PULP FRICTION: Riffs and rants on popular culture

BITCHFEST '10, or: Farewell Pulp Friction Australia (Part 2 of 2)

2011-01-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

2010 has been an interesting year for me, personally. I became a full-time student for the first time, studying filmmaking at RMIT, and made my third short film... the first that really felt like me. I also struggled epically with finances, which meant that I saw a few less films than usual. However, my friend Lee Zachariah and I started a monthly movie podcast, called HELL IS FOR HYPHENATES, and I was kindly enlisted by Thomas Caldwell to appear on 3RRR FM's FILM BUFF'S FORECAST on a couple of occasions, all of which means I officially hung my shingle as a film reviewer for the first time. So now I'm getting media passes to see films, which gave my tally a welcome year-end jolt.

Looking back at my yearly viewing tally, I watched exactly 200 films -- 87 films at cinemas (38 of them at MIFF) and 113 films on DVD (89 of them for the first time) -- beginning with the very English DVD double of 1948's LONDON BELONGS TO ME and 1963's SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON and ending with Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN. But... once you round them down to films first released to general, non-festival screenings in cinemas or DVD in Australia in 2010, that tally shrinks to a positively anaemic 63! So, when you read these charts, please keep in mind I'm not drawing from some endless well of 200+ new movies, nor am I some schmo regurgitating the two films a month he saw this year. I'm somewhere very much in between, but I like to think I've seen a fair cross-section of films for my judgement to be somewhat valid.

So, enough with the waffling: here are my highlights of the films of 2010:

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNDERRATED OF 2010 PART 2...

THE GREATEST EXPERIENCES I HAD IN A CINEMA IN 2010

Being a film buff/fan/nut, I'm still intensely connected to the cinema experience. As much as I hate people who have long and animated conversations during a film, let their phone ring out before answering it and having conversations in the theatre or just generally act like boneheads watching a DVD at home, I still enjoy seeing a film on the big screen with a bunch of like-minded people, and suspect I always will. For all the arguments toward home cinema and staying out of your local, there were two occasions this year that emerge powerfully in my mind as a spirited defence of the communal cinematic experience...

2. THE ROOM

Thanks so much to Carlton's Cinema Nova for instituting their excellent Cult Cravings screenings (Friday and Saturday night late shows) and for kicking it off with Tommy Wiseau's utterly bizarre, hack-handed work of bizarro genius, THE ROOM. The film alone would be hilarious enough, with its pornography-level acting, hilarious propensity to bring up seemingly pertinent plot points only to never mention them again, replacing a character entirely with someone else halfway through the film, endless shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, unfortunate framing, horrendously casual misogyny... I could go on. And I haven't yet mentioned Wiseau himself -- the writer/producer/director/star of this glorious clusterfuck -- a singularly odd man who sports an '80s hair metal hairstyle, a face resembling Arnold Schwarzenegger after years with Mickey Rourke's plastic surgeon and the physique of an aging bodybuilder, all topped off with the most indeterminable Eastern-European-via-Los-Angeles accent and what seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding of how human beings behave. But what makes THE ROOM truly magnificent is seeing it in a packed theatre, particularly with people who have done this before. A genuine cult film with an enthusiastic following, there are rules for watching the film (get to the flick early to study up on the mini-guide provided by the cinema)... Phrases one needs to shout at the screen at certain moments. Plastic spoons to throw at the screen whenever a picture of a spoon appears in the film (this happens more than any reasonable person would think). Moments in the film where it's okay to run up to the screen and pretend the characters are talking to you. It's a rocking, riotous, hilarious good time, and one that provides some inkling as to what those great midnight movie screenings of the 1970s must have felt like. Nova are still screening it, so if you haven't been yet, GO. It's amazing.

1. THE MOVIE ORGY

A Frankenstein's monster of a film assembled by director Joe Dante (the GREMLINS movies, THE 'BURBS) from odd scenes and off-cuts from obscure films and television shows from the 1960s and 70s, Dante personally toured it around college campuses from 1968 to the mid-70s, continually adding footage whenever he saw fit, to the point where it eventually ended up running for seven-and-a-half hours! It remained unseen for decades, until Dante transferred it to video -- at a positively svelte 270 minutes! -- for a screening at LA's New Beverly theatre in 2008. It is this version that the Melbourne International Film Festival, who devoted a sidebar to Dante's work and brought the great man out here, very kindly screened at the halfway point of their festival this year. While many cinematic experiences bill themselves as being "one of a kind" or "once in a lifetime" experiences, very few actually are. I mean, they'll end up on DVD someday or revived again in other theatres... but there's only ONE COPY of THE MOVIE ORGY, and it goes where Joe Dante goes. And, as this was the 64-year-old Dante's first Australian visit, chances are, he won't likely make it out here again. So this IS a bona fide, once in a lifetime screening. Starting at the (ill-advised?) time of 11:30pm, it was a pleasure to witness Dante introduce the film himself, pretty much apologising for it the whole time, what with its shoddy look and massive running time, saying it was an experience designed to be walked out on and returned to. His intro was funny and affectionate, and it was a pleasure to have him there. For such a singular experience, it was slightly disappointing to see only about 50 or 60 determined souls in attendance, but it made the club a little more exclusive and special. I guess the thought of stumbling out of a city cinema at 4:15 on a winter's morning was a little too daunting for most film festival fans to consider. I sat in the back row with a couple of friends, all of us with only an inkling of a clue of what we were about to see. Within minutes, we were bewitched. Imagine flipping channels through the weirdest, funniest, most anachronistic film & TV cable television library ever assembled, yet it all fell in a way that made for startling sociopolitical commentary and perfect comic timing. THE MOVIE ORGY is hilarious, angry, satirical, fun, political, silly, caustic and utterly engrossing. As some people faded away to the clutches of sleep, my friends and I remained completely awake throughout the duration. How could you not? Between highlights from the deranged 50s delinquent drama SPEED CRAZY (whose lead is always losing his shit because people are "crowding" him) or sci-fi bomb THE GIANT CLAW (where a giant papier mache turkey monster headbutts model buildings until they explode) or the kid's morning show ANDY'S GANG (where a seemingly brain-damaged host treats us to a horrifying dirge of "Jesus Loves You" accompanied by a mini-piano played by a doped-up cat and dead-looking rat -- both real!) or jaw-droppingly racist clips from films and TV or some amazing TV musical performances from The Beatles or The Animals or... there really is too much awesomeness to mention. And sharing it with a small and bleary group of like-minded individuals made it all the more special. I laughed my arse off and was generally stunned at how brilliantly it both evokes nostalgia for a lost age and skewers the ugly face of the American persona. THE MOVIE ORGY was my absolute favourite film experience of 2010 -- possibly ever -- but the most disappointing thing is, no matter how effusively I recommend it, you'll never see it. And to Joe Dante: no apologies were necessary. As a comic sociopolitical collage, it's a fucking masterpiece.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILMS OF 2010

I always enjoy directing people to the hidden, underseen cinematic gems -- or even just plain old good movies -- that get washed aside by the blockbuster culture that pervades our cinemas and home entertainment stores these days. And there were plenty of films this year that deserve the attention.

Miguel Arteta's YOUTH IN REVOLT proves before PILGRIM that there IS life for Michael Cera after George Michael Bluth, and every scene where he plays his character's delinquent alter-ego is hilarious. It's got a killer supporting cast, an involving script and some laugh-out-loud funny, almost surrealistic gags (not to mention some ace claymation, too).

WORLD'S GREATEST DAD gives Robin Williams his best role since his "Year of the Psycho" in 2002 (where he shone in ONE HOUR PHOTO, DEATH TO SMOOCHY and INSOMNIA). He's a single dad forced to put up with an odious son who treats him with the worst kind of contempt, until an event changes his life dramatically, and how he deals with it is nothing short of inspired. Written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, it's also a pretty keen satire on the modern-day phenomenon of the "human interest story" and how we're all too quick to canonise heroes.

CITY ISLAND was a goregous little New York indie comedy, the kind they don't really make anymore, starring Andy Garcia, in a return to form as a security guard who secretly takes acting classes, and Julianna Margulies, as his suspicious wife, who thinks he's off having an affair. In fact, everyone in this family has a secret of their own, and watching these facades unravel is hilarious fun and often genuinely affecting, thanks to a wonderful cast and Raymond De Felitta's warm yet sharp script and direction.

Australian writer/directors Sean Byrne and Richard Gray made strong debuts at different ends of the genre scale with THE LOVED ONES and SUMMER CODA, respectively. THE LOVED ONES is a deliriously entertaining slasher/torture horror, featuring Xavier Samuel (TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE) as a troubled, self-abusing young man who turns down an invitation to the school prom from misfit Lola (the amazing Robin McLeavy), who then, with the help of her equally deranged father, kidnaps him and proceeds to hold her own bloody prom night... and things just get weirder from there. Imagine that Molly Ringwald and Harry Dean Stanton from PRETTY IN PINK were utterly psychopathic and raised alongside WOLF CREEK's Mick Taylor, and you get the idea. SUMMER CODA, on the other hand, is as lovely and sun-kissed as a film can be. Heidi (a luminous, star-making performance from Rachael Taylor) and Michael (Alex Dimitriades) meet outside of Mildura, where Michael runs an orange grove and Heidi has returned from the US for a family funeral. They're both suffering emotional bruises but they quickly form a bond, and their tentative courtship is both sweetly and smartly unfolded. Michael's orange picking crew form something of a colourful Greek Chorus to the proceedings and, as played by Angus Sampson, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, Daniel Frederiksen and Pacharo Mzembe -- are wonderful. And Greg De Marigny's cinematography on the Red is flat-out luscious. As languid and laid-back as LOVED ONES is frenzied and punchy, these Aussie efforts may be polar opposites but equally worth catching.

RED HILL is another Australian genre flick that's a must-see, a modern Australian western -- and make no mistake, this is as much a Western as anything directed by John Ford -- set in rural Victoria, concerning a young city cop (Ryan Kwanten) who's transferred with his wife to a country precinct with less excitement... which turns out to be dead wrong. Writer/director/editor Patrick Hughes honours every trope of the genre and makes a stunning debut, a vision every bit as strong and assured as the much more celebrated ANIMAL KINGDOM.

I'm as surprised as anyone that TRON: LEGACY is the first movie I've ever seen that I felt really understands the 3D format. For once, all the buzz about the film's world being "immersive" were true. What it may lack in terms of plot and character development, it more than makes up for as a definitive audiovisual big-screen experience, particularly when seen its natural habitat in IMAX 3D. It ticks off the hero's journey tropes of the modern blockbuster, and tips its visual hat to its many references, but also builds a world that is visually enrapturing, beautiful and incredibly tactile. Garrett Hedlund is not nearly as uncharismatic as you've heard, and does a pretty nice job, Olivia Wilde is incredibly lovely and likeable and Jeff Bridges revisits Kevin Flynn with a warmth and affability that's instant. While it does touch on some intriguing ideas regarding our relationship to technology, it's the sound, light and music (thanks to Daft Punk) show that will really blow your hair back, much, much more than other movies that allegedly did the same (coughAVATARcough). But please, please see it in (true, not mini) IMAX 3D.

(Before I move on: My picks for the two most underrated films of 2010 are actually in my top 10 for the year. I'll let you know when I'll get to 'em... which brings us to...)

MY TOP 10 FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2010

2010 gave us quite a few good films and an equal share of bad films, but very few were utterly great or outright terrible. Which, lucky for me, made making a top 10 best incredibly simple. A handful of films stood far above the rest, a couple of which crashed the party very late in the year. Now... I know you may be wondering where certain films are. If that film you expected to be on the list isn't here, it's probably because a) I thought it was really good, but it didn't hit me all that hard (eg. THE KING'S SPEECH, ANIMAL KINGDOM), b) in fewer cases, I haven't seen it (eg. BURIED, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT), or c) I haven't seen it AND it didn't screen publicly in 2010 (eg. 127 HOURS). All the films in my top 10 hit me squarely in the head, heart and -- most importanly for me -- gut.

The envelope, please...

10. LEBANON

Very few films succeed at once as an action, thriller and anti-war film, but LEBANON scores high on all levels. Much has been made of its claustrophobia-inducing location (the film is set entirely inside an Israeli tank during the 1982 Lebanon war), but the terrified, inexperienced tank crew, their immovable commanding officer and the various challenges that are thrown their way, and their narrow but terrifying view of the world outside all turn the screws to make LEBANON a masterclass in cinematic tension. Writer/director Samuel Maoz based the film upon his own experience as a tank soldier in the Lebanon War, which is undoubtedly the reason why it feels so fraught, so inescapably real. The crew are all in their early twenties, and none seem all that ready for the realities of armed warfare. They're scared kids who have been conscripted into their national army and sent out to confront a very dangerous unknown. What's more, when we meet them, they've yet to fire a shot in combat. The thing that grips you at once is, despite how powerful it looks from the outside, how utterly vulnerable their tank is. The thing is leaking, steaming and falling to bits: a perfect metaphor for its increasingly unstable occupants. Their communications are shot, their CO tells them only what he feels they need to know, and even then, he seems to be leaving information out. The crew's only view into the outside world is through the scope of their cannon and, while the images are powerful, this is the one and only element that occasionally pulls you out and reminds us we're watching a film. The scope images are always so perfectly pertinent (a child's face, a man's despair) and composed, when the reality would surely be more chaotic. But it's a minor complaint, as they're a small part of the film's duration and the collective experience of the film is worth so much more. "War is hell" may be a tired sentiment, but as we keep on sending our fellow humans to the slaughter, someone needs to continue expressing it. And, when it's expressed as powerfully and thrillingly as this, all the better.

9. INCEPTION

BRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHHMMMM! BRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHHMMMM! If any sound defined cinema in 2010, it was the giant horn refrain of INCEPTION's score. Christopher Nolan's epic psychic heist picture is a puzzle within a riddle, a riddle within an enigma. It's one of those films that rewards a rewatch; it can be engaged with purely upon the level of its complex plotline and psychological struggle of its lead character, or pored through time and again for hidden and deeper meaning. It's a film about ideas, creativity, intellectual property, letting go and vanquishing emotional demons, and so much more. (There's a theory going around that it's about filmmaking!) It's a breathtakingly shot and composed film, that truly embraces an epic visual style. It's BIG and, with its impeccable wardrobe, expansive production design, percussive musical score, stunning visual effects and big-time cast, it has no qualms with letting you know. But it's big and clever, which is a duo rarely seen together in Hollywood films today. The main distraction of this film is the undeniable shit-tonnage of exposition, which fills about 70% of the film's length. Although it is beautifully delivered by its starry cast and often most helpful to orient us in its multi-layered world, there were moments where I felt a particular point could have been displayed visually, rather than spelled out to us (particularly in regard to DiCaprio's relationship to his wife). But, like LEBANON's cannon-scope artifice, this is a small complaint, as the film itself works so strongly on so many levels and creates a world so compelling that it's hard to be bored -- and what heist flick ISN'T filled with exposition, anyway? (Personally, I liked that Nolan introduced rules to stop the dream worlds from spiralling out of control -- this is RIFIFI OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, not DREAMSCAPE -- and the fact the dream levels were relatively grounded only adds to the viewer's compelling doubt over what in the film is and isn't a dream.) I also have to mention that the cast are excellent, and single out Tom Hardy in a rare dapper, urbane role as the charming Eames and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who, as well as being generally terrific, distinguishes himself in the coolest fight scene to emerge from a Hollywood blockbuster since THE MATRIX. Nolan loves to puzzle his audience and deliver big-time thrills and, in this regard, INCEPTION seems to be the perfect synthesis of his work to date.

8. HUMPDAY

The year's second-most underrated film for me actually first screened in Melbourne in 2009, when it travelled the festival circuit and won rave reviews. It says something about the current film climate when rave reviews -- for such commercial qualities as being "hilarious" and "likeable" -- can't even get a film released to the arthouse circuit. Unbelievably, HUMPDAY was dumped direct-to-DVD. It's one of the smartest, funniest and emotionally astute comedies not only of the last year, but the last decade. It's also the film that near-singlehandedly saves the American independent "Mumblecore" movement from oblivion, as it was made by, and stars, many of the movement's key practitioners and falls under the umbrella, despite not being filled with passive-aggressive characters you want to strangle. No, the lead characters in this intriguing spin on the popular "bromance" sub-genre of comedy are likeable and flawed in wonderfully human -- and funny -- ways. Ben (popular "mumblecore" comedy filmmaker Mark Duplass) is married to Anna (Alycia Delmore) and, while reasonably happy, is feeling his youth pass him by... Never more acutely than when his old college roomate, wannabe hipster Andrew (Joshua Leonard of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT) returns to drop in, stay over and take Ben out on a big night or two. On one of their drinking sessions, they hear about Humpfest, a DIY porno festival and decide (as one does) that it would be an ace idea -- an artistic statement, if you will -- if they did one together. The rest of the film deals with the consequences of this decision, leading up to the event. Writer/director Lynn Shelton could've played the premise for cheap & easy puerile laughs, but really sidesteps this in favour of finding the awkward human comedy within the two men's inherent sadness, no matter how pathetic they often seem. It's as sharp, mocking and sweet a depiction of modern male masculinity I've seen, and it really is massively funny. Get thee to a DVD store and seek this out, you won't be disappointed. It's a smart indie film even your family or beer-'n-pizza friends might enjoy!

7. MACHETE

Robert Rodriguez always promised to adapt his fake trailer contribution to GRINDHOUSE into a feature, but what I didn't expect is that he would extend and flesh it out so successfully. As punchy, fun, explosive, violent and nostalgic as anything he's done, and yet more personally revealing than anything in his oeuvre, Rodriguez and his longtime editorial collaborator-turned-debut director Ethan Maniquis have delivered a shotgun blast of a flick that is equally the year's most vibrant action film, most pitch-perfect film geek homage and most underrated picture. With its sledgehammer social commentary, gleefully racist villains and globs of casual sex and violence, it perfectly updates the archetypes and tropes of 1970s black action "blaxploitation" cinema to a pertinent 2010s context facing Mexicans, the southern US states and the issue of immigration. It sends a message loaded with gunpowder, C4 and outrageous characters, as the best action genre cinema does. It also gives Danny Trejo his first lead role, and this weatherbeaten, tattooed, highly affable cult hero does his damndest to honour it. Whether scowling at villains, spitting out one-liners or swinging on a henchman's intestines, he commands every frame he's in. (He also, more awkwardly, beds both female leads!) He anchors the nuttiest, most eclectic cast of the year, who are all having a great time swallowing the scenery, including Robert De Niro in his best role in over a decade (is it because he's finally made the transition to B-actor and thus fits in perfectly?) and Steven Seagal in the kind of role he should have been playing from day one: a villain. I won't lie: it's a kick to see 64-year-old Trejo go mano-a-mano with 59-year-old Seagal in the final battle. For an action flick with cojones of steel and its heart in the right place, you won't find a better time at the cinema than MACHETE.

6. THE SOCIAL NETWORK

I always had faith in the "Facebook movie". As much as it was mocked and dismissed before release, my heart held true. Not because I was particularly interested in the genesis of the social networking behemoth, but because of two names: Fincher and Sorkin. Sorkin and Fincher. I mean, the pessimistic, genius, visual stylist director behind SE7EN, FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAC and the idealistic, genius, maestro of dialogue screenwriter of THE WEST WING, STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT teaming up?? These guys could be doing SEX IN THE CITY 3 and I'd be there on opening day. But they far surpassed even my lofty expectations with their work here. THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a story of modern-day monarchs, of aspirants to the throne, engaged in betrayal over an empire. Through the prism of Sorkin's preternatural grasp upon the medium of film dialogue, it is quite literally the kind of story Shakespeare would have written were he born last century and alive and working today. But it's Fincher's dark view of human nature, which shines through with every foreboding, beautifully composed shot, with every note of Trent Reznor's delicious score, that perfectly compliments the caustic lines these characters fire at one another, and adds an extra dose of acid to Sorkin's entitled little Harvard boys. It's been a while since I've seen a talkfest so thrillingly staged and blackly performed, and the actors are just right and then some: from Jesse Eisenberg playing Zuckerberg like a wounded animal, unable to trust or even truly understand how the rest of us humans act, to Andrew Garfield's sweet but naive Eduardo Saverin, whose lack of boardroom street smarts sees him pushed aside, to Justin Timberlake's rendering of Sean Parker as a wonderfully sleazy 21st century snake oil salesman, to -- my personal favourite -- the towering Armie Hammer as the charismatic, righteously scorned Winklevoss twins. In a world where words are bullets, contracts are time bombs, information is power and a geek is God, the emotional shrapnel flies thick and fast, and ultimately wounds us all in some way or another. While I don't believe THE SOCIAL NETWORK defines a generation entire, I feel it does define a very modern, very Generation-Y phenomenon: the technocrat, whose social awkwardness and apparent technical omniscience brings with it an entitlement to instant fortune. Of this particular type of person, one could not possibly find a more expressive or fitting avatar than Mark Zuckerberg. THE SOCIAL NETWORK is as perceptive and important a look at a modern powerbroker as CITIZEN KANE was in the 1940s. KANE may have satirised and criticised William Randolph Hearst but, most crucially, it attempted to understand him, and I firmly believe that THE SOCIAL NETWORK does this for a new kind of powerbroker, a variety of animal we're still grasping to truly understand.

5. BLACK SWAN

[Okay, before I begin: I saw this film at a public, ticketed, advance screening on New Years Eve, which played at many theatres around Melbourne -- and possibly Australia-wide -- so, even though it isn't officially released until January 20, 2011, it has screened publicly at a non-media, non-festival capacity. So I'm counting it. HA!]

Darren Aronofsky is undeniably a filmmaker of prodigious talent, but not one whose films I immediately flock to. PI's circumstances impressed me more than the film itself, I thought REQUIEM FOR A DREAM was excellent but apparently not as heart-wrenchingly moving as everyone else, and was severely underwhelmed by the visually stunning but surprisingly flat THE FOUNTAIN. The first Aronofsky film I genuinely loved was THE WRESTLER, but much of that was tied up in the heart-blood-guts-soul performance he elicited from Mickey Rourke. There's genius present in all four films, but BLACK SWAN is the one where the promise finally comes to fruition, and stamps Aronofsky as one of the boldest, most individual, most thrilling filmmakers working today. It's a bewitching blend of the Archers, Polanski, Fosse and Cronenberg, but somehow uniquely Aronofsky, and makes for a strangely fitting companion piece to THE WRESTLER. It's both as sensitive a character study and scary a horror picture as any this year. (In fact, I haven't seen a 2010 horror film playing anywhere near its league.) And Aronofsky proves his talent for pushing great actors to another level (as he did with Ellen Burstyn in REQUIEM, and Rourke) is no fluke. Natalie Portman is pure dynamite as Nina, a perfectionist ballet dancer whose repression is blocking her from getting the best out of her dancing: she's the embodiment of SWAN LAKE's White Swan, but can't get her handle on the Black Swan. Which is where two very provocative figures come in: driven, manipulative company director Thomas LeRoy (the excellent Vincent Cassel) and rival dancer Lily (Mila Kunis, who is perfect playing on the dark side of Portman). From there, the alternately artful and lurid screenplay by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John J McLaughlin takes us into delectably unexpected directions. It's a concoction of behind-the-scenes melodrama, psychological horror and tribute to artistry that smashes us with its audacity and thrills us with its visceral power. It's the kind of hard-hitting genre picture with deeper, personal resonance that distinguished the American cinema of the 1970s, and is most welcome (but all too rare) today.

4. SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD

Edgar Wright is the kind of uber-geek-filmmaker I can get on board with in a big, bad way. His output of the last decade and change -- the TV sitcom SPACED, feature films SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ -- are fast, funny, endlessly energetic products of pure love. Wright is known as a friendly, gregarious character whose love of film, television and music is effusive and infectious, and one gets that from his films. He's a true auteur in the fact that not only is he a writer/director/producer, but his DNA seems to be present upon every frame of his celluloid output. This aesthetic of cinematic joy is present and most accounted for in SCOTT PILGRIM, which (if I may adopt the film's syntax for a moment) levels Wright's directorial game up to a new platform. His work has always been visually rich, filled with in-jokes, quick cuts and expressive angles, but PILGRIM is exploding with invention. It's breathlessly edited, inventively shot and many of the action scenes are downright exhilarating, but it never becomes overly self-conscious or feels like showboating, as every transition is completely and utterly logical. As footloose and free as it feels, it's actually as formalist as anything from Hitchcock or Ford. Wright is doing exciting things with cinematic language here, things that I'm sure will be abused by less talented or knowledgeable practitioners in future. Aside from this, it's also a breathlessly exciting, hilariously clever action-comedy adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series, and brilliantly cast. Michael Cera is subtly developing a star persona, and the character of Scott Pilgrim provides enough opportunities for him to build upon this without completely deserting it. Pilgrim is NOT George-Michael Bluth, nor is he the bumbling, sexually awkward teen of SUPERBAD and YEAR ONE. There's a confidence and nonchalance to Cera in this that we've rarely seen, not to mention the fight scenes, in which Cera does a surprising amount of physical work. Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes a gorgeously laconic leading lady, Ellen Wong leaps off the screen as Scott's "high school girlfriend" Knives Chau, Kieran Culkin is wonderfully sardonic as Pilgrim's roommate and the Seven Evil Exes are all perfectly horrid. The plot may be an amusing metaphor for rising above your own emotional baggage and anxiety over your partner's past, but I believe that SCOTT PILGRIM has something deeper going on: it's this film, not THE SOCIAL NETWORK, that provides the strongest definition of Generation Y to date. A generation weaned on video games, conditioned to believe they're all the hero of their own story by childhoods dominated by film and TV narratives, bombarded by pop culture images, sounds and influences, effortlessly referential yet rarely reverential, the characters and world of SCOTT PILGRIM are as definitive a look at the post-X generation as anything yet seen. This kind of insight, teamed with its audiovisual audacity and blissfully fun narrative, makes for a deceptively powerful pop cultural blast indeed.

