The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

So we come to the third and final film instalment of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Following feisty hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and tenacious journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), the trilogy has gone from murder mystery (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) to a political conspiracy (The Girl Who Played With Fire). The final film gives Lisbeth, who has been falsely accused, a chance to clear her name and expose the men who have been plotting to keep her silent for years.

Starting with a very brief recap, the third film swings straight into action; and given the film’s large cast of players it is certainly an advantage to have read the books. While subplots have been necessarily pared down or omitted, director Daniel Alfredson (brother of Tomas ‘Let The Right One In’ Alfredson) does make some odd choices at times, including partial sequences from the book that hang rather uselessly in the film due to their lack of context.

While director Niels Arden Oplev started the trilogy off with a bang, sadly the second film (also directed by Alfredson) failed to capture the freshness and excitement of the material. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest is an improvement on his last effort, but Alfredson still seems to be lacking a cinematic vision. This film feels more like a long TV episode than a feature film.

In a series that champions the power of women, with strong female characters, it is no surprise that the film’s major strength is Noomi Rapace. Playing the complex heroine Lisbeth, a role that is light on dialogue, Rapace conveys a huge amount of emotion with her eyes, giving us the character’s fury and fear.

The Millennium Trilogy’s Swedish telling has been a mixed bag that ultimately hasn’t lived up to the promise of the books. Given that David Fincher (The Social Network), a director renowned for his distinct visual style, is in charge of the English-language version of this trilogy, will this be one of those rare instances where the American remake is an improvement on the original?

2.5/5

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First published in The Brag 28/02/11

Review: Burlesque

Burlesque is a form of performance art that mixes parody with adult entertainment. Saucy and fun, burlesque traditionally involves singing, mime, dancing and comedy, as well as striptease. Bearing this in mind, Burlesque is perhaps the most inappropriately titled film of recent times. Lacking humour and titillation this musical bears more resemblance to a Pussy Cat Dolls music video than to a Dita von Teese performance.

Audiences expecting a cinema experience akin to Paul Verhoeven’s, so bad it’s good masterpiece, Showgirls are going to be disappointed. Where Verhoeven went overboard on the kitsch, Burlesque’s writer/director Steven Antin (who incidentally is the brother of Pussy Cat Dolls’ creator, and has directed several PCD music videos) has pulled back completely on the ‘adult’ themes. The film’s M rating is probably unnecessary, under-15s will have seen more risqué content watching Video Hits on Saturday mornings as they tuck into their cornflakes.

Burlesque’s storyline sees small-town waitress, Ali (Christina Aguilera), head to the big smoke (LA) to try and make her dreams of becoming a singer a reality. In LA Ali comes across The Burlesque Lounge, which is owned by Tess (Cher). Enchanted by this strange and glamorous club and its staff and entertainers, Ali talks her way into a job as a cocktail waitress. Befriended by the club’s bartender and struggling musician Jack (Cam Gigandet), Ali is determined to make it on the stage.

Big voiced songstress, Aguilera makes a perfectly adequate actress, but she lacks the natural charisma needed to drive a film. Cher as the ‘mentor’ figure has a certain amount of charm, but not enough to sell the awful dialogue she’s been lumped with. Alan Cummings and Stanley Tucci phone-in their performances as club host and stage manager, and still prove to be the highlights of the film.

The real problem with this movie- aside from its tone and avoidance of burlesque content- is the ‘musical’ aspect. You can excuse a weak storyline, it is almost expected in a film like this, but it is unforgiveable to have a completely forgettable soundtrack. The musical numbers, over-produced Bob Fosse knock-offs, are actually quite boring and leaving the cinema you’ll be hard-pressed to remember a single song.

What should have been a camp triumph of singing, dancing and suggestive humour has sadly been over-sanitized and completely dumbed down. It’s hard to see how Burlesque will please any of its intended audiences.

1.5/5

First published in The Brag 10/01/11

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Somewhere

Filmmaker Sofia Coppola is exceedingly accomplished in creating mood. Mixing a languid plot pace with very pretty visuals and chilled out soundtracks, her films, like the Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, are as much about generating an atmosphere as telling a story.

