Film Twitter – Film Mafia

Cinema, film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Lots of New Films

September 30, 2022by CJLeave a Comment

BLONDE (Netflix)

***1/2

If Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was a portrait of the artist without the pain, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is a portrait of the artist as pure pain, a sum of trauma, grief, displacement and anguish almost without regard to talent. As such, it’s not a bio, but very much an adaptation of the novel that was its source material, and it certainly won’t be for everyone. Ana de Armas is pretty astonishing in the role of Norma Jeane and Marilyn Monroe, whom, the film posits, Jeane saw as an almost alien entity.

THE STRANGER (Cinemas from 06 October)

****

This is the kind of film Australia has done best since, pretty much, 2000: extremely dark tales of men with beards communicating in mumbling tones of great foreboding, sprinkled liberally with the f word. This is a good one and will truly reward you if you go in cold, as I did; you won’t be ahead of it, that’s for sure. There is no humour here: this is serious stuff, bleak, flinty, and rather great.

ON THE COUNT OF THREE

***

The central conceit of this challenging urban buddy flick – a pair of depressed friends make a suicide pact – could be reckless were the film’s seriousness of purpose not so pronounced. The debut feature from successful US stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael, this is a very dark comedy with a lot on its mind.

THE HUMANS

***1/2

Stephen Karam’s adaptation of his own play about a family gathering for Thanksgiving at a small apartment in New York City has grown on me. I found it rather involving but unsatisfying at first watch, but I partly blame myself: I kept waiting for the shoe to drop, and didn’t, perhaps, appreciate the waiting itself. It’s a low-key slow-build character piece, modest and contained but thoughtfully and at times inventively cinematic.

MOONAGE DAYDREAM

***1/2

An at times thrilling, at times exasperatingly over-produced experiment in cultural montage. Despite so much Bowie, you long for more Bowie, longer song snippets, more sustained footage and less stuff: less silent film footage, archival footage, added footage. At times it’s so overburdened with all that detritus that it’s frustrating, but, of course, Bowie shines through. Just.

THE QUIET GIRL

***1/2

This Irish-language tale of the summer a young girl spends with her mother’s cousin and her husband touches some moments of greatness and some of banality, but overall is moving and heartfelt.

YOU WON’T BE ALONE

***1/2

A unique take on witches and folklore. Writer/director Goran Stolevski is an Australian director, born in Macedonia, who made the film entirely in Serbia with a mainly Serbian cast except for Swedish actress Noomi Rapace.

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Ali and Ava, Full Time, Official Competition

July 12, 2022July 12, 2022by CJLeave a Comment

Ali and Ava

Out Now in Australian cinemas.

* * * 1/2

Clio Barnard’s third fiction feature is a beautifully observed middle-aged relationship drama set specifically and precisely in Bradford in the UK. There, Ali (Adeel Akhtar) and Ava (Claire Rushbrook) meet in the turmoil of daily life. Each carry relationship baggage, emotional and physical, but, importantly, both are lonely: these are two characters who need each other. Barnard shows constant, enormous compassion not only for both of them but for all the supporting characters, some of whom aren’t tremendously likeable at first encounter. The screenplay doesn’t break new ground – this is highly trod territory, British regional social realism through and through – but the direction is intricate and thoughtful and the performances tremendous.

Full Time

Coming Soon

* * * 1/2

The Safdie brothers’ influence on this tense social-realist drama, written and directed by Eric Gravel and starring Laure Camaly, is undeniable, but that’s no bad thing; this takes their pressure-cooker style and applies it to a more universal situation. Calamy, as a single mother living outside Paris dealing with the disruption to her commute during a train strike, is sensational; she’s right at the front of the pack of screen actresses now. Funny she won her César for Antoinette in the Cévennes rather than a dramatic role like this, but c’est la vie. It’s a well-made film, although the constant pressures applied to Julie run the risk of becoming parodic (I’m looking at you, birthday present thing) and all too much. One thing’s for sure: it’ll make you feel less bad about not living in Paris.

