The Week in Review - 28/3/10

The offerings at the cinema are so thin at the moment. I did a bit of research and worked out a few films worth seeing at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, but couldn't work any of them into my schedule. Weekends I've been busy with family and weekdays the screenings just haven't been convenient times. So, I've resorted to DVD: three of them this week.

FILMS:

• A Single Man (Tom Ford, USA, 2009)
• Daguerréotypes (Agnès Varda, France/West Germany, 1975)
• Yo también (Me, Too, Alvaro Pastor/Antonio Naharro, Spain, 2009)
  
• How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlouis/Chris Sanders, USA, 2010)

DVD:

• The Terminator (James Cameron, USA/UK, 1984)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, USA/France, 1991)
• Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski, USA, 2002)

A Single Man
I was planning not to see this film, because the trailer gave the impression that Firth was reprising his glum role in Winterbottom's effective though unremarkable Genova. However, reading Lynden Barber's post on the film, I decided to give it a try and wasn't disappointed.

Yes, Firth is reprising that role, more or less. People have raved about his performance, which is perhaps the best I've seen him - not that that's saying much because he normally imitates a door. Too much is made of an actor's ability to induce tears before the camera. It might be impressive, but it sometimes becomes little more than a party trick (and I'm thinking of Penelope Cruz here).

In this film's case, the acting is fine. What makes the film so watchable, however, is all to do with the film's construct and style and less to do with the acting. I kept thinking of Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - the unconventional approach to how the image is framed and how the story is constructed. The visuals all serve to suck you into the emotions of the story. I don't think it's a substantial film, but definitely worth watching for its unconventionality. It could be accused of style over substance, but I'd say the style is the substance.

Link: Audio interview with Tom Ford

Daguerréotypes
Agnès Varda, documentary, need I say more? The micro-level capturing of a local community, of a life-style perhaps long gone is rivetting. It mirrors thousands or perhaps millions of similar experiences world-wide. I love this woman's work and will jump at any opportunity to see more of it on the big screen. It screened at Melbourne Cinémathèque.

Me, Too
This is the opening night film of La Mirada Film Festival, my favourite Melbourne festival after MIFF and the French Film Festival. It's a curious film in its own right, and moreso as an opening night film - in fact, I'd call that gutsy programming. It blends elements of romantic comedy and black comedy, but is mostly social drama made in a manner that is accessible for a relatively mainstream audience.

Me, Too is unashamedly an 'issue' film, championing the cause of those with Down Syndrome. The story largely follows Daniel (Pablo Pineda) who starts his first job at age 34 in a government social services agency having just completed his university degree. The film challenges preconceptions of those with the condition. The actor factually has it and yet is able to effectively portray the intellect, characteristics and abilities of such a person. It's an impressive accomplishment and certainly challenged my notions.

Laura (Lola Dueñas) is a co-worker with issues of her own that form a tangential story. Both characters are social misfits of very different sorts, and very different backgrounds. While their pairing, so to speak, adds a populist slant to the film, it also serves to further challenge the audience, and there's some anticipation where their relationship might or might not go.

I don't think I'm quite the target audience for Me, Too but found it quite enjoyable nonetheless and appreciated the challenging nature of the story. It's quite ambitious, which is a good thing, but leaves the director with quite a number of threads to manage at the end, which gives the film a slightly overlong ending.

Me, Too opens the La Mirada Film Festival on Thursday 1 April at ACMI. The festival runs to 11 April.

How to Train Your Dragon
This is quite a likeable film, if you're part of the target market. My 9 year old son has read five of the books in the series and he thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not completely faithful to the source material, but is true to the spirit (on his say so - I've not read any of them). I like that the film doesn't market itself on any 'name' actors. The voice actors are all thoroughly competent and enjoyable without a single Tom Hanks, Mike Myers, George Clooney, Cameron Diaz or Miley Cyrus among them - thank god. I usually find the use of celebrities for voice actors a distraction.

This is a Dreamworks production, so you know it's going to be fairly conventional and mainstream. It's full of cliches, but that's not a negative. It is aimed at fans of the book and its lovely visuals don't disappoint - some of the scenes are quite reminiscent of Avatar. For what it's worth, my son gives it five out of five stars, but in his words, "dragons are my favourite fantasy creature". I think it's a good film for primary school age children and younger, and parents should find it enjoyable enough.

The Terminator
I first watched this on video in the early 90s and was struck by the power of the story, and still am. Much has dated in the film, but not necessarily to its detriment. The clothing, hair, makeup, music and colloquialisms all reveal a certain period. The film's special effects are the most dated, but I'm inclined to cut some slack here, because the film has to be looked at in context of time. Just like King Kong (1933) - the SFX are a joke by today's standards, but because the story is so good, and the film employs the best technology of its time, there's a certain reverence one may have for it (well, I do).

Arnie and Linda Hamilton are both so young in this flick, and little is done to Arnie to endear him to us. His hair style is terrible and basically he's just an unstoppable killing machine. There's something particularly terrifying about his character, a cyborg that will stop at nothing, neither bullets, fire nor explosions. His is a primal stereotype, the stuff of nightmares, more like the stuff of the horror genre - like say a zombie or vampire, only scarier. Perhaps this is one of the reasons this story works so well - it combines science fiction with drama, action, suspense and its own brand of horror. As Sarah Connor says, you could go crazy thinking about the logic (because ultimately the logic of it fails), but it's a great concept nonetheless.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Perhaps it's my 52" flat screen television, or my improved powers of observation because this film - long my favourite in the genre (action/SFX/sci-fi) - betrayed flaws I hadn't seen previously. Mind you, it's been many years since I saw this last. The technology has dated compared to what's currently available to film-makers, but it still holds up extremely well. Unlike similar types of films today, the SFX are used gratuitously, in a showy manner to showcase the technology without necessarily furthering the narrative. Hollow Man (2000) is a classic example of this.

In T2, Cameron employs the technology sparingly, only when needed. The story is always first and when the SFX appear, they are so organic to the narrative that one can't help but be impressed and absorbed in what's transpiring.

With what's available now, the SFX in T2 are not as impressive now, and one can see the 'seams' that weren't so obvious nearly twenty years ago. Like Arnie's character cutting his arm, or the face damaged by bullets (sometimes it's his face with prosthetics over the top, other times it's actually a mask).

Watching both Terminator films back-to-back (and for me, the franchise ends with the second), the humour stands out in spite of the terror. Both films have parallel trajectories and often parallel incidents. For example, Arnie appears first in both (obviously a trick in the second), getting clothes from punks in the first and bikies in the second. When Arnie throws the bikie onto the stove, it's like the blackest of black humour to see this guy burning himself. Yet when we next see Arnie in his clothes, they're all immaculate, like they're straight off the racks, all to the tune of "Bad to the Bone". It's quite a blast, really.