3. FOUR LIONS

I'm just going to state this up front: FOUR LIONS is, for me, hands down, the funniest film of the year. Perhaps, the funniest film of the last five years. I can't remember going to see a film comedy and laughing so much I barely paused for breath. After 15 years in British TV, Chris Morris makes a startling feature directorial debut, nailing every single target he aims at, making a mockery of the macabre yet, incredibly, finding the very human side of Islamic extremist terrorism. Some have said he didn't go far enough, that Morris and his co-writers (Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Simon Blackwell) pitched it too broad, but I respectfully disagree. From DUCK SOUP taking on Fascism to THE GREAT DICTATOR taking on Hitler, FOUR LIONS continues a strong tradition of using broad yet clever slapstick humour to take on a fearsome, almost unmentionable ideological enemy. In all these cases, the very act of making the film is defiant, subversive and politically charged. But the film itself is also deceptively deft. Sure, our lead characters are ridiculously bumbling, but what is more human than our failings? (Morris' research also led him to discover that most terrorist plots fail due to pure stupid human error. It's the media that want us to believe they're all masterminds. I wonder why that is?) It also paints a comical yet more truthful demographic of your average terrorist: it's not the most devout London Islamics who want to wage a Jihad -- they're out playing football in the park on a weekend -- our would-be terrorists are all fairly working-class and relatively liberal. While the four jihadists are clearly angry at western "imperialist" society, they're very much a part of it, from the Nerf guns Omar (Riz Ahmed) plays with with his son, to explaining their fateful mission to him via THE LION KING. Morris has said that the film was born out of serious research he was doing on Islamic extremist suicide bombers -- not for a film, just to personally understand the phenomenon -- where he kept running into increasingly bizarre anecdotes sourced from MI5/FBI evidence recordings, where budding terrorists would mock other cell members for being too hardline, or ask each other questions like, "Who's cooler: Osama Bin Laden or Johnny Depp?" It's these qualities that bring a hilarious humanity to those we've been conditioned to believe are pure ungodly evil -- a force that we must subjugate our entire way of life to defeat -- when, really, they're just criminally misguided human beings who are manifesting this anger to combat a greater psychological malady: whether that be racial prejudice, socioeconomic marginalisation or lack of tolerance for their religion and customs. FOUR LIONS, in and of itself, isn't overly concerned with finding these answers, but after we've all had a laugh, perhaps -- perhaps -- it can prove a catalyst to ask questions, and may eventually lead to some inkling of an understanding.

2. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

This film really snuck up on me. Going in, I had no idea about street art, not really. I knew it had something to do with graffiti and stencils and repeated pictures and motifs. To quote Jack Woltz in THE GODFATHER, let me be even more frank: I had no idea who Banksy was. But I'd heard it was a great documentary, some were even calling it a "prankumentary", so I had to see what this was all about. We're treated to the story of Thierry Guetta, a Los Angeles man who obsessively records every waking moment of his life and everyone he meets. His cousin, a well-known street artist, comes to visit and asks Thierry to film him and his friends in the act. We soon meet his friends, who include Shepard Fairey (he of the "OBEY" faces once plastered around Melbourne and the Barack Obama "HOPE" piece), who Thierry becomes increasingly interested in, and this friendship eventually leads him to the most famed of street artists, the notoriously secretive Banksy. From here, things get really wacky. (No, I'm not telling you any more.) Now, once the film was over, I felt thoroughly entertained and thought it was a fun, satirical little flick that may or may not be complete fact or occasional fiction. It's only in the hours after leaving the film did its thematic tentacles begin weaving its way through my mind: It's a complete potted history of street art. It's a rare chance to see Banksy at work. It's a damning critique on the art world's commercial appropriation of street art, and artists' willingness to sell out. It's Banksy turning on those who have criticised him for selling out. It's a critique on how the dominant art form of the 21st century has become advertising, and that hype is the greatest trick of all. Upon further examination, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is revealed to be -- and I say this, honestly, without a shred of hyperbole -- a living, breathing work of absolute genius. There's definitely some documentation of fact here, whether it's 100% fact is the question (Banksy claims it is... but he would, wouldn't he?), but this doesn't concern me so much as the myriad interesting points it makes. I came out of the film much more informed about the evolution (and possible devolution) of street art, thinking about the nature of art in a world dominated by marketing... AND thoroughly entertained. Banksy's film is to documentary what Charlie Kaufman's screenplays are to feature films: it will make you think, question reality, explore your own point of view and laugh like hell. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is a depth-charge explosive of a cinematic masterwork, and a documentary to push the form into the 21st century.

1. BLUE VALENTINE

This film hurts my heart. Whether I'm connected to it on some fundamental, cellular level as a child of divorce, or whether I just brought my life thus far of relationships good and bad, thriving and dead, to it, I'm not sure. The triumph of Derek Cianfrance's film -- his second narrative feature, after 1998's little-known BROTHER TIED, as well as a career of documentary filmmaking -- is to seem so achingly intimate, so effortlessly real, that anyone who's been in a relationship will be powerfully affected by some aspect of the story. Everything in this stunning portrait of a dying marriage is geared toward creating a tangible reality, with what seems to be a stunning grasp on human psychology, echoed by Andrij Parekh's stunning, often hand-held cinematography that powerfully evokes family photos (present-day scenes on the RED digital camera, scenes from the past on Super 16mm film), by the mostly subtle musical score from indie band Grizzly Bear and, most of all, by the heartbreakingly human performances of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. As professionally crafted as everything in BLUE VALENTINE is, it rarely feels like a film; it's so intensely relatable, half the time it's like you're watching your friends fall apart, and the other half of the time, you feel you're watching yourself. The couple's happier moments are appropriately lovely, affectionate, funny... but never too much so. Again, nothing feels exaggerated, or sentimental, or poured on, or wilfully depressing; Cianfrance's direction (and he and his co-writers' screenplay) gets everything so right. It's an engrossing, ultimately devastating look at the ways we fall out of love with each other, that refuses to pass judgement or lay blame. Both characters elicit your sympathies, and who you'll relate to more is purely predicated upon your own personal life experiences. It's this kind of emotional truth, unflinching observation and non-judgmental outlook that makes you want to hug the filmmakers for treating the subject matter with such respect, and ultimately reminds us that, sadly, this is how our universal dream of love with another turns out, more often than not. BLUE VALENTINE will cut you in half.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is the punchiest, most viscerally satisfying thriller I saw this year, and introduces the world to a (much needed) international female star in the making in Noomi Rapace. Much more cinematic than the second film in the series.

TOY STORY 3 was yet another example of Pixar's enviable gift for perfect storytelling, provided a fond farewell for our favourite characters and boasted the best scene in any movie in 2010 (the furnace scene, of course)... and if it hadn't leaned so hard upon drawn-out sentimentality in the last 15 minutes, it would have made my Top 5.

THE ROAD's massively effective, inescapably bleak picture of a post-apocalyptic world seems to have been forgotten by many Australian critics at this time of year, considering it released here in February. Viggo Mortensen seems to get better each time he's challenged, and it's an uneasy testament to the effectiveness of this film when you wish death on the lead characters, because you love them and want to spare them another second in this horrible place.

FANTASTIC MR FOX was the first time I'd really enjoyed anything from Wes Anderson since THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. The mannered retro aesthetic and giant daddy issues were once again present, but the stop-motion animation was so charmingly designed and winningly voiced, and the film's spirit so genuinely sweet and unironic, that I'd recommend Anderson take up the form full-time... if I didn't think he'd fall into the same patterns of repetition there.

WINTER'S BONE was a tight, tough, chilling story of a criminal clan that, for me, was a spiritual companion to ANIMAL KINGDOM in many ways, and bested it in most. Jennifer Lawrence is terrific in a breakout lead performance, but it's John Hawkes and Dale Dickey, as her fearsome yet caring uncle and a terrifying Ozark matriarch, that really continue to stick in my head.

And that's my take on film in 2010. Hope you didn't find it too punishing! Feel free to comment and agree/disagree/praise me wildly.

Have a fabulous 2011, as this blog waves goodbye for the final time.

Farewell,

TSIK

BITCHFEST '10, or: Farewell Pulp Friction Australia (Part 1 of 2)

2010-12-30T23:21:00.001-08:00

Welcome back!

Firstly: Yes, it's been a while. As I announced last year, I've been in the slow process of putting this blog to sleep. And, as I've since discovered the wonders (read: user-friendliness) of Wordpress, and the fact it took me nearly an hour to put all these pics in here, I'm now officially ending PULP FRICTION for other, greener, equally infrequent pastures. This old blogspot has served me well over the last 3 & a bit years, and it's been a fun place to write and (let's be honest, mostly) rant. So, charge your glasses as we bid farewell to PULP FRICTION AUSTRALIA and toast to the future, whatever that may be.

Secondly: Is that another year gone already? Yikes. Seems like yesterday I was torn between A SERIOUS MAN and AWAY WE GO for the top spot (the Coens won), wondering if I could see Guy Ritchie's SHERLOCK HOLMES in time and if it would be good enough to make the list (it wouldn't have) and being bollocked for putting together a "Most Overrated" list (I won't be doing one this year). And now it's 2011. But, for now, let me take you back... back in time... to a place without rules, without laws... a place where a king ruled the land and evil rules the streets... let me take you back... to 2010!

2010 kicked off a new decade in--

(Wait a minute. Just have to get something out of the way first... I KNOW everybody will dispute this, so I'm just taking it off the damn table by qualifying it thus: I categorise movie decades by the first two digits. So the "eighties" = 1980-89, "nineties" = 1990-99, "noughties"/"zeroes"/"naughts"/"oughties" = 2000-09 and so on. I don't care if you disagree, this blog is my world and, for the time you're reading it, you're living in it. If it means that much to you, hit the big "X" button and write your own blog. End of debate-slaying rant. Cue smiley face.) :)

2010 kicked off a new decade in film, and like most "0" years -- generally because of the length and necessities of the film development and production process -- very much reflected the general mindset of the previous decade's output and philosophy.

Hollywood continued to look for "tentpole" franchises, but precious few fulfilled their wishes: PRINCE OF PERSIA, THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, KNIGHT AND DAY, THE A-TEAM, GET HIM TO THE GREEK, MARMADUKE and LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE AND THE LONGEST TITLE EVER all delivered varying degrees of disappointing box office returns. What's more, they were all forced to sit back and be taunted by the old guard of mega-tentpoles showing them a clean pair of heels: TOY STORY 3, IRON MAN 2, TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 and SHREK FOREVER AFTER all blew up big (in the positive sense) at the box office. Of these, only TOY STORY pushed its series' storytelling to new levels, but that's because it's, y'know, Pixar.

It's fair to say that Pixar are as close to an auteur filmmaker as a studio/production house can be, which segues wonderfully into my next defining point of 2010 in film: the best Hollywood films of the year were the result of studios trusting exciting, intelligent auteur filmmakers to do what they're good at. Christopher Nolan and INCEPTION. Team Fincher/Sorkin and THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Edgar Wright and SCOTT PILGRIM VERSUS THE WORLD (box office be damned!). And, from what I hear, Darren Aronofsky and BLACK SWAN, Danny Boyle and 127 HOURS, and so on.

And on animation, for the first time, it seemed that Dreamworks Animation finally began to make up some ground on its leaping Luxo arch-enemy with well-reviewed megahits HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON and MEGAMIND. And Universal anted up pretty strongly with DESPICABLE ME. And while we're here, the superhero genre that ruled the 2000s (starting with X-MEN in, yes, 2000) began to morph into the post-superhero genre, with the aforementioned ME and MIND as well as KICK-ASS. Some would say -- with IRON MAN 2 ideologically jumping the shark and the GREEN LANTERN trailer blowing very few skirts up -- that this particular sub-genre has run its course, but I strongly disagree. Many great stories have been told in the last 75 years of comic book history, most of which still haven't been adapted (the entire Vertigo suite, for a start), alongside those which could be served better or deserve a do-over (Superman, Daredevil, Electra, Fantastic Four, Hellblazer, Jonah Hex, Swamp Thing). The Superhero concept is modern mythmaking and, like angels and demons and faeries and giants and gods and monsters before them, have endless metaphorical storytelling potential.

But what about outside Hollywood? I'm afraid my international exposure has been sadly low this year, so I'm not entirely sure what trends are winging their way around the world. The French seem to have moved from torture horror to zombies... or, even more horrifying, beginning to reconcile themselves with their dark wartime past. In fact, of all genres, horror looks to be the one closest to going through a renaissance period globally: from A SERBIAN FILM to THE HORDE to WE ARE WHAT WE ARE to AMER and so on, the horror picture with major subtext is the breakthrough picture du jour, it seems. Hell, we even had DAYBREAKERS and THE LOVED ONES. Which brings me to...

After many years of seeing our films follow yearly trends of similar content (of what I've always liked to call the "sad suburban bastard" variety... or, the "Ana Kokkinos Rule"), 2010 saw Australia put together what has to have been its most diverse slate of pictures since the early 1980s. We had horror (the aforementioned DAYBREAKERS and LOVED ONES), big-budget action franchise (TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN), romantic comedies (I LOVE YOU TOO and, er, MATCHING JACK), revenge action (THE HORSEMAN, finally out in the world), crime drama (ANIMAL KINGDOM), a musical (BRAN NUE DAE), romantic comedy-drama (SUMMER CODA), wartime drama (BENEATH HILL 60) and even a Western (RED HILL)! This all pleases me no end, as the one thing -- the onlything -- I have ever asked for from Australian cinema, is diversity. There are more genres than crime, drama and stupid comedy out there, and now, we're finally starting to see them. More than 2009, I think 2010 honest-to-goodness heralds a new era in Australian cinema, and to be on the ground floor of this is incredibly thrilling.

I'm sure there are other film-related issues this year I could go on about, but I'd really rather just leap into the countdown. Oh, what's that? You would, too? Well, then -- what the hell are we standing around here for??

THE GOOD, BAD AND UNDERRATED OF 2010: PART 1...

(Okay, so it's not so much going to be "good" and "bad" as "favourite" and "most disappointing", but still. Wanted to keep a Leone thing happening, realised how specious that is, backed away from it. Welcome to my mind. And every day of my life. All right, I'll shut up and count 'em off.)

Also: What the hell is my system gonna be here? Films released theatrically in Australia/the US/UK/Siberia in 2010? Films first shown and released theatrically/on DVD/to airlines in Australia in 2010? I've decided, in order to give MIFF films their due as I've done in previous years, this list shall take into account EVERY 2010 (OR 2009 HOLDOVER) FILM FIRST RELEASED TO CINEMAS/DVD (no matter how limited) IN AUSTRALIA IN 2010. THAT I'VE SEEN. OF COURSE. WHY AM I YELLING?

...THE TOP 10 MOST DISAPPOINTING FILMS OF 2010

(The reasons I refrain from saying "Bad" are, a) I tend to purposely sidestep the genuinely bad films out there -- I haven't seen obvious dreck like GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, PRINCE OF PERSIA, THE LAST AIRBENDER, et al, b) I've only seen 63 qualifying films this year, which seems a mite on the small side for me, so this list is hardly definitive, c) "Good" and "Bad" are completely subjective and not actually quantifiable - as the reviews floating around for TRON: LEGACY right now will tell you. So, I'd just like to put it on front street that my opinions are my own, it's fine for all to agree/disagree, these are not the views of the management, etc etc. and d) these films aren't strictly bad -- they all have something going for them -- but just the ones that fell most short of their potential.)

(Okay, numbers 1 through 4 are bad.)

10. PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE

PRECIOUS is not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely one which could have been great. It features revelatory, Oscar-caliber performances by the unknown Gabourey Sidibe (sadly, how many roles are going to be available for this girl after this? Something tells me she's not going to have the massive career she deserves) and Mo'nique (yes: she was once in PHAT BEACH), and able support from Paula Patton and (yes) Mariah Carey. Its screenplay suffers slightly from being a composite of true-life stories rather than one person's story, as it pours on the pain and unfortunate events to an extreme degree. (Lemony Snicket's got nothing on Precious.) But for the most part, it still works, as these everyday atrocities have and still happen to countless underprivileged African-American youth, and strike at the core of America's neglect of it's own. Where PRECIOUS really falls short of greatness falls squarely at the feet of Lee Daniels' clunky, clumsy directing. It's filled with unwarranted, heavy-handed and frankly embarrassing slo-mo sequences. Precious' dreams of music video escape are awkwardly inserted and look a little ramshackle. It's no surprise that the film rises out of overly sentimental, (and I'm loathe to say this) "poverty-porn" muck in the final half-hour when Daniels merely trains his camera on his actors and gets the hell out of the way. This final act -- when Precious and her case manager (Carey) confront Precious' mother -- brings the power the entire film promised, and saves it from movie-of-the-week tragedy.

9. GET HIM TO THE GREEK

Since when are comedies meant to bum you out? No, we're not talking some piece of hilarious yet heartbreaking Billy Wilder-style mastery here. GET HIM TO THE GREEK is a broad, slapsticky stoner comedy involving a junior record company executive charged with delivering a drug-addled rock star to his big comeback gig. With the godfathering of producer Judd Apatow and the director and co-writer of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (which I've not seen), it should have been a knockabout blast, right? Instead, we have fights between broken family members, a man whose longtime love wants to control his life, a star who realises he's lost touch with why he loves music in the first place and drug issues. Which would all be perfectly wonderful subtext... if the jokes were funny. But they're not. All but the broadest gags fall embarrassingly flat, leaving the tragic lives of these exasperated men as the only aspect that rises to the top. None of this is the fault of the leads, Russell Brand and Jonah Hill, who are actually pretty good. The fault has to be levelled at Stoller's screenplay and touch with his own material, which is filled with the kind of disconnected, non sequitur jokes that so many modern comedies are enamoured with and do nothing to advance character or plot. The jokes aren't rooted in tragedy and heart, but rather happen in a scattershot fashion as the emotional turmoil exists parallel. If Stoller and company could have taken some notes from Wilder, they might have had something that didn't feel like a complete misfire.

8. THE KILLER INSIDE ME

Like most of the other films on this list, this seems, at face value, to be a movie made for me. A modern noir, based on a dime store novel from a master of the form, with a starry (if odd) casthelmed by the estimable Michael Winterbottom, whose control of the medium is surpassed only by his multi-genre dexterity. Unfortunately, Winterbottom's golden touch fails him here, as this makes for one of his most wildly uneven films. The killer of the title, played the fine but somewhat overrated Casey Affleck, isn't quite as scary as he should be, a couple of violent scenes have a major impact but the rest fall flat... in fact, the film tries to be many things and only half-achieves all of them. It's half-creepy, half-funny, half-suspenseful, half-subversive, half-insane. Too much of it feels like a conventional serial killer/noir, Affleck's presence doesn't grab us by the throat as it should and, by the time the always welcome Bill Pullman shows up in a baffling role, the film has driven right off the cliff into a river the next town over. It's not a bad film, but rather a tonally muddled mess that doesn't go hard enough for long enough.

7. COP OUT
I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith, both as a writer/director and raconteur, so I was pretty excited to see him challenge himself as a filmmaker by directing in a new genre he grew up watching, not based on his own script, with a star he loved. On paper, teaming wiseass Jersey boys Kevin Smith and Bruce Willis with 30 ROCK's Tracy Morgan, in an '80s-style NYC buddy cop picture seems like a capital idea. But it just doesn't work. Allegedly Smith and Willis' working relationship was not one of mutual admiration, the film went through title changes and budget crunches and who knows what else, so there were obviously extenuating circumstances. However, despite what you've read around the internet, it's not so much inept as just incredibly flat. The action scenes are limply directed and much of the banter doesn't work, not least as Willis appears to be sleepwalking through the film on the sniff of his paycheck. I've always loved Willis, but his palpable disinterest in his on-screen roles these days is disturbing and, consequently, he drains most of the energy from the film. Morgan seems to be aware of this, so he turns everything up to 12 in an effort to inject some life into the picture, but just comes off as desperate. COP OUT's saving grace is Seann William Scott, who is flat-out hilarious whenever he's on screen; even the leads seem to be having fun when he's around. (Well, Tracy does, anyway.) Whether Smith's hands were tied, or he wasn't ready for this kind of film, or his lack of personal authorship diminished his connection to the material, I'm not sure, but there is a vital spark of energy and inspiration missing here that all his affection for '80 cop comedy flicks can't cover for. Not an unmitigated disaster as reported, but just a shame.

6. KICK-ASS

A pre-ordained "cult classic" granted the title only by being the most surface kind of controversial/subversive, I actually found KICK-ASS to be a wholly uninspiring film, which decided it would rather bombard us with flashy CGI fight scenes than plumb the genuinely disturbing psychological depths of its story. (Don't give me the "it had to appeal to a wide audience" argument: it was rated R in the USA and MA15+ in Australia. It was targeted at adults. Or, rather, should have been.) People seem to have missed the potential here: KICK-ASS could have been TAXI DRIVER with superheroes. Instead, it comes off like WATCHMEN on a sugar high after watching THE MATRIX too many times. Nicolas Cage is hilarious, but he's playing to the wacky tone of the film. Imagine if he had played it straight-faced? Imagine if they'd treated Hit Girl like the tragic, properly damaged character she is, instead of throwing all that out halfway through because, man, it's oh-so-damn-coolto see a 12 year old girl call dudes "cunts" and float through the air on wires, firing CG bullets. That's the main tonal problem with KICK-ASS: it's constantly trying to have its cake and eat it too. On one hand, look how wrong it is to rob your daughter of a childhood by making her a killing machine... but on the other hand, look how cool it is to see her killing all those people! One or the other, guys, you can't do both. Otherwise, your film feels like a mess and obliterates all emotional connection with the characters. (Speaking of which, who the hell is Kick-Ass again? Oh, that guy. Yawn. Isn't he meant to be our protagonist? Why do we care about him again?) And tone down the CG, guys, seriously. There's a genuinely brilliant deconstruction of superheroes in KICK-ASS... it just didn't end up on the screen.

5. MONSTERS

This one hurts. I really wish this film were not ranked here, because first-time feature Gareth Edwards and his crew did a brilliant job getting this film up for half a mil US$. The technical skill and dexterity on display for such a low budget is awe-inspiring, and his aim to make a small story against a huge genre backdrop is to be admired. I've no doubt at all that Edwards is a director to watch, and I can't wait to see what he does next, on one condition: NEXT TIME, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE -- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD -- HIRE A SCREENWRITER. If you're going to make an absorbing character study, and have it all be about the actors and script, then you need to make the characters fresh, believable and interesting, and build some serious tension with your situation. MONSTERS does neither, presenting the two most cliched, uninteresting characters (their introductions are dull, and it goes from there) in a setting that promises lots of juicy sociopolitical allegory, but instead delivers a hackneyed, boring love story that is about as predictable as anything ever put on screen. It wants to be DISTRICT 9 meets THE AFRICAN QUEEN, but lacks the tension of the former and the humour and emotion of the latter. Even the few action scenes are dull -- including the old chestnut where the creature takes out the cars in front and behind yours, but inexplicably not yours, despite the fact you're just sitting there waiting to be eaten -- and there's virtually zero suspense. Leading man Scoot McNairy does his best with the material, and is given one terrific scene on the phone toward the end of the film which, if I'd been at all invested in the character, would have really moved me. The film's script is so disappointingly dull that, if you're like me, you'll be mentally creating more interesting alternative turns the script could take. As much as I admire Edwards' ambition and technical prowess, he's not a writer and perhaps hiring one (and a better leading lady) next time around will see him fulfill his massive potential.

