The Invention of Lying

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Imagine a world where nobody has any concept of lying. A world where everyone tells the absolute truth, with no prompting. You would tell the parents of an ugly baby that their child was hideous, or your boss that he was rubbish at his job and you hated his guts. Then one day, a very ordinary man, Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais), tells a lie. Telling lies makes his life a lot better and makes him powerful. This is the premise of the abysmal new comedy The Invention of Lying.

Lacking the comedic potential to warrant much more than a 15 min sketch, the script for The Invention of Lying has few redeeming qualities and even fewer laughs. Star- packed with the likes of Jennifer Garner, Louis C.K., Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan as well as notable cameos from Jason Bateman, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Edward Norton, you have to wonder did any of these actors actually read the script before signing on?

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Children are often told to stay away from people their parents perceive as bad influences; it feels like it might be time to tell Ricky Gervais to steer clear of his unreliable friend, America. Gervais who has two highly successful TV series under his belt (The Office, Extras) - seems to be throwing away all his credibility with filmic endeavours in the States. We thought he might have learnt after Ghost Town, a train-wreck of a comedy, but no he is back and it looks like it is just getting worse.

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click here to read my full review at Trespass

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls

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A really good documentary reveals something or someone you never really knew before. The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls gives an insight into the women behind New Zealand comedy/musical double act, Jools and Linda Topp. Marketed as yodelling lesbians twins with a penchant for country music and dressing up, they don’t sound like your average comedy act, but isn’t it nice to have a little variety.

Using the structure of one of their autobiographical gigs, the documentary follows the Topp Twins’ evolution as comedians and political activists, with older footage and talking head interviews woven into the cinematic fabric. Directed by Leanne Poole the documentary shows how the sisters’ sense of fun as well as sense of justice has developed their comedy.

Labelled as New Zealand’s ‘finest artistic export since lamb cutlets’, the twins have had a strong political role. Actively campaigning for Maori land rights, against nuclear testings, for Gay rights and against the Springboks tour to New Zealand during Apartheid. The sisters have sung about and taken part in protests and rallies for decades

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Cold Souls

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Have you ever felt burdened by your tormented soul? Wished you could de-soul and live a freer life for a while? Ever wanted to try out a fuller soul, from someone more artistic- like a Russian poet? Paul Giamatti has. The star of Sideways and American Splendour plays himself in the engaging satirical comedy, Cold Souls.

A Kaufmanesque story examining existential ponderings, Cold Souls begins with our protagonist, Giamatti feeling weighed down by his role in a Broadway production of Uncle Vanya. Increasingly neurotic (thanks in part to the script being originally written with Woody Allen in mind) Giamatti’s agent suggests he reads an article in the New Yorker about soul storage.

From here our protagonist embarks on a journey of soul discovery. Storing his soul proves to have disastrous consequences for Giamatti’s acting, with hilarious results. Added to the mix of intellectual whining are a Russian soul-mule and the trafficking of souls from the poor to the rich (a commodification not unlike the system already seen in body parts).

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Antichrist

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One man’s horror flick is another man’s chauvinistic exploitation flick. Controversy will always reign when Danish director Lars von Trier is at the helm. His latest film, Antichrist has been enveloped in a media storm since its debut earlier this year at Cannes (where Charlotte Gainsbourg won Best Actress). Made by von Trier after a self-confessed bout of depression, Antichrist is a film which pushes the boundaries of taste. Whatever your feelings on the final product, it is an unforgettable experience with visual images that are hard to erase.

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Antichrist is divided into chapters as the film examines loss and all its accompanying emotions. Starring Willem Dafoe (Platoon, Shadow of the Vampire, Spiderman), and Charlotte Gainsbourg (My Wife is an Actress, The Science of Sleep) as grieving parents entering into a therapist and patient relationship. Most of the film’s action is set in the couple’s cabin in a deserted wood called ‘Eden’, where with a rather extreme form of therapy Dafoe’s character, simply titled He, attempts to council his ‘atypically’ grieving wife, She (Gainsbourg) after the death of their young son.

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The film considers themes of anxiety, despair, guilt and pain. Encompassing wider debates on the relationship between women and Nature, the film takes some pretty disturbing twists as elements from the traditional horror genre start creeping in. And if you were in any doubt as to von Trier’s intentions, the opening scene should prepare any audience that he is not going to shield the viewers’ gaze. Antichrist is a test of how far he can push his vision, his actors and his audience.