For the integrity of the franchise, they really should have stopped at 2. I saw 3 and it was just a shadow of the originals, milking blood out of a stone. I didn't even bother with Terminator Salvation. T2 is a very rare example of a sequel bettering the original, though on these viewings, I thought that T1 has bridged some of the gap. When I want to see a blockbuster, this is how I like to see them done.

Funny Ha Ha
This Bujalski film is reputedly the first of what is now known as mumblecore, a so-called movement of independent film-making. It seems to borrow heavily from the aesthetics, narrative style and low-budgets of John Cassavetes' work as well as the so-called Dogme school (without the rules). I can't say I'm a big fan of some Dogme but I do love Cassavetes' films. Unsurprisingly, the elements of the film that seem to borrow more from Dogme bother me while the strengths of the film have more in common with Cassavetes.

The devices that initially gave me reservations are the deliberate camera shake, the sometimes poor sound and the unusual framing characters often have part or all of their heads cut off. These were initially distracting but as the story and character development unfolded, I developed some empathy and emotional engagement and the distraction reduced. It didn't go away completely, but I started thinking about what is Bujalski trying to achieve.

Is it a variation of cinéma vérité, where we're taking a fly-on-the-wall perspective, as if we're present but obscured to the characters in some way? Or is Bujalski skewing the camera, in a sense like what Hal Hartley does with his camera rotations, albeit differently - in this case pointing the camera down slightly? Is he challenging the audience, and its conventional expectations of how a picture should look? Or just being different, to differentiate himself? Or trying to create a different aesthetic, consciously emulating Dogme? Maybe it's a bit of all of the above. I reserve my judgements for now and would like more exposure to mumblecore in general and Bujalski in particular.

I find it hard to believe that the sound could not have been better, without too much cost or effort. This appears to be an example of true guerilla film-making (ie, making it as cheaply and quickly as possible) and/or it's deliberately compromising (ie, reducing) the quality at times to disguise the genuine flaws.

The grainy 16mm film has a nice grungy aesthetic, and despite the high level of emotional honesty and social realism, some care has gone into the visuals with the use of colour and frame composition that I found enjoyable to watch. The story itself is well told. We follow Marnie, a 24 year old who loses her job, pines for someone who seems just out of reach and basically is struggling to find her place in an adult world. She parties and hangs out with her friends but, despite her attractiveness (think Natalie Portman), appears onely and confused. I don't think its fair to call this a slacker film, partly because the characters are not true slackers and partly because of the degree of realism is so Cassavetes-esque (think of the part that alcohol plays in his films).

I like that such an engaging film can be made on clearly a very low budget - perhaps some will find it too much like a student film. I also like that it addresses the very real and contemporary concerns of a particular demographic, which unsurprisingly is the demographic of the director (who plays a not insignificant role in the film, as a potential love interest), namely the early to mid twenties. In this sense, it serves as a kind of document, a documentary-like film very much unlike anything typically made about or for this demographic.

The film has a chastity you mightn't expect. Love and yearning are a strong theme, and mixed with excesses in alcohol, one wouldn't be too surprised where this could leave. There is no explicit sex or sexuality and little more than a kiss on-screen. The use of profanity is also very minimal, an element that is all the more noticeable when it occasionally occurs. This is much more representative of the middle-America it depicts than the populist Hollywood cinema that wildly exaggerates profanity. While we in Australia think we know American culture through TV and cinema, the real America does not engage in public cussing and sex as depicted in the media.

I did watch Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation on the (very) big screen at the Astor a while ago, but didn't appreciate it at the time (pun not intended) - perhaps my consequent discovery of Cassavetes helps me to better understand his work now. I thought this film might be a bit raw (aesthetically) for the missus, but she also likes it. For now, I hold on to my above-mentioned reservations about mumblecore and look forward to discovering more. Funny Ha Ha seems like a good place to start. It offers hope that a new generation of 'indie' film-makers is emerging.

French Film Festival 2010 - 11

Ah, the festival is on the last stretch with just this weekend to go. Actually, there's a few more screenings into next week. Here's my report on two more films, with one to go (I'm Glad My Mother is Alive, produced by Jacques Audiard) on Sunday. I would've seen the Coco Chanel film on Saturday, but it's sold out (and is getting a release anyway).

• Le petit Nicolas (Little Nicolas, Laurent Tirard, 2009)
• À l’origine (In The Beginning, Xavier Giannoli, France, 2009)

Little Nicolas
I saw this children's film with my French teacher, who was interested to see the adaptation from the children's story book that his mother read to him as a child. He says it's true to the spirit of the source material but, like me, didn't find it anything special. The story-book mood is invoked by the opening credits and the children's performances are all what I suppose might be called charming. My nine-year old son would probably like it because it depicts the exploits of boys his age. There were lots of laughs in the audience, but this really is a film for pre-teenagers and their parents only.

In the Beginning
"It's all fake", despairs 'Philippe' (François Cluzet), realising that his sham/scam to build a road through a rural town is placing him out of his depth - he's usually a petty thief. The trouble is, around the same time, that's how I felt about the film as a whole. It's totally implausible and, though it claims to be based on a true story (which it may well be), this story has so many gaping plot holes in it, you could drive an road construction excavator through it.

For example, the basic premise that a small-time crim would not take the ample opportunities he had to take the money and run (which he'd done hundreds of times before). Or Philippe is knee-deep in mud and the rain is bucketing down. He hysterically calls out to the workers to keep on working, the rain has stopped. Or the shooting of a man, in which a company vehicle is left at the scene, but the police do nothing to track our man - incredulous. Or a wide shot of a construction site where the rain is pouring down - but only in the middle (from the overhead sprinklers) and not on either side. A man is covered in petrol after an accident and is trapped. The petrol catches fire, but our man is still save-able. There's an explosion - surely the guy is dead? No, there's one more chance, he's dragged to safety and another big explosion - utter garbage. If you want to get picky, there's a multitude of details about road construction, but let's not go there - most would be unaware of the ridiculousness of this aspect. For me, it looked like they were just driving some equipment around a field looking busy, but really doing nothing.

Emmanuelle Devos is always good value and adds real credibility to her role as the town's mayor, Stéphane. Unfortunately she is wasted and there is no on-screen chemistry between her and Philippe. Gérard Depardieu still has some gravity in his small role as a crim, though his obesity is a regular distraction in recent films. I really wish, for his own sake, that he'd lose some weight - otherwise his career will not last must longer. It's painful to watch.