Official Competition

Coming Soon

* * *

Penelope Cruz. Antonio Banderas. Oscar Martînez. In a satire about moviemaking. Boy, was I excited. And boy, was I disappointed. With these actors, this script, as flawed and obvious as it is, may have worked. But the direction is so heavy-handed and the editing so labored, the film is devoid of energy. Scenes drag, speeches drag, points are repeatedly pounded on the head. Somehow in the midst of it Cruz gives a great performance, and the framing is occasionally nice.

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Elvis (Discussion)

June 25, 2022by CJLeave a Comment

Octavia Barron Martin and I discuss Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS on Movieland:

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Elvis

June 23, 2022by CJLeave a Comment

* * * * 1/2

In an earlier life, I spent nine months (with some breaks) playing the ghost of Elvis Presley in Steve Martin’s play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. During the rehearsal period and then throughout the run, I immersed myself in all things Presley: I read the books, watched the specials and the movies and the documentaries, and, far most importantly, I listened to the music. I got obsessed, in a good way, and had a whale of a time. I appreciated the man from every angle, and in every way.

So too, clearly, does Baz Luhrmann, and his epic Elvis is a love letter to an artist he admires and obviously finds a deep connection with. It’s very Baz; like most of his work, the dialogue scenes are spare and fast, and deep characterization always gives way to visceral visual and audial spectacle. That’s his way, and that’s this film. Another could give us more insight into Elvis’ pains, traumas and (in particular) family relationships. This one gives us the talent and the sex appeal.

It also gives us The Colonel (Tom Hanks). It actually gives us too much Colonel, including the film’s absolute worst element (and essential misfire), a truly badly written, on-the-nose VO narration. Elvis is told from The Colonel’s point of view, in hindsight from a hospital bed, as an answer to his critics. The approach is valid, the writing is way off (which is not to say Hanks’ performance is; it’s fine, if a little fruity. But what in a Luhrmann film isn’t a little fruity?)

Love him or hate him, Luhrmann is a unique, visionary auteur, and one of very few on the planet who works on a mega-budget, populist, global scale. This is his best film since Strictly Ballroom; on its own terms,it is simply magnificent. It may be that the material is so suited to Luhrmann’s sensibilities; it is certain that Luhrmann found his perfect Elvis in Austin Butler. You spend the first half in awe of Baz but the second in awe of Butler, and that’s a compliment to both. The Vegas sequences are mind-bendingly well performed (and shot). This movie soars. Expect an Oscar for Best Hair and Make-Up and possibly Sound, and Oscar nominations for Best Film, Director, Butler, Tom Hanks, Production Design and Editing. Outstanding.

movie reviews

Petite Maman

May 5, 2022by CJLeave a Comment

* * * * *

Céline Sciamma’s follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is, if anything, even better, and the best film I’ve seen at the cinema thus far in 2022. It is a perfect, gentle jewel, precise, concise (72 minutes!), warm, heartfelt, witty, moving and ultimately profound.

At a crucial point in her young life, an eight-year old girl, Nelly, meets and befriends another eight-year-old girl, Marion. Their brief relationship is rendered with astonishing authenticity, reflecting a deeply astute understanding of the inner life of children and young girls in particular.

Sciamma gets extraordinary naturalistic performances from young sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, neither of whom have any other screen credits. Joséphine, as Nelly, portrays a world of curiosity, understanding and thought that, as the father of an eight-year old girl, I recognised implicitly. Every frame of her performance rings true, as though she is living the part. At one point her father shaves his beard, implying that perhaps the film was shot in sequence, which would make perfect sense. You absolutely and fundamentally go on Nelly’s small-but-massive journey with her, days that will change not so much her life as her understanding of it.

Sciamma’s direction is sublime and her writing heartfelt. In its modest ambition, Petite Maman achieves a kind of delicate monumentality. Do not miss it. I can’t wait to show it to my own daughter, who will recognise its integrity more than I ever can.

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Best of 2021

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022by CJLeave a Comment

Happy New Year. Here are my Best Films of 2021; they all screened at a cinema – either in release or at a festival – in Australia in 2021. Some are still awaiting general release; many are now available digitally at home.

