don't Know How She Does It

Bonus: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:

Alex Withrow (2 points)

Andrew Robinson (1 point)
Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (3 points)
Dan Heaton (2 points)
Dylan Fields (3 points)
Helen Geib (3 points)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (2 points)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Nolahn (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Ryan McNeil (4 points)
Sam Fragoso (2 points)
Simon Columb (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Travis McCollum (3 points)
Univarn (4 points)

Review - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

2011-11-03T17:53:00.001+11:00

Director: Troy Nixey

Running Time: 99 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Directed by Canadian graphic novel artist Troy Nixey, and written and produced by acclaimed Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), the new version of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is from its prologue to its conclusion a miscalculated exercise in generic genre film making. Based on a 1973 TV movie and minor cult classic of the same name, the film is a creaky, cobwebby haunted house affair about a little girl who runs afoul of some ancient magical creatures of the not-too-pleasant variety. Unfortunately, the film relies much too heavily on an overly present score and poorly conceived creature design, and as a result achieves neither the visceral scares nor the unsettling atmosphere needed to make the dark seem even the least bit worth being afraid of.

The niceties of the plot follows eight-year-old Sally (Bailee Madison; Brothers) who has been sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce; The Hurt Locker) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes; Batman Begins) in a Rhode Island manor that the two are restoring. Little do they know, however, that in the basement lurks ancient imp-likes creatures that call out for Sally in the night and hunger for the teeth of children. The script is filled with familiar two-dimensional characters; the curious little girl, the disbelieving parents, the grizzled groundkeeper and even the librarian with an absurdly coincidental knowledge of obscure arcane texts. Bailee Madison does a decent job in the lead role, but Holmes and Pearce — the latter of whom I am usually an enormous fan — never once seem like they’re doing anything other than reading from a script.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Drive

2011-11-01T18:45:00.004+11:00

Director: Nicholas Winding Refn

Running Time: 100 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive it is a perfectly measured work of cinematic style and artistry. The story of a Hollywood stuntman (Ryan Gosling; Crazy, Stupid, Love) who moonlights as a getaway driver, it glides with perfect pace and rhythm like a shark through midnight waters, masquerading as a mainstream action movie when it is in fact a slow-burning art-house drama – albeit one with an ultra-violent edge. Engrossing from the opening frame, the film is a fascinating character study, thrilling genre piece and bona fide auteurist masterpiece, one where every shot, edit, beat and smouldering gaze is physically and psychologically entrancing.

While Drive is a lot of things, one thing it isn’t is a testosterone fuelled thrill ride in the vein of The Fast and the Furious. The opening sequence sets the tone of the film far more accurately than its trailers, as we are made to understand that in Refns’ movie, action has been substituted by razor-wire atmosphere and magnetic visual panache. Gazing from a window over the lights of Los Angeles, clad in leather gloves and a white jacket emblazoned with a golden scorpion, our nameless antihero speaks into a phone words he has clearly spoken many times before. Parked in an empty street soon afterwards, he waits while two masked bandits burglarize a warehouse; what they are stealing is of little importance. The rhythm of Cliff Martinez’s electronic score creeps quietly along in the background, sending low reverberations pulsing through your chest; between Drive and Contagion, Martinez has been responsible for the two best sounding films of the year.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Warrior

2011-10-30T19:06:00.001+11:00

Director: Gavin O'Connor

Running Time: 140 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

However rote and derivative the genre may seem, the underdog sports movie still has the capacity to overwhelm even the most cynical critical urges with the pure power of triumphant emotion. Rocky did it. Hoosiers did it. And believe it or not, the Ultimate Fighting Championship movie Warrior does it as well. Thanks to an excellent cast, increasingly fantastic fight scenes and a script where the sincerity far outshines the obvious clichés, director Gavin O’Conner overcomes the odds, taking a sport without legitimacy or history and making it the basis for a movie rich in excitement, feeling and genuine dramatic weight.

While the stage is that of the UFC octagon, Warrior finds its heart – like so many films of its ilk – in familial drama. Tom Hardy (Inception) and Joel Edgerton (The Thing) play brother’s Tommy Riordan and Brendan Conlon, both of them former high-school wrestling prospects, estranged for years after a teenaged Tommy fled their abusive father Paddy (Nick Nolte; The Prince of Tides) with their terminally ill mother, while the older Brendan chose to stay behind. The film begins years later, with Tommy returning home from Iraq to find Paddy has three years sober and is looking for a chance to make amends. Tommy has little interest in forgiving his father, but brings him on as a trainer to help prepare him for “Sparta”, an upcoming mixed martial arts tournament with a five million dollar prize.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-10-28T23:43:00.000+11:00

It's that time of the week again folks, where you get to show off your cinematic ingenuity you are by competing in Double Feature Friday.

But first, last weeks winners:

Travis McCollum, who paired Contagion with 28 Days Later AND The Three Musketeers with The Asylum's Sherlock Holmes.

Sam Fragoso, who paired Midnight in Paris with Breathless.

Courtney Small, who paired Paranormal Activity 3 with Ghost Dad (I'm gonna be honest...I just thought this was funny).

Univarn, who paired Vampire's Kiss with Bram Stoker's Dracula

Drive

Warrior

In Time

Bonus: The Hills Have Eyes

Bonus: Hunger

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:

Andrew Robinson (1 point)

Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (3 points)
Dan Heaton (2 points)
Dylan Fields (2 points)
Helen Geib (2 points)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (1 point)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Nolahn (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Ryan McNeil (4 points)
Sam Fragoso (2 points)
Simon Columb (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Travis McCollum (3 points)
Univarn (4 points)

Review - Midnight in Paris

2011-10-25T11:00:00.001+11:00

Director: Woody Allen

Running Time: 96 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

There is a moment in the middle of Midnight in Paris where Gil Penders, the films’ leading man and a hopeless romantic, muses that no work of art can equal the beauty of a great city. Just as Isaac felt about New York in Manhattan, or Vicki and Cristina felt about the Spanish capital in Vicki, Cristina, Barcelona, Gil is enamoured with the great French city from whence this film takes its name. He loves the boulevards and the cobbled alleyways, the quaint bookstores and the charming cafes. And as a struggling writer, he loves the romanticism and imagination that they inspire. Filled with light-hearted fancy and a dazzling cast, Woody Allen’s latest film is a magical stroll through a magnificent city; a city that inspired that artists who, in turn, inspired him.

Even when the writer/director/actor doesn’t play the part personally, most protagonists in Allen’s films are inevitably thinly veiled versions of Allen himself. In the case of Midnight in Paris, the actor filling his shoes is the affable Owen Wilson (Hall Pass), while the character he plays is a successful screenwriter disillusioned with Hollywood and his own mediocre output. He is the kind of man who likes old books, records and taking long walks in the rain; who dreams of giving up his material possessions and moving to Paris to finish his novel — an aspiration that does not sit well with his materialistic fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams; Morning Glory).

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Take Shelter

2011-10-23T16:32:00.001+11:00

Director: Jeff Nichols

Running Time: 120 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The sophomore effort of writer/director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories), Take Shelter calls to mind the story of Noah, only to repaint the biblical hero as a paranoid schizophrenic. It begins when a Middle American family man named Curtis LaForche, played with ground-shaking intensity by Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road), becomes convinced that an apocalyptic storm is just beyond the horizon and is compelled to take drastic action in order to save his family.

Early scenes around the kitchen table demonstrate the relative contentment within the LaForche household. Curtis has a steady job managing a construction site, while his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain; The Tree of Life) makes hand-sewn crafts to sell at a weekend market. Their pre-school aged daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) is deaf, but an upcoming operation aims to restore her hearing. There is love in this family; real, tender, easy-going love. But the threads begin unwind once Curtis starts to suffer from intense nightmares and hallucinations. Fearing that the same mental illness that consumed his mother in her thirties has begun to affect him, he hides his paranoia from his friends and family, and becomes obsessed with expanding the hurricane shelter in his backyard.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Article - A Serbian Controversy

2011-10-22T09:56:00.003+11:00

The following piece of mine was recently published in Farrago Magazine, the student run magazine of the University of Melbourne.

“Adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want,” states the first governing principle in Australia’s National Classification Code. It’s a simple idea, but one that is fundamental for any nation that prides itself on the freedoms and liberties afforded to its citizens. In spite of this, the Australian Classification Review Board last month refused classification to A Serbian Film, a decision that prohibits the controversial film from being sold, distributed, screened or advertised anywhere in Australia.

Tantamount to a ban, the classification came less than three months after the film was cleared for a DVD release with an R18+ rating (equivalent to an American NC-17). It is a decision that directly contradicts the foremost ideals by which the independent body is meant to conduct itself, and drives home the fact that our nation’s classification system — generally accepted as the strictest in the entire Western world — is embarrassingly inconsistent and condescendingly outdated.

Keep Reading at Farrago »

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-10-21T23:17:00.001+11:00

It's that time of the week again folks, where you get to show off your cinematic ingenuity you are by competing in Double Feature Friday.

But first, last weeks winners. Good to see a bunch of new names in there!

Nolahn, who paired The Thing with The Stuff.

Andrew Robinson, who paired Red State with Straw Dogs.

Travis McCollum, who paired Take Shelter with Evan Almighty.

Helen Geib, who paired Bronson with Death Wish.

Simon Columb, who paired Alien with Sunshine.

Contagion

Midnight in Paris

The Three Musketeers

Paranormal Activity 3

Bonus: Vampires Kiss

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:

Andrew Robinson (1 point)
Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (2 points)
Dan Heaton (2 points)
Dylan Fields (2 points)
Helen Geib (2 points)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (1 point)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Nolahn (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Ryan McNeil (4 points)
Sam Fragoso (1 point)
Simon Columb (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Travis McCollum (1 point)
Univarn (3 points)

Review - Contagion

2011-10-19T23:43:00.002+11:00

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 106 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Chronicling the outbreak of a global pandemic, Contagion is a lot like the virus it depicts. It is a film that surges through your bloodstream and into your brain, wracking you with fear, paranoia and moral indecision. Bolstered by a practically inconceivable cast, director Steven Soderbergh weaves multiple storylines — not dissimilar to his 2000 Oscar-winning drug drama Traffic — in order to show the effects of the disease on various levels of society. Succeeding on both a micro and macroscopic level, this is a smart, scintillating, all-too-credible medical disaster movie that provokes thought and terror in equal abundance.

The disease appears to begin with a suburban Minneapolis woman (Gwyneth Paltrow), who returns home from a trip to Hong Kong only to fall fatally ill. Her husband (Matt Damon) is put into quarantine by a doctor from the Centre for Disease Control (Kate Winslet) on orders from her superior (Laurence Fishburne), but it soon becomes clear the virus is spreading at rate faster than they can contain it. CDC scientists led by Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) scramble to find a vaccine, while a representative from the World Health Organization (Marion Cotillard) attempt to discover the origin of the disease. As social order begins to collapse, the public’s fear and mistrust is fanned by conspiracy minded bloggers like Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), who push the agenda of money-minded pharmaceutical companies.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Hear me talking Ozploitation movies on The Lair of the Unwanted

2011-10-16T13:42:00.002+11:00

Concerned about diplomatic relations between Australia and the U.S? In that case, you probably shouldn't listen to this months episode of The Lair of the Unwanted, where hosts Jason Soto and Nolahn invited me on to talk trash about a couple of Australian exploitation films - Patrick and Body Melt. I also crack out my infamous Crocodile Dundee accent. What's not to love?!

You can download and/or listen to the episode via the widget below. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Review - Bronson

2011-10-15T16:37:00.006+11:00

Director: Nicholas Winding Refn
Running Time: 92 minutes
Review by Tom Clift

Few movies call to mind Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange more clearly than Nicholas Winding Refn’s Bronson. Full of long, hypnotic tracking shots, set to an entrancing synthesized soundtrack and absolutely dominated by a jaw-dropping portrayal of criminal insanity, Refn’s film is a brutal, absurdist character piece about a British hooligan. Not just any British hooligan mind you, but the British hooligan: Charlie Bronson, the nation’s most notorious violent offender.

Tom Hardy (Inception) stars as the titular figure, and narrates – bellows is closer to the truth – his story from an imagined stage with vaudevillian theatricality. Born Michael Peterson but rechristened after the star of the Death Wish films, Bronson is a psychotic, moustachioed hooligan who, in his own words, “always wanted to be famous”. Sent away for armed robbery at the age of seventeen, his seven year sentence is repeatedly extended - by his own volition - as he brutally assaults every guard and prison staffer he can get his hands on.

At only ninety odd minutes, the film never shifts focus away from its funny, frightening protagonist. Hardy is gleefully over the top as the profanity spouting, punch throwing celebrity criminal, regularly assaying the role in clown makeup or totally in the nude. It’s a bravura performance; one not to designed to inspire sympathy or pity, but visceral fascination and twisted delight.

In the end, like Orange's Alex, no attempts are made to explain Bronson’s violence. It wasn’t his environment, his upbringing or a psychological trauma. He may not even be clinically insane. Then again, how else would you describe his behaviour?

Bronson is the LAMB Movie of the Month. For more reviews by LAMB members, click here

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-10-14T01:01:00.004+11:00

It's that time of the week again folks, where you get to show off your cinematic ingenuity you are by competing in Double Feature Friday.

But first, last weeks winners:

Courtney Small, who paired Real Steel with Tyson AND Jesus Camp with Meatballs.

Helen Geib, who paired Footloose with The Wild One

James Blake Ewing, who paired Annie Hall with (500) Days of Summer

Dylan Fields, who paired The Fall with The Wizard of Oz

The Thing

Red State

Take Shelter

Bonus: Bronson (the LAMB MotM)

Bonus: Alien

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:

Andy Buckle (1 point)
Brian (1 point)
Colin Biggs (1 point)
Courtney Small (2 points)
Dan Heaton (2 points)
Dylan Fields (2 points)
Helen Geib (1 point)
James Blake Ewing (2 point)
Jessica (2 points)
Marc Ciafardini (1 point)
Nick Jobe (1 point)
Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)
Ryan McNeil (4 points)
Sam Fragoso (1 point)
Squasher88 (4 points)
Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)
Univarn (3 points)

Review - The Thing

2011-10-13T11:40:00.000+11:00

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen

Running Time: 103 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

A fantastic sci-fi horror film brimming with suspense and packed with elaborate special effects, The Thing is an example of genre filmmaking at its finest, while also standing out as one of the few examples of a remake that actually improves upon the earlier film. Unfortunately, I am referring to John Carpenter’s 1982 film – itself a remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World – and not the 2011 effort by first time director Matthijs van Heijningen’s. Although technically a prequel and containing some minor differences in plotting, van Heijningen’s film, in design, execution and yes, even title, is a blatant rehash of Carpenter’s contemporary classic, one that will be remembered – if it is remembered at all – for its predictable plotting, inconsistent digital effects and an ending already known to anyone who has seen the vastly superior original.