I note that François Cluzet was the main character in Ne le dis à personne/Tell No One, one of my three worst films of 2007. In the Beginning will easily make my worst 10 of this year. I wrote of Tell No One at the time: "125 painful minutes. That's what I endured, though it seemed much longer." There's more in that post, and so much of it could be said of this film, like: "after about 20 minutes I was looking at my watch, and at 45 minutes I was thinking it must be coming to an end (only to be disappointed to see how little time had passed)." I also tired of this film by the 45 minute mark and was restless for the remaining hour and a half - yes, it's bloody long. My verdict: avoid at all costs (though every overseas review I've looked at raves about it - go figure).

French Film Festival 2010 - 6

Nothing great to report today - an unsatisfactory thriller and an acceptable children's film. But it's a long weekend, and I'm seeing another two tomorrow.

• Pour elle (Anything For Her, Fred Cavayé, France, 2008)
• Lucky Luke (James Huth, France/Argentina, 2009)
  

Anything For Her
This French thriller was first released two years ago, and I'm wondering if the only reason it made it to the festival is the celebrity of a character played by Diane Kruger, who luminously portrayed the glamorous German actress Bridget von Hammersmark in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Kruger's character is central but not major in Anything For Her, and I enjoyed seeing her in another role. She has a nice screen presence, but there's not much else I liked about this film.

Right from the start, details of this film bothered me but I reserved my judgements. A conjugal pairing between characters played by a miscast Vincent Lindon and Kruger didn't seem quite real. The seventeen-year age difference is not completely unbelievable, though the stereotype is a bit tired. Despite several years of marriage and a young son, their being smitten with each other like hormone-raging teenagers borders on incredulity. "OK, suppress the critique", I thought to myself. "Give it chance to breathe". Unfortunately, it only gets worse.

As mentioned, there are problems with Lindon's casting. On the one hand, we're to believe he's a Mr. Everyman, an ordinary Joe who finds himself in an extraordinary situation. He's a teacher but he looks like a hardened crim or cop, dressing like one, too. Yet, when he takes the law into his own hands, he sort of looks the part, but doesn't convince that he attempt (what to speak of succeed at) what is required.

The plot according to IMDb: "With no legal means left to him, a high school teacher devises a daring plan to rescue his wrongfully imprisoned wife from jail". Yeah, I know, it sounds like it could be silly but it also has possibility. The problem is really with the writing, which allows all kinds of ridiculous contrivances that would never happen in real life. Like a young child picking up and pointing what should be a very heavy handgun. Obviously the gun is a prop. Or meticulously planning an escape over three months, only to leave all your detailed plans in the rubbish bin for the police to find. The sentimental and anything but subtle music also grates.

There are so many details I could fault, but will leave it at that. I know there's a market for this kind of film, and I think an undemanding, mainstream audience will love it. Others seemed to like it more than me. I found it to be basically telemovie material.

Lucky Luke
The festival program lists this film with a G classification, which I doubt it could get for a commercial release. There is more than one scene where Lucky Luke punches a woman in the face, a PC no-no here. However, there's no doubt it's a children's film, and the punching scenes are a surprise simply because it's not something we normally see depicted in film (and perhaps is the better for it).

Based on a popular comic-book character, the film is quite funny but a little too silly for an adult-only audience. What I find most amusing is the Utah, USA setting (though no doubt it was not filmed in the US) and the western interpretations by the French. It does for the western (or spaghetti western) what OSS 177, Lost in Rio does for James Bond. It even has OSS 177's Jean Dujardin starring in the title role. As in that film, I find him very charming and amusing, though this film is clearly aiming at a younger demographic. Verdict: unless you're a fan of the books, it's children only, and good fun for them.

The week so far - 4/3/10

I know, I missed last week's review and, while I prepared quite a bit of writing, I completely missed January (I planned to do a month in review). The French Film Festival opened tonight - not that I got an invite. I sure wasn't going to spend $50 to see a film, as much as I love Jeunet and look forward to seeing Micmacs. I've just finished working out my schedule for the festival and may see up to 14 films - that's on top of the 10 I've already reviewed. For me, the festival begins tomorrow and, aside from Melbourne Cinémathèque (where a Fellini season is currently underway), it'll pretty much be French, French and more French films for the next two weeks.

As well as the films below, I also got to the new Mary and Max exhibition at ACMI. I hope to post on this in the next day or so, but if I don't get around to it, go and see it. It's free and it's a delight to see so many pieces from the film on display. I've taken some photos and if my post sees the light of day, I'll plaster some of those on here. So, here's what I've seen so far this week:

• L'armée du crime (The Army of Crime, Robert Guédiguian, France, 2009)
• Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, USA, 2010)
  
• Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden/Denmark/Germany, 2009)
• Amarcord (Federico Fellini, Italy/France, 1973)
  
• Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, USA, 2010)
  

Shutter Island
Marty, Marty, Marty, what's happened to you? Aw gee, every film Scorsese's done since 1999's Bringing Out the Dead (one of my favourites of his) has been a disappointment. Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed all left me non-plussed. I think Scorsese is trying too hard, trying to break through with a big mainstream/blockbuster film. He's obviously still getting the big budgets and Shutter Island certainly looks very nice. The trouble is, it's all been done before and offers nothing new. It's a thriller without suspense. It goes through the motions, but the audience can see where it's going and what's coming. And just in case you're not sure, he makes sure there's no ambiguity.

There's a setup at the start that's such a silly subterfuge to distract the audience. But when the big reveal is made apparent, I just had to roll my eyes. Fifteen years ago, it might have had more impact, but it's been done to death.

Mark Ruffalo's role is a bit limp, Michelle Williams is underused, Ben Kingsley plays a fairly stereotypical character and Leo DiCaprio's constant state of desperation is being overplayed. If Scorsese is going to keep recycling his actors, he should give them a bit more range. I like DiCaprio a lot (Revolutionary Road was one of my top films of 2009), but his role in this film just seems to recycle his persona in The Departed.

I think Scorsese should follow one of his contemporary's lead. Francis Ford Coppola may not be producing universally lauded films but is getting back to his roots and making personal films with soul. Scorsese seems to be enamoured by technical proficiency but missing out on the gutsiness of his earlier films. I'd rather less polish, and more guts.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
I didn't have a good time with this over-long (3 hours) gothic crime thriller. I don't want to go into the plot, but much of it is silly and cliched, the acting clumsy with gratuitous nudity and violence. The look of the film is digital grainy, a murky look that does nothing to ingratiate itself. The film is not a total write-off - it will probably appeal to a hip young audience - but it's not my thing at all. It's the first in a trilogy and opens in cinemas on the 25th of this month.

