I LIKE TO WATCH

Forgiveness

2005-07-31T15:40:00.000+10:00

"You don't want to be forgiven. You want to be punished!" is yelled at ex-cop Tertius Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo, The Mummy) during one of many fiery clashes with the family of Daniel, a young black man Tertius admitted to killing during South Africa's Apartheid. In Forgiveness, the first feature directed by Ian Gabriel, a difficult subject is explored objectively from both sides where there are no easy answers.

Coetzee has travelled to the small fishing village of Paternoster and, with the aid of a local priest, Father Dalton and under the immunity of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he attempts to explain himself to the Grootboom family. The colours of the film are muted and washed out. There's very little life left in this fishing village where the catch gets smaller each year and the only way forward may be for the locals to sell their homes to wealthy white people to use as holiday shacks.

As Coetzee, Vosloo depicts a once strong, powerful man weighed down by his own conscience, kept awake by nightmares of torture and determined to face his guilt. But it is the performance of Quanita Adams as the sister of Daniel that stands out. Her anger at this stranger who has come to her house is deftly handled, and the journey she takes from there is beautifully realised.

Forgiveness rates 3 1/2 stars.

Clean

2005-07-31T15:35:00.000+10:00

There's a terrible saying: It takes two to be co-dependant. But that's exactly the kind of relationship between Lee Hauser and Emily Wang (James Johnston and Maggie Cheung) in the engrossing Olivier Assayas film Clean. Lee is a somewhat successful musician, but his best music and his money are a thing of the past. When Lee dies of a heroin overdose in a seedy Canadian motel room, his friends and the media blame Emily's influence as the major factor in his downfall.

Nick Nolte, who seems to be enjoying the plethora of weathered, gruff roles that are coming his way, plays Lee's father and de facto parent to Lee and Emily's son, Jay. After serving six months in jail for drug possession, Emily distracts herself by moving to Paris and doing whatever work she can find, convincing herself that she's making the changes that will see her reunited with her son.

Drug rehabilitation films come along quite frequently. Nick Nolte himself kicked heroin in 2002's The Good Thief and then robbed a casino, but Clean is a more human story. The character of Emily is strongly defined and thoroughly explored. We get a real sense of her life and how she's grown in to her current existence.

Filmed in three countries, mostly on hand-held cameras, and in as many languages, Clean is a visually exciting film with a great documentary feel. Along with the realistic performances, especially from the excellent Cheung, the film has a wonderful energy that pulls the audience along. We want Emily to clean up her act so she can get her son back, but it's evident that an ordinary lifestyle isn't for her.

Clean rates 4 stars.

Keane

2005-07-31T15:31:00.000+10:00

The opening scene of Lodge Kerrigan’s film Keane depicts the heart-wrenching desperation and despair of a man, William Keane (Damien Lewis) unreasonably trying to garner information from ticketing staff at the bus station where his six-year-old daughter disappeared several months previously. There’s just no way. It’s the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal and they can’t be expected to remember the little girl in the purple jacket.

Lewis’ brilliantly nuanced performance of the schizophrenic Keane is the backbone of the entire film. He’s in every scene, with the first twenty minutes of the film being an almost lone-hand performance as Keane attempts to follow the fragmented, invented path of where his daughter may have gone that day.

Thoughts of the Sean Penn directed The Pledge immediately came to mind when Keane befriends a struggling mother and her seven year-old-daughter (Amy Ryan and Abigail Breslin) at the transient hotel where he’s moved to in order to be close to the area. He shows interest in the daughter, and there’s a tremendous sense of dread as to what form of relationship will develop as Keane struggles to maintain his sanity.

The film creates a remarkable sense empathy created for this man who we see at times behave violently and irrationally and I don’t think I’ve ever felt an audience will a character to do the right thing as I did with this film. You want him to pull himself together, to wrench himself from the absolute anguish that is evident in every subtle gesture made. An extraordinary performance in a gripping thriller.

Keane rates 4 1/2 stars.