Coppola’s fourth film Somewhere is no different. Filmed on location at the legendary Hollywood hotel Chateau Marmont (situated on Sunset Boulevard) with a music score from frequent collaborators, French band Phoenix, Somewhere is set in the world of films and fame, but is very much focused on the reality of this seemingly glitzy existence. Stephen Dorff (Blade) stars as Johnny Marco, an actor numbed by drugs, booze and women. Marco is between projects, when his 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning) turns up to stay, somewhat unexpectedly, causing him to re-examine his life.

Somewhere is nowhere near as moralistic as the synopsis sounds. Coppola who wrote the screenplay is familiar with this world, the daughter of a famous director (Francis Ford Coppola) the film’s scenes of press conferences and award ceremonies seem awkward enough to be realistic. Add to this Dorff’s backstory as an actor- slipping from a promising early career to B-grade fare- and this film has a fascinating meta-fiction quality.

Dorff, proving he deserves to be in more films like this, provides an excellent emotional centre to the film, allowing you to care about a character who should be highly unpleasant. The father/daughter dynamic in the film doesn’t feel forced, Fanning is a natural in front of the camera, providing a perfect counterweight to Dorff’s more introspective performance. Chris Pontius, who is best known for his role in Jackass, cheekily improvises his way through the role of Sammy, Marco’s friend, and is kind of great.

Somewhere’s slow pace isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste or attention spans, but if you allow this film to cast its spell over you, you’ll still be basking in the afterglow as you leave the cinema. Thoughtful, poetic and evocative, it isn’t hard to see why Somewhere won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.

4/5

First Published in The Brag 20/12/2010

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Love and Other Drugs

Reuniting Brokeback Mountain actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway on screen should be a cause for celebration; unfortunately, this woefully trite and boring film has sullied the occasion. Ostensibly based on Jamie Reidy’s nonfiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, this film is an adaptation in the very loosest sense of the word, with the screenwriters (director Edward Zwick, Charles Randolph and Marshall Herskovitz) turning the rise of big pharma companies into a romantic comedy.

Jamie Randall (Gyllenhaal) is a loveable rogue; good with ladies but bad at keeping a job. The underachiever in his family, he is convinced by his brother (Josh Gad) to take a position at Pfizer as a sales rep. Jamie is sent to Ohio where he must convince doctors to prescribe the depression drug Zoloft over Prozac. Jamie’s life takes a turn when he meets free spirit and Parkinson’s sufferer Maggie (Hathaway).

Set in the 90s around the time that Viagra was released on the market by Pfizer, Love and Other Drugs misses the mark on many counts. The filmmakers apparently deemed the real story of an overpaid, slacker drug rep in over-prescribed America as either too boring or too hard a sell. Instead, they (rather cynically) inject the Maggie character into the plot, hijacking a story worth telling and turning it into an unoriginal romance.

Gyllenhaal and Hathaway will leave this film unscathed because the likeable stars do a good job with what they have been given. The film basically asks them to be an attractive couple, which is what they do.Oliver Platt as Jamie’s mentor and Hank Azaria as a womanising doctor are shamefully underutilised in the film. In contrast Gad (who seems to have been hired as a Jonah Hill impersonator) is painfully overused as Jamie’s grotesque younger brother.

Lacking the sardonic wit or necessary bite to pull off a rom-com based in the world of pharmaceuticals, Love and Other Drugs is a very disappointing pill to swallow.

1.5/5

First Published in The Brag 13/12/2010

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Monsters

The independently-made sci-fi films that have been popping up over the last two years have more than proved that smaller films in this genre can compete, and in some cases completely outclass, the studio-funded big guns. Monsters is one such example, beautifully crafted from a tiny budget (reported to be anything from $15,000 to $500,000), with a miniscule cast (two professional actors) and a crew of four, including creator, director and cinematographer Gareth Edwards (making his feature film debut).

A road movie, a love story and a travelogue, Monsters is not much like a sci-fi film at all. Taking a unique spin on alien invasion, the film’s premise has similarities to District 9, with alien life forms taking up residence on Earth, in an area that is economically deprived. But here is where the comparison ends; Monsters treads a very different path, creating an engaging and poetically humanistic film.