4. [REC]2 (screened at ACMI)

I want to preface this by saying, I'm reasonably confident that there are fewer ecstatic [REC] fans than I. I found the film truly terrifying, executed with genius and played with surprising realism and went so far as to place it in the top 10 of my 25 favourite films of the 2000s on this very blog. However, as I'm generally against sequels as a rule, I was a little skeptical going into [REC]2 but thought, if anyone can find something else in this story and pluck gold from gauche, it was Balaguero and Plaza. So it saddens me to admit that my fearful skepticism was rewarded. Firstly, yet strangely least damaging, they explain the virus -- but the reason Patient Zero was in the attic is actually a pretty clever idea. Secondly, [REC]2 is everything the first wasn't: silly, gimmicky(whether there's a camera light or not, the infected continually charge straight at the camera like zombified reality TV stars), riddled with gigantic plot holes, shot with vomit-inducing hand-held camera (the first film kept this aspect surprisingly still and palatable) and filled with dickhead characters who just yell at each other for 90 minutes. The final plot twist just hammers home the silliness and makes us wonder why they all bothered. Whatever cautious enthusiasm I had for upcoming [REC]s GENESIS and APOCALYPSE has now evaporated.

3. THE SILENT HOUSE (screened at ACMI)

The enhanced capabilities that digital filmmaking now affords filmmakers are exciting and unprecedented but, like all technological enhancements, must be used with consideration and caution. Oh, and of course, there's the little matter that script is ALWAYS your number one priority. Sadly, this plucky Uruguayan attempt to shoot an entire horror movie in one shot is sloppy with the first matter and plain damned ignorant of the second. For a while, the film does build up some dread: girl and her father move into an old two-storey with a discomfiting amount of nooks and crannies, it's ever-darkening, shadowy figures appear where they shouldn't... but there's too much for-the-camera artifice that takes us right out of the film. Rather than just enter a room and shine her lantern on what's necessary for us to see, the girl slowly, painstakingly shines her lantern on every inch of the room, every bookshelf, every lampshade, every picture. It's incredibly ridiculous, like leading a blind person into a room and getting them to run their hand across every single item in it without exception. Then, there's an elongated sequence where the girl's lantern flames out, and we're plunged into darkness, hearing only noises and voices... not a bad idea in and of itself, but it does plunge that "one shot" claim into serious doubt. But the worst idea is saved for the end, when the film's ultimate plot twist kicks in and takes a turn for the utterly ridiculous. It will make some roar with laughter and others with rage, but will please no-one. THE SILENT HOUSE is a great idea for a film, but never thematically or aesthetically transcends or builds on that idea.

2. HARRY BROWN

That poster image for this film suggests GET CARTER 2, or DEATH WISH VI, right? Frankly, either of these would have been preferable to what this film delivers, which is a painfully hamfisted, horribly uneasy alliance of vengeance exploitation picture and social commentary. I will get one thing out of the way early: Caine is terrific. He's sad, sensitive, tortured, commanding, angry, and then some. But debut writer/director Daniel Barber's film can't rise to his level. Like KICK-ASS, HARRY BROWN is a violent actioner that too often tries to have its cake and eat it too. It's gritty, yet heinously manipulative from minute one, when drugged teens shoot a mother walking her kids in the park in the head for no reason. It spends much of its first act building an unbearably claustrophobic, bitterly cold and grimy world where these characters live, only to then bring it all undone with the most ridiculous, post-Tarantino crime movie cliche of a tattooed drug dealing rapist seen in movies for many years. Thing is, if the whole film had been on the level of this character, it would have been a blast. Instead, we're constantly reminded of how poor old pensioners live in abject waking terror of very real "out of control" teens who beat anybody who shows a shred of defiance. It paints council housing estates as living hells populated by horrendously evil thugs who will riot and tear shit up at the drop of a gyro cheque. As the film goes on, it moves from tabloid social critique to grimy exploitation picture, to a portrait of a sad old man at odds with the world around him to a cliched, offensive caricature of everybody and everything involved. HARRY BROWN may entertain those who believe everyone under 18 should be shot on sight or drafted into national service, but for the rest of us, it's tonally messy, sloppily derivative, laughably manipulative and even socially irresponsible filmmaking.

1. ENTER THE VOID

Gaspar Noe is a provocateur. We know this, and (most of us) accept this. And I'll have you know, I have no issue with provocation, as long as it's coming from an interesting, intelligent place. Now, I'd never seen a Noe film before this, but I had seen the trailer; a punchy, colourful, sexy, violent neon collision of drug-fuelled imagery pulsating with a rocking techno score. Needless to say, I was pumped. Even though the running time was a hefty 152 minutes, I figured Noe was going to deliver a subversive, assaultive, counter-culture classic on a CLOCKWORK ORANGE level. And, after the incredible opening credits sequence (a font-nerd's dream backed by the same "rocking techno score" I mentioned earlier) I figured he just may deliver. I'd never seen an opening credits sequence elicit applause -- outside a cast/crew screening -- before. Then we fade up to, quite literally, our protagonist's point of view: complete with soon-to-be-dreadfully-grating blinking effect. And things slowly (and I do mean S-L-O-W-L-Y) go downhill from there. Because, beyond its essential structure of taking us on a walk through the Tibetan Book of the Dead, ENTER THE VOID delivers exactly what its title promises: we spend 152 excruciating minutes entering a void. A void of ideas, time, taste and meaning. Yes, some of it is stylish. Surprisingly little is hallucinatory. All that neon and trippy imagery and pumping music of the trailer comprises about 10% of the film. The rest of the time, we're sleepily floating over Tokyo, through the eyes of a boring, dead (no, that's not a twist, his death is the film's inciting incident) junkie loser who desperately wants to fuck his sister. Who is played with copious nudity and zero prowess by Paz De La Huerta, drawling all her lines like the film's being projected at half speed. In fact, maybe that was the issue, as the film seemed to run for twice as long as its already wildly excessive running time. Then, there's the final half-hour of the film, which seems to be set in some kind of heavenly fleapit festival of fucking and culminates with the most laughably elaborate "money shot" you will ever see. Obsessed with high-school-level Freudian themes, sex, drugs and bodily functions, ENTER THE VOID winds up as the longest, dreariest, most elaborate display of vacuous juvenility I have seen in many a year.* Overhyped, overheated and undercooked. IRREVERSIBLE better be better than this.

*With the possible exception of TRASH HUMPERS, which was the flat-out worst film I saw in 2010, but am excluding from this list as it did not receive a non-festival release in Australia this year. But rest assured, it's an equally juvenile and vacuous shitpile, despite a potential to be darkly hilarious and creepily apocalyptic. The film proved so uninteresting that I used my convenient back-row seat to count the walkouts. There were 62. Sixty. Two. Walk. Outs. Each of them thoroughly earned. (No, I stayed 'til the bitter end. Now, Korine: I want my fucking T-shirt.)

Ahem. Now we're done with the bile, let's get to the smile!

Coming up next: MY 5 MOST UNDERRATED AND 10 FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2010!!!

MEN OF INFLUENCE

2010-06-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

WHO IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL DIRECTOR OF THE LAST 30 YEARS?

It's one of those topics film geeks, critics and academics like to throw around more than most, but I've seen precious few articles in books or on the internet making declarations on the subject. So, perhaps foolishly, I have decided to choose a side. To declare a winner.

Firstly, let's look at what we're asking: how do we define influence? For the purpose of this article, I will define influence on filmmaking in terms of physical aesthetics of Hollywood filmmaking, those who have been most prominent in guiding/shaping/popularising a common camera, editing and scoring style for popular big-budget moviemaking -- the most prominently watched cinema on Earth today (outside of India's local "Bollywood" industry). Due to its worldwide reach, what occurs in Hollywood cinema often influences local industries (yes, even Bollywood), so what is trendy in popular techniques in American popular cinema winds up trickling down into international popular cinema.

Perhaps I've not seen many articles/blogs on this subject because I read the wrong sites. Or, perhaps the reason is, everyone knows who the biggest directorial influence on Hollywood cinema of the last 30 years is. It's elementary, really. Everyone knows the biggest shadow in post-1980 popular cinema is cast by...

GEORGE LUCAS.

Of course it is, right? I mean, every filmmaker and their sister seems to be on record as saying "my life changed the day/night I saw STAR WARS". It spawned a renewed interest in big, bombastic, matinee science fiction adventure that endures to this day, and kicked off the craze of merchandising films to the hilt, a philosophy that worked charmingly in 1977-83 (c'mon, who didn't own STAR WARS figures?), but in the three decades since has been so all-pervading that Hollywood is now content to let the tail wag the dog, as it were, devising movies around toys and games instead of the other way around, as Lucas originally did.

But that's more of a studio business model, isn't it? Lucas pretty much invented the modern blockbuster as it stands today. One can draw a line straight from STAR WARS to IRON MAN 2 or even PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME. But again... this has nothing to do with aesthetics. Those three films look nothing alike. Well... the two modern ones share some visual similarity -- which is where I'm really going here -- and that visual style has precious little to do with STAR WARS.

Yes, George Lucas and STAR WARS, in a broad sense, invented the modern blockbuster -- a cinematic rollercoaster ride aimed at teenage boys, merchandised on everything from t-shirts to fast food drink cups, dealing in huge mythical concepts and grappling with clunky expository dialogue and the odd plot hole (I love the first STAR WARS as much as the next guy, but we are being honest here...). But that's a BUSINESS MODEL. He changed the way Hollywood executives looked at making movies. May have even influenced the scripting, as pretty much everything in the blockbuster canon is based on a hero's journey nowadays.

But how many films of the last 30 -- let's bring it into even more relief, last 20 -- years have looked like STAR WARS. Very few. Most sci-fi films of the 1990s and 2000s look more like 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY (or... two other films which I won't reveal right now) than STAR WARS. How many popular films use "wipes" any more? The look of the film is fairly bright, kind of blacks, whites and sandy landscapes. But none of it looks particularly shiny, the lighting is fairly bright but not gleaming, like the TV advertising look that--

Oops. I'm jumping ahead.

So, while Lucas has been undoubtedly the biggest influence on corporate Hollywood, and the kinds of films Hollywood makes... he's hasn't been the most influential director aesthetically.

So if George frickin' Lucas hasn't had the biggest influence on how films from 1980-2010 look, who the hell has? Well, if it's not him, then it must be...

STEVEN SPIELBERG.

Has to be him. Low angles, close-ups and POV shots, lens flares, lots of light and wonder, soft photography... we see that everywhere today. Or do we? Think about the films Hollywood makes today. The colour palette. The lighting style. If you draw a long bow, you could say they're Spielbergian... if you didn't really consider all the options. JAWS -- which grossed a heretofore unapproached amount of money two years before STAR WARS, thus possibly really inventing the summer blockbuster -- itself was as influenced by Hitchcock as anything else. And, while directors like Hitchcock, Kubrick, Welles and Leone also loom large over today's filmmakers, like Spielberg, directors today pick and choose from these great helmers' stylistic proclivities.

Just like filmmakers today pick and choose from Spielberg's. Look at Spielberg's films closely. Then look at every other Hollywood film of the last 30 years. Steven's pictures are unique to him; his visual signature is all over them. But does anyone else's flicks look like Spielberg's? Sure, some here or there do (most recently, Peter Jackson's LOVELY BONES springs to mind) but, for the most part, not really. Not for much longer than a shot or two, anyway.

So Spielberg's out. That's the big two down. You may protest this, saying I'm dismissing them out of hand, but I want you to look at everything you see these days, particularly from Hollywood, but also from around the world.

Gleaming surfaces.

Orange and teal colour palettes.

Whacking great shafts of light.

Bright, stark lights on characters.

Searching, restless camerawork.

High speed shutter during action scenes.

Kinetic editing.

Experiential action scenes.

Dark, dystopian city landscapes.

Complex production design.

Subtitles that move around the screen, change colour, emote.

Everything on screen looks 105 degrees fahrenheit in the shade.

Characters emerging from or surrounded by diffusion smoke.

Classical music or highly percussive scores.

Have you ever thought that every Hollywood film looks like an advertisement these days? You wouldn't be wrong. Movies really have taken a cue from ads these last 30 years. Apparently generation X and Y, raised on 30 second TV spots, music videos, video games and a constant stream of images via TV, Home Video/DVD and the Internet, don't have generous attention spans -- which may be true -- but this deluge of visual information has also made them more adept at reading stories through images.

So we needed filmmakers that understood this form of shooting and cutting. Filmmakers who could tell a story in thirty seconds. Not to mention, in a town of studios run by gigantic corporate entities, movies have taken a turn toward the aspirational, reflecting their capitalist financiers through product placement, gossip mag tie-in stories and, yes, merchandising. But this is business again, and I'm digressing.

Look at the roster of big-money big-time filmmakers today, and witness how many come from the fields of music videos and commercials. From uberhacks like Michael Bay and Brett Ratner to innovative artists like David Fincher and Michel Gondry... all have a background in shorter, flashier forms.

This all started in the late 1970s/early 1980s, of course, when studios and producers started to wrestle back control of Hollywood feature films from the visionary yet egomaniacal directors of the 1970s. They wanted to hire directors who would put the grimy 1970s behind them, who would slick up Hollywood product, no matter how sordid the subject matter, for modern audiences. They wanted directors with a modern visual style and, in those early stages, they found plenty of them...

In England.

Adrian Lyne, Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson and their like were the best and brightest advertising directors in the world, and were seemingly imported en masse to impose their innovative style upon Hollywood. With few exceptions (Parker's FAME being one), these filmmakers sought to distance 1980s studio product from the gritty realism of the 1970s, by bringing slick, sharp, smooth visual styles punctuated with very specific and intense light sources. And, eventually, this look began to dominate. But why did the Hollywood studios want these guys so bad? Someone must have led the way, set an example, right? Well, as it happens, two men did.

The men who all of these guys worked under.

The men who built a giant farm of gun advertising directors, before such a thing was even conceivable, let alone the norm, then branched into music video.

The men who brought advertising/music video aesthetics to modern Hollywood cinema and, thus, are THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FILMMAKERS OF 1980-2010...

RIDLEY AND TONY SCOTT.

(Wow, that was kind of a USUAL SUSPECTS reveal, hey? I felt like Chazz Palminteri there for a second. Except I wasn't yelling all my dialogue.)

The brothers started RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1968, when they saw a burgeoning market opening up in the rapidly expanding world of television advertising. Quickly they developed a visual style all their own, which was then passed down to all the young filmmakers whom they recruited and further trained.

Now, as the company has Ridley's name on it, and Ridley made his Hollywood splash first with ALIEN, it's tempting to just lay it all on him, crown him #1. Except for the rise of action cinema. Look at TOP GUN, BEVERLY HILLS COP II and THE LAST BOY SCOUT, then look at every major action film of the 1990s, from SPEED to BAD BOYS to ARMAGEDDON. The tilted close-ups, the handheld "you are there" action scenes, the frenetic editing, the omniscient coverage, the use of diffusion smoke... it's all there in part or in whole. Jerry Bruckheimer (and, earlier, Don Simpson) seems to require every director who works for him, from Michael Bay to Simon West, to Dominic Sena to even a veteran like Joel Schumacher, to shoot and cut like Tony Scott, at least in their first or second efforts for the megaproducer. Without doubt, Tony Scott has been singularly the biggest influence on the visual style of action films in the modern era.

And it's Tony more than Ridley who has always pushed and evolved his style over the last decade, where it's arguable his older brother has flattened out somewhat. Such films as MATCHSTICK MEN, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN and BODY OF LIES have that Ridley Scott sheen and attention to detail, but don't look a million miles different to, say, THELMA AND LOUISE, 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE or BLACK RAIN. But Tony's MAN ON FIRE, DOMINO and excellent BMW short BEAT THE DEVIL are something of a visual quantum leap from TRUE ROMANCE, CRIMSON TIDE and ENEMY OF THE STATE. And, for better or worse, the somewhat berserk shooting/editing style of MAN ON FIRE has already had an influence on many modern action films. Ridley has even begun to ape Tony's style in films like G.I. JANE and BLACK HAWK DOWN, with HANNIBAL proving a curious mixture of both brothers' styles (the Florence stuff is all Ridley, with arched ceilings and darkly elegant surrounds, but the action scenes, like Clarice's FBI sting early in the film, are all Tony: colour bled out to a white/teal look, high speed shutters, close-in action).

But Ridley was the first to cross the pond, first with his underseen but utterly stunning to behold drama of oneupmanship, THE DUELLISTS, then making his real splash with the sci-fi horror hybrid ALIEN. I would argue that more modern sci-fi takes its cue from ALIEN than STAR WARS. From EVENT HORIZON to MIMIC to TV shows like FIREFLY to even the films of James Cameron (another candidate for this list, although I can't help but see his blue-tinged, techno-fetishistic style as very Scott Brothers-influenced as well), ALIEN is in there: the steam pouring out of god-knows-where, the mechanical innards that resemble metallic viscera, the crew grimy yet all wonderfully, perfectly lit, even when in total darkness.

Then came BLADE RUNNER. To deny this film's all-encompassing visual influence on Hollywood cinema is to deny breathing. BATMAN. THE CROW. THE MATRIX. Some of the biggest films of the last three decades have taken their visual cues straight from Ridley Scott's classic neo-noir epic. Between BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN, you've got the predominant look of every blockbuster sci-fi film from THE ABYSS to BLADE 2. Throw in LEGEND, BLACK RAIN, THELMA AND LOUISE, even 1492, and compare them to modern blockbusters today, and one can see, if not a facsimile, a direct evolution.

However, as stated earlier, much of their Keyser Soze-like influence (again with the USUAL SUSPECTS references!) has been indirect. Through those they've employed and mentored -- whether as part of RSA, which still exists today, or as filmmakers directing under the auspices of their prolific Scott Free production company -- or those who've simply evolved (some may say "devolved") from their established style as it became the norm. Michael Bay, directorially, is undeniably the bastard child of Tony Scott and John Woo. Bay's movies have turned everything the Scotts brought to the table up to 14: the stylish, gleaming visuals, the close-up experiential action, the shafts of light, percussive scores, etc. And a whole bunch of ad/musicvid directors are following the same path: Samuel Bayer, Marcus Nispel and their like. So now, it seems like Bay is the influence, when without Tony Scott (or John Woo) there would never have been a Michael Bay. (No, I'm not saying all this influence has been positive. But it's there.)

For the most part, I'm a fan of Tony Scott. I admire his drive to push his visual style in other directions over the decades, which is what, conversely, has turned me off Ridley Scott in the last decade: Ridley's refusal to change it up, push it further. Ridley seems pretty content to pump out mediocre scripts with grandiose attitudes in the house style. BLACK HAWK DOWN was the last Ridley film I loved, and that seemed more like Tony than he. While I'm not a GLADIATOR superfan, I do find it fun, and I also consider it the last time Ridley really pushed his visual boundaries on a film, and thus strongly imprinted on the visual and aural approach of every sword & sandal film that followed, from TROY to 300 to CLASH OF THE TITANS.

But Ridley's first three films put him in the Pantheon of Great Directors, and it's impossible to take that away from him. THE DUELLISTS, ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER are all largely unique visual experiences (sure, he himself utilises influences as diverse as BARRY LYNDON, METROPOLIS and the work of HR Giger, and has also been said -- as has Tony -- to take his cue from classical art styles, but the way they're combined and used is all Ridley) with equally compelling narratives.

The more I think about it, the more all-encompassing the Scott influence has been on Hollywood, and while Spielberg and Lucas changed the stories Hollywood told and the markets they targeted, the Scott brothers have undoubtedly changed the way we've seen them.

TSIK

AND THE NOMINEES SHOULD BE...

2010-02-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

I've made a little tradition out of picking Oscar nominees of late, and, like an addict, I can't seem to stop myself. Weirdly, I never spend as much valuable time/effort/thought predicting the winners; the nominees are always so much more interesting. But enough talk. PREDIX!!!

Best Picture

AVATAR

DISTRICT 9

AN EDUCATION

THE HURT LOCKER

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

INVICTUS

THE MESSENGER

PRECIOUS

A SERIOUS MAN

UP IN THE AIR

Roughie: CRAZY HEART

No surprises here, except for possibly the returned Iraq soldier drama THE MESSENGER, which has generated much L.A.-based buzz of late, and I've named here in place of UP. As much as UP deserves to be nominated here, I'm adamant it won't, as the Academy created the Best Animated Feature category to guard against this very eventuality. Do you think all those actors and cinematographers and costume designers want to see the big prize go to a film created completely by graphic artists and/or computer jockeys?! (Before you interject: AVATAR still uses all the physical trappings of feature film production, at least partly. Many live action actors appeared, in physical sets, wearing costumes and working on set with other humans. And that's the difference.) No, I'm sorry to say it seems like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was a one-time only deal.

Best Actor

Jeff Bridges – CRAZY HEART

George Clooney – UP IN THE AIR

Morgan Freeman - INVICTUS

Colin Firth – A SINGLE MAN

Jeremy Renner – HURT LOCKER

Roughie: Michael Stuhlbarg – A SERIOUS MAN

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock – THE BLIND SIDE

Helen Mirren – THE LAST STATION

Carey Mulligan – AN EDUCATION

Gabourey Sidibe – PRECIOUS

Meryl Streep – JULIE AND JULIA

Roughie: Tilda Swinton – JULIA

Lead acting categories are pretty much frozen in aspic by now. Can't see a bolter breaking through here at all. Anyone else would be a MASSIVE shock.

Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon – INVICTUS

Woody Harrelson – THE MESSENGER

Alfred Molina – AN EDUCATION

Christopher Plummer – THE LAST STATION

Christoph Waltz – INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Roughie: Anthony Mackie – THE HURT LOCKER

Best Supporting Actress

Marion Cotillard – NINE

Vera Farmiga – UP IN THE AIR

Anna Kendrick – UP IN THE AIR

Mo’Nique – PRECIOUS

Julianne Moore – A SINGLE MAN

Roughie: Melanie Laurent – INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Supporting Actress is possibly the most open category of the majors, with only Mo'Nique and the UP IN THE AIR girls dead certainties. Concerns me that the Academy may be looking at Laurent as a lead actress, meaning she's got no hope. Supporting Actor is more of a closed shop, except I think one-time bolter Stanley Tucci might be dead in the water, thanks to any and all buzz around THE LOVELY BONES completely evaporating. Also, what with all the HURT LOCKER love that's sure to occur, you never know, Mackie might have a real shot.

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow – THE HURT LOCKER

James Cameron – AVATAR

Lee Daniels – PRECIOUS

Jason Reitman – UP IN THE AIR

Quentin Tarantino – INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Roughie: Pete Docter/Bob Peterson, UP

Pretty much an airtight five, though I've got a slight, infinitesimal feeling the UP boys might get a compensatory nod here for their exemplary work. Wouldn't bet on it though. (Which, of course, is precisely when I should, right? Right??)

Best Original Screenplay

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER

THE HURT LOCKER

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

A SERIOUS MAN

Roughie: THE HANGOVER

Best Adapted Screenplay

CRAZY HEART

DISTRICT 9

AN EDUCATION

PRECIOUS

UP IN THE AIR

Roughie: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

No surprises here either. Would be ace to see Eggers/Jonze get some love for Adapted, but it doesn't look promising. THE HANGOVER could grab a compensatory nod for its popularity, but, again, Original looks like a closed set to me.

Best Animated Feature

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS

CORALINE

THE FANTASTIC MR FOX

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG

Roughie: PONYO

I think it's a coin flip between PRINCESS and PONYO, but the rest are assured.

Best Foreign Language Film

AJAMI

A PROPHET

SAMSON AND DELILAH

THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES

THE WHITE RIBBON

Roughie: WINTER IN WARTIME

The Foreign Language folks are famously unpredictable (some would say "baffling"), but I really believe SAMSON AND DELILAH will win them over for a nomination. I think it's got a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but I've got a great feeling that Thornton and Shelper should at least pick out a tuxedo and gown. RIBBON and PROPHET are locks, maybe AJAMI too. Everything else is up in the air.

Best Cinematography

AVATAR

THE HURT LOCKER

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

NINE

THE WHITE RIBBON

Roughie: A SERIOUS MAN

Best Film Editing

AVATAR

DISTRICT 9

THE HURT LOCKER

STAR TREK

UP IN THE AIR

Roughie: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Best Sound Editing

AVATAR

DISTRICT 9

THE HURT LOCKER

STAR TREK

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (god, it pained me to type that)

Roughie: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Best Sound Mixing

AVATAR

DISTRICT 9

THE HURT LOCKER

STAR TREK

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (and that)

Roughie: UP

Best Art Direction

AVATAR

THE HURT LOCKER

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

NINE

SHERLOCK HOLMES

Roughie: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Best Costume Design

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

NINE

SHERLOCK HOLMES

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

THE YOUNG VICTORIA

Roughie: A SINGLE MAN

Best Visual Effects

AVATAR

DISTRICT 9

STAR TREK

Roughie: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Best Makeup

DISTRICT 9

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR PARNASSUS

STAR TREK

Roughie: THE ROAD

Nothing much to say about the tech categories except AVATAR, LOCKER and DISTRICT should dominate, and TREK will get some licks in too. The great tragedy of these categories will be to witness the extent to which the technically resplendent (and incredibly ambitious) work of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE will be ignored.

Best Original Score

AVATAR

THE FANTASTIC MR FOX

SHERLOCK HOLMES

STAR TREK

Roughie: THE INFORMANT!