The Take

2005-07-31T15:28:00.000+10:00

Naomi Klein, author of the bestselling anti-globalisation tome No Logo has in recent years become the lambasting, left wing, talking-head of choice for news panel discussions and documentaries (The Corporation). It was on such a cable news program that Klein was repeatedly pressed for solutions to what she said were the problems of economic globalisation (something she wasn’t prepared for).

Determined to find answers she subsequently found herself in Argentina with journalist Avi Lewis as they investigated how workers in the recently bankrupted country are taking back their jobs and their rights in The Take.

The recent success of theatrically released documentaries comes as no surprise when you consider that long form journalistic stories are pretty much absent from our TV screens, (at least on the commercial networks) and audiences are craving more than a three minute surface scan of a story. In The Take, Lewis and Klein meet a group of Buenos Aires factory workers who have decided that the value of their closed parts factory to be sold-off is equal to the wages they are owed and have decided to take it over and start producing. Their motto: “Occupy, Resist, Produce” is an echo of action taking place in bankrupted factories all over the once burgeoning middle-class country.

After setting the scene early on, Klein and Lewis take a back seat and allow the workers to tell their story, (which is extraordinarily affecting at times) whilst manufacturing a case against the types of IMF economic reforms that brought this once striving nation to its knees. They demonstrate the ability of the people to affect political change, and if nothing else The Take should certainly implant a couple of questions in the mind of viewers in regards to our own government’s stripping away of worker’s rights.

The Take rates 3 1/2 stars.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005-06-11T00:22:00.000+10:00

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

If your home planet has just been destroyed and you find yourself transported aboard a hostile alien spacecraft, then you might require some information as to your new surroundings. Fortunately for anyone finding themselves in such a situation there’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, an easy to follow manual for those on the move throughout the universe.
For Arthur Dent, Martin Freeman (The Office), spending the morning laying in front of a bulldozer that’s attempting to build a bypass through his home, quickly becomes a moot point when his neighbour and friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def) informs Arthur that he is both an alien and that the planet has been slated for destruction in twelve minutes in order to build an intergalactic super-highway.
With grand themes of life, the universe and everything, Hitchhiker’s occasionally dips into sappy sentimentality, but it doesn’t linger there long, and it’s the wonderful silly British sense of humour shines through from beginning to end.
While he didn’t live to see his endeavours, Hitchhiker’s was written by Douglas Adams, and has already been a successful radio series, a trilogy of four books that sold in the millions and a six part television series. So there had to be something new for the old fans while not alienating any new ones and they pull it off.
There’s more action, snappier dialogue, and the fantastic Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the dim-witted, narcissistic president of the galaxy.
The advances in special effects technology add to the realism of the project without becoming burdensome and along with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop they’ve come up with some wonderful looking aliens and worlds to fill the screen.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a wild nutty ride and it rates 4 1/2 stars.

The Year In Brief

2005-04-14T18:18:00.000+10:00

Closer - 5 stars. Dialogue to die for. Direction from a master. The other Julia Roberts. The rest of the cast. Ideas. You'll talk about it afterwards for sure.

Sideways - 4 stars. Cack-your-dacks time.

The Motorcycle Diaries - 4 1/2 stars. Compelling, beautifully realised biopic that doesn't try to cover a lifetime (Ray).

Hotel Rwanda - 3 1/2 stars. The West's secret shame, a secret no more.

Milllion Dollar Baby - 2 1/2 stars. The first two acts are the stuff of sporting movie cliche, (watch Girlfight instead).

House of Flying Daggers - 2 stars. Half the film Hero is. Relies too heavilly on CGI.

The Life Aqquatic with Steve Zissou - 4 1/2 stars. The right amount of quirk, great jokes and a brilliant cast.

Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst - 3 stars. Not as good as last year's The Weather Underground, but bizarre and fascinating real events unfolding in front of the world.