Amarcord
OK, I don't 'get' Fellini. I don't understand his films and I don't connect with them, at least those I've seen. I think it was Satyricon that I tried to watch about ten years ago and I couldn't finish it. Granted, my taste in cinema has changed a lot since then, but even 8½ did nothing for me a year or so ago. Tonight it was Amarcord, which is amiable enough, but it just seems to be a rambling story going nowhere. I get that it's 'a year in the life of' this village. I get that it documents in passing the rise of fascism, village rituals and lifestyle and some of the idiosyncratic characters. I also get that it's probably part-autobiographical. But I don't connect with anything. What did I say...? A rambling story going nowhere. I'll still give his other films a go, but I couldn't sit through a second one (La strada) at Melbourne Cinémathèque. Next week it's La dolce vita and Boccaccio ‘70: Le tentazione del dottor Antonio.

Alice in Wonderland
Let me preface this by stating that I love Tim Burton's films and I'll see anything he makes, even if it doesn't quite work. And this is one of them. Mia Wasikowski is the best thing about it - she's close to perfect. She looks perfect and her performance is spot on - pretty important, given that she's the central character.

I love both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter but I had major reservations about them prior to seeing the film. I dreaded seeing Depp's overplaying like he did in Burton's earlier Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. My fears were largely unfounded - despite his over-the-top-looking Mad Hatter, Depp's performance was relatively understated (for him, anyway). I still found the look of Depp's and Bonham Carter's characters a bit distracting.

The other strong elements of the film that worked for me include the non-fantasy elements and, in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit. These familiar characters had nice Burton touches but remained true to how we recognise them. The Blue Caterpillar wasn't bad either. Not so hot was Anne Hathaway's White Queen. The way she held her hands up in a faux queenly manner really grated, though I may be alone in this seemingly petty criticism. While her character looks lovely, the role itself seemed empty and lifeless. It did nothing for me.

The film is strongest when it's focused on the micro-elements, in particular Alice interacting with various characters in a personal way. Where the film is weakest is when it goes off on these concocted tangents of fighting and (I know everyone else has said it) elements that are more like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Golden Compass. And to compare further with Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins adventures were most engaging on a personal level, but bored me shitless when the story shifted to the epic level (big wars, etc). It's much the same here.

The CGI is used profusely, as you'd expect, and it works pretty much in proportion to my previous point. In micro, up close and personal, it's lovely. When the film moves to the big picture, the CGI draws too much attention to its flaws and takes one out of the moment.

For a film that has had such a big lead time and created a high level of awareness, it doesn't seem to be on a large number of screens. I use YourMovies and it was only screening at three of the cinemas I've listed as ones I attend. So maybe that reflects the confidence that the exhibitors have in the film. If you're a Burton fan, you won't want to miss it. If you're a parent, primary school-age children should be fine with it, though there's a couple of moments that might be scary (but not overly) for sensitive children. For others, it's fun enough, but not one of Burton's finest films.

The Week in Review - 20/12/09

FILMS

• Precious (Lee Daniels, USA, 2009)
• Sayat Nova (The Colour of Pomegranates, Sergei Paradjanov, USSR, 1968)
• Avatar (James Cameron, USA, 2009)
• Bright Star (Jane Campion, UK/Australia/France, 2009)
• Planet 51 (Jorge Blanco/Javier Abad/Marcos Martínez, Spain/UK/USA, 2009)
  

DVD

• The Killers (Robert Siodmak, USA, 1946)

Precious
I'm a bit hesitant to write about this film because it's a worthy film, well-made and deserves to be seen. I, however, found it very disturbing and came out of the cinema feeling unwell. For me, it does for bleak social drama what torture porn does for horror. It subjects its audience to increasing levels of depravity, testing one's endurance.

While films like Antichrist and Irreversible challenge with their depictions of physical violence, this one is more about the sexual, emotional and psychological abuse endured by its protagonist, Precious, in an impressive screen debut by Gabourey Sidibe. Mo'Nique also impresses as Precious' obnoxious and foul-mouth mother, and the film features various raw and naturalistic cameos by singers Mariah Carey (as a social worker) and Lenny Kravitz (as a nurse).

All in all, this is a gutsy film, that others seemed to appreciate more than I - most of the audience at the screening I attended were Amnesty International members. Again, I hope it finds an audience, and its recent nominations for various awards may help. But it's not something I'll see again.

The Colour of Pomegranates
This film screened with Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev which, with a running time of 165 minutes, made it impossible for me to stay. My pneumonia earlier in the year has meant I have to overlook such late nights as I focus on staying well. And that's a pity, because that meant my closing Melbourne Cinémathèque film of the year was a disappointment.

The film is without dialogue and seems largely theatrical, and fringe at that. I had trouble staying awake and found it boring as hell. I suppose that makes me a cultural philistine. So be it.

Avatar
I saw Avatar the first time in 3D and indulged my curiosity by seeing it in 2D. It was a fascinating experience.

First, the visuals are nowhere near as strong. They're relatively flat - and I don't just mean because they're not in 3D. The colours seem somewhat drained of their brightness we see in 3D. It seems that the film was made specifically for 3D and perhaps it's been further processed for 2D to try to get it to look acceptable. It is acceptable, but if this was your only experience of the film, you'd be wondering what all they fuss about this film was about. Yet, I prefer the 2D experience, because there's nothing between me and the screen. As I've written previously, the 3D technology is a distraction.

Secondly, the story stands up quite well on second viewing. In fact, some of the points that slightly bothered me the first time (like the environmental and terror messages) seemed insignificant this time. Perhaps it's because I knew they were coming and when they did they had less impact. It was like this for me with The Matrix also. The first time, the love bit at the end was a bit silly, but on repeat viewings it seemed perfect.

While the story is still nothing special, it is solid and has enough meat on its bones to engage an audience. Bear in mind that I'm not the target audience and I'm seeing it for the second time. At the point where Jake Sully turns up as Taruk-something or other, it even brought tears to my eyes. I love that scene.

Watching it in 2D, I was more conscious of the film being mostly CGI, much like Lord of the Rings, but it wasn't a problem.

As I memtnioned, if you watched this film only in 2D, you'd be wondering what all the fuss was about. If you see it in 3D, you'll know. And I do think it's worth seeing again in 2D. I may even see it again in 3D, just to take more note of the technical aspects.