Best Documentary Feature

THE BEACHES OF AGNES

BURMA VJ

THE COVE

FOOD, INC

MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN

Roughie: THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA

My two favourite documentaries of 2009 -- THE COVE and FOOD, INC -- seem to be absolute certainties to be nominated tomorrow, which is brilliant, and I think the same goes for AGNES and BURMA. I only see one position up for grabs here, really. This is shaping up to be my favourite category of this year's awards.

Best Original Song

CRAZY HEART – The Weary Kind

CRAZY HEART – Somebody Else

NINE – Cinema Italiano

NINE – Take It All

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG – Down in New Orleans

Roughie: Do I care?

Annnnnnnd I'm not even gonna try and predict live action/docu/animated short subjects.

So, by my reckoning, the major nominees should be:

9 nominations:

AVATAR

THE HURT LOCKER

7 nominations:

DISTRICT 9

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

UP IN THE AIR (albeit in 6 categories)

6 nominations:

NINE (in 5 categories) - I may have overrated NINE slightly but it's technical virtuosity can't be doubted

STAR TREK

5 nominations:

PRECIOUS

4 nominations:

CRAZY HEART (in 3 categories)

AN EDUCATION

Well, in just ten short hours, the nominees will be revealed and we can express our collective outrage in a thunderous exhale of unmitigated scorn through the wonders of the interwebs. If you're having a flutter, hope you pick up some cash. If you're banking on NEW MOON to grab 18 nominations, you probably require professional help.

Happy Oscaring!

TSIK

ALL FOR NOUGHT

2009-12-31T00:18:00.000-08:00

In a matter of hours, the decade known variously as the Noughts, Noughties and Zeroes will be over. We're ten years past 2000AD, and thankfully, we've not yet reached the point of living in domed-off cities or under fascist rule, and neither Robo Hunters, Strontium Dogs or Rogue Troopers roam the wasteland. Now I've got some of my childhood geekiness out of the way, I'll get to my point. Or perhaps... that very geekiness IS my point. (Oooh!)

Trying to define the 2000s in film (or in TV or music or any other art) is tricky, and many themes have seemed to define this decade. But which one sums it up for this particular observer? Democratised/DIY filmmaking? Sure, it's become de rigeur, but it was up and going by 2000, with EL MARIACHI, CLERKS and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT having a huge effect on filmmakers in the 1990s. Meta-filmmaking, of the Charlie Kaufman school of self-referential through genre-referential through storytelling-mechanics-shifting gymnastics? Perhaps, but Wes Craven was laying foundation for that with NEW NIGHTMARE and SCREAM in the 1990s, as well as Quentin Tarantino's films (which also kickstarted another big 2000s craze: nonlinear narratives). No, if one major thing has filtered its way through both Hollywood and world cinema to, if not define it, at the very least leave its mark on it... it's the Fanboy.

And, no, I'm not being sexist. There are millions of fangirls around the world, and, especially at the tail end of this decade, are becoming a major audience force of their own. But, to a certain extent, their gateway to "fandom" was through material nominally aimed toward teenage boys. Starting from Hollywood and working its way out, major big budget films are being built with a teenage boy mentality at the wheel. The reason it's really taken flight this decade, it seems, is because Generation X, who've become active enough to begin to shape this decade, and Generation Y, who've came of age in the '00s, are the people most -- to borrow a strained pop-psychology phrase -- "in touch with their inner child" than any generation in memory. X & Y are the television/video/DVD/CD/game console/home computer generation; entertainment has always been at our fingertips and many of us have experienced major moments of awakening, realization and discovery before the glow of a screen. Rather than remembering riding our bikes around or summer beach holidays as children, our most powerful memories are of Transformers, Voltron, Kimba, Astroboy, The Goodies, Doctor Who, Batman, Ghostbusters, Marty McFly, E.T., Gremlins... and so on. And, in the 2000s, all that nostalgia just exploded, and the shrapnel became irrevocably ingrained in every facet of popular culture this decade.

From albums of morning-cartoon theme tune covers, to superhero sitcoms, to big screen comic book adaptations, to theme park rides and board games being "adapted" into movies, to t-shirts and fashions incorporating pop culture characters and phrases, to a growing wide awareness of genre and cinematic convention, the "Fanboy" mindset has dominated mainstream cinema like no other. Although, again, Quentin Tarantino and his quotable ilk gave notice of this trend in the mid-90s, it has lit up like a bushfire these last ten years. 1998's BLADE was the first Marvel Films production, but 2000's X-MEN was their first blockbuster, which caught the studios' collective eye in a big bad way. Nine years on, no studio's slate lacks a comic book property.

1999, the last genuinely great year of cinema, was the baton-passing point. While brilliant films jockeyed for attention, we had STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, which may actually be the most influential film of this decade. From mining the relatively dormant vein of fanboy nostalgia to its computer generated characters, it makes a perfect bookend with one of the last releases of the 2000s, AVATAR. Alongside that is 1999's perception-altering DIY blockbuster BLAIR WITCH, which got people first thinking about selling their handicam opus to Hollywood, which makes an intriguing bookend with another 2009 phenomenon, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which has inspired Paramount to open a "microbudget" division, focused on finding said handicam talent.

It's no accident that your mum and dad, who once derided your comic books as juvenile diversions you'll grow out of, are now most likely familiar with the most basic tropes of superheroic lore.

And this is all without even mentioning the elephant in the room: the Internet, the single biggest contributing factor to this cultural shift.

Like it or not, the Fanboy is king, and may be here to stay for some time. But let's leave the future for now, and draw our focus to the recent past, as I present...

MY TOP 25 FAVOURITE FILMS OF THE 2000s

Originally, I was going to go with a Top 10, and do all sorts of charts but, frankly, I'm not ready to spend all that time looking back and dissecting; I'll leave that to others with more time, eloquence and perspective. (If you get some time, check out the top 2000s films of my favourite internet pundits, Jeremy "Mr Beaks" Smith and Drew McWeeny, who are far more analytical and entertaining minds than mine.)

ALSO: I have rather impassioned thoughts on how high-end television (predominately HBO and the BBC) has surpassed film as the dominant, most mature storytelling form of the decade, but everything I want to say on that subject is expressed much better here, by New York Magazine's Emily Nussbaum.

These 25 films represent the films that had the biggest effect on me this decade, in one way or another, the ones I found most entertaining, emotional, thrilling, exasperating, brilliant. The ones which blew me away above all, the ones I have no issue revisiting (some are easier to revisit than others, but it's like family: no matter if it takes years, you know you'll always drop in eventually). The ones that, for me, encapsulate this weird, wild, occasionally wonderful decade. And here they are...

25. BAD SANTA (2003)

For growing into my favourite Christmas movie ever made, for being more corrosively hilarious every time I see it, for being utterly dark but having genuine heart, for the sight of Lauren Graham panting "Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa", for perfectly harnessing Billy Bob Thornton's insouciant, world-weary visage and southern drawl for its ultimate purpose: delivering sledgehammer insults to children and midge-- uh, I think they like to be called little people...

24. THE PIANIST (2002)

For showing us new, ever more horrifying angles of the Holocaust we'd never seen (from a filmmaker who actually survived it), for having the balls to make a 150 minute movie virtually silent for huge chunks of time, for Adrien Brody to not only live up to this challenge but soar above it, for a cinematic master to make an elegantly frightening return to form with a story that couldn't help but be intensely personal, for giving us the most revealing account of the Holocaust since (and possibly surpassing) SCHINDLER'S LIST.

23. DEAD MAN'S SHOES (2004)

For giving us the decade's best and most poignant revenge film, for giving Paddy Considine the chance to show how incredibly brilliant he is, for galvanising the burgeoning brilliance of director/co-writer Shane Meadows (which he would build upon with his next film, THIS IS ENGLAND), for creating a tense, emotional and shattering experience like few other on a small budget, for painting its despicable villains as real people, for breaking my heart in two every time I see it.

22. GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. (2005)

For powerfully defining and perfectly exposing this decade's media-driven culture of fearmongering with elegant precision, for signalling George Clooney's arrival as a filmmaker, for giving the great David Strathairn a perfect lead role, for its outstanding cast of character actors and stars in supporting roles, for its gorgeous black and white images (from the marvellous Robert Elswit) and lush jazz score, for being a class act all the way.

21. BATMAN BEGINS (2005)

For giving me the Bat I've always wanted but never seen on screen, for giving the Dark Knight -- at last -- a film which focused upon him and not his rogues' gallery, for allowing Christian Bale's angry, suave, damaged hero to own the show, for Christopher Nolan's scoring a home run on a major franchise while strongly maintaining his directorial identity, for that playing card at the end, for "You'll never have to."

20. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)

For transcending the dismissive "gay cowboy movie" slurs, for Ang Lee's sensitivity and grace in delivering one of the most beautiful, lyrical, tragic and effective love stories ever made, for ending with one of the greatest visual metaphors in film history, for making me cry like a newborn.

19. JUNO (2007)

For taking a story and setting I had no right to be interested in and making it essential, for Jason Reitman's scarily confident storytelling, for its perfect cast, for Diablo Cody's screenplay which, beneath all the archly droll dialogue, lies a giant heart, for showing how teenage pregnancy might be handled if surrounded by loving, level-headed, non-judgmental individuals (ie. in a perfect world), and for being pro-CHOICE, despite what dunderheaded Republicans tell you.

18. JARHEAD (2005)

For finding a fresh angle on the "war is hell" axiom -- not through violence or losing lives, but by being dehumanised and shaped for violence, then relegated to useless bodyguards for interests they barely understand, and have nothing to do but self-destruct -- for showing Sam Mendes can turn his hand to any genre and make it great, for providing stunning imagery, arresting set pieces (some taking place emotionally, others viscerally) and the best war film of the decade.

17. SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)

For introducing the furiously talented creators of the definitive Gen-X sitcom, SPACED, to the big screen, for marrying genres effortlessly and making the fondest, most affecting horror-comedy hybrid (NOT a spoof) since AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, for not cheapening on the horror or the comedy and for being one of this decade's most quotable and constantly watchable films.

16. HIGH FIDELITY (2000)

For surviving the transatlantic change to bring my all-time favourite novel to life perfectly, for providing an excellent follow-up to GROSSE POINTE BLANK and showing us what charisma, intelligence and insight John Cusack is truly capable of as a star/writer/producer (before throwing the rest of the decade away on middling rubbish), for -- again, being eminently quotable and summing up a great portion of my generation.

15. BRICK (2005)

For creating something which paradoxically used well-worn noir conventions but felt truly original, for Rian Johnson's genius in creating (much more than any sci-fi film did this decade) a three-dimensional world for his hard-bitten teens to move around in (of all the crappy sequels we were dished up this decade, it's the one film I would've loved to have seen continue -- with Johnson on board, of course), for giving Joseph Gordon-Levitt a quirkily brilliant heroic lead, and for making a truly remarkable example of a genre that was done to death this decade (only the Coens' THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE is in its class... okay, that and...)

14. KISS KISS, BANG BANG (2005)

For finally giving legendary Hollywood screenwriter Shane Black the opportunity to display his elegantly, hilariously testicular view of the world unfiltered and unfettered by hack directors or big budgets, for reintroducing Robert Downey Jr 2.0 as a unparalleled leading man (leading to his current much-deserved world domination), for showing us that Val Kilmer (given the right material) could still be great, for providing the perfect summation, satire and loving homage to the noir genre I love so much. And did I mention that dialogue...?

13. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)

For taking the genius of Paul Thomas Anderson to new levels, for creating the decade's most dysfunctional yet painfully true and darkly sweet love story, for harnessing the rageaholic manchild persona of Adam Sandler and using it to elicit a genuinely sad, bruised, inspiring performance, for using Emily Watson's innate sweetness and making her powerful, for the discordantly brilliant Jon Brion score, for crafting a true original.

12. A SERIOUS MAN (2009)

For combining everything we've loved about the Coen Brothers' work this decade -- enigmatic scripting, sublime visuals, metaphysical musings, hilarious dialogue, casts of idiosyncratic actors, cheeky endings that throw down the gauntlet to audiences -- into one film and displaying their growing ambition, for asking the big questions -- Why is this happening to me? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are we here anyway? -- and providing no answers whatsoever except confirming what we all know and fear: there are no answers, at least none we'll ever comprehend, for introducing us to a fantastic new actor in Michael Stuhlbarg, for being entertaining at every turn, for speaking to me on some strange intuitive level.

11. SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)

For being the very best comic book adaptation in a decade rife with them, for being utterly faithful to all the characters but fearlessly messing with the details in a way that reveals and enhances those characters, for really drilling to the metaphorical heart of who Spider-Man/Peter Parker is and represents, for showing Sam Raimi was no one-trick blockbuster pony, for making a villain I always loathed into a tragic, towering figure, for delivering as all sequels promise but all-too-rarely do, for infusing real character development, startling FX and big-scale action and bringing them to an emotional crescendo... and, of course, for "Go get 'em, Tiger".

10. [REC] (2007)

For giving us the scariest horror picture of the decade, which works in any arena, on any screen, provided you give it your undivided attention, for displaying painstaking craft and attention to detail rarely sighted in horror pictures nowadays, for not manufacturing artificial conflict between characters or making them arseholes for the sake of same, for taking the popular "verite" horror gimmick to technical heights equalled only by CLOVERFIELD (and for about a tenth of the budget), for being utterly believable, for being utterly nerve wracking, for being nothing less than the great white shark of fright machines.

9. BEFORE SUNSET (2004)

For bringing us back to the lives of two thoroughly real characters who we loved, for not feeling like a "sequel" cash-in but rather a visit with old friends, for providing a very thirty-something perspective on filtered dreams, pragmatism and battered-yet-unbowed optimism, perfectly counterbalancing BEFORE SUNRISE's equally affecting, very twenty-something romantic vision of fleeting but forever influential love, for Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's perfect chemistry and charm, for that wicked, wicked ending.

8. THE INCREDIBLES (2004)

For being the best Pixar film thus far and the very best cinematic take on superhero mythology yet seen, for confirming Brad Bird as a genuine animation auteur, for doing the Fantastic Four better than either of Fox's wretched attempts, for encapsulating everything that makes Pixar studios great -- bulletproof character development, smart plotting, genuine suspense, pure but not sickly sweetness, a story-first philosophy and state-of-the-art computer animation -- and showing us why they've redefined the art of animation this decade, for being sublime.

7. LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)

For being the definitive lush, elegant, emotional mood piece of the decade, for exploring a friendship as opposed to a romantic love affair, for allowing Sofia Coppola to work through her marriage breakdown and follow up on the promise of the gorgeous VIRGIN SUICIDES, for giving Bill Murray the best role of his career and watching him nail it with small gestures and quiet pain that'll slay you, for giving Scarlett Johanssen something real to do, for showing as loving a look at Tokyo as an American filmmaker has ever given, for just being completely wonderful, and wonderfully sad.

6. OLDBOY (2003)

For introducing me to the inventive, invigorating glory that is South Korean cinema and the singularly brilliant mad genius of writer/director Park Chan-Wook, for taking us places we could never possibly -- and wouldn't want to -- imagine, for making us pay attention to detail, for its jaw-dropping set pieces, for its swirling widescreen camera and baroque score, for beguiling at every turn, for making us look at the cinematic trope of vengeance in a new way, for being that rarity in today's recyclable culture: an original.

5. THE LORD OF THE RINGS (2001/02/03)

For delivering an all-time classic film to befit the legendary reputation of the revered source material, for Peter Jackson and co's absolute love, passion and fidelity for doing it justice, for the unprecedented gamble taken by New Line Cinema to let Jackson do his thing, for Jackson's ambition and supreme filmmaking skill to craft the defining fantasy epic of our age, for the seven years of painstaking effort expended by the immense crew in making everything work perfectly, for Gollum to show us what the future of mo-cap and computer generated characters really held, for creating a genuine classic which thoroughly deserved everyone of its 17 Oscars (and should've won more).

4. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

For Paul Thomas Anderson's intelligence, guts, vision, unparalleled skill and, yes, genius in bringing us a genuine American classic, for completely defining the ideologically corrupt abyss that the world's richest nation currently finds itself in, for letting Daniel Day-Lewis cut loose while channelling John Huston, for H.W., for nailing a father-son dynamic then shattering it (and me), for Robert Elswit's poetic lensing of harsh landscapes bereft of sympathy, for Jonny Greenwood's fearsome, ever-building score, for providing the perfect comment on our times through the behaviour of two men, without hammering a damn thing home, and for the greatest final line of the decade.

3. KILL BILL (2003/04)

For sharing the pure, thrilling, unbridled joy of exploitation and eastern cinema through the gale-force enthusiasm of Quentin Tarantino, for the exuberant filmmaking and glorious scene-building on display at all times, for a clutch of iconic characters, for giving Uma Thurman the role of a lifetime, for making Michael Madsen badass again, for taking us on a journey through every exploitation genre you can imagine in some part or another, for splitting the two parts up into eastern and western, exhilaration and regret, for the greatest end credit scrawl of the decade, for an exploitation cinephile's dream.

2. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

For being -- in my humble opinion -- nothing less than the greatest cinematic love story ever made, for showing us why relationships die but more powerfully reveal why we must keep them alive, not through hackneyed revelations and forced awakenings but simply by bringing the characters face to face with why they loved each other in the first place -- their own memories, for being the clearest, most accessible vessel for the colossal unwieldy genius of Charlie Kaufman, for making Jim Carrey the most lovingly melancholy romantic lead of the decade, for actually being an honest-to-goodness science-fiction story, for being sweet, bizarre, perception-altering and transcendent all at once.

1. ADAPTATION. (2002)

For showing just how enormously difficult the creative process is, for ostensibly being about writing but actually being about everything, for showing that, as long as you're faithful to the spirit and intention of your source material, you can stretch it in any direction you want to make a great film that honours it, for Spike Jonze's superbly realistic-yet-strangely-surreal direction (how does he do that?), for providing us Nicolas Cage's stunning, career-defining portrayal of two distinct men, performances he'll never ever top, for the narrative gymnastics, for Meryl Streep in every way, for Chris Cooper's broken-down bravado, for Brian Cox's brilliantly bombastic Robert McKee, for "The Three", for the endless quotability, for "Happy Together", and for "That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago..." It's the love within you, your capacity for loving, that counts.

And, you know what? I couldn't think of a better, more appropriate line to see out this tumultuous decade.

Happy New Year, all.

And Happy Tens!

Fin.

BITCHFEST '09: A (KINDA SORTA) GOOD YEAR

2009-12-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BOXING DAY!

Okay, I have no idea what that means, other than wishing you an ace day. Because, not many people seem to really know for sure what "Boxing Day" is all about. I've read the Wikipedia entry several times, and I'm still none the wiser. But it does serve as a wonderfully convenient cut-off point for my yearly film roundups, as everybody seems to like to hear about such things before New Years, after which it seems to be all about the year ahead. (Although previous Bitchfests have gone live in January, I've not incorporated films released post-Day-of-Boxes.)

For those of you new to this, my annual Bitchfest blog entry is made up of an op-ed (read: rant) about the past year in film, followed by my top 10/bottom 10/5 most overrated/underrated. However, dear reader, you'll be gratified to know it's going to be a lot shorter this year. I've made an early New Year's Resolution to keep my blogs fast, punchy and easily digestible. (Well, whether the quality of my writing is in any way "digestible" is another question, and not one I'm qualified to answer.)

I saw 91 new films released since Boxing Day 2008 -- as usual, more than half (50) were seen at what we all know is the REAL Christmas season, the Melbourne International Film Festival -- which represents a recent high, by a long way. The 41 new non-MIFF releases were WAY up on the 26-30 I've seen each of the last four years. And, you know what?

Of the 91 films... most of them weren't that bad.

Again, I feel the need to reiterate: I'm NOT a film critic. I don't get paid to see films or get sent free passes from distributors. (I have to enter competitions like everyone else.) I don't make a "Worst" list for the simple reason that one can tend to see the truly worst films of the year coming, and give them the wide berth they deserve. So, don't think for a second that my unusually slightly optimistic turn is glossing over the (as Commandant Lassard would say) many, many, many turdular sequels/remakes/rom-coms/music-video horrors/mawkish dramas that Hollywood and, occasionally, some other countries has foisted upon us in 2009. (TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN remains the year's biggest movie, lest we forget.) So I do bristle somewhat when various internet critics/film journos talk this year up as a "great" year for film. Let me tell you something: 1975 was a "great" year for film. 1979. 1967. 1939. 1980. 1999. 2009 ain't in that ballpark, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport. 2009 wasn't even the best cinematic year of this decade.

However... it was a relatively GOOD year for film; probably the best since 2005. We discovered some thrilling filmmaking talent (Steven Kastrissios, James Watkins, Na Hong-Jin), but it seemed to be a year for some old pros to get their groove back in a serious way (The brothers Coen, Lars von Trier, John Woo, Quentin Tarantino) while others, like Sam Mendes, just continued to produce gold in a near superhuman fashion.

While world cinema is in reasonably good shape (despite the traditional methods and philosophy of financing, distribution and exhibition being fundamentally challenged, of course, but film will find a way. It always does), the Hollywood studios are chasing the almighty dollar like never before. Endless quantities of sequels and remakes are being developed, and all new franchises must be engineered and dumbed down to death to appeal to all "four quadrants" (old & young, women & men) before being unleashed. There used to be an art to engineering a popular blockbuster, best exemplified in the 1980s by the person who is, ironically, one of the 2000s worst perpetrators: Jerry Bruckheimer. TOP GUN is such a well-crafted example of something which sets out to hit as many demographics as possible; It has both its jingoistic cake and eats its military piss-take too (to murder a proverb). But whereas films like TOP GUN and BEVERLY HILLS COP had some fun & heart to them, things like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and NATIONAL TREASURE just seem lumbering, bloated and soulless to me. Maybe it's my age, or perhaps I actually do have a case... Go look at the stats (budget, length, marketing, script, etc) and get back to me. Money's on me.

But enough ranting, because, as I said, I promised to keep these things to an economical clip. Plus, I feel like being a little more positive this year. Which naturally means it's time to kick off this list:

MY 10 LEAST FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2009

(As mentioned earlier, I've not seen many of this year's truly awful clusterfucks because I value my hard-earned too much to waste these days. GFC and all that. So, I didn't catch TRANSFORMERS 2, ALL ABOUT STEVE, THE UGLY TRUTH, NEW MOON (although I did have an okay time with TWILIGHT), ANGELS AND DEMONS, FAME, BRIDE WARS, GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, etc. But I do feel I should see DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION because it looks so hilariously awful. Enough digressing! On with the counting!)

10. MAO'S LAST DANCER

The incredible true life story of Li Cunxin, a Chinese ballet dancer who defects to Australia, is painted by director Bruce Beresford and screenwriter Jan Sardi with the broadest strokes possible, reducing it to a thoroughly mediocre, pedestrian big-screen equivalent of a midday telemovie. Other than Joan Chen and the surprisingly good Chi Cao in the lead (who, ironically, seemed to be one of the few whose work on the film was derided), the rest of the cast are generally big and one-note -- leading to some unintentionally funny scenes -- and the film is shot without any real style or energy, right down to the cliched music cues (pan flutes over establishing shots of China, anyone?). Only the scenes involving Chen and Li's family back in China hold any emotional power, and that's because they seem to be playing at a more naturalistic, emotionally true level that the rest of the film fails to match. What's more, Beresford keeps the vanilla stylistics up for so long, that when he throws in bizarre directorial flourishes they seem so ridiculously out of place, it pulls one out of the film even more. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more middle-of-the-road film this year.

9. CHANGELING

Feeling more like the heavy-handed touch of the film's producer, Ron Howard, than Eastwood's elegant style, the chilling tale of Christine Collins -- a single mother whose son is kidnapped and whose run-ins with a negligent LAPD find her consigned to a barbaric psychiatric institution -- is filled with every cinematic period/courtroom/asylum drama/serial killer thriller cliche imaginable and rendered completely toothless. Angelina Jolie seems miscast; so distinctive looking and indivisible from her star persona that you don't believe her for a second, no matter how hard she tries (and she tries hard, screaming the words "my son" some 783-odd times). It doesn't help that those famous lips of hers are painted bright scarlet red at all times, drawing total focus in scene upon scene. (I'm not being petty or personal here; Jolie CAN disappear into a role; her terrific performance in Michael Winterbottom's A MIGHTY HEART is proof of that. Eastwood's the one who gets it all wrong.) But even worse is Jeffrey Donovan, the actor playing the villainous LA police captain; everything from his facial expressions to his accent are utterly bizarre, and not in an enjoyably eccentric, Nicolas Cage kind of way, but in a "bad acting" kind of way. CHANGELING takes a can't-miss true story and bashes it into a leaden parade of movie cliches, variable performances and knuckleheaded scripting.