The story takes place in the ‘Infected Zone’ of northern Mexico, as an unlikely pair of travellers try to make their way northwards – and homewards – to the United States: photojournalist Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) and his boss’s daughter, Sam (Whitney Able), who he has reluctantly agreed to escort. The film’s success owes a huge amount to the chemistry between its two leads, a couple in real life. While this is an obvious advantage, the quality of their performances shouldn’t be underestimated.

Monsters is a good-looking film, with Edwards creating a lovely visual lyricism from Central American landscapes. As the person behind the special effects he has also created magic in post-production, providing the all-important extra-terrestrial action.

With clever political undertones, an affecting love story and gigantic squid-like aliens, Monsters may just be the best sci-fi film of 2010.

4/5

First published in The Brag 30/11/2010

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Due Date

In Due Date successful architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr) is stuck making a cross-country road trip with wannabe-actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis), after they are both thrown off a plane flight by an over-zealous Air Marshall. On a strict deadline, and with his wallet and passport still on the plane, Peter opts to hop a lift with Ethan, in order to get back to LA in time for the birth of his first child, with wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan). Along the way Peter learns about fatherhood and friendship from his eccentric travel buddy, through a series of incidents that includes masturbating dogs, violence against children, and various car wrecks.

With its gross-out humour and overly manipulated set-ups, Due Date is more cringe-worthy than humorous. The film feels like it has been pieced together from the leftover scraps of funnier, more entertaining films. The writers appear to have a checklist of comedy props – annoying child, ugly pugdog, angry war veteran, scary Mexican immigration officials – that they were obliged to mould into a coherent storyline. Any attempt by the filmmakers to say anything even vaguely true about fatherhood or friendship appears tacked on, as if the only way they can get away with the series of idiotic jokes is to inject in the odd emotional revelation.

What is most disappointing is that Due Date hasn’t been made by talentless hacks, and doesn’t have a second-rate cast. Downey Jr. and Galifianakis could and should have made a more appealing pair for a buddy film, but director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) hasn’t been able to balance the pairing at all, and both come off as highly unlikeable characters. Obviously playing on The Hangover riff that did so well last time, Phillips is too reliant on Galifianakis as a visual gag.

Saying all this, the film has already made back its budget of $65 million at the US box office, with a pretty hefty bit of change on top of that. So there is definitely an audience for this film, and (knowing the laws of Hollywood) an even more depressing sequel is probably already in the pipeline.

1.5/5

First published in The Brag 30/11/2010

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Josh Fox Interview

An interesting episode in the life of Josh Fox

Josh Fox, US documentary-maker and current mouthpiece of the anti-natural gas drilling movement, has been on what he calls “an exhausting and comprehensive” tour with his film, GasLand. Launching screenings with local grassroot organisations across America and then travelling to Australia for Q&As in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, Fox’s role is one firmly stuck between filmmaker and activist. Tired but still obviously spurred on by the environmental damage he’s seen and the threat to his own home, Fox is determined to continue spreading the message of the film.

GasLand is part exposé, part personal travelogue. The project began when Fox received a letter from a gas company offering $100,000 to lease part of his family’s upstate New York estate for exploration. Instead of signing on the bottom line like many of his neighbours Fox- a theatre director and part-time banjo player- decided to investigate the natural gas industry. “I was in the middle of a raging debate in my area between people who wanted this development and people who didn’t, and I just wanted to find out who was right.”

At the outset of his journey Fox was oblivious to the extend of the damage that hydraulic fracturing (a process for drilling for gas) was causing across America. It was a trip to the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania (shown in the film) that spurred Fox on to action. Interviews with residents there revealed flammable drinking water polluted by chemicals involved in the drilling process and massive health problems caused by toxic emissions. Fox felt terrified.

“I came home [after visiting Dimock] and I couldn’t sleep for a month, I still can’t sleep sometimes when I think about it, because I feel the walls closing in and I feel like I might have to leave.” Indeed, Fox's greatest fear is that he may not ultimately be able to halt the drilling process. “Here I am down in the valley, a lot of the property up on the hill, to the north side is leased. My immediate neighbours to my left and to my right are not leased, but what if they sell their house and the next person leases? … Even if they just drill the properties up on the hill, all those toxic emissions, and I know what they are, are going to waft down and collect in the valley.”