Fittingly, as both a prequel and a modern day remake, The Thing suffers from the fundamental problems of both. In its function as prequel, the story centres around a team of Norwegian scientists who discover an alien life-form lodged under the Antarctic ice. It is the same life-form that we already know can assume the form of any creature it touches, and that is guaranteed to survive the film so it can go on to wreak havoc on Kurt Russell and his team of Americans. This knowledge saps practically all the suspense from the picture, as we watch with acute awareness that the fates of every new character – including plucky American palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead; Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and roguish helicopter pilot Sam Carter (Australia’s own Joel Edgerton; Animal Kingdom) – are already set in stone.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Fright Night

2011-10-12T21:24:00.000+11:00

Director: Craig Gillespie

Running Time: 106 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Joining Conan the Barbarian and Footloose as the latest B-grade eighties pop cultural touchstones to be remade, the new Fright Night, much like the old, tells the story of a suburban teenager who is flummoxed to learn that his new next-door neighbour is actually a vampire. Scripted by Buffy alum Marti Noxon and directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl), the film is packed with obvious but effective metaphors, plenty of laughs, digs at post Twilight vampirism and a couple of genuine scares. Throw in a great cast delivering performances that range from steadily dramatic to hilarious and unexpected, and Fright Night is a funny, savvy and suspenseful horror-comedy with plenty of entertaining bite.

Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) plays Charley Brewster, a Las Vegas county high-schooler who has recently scored a hot girlfriend (Imogen Poots; 28 Weeks Later) and admittance into the “cool crowd”, something that sees him eager to leave his old friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse; Kick-Ass) and the nerdy adolescence he represents behind him. Charley’s reluctance to hang out with Ed is understandable, especially once Ed becomes convinced that Charley’s new neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrell; In Bruges) is a member of the bloody-sucking undead. But when people around the neighbourhood start to go missing, Charley starts to realise that his old buddy might not be crazy after all.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Real Steel

2011-10-10T18:54:00.001+11:00

Director: Shawn Levy

Running Time: 127 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Director Shawn Levy (Cheaper by the Dozen, Night at the Museum) has made a cozy career out of middling family films, and his latest effort, the robo-rumble Real Steel, is no exception. Set in a not-too-distant 2020 — you know it’s the future the moment you see wind turbines, as no government in the present would approve a renewable energy scheme — the film is based on a short story by I Am Legend author Richard Mattheson (and not, as some have alleged, on the Mattel game Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots).

In this future, giant mechanical warriors have taken the place of human fighters in arena boxing. Hugh Jackman’s (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and his distractingly prominent bicep veins plays Charlie Kenton, a washed-up boxer and absentee father who spends his time dodging debt collectors and trying to scrape together a living entering rundown robots in underground events. Soon after losing his star robot in a particularly absurd and rather disturbing set of circumstances, Charlie finds out that a former girlfriend has died and that her sister wants to take full custody of his eleven-year-old son, Max (Dakota Goyo; Thor).

Sensing an opportunity to make score some quick cash, Charlie agrees to sign away his parental rights to the tune of $100,000 — to which the boy’s wealthy uncle agrees on the condition he looks after Max for three weeks while he and his wife enjoy a European vacation. What Charlie doesn’t count on is that Max is a movie child; a plucky, wisecracking scamp with an eye for robot boxing — an eye that just might come in handy when the unlikely duo uncover a rundown old robot named Atom and decide to train him for a fight.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-10-07T22:02:00.001+11:00

It's that time of the week again folks, where you get to show off your cinematic ingenuity you are by competing in Double Feature Friday.

But first, last weeks winners:

Squasher88, who paired Crazy, Stupid, Love with Eat, Pray, Love.

Dylan Fields, who paired Project Nim with Project X.

Marc Ciafardini, who paired The Whistleblower with The Insider.

Colin Biggs, who paired Inglourious Basterds with Munich.

Ryan McNeil, who paired Con Air with Leaving Las Vegas.

Real Steel

Footloose

Bonus: Annie Hall

Bonus: The Fall

Bonus: Jesus Camp

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

UPDATED SCORE TALLY:

Andy Buckle (1 point)

Brian (1 point)

Colin Biggs (1 point)

Dan Heaton (2 points)

Dylan Fields (1 point)

James Blake Ewing (1 point)

Jessica (2 points)

Marc Ciafardini (1 point)

Nick Jobe (1 point)

Paul Arrand Rogers (1 point)

Ryan McNeil (4 points)

Sam Fragoso (1 point)

Squasher88 (4 points)

Sunita S. Lewis (1 point)

Univarn (3 points)

Review - Footloose

2011-10-06T23:16:00.000+11:00

Director: Craig Brewer

Running Time: 113 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Craig Brewers’ previous films Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan — the former about a pimp reinventing himself as a rapper, the latter about an aged blues musician who takes a troubled nymphomaniac under his wing — are both infused with a hot, sweaty, down and dirty electricity that elevates them above their exploitative subject matter. So if Hollywood ever had to remake Herbert Ross’ Footloose — which, evidently, they did — Brewer was the the right man for the job. Yes, from a story perspective the updated version is basically a rehash of the ‘84 original, with many scenes transplanted almost word for word. Nevertheless, Brewer injects his personality into every frame, filling the film with an intoxicating blend of music, sexuality and deep-Southern attitude. As a result, while the film is definitely Brewer’s safest and most mainstream effort and certainly isn’t free from the problems that plague so many teen-orientated dramas, this updated version of an 80’s camp classic still succeeds as a thoroughly entertaining dance flick with a lot more going for it than one might expect.

Indeed, from the opening frame, as feet dance and jump across a beer-staineddance-floor to the tunes of that infectious main theme, the level of energy in Footloose is clear. The premise is the same as last time: rebellious city boy Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald) comes to live with his aunt and uncle in Beaumont, a small country town with an unlikely law on the books that prohibits any kind of lewd and lascivious behaviour, including and especially provocative public dancing. As with the original film the screenwriters fight something of an uphill battle trying to sell the premise, although pinning the blame on a conservative Christian preacher (Dennis Quaid) is at least believable enough that you can suspend your scepticism. In any case, the Beaumont highschooler’s are having none of it, and regularly meet in secret to pop and lock in protest of the law.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Crazy, Stupid, Love

2011-10-04T19:24:00.001+11:00

Director: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa

Running Time: 188 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s previous film, I Love You Phillip Morris, was one of the funniest and most moving romantic dramedy’s of the past few years, but went tragically underseen because it focused on a gay love story. Their follow up is a similarly heartfelt, but decidedly broader and more mainstream affair entitled Crazy, Stupid, Love. Juggling multiple love stories – not always successfully – is a film that is held aloft by a talented ensemble cast that the material doesn’t fully deserve; a cast that includes Steve Carrel, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Still, despite rarely living up to the promise of those involved, Crazy, Stupid, Love does manage to satisfy as an entertaining, glossy and easily consumable work of commercial romanticism perfectly suited for couples of any age.

The biggest hindrance to Crazy, Stupid, Love is that attempts too much. Too many plot lines, too many romances, and as a result, none of them quite get the attention they deserve. For starters you’ve got Cal (Steve Carrel), a dweebish family man whose life is thrown into turmoil when his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) reveals she had an affair with a co-worker (Kevin Bacon) and wants a divorce. Drowning his sorrows in a trendy bar, Cal meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a charming ladies-man who takes pity on Cal’s sob story and decides to help get him back in the dating game, new attitude, wardrobe and all. Not long after, however, Jacob finds himself questioning his own outlook when he meets and starts to fall in love with spunky law student Hannah (Emma Stone). Then, running parallel to all this, we get the story of Cal and Emily’s thirteen year old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who harbours an unrequited crush on his seventeen year old babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who herself harbours an unrequited crush on Cal.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Tabloid

2011-10-03T15:47:00.000+11:00

Director: Errol Morris

Running Time: 87 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Kinky sex, a Southern beauty queen, kidnapped Mormon missionaries, brainwashing, a high-profile media trial and cloned puppies. In the words of one interview subject in Tabloid, the gob smacking story of Joyce McKinney really does have something for everybody. A former Miss Wyoming contestant, McKinney became the obsession of the notorious British tabloid papers in the late nineteen seventies after she was arrested and put on trial for kidnapping, imprisoning and sexually assaulting a Mormon missionary named Kirk Anderson. Or at least, that’s one version of what happened. With plenty of wit and self-aware showmanship, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) throws us headfirst into the world of tabloid scandals; a place where the truth is never as important as a juicy headline, and the story changes with each new person who tells it.