8. MY YEAR WITHOUT SEX

I don't want to beat up on Australian films, but this resoundingly dull kitchen sink drama from Sarah Watt (LOOK BOTH WAYS) has it coming. There's a stunning lack of drama as we follow an average lower-middle-class suburban family from domestic crisis and back again; you have to work really hard to suck so much drama out of life for the screen, but Watt succeeds admirably. The pile-up of domestic crises and screw-ups and illnesses and sexual foibles just deadens the viewer, to the point you're tempted to throw on "Mad World" and shove a shotgun in your gob. Yes, it's the latest in a recent trend of Australian film I like to call "socially conscious Sad Bastard" movies. The actors try, but they've got so little that's interesting to do that they end up fading into the background, making no impression at all. There's a random cameo from Watt's husband, William McInnes, that provides both the film's biggest laugh and a sad reminder of the kind of inspiration the rest of the film lacks. If this film were a house, it'd be grey weatherboard on the outside and wood-panelling on the inside: drab and uninspired.

7. YEAR ONE

I really like Harold Ramis as a director. I also adore Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, and once had a big thing for Jack Black, although his shtick has begun to grate through endless repetition. It even uses a script written by two of the main writers of The Office (USA), a sitcom I'm in love with. So much talent... so why is the bulk of YEAR ONE so lamely unfunny? For one, Black is doing his randy, thick, loudmouthed, pot-bellied lech thing here. Again. Cera is doing his standard awkward, sexually uncomfortable routine; thankfully, he owns it, so he manages to scare up some laughs at least. And whatever moments Azaria and Platt have, it's because they're Azaria and Platt, not the script or direction. But the main problem with YEAR ONE is it doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like a sketch show -- and a lame one at that -- with sketches bolted together end-to-end for 90-some minutes. Too many screen comedies try to get away with this these days, but unless you're the Marx Brothers, it doesn't work. The key to movies is story, structure, a thematic through-line... consistently funny jokes also help if you're a comedy. That YEAR ONE fails in all of these fundamental objectives shows just how wrong-headed a movie comedy it is.

6. 2012

Roland Emmerich is as Roland Emmerich does. And that's pretty much it. If you've seen INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA or THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, you know what to expect here: terrific actors grabbing a fat paycheck and reciting ridiculously ham-fisted expository dialogue while the world is destroyed in a storm of costly CGI around them. Right or wrong, Emmerich has become our generation's Irwin Allen, a man whose career followed a similar trajectory of dunderheaded all-star disaster schlockbusters, and 2012 just seals the deal. Where this one is worse than the others (okay, maybe it's not worse than GODZILLA. On a par, at least), is that our "heroes" are so stunningly moronic, they end up nearly doing more harm than good, out of pure selfishness. It's been a long time since I barracked for a bad guy as hard as I did in 2012, but it's that kind of film. Sure, the CGI work is some of the best money can buy, but it's a little depressing to see buildings and homes containing hundreds of thousands of innocent people being destroyed while we're supposed to cheer our barely-developed protagonists on. Yep... Roland Emmerich is as Roland Emmerich does.

5. MARTYRS

An attempted torture-porn examination which feels all too much like other recent French horror films, and has all too little of substance to hang its rather laboriously brutal structure upon. Downright illogical at times and winds up feeling utterly pointless. (Full review HERE.)

4. DOUBLE TAKE

A shambling clusterfuck of a pseudo-documentary involving Alfred Hitchcock, the Cold War, Doppelgangers, Nixon & Kruschev, ads for Coffee and a modern Hitchcock impersonator who thought it was ace to meet Tippi Hedren. It makes even less sense than it sounds. If not for archive footage of Hitch's brilliant ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS introductions & a Nixon/Kruschev press conference, it'd be the most boring, pointless, sloppy film of the year. Perhaps it still is anyway. (Full review HERE.)

3. DEAD SNOW

Nazi Zombies. Those two words are where this moronic horror-comedy's inventiveness starts and ends. And it does absolutely nothing with them. Cribs so shamelessly & mercilessly from so many better films, is so shoddily crafted and sports such detestable characters that you may feel compelled to enact a zombified Final Solution against the filmmakers when it's done. (Full review HERE.)

2. NYMPH

Stillborn, glacially paced Thai modern ghost story that seems to think blank looks into the distance, or at trees supposedly inhabited by spirits, for minutes on end is a good substitute for a story. There's only so much footage of people staring at trees I can take before either sleep descends, or I start shouting at the screen. Neither is a desirable effect. (Full review HERE.)

1. HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO

It was disappointing to hear that this was one of Edgar Wright's film highlights of the year, as I found it one of the worst, driest, least interesting film making-of documentaries ever made. What's more, INFERNO, the abandoned film in question, didn't look too great, either. Whiny anecdotes, uninspired documentary filmmaking, and camera tests from a film that would've dated five years after release are the gems this interminable doc contains. (Full review HERE.)

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS: A FILM WITH ME IN IT, ZIFT, VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, LOS BASTARDOS.

TOP 5 MOST OVERRATED FILMS OF 2009

This is a short countdown of those films which have been lavished with Awards/Critical/Audience praise that I just wasn't as jazzed by. Doesn't necessarily mean they're bad films; one or two of them are actually pretty good, but, in my opinion, just aren't as great as so many seem to tell us. Without further ado:

5. SAMSON AND DELILAH

I love that writer/director Warwick Thornton put so much of himself into what is clearly a personal story, and that he's being rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. For me, however, the film didn't completely work. The first and final acts of the film are indeed stunning, showing us an intimate side of the Australian indigenous experience we've rarely seen on film before. It's the middle third, when the kids run away from home, that troubled me. With its procession of petrol sniffing, homelessness and disenfranchisement, it seemed like every documentary or news item I'd ever seen about urban Indigenous life. Perhaps this is just my issue -- and perhaps Thornton has actually made the definitive film about modern Aboriginal life, from community to city -- but it just seemed like it was heaping cliche upon cliche. But what annoyed me even more, was the extent to which Thornton goes to keep Samson & Delilah from speaking. Often, their silence felt organic and character-driven, but as things get more intense, it just seemed forced. (When Delilah tries to run away from Samson on the way to the city, and Samson has to stop her... these kids wouldn't speak AT ALL at this point? Really? Him telling her to stop and get back in the car, and her resisting, comes off as mute acting of Humphrey B Bear proportions, and seemed highly unlikely to me.) Overall, SAMSON AND DELILAH is definitely a very good film... but feels to me to be a little too self-conscious and trading in cliches to be great.

4. MILK

Brilliantly acted, grittily shot, but otherwise stock-standard biopic is a perfectly fine film, but lacks the ambition or focus to be a great one. Harvey Milk is an inspiring figure who met a horribly tragic ending, but the film just seems to go through the motions, ticking the events off until we get to the last stop. Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black clearly have affection for their subject, but the film is executed in the safest way possible.

3. CORALINE
A weird case where all the parts seem to be intact -- stunning & darkly kaleidoscopic visuals, terrific voice cast, quirky design, intelligent use of 3D, Neil Gaiman-penned source material -- but the sum seriously lacks energy and intensity. With everything on display in the film, I should have been thrilled, terrified, gripped... but instead, I could only gaze admiringly at the physical craft, completely distanced from a strangely uninvolving story. The main issue with the script is that, while Coraline is often in danger, it's constantly solved in seconds or through sudden fortuitous intervention, rather than drawing out a genuine sense of suspense. There becomes an expectation that Coraline will win out almost immediately before leaping to the next crisis, and this is death to engendering audience involvement. Memo to animation studio Laika: you wanna be Pixar, watch TOY STORY 2 or THE INCREDIBLES, and see how you fear for those characters. It's all about being "surprising yet inevitable", as the great William Goldman once said.

2. GRAN TORINO

In what some were bafflingly calling a banner year for Clint Eastwood, this film (possibly his last acting role) sees him as an angry, racist old war veteran literally grunting and snarling at his Hmong next door neighbours like an '80s Anime character. The film has some nice moments and brushes up against poignancy at times, but between Clint overdoing the "grumpy old man" bit, the highly variable acting from the (unprofessional) Hmong community cast and the ending's sledgehammer symbolism, it really isn't the great film many critics proclaimed it to be.

1. AN EDUCATION

Lynn Barber's memoir of being seduced by a 30-something cad at sixteen tries to add all sorts of emotional weight to the threadbare issues within, but seems more like an emotionally remote poor-me tale than anything else. There's some snappy dialogue on display thanks to screenwriter Nick Hornby, but Carey Mulligan's lead character seems to start the film as a callow snob and ends it a self-important snob. Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard are good in isolation, but together, their great love is hardly convincing; she seems to care more about the lifestyle than him. None of the characters' actions in this film seem to have any sort of real consequences; objects are stolen and relationships are broken, but nobody seems to experience any serious apprehension or seismic change. The result is a pleasant enough, utterly vanilla, middle-of-the-road diversion which, perhaps in a better year, would be relegated to the status of average, inoffensive Brit comedy-drama fare like CALENDAR GIRLS or MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS, not buzzed about for Oscar nominations.

ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS OVERRATED: MARY AND MAX, THE HURT LOCKER, STAR TREK.

TOP 5 MOST UNDERRATED

Conversely, here are the films of the year which were either critically slammed, ignored at the box office, snubbed at awards ceremonies or barely released that I believe were hard done by or deserved more respect... or, in the case of #5, I just believe deserves a second look from another perspective...

5. THE SPIRIT

If I haven't alienated people yet, I'm sure I just have now. But I'm beyond caring: I enjoyed the HELL out of the THE SPIRIT. It's not a lame SIN CITY 2 attempt, as many critics have said; while it takes a similar visual approach, the mood is completely different: it's not gritty, it's wacky, sexual and, yes, silly as all get out. What critics don't seem to get is, Will Eisner's character was a piss-take of superheroes (yes, there's a reason the female lead is named after a font) and one of the two things this film is, is a satire of the superhero genre. But the principal function of THE SPIRIT is the complete cinematic exploration of writer/director Frank Miller's obsessions and fetishes. It's his first (and, likely, only) film as sole auteur, and anyone familiar with his comics work will see he's all over it. S&M style costuming, female derrieres, square-jawed heroes acting all hard-bitten yet completely thick-headed, a "dames & dicks" approach to gender... THE SPIRIT is nothing less than a portal into Miller's head. I have a real soft spot for films where you see the filmmaker's heart and soul infused into every frame, for better or worse. But it is spectacularly wrong at times; every scene involving Samuel L Jackson's villainous campmeister general The Octopus is a jaw-dropping testament to the very core of "What. The. Fuck??!" weirdness. THE SPIRIT is so pretty yet so inappropriate, so wrongheaded and so skewed, you can't help but have fun with it. Trust me on this: in a decade, it'll be to the Noughts what HUDSON HAWK was to the Nineties: the goofily bizarre bomb people guiltily love as a cult classic. It may as well be called BEING FRANK MILLER, and for this, I kind of adore it.

4. JCVD

Jean-Claude Van Damme makes the comeback of the decade with a performance that reveals something we've never known: the man can act. Speaking his own language and playing a variation of himself, what he really brings to this movie -- which could potentially change his career -- is a serious dose of painful, naked honesty. Honesty about who he is, how he's presented himself, where his career has been and where it's at now, what the future may hold... it's all here, and it's kind of heartbreaking and inspiring, all at once. As a result, he is more likeable than he's ever been, and comes off as a real human being. No doubt, this particular goal of the movie is a little self-serving, but it's also overdue, and I say good on him. But this kind of honesty from one so previously guarded clearly comes from a place of trust, and director/co-writer Mabrouk El Mechri serves him well, never embarrassing his star and serving up a pretty fun and punchy action-comedy in the bargain. But it's the centrepiece of the film, a six-minute direct-to-camera monologue from Van Damme, that will really leave its mark on you.

3. THE CHASER

A serial-killer action thriller from South Korea which hits all the cliches head on and breaks them in half, with frightening confidence from debut feature writer/director Na Hong-Jin. Dark, thrilling, visceral, clever and funny as hell. (Full review HERE.)

2. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

A work of staggering, intimidating detail and narrative layering, it demands to be seen two or three times. It's a thing of pure genius, and therefore, thoroughly misunderstood by most who come into contact with it; although I loved it, I'm sure I did too. It's only that lack of multiple viewings to deeper decode its mysteries -- and my possible lack of comprehension -- that's keeping it out of my Top Ten this year. What rankles is how such an ambitious, amazingly executed work was completely ignored by the Academy and even most critical groups at awards time. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is a puzzle from a mastermind, one which is frequently funny, bizarre, inspired and that rarity in today's cinema: a thoroughly original, intelligent, entertaining, one-of-a-kind work.

1. THE HORSEMAN

Wow. THE HORSEMAN represents not only the kind of Australian film I'd like to see, but the kind I'd love to make. It's a harsh, thrilling, violent, heartfelt action thriller, the likes of which we haven't seen in Australia since -- I'm gonna say it -- MAD MAX, thirty years ago. Writer/Director/Editor Steven Kastrissios is disgustingly young to be making a film this powerfully bruising and assured, and he should be a model for every DIY young genre filmmaker in the country. It's no cheap-and-nasty throwaway; it looks great, is cut with both restraint and abandon and is written with a strong sense of character and observation. Even the horrifically boofheaded villain characters are well-drawn and almost likeable. It's closest ancestor is Shane Meadows' masterful DEAD MAN'S SHOES and, while it's not quite as great as that film, I am proud to say it's the best equivalent I've seen since.

ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS UNDERRATED: RED CLIFF, WHATEVER WORKS, THE DAMNED UNITED, TROUBLED WATER, HOME MOVIE.

Now, if I haven't polarised everyone enough, here are my...

TOP 10 FILMS OF 2009

10. THE WRESTLER

While JCVD may have represented the comeback of the decade, Mickey Rourke here runs a close second. We all knew that Rourke had some serious talent back in the day, and Darren Aronofsky's beautiful tribute to broken people trying to make a connection reminds us how great the actor can still be. Robert Siegel's screenplay is honest without varnish, emotional without mawkishness, and Aronofsky's sensitive, unobtrusive direction only enhances it. Marisa Tomei is also in career best form as a stripper who Rourke's character attempts to start a relationship with, and the doomed efforts of two people -- who are together only because they're all that's left -- to forge a love will slay you. But it's Rourke's battered face and his character's equally battered optimism, whether trying to make the most of a shitty supermarket day job, or pleading with his daughter, or giving his all in the staged yet violent intensity of a cage match, that will break your heart. With all due respect to Sean Penn's excellent performance, the Oscar should've been Rourke's.

9. BALIBO

Robert Connolly more than lives up to the ideals laid out in his "White Paper" by making the kind of tough, bracing political thriller we used to make decades ago. Visually and tonally reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh's work, brilliantly acted and utterly absorbing, it is a fitting epitaph to those who risk their lives in the pursuit of truth, and a small country which has fought tooth and nail for the independence it has today. The scene where the "Balibo Five" meet their fate will go down as one of the all-time classic scenes in Australian cinema history; it will crush you. (Full review HERE.)

8. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

This may have taken forever to get here -- from issues with the FX to Spike Jonze's battles with Warners -- but some things prove to be worth the wait. Director/co-writer Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers have mined the classic (and very slight) children's book for all possible meaning and emotion, fashioning a more poignant rumination on childhood and emotional anxiety than anything that's come before. Jonze and cinematographer Lance Acord fill every frame with both nostalgia and sadness, and the FX to create the Wild Things is utterly faultless; the way they move, jump, emote... they don't look like CGI or people in suits: they're living, breathing, feeling Wild Things. Max Records is perfect as Max; his impromptu rages, his unbridled joy, his mood swings, his tears, his selfishness, his petulance: in every way, Max is a real kid, not a movie kid. The more I think about this film, the more I love it. It may even be a masterwork. I'd be tempted to call it the glummest kid's film ever made, if I actually believed it was intended for kids. But this is for adults, about the child in all of us; the one person whom we all never really leave behind, the one we never really reconcile with.

7. THE READER

This film was slammed repeatedly for allegedly beating THE DARK KNIGHT out of a Best Picture slot, which I can't understand, because I thought it was the only justifiable nominee there. Why not slam the overwhelmingly average SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE or the half-good BENJAMIN BUTTON? Or why not actually see THE READER and experience what a beautiful, dark, complex film it really is. Kate Winslet has never been better, and young David Kross is terrific as the boy who falls under her spell. Winslet's character -- who craves love but finds it with an underage boy, who always does what she thinks is right even when this includes serving as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp -- is one of the most brilliant, sensitive studies in what we like to simplify as "evil" I've ever seen. The film deals with the German nation's post-Holocaust guilt and the nature of love better than most films I've seen as well. The first hour of the film, which deals with Winslet and Kross's love affair is a portrait of tentative, guarded passion worthy of Ingmar Bergman. The film changes tones for the second hour, but is just as effective, tragic and absolutely refuses to make easy judgments. I really love this film.

6. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Quentin Tarantino's symphonic World War II epic is full of great ideas, style, bravura filmmaking and a megaton of moxie, as he turns history on its head and introduces some of the most amazing cinematic characters of the year; none moreso than Christoph Waltz's brilliant Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, a master detective worthy of Sherlock Holmes who, unfortunately, just happened to find his calling with the Gestapo. Much, much more than the "men on a mission" flick we were teased, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is not only a fun mishmash of WWII cinema history but, most crucially, a true cinephile's tribute to the serious and potentially terrifying power of cinema. (Full review HERE.)

5. EDEN LAKE

Simply put, the best horror film of the '70s made in the Noughts. A breathless, dark, scary, nasty thriller with pressing social concerns on its mind -- the divide between the haves and have-nots, between young and old, about communities who protect each other from "outsiders" at all costs -- James Watkins makes a frighteningly powerful debut as a horror filmmaker to watch. (Full review HERE.)

4. THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX

The film which should've won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last year, this epic look at 1960s West German militant socialist terrorist group The Red Army Faction is a brilliant, visceral examination of what kind of measures people feel they need to take to truly challenge an oppressive government, while trying not to lose your soul in the process, or forget the positive intentions you began with, and how the best intentions can be corrupted by misplaced passion and arrogant hubris. It's a compelling historical political drama directed like an action thriller and, as the real-life RAF were actually comprised of young and physically attractive university students and reporters, the cast are almost uniformly knockouts. Thankfully, they're also believable and terrific (although Andreas Baader is played by Moritz Bleibtreu as something of a juvenile hothead). THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX is about as compelling, thrilling, thoughtful and entertaining a film about political dissidents you'll ever see.

3. THE COVE

A truly astonishing documentary which goes to heroic -- and, let's be honest, highly entertaining --lengths to record the heartbreaking slaughter of dolphins off the Japanese coastal fishing town of Taiji. An important film about an important issue that must -- and can -- be stopped. (Full review HERE.)

2. AWAY WE GO

After building a career directing prestige dramas, Sam Mendes tackles a heartfelt low-budget indie and proves equally adept. His strengths have always been composing beautiful, achingly precise imagery and creating affectingly three-dimensional characters, and neither quality deserts him here. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are flat-out wonderful as a couple who drive around North America searching for the right place to bring up their unborn baby. It sounds like a sucky Sundance wannabe, but it really isn't; it's not quirky, snarky, cutesy (no "manic pixie dream girls" to be found) or sickly sweet, and our couple are in no way smug or condescending. The screenplay, by spousal novelists Dave Eggers (big year for him) and Vendela Vida, is an honest, hilarious and emotional look at the way people's different approaches to parenting can also be seen as their way of facing the world, which may be to mock it, to judge it, or simply to embrace it. (At the very least, their screenplay should be nominated for an Academy Award, but it seems to be ignored in favour of lesser aspirants.) It's a genuinely gorgeous film, filled with absolute love from start to finish -- actually a living, feeling antidote to the glut of preciously cliched "indie" films out there. (Full review HERE.)

...and now, the one all three of you have been waiting for...

My favourite (and, for my money, best) film of 2009 is...

1. A SERIOUS MAN

After hating BURN AFTER READING and liking but not loving NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I bet this is the last film you'd expect to see topping this chart. But it does, by a WIDE margin. And I'm not even completely sure why. Ostensibly a Job-like tale of a good man having all of life's indignities thrown at him and trying to make sense of what is essentially senseless, it feels like nothing less than the human experience rolled up into a film. Some scenes don't make conscious sense, some may on subsequent viewings, some may never. But that's like life, isn't it? We can go our whole lives and never comprehend many events. But what I love about the Coens' approach is, they make every scene so entertaining, that while this puzzle of a film may perplex and baffle us at times, it's always compulsively watchable. This film really spoke to something within me, something both instinctual and intellectual. Between random acts of nature and the response of the "three rabbis", it sums up my feeling about God, religion, atheism, science: they're all ways in which we humans fumble about in an attempt to understand things we cannot ever possibly hope to truly understand. There are things and concepts in life which we're simply not wired to comprehend, but through classic human arrogance, we're sure we can. No-one can prove the existence of God, but no-one can conclusively prove against it, either. But the most terrifying concept for many humans to grasp is, sometimes, things just happen. There may be a cause-and-effect, but it's likely something closer to the Butterfly Effect, where the cause occurred so long ago and so far away, and be so tenuously related, that it may actually be nigh-untraceable to the effect. And this seems to scare the living crap out of most people. But, ultimately, it's how the nature of the world and galaxy around us works, and we're all just monkeys fumbling for solutions. A SERIOUS MAN will get you thinking about some serious issues, but it's also one of the funniest and brilliantly crafted (Roger Deakins' cinematography is, as always, sublime) films you will see, this year or any other. For mine, it stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of the Coens' works, MILLERS CROSSING and FARGO, and is a stunning indication of the boundless possibilities that await them, that their ambition only grows with age. The Coen Brothers are BACK, in a big bad way.

JUST MISSED OUT, or THE BEST OF THE REST: THE HORSEMAN; SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK; THE CHASER; REVOLUTIONARY ROAD; ANTICHRIST.

Thanks for reading, hope you've enjoyed it, and here's to a fabulous 2010!

All the very best,

TSIK

"THIS HOLIDAY SEASON..."

2009-12-22T22:19:00.000-08:00

At this time of year, it's only natural that most of us will turn our minds to... end-of-year top ten lists. There are few challenges more fun to the geek/enthusiast than ranking the year's films, songs, TV shows, dinners, hangovers, and with sleigh bells ringing in the air, it's --

Oh. There's that too. Hang on -- whaddya mean that was what I was meant to say in the first place?? Okay... I'll go again.

At this time of year, it's only natural that most of us will turn our minds to images of Christmas, thoughts of yuletide celebration, visions of smiling fat men breaking into our houses to leave garishly wrapped trinkets and small children choking back disappointment as they discover their gift feels like clothes and not the Ben 10 action figure or Polly Pocket doll they wanted. (Also, making top ten lists.) So I thought I'd buy into the mass yuletide hysteria to get you all thinking:

What are your favourite Christmas films? OR, favourite films to watch at Christmas?

To get the ball rolling, here are mine:

THE SLIGHTLY-ILLUMINATED KNIGHT'S TOP 5 FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS FILMS

5. DIE HARD

Hey, it's a) set at Christmas, b) has a Christmas rap song over the opening credits and "Let It Snow" over the ending, c) John motherfucking McClane sticks a gun to his back with Christmas wrapping tape, not to mention writes "Ho Ho Ho" in blood on a dead villain's chest... could it BE any more Christmassy?!?? In addition to these compelling facts, e) it's the greatest action film of all time, f) had a profound effect on me as an early teenager, g) is still enthralling and...

*ahem*

The defence rests.

4. LOVE ACTUALLY

What could symbolise Christmas more than a charming, all-star romantic fantasy? One that tells us everything (well, 95% of everything) is going to be okay as long as we're with those we love. Sure, it's sentimental as all hell, but if there's one time when sentiment is actually kind of okay, it's Chrissy, right? Besides, there's so much in here to enjoy (my favourite stories: Liam Neeson & his stepson, Andrew Lincoln & Keira Knightley, PM Hugh Grant & Martine McCutcheon) if you're willing to just cast all your absolutely correct cynicism aside for 2 1/4 hours. (Aside: usually, I'm dead against any rom-com that runs for over 2 hours, but seeing LOVE ACTUALLY has 78 stories going on, all written by the great Richard Curtis, I make it an exception.)

3. SCROOGED

Sure, it's not always funny, uneven as hell, sees Richard Donner directing comedy (often a bad sign) and doesn't credit Charles Dickens, but Bill Murray is solid gold (when he's not overacting wildly) in this quintessentially 1980s update of Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. And let's not forget Carol Kane's pugilistic Ghost of Christmas Present, David Johansen's boisterous Ghost of Christmas Past and the cute-as-hell and always welcome Karen Allen. This was pretty much my favourite Christmas movie in my late teens (there had to be something rebellious in that) and, although time has stripped it of some of its luster, it's still great big Eighties fun, and quite quotable, too. "Would you PLEASE, for the love of GOD, HOLD... THE GOD DAMN... HAMMERING!"

2. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

There's a reason the Yanks play this ad nauseum come Christmas time. Because, next to the original MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, it's just about pound-for-pound the best damn honest-to-goodness pure Christmas movie ever made. I defy you to not get a lump in your throat at the end, because this picture really earns it. Such a great story, such an wonderfully perfect Jimmy Stewart performance, mixing affability and insouciance as only he can.