Bad Santa

2005-02-09T18:12:00.000+11:00

Bad Santa
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

The true meaning of the spirit of Christmas is well-worn cinema territory, and thank Christ that Bad Santa is nowhere in the realm of family holiday cheer. In fact if your kids are the kind who still leave out cookies and milk for the fat guy, then keep them well away from this hilarious gem.
Director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World) pulls no punches in his depiction of an alcoholic Santa who hates children and his equally foul-mouthed elf (Tony Cox) who each year work in a different shopping mall, before robbing the place of it's holiday takings on Christmas eve.
Santa Clause (Billy Bob Thornton, A Simple Plan) is on the slippery slope to alcoholic oblivion, soiling himself more often than the spoilt children who sit on his lap each day. However firing the duo is impossible for the store manager (the late John Ritter), as his elf is not only a "little person", but he's also black.
Things get interesting for Santa when two people enter his life. He finds himself, between swearing fits, having to placate an 8-year-old boy who believes he really is Santa; and a barmaid (Lauren Graham, Gilmore Girls), who has a thing for guys in the red suit.
With a nosey store detective (Bernie Mac, Oceans 11), sniffing around, and in a film where Santa has exactly zero redeeming qualities, you can be sure this bad boy isn't ending like other Christmas favourites; Miracle on 34th Street, or The Santa Clause.
The script is hilarious, Billy Bob is pitch-perfect, and the story flies by while the jokes keep rolling. Bad Santa is brilliant and bawdy and shows us what the true meaning of Christmas really is. (Commercialised robbery).

Bad Santa rates 4 1/2 stars.

Napoleon Dynamite

2005-02-09T18:10:00.000+11:00

Napoleon Dynamite
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

The most quotable film of the year is undoubtedly Napoleon Dynamite. The small budget, small-town film by Jared Hess started life as a low-budget short. It's now a low-budget feature, and cult favourite among those who love a genuine flea-bitten, three-legged underdog.
Like a less caustic version of the Todd Solondz teen-angst film Welcome To The Dollhouse, Napoleon Dynamite is a brightly coloured, badly dressed, and poorly accessorised characterization of the type of geeks society pushes into the high-school lockers of life.
Napoleon (Jon Hedder) is in high-school, likes drawing pictures of a supposedly mythical half lion/half tiger creature he calls a Liger, believes in developing his nun-chuck skills to impress the ladies, and has the boldest male perm this side of the 80's.
Beginning life as a short film appears to have impacted the film in terms of structure and is still a relatively short 86 minutes. Napoleon is in essence a succession of sketches building on each other rather than a coherent feature film. It is in effect a feature-length sitcom, except funnier than anything you'll see on television anytime soon.
All the teen movie plot devices are there to be played with: A girl, a prom, a student president race, authority figures who don't understand and Napoleon front and center as the school looser. The difference to other examples of the genre is that Napoleon has not one ounce of diffidence. In fact he's over-confident and constantly rolling his eyes at the losers he's surrounded by.
Napoleon Dynamite is laugh for laugh one of the funniest films of the year, including a brilliant A-Team action sequence that will blow you away.

Napoleon Dynamite rates 3 1/2 stars.

Garden State

2005-02-09T15:22:00.000+11:00

Garden State
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

Estranged from his mother and father for ten years, part-time actor, part-time waiter Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff, TV's Scrubs) returns home for his mother's funeral. Avoiding confrontation with his distant, psychologist father (Ian Holm), Largeman reconnects with his old New Jersey friends, and starts to experience life for the first time in a long time without the aid of the antidepressants he's been prescribed since early adolescence.
Whilst waiting for an appointment to see a doctor about his persistent headaches he meets Samantha (Natalie Portman, The Professional), a fellow chemically unbalanced person with whom there is immediate chemistry. His former best friend (Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass), now a gravedigger/robber takes Largeman and the younger Samantha on a guided tour of a place that used to feel like home.
First time writer/director Braff has, with the help of a stellar cast, crafted an insightful, black comedy. The camera work is inventive without being over-ambitious whilst trying to convey Largeman's sense of being alone in a crowded room and evolving sense of isolation, as he explores who he is, how he got here, and where he might be going.
Garden State is a sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes hilarious journey of self-discovery, accompanied by one of the best movie soundtracks to come out in the last year.
There is a sense of hope for each of these characters. Success, we find, doesn't really come in large doses. It's subjective and impossible to judge without looking closely, and Braff doesn't judge his characters. Like Largeman he is content to observe these people with fresh eyes and to try to understand.