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A Serious Man

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The Coen brothers never like to make life easy for their protagonists, and with their latest leading man, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), absolutely no exceptions have been made. Set in 1967 Midwest America, the film follows Larry, a physics professor with an increasingly complicated home and working life. Troubled by the lack of cause for his predicament(s), Larry, a self-confessed serious man, turns to a succession of Rabbis to try and understand why he is being tested.

The film begins with an extended Yiddish fable conceived by the Coens. This sets the tone for A Serious Man which seems to be a meditation on being Jewish. Larry’s life begins to fall off kilter when his wife, Judith (Sari Lennick) surprises him with the revelation that she has found a new man, the velvety voiced Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed). This doesn’t seem to faze his teenage children, Danny (Aaron Wolff) who just wants good TV reception and to pay back his pot dealer, and Sarah (Jessica McManus) who is washing her hair for most of the film. Added to Larry’s problems are his socially inept brother Arthur (Richard Kind), his redneck neighbour who is slowly redrawing their houses’ boundary line and a foreign student who is trying to force Larry into changing his failing grade.

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click here to read my full review at Trespass

The Boys are Back

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The latest Australian buzz film is The Boys Are Back directed by Scott Hicks (of Shine success). Adapted from the memoirs of Simon Warr, The Boys Are Back follows the trials and tribulations of sole fatherhood, as ex-pat journalist, Joe Warr (Clive Owen) finds himself raising his sons alone after the early death of his Australian wife.

This is not the first film to examine this topic recently, but The Boys Are Back is probably the only one which considers the impact of loss and restructuring on a family’s everyday life. With the death of Katy (Laura Fraser) - Joe’s second wife - dealt with rather quickly and unsentimentally at the beginning of the film, the focus is solely on Joe and his parenting skills.

Left to look after his 6 yrs old son, Artie (Nicholas McAnulty), Joe is determined to make a connection with the child, rejecting offers of help from his mother-in-law (Julia Blake). But he has no idea of the realities of being a single father, lacking the ability to reassure Artie, a child he has so infrequently parented after years of relegating fatherhood to weekends whilst he pursued his career.

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click here to read my full review at Onya

2012- Homage to the art of disaster movies

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2012 is the latest film from Roland ‘Independence Day‘ Emmerich. With a budget of $200 million there is a lot more bang for your buck than your average flick. As it is a disaster film, the money has been spent on special effects not script development. Based on some very dubious science and an ancient Mayan predicted date for the end of the World, the disaster in question is the break-up of the Earth’s crust, causing a multitude of natural calamities.

The film is split between the US Government’s response to the impending disasters and a modern family unit’s attempts at surviving the apocalypse. Giving Emmerich the opportunity to embrace every cliché possible, this does leaves the audience with a perplexing question - is he being purposely self-reflexive?

Starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson, 2012 is a perfect example of ‘so bad it’s (almost) good’. Go in with low expectations and you won’t be disappointed.

Click here to read my full review and lessons I've learnt from Hollywood disaster movies at Trespass

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Amreeka

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The immigrant experience is a double-edged sword. The expectation that change will automatically lead to a better life when met with reality, is often a short sharp blow. The politics of human movement from developing to developed countries plays out in the public arena, but the narratives of the individuals attempting to find safer places to live do not. Amreeka is about leaving behind all that is familiar and trying to embrace a new country. Questioning whether it is better to be a visitor in someone else’s country than a prisoner in your own.

Set during America’s (and its allies) invasion of Iraq in 2003, Amreeka follows Muna (Nisreen Faour) and her teenage son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) as they travel from the West Bank to Illinois. You know from their first encounter with America, at arrival Customs, things just aren’t going to go smoothly for the sweetly optimistic mother and son pairing. The pair settle in with Muna sister’s family, Raghda (Hiam Abbass), Nabeel (Yusseff Abu-Warda) and their three daughters. The unsuspecting Muna and Fadi, who believe they have left their troubles behind in the Palestinian Territories, are confronted by an America full of distrust and ignorant of Middle Eastern politics and culture.

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click here to read my full review at Trespass

Genova

Michael Winterbottom’s latest film, Genova is a beautiful examination of grief. The film seizes its audience and takes them on an emotional ride around Genoa (Genova in Italian), highlighting a city as only an outsider can. Winterbottom lets you feel the wind brushing through your hair as his actors escape through tight alleyways on mopeds, or the sunshine in your eyes as they lay on picturesque beaches, in this slowly swelling story of loss and recovery.