1. BAD SANTA

Over the last 2 or 3 years, this has become my and my partner's go-to Christmas standby. So wickedly funny, so sharp and punchy and, yet... so damn Christmas-y. Even with a Santa who pisses himself at regular intervals. It's yet another in the staggering array of brilliant Billy Bob Thornton performances; nobody curses out a kid, doesn't give a fuck while seducing a waitress and etch the pain of genuine regret with merely a look like BBT. The dialogue, cast and Terry Zwigoff's direction are all first-rate. The most laugh-out-loud funny of ALL Christmas flicks.

Special Mentions:

- The original MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (adored it as a kid, but haven't seen it for about 20 years)

- IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER aka A MIDWINTER'S TALE (only missed out because I've only seen it once, and hasn't quite become a staple, but Branagh's Woody Allen-esque love letter to low-budget theatre & Shakespeare is fantastic)

- JOYEUX NOEL (again, I've only seen this once, but it made me cry like a baby. Such a wonderful film and, beautifully, portrays both the best and worst of what humanity is capable of)

- ELF (only saw this the once as well, but lots of fun. Probably Will Ferrell's best film after ANCHORMAN)

- THE GODFATHER (there's a couple scenes at Christmas! And, y'know... it's the best film ever made. So there's THAT)

Now, like a sack full of lovingly wrapped presents, bring me your own choices!

Wishing you and yours a very mega MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Best wishes,

TSIK

THOROUGHLY MIFFED PART II: FINAL CHAPTER (PART 2) - ONCE UPON A TIME IN MOVIE-OCCUPIED MELBOURNE

2009-12-02T17:32:00.001-08:00

The time for preamble has well and truly passed...

MY TOP 10 FILMS OF MIFF 2009 (5th - 1st)

5th - BALIBO

Last year, noted Australian producer/director/screenwriter Robert Connolly wrote a document for the then-Australian Film Commission to explore what was wrong with the Australian film industry, known forevermore as the "White Paper". His findings and suggestions were logical, practical and brilliantly advocated. At the point he wrote the White Paper, Connolly had written and directed two features: 2001's THE BANK and 2005's THREE DOLLARS. I haven't seen THE BANK -- though I hear it's rather good -- but they both seem to be very personal, humanist takes on modern life in a capitalist society. Not exactly box-office magnet material, and what's more, THREE DOLLARS was thoughtful yet not entirely successful in its exploration of that issue. So, although his films had shown Connolly to be a thoughtful man and a quality filmmaker, they weren't game-changers. After the White Paper, fairly or no, Connolly's next film had to be. To rock a cliche, he had to put his money where his mouth is. Boy, did he ever. BALIBO is Connolly's Babe Ruth move. Man pointed to the fence, took a huge swing and smacked the ball out the park.

Everything about BALIBO is world-class. From the performances, to the writing, to the cinematography, editing, score and, most of all, Connolly's direction, you never get the feeling you're watching "an Australian film" in the traditional sense. It's arresting, bracing, engrossing filmmaking. It's an exploration of a true-life tragedy beautifully and sensitively framed through genre as an investigative political thriller, and delivers as heroic tribute, political indictment and entertaining movie. Many reviews have highlighted the film's "importance" and "worthiness", exploring as it does the fractured history of East Timor and Australia's role in it, and I suppose it is both of those things. But what should really be prized, what prospective audiences need to know, is how flat-out suspenseful it is.

By the time we get to the opening credits, it's clear Connolly is playing at another level, and the film continues on that path, with the introduction of semi-retired Aussie journo Roger East (a terrific Anthony La Paglia) and charismatic Timorese revolutionary Jose Ramos Horta (the electric Oscar Isaac), and on through their journey to East Timor, which is juxtaposed against the formation of the two rival Aussie news crews (a wonderful ensemble of young actors, highlighted by Damon Gameau and Gyton Grantley) who headed there a month earlier and haven't reported back.

I can't talk about BALIBO without mentioning its centrepiece scene. As the reason the film (and Cover-Up, the novel upon which it's based) exists is the death of the Balibo Five journos, it's not a spoiler to tell you that the young men met their end in that East Timorese town. But the scene in which they meet their end... this is the scene Connolly's film will be remembered by. It's genuinely frightening, horrendously tense and incredibly, heartbreakingly sad. It's among the most visceral scenes of the year and by far the most notable scene in Australian film this decade. The film continues its excellence thereafter, but the callous murder of those journalists will be what you'll take away with you. I can only imagine what the dead men's families must have been going through, as they watched the film's premiere.

What it shares with Connolly's previous work is a deep sense of humanism, of ordinary people trying to survive as the landscape around them distorts into something increasingly senseless. Other than tiptoing around the Whitlam Government's negligence in the entire matter -- from allowing the Indonesian invasion to happen unchecked to taking its sweet time investigating the journalists' disappearance -- BALIBO rarely puts a foot wrong. Connolly, screenwriter David Williamson and their team have made a world-class political thriller of heft, respect and prestige. If we made more pictures like this, Australia would have a world-class industry.

4th - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS represents the end of an era for Quentin Tarantino. His career has two definitive phases: the Enfant Terrible (from RESERVOIR DOGS to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN; the initial, exciting burst of scripts) and the Rock Star Director (JACKIE BROWN to BASTERDS; his subsequent attempts to live up to/play with his superstardom). Of all the projects he's talked, hyped and written during the last eighteen years that actually had a chance of being made (THE VEGA BROTHERS was a pipe dream and you know it), BASTERDS is his last long-in-gestation project of legend. He seemed to have realised this as the decade drew to a close, and he put it on the fast track. Now I've seen BASTERDS, and thus the end of this second phase, I've never been more excited to see what he does next. But right now: just how does Tarantino's World War II epic stack up?

Thankfully, much of it is glorious (or glourious). The film opens with a chilling, elegantly paced masterclass in sustained suspense and clever wordplay -- I'm talking PULP FICTION vintage here -- all of which serves to gleefully remind us that we're back in Tarantino's World. This opening is anchored by one of the filmmaker's most delicious creations: Nazi Col. Hans Landa, known by self-perpetuated legend as "The Jew Hunter". Colonel Landa -- played to thoughtful, devilish perfection by German TV actor Christoph Waltz, a star-making effort which should land him an Oscar -- is a lateral-thinking master detective in a Gestapo uniform; a man who would've been at home in tales by Conan Doyle, Chandler or Hammett if he hadn't hitched his star to the twentieth century's most diabolical regime.

After this, we're introduced to the Basterds themselves, led by an hilariously exaggerated Brad Pitt (who stays only just on the right side of mugging) and Eli Roth (who is effective enough, but smartly, sparingly used). Here he springs spaghetti western iconography, a punchy origin story and inspired violence on us in his mischievous way. Then, we meet Shoshanna Dreyfus (a fantastic Melanie Laurent, who is affecting as both bruised victim and guerilla warrior) and we're suddenly veering into intelligent, seething, genuinely emotional territory; the kind we haven't seen Tarantino deal with since JACKIE BROWN. There are more terrific characters that pop up (Daniel Bruhl's reluctant celebrity Nazi sniper, Michael Fassbender's dapper British soldier, Til Schweiger's serial Nazi killer, Jacky Ido's steadfastly faithful projectionist) which reminds us of one of Tarantino's greatest qualities as a writer and director: there's no such thing as a small part in one of his films. Everyone gets the chance to make an impression.

Tarantino makes each scene its own symphony, drawing them out for suspense, dramatic effect, or merely to immerse the audience in this alternate history he's created. The film is superbly assembled -- editor Sally Menke and cinematographer Robert Richardson distinguish themselves again -- but with all these very distinct symphonies going on, some scenes can feel a little isolated from the rest. But when these set pieces are so brilliantly executed, it's silly to complain. From the quietly Hitchcockian opening interrogation scene, to the berserk imagery of the insane denouement, it's packed with sure-to-be classic movie moments.

My only issue with this film is that, even at 152 minutes, it feels severely truncated. The loss of an hour or more of Tarantino's script does hurt. I would have loved to have seen origin stories of all of the Basterds, and more scenes of them making their way through more enemy lines like the proverbial unstoppable force. The film's title characters are actually the least explored, and come off -- to employ a WACKY RACES metaphor -- as the wacky The Ant Hill Mob to Shoshanna's Penelope Pitstop, helping her to stop Landa's Dick Dastardly. It really feels as if Tarantino started with his much-quoted "men on a mission" concept but, when it came to finishing his script last year, became more interested in Shoshanna. I'm actually fine with that, as Tarantino and Laurent make her a fantastic character. And, of course, there's Landa...

But Tarantino isn't just concerned with making a definitive World War II action picture. He peppers the film with cinema, and cinematic references, throughout, highlighting just how key the moving picture was to the twentieth century (and continues to be): since invention, cinema has been an important cog in the wheel of society; from a powerful form of mass escapist entertainment, to a method of communication, as a vehicle for ideas and a tool of propaganda. In the wrong hands, cinema can be deadly, and in the right ones, a stunning force for change, and I suspect this is Tarantino's raison d'etre behind BASTERDS, as he hits all these issues right on the button. There's also been the inevitable charges that the film aims for some kind of post-9/11 catharsis, to see terror brought to bear by victims tired of fighting without answers or end, and I don't think these claims are without validity.

Most of all, BASTERDS is a big-canvas popcorn epic the likes of which Tarantino has never attempted before (as opposed to KILL BILL's big-canvas exploitation cult epic) and largely succeeds. The dialogue is his best since PULP FICTION, the characters as iconic as The Bride or Jules Winfield, the reimagining of the fall of the Third Reich as audacious as plunging a hypodermic needle into Uma Thurman's heart. His symphonic scenes do swirl, dovetail and build to quite the crescendo, and Pitt's final line reflects the ambition on display. Is it Tarantino's "masterpiece"? No. The whole is not quite perfectly cohesive enough to topple PULP's crown, or match DOGS' youthful punch and punk brevity, but the man won't die wondering.

3rd - EDEN LAKE

In today's hyperbolic entertainment media, we're always being told some here-today, forgotten-tomorrow blockbuster is the new *insert classic film title here*, or the "just like the dramas/comedies/horror films of the *insert classic film decade here*, with only the barest, most cosmetic relation to such things. The thing is, I've heard no such thing about this brilliantly nasty little UK thriller, but it is the real deal. Believe me when I say this:

EDEN LAKE is the best 1970s horror film made in the Noughts/Oughts/Noughties (what IS the name of this decade, anyway?).

It's tight. It's gritty as all hell. It's, as mentioned earlier, nasty -- but not maliciously so. Just because, that's the world we live in and, at times, nasty is exactly how life plays out. It feels so damned REAL. You'll find no comfort here. And, underneath the most white-knuckle, emotive thriller I've seen in years... it's PACKED with social comment. EDEN LAKE effected me on a truly visceral level, more than any film I can remember. Again, this sounds like hype, but I can assure you of two things: 1) It's not, and 2) It may just be something very personal to me.

You know how the Neighbourhood Watch (the NWA, heh heh) in HOT FUZZ are always up in arms about the "Hoodies"; the hoodie-wearing teen ne'er-do-wells stalking around town? It's one of countless funny things in that flick, but I have to make a reluctant confession: I'm a little like that myself. I refuse to buy into the kind of depressive, apocalyptic, right-wing headlines of the tabloid press; I'm in no way a Current Affair/Today Tonight-style guy. The world is not on the verge of economic collapse, nor are the local magistrates slapping every criminal in the state upon the wrist. But, walking through the city at night, it's hard not to notice that there's a more violent flavour to young people these days.

I've seen cops counseling some beaten, unassuming looking dude with a swollen face, as young assailants scamper away up the block. I am in no way a confrontational person, nor out in the city all that often, yet on two occasions this year I've had someone make an unprompted crack at me; possibly for the heinous crime of looking at someone for a split second. On both occasions, I kept walking away. Had I turned and responded, I'm sure -- as the kids say -- shit would've been ON. It just seems that so many young people in their late-teens to early-20s are so damned angry nowadays. Get a couple of drinks into them, they'll just mouth off to anyone and, it seems, throw down in seconds. Scoff if you like, but it can be sort of terrifying out there. So, this film hit me in a very personal place. (Also: My partner, who doesn't share my rampantly ageist sentiments, was also terrified by the film. So it doesn't matter how you slice it, it's just a damn good and scary horror/thriller.)

So why am I telling you all this? Because EDEN LAKE is very much about this generation. The story concerns a 30ish couple (Kelly Reilly and the ubiquitous Michael Fassbender, his 3rd film this MIFF) go for a camping trip on a beach just outside a struggling outer-city town, where all looks fine, until they encounter a group of teenagers who set up nearby and turn their music up to 10. Fassbender tells them to turn it down, they refuse... and that's all it takes. From there, the teens (who include Shane Meadows favourite Thomas Turgoose) just start screwing with them, and this escalates to horrific, frightening proportions. But before we get to the lake, we see the kids in town and the home life of one in particular, which is harsh and abusive. None of this is signposted or hamfisted, it's all extremely organic to the film. (Okay, there's ONE SCENE where our path to a destination feels a mite contrived, but it comes early and it's done.) And the couple's fight for life is so harrowingly realistic, and so patently inescapable, my partner and I spent much of the film digging into each others' arms. It really is that effective.

It's a rare horror film which manages to hit hot-button social issues, address firmly entrenched English class divisions, tap into all sorts of primal fears AND scare the holy crap out of its audience, but EDEN LAKE does it all with vicious precision. It is these qualities that give it more of a kinship to 1970s classics like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE than a million Platinum Dunes remakes. Writer and debut director James Watkins emerges as a serious horror talent to watch. This is essential viewing for horror/thriller enthusiasts, but I won't kid you: it's as bleak as hell.

2nd - THE COVE

Some documentaries make you think. Some elicit empathy. And some, like THE COVE, are calls to action. Funnily enough, I saw this film pretty much purely on the Twitter recommendation of Nash Edgerton. I've ordinarily no interest in documentaries about dolphins, or marine life, or animal cruelty. Just not my cup of tea, frankly. So, expecting little, I went along to see it. And now, although we've never met or spoken, I want to thank Mr Edgerton, with all my heart. My eyes have been opened to what is one of the very best documentaries of the decade.

Yes, it's one-sided. Yes, it's angry, cocky, blunt, emotive and, at times, manipulative. Calls to action always are. And, let's be honest: there's no defence for whaling Dolphins. The people in charge of the whaling parties claim Dolphin meat is a traditional Japanese delicacy -- even though several average Japanese citizens are interviewed and seem to know nothing about this tradition, and that Dolphin meat has been shown to display lethal levels of Mercury -- but that, too, is indefensible. It's like Bullfighting: screw tradition, it's just cruel and pointless. Cease, desist, evolve. It's that simple.

But the most fascinating figure in THE COVE is Ric O'Barry. In the 1960s, he captured, trained and looked after the dolphins that played "Flipper" in the famous TV show, which made the world fall in love with the grace and intelligence of dolphins. The reason we now have dolphins in captivity and performing tricks in marine parks all round the world is almost directly attributable to "Flipper's" success, and O'Barry knows this. He always respected the great mammals, but one day -- I'll let him tell it, because it's saddening -- he realised they were much more. They were not just like us, but exactly like us, at least in their cogent understanding of captivity and craving freedom. With that, he became an activist against dolphin captivity virtually overnight and, by his own admission, he's spent the last 30 years trying to destroy an industry he spent years helping to create. His guilt over his part in the dolphin trade has never left him, and this makes O'Barry a poignant figure, as well as an inspirational one.

O'Barry's been trying to expose the Dolphin whaling trade in Japan for years, in particular the activities that go down in a naturally cloistered cove in Taiji, a coastal fishing village. It's his ultimate attempt to show the world these hidden atrocities that form the backbone of the film, as he's found a kindred spirit in nature photographer, and the film's director, Louie Psihoyos. Psohoyos uses his contacts to assemble a crack team of free divers, special effects gurus (from ILM, no less!), extreme sportspeople and surveillance experts to pull off a daring plan to sneak into Taiji, set up cameras and get this stuff on tape. The director refers to this as an "Ocean's Eleven-style" operation, and he isn't far wrong. The formation of this ragtag group, and their various personalities, is actually a hell of a lot of fun, and the efforts they go to capture the footage is nothing short of heroic. It really is stunning, and when you see the footage... I won't presume to speak for anyone else, but it brought me to tears. It's tough, heartbreaking, truly shocking vision.

For a first-time documentarian, Psihoyos really knows how to keep things humming along, and although it isn't always visually resplendent (surprising for a film made by a photographer), the man clearly has a gift for telling a riveting story. THE COVE is an effective piece of propaganda most will agree with, a inspirational document of how far people will go to save other living beings, an enormous screw-you to the Japanese whaling industry, and a crackerjack tale. A must-see.

...and now... *ahem* ...drumroll please... my favourite film of MIFF 2009 is............

1st - AWAY WE GO

Before I review a single frame of AWAY WE GO, I would like to take a moment to thank Ken Loach. See, I was originally booked in to see his comedy LOOKING FOR ERIC, but due to a fairly tiny amount MIFF were accepting from the Israeli government to fly a filmmaker over for the premiere of an Australian-Israeli co-production, he pulled his film from the festival. In its place, obviously working some clever string-pulling, the good folks at MIFF announced that they would be screening the new film from Sam Mendes. That's all I needed to know. Cast & story be damned, this is the man who made AMERICAN BEAUTY and JARHEAD. Having never seen a full-length Ken Loach film before and thinking JARHEAD and BEAUTY are each among the best films of their respective decades, I was likely happier than most that Loach had dropped out. And this was all before I saw the film.

I'm happy to say I absolutely, unequivocally, unashamedly loved AWAY WE GO. It's a terrific screenplay from novelist marrieds Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, full of left-turns, sharp observations, real emotion, clever laugh-out-loud dialogue and, well... just good intentions. It's about a couple (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) who are about to have a baby and, like all young parents-to-be, want to do the best they can by their unborn and aren't sure they have the first clue how to do it. They're living a rather green existence out on the fringe, which is all fine, but circumstances force them to make a change, and they vow to raise their child in an atmosphere of both love and stability. So they head off on a journey around the US and Canada, dropping in on family and friends and looking for the perfect place to raise their family. It sounds schmaltzy on paper, but the film is anything but. Thing is, I adored this film as someone who is not in the least bit paternal, and has no desire to ever father children. I'm never a sucker for this sort of thing, but -- ultimately -- it's about love, real love, and who can't relate to that? Also, it's just too great and smartly executed to resist.

First of all, it's hilarious. Not in a dull, one-for-the-oldies, DEATH AT A FUNERAL-type way, but in a clever, sharp, observant way that recalls -- but is absolutely distinct from -- films like GARDEN STATE and JUNO. (They're all children of THE GRADUATE. Actually, the very end of this film reminded me a little of THE GRADUATE's final shot, at least in tone.) Eggers and Vida's dialogue sounds a little contrived and writerly when film begins, but your ear acclimatises pretty quickly, and it never seems to strike a false note.

The performances are all wonderful; from the ever-loveable Krasinski, to the surprisingly affecting Rudolph, to guest roles from the likes of Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels, Catherine O'Hara and Maggie Gyllenhaal. But the ones who really stole the film for me were Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey as their friends living in Montreal. There's a scene with Lynskey and Messina in a Montreal pole-dancing bar that absolutely breaks your heart in two. It's beautifully shot and everything is done just right; the Alexi Murdoch song score is reminiscent of Nick Drake, but works beautifully, perfectly capturing the smart but gentle tone of the piece.

All in all, the film is another unqualified triumph for Mendes, who can do no wrong from where I sit. We're so used to seeing him make sumptuous, big budget, Oscar-baiting dramas (but in the best way), to see him turn his hand at an indie-style comedy/drama and succeed so brilliantly is a testament to the man's skill. This is clearly a very personal project for both recent father Mendes and Eggers & Vida (apparently the authors based the script loosely upon their own experiences) and the pure love and goodwill shines through in every frame. This film is flat-out gorgeous, without insulting one's intelligence or turning on the schmaltz for a second. It ends on an optimistic note of discovery, but tempered with caution about the ever-uncertain future. And, if we're honest with each other, that's pretty much how we all live day to day, I suspect. AWAY WE GO is a wonderful, magnificent beast; a film that should speak to anyone who's ever tried to find their place in this world.

Thank you for following me on this epic countdown, I hope you've enjoyed reading it almost as much as enjoyed watching the films!

Over and out,

TSIK

THOROUGHLY MIFFED PART II: FINAL CHAPTER (PART 1) - ONCE UPON A TIME IN MOVIE-OCCUPIED MELBOURNE

2009-11-19T01:29:00.000-08:00

You've heard about the rest...

Last - HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO

51st - NYMPH

50th - DEAD SNOW

49th - DOUBLE TAKE

48th - MARTYRS

47th - HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN

46th - ZIFT

45th - VAN DIEMEN'S LAND

44th - THE BASTARDS (LOS BASTARDOS)

43rd - PARDON MY FRENCH (UN CHAT UN CHAT)

42nd - ALPHAVILLE

41st - THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

40th - HANSEL & GRETEL

39th - AN EDUCATION

38th - CHE PART 2

37th - SHADOW PLAY: THE MAKING OF ANTON CORBIJN

36th - LITTLE JOE

35th - MUM AND DAD

34th - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE

33rd - MURCH: WALTER MURCH ON EDITING

32nd - THE BURROWERS

31st - DOGTOOTH

30th - BLACK DYNAMITE

29th - YAKUZA EIGA

28th - MOTHER

27th - FISH TANK

26th - RED RIDING 1983

25th - THE WHITE RIBBON

24th - IT CAME FROM KUCHAR

23rd - WHITE LIGHTNIN'

22nd - IN THE LOOP

21st - THEATER OF WAR

20th - CHE PART 1

19th - THE HURT LOCKER

18th - RED RIDING 1974

17th - RED RIDING 1980

16th - TEARS FOR SALE

15th - BRONSON

14th - TYSON

13th - HOME MOVIE

12th - TROUBLED WATER

11th - MOON

And now, ladies and germs... I present to you... THE BEST.

MY TOP 10 FILMS OF MIFF 2009 (#s 6-10)

10th - THIRST

Look, I know it's not perfect. Far from it: It's a good 20-30 minutes too long, it spends a lot of time digressing into elongated comic-relief sequences, it's burdened with a saggy-ass middle, the storytelling in opening half-hour is not entirely clear. Yes, I know all this, acknowledge and accept it. But, you know what?

I still love it. I'd own it and watch it again in a heartbeat.

Because I love Park Chan-Wook. Nobody else makes films like this guy. Ever since OLDBOY unleashed itself upon my cortex at MIFF 2004, I've been in absolute raptures whenever a new work from this mad genius of

South Korean cinema emerges. His mix of gallows humour, outrageous violence, unstoppable set-pieces, operatic hysteria and anthropomorphic curiosity are unique in cinema history. South Korean cinema in general displays many of these qualities, but no-one mixes them together with the confidence, epic sensibility, or seamless yet breakneck changes in tone of Park Chan-Wook. For me, he's one of the most thrillingly original filmmakers working today. So, you can imagine the combination of Park and Vampires was pretty damn high on my anticipatio-meter.

The premise is killer, and I'm surprised more US horror cinema hasn't done it: a priest (the excellent Song Kang-Ho) contracts a killer virus while on an aid mission and, after a futile blood transfusion is performed to keep him hanging on, he miraculously survives, making a full recovery. Thanks to the new blood, he's the virus' first survivor, faster, stronger and fitter than ever before, becoming a Christ-like figure to a collection of the sick and the lame... but the effects of the cure wear off periodically, and he's horrified to discover there’s only one perpetual way to stave off these effects: drinking blood. I won't go into the plot from here on in, as this film has alleyways and surprises I'd rather you discovered unaided.

All I wanted from this film was for Park to provide the last word on a very played-out genre -- to explore old tropes in new ways, to ask novel questions, to provide fresh angles -- and, in this regard, the man doesn't disappoint. There are so many set-pieces in this film which are stunning, beautiful, tragic and comic all at once. Sure, he wastes some time with third wheel supporting characters and travels in bizarre directions -- but some of those are incredibly fruitful and disquieting. From its quiet opening to the stunning final sequence -- one of my favourite scenes of the last few years -- THIRST may outstay its welcome and outlast its ambition, but it certainly delivers something all too rare these days: a Vampire movie which feels fresh. Now, if everyone else can just kindly stop. Thank you.

9th - OUTRAGE

Depending on your point of view, director Kirby Dick is either very brave or very cowardly. Taking on the Motion Picture Association of America's reign of censorship in THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED is one thing, but what he does with OUTRAGE is balls-out insane: Dick aims to publicly out closeted gay Republican pollies who've gone out of their way to vote down pro-gay legislation. His claims as presented here don't seem to be spurious, either; the politicians cited all seem pretty hypocritical and Dick's research is quite extensive.