Watching GasLand it is hard not to feel outraged and angry. The film shows how gas companies in the US have been allowed to by-pass environmental laws. But despite all of his alarming and depressing findings you never see Fox angry in the film, which is surprising. “I think I am in shock myself a little bit about that, I think I am really deeply angry, I don’t think that is the way to express it though.” Fox pauses before continuing “Here is the thing, I think you have to leave space for your audience to make up their own mind… GasLand is a series of questions, put forward from a reasonable perspective, and it is in the audience’s hands to figure out what they need to do or what they think. You’ve got to come charging in at the end of the movie, not me, I’m already charging.”

Converting audience outrage into action isn’t easily done, but this filmmakers isn’t shy about pointing the way. “I think people have to be in the streets protesting about this, in the major cities. I think you have to have, at the locations, civil disobedience. The popular opinion has to turn and say ‘no, we are citizens of this country and we really want to examine this before industry comes in and decides to buys out our continent and our government’. At the beginning of the process I was really interested in preserving my land and my house, now the most important objective to me is to move the Earth towards renewable energy. Its about all of us investing in the great change that is to come, which is to get off fossil fuels. And natural gas is dirty just like fossil fuels.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fox has attracted a smear campaign determined to discredit both him and the film. “A lot of people have said ‘hey you are getting to them, they’re attacking you’. But it sucks. Here is the thing that bothers me about it, what they [gas companies] are saying is so obviously a lie, they are lying through their teeth. I would like to see journalists challenge them on their lies instead of me having to deal with it. When they come out and say ‘We’re not exempt from the Safe Drinking Act’ the rudimentary level journalist could just look it up and see they are lying. And if they try and put that question to me, the journalists should chime in and say ‘sorry we know you are lying’. That’s is the part of it that pisses me off, the fact that they are able to hit one spin cycle in the media and disrupt the conversation with something that is such an obvious untruth.”

Becoming the mouthpiece of a cause certainly doesn’t come without its problems, but Fox with his wry sense of humour, seems to be coping. “The film has put the human face on this issue, on gas drilling…For me it is a really interesting rollercoaster. Isn’t this an interesting episode in the life of Josh Fox, I wonder what will happen next?”

First published in The Brag 15/11/10

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The American

For his sophomore film, Dutch director Anton Corbijn (Control) gives us a slow-paced Euro-thriller, adapted from Martin Booth's novel A Very Private Gentleman. The central character has been changed from British to American, with George Clooney cast against type. Filmed largely in the stunning Abruzzo region of Italy The American is visually impressive, but light on substance.

Jack (Clooney) is a hitman/gunsmith who begins the film in Sweden, where he commits as act of violence that will haunt him throughout the rest of the film. Escaping to Italy he hides out in a small countryside town and takes on a new assignment for a mysterious client (Thekla Teuten, In Bruges). The town's elderly priest (Paolo Bonacelli) quickly sizes Jack up as someone whose soul is in torment, and tries to befriend him, but Jack is a little more interested in getting to know Clara (Violente Placido), a beautiful and vivacious prostitute. However the quaint old town is full of dark, cobbled, maze-like alleyways and Jack, who is unable to escape his past, is constantly on guard for enemies lurking in the shadows.

Clooney, rightly or wrongly, is associated with characters that are charismatic and amiable. Jack, on the other hand, is solemn and cold; too hard a character to care about, not because of his immoral choices but because we find out so little about him during the course of the film.

The American suffers from being too earnest and relying on a heavy amount of visual symbolism, struggling to find a suitable way to express the film's message without banging the audience over the head with it. Corbijn's lack of subtlety as a filmmaker means that when he does make smart choices he is unable to do so without pointing it out to his audience, spoiling the magic somewhat. Corbijn coming from the world of photography and music videos certainly knows how to make a visually engaging film, but he hasn't quite learned how to tell a good story yet.

2.5/5

First published in The Brag 8/11/2010

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