Garden State rates 3 1/2 stars.

The Notebook

2004-10-27T01:44:00.000+10:00

The Notebook
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

If you need to score points with your girlfriend by going to a tear-jerking romantic movie and enjoying it, here's how:
Buy two tickets to Nick Cassavetes' film The Notebook, then visit your local bottle shop, and pick up a pocket sized bottle of your favourite booze.
The game that you'll be playing is simple; every time you recognise one of the planet sized cliches being thrown at you, take a swig.
Here's a few you can't miss:
There's a rich girl and a poor boy. They're meant to be together, but outside forces threaten to tear them apart. He (Ryan Gossling) doesn't fit in her (Rachel McAdams) high-class world, and her over-bearing mother (Joan Allen) won't see her daughter fall in love with a boy from the other side of the tracks.
As their one perfect summer draws to a close the couple fight, and the girl is dragged back to her upper-class world. He writes her every day for a year apologising, but alas the mother again intervenes, as does WW2, and a tremendously bad battle scene where his best-buddy dies in his arms.
You can make your own list, but chances are you'll get through that bottle pretty quickly, so do your best to stay alert. You'll have plenty of comforting to do when the lights come up as the second half really steps up a gear and you could be drowned in a sea of sentimentality and grand gestures of love. Your behavior here could determine the course of the rest of the evening.
Yes, the scenes with James Garner and Gena Rowlands lift this exercise to an acceptable level, and Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gossling have a great chemistry and aren't bad to look at, but you will need the booze. It's not terrible by any means, but there's nothing great about it either.
The Notebook rates 2 and a 1/2 stars.

Steamboy

2004-10-26T23:00:00.000+10:00

Steamboy
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

A large part of the West's fascination with Asian cinema has been its distinct storytelling and visual style. Steamboy disappointingly has neither.
As the title suggests, Steamboy is a film about steam and a boy. Set in the 19th century, the awesome power that is about to be unleashed through steam and the use of brilliant yet disturbed scientific minds, is an allegory for the nuclear arms race.
The story involves a young boy, Ray, who has been entrusted by his grandfather with a steam-powered invention that he can't let fall into the wrong hands. Everyone is after him, and he can trust anyone, perhaps even his own father.
It was a curious decision of the distributors to screen an animated feature, where the action takes place in England with a cast of Caucasian characters, amidst the industrial revolution, with a Japanese language sound track and English subtitles.
As we have come to expect from Japanese animation houses, Steamboy is visually spectacular and intricate detail, but at over two hours in duration it falls noticeably short on substance.
While Steamboy is obviously a Japanese production which was made for a Japanese audience, it is quite annoying to see English characters completely devoid of any Englishness, which equates to fertile comedic ground that is completely ignored.
There are a few tense moments early on in the piece, but things become more and more ridiculous as Otomo, (Japanime classic Akira) tries to continually up the pace by throwing bigger and louder explosions, as the if he'd spent the last few years at the Michael Bay 'more is more' school of action cinema.
It is curious to see a film which has been made with such painstaking care and attention to detail whilst resting its laurels on a wafer thin plot.
The characters are supposedly driven by their intense relationships, none of which are given time to establish and are therefore unbelievable.
Good and evil ambiguity, and loyalty are themes littered throughout Asian cinema, yet in Steamboy they are, for lack of a better word; cartoonish.
The one redeeming feature of Steamboy is the interesting subplot that less than subtly criticizes the American military industrial machine.
Steamboy is a visual feast, and rates 2 stars.