Although Tabloid shares the same fascination with “the truth”, it is by comparison to the rest of Morris’ acclaimed filmography a much breezier and more irreverent affair. Unlike in The Thin Blue Line, where it is the ultimate quest for answers that grips us, Tabloid is satisfied to simply recount the story – or stories – and let the audience make of it what they will. In this way, it is the journey, not the destination, which keeps you so enraptured. Well, the journey and Joyce McKinney.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in this week's Double Feature Friday

2011-09-30T00:05:00.004+10:00

Welcome to Double Feature Fridays, a weekly competition where I challenge YOU to pair the weeks releases with older or classic films.

Each week I’ll name the new theatrical release film’s (I’ll be going by the Australian release dates), and your job is to comment what other movie you’d screen in a double bill with the new releases, and why.

You can pick any film you want – recent, classic, whatever. Just remember to try and be as creative as possible (you’re probably not going to win if you just pick another film in the same series, or another movie by the same director – unless you argue your case really well). It’s a chance to show off you movie knowledge and cinematic ingenuity

The following week I’ll select the most interesting choices (one per new release), and that person will be awarded a point. I’ll be keeping a running leader-board in the sidebar to your right. Every three months, whoever is at the top of the leader-board for that period will be awarded a prize (probably a DVD, although I’ll determine that a little later down the track).

But first, last weeks winners:

Squasher88, who paired Abduction with Hanna AND Tabloid with Factory Girl.

Ryan McNeil, who paired Cave of Forgotten Dreams with The Descent.

Nick Jobe, who paired The Lion King with Kimba the White Lion.

Dan Heaton, who paired The New World with Lost in Translation.

Congratulations to the winners - the leaderboard in the sidebar to your right has been adjusted accordingly. Bad luck to everyone who missed out, but of course, you can always compete again this week. Here are your films:

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Project Nim

The Whistleblower

Bonus: Inglourious Basterds

Bonus: Con Air

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

Review - The Whistleblower

2011-09-28T16:06:00.003+10:00

Director: Larysa Kondracki

Running Time: 112 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Hideously photographed and generically told, but the inherently compelling real-world subject matter of Larysa Kondracki’s The Whistleblower ensures that the film remains somewhat engaging, though largely by default. A grim and grizzly tale of political corruption and human exploitation based on actual events, the film stars Rachel Weisz as a Nebraska cop assigned to the United Nations as part of a peace-keeping force in post-civil war Bosnia who uncovers a link between private military contractors and a large scale sex-trafficking operation.

In the post Bourne cinematic era, greedy military contractors have become the go-to villain for political thrillers, allowing liberally minded filmmakers to gripe against global injustice without placing the blame at the feet of any one particular nation or government. As such, the villains in Kobricki’s film, of both the sleazy sex trafficking and suit-and-tie wearing variety, carry out their repulsive acts with typically one-dimensional immorality. Weisz’s performance is excellent as per usual, but her character is not poorly developed - her nobleness is a plot requisite, while the mentions of her estranged daughter feel forced, and are dropped entirely by the conclusion of the film.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Hear me talking "Harold and Maude" and "11:14" on the newest episode of The Demented Podcast

2011-09-25T15:51:00.002+10:00

This week, I made a guest appearance on The Demented Podcast, where hosts Nick Jobe (of Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob), Steve Honeywell (of 1001 Plus) and I discussed two black comedies - Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude and Greg Marcks' 11:14.

You can download and/or listen to the episode via the widget below. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-09-23T00:31:00.003+10:00

Welcome to Double Feature Fridays, a weekly competition where I challenge YOU to pair the weeks releases with older or classic films.

But first, last weeks winners.

Paul Arrand Rogers, who paired The Smurfs with Death to Smoochy

Dan Heaton, who paired Hobo with a Shotgun with Hard to Kill

Sam Fragoso aka Duke, who paired Fright Night with Night Fright

Squasher88, who paired Johnny English Reborn with Casino Royale

Univarn, who paired Jurassic Park with Prehysteria!

Abduction

Tabloid

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

The Lion King 3D

Bonus: The New World

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

Review - Abduction

2011-09-22T00:00:00.000+10:00

Director: John Singleton

Running Time: 106 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Headlined by Twilight third-wheeler Taylor Lautner, John Singleton’s Abduction is a laughably humourless adolescent espionage thriller whose sole reason for existing is to cash in on the current popularity of its musclebound teenaged star. Brimming with juvenile angst, the film is formula made for the undiscerning tween-aged masses; a formula that is so brazenly on display that adult viewers (having presumably wandered in accidentally, or been dragged by their daughters) may occasionally find themselves guffawing. Truthfully, the only time Abduction registers as having a pulse is when it is so noticeably generic or absurd that it is actually kind of funny. The rest of the time, the film resembles exactly what it is: a made-by-committee exercise in soulless moneygrubbing.

I can’t help but feel that it was more than a little ironic that in an early conversation – one that bears all the awkward hallmarks of something written by a room full of adults with only the vaguest understanding of how teenagers actually talk – a side character chastises Lautner’s character Nathan Price for being “too mainstream”. The reason it’s ironic is because Abduction may very well be the most mainstream, calculated and personality-less Hollywood motion picture this year. In the world of Abduction, every single teenager is in shape, attractive, has access to all the latest Apple products, and, with the exception of one black sidekick character who, naturally, knows how to jack a car, get hold of a gun and makes “the best fake ID’s in town”, is very, very white.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - Johnny English Reborn

2011-09-21T11:57:00.005+10:00

Director: Oliver Parker

Running Time: 101 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

After foiling a plot to seize the British crown in his first self-titled movie outing, incompetent British secret agent Johnny English is back, and must now prevent the assassination of the Chinese premier, in the expectedly silly but thoroughly entertaining Johnny English Reborn. Treading much the same ground as the 2003 original, the sequel film combines James Bond spoofing with utterly predictable physical humour, yet thanks to the vaudevillian talents of leading man Rowan Atkinson, it does so in a way that translates as amusing rather than gratingly annoying. That there is not a single poo joke, talking animal or cross-dressing celebrity to be found in Johnny English Reborn already sets it apart from a large majority of recent American family comedies. That it is genuinely funny seems almost like an added bonus.

Don’t get me wrong – this film is far from high brow, and in fact, most of the humour involves someone accidentally getting hurt, usually as a direct result of the protagonist’s overconfidence, stupidity, or in most cases both. But while there are crotch-hits aplenty, director Oliver Parker rarely plumbs the ultra-low depths of films like Grown Ups or Zookeeper. Instead, he sets up his visual gags minutes in advance, and let audiences laugh in the knowledge that they know the outcome of the joke long before English even realises how badly he’s stuffed things up.

Much of the films success must be attributed to leading man Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean, Rat Race), whose talent for facial contortionism, over-the-top physicality and comedic line delivery ensures that there is an endearing quality to English’s ineptitude, making him a hero we can root for in spite of – or perhaps, because of – his buffoonery. The rest of the cast don’t really have much to do beyond reacting to English’s latest cock-up, but Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Dominic West (The Wire) and Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day – once a Bond girl herself, now falling for a very different kind of secret agent) are fun in their mostly straight faced roles. Special mention must also be given to Daniel Kaluuya (Skins), whose performance as English’s bright eyed young sidekick Agent Tucker is filled with charming enthusiasm.

And lest you be mislead, it should be pointed out that there are at least one or two moments in Johnny English Reborn that qualify as legitimately clever. A Hong Kong chase sequence goofily parodies the recent trend seen in films like Casino Royale and The Bourne Ultimatum of utilizing parkour is action scenes, while a hilarious nod to corporate sponsorship and movie product placement sees the British Intelligence Service rechristened as the Toshiba British Intelligence Service.