Bright Star
This is certainly a beautiful looking film, one of the finest for the year, perhaps even more so than The Piano. The music ain't bad either. The narrative is a bit flat for me, certainly no The Piano. But, to its credit, its more emotionally engaging than most period films, especially by the Brits. The French do period much better than the Brits, and this seemed more in that vein and will, I imagine, be well-received in Europe.

Cornish does take centre-stage and rises to the challenge. I was impressed by both her performance and her accent. At times, from certain angles, she looked eerily like a young pre-Botox Nicole Kidman.

All in all, the film is low-key and artistically credible. Some of those outdoors shots are magnificent, and so are the indoors ones. FWIW, the missus loves it as much as The Piano, and I'm thinking maybe it's more of a chick flick than The Piano.

Planet 51
It is amazing to realise that this is a Spanish film, because it looks, sounds and feels like a Hollywood middle-of-the-road kids holiday flick. It's OK, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're taking kids to a holiday flick. For that, it's enjoyable enough, but otherwise I'd give it a miss.

The Killers
I saw this at the discount shop by the Kino cinema and at $5 I knew I couldn't go wrong. Immensely entertaining, funny, suspenseful and a class film noir. Burt Lancaster gets top billing but his role plays out in the shadows of Edmond O'Brien who seems to be channeling Humphrey Bogart, as an insurance investigator who is attempting to discover why a gas attendant was a target for two hit-men.

The film uses every cliche, but looks fantastic in black and white, using long shadows and tough-guy speak. It's no challenge, just fun.

The Week in Review - 6/12/09

FILMS:

• Vengeance (Johnnie To, Hong Kong/France, 2009)
• Proshchanie/The Parting/Farewell (to Matiora) (Elem Klimov, Soviet Union, 1983)
• Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, USA, 2009)
  

Vengeance
I basically just stumbled on this film by chance when I couldn't find anything worth seeing and starting browsing through yourMovies. I was a bit gobsmacked to find that a new Johnnie To film was screening and that I'd heard nothing about it. Hoyts Melbourne Central regularly screens Asian films, which seem to cater to the large Asian student market, and it was here that I recently saw the Korean film, Haeundae.

We had a To season at Melbourne Cinémathèque last year and I really enjoyed the style of Exiled. Vengeance shares a lot in common with that film - it's a Hong Kong crime action thriller. To does for this genre what Sergio Leone did for the Western, and his clever use of music at key moments (ie, showdowns) conjures up a sense of the spaghetti Western.

I was surprised to find the film opening with French actress Sylvie Testud, and it is Johnny Hallyday who is the main protagonist as her father who arrives from France to wreak vengeance on those who killed the members of his family. Now Johnny Hallyday is not really actor, even though he did OK with Patrice Leconte's L'homme du train (The Man on the Train). But, like that film, it doesn't really matter. He just has to look cool, spout a few lines and let the director take control of the story and the action.

This is, after all, a Hong Kong action flick - not something you take too seriously. There's the usual bunch of crims, who we get attached to. The smart guy, the fat guy and another guy. There's the double crossing and the twists and the impossible escapes. There's a reasonable amount of blood but it never looks real. The humour is just right and all in all it's good entertainment in a genre that generally we don't see enough of. So, if you can, take the opportunity to see this film by a very credible but under-valued film-maker.

The Parting
Asya's Happiness didn't turn up on time at Melbourne Cinémathèque, so this film was selected to replace it at short notice. Hopefully we'll screen Asya's Happiness next week. I didn't know one from the other, but was pretty excited to learn that we were going to see a film by the great Elem Klimov, the director of what is perhaps the most powerful film I've ever seen, and certainly my favourite war film - Come and See - which was made after The Parting.

The Parting was written by Klimov's wife, Larissa Shepitko (The Ascent), and was also to be directed by her. Tragically, she died in a car accident on the first day of shooting and Klimov later took up the project as a tribute to his wife.

I was amazed at how much Klimov's style had developed in the short time between making The Parting and Come and See. I don't think one would appreciate the earlier film quite so much if they hadn't seen the later one. In short, Klimov perfected in Come and See, techniques that he was clearly attempting in The Parting. The most obvious similarity was a forest scene where the camera stalks an elderly member of the village Matiora, whose days are numbered. The village, on an island is to be deserted and flooded to make way for a hydro-electric project.

There's two more weeks of the 60s Soviet Cinema screening before the year's end, and I'd like to catch as many of these as I can. Next week, the first film is not yet confirmed (apparently the print of Heat is not up to scratch), which will be followed by Tarkovsky's The Steamroller and the Violin, followed by Shepitko's Wings.

Where the Wild Things Are
Spike Jonze has always had a wild imagination, having directed such notable films as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. This latest effort doesn't have the benefit of Charlie Kaufman's writing that those films did, but it doesn't really matter as Jonze (with Dave Eggers as co-writer have found their own voice.

Where the Wild Things Are is an inventive translation of Maurice Sendak's famous book, which I and all my children have grown up on. The book is mostly visual with very little dialogue; Jonze has done similarly, but fleshed out the story with more of Max and his family, and more adventures with The Wild Things. The story has been altered, particularly Max's home life and the nature of his arrival and return from the land of The Wild Things. While I was looking forward to seeing how Jonze depicted Max's leaving home, I wasn't disappointed by the re-interpretation. It all flowed consistent with the source material's sensibilities.

The most fascinating aspect for me is the re-creation of The Wild Things using Jim Henson's Creature Factory. These animatronics/giant puppets are just amazing, a kind of cross between some of Henson's Muppets and the Banana Splits characters (from the 1970s), but on a grand scale. Their detailed reproduction is unmistakably authentic and their facial details, including eye and mouth movements are truly impressive. There's a real charm to this kind of old-fashioned special effects that leaves CGI for dead. I mean, we know these are just puppets, but the physicality, the reality of their existence is very endearing. We know that this action is not taking place in front of a green screen, it's mostly all real.

The variety of scenery (mostly filmed in Victoria) is splendid, adding wonderfully to the visuals. I loved the music, much of which was children singing, giving a sense of playground laughter and frolicking. As a film, Where the Wild Things Are has a real air of originality, a freshness and playfulness that should appeal widely to both children and adults in equal measure.

The Week in Review - 30/9/09

FILMS

• Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, USA/Germany, 2009)
• Viaggio in Italia (Voyage to Italy, Roberto Rossellini, Italy/France, 1953)
• Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo, Hayao Mizayaki, Japan, 2008)
• Eli & Ben (Ori Ravid, Israel, 2008)
  

Inglourious Basterds
It's not often I see a film more than once, but after reading various articles and interviews with Tarantino, etc, I decided to give this one another go. Other Tarantino films I've seen more than once on the big screen are Pulp Fiction and Death Proof. I didn't enjoy the film more on second viewing, but I noticed and appreciated things more. Things that bothered me on first viewing either bothered me less or not at all. This is Hollywood film-making that we don't see enough of and will probably make it into my top-10 releases of the year. Tremendously entertaining!