Click this link to see the list, which is in ranked order (thus THE NEST is #1). It’s a LETTERBOXD list; if you’re new to Letterboxd, it’s a film-logging platform. While you’re there, you should join and follow me. It’s a convivial platform for film buffs; it has a social element in that you can comment on other’s reviews, but I would not describe it as ‘social media.’

Enjoy! And do please feel free to leave your comments, here or on Letterboxd.

https://boxd.it/b9dDo

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Boxing Day Movies

December 21, 2021by CJLeave a Comment

All of the following release Boxing Day in Australia except Bergman Island which has been postponed until March 2022.

Anders Danielsen Lie is having a moment. The Norwegian actor shows up in two films generating big buzz on the international Festival circuit, The Worst Person In The World and Bergman Island. Appearing in two such films is something. Giving almost the same performance in both is something else. Lie is undeniably charismatic, but, perhaps through no fault of his own, he is routinely cast in very similar roles, offering very little range. One Lie performance bleeds into the next.

In both films, he’s surrounded by far more interesting characters and bolder performances. The Worst Person In The World is about a young Oslo woman named Julie, played in an international career-making performance by Renate Reinsve. It’s a character study touching on familiar themes of career and ambition, love and relationships, family and ‘the kid question’ faced by twentysomethings from Oslo to Orkney, bathed in pretty Norwegian light and too much touchy-feely music, but driven energetically by Reinsve’s superb performance. She’s so good that she saves the film from its own very misconceived and tonally jarring third act, in which, admittedly, Lie offers some pretty solid, albeit unsurprising, acting. * * * 1/2

Bergman Island is about a young filmmaker, Chris (Vicki Krieps), who finds inspiration for her next movie while staying on Fårö Island, home to Ingmar Bergman, with her partner Tony (Tim Roth), also a filmmaker. They’re there to work and soak in the Bergman vibes while he appears at a tiny festival screening of one of his films. Lie appears in the film-within-the-film that Chris is conceiving, along with Mia Wasikowska; unfortunately, those scenes are far less interesting than the ‘real’ storyline, yet take up what feels like about half the running time. The scenes with Krieps and Roth, though, are terrific, and deeply chucklesome for cinephiles. * * * 1/2

Not generating buzz on the Festival circuit, but sure to create huge and hearty word-of-mouth among the general audience, is the impossible-to-dislike crowd-pleaser Délicieux (Delicious), ostensibly about the creation of France’s first proper restaurant in 1789. Like any bistro tartiflette, Délicieux is made strictly to the recipe (in this case, of foodie period romantic movies), changing none of the accepted ingredients (and embracing cheese and ham), displaying little to no technical innovation, but guaranteed to leave one satisfied, smiling and a little guilty. You’ll know what you’re getting and you’ll like it! * * * 1/2

I’m no expert on the original West Side Story, but I can say that Steven Spielberg’s remake, with an updated screenplay by Tony Kushner, is technically dazzling and musically delightful, if emotionally rather unengaging. The two most exciting characters and performances are those that are based on Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, and if you know what happens to them, you’ll know that the third act is inevitably less exciting than the first two. * * * *

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Licorice Pizza

December 13, 2021by CJLeave a Comment

* * * * 1/2

Opening 26 December in Australia. Now open in the US.

Paul Thomas Anderson has been making music videos for Haim, a family musical group based in Los Angeles. Now he’s built his latest film, Licorice Pizza, around Alana Haim, and, in her first acting role, she becomes a movie star in front of our eyes, as does her co-star Cooper Hoffman, in his.

It is astonishing to see such a major film by such a major filmmaker carried on the shoulders of two people with literally no other acting credits (although Haim has been in many music videos, Hoffman’s IMDB credit list literally says ‘Acting: 1 Credit’, and it’s this film). It’s astonishing as a risk (or, put another way, it’s astonishingly brave) and it’s astonishing how good they are. Licorice Pizza is the story of two young people’s friendship, and although the cast is large, it is very much centred on these two, and they are both superb.

Haim’s character, also named Alana (Anderson wrote the film for her) is the protagonist, a twenty-five year old Jewish girl living with her parents and sisters (all played by her real family members) in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles in 1973, who befriends and develops an intense relationship with a fifteen-year-old small-time actor and big-time dreamer, Gary, played by Hoffman (who is Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s son). Over what feels like about a year, they follow Gary’s dreams – of selling waterbeds, mainly – while finding out who they are and how they feel.