Ultimately Johnny English Reborn is more “silly” than it is “dumb”. It’s a PG film that doesn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence, but rather credits them for being so much smarter than the bumbling fool they are watching on screen. And sitting in the theatre beforehand, witnessing trailers for the likes of Jack and Jill, Spy Kids 4D and Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (don’t worry, I’d never heard of it either), it seems that in the realm of family comedies, not insulting your audience is becoming an increasingly rare thing.

Review - Joint Security Area

2011-09-20T13:53:00.000+10:00

Director: Park Chan Wook

Running Time: 110 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The following film screened as part of KOFFIA - The Korean Film Festival in Australia - which ran in Melbourne from September 10th-13th. For more information on Korean film in Australia, click here.

After the fatal shooting of two North Korean guards by a South Korean soldier at the Demilitarized Border between the two adversarial nations, an independent body of Swiss and Swedish officials are sent in to investigate the crime and contain the potentially explosive political situation. So begins Park Chan-wook’s Joint Security Area, a 2000 film that combines an intricately assembled mystery with absorbing human drama. Artfully framed and beautifully shot, the film is driven by several fantastic performances by actors working from a tautly constructed non-linear script. Gripping on both an intellectual and an emotional level in spite of its occasionally lethargic pace, Joint Security Area is an outstanding anti-conflict film with a powerful reconciliatory message that also doubles as a top notch brainteaser in which every element slides perfectly into place.

As a mystery, Joint Security Area recalls the likes of Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, jumping backwards and forwards through time and in and out of imagined situations. Major Sophie Jang (Lee Young Ae, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) from the Neutral Nations Supervisory Committee heads the investigation; the Southern Korean Generals claim the shooting came about during a daring escape by a kidnapped Southern soldier, while their Northern counterparts maintain it was in fact a brutal and callous assassination plot. Meanwhile, the men who were actually involved in the incident – the accused Southern sergeant Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-hun, The Good, The Bad and the Weird) and the one survivor of his alleged attack, Northern sergeant Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho, The Host) remain oddly silent, sticking to their signed statement under the hawk-like gaze of their superiors. But as Major Jang digs deeper into the mystery, she discovers that the answers behind the shooting are far more personal and complex than a simple dispute over national borders.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-09-16T19:00:00.002+10:00

Welcome to Double Feature Fridays, a weekly competition where I challenge YOU to pair the weeks releases with older or classic films.

But first, last weeks winners.

Jessica, who paired 13 Assassins with A Bug's Life AND Submarine with Superbad

Univarn, who paired The Change-Up with Face/Off

Ryan McNeil, who paired O Brother, Where Art Thou? with Nun's on the Run

Andy Buckle, who paired Oldboy with Drive

Bad luck to everyone who missed out. But of course, you can always compete again this week. Here are your films:

The Smurfs

Hobo with a Shotgun

Fright Night

Johnny English: Reborn

Bonus: Jurassic Park

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

Review - A Barefoot Dream

2011-09-15T13:15:00.001+10:00

Director: Tae-gyun Kim

Running Time: 121 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The following film screened as part of KOFFIA - The Korean Film Festival in Australia - which ran in Melbourne this past week from September 10th-13th. For more information on Korean film in Australia, click here.

South Korea’s A Barefoot Dream [Maen-bal-eui Ggoom] is so saccharine that it almost gave me a toothache. Based (one suspects loosely) on the real life story of a former Korean soccer player who coached the East Timorese children’s team to an unlikely international championship, everything in the film, from the over-the-top performances, cliché-riddled script, made-for-TV direction and syrupy musical accompaniment is so farcically sentimental that it makes you wonder whether the film was originally meant to be screened on Lifetime Korea, and was only accidentally chosen as the nations submission for the 2010 Academy Awards. The winner that year was Denmark’s In A Better World. Not surprisingly, A Barefoot Dream didn’t make the final five.

Once a rising soccer star, Kim Won-kang (Park Hie-soon) now finds himself dodging creditors and struggling to keep afloat his various failed business ventures – the latest of which is a sports equipment store and youth soccer club in the newly independent nation of East Timor. Knowing that the impoverished local children on his team will not be able to pay for boots up front, he craftily devises a plan to let them pay off their debt one dollar per day, much to chagrin of the local ruffian who also happens to be the older brother of Kim’s star forward Ramos (Francisco Varela). But despite Kim’s initially selfish intentions, he slowly comes to care for the children, and eventually decides to sign them up for the Youth Soccer Tournament in Hiroshima, Japan in the hopes of improving their otherwise miserable lives.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

(Mini) Review - Win Win

2011-09-14T12:44:00.000+10:00

Director: Tom McCarthy

Running Time: 106 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The always commendable Paul Giamatti headlines an emotionally sincere cast in Tom McCarthy’s modest family dramedy Win Win. The story follows a small town lawyer, family man and assistant high school wrestling coach named Mike Flaherty (Giammati), who hopes to turn around the flagging fortunes of his team with the inclusion of a talented but troubled new student named Kyle (Alex Shaffer).

Rarely descending into sports movie cliché, the film, like McCarthy’s previous effort The Visitor, is packed full of understated feeling, unpretentious humour and questions of everyday morality. Amy Ryan is excellent as always; Bobby Cannavale is very funny as the films most overtly jokey character, and newcomer Alex Shaffer is completely convincing as the polite but introverted Kyle, a teenager who, like real teenagers, speaks every word in the same disinterested tone. But the highlight of the film is lifetime character actor Burt Young, who is simply spectacular as Kyle’s dementia suffering grandfather Leo.

Neither overly ambitious nor tediously trivial, Win Win is a top notch independent production.

Review - Red State

2011-09-12T16:30:00.004+10:00

Director: Kevin Smith

Running Time: 88 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

In the closing credit scroll of writer/director Kevin Smith’s Red State, the cast is listed under three subheadings: sex, religion and politics. It’s not a very subtle way of outlining the themes of the film, but then again, very little is subtle about this ambitious and visceral stylistic departure from a writer/director who, up until now, has confined himself to the realm of raunchy adult comedies in the vein of Clerks and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. That’s not to say there aren’t laughs to be had in Red State, rather that they only exist to make the unflinching violence and twisted social commentary all the more dark and to the point. With all the finesse of a government raid gone wrong, Smith smashes through convention and political correctness to deliver an unpredictable, unpolished, deeply cynical and absolutely merciless lampoon of America’s deepest and darkest social taboos.

On practically every level, Red State is something of a mess. Tonally, the film throws itself around with reckless abandon, never willing to settle in on a genre or even really a protagonist. Smith’s recognizably vulgar dialogue in the first act sets you up for a kind of twisted sex comedy, as three dislikeable high-school losers answer an online ad for a middle-aged woman interested in group sex. Things quickly go awry for the young lads when it is revealed that they have fallen victim to a trap set by members of the fundamentalist Five Points Christian Church, led by the terrifying Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks).

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-09-09T12:56:00.005+10:00

Welcome to Double Feature Fridays, a weekly competition where I challenge YOU to pair the weeks releases with older or classic films.

Each week I’ll name the new theatrical release film’s (I’ll be going by the Australian release dates), and your job is to comment what other movie you’d screen in a double bill with the new releases, and why.

You can pick any film you want – recent, classic, whatever. Just remember to try and be as creative as possible (you’re probably not going to win if you just pick another film in the same series, or another movie by the same director – unless you argue your case really well). It’s a chance to show off you movie knowledge and cinematic ingenuity

The following week I’ll select the most interesting choices (one per new release), and that person will be awarded a point. I’ll be keeping a running leader-board in the sidebar to your right. Every three months, whoever is at the top of the leader-board for that period will be awarded a prize (probably a DVD, although I’ll determine that a little later down the track).

But first, last weeks winners. I want to thank everyone for participating and making the first week of this new game such a resounding success. Picking the winners was nearly impossible (especially since so many of you are also my friends!) Still, if you missed out, you can (and should) try again today!

Brian, who paired The Help with Interview with a Vampire.