You may see Dick's crusade to be a violation of privacy... and if this were anyone but politicians, I would completely agree. But if you're going to actively deny thousands of people happiness purely because of their lifestyle, you forfeit the right to go and live that very same lifestyle in private. These people have to be called to account, and that's what Dick's documentary sets out to do. Despite striding these fine lines of truth seeking versus utter violation v-e-r-y tenuously, there's no denying the film is searing, justifiably angry, hilariously funny, often poignant and incredibly entertaining. I don't know how Washington powerbrokers haven't blocked its release, to be honest. Hell, maybe the First Amendment isn't dead after all.

8th - FOOD, INC.

One of the scariest, most disquieting films you'll see, about the ridiculously far-reaching effect that the indomitable hand of big business has on the food we eat. (Well, on the food Americans eat, for sure. I'll get to that later.) The way USA agribusiness has been centralised, mechanised and automated is shown in shocking detail, as we follow the incredibly compromised path that meat and many other (some surprising) perishables take from the "farm" (a loose term for many establishments) to the supermarket shelf. It's the nightmare you've always known of, or lurked in the back of your mind, given flesh.

The great thing about this documentary is that it presents the current reality in all its horror and duplicity, but then suggests viable alternatives to the status quo (a la AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH); things we can all do and look for that don't require enormous lifestyle changes. It introduces us to organic farmers and good people aligned with bad companies who are trying to do the best they can under the circumstances. The film is incredibly wide-ranging and benefits from exhaustive investigation and research. It's efficiently directed and breezily assembled, but never seems like it's delivering hyperbole. Overall, it's a terrific documentary with a powerful message. (So powerful, the friend I saw it with immediately turned to Vegetarianism and I've been buying Organic meat ever since -- sorry, I love my Chicken and Beef too much.) The only real problem I have with this film, is it's too America-centric. I'd have liked it to take a global view; the whole time you're watching FOOD, INC, you're thinking, "This is America. Surely it's not as bad here, right?" You assume the worst, but hope for the best. I guess the fact I'm assuming the worst at all, proves the film has done it's job. You'll never look at your local supermarket the same again.

7th - ANTICHRIST
I've only recently been introduced to the bizarre, inspired, punishing, emotionally bruising oeuvre of Lars von Trier, but I've rather taken to it. BREAKING THE WAVES, in particular, was heartbreaking, with DANCER IN THE DARK not far behind. ANTICHRIST, preceded by controversy and written & directed during von Trier's bout with depression, was sure to traverse some dark territory. There's some big issues being thrown around here -- the effectiveness/danger/futility of psychoanalysis, the role/demonisation/subjugation of women throughout history -- and von Trier certainly goes there, never one to die wondering.

What I didn't expect, was how much it really worked as a straight horror film. Sure, it's arty, but it's also creepy, moody, unsettling, visceral, suspenseful and sure to wring both sweat and winces out of its audience. It's also visually striking, von Trier's most handsome film yet. Speaking of not dying wondering, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe throw everything at this, and are stunning to watch. Gainsbourg's fragility and descent are completely believable, and are almost heartbreaking when she's not being scary. Dafoe's got the right amount of male bravado and intellectual rigor for the role of Gainsbourg's psychoanalyst husband, who attempts to fix her severe depression by taking her to the place that scares her the most: their cabin in the lush, yet foreboding, forest aptly named Eden. With its beautiful imagery, horrific subject matter and constant spectre of tragedy, it's a pretty serious film for the most part, with the one exception being a welcome -- and now-famed -- burst of comic mischief in which a ghostly fox utters to Dafoe what is now the movie's catchcry: "Chaos
Reigns." But, otherwise, rather than being a pastiche of shock tactics, ANTICHRIST seems to come from a very personal place within von Trier. It's very much the work of a person going through depression.

Many have commented on the film's misogyny and, while I'm not going to flat-out deny its existence, I don't believe this film is that simple. It uses the demonisation of women throughout the ages as a giant buildup of steam -- a raging storm of social malaise -- which must be released, and for which Gainsbourg is the vessel, the burst valve. She embodies all the stored-up hate bred by centuries of man's inhumanity to woman, and from there, there may be a sacrifice, there may be a catharsis, maybe both. I'm not going to say which. But, because of this approach, I actually found ANTICHRIST's stance to be misogynist and feminist, in equal measure. I think von Trier's feelings toward women are complex and contrary: he seems to take great pride in putting his female protagonists through unfathomable suffering, but clearly admires the hell out of their ability to withstand the adversity, to maintain a sense of purpose and self all the way through and, most importantly, to emerge as the sympathetic heart and soul of all of his movies. (The kind of roles, by the way, actresses generally would kill to play.) In fact, ANTICHRIST's ending seems to be a summation of this recurring theme in von Trier's career, and I'm hoping he can return his lens to other themes from here onward. But as closing statements go, ANTICHRIST is a damn good one.

6th - THE CHASER

It's no secret that South Korea has been at the forefront of innovative genre cinema for at least the second half of this decade. Filmmakers like Park Chan-Wook (OLDBOY), Bong Joon-Ho (THE HOST) and Kim Ji-Woon (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD), as well as their less-well-known contemporaries, are really doing some wild and wonderful things, both technically and thematically. So, every MIFF, I always check in on what those nutty bastards are up to, and am usually blown away. However, after seeing HANSEL AND GRETEL, MOTHER (which everyone else seemed to love, might have to take another run at this one) and THIRST (brilliant yet flawed), I felt that SK hadn't hit one in the centre of the bat this year. So, on the second last night of the festival, I went in to THE CHASER with both trepidation, and faith in an industry which had rarely let me down.

Man, did THE CHASER bring it home. To the names above, you may now add Na Hong-Jin, this stunning crime drama's debut(!!) writer/director. THE CHASER's basic idea is this: a serial killer of prostitutes abducts his latest victim, but what he doesn't count on is, her pimp is a shady ex-cop, who doesn't like his girls being stolen from under him -- he thinks it's a rival pimp poaching his staff -- and won't stop until he finds her. That's all I'm going to tell you, because from there, Na's awesomely constructed, tonally perfect film juggles plot threads, subverts almost EVERY cliche of the genre and springs surprise upon surprise. All three lead performances -- cop Kim Yun-Seok, killer Ha Jung-Woo and abductee Seo Yeong-Hie -- are brilliant, the action is tough and tight, the drama so utterly real, you wonder how in the hell a filmmaker can exercise this much control over such a complex crime action thriller, first time out of the gate. Even at 124 minutes, not a second of screen time is wasted. It's thrilling, funny and wickedly brilliant, the best pure action picture I've seen this year. An absolute, unqualified must-see.

Now... THE TOP FIVE! VERY SOON!!!

TSIK

THOROUGHLY MIFFED PART II: CHAPTER 4 - OPERATION KINOVERLOAD

2009-11-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

Now I've gotten the shockers out of the way, the rest of this year's Melbourne International Film Festival was pretty damned fine. Seeing I've treated you to enough epics -- with the top ten still to come -- I thought I'd apply the Cliff Notes brush to the countdown, supplying slightly expanded versions of my Twitter reviews for films #42 through #11, for issues of economy and, well, reader interest. So, here we go:

THE (NOT-SO) DIRTY DOZEN [42-31]

42nd - ALPHAVILLE

This science-fiction/new wave art film pastiche is certainly bold, political and one of Godard's most accessible films (an oxymoron?), but hurt by its glacial pacing and packs in ideas (some intriguing, some overly obscure) at expense of all drama; by the last act you couldn't give a toss what happens to any of the characters, as they're all metaphorical constructs anyway.

41st - THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

This was my closing film of MIFF 2009... and, three months after I saw it, I'm still not sure what I thought of it. All I know is, I liked and disliked it in equal measure. Admittedly, I thought I was going to see a film about what it's like to be a high-class escort, and was instead treated to a treatise on what it's like to move among/break into/stay hooked into the Manhattan wealthy set during the Global Financial Crisis. Which is fine, I guess, but not exactly what I was looking for. Soderbergh chooses to play with time and give the audience carefully partitioned portions of our characters' -- escort Chelsea/Christine (Sasha Grey) and her personal trainer partner Chris (Chris Santos) -- lives, which works some of the time, and baffles at others. Sometimes I just wanted him to focus on telling the damn story as opposed to being clever and digressive. In fact, that's really the kind of film it is: engrossing at times, annoying at others. The film certainly is stylish, reflecting one of the film's key themes (surfaces) beautifully. Porn actress Grey is absolutely perfect for her character, with her cold, disaffected visage and carefully assembled look, and Santos is likeable and very effective. All in all, I found this a quintessential 5/10 film.

40th - HANSEL & GRETEL

Spooky/funny South Korean spin on Grimm is sumptuous looking -- the colour palette alone is stunning -- occasionally disquieting and most intriguing... but turns convoluted & soppy in the endless final third. The film is way overlong by a good 20-30 minutes.

39th - AN EDUCATION

Cute, if very stock standard, period coming-of-age picture helped by nice performances from an ace cast (particularly Alfred Molina, Peter Sarsgaard and new star Carey Mulligan) and some trademark Nick Hornby dialogue. It's a perfectly pleasant Sunday afternoon film, where no-one undergoes any seismic change and nothing particularly dramatic occurs. Purely a fun, genteel diversion.

38th - CHE PART 2

Fine, but a bit thin; a stark contrast to the occasionally overstuffed Part 1. This entire chapter is a catalogue of Guevara's failed Bolivian campaign, which seems -- here, anyway -- like a small story stretched to snapping point. Soderbergh's intimate yet strangely distant approach to the first half of this chapter doesn't help, but the final battle and Che's capture are absolutely gripping. The major issue I have with both films, but particularly this one, which finds Che at his lowest point, is we rarely get a look at his dark side. Soderbergh's film shows him as an occasionally stern, yet mostly patient and logical man who was a martyr for the cause. All true, I'm sure, but you don't get to be an expert guerilla warrior and revolutionary by being an all-round nice guy. Guevara may have been a great man, for sure, but I'm equally certain he was no saint.

37th - SHADOW PLAY: THE MAKING OF ANTON CORBIJN

A comprehensive look at the career of ace photographer and director Anton Corbijn, if not so much his life. Prone to wandering into digressive anecdotal territory rather than real discovery, but quite entertaining all the same.

36th - LITTLE JOE

A nice, intimate, very lo-fi biodoc on Warhol star Joe Dallesandro, who seems like an affable blue-collar guy who only wished the work were better. A must for Warhol Factory devotees.

35th - MUM AND DAD

An often tough-to-take kidnap/torture pic, more extreme than expected. (One scene in particular is truly shocking, and retch-inducing, in what is depicted.) Very British -- think Fred and Rosemary West -- extremely perverted, rather effective on its own terms and not without humour.

34th - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE

A perfectly fine, late fortysomething coming-of-middle-age dramedy, with Robin Wright Penn as the title character, a woman looking back at her life, which breaks up into very distinct thirds -- perfect daughter, wild child, perfect wife, and wondering who the "real" Pippa Lee is. Beautifully observed and rather cutesy in equal measure. The starry cast is terrific, including a very effective Keanu Reeves.

33rd - MURCH: WALTER MURCH ON EDITING

Basically a filmed lecture on editing from a master of the form, who spends the entire film dispensing wisdom and anecdotes direct to camera. It's very much a filmed lecture for those of us not lucky enough to study at a California film school, and on that level works brilliantly. As a documentary, it isn't much chop, looking as if it were shot & cut in an afternoon, but Murch's insights are essential.

32nd - THE BURROWERS

Here's a unique genre hybrid: the Western Monster Movie! What nasty monsters they are, too; stinging their victims, inducing living paralysis, then burying them -- alive! -- until it comes time to feast upon the, uh, softened carcass. The cast is full of terrific cult actors, principally the LOST trio of William Mapother (LOST'S Ethan Rom), Clancy Brown (the show's pre-Desmond hatch dweller, Kelvin) and Doug Hutchison (the Dharma Initiative's Horace), who are all terrific. Once you acclimatise to the unique backdrop, the execution feels like a fairly standard monster movie... but there's MUCH fun to be had, and the very last scene in the film -- not the standard face-off, but the postscript, if you will -- leaves a wicked aftertaste. The film isn't perfect by any means, but marks writer-director J.T. Perry as a talent to keep an eye on.

31st - DOGTOOTH

Profoundly bizarre, confronting tale of three twenty-something siblings kept from the world, in perpetual adolescence, by their parents. The MIFF program described it as Big Brother via Lars von Trier, which is actually a pretty accurate setup. I suspect this film has a great deal on its mind -- from making statements about the fearful way many people see the world today to the dangers of censoring/hiding the darkness of humanity, and how that can result in an equal, more insidious darkness -- but, I'll be frank: it also concentrates a great deal of energy on grossing us the fuck out. A incredibly acquired taste, but plenty of food for thought for those who want to try it on.

A FEW GOOD MEN (AND WOMEN) [30-21]

30th - BLACK DYNAMITE

Starts as a hilariously pitch-perfect Blaxsploitation satire, Michael Jai White is pitch perfect as the titular hero, the music is wonderful (you'll be singing the "DY-NA-MITE! DY-NA-MITE!!" sting for days afterward), and is shot in the identical style of a Blaxsploitation film... so what's not to love? The rot sets in when, about halfway to two-thirds in, the film becomes all too aware of what it is, and starts throwing out lame post-Zucker Brothers jokes which dated around the time of the HOT SHOTS films. Director/co-writer (with White) Scott Sanders has clearly strived so hard for verisimilitude, why not keep it going? Disappointing to see it go out like that, but the first half contains some of the biggest laughs I've had at the movies all year.

29th - YAKUZA EIGA

Fascinating doc on the background & conflicted, ever-changing relationship btwn the Japanese film industry & the Yakuza.

28th - MOTHER

A beautifully plotted & directed thriller, from South Korean auteur Boon Jong-Ho (THE HOST, MEMORIES OF MURDER) about an overprotective mother whose only son -- an attractive but mentally challenged young man -- is accused of murder, and the lengths she'll go to prove his innocence. The film is elegantly made, is always engaging, has some nice twists and a powerhouse lead performance... but it didn't really connect with me. I felt like I was on the outside looking in the entire time, and I'm not sure why that is.

27th - FISH TANK

Effective UK realist drama with intelligence & heart, but takes a little too much time getting into gear. Performances are excellent, particularly by lead actress Kate Jarvis and the always terrific Michael Fassbender. Beautiful ending.

26th - RED RIDING 1983

Closes this terrific UK crime trilogy with suspense, class & power (if a little drawn out). Smart AND thrilling, although slightly dumbed-down from the two proceeding chapters, but it's great to have a payoff. See all three for a intriguing story, a horrifically insidious antagonistic (police) force and the UK's very best actors on display.

25th - THE WHITE RIBBON

Evokes a pastoral, pre-World War I Austrian village where insidious inhumanity is passed down from each generation to the next. Contemplative examination of humans struggling -- in very small, everyday ways -- between good and evil, gorgeously shot in stark black-and-white, but LONG.

24th - IT CAME FROM KUCHAR

An affectionate look at the eccentric underground filmmakers, filled with hilarious clips & conversations.

23rd - WHITE LIGHTNIN'

A hillbilly's (true!) odyssey thru love, revenge & addiction is nutty Applaichian gothic; loses steam near the end.

22nd - IN THE LOOP

A searingly funny -- and appropriately convoluted -- political backroom farce, based upon the UK comedy show IN THE THICK OF IT, with enough profane pop-culture-themed insults to flay a small nation. Peter Capaldi's campaign manager Malcolm Tucker is a rage-fuelled force of nature.

21st - THEATER OF WAR

All-star Brecht revival documentary is an engrossing look at theatre history that'll stoke your inner artistic revolutionary. Inspiring stuff.

HOT SHOTS [20-11]

20th - CHE PT. 1

Handsome, highly absorbing kickoff to Soderbergh's epic bio, if a little overstuffed with characters, events & time jumps. I do like the way this first film is broken up, though: through his United Nations address, we get the philosophy, through his actions in the Cuba campaign, we get the leader, the strategist, the warrior. Del Toro is predictably terrific as Guevara, but, as with Part Two, this project should've explored the revolutionary's dark side a bit more. A very good film which, with a little more willingness to be critical, could've been great.

19th - THE HURT LOCKER

Long-absent action director Kathryn Bigelow and writer/producer Mark Boal have fashioned a seemingly free-form series of gritty, undeniably tense, almost "day in the life" set pieces that gradually form a character study. Jeremy Renner is excellent in the lead; a career of playing villains of simmering intensity has prepared him well for this portrayal of an Iraq War bomb disposal expert. Bigelow directs the film with the perfect mix of high octane suspense and acute personal observation. (Some interesting cameo players pop up, too; thankfully never to the detriment of the film's reality.) To be honest, it could have done with some trimming -- 127 minutes is far too long for a film with this structure -- but it's very well done.

18th - RED RIDING 1974

This highly entertaining crime trilogy, based upon novelist David Peace's James Ellroy-esque reimagining of the Yorkshire criminal/law enforcement landscape in the mid-1970s to early 80s, kicks off with the story of a cub crime reporter (Andrew Garfield) who stumbles upon police corruption on an epic scale. Even as the film shifts from a wonderfully bleak, ZODIAC-style sleuthing drama to a cliched one-man-vs-system flick, it's still riveting. This first chapter is also one of the most GORGEOUSLY shot films I've seen this year.

17th - RED RIDING 1980

Swaps RR74's photogenic sheen for verite grit, as this hellish saga of police corruption continues to enthrall. The best chapter of the three narratively, as the always brilliant Paddy Considine plays a good, smart cop sent to clean up an evil that goes much deeper than even he can imagine. Really great stuff.

16th - TEARS FOR SALE
Bizarre Serb fantasy/comedy about two fiesty, glamourous women searching for virile men to take back to their impoverished, middle-of-nowhere village -- filled with equally glamourous women, but completely devoid of men -- is packed with outrageous style, an unhinged sense of humour & berserk energy. Unfortunately, once the second half gets underway, various character motivations do alarming 180 degree turns, seemingly just to keep the plot moving. It's the only real blight on what is otherwise a spunky, sexy, fiery and very Eastern European fable.

15th - BRONSON

Spiky, fiery, highly stylised crime biopic; makes no apologies for, or judgements on, its unrepentant subject's violent life. Tom Hardy is a revelation as Michael "Charles Bronson" Peterson, the man known as Britain's most violent prisoner; he's completely unrecognisable from any other role you may have seen him in (this is his CHOPPER, and the chief reason he's slated to be the next MAD MAX). You want an insight into the mind and motivations of this true-life loose cannon, you won't find them here. You want big, bold, operatic, satiric, punchy, witty fun, step right in.

14th - TYSON

An intriguing visual autobiography into the man's mind; director James Toback just plonks the camera on his old friend and lets him speak, then cuts it all together in a very slick, fast, appealing way. And because he's talking one on one with his old pal, Mike Tyson is incredibly frank, self-deprecating, a little "poor me" at times, but seems to take genuine responsibility for (most of) his missteps. One does emerge with an admiration for him for doing this, but at the same time, you don't know if things are ever going to really improve for him, even as he grows older; he's just so at odds with the world around him. The film is revealing, funny, conflicted & a little sad. Definitely worth seeing.

13th - HOME MOVIE

The premise is simple: a Lutheran pastor (Heroes' Adrian Pasdar) moves his wife, son and daughter to a small town to start a new church. Upon arrival, Pasdar's character, who is as much your typical daggy dad as a religious figure, insists on recording every family moment on his video camera. But the kids are acting rather strangely... and calculated... and, well, just damn creepy. I thought this held up the video verite horror genre fairly well, with precious few "Oh, they wouldn't take the camera there!" moments. You have to admire its craft, as it takes its time creating sustained tension, carefully and suddenly revealing subtle yet deeply disturbing behaviour by the children at delicious intervals. HOME MOVIE delivers dark humour, small shocks & the creepiest kids you ever did see.

12th - TROUBLED WATER

A tense as hell human drama of guilt & responsibility from Norway, about a man who is released from jail after murdering a child years before. The first part of the film is this reformed man's quiet struggle to make his way in the world again, while still haunted by his crime. Then, the film takes a surprising parallel track, which I won't reveal here... but it's a cracker. Save for one implausible moment toward the end, Erik Poppe's film pulses with painful reality and dramatic power. Track this one down.

11th - MOON

A deceptively simple sci-fi tale which struck me as entertaining yet unremarkable upon conclusion, yet whose true depth and poignance only hit me hours later. Well, the "unremarkable" isn't entirely true: Duncan Jones' film does display a constant willingness to create somewhat familiar sci-fi movie trappings then completely subvert them. What's more, Nathan Parker's script (based upon an original story by Jones) has a startling amount on its mind, and quite a bit to say about subjects both scientific and socioeconomic... to reveal more would be to divulge the film's secrets, and I'm not gonna be THAT guy. What I can talk about, however, is Sam Rockwell's amazing, Academy Award-calibre performance. This entire film is on his shoulders, and he rises to the challenge in a way that reaffirms how amazingly skilful this actor is. Both his performance and the film entire, are beautifully, subtly thoughtful.

Next up: My TOP TEN films of MIFF 2009... at last!!!

THOROUGHLY MIFFED PART II: CHAPTER 3 - INGLOURIOUS BASTURDS

2009-09-05T04:23:00.000-07:00

First, I'd like to thank those of you who read my epic introduction -- membership price bitching, Tarantino fellation and all -- and have waited expectantly for this chapter. What's your reward for your attention, you may ask? A billion (if a billion = fifty-two) reviews!!!

Let's get into it, shall we? Counting down, in order of preference, from 52nd (least favourite) to 1st (favourite):

Dead Stone Motherless Last - HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO

I am an unashamed, unabated film tragic. As such, I adore 'making-of' documentaries. I'll watch useless on-the-set featurettes to catch any peek behind the creative curtain. I'm even more obsessed with directors; following their careers keenly and will regurgitate their filmographies, on demand, with RAIN MAN-like precision. But one director I'm not an expert on (there are still many) is Henri-Georges Clouzot. I knew he was the man behind the classic French thrillers THE WAGES OF FEAR and DIABOLIQUE, among others, but I've not seen any of them, nor have I read anything about the man. Flush with discovery, I was ready to learn about a complex filmmaker driven by obsession to make a strikingly original picture, and be enraptured.

I was not enraptured. Firstly, the film is shot, cut and delivered without the slightest hint of energy or inspiration. The interview subjects are not garrulous, interesting, inspired or eccentric. In fact, they spend most of their time carping about what a taskmaster Clouzot was, despite most of his methods being commonplace today. (Sample gripe: "He would shoot a scene with three cameras. Who shoots a scene with three cameras??!" I stress, this was uttered sans humour. Another crew member whinged about Clouzot working them for fourteen hour days! God help these dudes if they ever work in independent cinema or major US television.)

Secondly, its portrait of Clouzot is mostly full of cliche: he's your stock standard egotistical hell-driven dictator who pushed his crew to (barely) superhuman levels to achieve some thing new, and drove his actors spare in the process, until everyone broke up the band. *Yawn...* Give us some more interview quotes, or some spirited accounts of what a madman/genius he was.

Thirdly, INFERNO, the lost film itself, looks pretty terrible. The entire story is this: Guy goes on holiday with his wife, gets insanely jealous whenever she's near another man, said jealousy manifests itself as hallucinogenic fugue fantasies of impotence/revenge/retribution, fugue subsides, repeat. So, apparently, the entire INFERNO project was cooked up so Clouzot could play with trippy camera shots that will date by decade's end. Oh, and explore the violence of jealousy in a completely superficial way.

Lastly, what should've been a 45 minute DVD-style featurette is stretched to an endless 100 minute dirge. Knowing exactly where it was headed, and tired of being bored stupid, I tapped out at the 65 minute mark, setting a new milestone: the first MIFF film I've ever walked out of. Because I had better things to do... like, umm, wander the streets aimlessly.

51st - NYMPH

The other most boring film of MIFF 2009 admittedly begins with a rather beautiful, startling opening shot, which sets the film's tone perfectly; as it gives you both an indication of what you're in for (glacial pace, endless shots which give one ample time to work out what'll happen next, huge stretches of time where nothing happens) and what it lacks, as the scene has a nice payoff (which you work out well in advance as the camera takes forever getting there), which you better really enjoy, because director Pen-ak Ranaturang ain't gonna spring for another.

The film is kind of a pseudo-horror ghost story which aims for existentialism and self-discovery by just holding the camera on someone as they look at someone, or something, blankly for two minutes. Then, we cut to a shot of what/whomever they're looking at, and hold that for two minutes. Now, I love a long, languid, thoughtful, gradually revealing shot as much as the next guy, but this isn't that. This is art-wank masquerading as existentialism. I LOATHE this style of filmmaking. There has to be something going on ON THE ACTOR'S FACE during these shots. Or in the background. Or, umm, ANYWHERE.