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Far from a romanticised or sentimentalised vision of death and family reconstruction, Genova has a more organic, realist approach to sorrow and pain. With an exquisite sinister undercurrent that simmers below the film’s surface, Winterbottom as writer/director has created a film that slowly unfolds with a possibility of danger ever present. The opening scene encapsulates the feel of the whole film, from mundane to highly tense.

click here to read my full review at Trespass

Prime Mover

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Many of us would find it hard to get excited about the world of long-haul truck driving. But it is within this world of long hours, temperamental expensive auto-machinery and chauvinism, that director, David Caesar grounds his modern fable. Prime Mover is a hugely likeable film weaving the real with the imaginary, testing out the phrase, ‘be careful what you wish for’ on its sweet and ingenuous protagonists.

Set in Dubbo, NSW, Prime Mover follows Thomas (Michael Dorman) a dreamer, as he meets Melissa (Emily Barclay) and enters into the deep end of truck ownership. Starting the film as an employee at his father’s truck depot, Thomas aspires to be his own boss, controlling his own destiny. But Thomas is capable of making incredibly bad decisions. His story shows how even the most reasonable of dreams can be corrupted by those wanting to take advantage of enthusiasm and youth.

The film’s success is largely due to its casting. Australian heavyweights provide great supporting performances: William McInnes as the gruff truck boss, Phil; Lynette Curran as the motherly loan-shark, Mrs Boyd, who likes ‘making people’s dreams come true’ and Jeanette Cronin as Melissa’s sharp-tongued mother. But the heart of Caesar’s film is the hugely watchable partnership of Dorman and Barclay (who played opposite each other in 2006’s Suburban Mayhem). Caesar gives the couple a credible love story, with the actors bringing chemistry to the romance.

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click here to read my full review at Onya

Capitalism: A Love Story

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In the twenty years since his first documentary, Roger & Me (1989), Michael Moore’s fervour to defend the little man has not diminished. Returning to the domain of corporate greed, Capitalism: A Love Story highlights Moore’s ability to entertain, inform and preach.

This documentary affirms Moore’s continuing disgust at the state of the USA’s economic institutions, and the players who manipulate them. Love him or hate him, Moore is a genre of documentary unto himself. You can’t walk into the cinema and not know what is coming - Moore is surely the most recognisable face and voice in modern documentary making.

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Taking the stance that Capitalism (in its current incarnation) and Democracy are incompatible bedfellows, Moore uses his standard formula of filmmaking to weave a narrative of the excesses of corporate America. His point is pretty firmly made when during the filming (which started in 2008), the economic crisis firmly kicks into gear and the full horror of the sub-prime mortgage system is exposed. Using humour, personal accounts of suffering, localised examples of greed and stupidity and of course stunts, the documentary covers varied facets of Capitalism.

click here to read my full review at Trespass

Case 39

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Demonic children - they’re a pretty scary bunch, from Damon in The Omen (the ultimate devil child, being literally the son of Satan), to The Children of the Corn and Regan from The Exorcist. As if children aren’t terrifying enough, Horror Films up the ante by giving the brats special powers. The most recent incarnation of a disturbing child is Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland) in Case 39.

When Case 39 lands on the desk of overworked but extremely committed social worker, Emily (Renée Zellweger), she can immediately sense there is something seriously wrong with the Sullivan family; the edgy child, 10 yr old Lilly, and the extremely creepy parents, with dead eyes. Nobody heeds her concerns and Lilly is narrowly saved by Emily and her policeman friend, Mike (Ian McShane). Displaying the professionalism of a teenage McDonald’s worker (no offence) Emily, childless and partnerless (she is that devoted to her calling) takes in the damaged Lilly whilst a foster family is found.

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But wait, were Lilly’s parents right about this sweet, softly spoken child - is she really a bad seed?

click here to read my full review at Trespass

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

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Terry Gilliam’s latest offering, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, has the sad honour of being Heath Ledger’s last feature film. Ledger’s death during a break in shooting left Gilliam with a dilemma and financial pressure - should he continue the film without the star or shut it down. Aided by some help from Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell the film was completed, dividing up Ledger’s part amongst these three seasoned actors. Beautiful but structurally flawed, the film has been undoubtedly scarred by the loss. How much of Gilliam’s vision has been lost by the reworking is hard to say.

The script for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus came from the brilliantly quirky minds of Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, a partnership that sprouted Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Taking inspiration from the tale of Faust, the catalyst for the film’s action is a pact with the Devil (Tom Waits). Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) possesses an ability to guide people’s imaginations. This gift has been developed into a rag-tag travelling circus of sorts, the Imaginarium of the film’s title. Parnassus is accompanied by his exquisite daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), Percy (Verne Troyer) his cynical sidekick and Anton (Andrew Garfield) the underappreciated tout for the Imaginarium’s performances.

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click here to read my full review at Trespass