Ryan McNeil, who paired Final Destination 5 with Ten Little Indians.

Univarn, who paired Life in a Day with Groundhog's Day (this was the hardest one to pick. So many great suggestions!)

James Ewing, who paired Star Wars with The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Sunita S. Lewis, who paired Pulp Fiction with Black Sabbath.

Bad luck to everyone who missed out, especially because there really wasn’t a bad pick amongst any of the suggestions. And of course, you can always compete again this week. Here are your films:

13 Assassins (imdb)

Submarine (imdb)

The Change Up (imdb)

Bonus: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (imdb)

Bonus: Oldboy (imdb)

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

Article - Melbourne's Cult Cinema Scene

2011-09-07T01:01:00.001+10:00

The following piece of mine was recently published in Farrago Magazine, the student run magazine of the University of Melbourne.

Written by Tom Clift

With the cinema studies syllabus dominated by names like Goddard, Truffaut, Kurosawa and Bergman, Melbourne University students could be forgiven for thinking that film was exclusively a form of high art. But if they were to take a stroll down to some of the city’s premier movie hotspots late on a Friday or Saturday night, they might find themselves immersed in a very different brand of cinematic culture. From robot monsters to human centipedes, the past few years have seen a resurgence of the cult film screening in Melbourne. Audiences gather together in the dead of night to celebrate the absurd, the abject and sometimes the downright awful.

Cinema Nova in Carlton is already the number one stop for art-house films in Melbourne, but recently its proprietors have delighted audiences with "Cult Cravings”. This series showcases a variety of so-called cult films, including the D-grade monster movie Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, the stomach churning horror flick The Human Centipede and their piece de resistance, Tommy Wiseau’s legendarily awful The Room.

Nova general manager Kristian Connelly explained the success of this program. “The social appeal is key,” he told Farrago. “Many of the films we screen as part of Cult Cravings can be viewed on DVD, so people come to the cinema to enjoy these films with others.”

Keep reading at Farrago »

Review - Senna

2011-09-06T00:33:00.001+10:00

Director: Asif Kapadia

Running Time: 106 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

An utterly gripping documentary that transcends its subject matter and the restrictions of the medium to play out like the very best kind of narrative film, Asif Kapadia’s documentary about the life, career and tragic passing of Brazilian Formula One racer Ayerton Senna has been heralded – and rightfully so – as one of the most exhilarating, moving and quite simply best films of 2011. Chronicling the life and career of this influential sporting figure, the film is an epic man versus world tale about family, politics, patriotism, religion and racing with a deeply human heart at its centre. Even those with no interest in Formula One – and I count myself amongst such people – will be captivated by this phenomenal motion picture; one that commands your attention with spectacular excitement and devastating emotion.

Compiled entirely from archival footage and accompanied by voiceover narration from the people who knew the man best, Senna has a viscerally present quality, as the races, political squabbling and human dramas seem to unfold right in front of our faces. Through the careful selection and ordering of his footage, Kapadia builds Ayrton Senna from his early days as a go-kart racer into a compelling protagonist – a legend capable of near impossible feats, but who always remains identifiably, imperfectly human.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Help

2011-09-05T15:26:00.001+10:00

Director: Tate Taylor

Running Time: 146 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Based on Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel of the same name, Tate Taylor’s The Help is a moving tale of attempted social change that is elevated by its talented female cast far beyond the realm of the overly-cloying, made-for-TV movie material that was seen in the films advertisements. Set during the appalling and cringe-worthy racism of nineteen sixties America, The Help is told from the perspective of African-American housekeepers and maids who work for white families for well below minimum wage. Tate certainly paints with a broad brush and the film frequently falls into generic depictions of its characters and subject matter. But with such righteous heroes and unbearable villains it is easy to overlook the simplifications and become inspired.

Skeeter (Emma Stone) is not like most young white women in Jackson, Mississippi. Most of her childhood friends, including the prim and proper Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) spent their early adult years securing themselves husbands, homes and children – children that are almost entirely raised by black maids. Skeeter on the other hand went away to college to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer, remaining, to the despair of her mother, tragically single.

Returning home after four years, Skeeter is disturbed by the institutionalized racism she sees in her community – a racism that is epitomised by Hilly’s proposed “Home Help Sanitation Bill”, an initiative that would require all white homes to install a separate bathroom for the hired help. So Skeeter decides to write a book about the situation in Jackson, and enlists two reluctant life-long housekeepers – the world-weary Abileen (Viola Davis) and her best friend, the sass-mouthing Minny (Octavia Spencer) to help her do it.

The Help works, if nothing else, simply because it manages to keep itself from being overly feel-goody, unduly preachy, or both. Assuming a story like this doesn't fall into those traps, it’s hard not to get invested in people who struggle against racial inequality, just as it is difficult not to despise the vilely flippant racism of the unbearable Hilly and her perfectly made-up gang of snooty Stepford Wives – a racism all the more insidious because it is so accepted in the pastels and lavenders of upper-middle class suburbia.

Director Tate Taylor wisely lets the story play out with minimal visual distraction – when you do feel his touch, it is generally for the worse. Two brief flashbacks to Skeeter’s childhood are inescapable corny in both their content and their blurred around the edges shooting style, while Abileen’s voice-over narration (although I understand it has been taken from the novel) is largely unnecessary and at times just plain bad.

The generally one-dimensional nature of the characters, some of whom constitute little more than flat-out stereotypes, is counteracted by fantastic performances across the board. Emma Stone continues to shine and shine brightly in her relatively short career; the For Your Consideration people will surely be taking a look at her big emotional scene across from her mother (Allison Janney) come awards season. Bryce Dallas Howard is perfect as Hilly Holbrook; a simpering, despicable woman whom you love to hate and cannot wait to see served her just desserts.

Octavia Spencer might be playing the most clichéd character as the smart-talking middle aged black woman, but there’s no denying the moxy she brings to the part of Minny, or just how entertaining that character is to watch. But without question, it is Viola Davis as Abileen who is the heart and soul of this film. Davis brings all the weariness, reluctance and bravery of a woman who finally fights back after a lifetime of abuse – it is a remarkable performance that moves you without effort.

The end of the film drags on more than is necessary, wrapping up plot points with a niceness that feels a little disingenuous. There is no doubt that Taylor wishes to leave you with a neat package, in which racism has been overcome and the bad-guys rightfully punished. Real life rarely ends this happily. But The Help is designed to be uplifting fiction. And with humour, emotion and a fantastical ensemble cast, uplift you it certainly does.

Hear me talking about my Top 5 films of MIFF on this weeks episode of the LAMBcast

2011-09-04T09:41:00.001+10:00

In what I am offically calling the end of my coverage of the Melbourne International Film Festival (the final film of which screened a month ago today), I spent this weeks episode of the LAMBcast - the official podcast of the Large Association of Movie Blogs - talking about the five best films I saw during the festivals seventeen day run. Also on this marathon length podcast with their own unique top fives: Jason, James, Sam and Nolahn.

You can download and/or listen to the episode via the widget below. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Review - Conan the Barbarian

2011-09-03T14:23:00.004+10:00

Director: Marcus Nispel

Running Time: 112 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

High fantasy meets adequate execution in Marcus Nispel’s generally satisfactory if utterly unremarkable remake – mostly in name – of the 1982 Schwarzenegger vehicle Conan the Barbarian. In the updated version, Jason Mamoa (of the similarly themed, infinitely superior HBO program Games of Thrones) stars as the titular barbarian, a rippling wall of scars and muscle who is out to get revenge against a warlord who destroyed his village when Conan was just a child. With gratuitous but generally well choreographed violence throughout, Conan the Barbarian is forgettable fun, maintaining pretty successfully the admittedly middling standards we have come to expect from post Lord of the Rings cinematic incarnations of the sword-and-sorcery genre.