NYMPH is like someone drained all the humanity, emotional reality, dramatic tension and power out of a Terrence Malick film, leaving us only with two nondescript people in a crap marriage staring at nature and disappearing. As a viewer, I'm happy to work a bit, but as a filmmaker, you've gotta bring something to the table, man. I'm not doing all the heavy lifting. There's only so much one can stand of barely sketched characters (only the program gave me any clue as to what the leads did for a living), interminable blank looks, drawn-out silences, shots of trees and dramatic inertia before an entirely different spectre descends: sleep.

50th - DEAD SNOW

While I guess it's more engaging than CLOUZOT'S INFERNO, DEAD SNOW just edges it out as the biggest disappointment of MIFF 2009. I looked forward to this film with massive enthusiasm: It's Nazi Zombies, fer chrissakes, and the trailer was highly entertaining. Unfortunately, "Nazi Zombies" seems to be where the filmmakers' production conference ended. Presumably, the writer/director uttered those two words, pushed his chair out from the table and spent the rest of the day watching EVIL DEAD, SCREAM and SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Because said auteur, Tommy Wirkola, rips those movies off wholesale. Now, as a movie buff turned developing filmmaker, I'm not one who throws the term "rips off" around easily. We all know that very little- if anything- is original anymore, everyone is influenced by somebody and, as one of the SWINGERS boys says, "everybody steals from everybody". But there is an entire character in this flick who's a gross bastardisation of Ed from SHAUN. It rips off shots from Raimi's zombie classics and SHAUN not just here and there, but constantly.

Wirkola isn't adding anything of himself to this concoction, nor is he mixing it all into his own unique tune, as Tarantino or PT Anderson would. All this fanboy adulation would be charming if the story took any interesting turns, or if the characters were funny and relatable, or if the script went to any dark and inspired places besides the hacking of limbs. It's also technically shoddy; all the money went into the makeup and uniforms, because this film boasts some of the most cringingly obvious blue/green screen work since STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. Most deporably, though, Wirkola does nothing with the Nazi Zombie conceit. Do they march, fight, plan, act in the least bit like Nazis? Apparently not, as Wirkola probably couldn't track down a copy of SHOCK WAVES or ZOMBIE LAKE to rip off. Nup, these are just your average flesh-eating zombies, who just happen to be wearing Nazi uniforms and have a thing for Nazi gold. It's fine to be trashy, guys and gals, but for fuck's sake... be creative.

49th - DOUBLE TAKE
The MIFF program guide pitched this as being one of the most original and thrilling films of the festival. They lied about the thrilling. Using news grabs, clips from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show and advertisements from the 1950s, along with newly filmed footage, Argentinian director Johan Grimonprez attempts to fashion a narrative involving Alfred Hitchcock becoming aware he has a doppelganger, against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. What relates these two subjects is fuzzy and tenuous at best... and, as the film drags on, we find there's a lot of that.
One minute we're treated to one of Hitch's awesome AHP intros, then we cut to a coffee commercial, then we cut to poorly matched and cut together shots of Alfred Hitchcock on AFP passing Alfred Hitchcock in one of his big screen cameos, then we segue to a Nikita Kruschev-Richard Nixon press conference, before hearing a modern-day Hitch (sort of-) lookalike regaling us with anecdotes of meeting Tippi Hedren. And it's like that for 80 minutes. The "plot" makes no sense (Yo Hitch: *why* does one have to kill one's double, anyway?), the links between all the threads are shaky, all the gear with the Hitch impersonator is pointless and anything the director wants to say about identity and duality gets swallowed up by baffling -- and, it must be said, often shoddy -- technique. The only bright spots in this entire film are those AFPresents introductions, which are gorgeous, and the Kruschev-Nixon chat, which is amazing footage... which I'm sure you could find on DVD or YouTube. Still, I'm glad they showed up here, or I'd have been forced to commit my own perfect murder out of boredom.

48th - MARTYRS

Much has been ranted about the so-called "torture porn" genre this decade, and I'm not sure where I stand on it. If there's a story, I'm more likely to go with it. Sometimes you've gotta increase the stakes and push boundaries, but don't be clumsy or sledgehammer about it... unless, of course, sledgehammer works. It's a fine line. Horror has to be a tough genre. You can't pussy out. You have to take people where they don't want to go. Horror shouldn't be safe. Sometimes off-camera works, sometimes it doesn't. Then you have films like HOSTEL, which are competently made and come with a genuinely fearsome concept, but just hit the "this is a movie!" switch too often, which sells out the reality and the true horror of the piece.

To MARTYRS' credit, it never hits the laugh button. It never reminds you it's a movie... unless you've seen its many French siblings. See, France has been a hotbed for what some may term "torture porn" of late: HAUTE TENSION, INSIDE, FRONTIERE(S), SHEITAN... and many of these films share all-too-apparent DNA with MARTYRS. Washed-out colours? Check. High-speed shutter? Check. Dark creeping around houses? Check. Random slashing attacks? Check. Dark, twitchy, grey demon visions? Check. High-energy set pieces which wouldn't look out of place in an action film? Check. All of which is perfect if you've got a terrific and/or cohesive story and, well, a point. Sadly, this is what MARTYRS seems to be missing.

The film seems to change plots every 15 minutes: it's about an abused girl seeking revenge - no, it's about said abused girl's best friend, who has to deal with her vengeance-seeking besty (which is actually the best idea in the film, for mine) - no, it's about the vengeance seeker fighting a demon - no, it's about the friend being captured and tortured - and so on. These may sound like standard plot twists, but no: they're all distinct threads. Characters and concepts which seem meaningful exit the movie. The film asks questions and abandons them a couple scenes later. Then, about halfway through, we're finally introduced to the central theme of the film... and, as themes go, it doesn't really stand up. If I'm gonna watch a teenage girl get chained, force-fed gruel and slapped around for 20-30 minutes at a stretch -- I'm not kidding -- I demand a stronger, more meaningful reason than the film gives me.

I've heard some internet pundits say MARTYRS is an examination, a deconstruction, even the apogee, of the "torture porn" sub-genre, of the central horror conceit of suffering young women, of the "final girl" concept. I'm only willing to agree this is what director Pascal Laugier may have been going for, but he's wallowing in it, with a wrongheaded script that's both sloppy and spare. And I'm not even mentioning gaping plot holes or ridiculous character motivations (the girl is tied by the world's longest fucking chain and she never once thinks to hide in the shadows of the cavernous basement to wrap it around someone's neck? Where's your survival instinct?!). The ending attempts a mordant cleverness, but rather just underlines the pointlessness of it all. What's more, our protagonist is never a "martyr" of any sort. She's a guinea pig, stumbling through the ordeal with the barest notion of why she's there. The one thing, the only thing a martyr never lacks, is a purpose. Perhaps Laugier should've reevaluated his.

47th - HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN

Upon seeing two minutes of pure insanity passing itself off as a trailer for this at the MIFF launch, my interest in this flick soared skyward. There was cackling, bad makeup, cackling, hyperbolic Japanese title cards, cackling, waves crashing upon beaches, cackling, Dr Moreau-style ani-men... I love me some crazy nutty bugfuck Asian cinema and this was from the age of psychedelia, forming a powerful combination I found impossible to resist... So why did I fall asleep halfway through? Sure, it didn't make a lick of sense, but one expects that. It may have something to do with the incredibly slow-moving first act, which sure brings the hokey melodrama, but sits on the crazy for a while, and more's the pity.

There's lots of our lead dude following women around compounds and pining for lost loves, which was all, strangely for a film like this, a bit dull. After some 40 minutes of this, I began trading five minute bursts of melodrama with five minute microsleeps, which persisted for a good half hour... until the uproarious final act, which finally gave up the good stuff. (Only the Japanese would make a film which ends in a crescendo of exploding superimposed floating heads. As ever, I'm not making this up.)

A friend I saw this with made the point that this film seemed all too aware of how nutty it is, and that diminished the experience for him. I can see his point to an extent, but this is based on traditional Japanese Rampo stories, which are traditionally insane, so I don't know how much more licence they could've taken. Was the conviction there? Perhaps. Did I really care? Not really. I came away with the feeling there were Japanese horror films both nuttier and more extreme, both of the time and since, and what promised to be a singular experience didn't quite deliver. Still... that last act is a pisser.

46th - ZIFT

Another MIFF launch trailer which rocked me, only to massively disappoint. Shot in gorgeously stark black and white, this period Bulgarian noir with a rather unhinged, dark-humoured sensibility should’ve knocked me for six. And the opening few scenes are encouraging: handsome, sharp, irreverent and violent, as we see our title character in prison, then departing to restart his life anew. It’s about half an hour in when the problem starts to emerge. Once you remove the, well, Bulgarian-ness of it, it’s really just the same post-QT neo-noir the Yanks and Brits have been pumping out for fifteen years.

Gradually, all the oxygen drains from the film, and, to mix metaphors, it just treads water from there. Full disclosure: the second act sent me to sleep. Sure, it was the third film I saw that day, but I’d stayed awake through many other similar situations this and prior MIFFs. I awoke at the commencement of the final act to find nothing much else had changed: preposterous plot twists and rainswept burials and attempted assassinations, all of which felt tainted by the stain of over-familiarity. I so wish this was a better film.

45th - VAN DIEMEN'S LAND

Let me start off by saying: this is quite possibly the best looking and sounding Australian film I’ve ever seen. No kidding. Debut feature director Jonathan auf der Heide and his veteran cinematographer Ellery Ryan shoot the ever-loving shit out of this notorious tale of Tasmanian convict and eventual-cannibal Alexander Pierce, evoking the exquisite man-as-affront-to-glorious-nature landscapes of Terrence Malick… and losing absolutely nothing in the comparison. Peter Palankay’s sound design is also a thing of haunting, harrowing beauty, just world-class work. Some of the performances are terrific too, most notably a very charismatic Mark Leonard Winter.

You may have noticed I’ve front-loaded this review a little. I wanted to get the positives up front. I want to state that auf der Heide has pulled off a stunning physical effort for a debut feature filmmaker, particularly as he’s still under 30. It’s hard enough to get a film up and made, but rarely are they this handsome. Thing is… the director’s attempts to sustain menace are so endlessly protracted that it winds up almost devoid of it. It’s not particularly scary, just kind of slow and grotty. The characters, aside from Pierce (Oscar Redding) and Winter’s Dalton, are pretty much interchangeable in look and attitude for the first half of the film – and Pierce is so inside himself -- it’s difficult to get a bead on anyone aside from Dalton.

auf der Heide seems to believe that moody sideways glances and endless shots of people staring at campfires passes for character development and narrative tension… and I’m here to tell him, it doesn’t. One or two of the murders have impact, but this is one of the rare pictures which could’ve done with a little more blood. It seems to be a bit too hung up on its own artistic pretension to present the harsh reality of these murders, or cannibalism in itself – which is odd, considering the rest of the picture just bursts with verisimilitude. So the only logical conclusion is, the filmmakers, for all of their ambition, pussied out. Held back. I know this isn’t meant to be a horror picture, but something this ripe with treachery, paranoia and cannibalism should’ve been much more frightening than this.

44th - THE BASTARDS (LOS BASTARDOS)

This Mexican home invasion thriller takes the term “slow burn” and stretches it to snapping point. Two labourers cross the border for a day’s work in LA before heading home and waiting to do the whole thing again the next day. Except on the day we join them, they have nasty plans in mind. There’s plenty of tension at first, as these two edge closer to violence, only to pull back, as the music dramatically smash rises then falls – a pattern which repeats several times in the film, to the point of exhaustion. They’ve been paid to take a housewife (who isn’t what she seems, either) hostage in her home and whack her. However, they’re going spend the night quietly living it up while tormenting her.

I won’t reveal what happens, but it’s safe to say that the picture is 85-ish minutes of tension leading to a – frankly – ridiculously violent denouement, which seems calculated for shock value more than anything else. There’s plenty of social context here though, with the labourers clearly enjoying the perceived fruits of middle-class American life unavailable to them, throughout the evening. Despite moments of genuine menace and style, the whole affair just seems like a lot of time expended on very little.

43rd - PARDON MY FRENCH (UN CHAT UN CHAT)

This French comedy is packed with terrific ideas, fresh concepts, amusing scenes and a cracker of a lead in Italian actress Chiara Mastroianni (Marcello’s daughter, who manages to look scarily like him while being absolutely gorgeous)… but director Sophie Fillières seems to have no feel for the material whatsoever.

The comic tale of a writer and newly-single mother, lamenting both her broken marriage and writer’s block, being latched onto by an aggressively helpful young woman who, as it emerges, is her self-appointed stalker, should’ve been a breezy, bouncy, pacy romp. Instead, it is paced like an Alain Reinais drama, which makes the thing seem ponderous and flabby when what’s going on is actually pretty clever and inspired, and would’ve been massively entertaining with a more understanding treatment.

However, the cast are terrific, but Mastroianni steals the show as the cynical, hard-smoking, neurotic sleepwalking writer who loves her son like crazy (her banter with the kid is one of the film’s highlights.) This is by no means a terrible movie, or even a bad one, simply mis-directed. It’s far too drawn-out and grey for the type of picture it should’ve been, to get the maximum impact out of likeable performances and a witty script. Ripe for an English-language remake, perhaps? So long as they retain Chiara’s services and hire a director with a yen for the material, it just might work.

Next: Mini reviews / rankings of the middle 32!

TSIK

THOROUGHLY MIFFED PART II: CHAPTER 2 - REVENGE OF THE GIANT FACE

2009-09-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

The chin was in. Quentin Tarantino was in the house.

Once properly introduced by MIFF Director Richard Moore, the black-suited Mr Tarantino strode out to the stage, as I -- clad in my DEATH PROOF t-shirt -- clapped and hollered like I was at the MCG (wasn't alone there, I might add). Only afterward, upon reflection of my enthusiasm and proximity to QT, did I discover that my behaviour could possibly have been interpreted as, well... gay. And not in the ironic, 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN style "Know how I know you're gay..." way. No, actually gay.

And I, a comfortably heterosexual man, make absolutely no apologies for this.

Tarantino answered the questions of Australian comedian/filmmaker John Safran (chosen, presumably, either because of his Jewish heritage, or reputation as a provocateur) with his customary enthusiasm, bravado and staggering filmic knowledge. I gotta tell ya: I don't think I could even recall half the conversation (thankfully I can recall the other half, clear as a bell). Just being in the room was sensory overload.

Safran's questions seemed to continually threaten to betray spoilers, but QT was doing his best to keep his film's secrets, talking instead of Goebbels' Louis B. Mayer-style involvement in the wartime German film industry, Eli Roth's "jewish revenge porn" fantasies and the influence of Leni Riefenstahl. Then, as an added surprise -- as if out of a hat -- he produced stars Diane Kruger and Christolph Waltz, who took the mike for a couple of brief introductions. Waltz's demeanour, in particular, gave no indication of the performance we were soon about to see; though he certainly seemed cultured and polite (even if his speech was slightly baffling). As the lights went down, the stars ducked out a side door, but Quentin strolled up the aisle to take his seat in the middle of the theatre, to watch his own film amongst the punters. Which fit perfectly; as much as any director before or since, he's a movie geek just like the rest of us.

(No, I'm not gonna tell you here what I thought of the film! All will be revealed in future chapters...)

So, yeah, you could say this experience shaped my MIFF in 2009. There were other delights (and, like any large event, hiccups) to be found, as well:

- The Coopers Forum Festival Lounge was as gorgeous and awesome as ever... however, they really need to stay open later. It's the perfect stylish, dimly-lit, post-film chillout/discussion venue... and it closes by 11:15. It's the Achilles Heel of what is, otherwise, perfection.

- Once again, the ungracefully aging Greater Union cinema took on the lion's share of sessions (even more than last year, which didn't seem possible), but I didn't experience as many dodgy seat issues as usual. (Besides, of course, the fact the seats there are sort of fundamentally dodgy.) I experienced a grand total of one shaky seat and four wobbly armrests. For better or worse, that's below average. I choose to call that a win.

- The Forum continued its fabulous tradition of being the festival's centrepiece venue; a super cool, old school theatre. Even with the age-old seats (the seating is stadium style, representing brilliant foresight on the part of those who built it), it rarely seems to get uncomfortable. I just adore seeing movies there. (Now, if only they could take back the Regent, and get the Capitol up and running again -- thus alleviating Greater Union of its burden -- and the experience of seeing movies at MIFF would fully return to former glory!)

- Last year, my incredibly awesome girlfriend kicked off a birthday tradition of buying me a MIFF Passport; as my birthday is a month before MIFF, it's pretty much perfect. However, Passports aren't cheap... so naturally I was incensed to hear that, from this year, one couldn't buy a Passport unless they also bought a MIFF Membership. A Membership alone, at AU$83, is quite reasonable, but when you stack it on top of the Passport price, it seemed a little rich. So a MIFF Passport was now going to cost my partner AU$413 and, on her behalf, I was livid. From this perspective, the Membership privileges didn't seem to be worth the cash: a paltry 10% off Festival merchandise, concession tickets to cinemas I don't go to (and, admittedly, the cinema I go to the most -- details schmetails, I'm building a case here!), priority queuing, etc. But, as MIFF is my midyear Christmas, I craved that Passport, so I swallowed my vitriol, complained to the MIFF Twitter page, and allowed my partner to pay the money...

Two days in, I discovered what an idiot I'd been. Two words, folks: PRIORITY QUEUING. My god. It's a whole new world. The difference between getting to the venue and going straight in to snag a decent seat (and to save some for your friends!), and standing out in the bitter Melbourne cold for 20 minutes waiting to be ushered in to a seat plastered against the screen. And, let's face it, I saw 52 flicks for AU$7.94 each, which is an ace deal. Mr. Richard Moore and co., I humbly submit my apology, and substitute it with thanks.

- Although it didn't really touch me personally, I can't rightly talk about MIFF 2009 without addressing the hailstorm of controversy that rocked it, courtesy of China versus a little documentary called THE 10 CONDITIONS OF LOVE, and, to a smaller extent, Ken Loach withdrawing his LOOKING FOR ERIC because MIFF bought an Israeli filmmaker (who'd made an Australian film!) a plane ticket. I'm sure you've read about all the website hackings, the hasty withdrawal of every Chinese & Hong Kong film from the program, the Chinese diplomatic corps pressuring Richard Moore to drop 10 CONDITIONS from the program... all dramatic stuff, and Mr. Moore deserves huge kudos for not backing down a millimetre. Instead of sacking the film, he added an extra session and moved it to a bigger venue, which resulted in serpentine queues the likes of which even MIFF had never seen. Well played, sir.

I really feel this is the year Richard Moore began to make MIFF truly his own, stepping out from the towering shadow created by the game-changing reign of James Hewison. For the most part, he's kept Hewison's better additions and has added his own to push Australia's finest film festival boldly into the next decade, and to Cloud Nine for all Melbourne-bound filmgoers.

Now, to the movies: My 10 Worst Films of MIFF 2009... so no flipping!

THOROUGHLY MIFFED 2009: CHAPTER I - GERMAN NIGHT IN PARIS (well, okay... more like a movie night in Melbourne...)

2009-09-03T00:56:00.000-07:00

The Melbourne International Film Festival (let's call her MIFF) came back with a vengeance this year. Not that MIFF '08 was bad, it was great... but it wasn't the inspiring, euphoric, Christmas-in-Julaugust that it normally is. Documentaries ruled the roost for me last year, which, I'll confess, is always a bit of a bummer for me. See, I'm in no way an aspiring documentary filmmaker. I'm all about fiction feature films, and MIFF is the Mecca to which I travel for annual inspiration to make my own movies. So, when the docus dominate and the feature films take a back seat, I have fun, but I don't come away with the electric charge of inspiration which I've happily come to associate with the event. For me, MIFF '09 was a return to all sorts of form: incredible guests, blazing controversy, and, crucially, a strong program of terrific fiction feature films.

MIFF 2009, for me, will always be remembered as The Year Quentin Came to Town. Sure, I never got to meet the big man, but I was insanely lucky enough to attend the Australian Premiere of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (whose five chapter titles -- or variations thereof -- you'll find subtitling this very blog), where he appeared in person to introduce the film in his own inimitably effusive fashion.

Okay. I'm gonna remove my "critical blogger" hat for a second and throw on my "stark raving fanboy acolyte of Quentin Tarantino" hat on. Got it? Good. (Don't worry, won't be long.)

I was going to be seeing Quentin Fucking Tarantino in the flesh. I won't lie to you: he's the guy whose films inspired me to be a writer/director. Before I saw DOGS and FICTION, I was deeply interested in films, but thought a schlub like me only had a shot at writing them, if I were lucky. Surely I wasn't qualified to be a filmmaker. I didn't go to film school, hadn't fought in WWII, wasn't cut out to be a general or a dictator... all those cliches I'd accumulated in my head about directors of yore. They weren't weedy little film buffs like me, they were decorated, educated and/or utterly insane men and women of bottomless gravitas and sweeping vision, informed by lives of love and loss. So, when I saw these incredibly alive, stylish, unpredictable pictures from an average (if extraordinarily clever & talented) guy who was inspired by the stuff that I was inspired by -- action films, horror flicks, gangster movies -- and then made specific references in his interviews to the obscure films that inspired his works, for buffs like me to seek out and devour, I felt an actual, vein-deep connection, the likes of which I've experienced about three or four times my entire life. So, to see the man who had indirectly helped to set my life on its current course, in my home city, in the flesh, was one of the most thrilling occasions in my life to date.

Okay, enough of the gross adulation... back to the show.

Turns out getting to the premiere screening was a mission in itself. Sadly, my lovely partner could not attend, and the long-standing backup had pulled out with mere hours to spare (both due to work commitments), so we were on the phone, in a mad rush on the way, to recruit ourselves a Basterd. We got our man -- my friend Steve, who, thankfully, had just gotten off crutches a few days earlier -- and he left immediately, hopefully able to meet us in line. Meanwhile, despite being an hour early, I was greeted by an enormous line... which was a meetup-free zone, as all new arrivals were directed to the back of the queue. This, coupled with overheard rumblings of all sorts of no-turning-back security measures inside, shook me a tad, as I had Steve's ticket and he was still en route. I hoped he'd get there in time to see us in line and grab it on the way past...
Then the line started to move. Fast.

Halfway up the line, a security guard was checking tickets, presumably to stop people fossicking through their pockets at the entrance, thus holding up red carpet snapper magnets seeking a photo op. I had the two tickets folded together, so I showed mine to the dude and put the other in my pocket.

Soon, the line was racing, and I was up to the red carpet. I've never trod a red carpet before, I have to say, and it was kinda cool. Well... it would've been cool, if I hadn't been eyeing off the entrance ten feet away and suddenly thought, "Now, where is Steve's ticket?" Soon, I became That Guy, fossicking through his pockets to find... nothing.

Here I am, standing on a red carpet, friends on one side, paparazzo on the other, pulling everything out of every pocket, looking for Steve's ticket. So much for my auspicious red carpet debut.

Another couple of steps. Now about seven feet away, still not found.

It was now my heart doing the racing, as the Forum Theatre entrance was bearing down on me fast. The doors were now so close I could touch them, as my hands dove in and out of pockets, fumbling through all sorts of wallets and coins and brochures and --
THE TICKET! Hurrah!!

I couldn't even tell you which pocket it was in, as if I'd conjured it out of thin air. But it wasn't over. With Phase 2 down, I instantly clicked into Phase 3: how do I get our Basterd his ticket? Being herded up the stairs, I searched for a lanyard-wearing MIFF door keeper and managed to snag one, to explain the situation. She suggested I write his name on the ticket and give it to her, and she would put it on a table out front for collection. Fair enough. So I began texting Steve to tell him this... when I discovered, a short flight of stairs away, that a table of MIFF people were sequestering everybody's mobile phones. I had less than 60 seconds to type the most clear, yet detailed, message possible on how to pick the tickets up, where they'll be, etc. Banged out the text, read it through, read it again, then sent it off, and turned in my phone in the nick of time. So it was all up to the fates now.

Once in, my friends who had lined up earlier secured brilliant seats, about six rows from the front on the side, which is thankfully on an incline, a nice distance up and away from the screen. And on the exact same side as Mr Tarantino would be standing. Dude would be directly in front of us, not 20 metres away.

But our Basterd hadn't joined us yet. Sure, there were still 20 minutes to go, but I -- in my suave, debonair, customary way -- was stressing. Had my text provided all the info he needed? Was it clear? Was he being stopped at the door, searching for a table not to be found and frantically dialing my mobile, now in the hands of the MIFF-appointed Stasi? All these questions ricocheted around my psyche as local celebrities filed past and sat around us: Mick Molloy, Chris Judd, Lucas from Neighbours, Vince Colosimo and, naturally, MIFF's #1 ticket holder Geoffrey Rush...

An Ennio Morricone style chorus of percussion and choirs, worthy of Sergio Leone, should've sounded as Basterd Steve entered the theatre, ticket in hand, with plenty of time to take his seat and share in the madness.

At last, I could breathe easily. Then, my friend Sarah spies the door and exclaims, "I can see the chin!" Yes, all you've heard is true: Quentin Tarantino's chin enters a room before he does. Awesome.

Chapter II to follow...