Voyage to Italy
This is my second Rossellini film, so I have a long way to get through his oeuvre, but I'm liking what I'm seeing. I was surprised to find Voyage to Italy almost entirely in English. I was also surprised at how much like her mother Isabella Rossellini looks.

The film depicts a marriage in downward spiral. From the Senses of Cinema Annotations, I expected to find a heartless husband (George Sanders) and his long-suffering wife (Ingrid Bergman). Rossellini is clearly more enlightened a film-maker than I expected and there is a great deal of subtlety and balance than the annotations led me to believe.

Ponyo
The small Nova Cinema 7 was full, and it wasn't just children. I was surprised to see, in addition to the young families, teenagers, 20-somethings and older. All for a film that appears to be aimed at a domestic (Japanese) audience aged 4-9 years old. It's a tribute to the film-maker that he can create a world that appeals largely outside its target audience.

I really enjoyed Mizayaki's Spirited Away, though most of his films since seem to have been made with a Western audience in mind and have become increasingly formulaic. No so with Ponyo. If anything, it seems to be going backwards in time. Japan is famous for it's cultural ambiguity. It is one of the most technologically advanced societies on Earth and yet strangely bound to traditions that go back to the Middle Ages. Ponyo's style eschews all the advances in animation and more than ever displays an old-fashioned hand-painted look. Rather than detract from the film, it works well and differentiates the film from the competition (not that Mizayaki has any real contenders).

So, how does Ponyo stack up? Well, don't see the Hollywood dubbed version. I haven't seen it, but it would just destroy the very Japanese look and feel of the film. The magical world that Mizayaki conjures really is endearing. I'd have thought it was aimed at a pre-school to early primary school demographic, but my 8 year old loved it. I found it enjoyable, but I wouldn't go unless I was accompanying a child.

Eli & Ben
This film screened at the Israeli Film Festival, for which one must be over 18 years of age to legally gain entry. Yet, it seems to be aimed squarely at a teenage market. Basically, it's a telemovie (or appears to be), like an extended version of Neighbours, and I thought it was just stupid, stupid, stupid. I could tell this from the opening scene and it didn't get any better. I have nothing else I want to say about it.

The Week in Review - 16/8/09

Illness is often the prime motivator for me to watch DVDs, and so this week I watched two. It was a very strange week, in which one day I thought I might die, and the next I was almost back to normal. As I wrote, not dead yet.

FILMS

• Tyson (James Toback, USA, 2008)
• Coraline (Henry Selick, USA, 2009)

DVDs

• Apache (Robert Aldrich, USA, 1954)
• L'avventura (The Adventure, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy/France, 1960)

Tyson
Suffering post-MIFF film withdrawal, I had to see something on the big screen, but my need was not so bad that I would resort to most of the pulp screening at the moment. I figured I'd see this documentary that also screened at MIFF and it's not too bad at all. I'm not big on boxing by any stretch of the imagination but what makes this documentary so compelling is the honesty and introspectiveness of the film's subject.

Tyson is completely up-front about his inner world and what motivated him at different stages of his life. He fell into fighting out of fear of being attacked. He desired various things, the tokens of success. When he denies having raped the woman for whom he was convicted and jailed, he says it with the conviction of an innocent man. While I never admired the animalism of Tyson, I found him a character I could empathise with, which is quite an achievement by Toback.

Coraline 3D
The last time I saw a 3D movie, it was at the same Sun Theatre and it was again without knowing that the session was 3D. The initial response of myself and the missus was disappointment. Disappointment that it was costing $3 more per ticket and disappointment that we'd have to don those stupid bloody glasses. So how was the experience?

Well, you'd think that paying those extra dollars would get you a nice clean pair of glasses, perhaps sealed in a plastic bag. No such luck. These glasses are all greasy and sweaty, with smudges all over the lenses. It's DIY cleaning, a real downer, like turning up at the local cafe and finding you have to remove the previous customer's dirty plates and wipe the table yourself.

The glasses are quite bulky and as excellent as Coraline's 3D effects may be, one is always aware of the intrusion of the glasses on the cinema experience. It's both a gateway to the experience and a ball and chain that detracts from it. When all is said and done, there seems to be no net benefit.

Still, the 8yo kid loved the effects, which have certainly improved since we last saw Bolt. In that film, the 3D effects seemed to be concentrated at the start and end of the film, and pretty thin in-between. I don't know if it's because the technology has improved, or whether Coraline had a better budget, but there's no denying that the effects are impressive. But if the technology were to proliferate and become more common, I think one would bore of it. I think the appeal is wholly because it is uncommon.

Another problem with 3D is that it's not really 3D. Rather, the film-makers are very selective as to what to make appear in 3D, which gives the illusion of 3D, but it always feels inadequate. To really get absorbed into the 3D world, the whole image needs to be treated with the 3D effects. Until then, the 3D effects are a distraction from the story as one's consciousness is drawn to analysing what is 3D and what isn't.

In conclusion, even if the tickets were the same price, I'd prefer the regular cinema experience. The main reason is that I find that the glasses intrude on the experience, making me conscious of being in a cinema and preventing my absorption in the story. That I have to pay extra for the experience is a strong negative.

The film itself is very enjoyable and well-done. I haven't read the story, and after seeing the film, I asked my son if he'd like me to buy the book (which was selling in the bookshop across the road from the cinema). He liked the film but his answer was no, to my surprise.

The film is basically a horror story for kids. The idea of an alternate, happy world where everyone has button eyes, and your entering the world means relinquishing your own eyes certainly has the potential for nightmares. Alexander had no problems with that element, so maybe it's more of a problem for some young 'uns. The film's visuals are nice and the story satisfying for adults as much as children.

Apache
Westerns are a re-discovery for me. I pretty much grew up on a regular diet of 1950s westerns in my childhood; they screened and re-screened regularly on Sunday mornings on Channel 9 and consequently I grew not to take them seriously. I don't know much about Aldrich, nor much about American history. This film's use of caucasians with face-paint is both amusing and yet effective. I understand the cultural implications, and that native Americans would not have appealed to cinema audiences of the day.

The film has both an air of camp and seriousness and Aldrich seemed determined to depict the Apaches in a sympathetic light, something I imagine was quite rare for the day. I wonder how historically correct it is.

