Five Shots: Peek

Five Shots: Under Construction

Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street
Dir. Samuel Beyer
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 94mins

It had to happen. The last of the big 1980s horror franchises to receive the Hollywood remake treatment is A Nightmare on Elm Street. Originally conceived as a horror film about the power of the subconscious from the mind of genre pioneer Wes Craven, the franchise eventually descended into never-ending sequels that were more interested in laughs than scares. Unfortunately for filmgoers, this 2010 incarnation of the famed series is a humourless and scare-free bore.

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There were so many issues with this movie that I couldn't put them all into my word limit. I really just couldn't believe that despite everything they had at their fingers - a series worth of memorable kills to drawer from plus a budget and improved effects - all Freddy seemed to do was show up behind someone to the sound of big loud crash sound effect and then carve them up. Nothing to it. So boring. I just wanted him to do something. And, furthermore, I think Jackie Earle Haley was entirely miscast. Hire an actual actor and do that to him? All he does he stand around. Occasionally he walks around the room, but that's about it. And his voice, ugh, his voice. And, dear filmmakers, when I go see a slasher movie I do not want five minute long scenes devoted to hearing about how a man likes to rape little children. Disgusting.

I have soured on this movie even more since seeing it on Wednesday. It's not quite as bad as the Friday the 13th remake, but it's bad. Really bad. D

Speaking of the Friday the 13th remake, over at Trespass Mag I also have a piece on modern day horror remakes where I throw some praise on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and, ahem, House of Wax, while eviscerating Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. I ran out of words to write about Psycho, but that movie has been on my brain quite a bit lately so I might just have to write about it anyway. Enjoy.

Five Shots: Mirrors

Review: Harry Brown

Harry Brown
Dir. Daniel Barber
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 103mins

As the opening credits tell us, "Michael Caine is Harry Brown”. In response, here are some things that I think Harry Brown is. Repugnant. Offensive. Vile. Repulsive. Awful. Retched. Shameful. And most of all, just plain old bad. Unlike the similarly themed Australian film The Horseman, Harry Brown celebrates the ultra-violence it is thrusting upon audiences and thrives on it rather than condemns it and that is a disturbing thing.

Set predominantly around a lower-class British housing estate (you know the ones, big gray slabs with holes cut out for windows and a stove for making a hot watery substance that can scarcely be called "tea"), Harry Brown stars Michael Caine as a recently widowed senior citizen who decides to enact his own brand of justice on the hooligan youth culture that terrorises the estate and who sent his best friend Leonard (David Bradley) to a violent grave.


Reading that description may not sound like anything terribly offensive, sure, but once the surface is scratched (scratched as thinly as the plot will allow) there is a disturbing hypocrisy in its attitudes towards violence. At once decrying the violence that the thuggish youths act out - stabbings, bashings, fires and other antisocial behaviour - and cheering on the violence that the elder Harry Brown unleashes - shootings, bashings, fires and other antisocial behaviour - there is a distinctly unpleasant aura around the proceedings. Increasingly grotesque and repugnant in its imagery, Harry Brown director Daniel Barber and screenwriter Gary Young are simply having fun at the idea of this old gent brutally murdering thugs. Graphic blood splatters and torrents of blood overflow from each of Harry Brown's victims without even the slightest hint that we're meant to be condemning him for what he is doing. He was in Vietnam, you see, so I guess he's allowed?

The movie’s attitude towards the quote unquote youth of today is awfully narrow-minded. Even when one of the teenage louts is clearly shown being the victim of sexual abuse and rape it barely rates a mention. This lack of character development is detrimental. The aforementioned Vietnam reference is all that Barber gives us to somehow understand how Harry Brown could commit these acts. And of the gang’s leader Ben Drew sprouts phrases like “fucking cunt” a lot and that’s about it.


That I haven’t mentioned the acting or the crafts is a show of how much I really detested the movie’s themes, but if you really would like to know then I shall inform. Caine is competent in the lead role, but it never leaves the realm of “MICHAEL CAINE KILLING HOOLIGANS”. Emily Mortimer, the only other actor with a recognisable face, plays a police detective but is ineffective, plain and uninteresting, much like the drab visuals. I hardly expect a movie such as this to replicate the bright colours and extravagant visual splendour of Quentin Tarantino’s own revenge thriller Kill Bill, but if you’re going to present your tale as one of open revenge lust then the grungy look that this movie has is all wrong. It reminded me of Australian druggie drama West in its ability to be as equally repellent to look at as it is to think about.