Although the film shares the same name, setting and protagonist back-story as the 1982 version, the plot of this new Conan is actually a significant departure from the original. Rather than a long haired James Earl Jones as a magnetic cult leader, this version sees Stephen Lang in the villainous role, as the warlord Khalar Zym who razes young Conan’s village to the ground in his quest to locate the missing pieces of the Mask of Acheron. As explained in an overdose of expositional narration by Morgan Freeman (yes, that Morgan Freeman), the mask is a mythical item with the power to resurrect the dead. Twenty years later, a now adult Conan encounters Zym once more, and is finally given the chance to exact his revenge.

There is little about Conan to make it stand apart. The performances range from serviceable to dreadful – Mamoa and Lang both qualify for the former, while Rose McGowan as Zym’s sorceress daughter continues her long career of delivering the latter. From a design stand-point, most of the costumes, locations and set dressings could have been cobbled together from other similar films, but they do at the very least come together to create a cohesive (and refreshingly un-sanitised – Nispel shies away from neither gore nor excessive female nudity) world in which Conan can, in his own words, live, love and slay.

Speaking of loving, the love story in Conan the Barbarian is one point where almost no effort is expounded. Rachel Nicols gives a performance that, in keeping with her character, is bland and unexciting. Although we get the requisite scene in which she is shown to be able to handle herself with a blade, she ends up spending most of the film crying for Conan to come rescue her, ravish her, and then rescue her again.

As with his other films, which include the new versions of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th (Conan is his fourth theatrical film and his fourth remake), director Marcus Nispel proves himself as a perfectly competent director-for-hire; a man who gets the job done without injecting any distinguishing personality of his own. That said, the action is decipherable and well paced, and the film includes at least a few combat sequences that reach conceptually well beyond the bare minimum. And this, of course, is all that was really required. Although most of the other aspects of the production are average at best, Nispel more than delivers on the carnage.

Made in the self-serious manner of the twenty-first century, one thing Conan the Barbarian is lacking is the machismo and cheesing fun of the shamelessly over the top original. Never the less, the remake is solid bloody entertainment, and must at least be given credit for not sanitizing its content for a pre-teen audience. Not a thinking mans' movie, and not a film I have any plans to revisit. But fun enough while it lasts.

Compete in this weeks' Double Feature Friday!

2011-09-02T13:51:00.007+10:00

Given that a lot more of my writing has been appearing over at Cut Print Review these days, I decided to start a new weekly feature – a game, if you will – to encourage readers to keep visiting the blog (because I love you guys). All the details are below. Hope you enjoy!

Welcome to Double Feature Fridays, a weekly competition in which I challenge YOU to pair the weeks releases with your favourite older or classic films.

Each week I’ll name the new theatrical releases (I’ll be going by the Australian release dates) as well as a few other bonus picks of my choice. Your job is to comment with what other movie you’d like to screen in a double bill with the given films, and why.

You can pick any movie you want – recent, classic, whatever. Just remember to try and be as creative as possible (you’re probably not going to win if you pick another film in the same series, or another movie by the same director – unless you argue your case really well). It’s a chance to show off you movie knowledge and cinematic ingenuity.

The following week I’ll select the most interesting choices and that person will be awarded a point. I’ll be keeping a running leader-board in the sidebar to your right, and every three months, whoever is at the top of the leader-board will be awarded a prize (probably a DVD, although I’ll determine that a little later down the track).

So without further ado, here are your films for this week:

The Help (IMDb)

Final Destination 5 (IMDb)

Life in a Day (IMDb)

Bonus: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (IMDb)

Bonus: Pulp Fiction (IMDb)

So put your thinking caps on, and share your thoughts on what movies you'd like to play in a double bill with this weeks selections.

MIFF Review - Tiny Furniture

2011-08-31T14:23:00.000+10:00

Director: Lisa Dunham
Running Time: 98 minutes
Review by Tom Clift

Eurgh. That is my overwhelming reaction to Lisa Dunham’s Tiny Furniture, a directorial debut that I can acknowledge does a lot of things right, but I still found absolutely unbearable to watch. A story about a directionless college graduate who moves back in with her mother and sister, it’s a tale based, one suspects, on Dunham own life experience, even to the point that she casts herself and her family members in the leading roles. That being said, one hopes for the sake of the people that know them that she and her relatives aren’t actually like this in real life, because Tiny Furniture is populated by characters so obnoxious and selfish that you want to do them, or, barring that, yourself, some very serious bodily harm.

Dunham makes lots of good choices. Casting her real life mother and sister across from herself playing the lead, the natural quality to their interactions more than makes up for their occasionally unpolished performances. It’s also refreshing to see a – how shall I put this – less photogenic woman in a starring role; Dunham’s characters schlubbiness would have seemed a lot less realistic were the part played by an Ellen Page or Zooey Deschenal (to name some indie darlings of the moment). Her direction possesses somewhat less personality – I’m not convinced the camera moved once in the entire film, which demonstrates not so much a lack of confidence as it does a lack of creativity. Or I don’t know, maybe panning is just too mainstream.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Hear me talking about my most anticipated films of the rest of 2011 on this weeks episode of The LAMBcast

2011-08-29T00:05:00.000+10:00

On this weeks episode of the LAMBcast - the official podcast of the Large Association of Movie Blogs - Dylan, Nick, Sam, Sebastian and I talked about our top five most anticipated movies for the remainder of 2011. In addition to that, we gave our rants and raves of the week, with me bemoaning the exorbitant prices of movie tickets in Australia (here me scoff when Sebastian complains about paying $11. I'd KILL for an $11 ticket damn it!)

You can download and/or listen to the episode via the widget below. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Review - Horrible Bosses

2011-08-28T16:22:00.006+10:00

Director: Seth Gordon

Running Time: 98 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

After a particularly rough day and a few two many drinks, three downtrodden nine-to-five workers come up with a plan to murder their respective employers. It’s a twisted, not to mention, unlikely idea for a comedy film, and it’s arguably something of a shame that director Seth Gordon (The King of Kong, Four Christmases) never really takes the twisted premise to its complete and logical conclusion. Never the less, a couple of inspired against-type casting choices, as well as a some recognizable comedic actors playing to their strengths makes Horrible Bosses an enjoyable, consistently funny release in a year that has been notable for its raunchy mainstream comedies.

The film kicks off by introducing us to our three long suffering protagonists, as well as the three monsters that drive them to hatch their murderous proposal. Nick (Jason Bateman) works in a financial company under his cruel and manipulative supervisor (Kevin Spacey), a seemingly soulless man who keeps Nick in line with the elusive promise of a promotion that never seems to arrive. Dale (Charlie Day) works as a dental assistant where he is the victim of overt sexual harassment from his licentious employer Dr Julia (Jennifer Anniston) that culminates in her trying to blackmail him into bed with her. In contrast with his friends, Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) loves his boss. Or at least he does, until the old man dies of a heart attack, leaving his greedy, lazy, coke-addicted son (Colin Farrell) holding the reins.

Although for each audience member their may be a different favourite, there is not a single one of the six principal actors who isn’t firing on all cylinders. Starting with the good guys; Jason Bateman is at the top of his game, continuing the run he started on Arrested Development as this generation’s greatest straight-man. Many audiences’ members will be less familiar with Charlie Day, but fans of his work on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will recognize that same perfect combination of mania and pathetic charm that makes him one of the most brilliant comedic actors currently working (that his part was originally intended for Ashton Kutcher is a truly horrifying notion). Lastly but by no means leastly, Jason Sudeikis of SNL and Hall Pass fame exudes laid-back charisma as the most self-aware of the three leads, joking his way through the whole film with a knowing grin on his face.