L'avventura
While I didn't like Antonioni's The Passenger, Zabriskie Point impressed me and so does this 1960 film. It's focus on the idle middle-class and their sexual shenanigans reminds me of Buñuel's obsessions with a similar demographic, though the mood is very different.

The mood is very dour, a type of mystery as a woman goes missing and her friends try to find her (if she is still alive). Antonioni is one of my favourite Italian film-makers, especially given that I'm not a big fan of that country's cinema. In fact, I generally don't like the dubbing of Italian films, something I barely noticed in this film. The characters are well-drawn, the narrative is beautifully elusive and the observational nature of the camera is very enticing. The visuals are stunning. I look forward to discovering more of this director's work.

MIFF 2009 Day 2 - 25/7/09

• Kdopak by se vlka bál (Who's Afraid of the Wolf?, Maria Procházková, Czech Republic, 2008)
• In Conversation with Anna Karina & David Stratton
• Anna (Pierre Koralnik, France, 1967)
  

Who's Afraid of the Wolf?
My first MIFF film was from the NextGen stream and I attended with the family. It's a fairly typical festival film aimed at children, and you can read that as meaning fairly bland. It looks nice and the performances are OK but the writing is so condescending. My 8-year old son enjoyed it, but it's unlikely to be something he'll remember. I find that some of the best children's films are actually not aimed at children, like Persepolis or even The Edge of Heaven. Or children's films that don't underestimate the intellectual capacity of children, such as Azur and Asmar or The Secret of Roan Inish.

Who's Afraid of the Wolf? starts off with promise but the plot becomes quite silly, culminating at an ending that is just fruity. I don't go to these films with high expectations, so in this case, I wasn't disappointed. And you can't expect every MIFF film to be a gem. This one certainly isn't.

In Conversation with Anna Karina & David Stratton
Once again, the MIFF ticketing system is a fiasco and I wonder if they will ever get it right. Last year, my festival passport would have got me entry into this session, but this year I had to pay. No complaints from me about that. MIFF, despite what people may complain about, is cash-strapped (only 5-6% of its budget is government-funded) and hosting guests costs money. $20-$25 to hear David Stratton speak with Anna Karina is certainly better value than paying $50-$55 to hear Tarantino introduce his latest film.

My complaint concerns not being able to load these special sessions onto one's festival pass. You still have to print out a paper receipt. I forgot to print mine out and had to slog it out in the Forum queue, something I hadn't done for a couple of years. Thanks to incompetency and lack of staff flexibility, it wasn't a pleasant experience and hopefully it will never happen again.

The MIFF members' queue was quite small, but the staff were inexperienced and my wait was about 30 minutes - this was just to print out the ticket that I'd already paid for. I wanted to get another ticket and put it on my partner's membership card, who was not arriving for some time. The MIFF staff told me they could not do it without her membership card. I suggested that they should be able to, because I organise all her ticketing on my home computer. The very rude supervisor suggested I come back with my partner's card (and presumably wait another 30 minutes) or go to an internet cafe. Fucking great! and I said just that. I put it down to experience, and the inexperience of these volunteer staff (well, some of them are). And never, never, ever be in that situation again. Be organised and print your tickets at home, because these motherfuckers have so many people to deal with and they can't give a damn because they're swamped. Thanks Jo, you made my fucking day.

As for the session, arriving early I was at the head of the queue and found a seat right in front of the stage. Anna Karina's English is quite OK but she had some difficulty comprehending some of the audience questions. Partly that was the sound system and also some of the questions were not particularly lucid. David Stratton was the consumate host and interviewer as usual and guided the procedings with professionalism. Anna admitted to some early nerves.

When asked about which director/s she found the best to work with, she unequivocally named Godard, the man she married and lived with for ten years. She found it painful at times to recall aspects of that relationship and sometimes changed the subject during the session. She mentioned that she doesn't have any one favourite film that she's been in, but that there's several and that her answer would change every time she's asked. That's all I can recall at the moment, though I couldn't help but notice that she has a very husky voice which I presume is from smoking.

Anna
Named simply after the female lead, this is, as Anna herself described it as "a mad film" and she seemed bemused that so many people turned out to both see it and stay for the post-screening Q&A. I attend these MIFF retrospectives for much the same reason that I attend Melbourne Cinémathèque - to catch a body of work and to appreciate individual films in the context of the whole. It's a sort of educational thing. I wasn't particularly impressed with the film itself; it seems frivolous and insubstantial, though enjoyable enough. A musical, it seems to be a low-budget vehicle for the music of Serge Gainsbourg and the beauty of a very young Karina.

The Week in Review - 28/6/09

FILMS:

• En construcción (Work in Progress, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 2001)
• Innisfree (José Luis Guerín, Spain, 1990)
• Bastardy +Q&A (Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Australia, 2008)
• Le renard et l'enfant (The Fox and the Child, Luc Jacquet, France, 2007)
  

DVD:

• T is for Teacher (Rohan Spong, Australia/USA, 2009)
  

SHORT FILMS:

• MIAF - International Program #3
• MIAF - Studio Watch: The Mill

Work in Progress
Quite a fascinating film whose documentation of the demolition of an old neighbourhood is reminiscent of the films of Pedro Costa (though without the same level of bleakness - not a criticism of either director's work). I don't have a lot to say about it other than, like In the City of Sylvia, Guerín demonstrates a photographer's fascination with capturing the soul of a city and its inhabitants.

Innisfree
Guerín's unconventional style is anything but mainstream. This is quite an odd film, an ode to the locations where John Ford shot The Quiet Man. Once again, Guerín is fascinated by location, this time rural Ireland. He certainly is an enigma.

Bastardy
Remarkably, Amiel Courtin-Wilson spent some seven or so years making this film, and in the Q&A session afterwards he explained why. Firstly, there was an issue with money, that came in dribs and drabs. The fact that the subject spent significant periods incarcerated also caused problems.

As I have mentioned previously, I met Jack Charles a few years ago and, having found him a very colourful and gregarious character, was keen to learn more about him. What a journey! As a 10 month old baby, he became a member of the Stolen Generation, and has never known his father. He discovered acting at age 19, set up the first Aboriginal theatre troupe in the 1960s, has been addicted to heroin since 1973, He's subsisted on burglary ("collecting the rent", he called it), has seen the walls of HM Pentridge up close and personal several times and has been homeless for large stretches of his life. There's more - much more - but that's it in a nutshell.