It’s a warm, warm movie, often very funny, thoroughly engaging and impeccably crafted (the cinematography being a highlight). While the subject matter may seem lighter than some of Anderson’s more sombre work (eg There Will Be Blood and The Master), it is no less thematically rich than any of his films. For what themes are greater than love and friendship (and this is a very good movie about love and friendship)? One of the films of the year.

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews

Annette

August 29, 2021August 29, 2021by CJLeave a Comment

* * * *

Now playing in cinemas that are open.

Leos Carax’s Annette opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won him the prize for Best Director. It is undeniably and thrillingly ecstatic, passionate, vibrant and highly personal cinema. Possibly, it’s Carax’s best; it certainly makes you think that previous films of his, especially Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf, really should have been sung-through musicals (as Annette is). The form suits his style, which is huge, operatic, melodramatic, theatrical and resolutely obsessed with the nature of performance.

Indeed, here, Marion Cotillard plays an opera singer – an opera star, even an opera celebrity – who marries an ‘anticomedy’ LA comedian, played by Adam Driver. They have a child, Annette, played by a succession of incredibly endearing marionettes, and very, very dramatic events transpire, looping in the singer’s accompanist, the second played by the nimble Simon Helberg (the other was in Florence Foster Jenkins, for which he got a Golden Globe nomination).

This is cinema to evoke wonder and awe, propelled by an awesome suite of songs by Sparks, the pop/rock band fronted by brothers Ron and Russell Mael since 1966 (and recently the subject of a feature length documentary by Edgar Wright called The Sparks Brothers.) These two films give Ron and Russell a tremendous moment, tremendously deserved.

Carax draws intriguing inspiration from LA comedy culture; his reference points include not only Louis CK but, fascinatingly, the ‘Pearl’ videos of Will Ferrell (remember those)? His film, an opus, is full of ideas, but perhaps more importantly, it’s full of wonder.

film, film reviews, movie, movie reviews, reviews, television

Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood… The Book.

July 30, 2021by CJ1 Comment

Quentin Tarantino has stated in interviews that his novelistic version of his own movie Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood is borne of an intriguing conceit: that, as a reader, you’re meant to imagine that the book came first, and the movie is the movie adapted from the book by a director called Quentin Tarantino. Depending on how much time you have for the man (and I have a lot), it’s either a delicious or a slightly twee conceit, but knowing it going in makes the book more fun.

For a start, there are differences. A good example is an early scene (in both the book and film) between Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie) and his potential new agent Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino). In the book – which is meant to have been written first, remember – that scene occurs in Schwarz’s office. In the film, it’s at Musso and Frank, a fabled Hollywood restaurant, as though Tarantino as director (and adapter of the book) re-set the scene into a more lively, cinematically interesting location. It’s gamesmanship, and it’s fun.

More importantly for serious fans, there’s more information, such as a biggie: we find out explicitly whether Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) knowingly killed his wife. Indeed, we find out a lot more about Cliff, and it’s enough to raise Pitt’s eyebrows: he may not have knowingly been playing the character we find in these pages.

These are both entertaining and lively elements and make the book worth a read. There are about three chapters, however, that elaborate on the mythology and backstory of Lancer, the western TV show Dalton guest stars on. These sections see Tarantino writing in a pulp fiction western style for his own amusement, but – for me at least – they committed a sin found nowhere else in the entire body of the man’s work: they were boring. Fear not; they’re easily skipped, without disrupting the rest of the book.

It’s a fun experiment that will clearly appeal almost entirely to fans of the film. There are many of those – it was a massive hit, making three hundred and seventy-five million dollars worldwide – and they will likely be as entertained as I was. Plus, now they’ll know whether Cliff pulled that trigger deliberately.

	Peter on Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Am…
	Midwestern Joe on CHICKEN PEOPLE
	Radds on Best of 2022, So Far.
	Rod Wise on Recent Film and TV
	Rod Wise on Nitram