Before Sunset

2004-10-05T20:40:00.000+10:00

before sunset
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

Before Sunset is that rarest of commodities, a sequel made for reasons other than a cash-in on previous success.
Nine years after the release Before Sunrise, director Richard Linklater (Tape, Waking Life) has thrust together Jesse (Ethan Hawk) and Celine (Julie Delpy) to again walk around a picturesque European city, this time Paris, discussing where their lives have gone, and ponder where they might go from here.
Written by Delpy, Hawk and Linklater this is a philosophical musing about life, the paths we choose and the paths that choose us.
Hawk is a novelist who has written a book about their previous encounter and is at the end of a European press junket when Delpy appears in the bookshop window.
We watch as they re-build their trust through small revelations, Jesse apologetic and eager to please, while Celine is more coy, having read a newspaper article about Jesse's life with his wife and daughter.
There is a real sense of chemistry to this couple, who after an initial awkwardness, fall into the comfortable patter and playful flirtations of their previous Vienna stroll.
Despite having both moved on with their lives (Celine has a boyfriend), they have each been trapped by what they remember as that one perfect night they shared nine years ago.
With simple camera work and a simple story, Before Sunset is a simple joy. It's a joy to see a film that is concerned with people, and with decisions that aren't life and death, but are none-the-less life altering.
Before Sunset is joyous and wonderful and will leave you wanting more of this wonderful couple, and a romantic stroll through the streets of Paris.

Before Sunset rates 4 stars

The Village

2004-10-03T19:51:00.000+10:00

the-village-poster
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

You know there's going to be a twist and that's why most people shucked out their twelve bucks for M. Night Shyalaman's fourth film The Village. And if you see this film and are disappointed then I think you're just asking for a little too much.
With more than a little nod toward Danny Boyle's "The Beach", The Village is about the holding together of an idyllic but fragile agrarian community as the sinister world outside threatens to encroach.
Shyamalan (director, writer, cameo) has pulled together a wonderful cast who absolutely eat up the difficult nineteenth century dialogue without it ever becoming distractingly obvious. And it is good dialogue, that traverses everything from ideological speeches, to grand statements, uncomfortable confessions of love, and intimate moments.
The real surprise in this film is the discovery of talent within the Howard household. Bryce Dallas Howard (Ivy), daughter of pedestrian director Ron, (Ed TV, Backdraft) delivers a stunning performance as a blind girl who of course has a wisdom beyond her years and physical abilities. She provides to be a personal challenge for the taciturn Lucius (Joaquin Pheonix), a village elder in waiting and love interest, they are where the real movie is happening.
Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt also stand out as elder members of the pilgrim community trying to best handle a crisis which threatens to destroy their community. It is the fear that comes from what is close and not understood (the war on terror), rather than the 'impending destruction' films of the past decade.
Shyalaman has proven himself to be a technically excellent filmmaker, more than adept at adapting his own material, and unlike the more plodding Unbreakable, the tension and anxiety are maintained as well as the pace, and there are of course the plot turns that we've come to expect.
Into the woods.

Three and a half stars.

The Bourne Supremacy

2004-09-08T02:54:00.000+10:00

poster2_full
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

Matt Damon is back for another round as Jason Bourne, with a new director, Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) and a smart, fast paced script that takes us from India to Italy, Germany, Russia and the US in The Bourne Supremacy.
Greengrass uses the same hand-held camera techniques which gave Bloody Sunday its ultra-real documentary feel. This is an extremely effective and increasingly popular way (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovic) of presenting a more realistic feel of a film to the audience in order to 'soften' a situation which would otherwise seem absurd.
007 producers take note: international spy thrillers don't have to be an exercise in special effects, stumbling from ridiculous set-piece to ridiculous set-piece with a never ending body-count and cost a couple of hundred million dollars to be successful and engaging.
Taking up where The Bourne Identity left off, with Bourne, still suffering from amnesia, and girlfriend, Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) trying to stay off the radar and well out of the sight of the CIA, now living a simple life on a beach in India. But of course this peaceful existence has to come to an end, and does so as a result of Bourne being framed for the deaths of two CIA agents in Berlin, and having his own life targeted.
Bourne is a pragmatist and is not at all used to dealing with conflict verbally, his unease with people is evident, as well as his confusion with the circumstances revolving around the agents he's supposedly killed.
Joan Allen (The Contender) and Brian Cox (Adaptation, 25th Hour) do most of the talking in this film, as the CIA heads trying to find Bourne and bring him in.
The script is intelligent, twisting enough to keep the tension running through the unfurling plotlines, which never feels as though it's being spelt out.
Oliver Wood's camera work appears in the slower/dialogue scenes to be a little too shaky with no reason to be, but all is forgiven as soon as the action builds and reaches a frenetic pace by films-end with the brilliant car chase through the streets of Moscow, (don't forget to blink).
The second sequel to outdo its predecessor this year (Spiderman 2), The Bourne Supremacy is one hell of a good ride and rates 4 Stars