I found it fascinating that Jack sat in the front row (I was two rows directly behind him), with every conceivable shame on full display to him and the audience that filled the large Kino cinema. I was going to ask him during the Q&A how he felt about seeing himself like that, but he addressed it anyway. He said something to the effect that he was inspired to be able to set an example to his own people of what can be achieved, how he had left all this behind him and was now a respected elder of his mob. Since his last release from Deer Park prison, he's gone straight and says there's no going back to that life. I sincerely hope so.

[Pictured: John Safran, Jack Charles and Amiel Courtin-Wilson]

MIAF
From my perspective, animation shorts are a good interlude to serious film-going, which could be interpreted as some sort of snobbery, but that's what it is for me. I saw one of the international programs as well as a curated selection of shorts from The Mill, a London studio that has made many award-winning advertisements (some of which have appeared on Australian TV), music videos and short films. The Mill's work is very impressive and many of the pieces were not obviously animated, using animation to create hyper-reality to various situations.

T is for Teacher
I'm reviewing this ahead of the films screening at the Bayside Film Festival. I liked this a lot, and (with Rhys Graham's Skin) it's screening at 7pm on Thursday 16 July at Palace Brighton Bay, followed by a Q&A with director Rohan Spong. The film documents four transgender individuals as they transition from men to women in their roles as high school teachers in the US. My review is coming soon.

The Fox and the Child
This is a beautiful looking film that merges documentary with fiction. Basically, it takes a glorious rural landscape in France and contrives a little story - almost a fairy tale - about a young girl who befriends a wild fox. I would have preferred seeing the original French version, but the voice-over narration by Kate Winslet is quite OK and obviously makes it more marketable to an English-speaking audience. The story sometimes goes on a bit longer than necessary, but this is a very enjoyable film that is also well-suited for children.

The Week in Review - 17/5/09

FILMS:

• Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, USA, 1970)
• Der Stand der Dinge (The State of Things, Wim Wenders, West Germany/Portugal/USA, 1982)
• Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, Australia, 2009)
• Rudi y Cursi (Rudi and Cursi, Carlos Cuarón, Mexico/USA, 2008)
• Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley, USA, 2008)

SHORT FILMS:

• Warwick Thornton shorts
  

Zabriskie Point
Wow! After the disappointment that was The Passenger, this was surprisingly good. Antonioni wears his political leanings on his sleeve (something I'm prone to myself) and really captures the zeitgeist. Sometimes a film is too close to the bone; this film seems to be have been too confrontational for American audiences at the time of its release. Often a film can be appreciated for what it captures long after the emotions of the time have dissipated. This is certainly true of many Australian films that were not acknowledged on first release, such as some of the so-called Ozploitation films or Pure Shit, which (like Zabriskie Point) has elements that are almost documentary-like now.

The lack of expository narrative in Zabriskie Point really adds to its mystique. Antonioni's camera gradually covers various, seemingly unconnected scenarios and we, the audience, have to work a little to make sense of it. Or, not so much make sense as try to connect the dots. By covering a student meeting calling for revolt, police brutality, riots and capitalism in action, it's not too hard to see where Antonioni is going.

The film has an unmistakable 70's feel to it, though it was made at the start of the decade. The themes are clearly related to the aftermath of the political turbulence that swept the globe in 1968, most strongly recalling Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool (1969). The final explosion, while literally a blast, is not the film's biggest drawcard for me, though clearly a delight for the film's fans.

The State of Things
There's been a lot of films made about making films. For me, this one directly recalls Catherine Breillat's Sex is Comedy. Both films are about the struggles of making the respective director's previous trouble-prone film. The self-reflexive nature of this Wenders film is quite funny, especially when the film is shot on black and white film and the script has a producer slamming the use of just that. There are a number of moments like that. I don't think the film is brilliant, but certainly very enjoyable.

Rudi and Cursi
After the very sublime Y tu mamá también (my favourite Mexican film), directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, I figured a comedy by Alfonso's brother with the same duo of actors couldn't be too bad. Alas, it came in at the low end of my expectations.

It screened as part of the Spanish Film Festival at the Kino. I'm not accustomed to full-houses at the Kino, so I was pleased for their sake to see them doing good business. Rudi and Cursi is really a populist film and I suppose it certainly got bums on seats. I just found it all a bit tiresome. Here's two very luminous and intelligent actors (Luna played the Michael Jackson look-alike in Mister Lonely), and it was obviously some kind of joke to have them playing dumbass country hicks who hit the big-time when they're scouted for rival Mexico City football clubs.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with intelligent actors playing dumbasses; that's what actors do. But the gags were all fairly puerile and predictable. The film did nothing for me whatsoever.

Sita Sings the Blues
I'm more than familiar with the Ramayana, having spent some part of my youth exploring Hinduism and Indian culture - I've been there six times. I'd heard good things about this film, especially from Lynden Barber of Eyes Wired Open, so took the opportunity to take my eight-year old son to see it. The Ramayana recounts the story of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu (God), and his consort Sita who is abducted by Ravana and taken to Lanka. The monkey-king Hanuman finds Sita who is rescued by Rama but ultimately banished to the forest over doubts of her purity.

The film is visually stunning, with Sita singing love songs that are actually 1920's jazz songs by Annette Hanshaw. And cleverly, director Nina Paley weaves her own real-life heartbreak story into a parallel narrative. What most are not aware of is that Star Wars is almost a direct rip-off of the Ramayana. I don't think as highly of the film as Lynden obviously does, but it is entertaining and original nonetheless. And the kid's verdict? Like me, he liked it, but nothing special.

Before Mary and Max

Before Mary and Max, there was Adam Elliot's Uncle, Cousin, Brother and, of course, the Oscar-winning (in 2003, for best short film), Harvey Krumpet. Last weekend, ACMI screened Elliot's previous shorts and the following day, I saw his latest outing at a Rivoli cinema preview. It was a great experience, seeing all in close proximity. There's a common aesthetic: the visuals (minimal use of colour), the narrative (all depend largely on a narrator), the look of the characters and the pathos of the stories.

Elliot has a wonderful way of telling stories and, seeing him interviewed, I'm always taken at how much he looks like one of his plasticine characters. I love this themes of diversity and acceptance, blending in bleak themes that normally might turn audiences away, yet somehow captivate in this medium.

Last year, when Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis came out, I commented that this is the type of film that Australians should be making. With Mary and Max, Elliot has done it. It's very engaging and entertaining film, something we rarely hear a local film described as. It's also something you can take the kids to: it makes mature themes accessible to children. My eight-year old son loved it as much as I. It should do very well at the box office and I recommend it.

Meanwhile, here's Elliot's earlier work, all of which we had the good fortune to see at ACMI on the big screen in one sitting.

Uncle
..

Cousin
..

Brother
..

Harvey Krumpet
..