The villains of the piece are just as memorable. Not only is Kevin Spacey hilarious, but he also brings genuine dramatic menace to the film – let’s face it, the guy can be Oscar-worthy in his sleep. Jennifer Anniston meanwhile cast off her usual film persona and commits one-hundred percent to her role as the wanton Dr. Julia. Anniston’s is the last mouth from which you’d expect to hear such sexually explicit dialogue, and the much maligned actress is clearly relishing the chance to show audiences a very different side of herself. That said, no one is more unrecognizable or perhaps more funny than Colin Farrell in his part as an egotistical, drug-abusing, morally and physically repulsive sleazebag who, along with his unconvincing comb over and rapidly expanding pot-belly, steals every scene that he’s in, not to mention quite a few that he isn’t.

Horrible Bosses does frequently fall into the trap of equating profanity with humour, and amidst the almost constant barrage of course language and unprintable sexual propositions, there are definitely a few moments where cheap jokes simply fail to hit their target. It must also be pointed out that although Gordon and co. more than earn their restricted rating and do occasionally flirt with darker territory, the film is in fact nowhere near as morbid as its premise would lead you to believe. Even if you can suspend disbelief long enough to think that these guys would really entertain the notion of killing someone, the film never makes you believe for even a second that they will actually follow through on it.

But at the end of the day, that doesn’t really make the film any less enjoyable. The reason you can’t envision Nick, Dale and Kurt as killers is because Bateman, Day and Sudeikis are just too damn likable. As they bumble through stakeouts and awkwardly attempt to hire a hit-man, you come to understand that the many plot contrivances, all of which originate from the totally manufactured premise, all exists to get this stellar cast on set working their comedic muscles. Outtakes that play over the end credits show the whole cast riffing, improvising and just generally having fun. And it is that same sense of fun that carries over into the final film and makes Horrible Bosses such an entertaining ride.

Not a fan of the cinema? Wait for Horrible Bosses to be released on dvd and rent it from LOVEFiLM. Get dvd's delivered directly to your door without having to leave the house. Also sign up today and recieve a free 2 week trial.

Review - Beginners

2011-08-26T00:09:00.002+10:00

Director: Mike Mills

Running Time: 105 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

The sophomore film from Thumbsucker director Mike Mills’, Beginners succeeds, in spite of some occasional moments of self-conscious quirk and indie affectation, thanks mostly to it’s phenomenal cast as well as its genuine and clearly very personal approach to the difficult subjects of love and grief. Written by Mills and based in part on his relationship with his father, the film uncovers a place for itself as a moving, melancholy but ultimately optimistic dramedy, one that tells its story with just the right amount of heart, hope, intellect and bittersweet regret.

Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is a graphic designer in his late thirties who, at the beginning of the film, is dealing with the extremely recent passing of his father Hal (Christopher Plummer). A closeted gay man for most of his life, Hal came out to Oliver shortly after his seventy-fifth birthday, only to be struck down by cancer just a few short years later. While still in mourning for his father, Oliver finds himself embarking on a love affair with Anna (Melanie Laurent), a beautiful but emotionally-baggaged French woman with father issues of her own. Shifting in and out of flashbacks, we witness how Oliver’s past – both his childhood upbringing at the hands of his inexpressive mother, as well as his recent adult relationship with his spiritually invigorated but physically ailing father – continues to affect his relationships in the present.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

A few site announcements

2011-08-25T00:46:00.001+10:00

Regular readers will know that I recently covered the Melbourne International Film Festival for Cut Print Review. Well, I'm happy to announce that editor-in-chief Anders Wotzke has asked me to stay on as a regular review writer, even going so far as to help get me accredited on Rotten Tomatoes (which was pretty awesome of him!)

While I'll still be hosting some reviews and other articles here on this blog (I'm hoping to be a bit more frequent in my posting in general), you may find that a lot of reviews will redirect you over to the full post over at Cut Print Review. I am however planning to launch a new weekly feature here on the blog - a game of sorts - starting Friday week, to ensure that this space doesn't just become a place for me to plug my content elsewhere.

In the mean time, I really want to encourage everyone to keep reading and commenting both here and at CPR. The blogging community is one of the major reasons I do what I do, and I always like to hear what other people have to say.

Review - Cowboys & Aliens

2011-08-24T14:10:00.000+10:00

Director: Jon Favreau

Running Time: 118 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Operating under the misguided belief that enough time has passed since Barry Sonnenfeld’s abysmal Wild Wild West in the late nineteen nineties, director John Favreau takes a break from the Iron Man franchise to deliver a genre hybrid that, unfortunately, is as uninspired and obvious as its silly title suggests. Combining the most generic elements of both the western and the sci-fi genres, Cowboys & Aliens is a film where the occasional sense of fun is far outweighed by the omnipresent sense of stupid; where the action is for the most part unexciting, and the underwritten characters are unenthusiastically played by famous actors capable of so much more.

It strikes me that there is a half-way decent Western buried in here somewhere. At the films outset, Daniel Craig awakens in the desert with a strange metal device around his wrist and absolutely no memory of who or where he is. A veritable Man With No Name, these first fifteen or so minutes are promising; two early instances in which our hero finds himself in fist fights constitutes by far the most entertaining action in the film, and also serve as a pertinent reminder to what a great and physical James Bond Craig makes. Unfortunately, requisite plotting soon reveals that Craig is in fact Jake Lonergan, an outlaw wanted for stealing gold from Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a rich and powerful cattleman who doesn’t take kindly to thieves.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

MIFF Review - Martha Marcy May Marlene

2011-08-23T15:24:00.001+10:00

Director: Sean Durkin

Running Time: 120 minutes

Review by Tom Clift

Winner of the Best Dramatic Direction award at this years’ Sundance Film Festival, Martha Marcy May Marlene heralds the arrival of two very impressive talents on the independent cinema scene. First, director Sean Durkin, who in what is his first feature film demonstrates an incredible assuredness and mesmerizing control of his camera, intermingling through astounding editing two timelines with ethereal subtlety and consummate skill. Secondly is young actress Elizabeth Olsen, who shatters any negative preconceptions one might associate with the acting abilities of her older sisters Ashley and Mary-Kate and gives a bravura performance as a socially alienated young woman tormented by paranoia and bygone emotional distress. A stunning debut for both director and star, this is an entrancing psychological drama that simmers with ominous tension and malformed emotion.

After a two year absence, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) receives a terrified phone-call from her younger sister Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) asking for help. Unconvinced by her feeble claims that she has been living with a boyfriend, Lucy brings Martha back to her summer lake-home, where she and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) try to coax the truth out of the troubled and emotionally fragile young woman. Intertwined with these scenes, flashbacks slowly reveal where Martha has been living for the past two years: as part of a commune/cult led by the enigmatic but violent Patrick (John Hawkes). Haunted by her experiences, Martha’s present behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, as she begins to fear that her past is eventually going to catch up with her.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »

Review - The Woman

2011-08-22T13:20:00.004+10:00

Director: Lucky McKee
Running Time: 108 minutes
Review by Tom Clift

Following it's controversial debut at the Sundance Film Festival this year, The Woman is playing in Melbourne exclusively at Cinema Nova.

Less of a horror movie and more of a jet-black satire of good ole’ fashioned American family values, The Woman tackles gender politics in a way you’ve never seen them tackled before. A disturbing deconstruction of misogyny and the abuses of women in both genre films and in greater Western society, the movie is a very new twist on a fish-out of water tale, as director Lucky McKee blurs the lines between civilization and brutality in a manner that is memorable, disconcerting, mordantly cheery and unflinchingly bloody.

From the outside Chris McKee (played by Will Ferrell’s look-alike Sean Bridgers) appears to be an all American father with the perfect nuclear family to match. Behind closed doors however, he is a psychopathic woman-hating monster who domineers his wife and daughters with the constant threat of violence, and is already training his adolescent son to follow in his footstep. So insane is the family patriarch that when he discovers a feral woman of unknown origins living in the woods near his secluded family property (played with brave intensity by Pollyanna McIntosh), he decides the best thing to do is to chain her up, bring her home and try to civilize her.

Keep Reading at Cut Print Review »