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS

2004-09-08T01:47:00.000+10:00

LDPS01
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

When director Stephen Hopkins approached Geoffrey Rush (Shine, Quills) to take on the title roll in the film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers he was understandably apprehensive. He'd be in every scene as the tormented comic actor, as well as portraying many of the iconic characters Peter Sellers created, and then he'd be asked at times to play some of the key characters in his personal life as well.
If it came off then Mr Rush could be well expected to start polishing his shoes and practicing self-deprecating remarks for the upcoming awards season.
Rush manages to pull all this off, and then some. As well as his uncanny performance of Sellers himself, the scenes in which Rush plays Dr Strangelove and Inspector Cleusau are pure delight.
There are other actors, notably Charlize Theron (Monster) as Britt Eckland and Emily Watson as his first wife Anne, but they come and go, merely providing a sounding board of sanity for Sellers childish antics and tantrums to bounce off.
The early years of Sellers radio career as one of the Goons along with Spike Milligan (Edward Tudor Pole) and Harry Secombe (Steve Pemberton) is glossed over rather quickly, it's from when his film career and ego really began to take off the makers were interested in. And the difficulty of finding someone on the planet who resembled the gaunt and gangly Milligan appears to have been nigh on impossible.
Wonderfully torturous scenes such as those when Sellers believes himself to be in the midst of a torrid affair with the unrequiting and happily married Sophia Loren (Sonia Aquino), provide a real glimpse into a severely scarred psyche.
His mother manipulates him, his wives manage him, his directors suffer him and his psychic rips him off, but in the end do we care? Hopkins does such a terrific job at establishing how much of an insufferable bastard Sellers was that it's difficult to have any empathy towards him, and he's in every frame.
As Sellers himself points out, if he doesn't have a character play, then there isn't much else there. In the end we're left with quite a lot of screen time of Sellers treating people, especially his children, horribly.
Three and a half stars

CONTROL ROOM

2004-09-07T01:02:00.000+10:00

controlroom2.1
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

Al-Jazeera is the Arab world's answer to CNN, and with 40 million viewers worldwide it is a major influence upon public opinion the region, though it is dismissed by the current White House administration as merely, 'the mouthpiece of Osama Bin-Laden'.
Control Room, by Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com), takes us inside and up close with the journalists and news gatherers working for the controversial satellite news giant as US bombs are beginning to fall on Baghdad in March of 2003.
Essentially an inside look at the Arab perspective of the 2nd Gulf War, Control Room at its core is a study of the ethics of journalistic reporting during a time of conflict, evoking those oft used sayings regarding war and the truth.
Noujaim wants to show that when CNN and Fox are televising flashy images of missiles being launched, then Al-Jazeera should not be criticized for showing where they landed, or depicting the human face of the Iraqi people we simply know as 'collateral damage'.
The recent success of documentary films at the cinema, (The Fog of War, Faranheit 9/11), would seem to highlight some of the mistrust audiences have developed for the highly controlled, 'footage and soundbite' news services that our governments have been funnelling their messages through at an increasingly sophisticated level.
Noujaim often uses contrasting footage of criticism being levied at the station from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld for reporting 'lies' and 'propaganda', with acts of editorial integrity and a deeper cultural knowledge of the Arab world, which makes some of the US journalists look positively ignorant.
This is a tightly packaged, well edited film, with engaging characters emerging from all sides of the debate, each of whom are trying to place a war into context for their respective audiences in their lounge rooms each night.

Four Stars