In terms of British crime tales, The Bill this ain't, but nor does it present a truly compelling tale of a man whose only option is revenge. In the end the film's abhorrent politics had my mind doing back flips long before the film's final scene, a moment that is so hopelessly clueless that it just compounds the issues at. As Harry Brown walks through the once-dangerous underground tunnel that was the scene of so much violence, are we now supposed to think that it is filled with light, happiness, promises and rainbows? That's what that film would have us believe and therein lays more problems. Barely scratching the surface of a very real and pertinent issue, but using it as the backbone for a grubby slaughter fest. Mr Brown is having his cake and eating it too. This film wants to pretend to be “important” and “about something” but is then more interested in filling the screen with icky violence than telling a story about a man truly haunted by violence. Even the movie poster is all but telling audiences "Michael Caine kicks arse!" It is all incredibly unappealing. F

Review: Robin Hood

Robin Hood
Dir. Ridley Scott
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 140mins

There are very few directors who get their name plastered all over the marketing materials for their films. Ridley Scott is one of those few and with masterpieces such as Alien, Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise to his name he’s certainly deserved it. Unfortunately he has spent the majority of the last decade making disaster after disaster, whittling away the goodwill he has accumulated. The latest in his stretch of bad films is this dire retelling of Robin Hood. Billed as “the untold story behind the legend”, there’s good reason for that; It’s bad. Really bad.

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So very, very bad. Although I still think Kingdom of Heaven was a far more boring movie than this, Robin Hood is actually much more of a mess. The best bit was when Rusty got his clothes off, I guess. D

Review: New York, I Love You

New York, I Love Your
Dir. Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Joshua Marsden, Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Randall Balsmeyer, Shekhar Kapur & Natalie Portman
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 103mins

One city, ten directors and a cast of familiar faces await audiences of New York, I Love You. This follow-up to Paris je t’aime, a surprise box office hit that saw famous directors craft odes to the city of love, will leave many disappointed. This so-called love letter to the Big Apple is a fizzer that doesn’t even come close to approaching the joie de vivre of its Parisian ancestor.

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I am a New York "tragic", it's true. I have been twice - plan to go again in the next few years, hopefully/maybe - and I love movies to be set in New York. A movie such as The Exploding Girl can be so much better than it has any right to be simply by being set in NYC and allowing me to drown myself in the images and sounds. Barely any of the vignettes in New York, I Love You give that feeling of being surrounded by life like actually being in New York does. My favourite was the Maggie Q/Ethan Hawke sequence, which felt like a "New York Moment" more than, say, Natalie Portman's awful Jewish wedding piece.

One thing I mention in the review is the lack of any queer substance whatsoever. Watching the movie and I felt as if they were going out of their way to feature as many cultures and yet somehow gay people got left out. And in a film about the gay capital of the world (to be token and cliched). I also find it hilarious that the producers cut Scarlett Johansson's piece because it "didn’t jive with the rest of the shorts." I definitely think this film could have used more pieces that played outside of the box like it sounds ScarJo's did. Ah well. C-

Five Shots: Red Shoes

Review: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call Orleans
Dir. Werner Herzog
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 122mins

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a movie isn’t close to being as fun, funny or insane as it thinks it is. Considering the original Bad Lieutenant by Abel Ferrara was released 18 years ago, it’s hard to see how Werner Herzog’s version is as shocking as it thinks it is either. Harvey Keitel’s lieutenant was doing drugs, masturbating in front of young women and abusing suspects around the same time Nicolas Cage was giving his patented crazy style of acting in much better movies such as David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. So what then, dear reader, was the point of this movie?

It’s hard to say. None of the actors are able to emerge out of the shadow that Herzog creates for Cage. Eva Mendes has nothing to do but stand around and look sultry, which is a hard thing to do given Peter Zeitlinger’s cinematography is so dank and confining – while the likes of Val Kilmer and Faizura Balk just stand around with nothing to do. Jennifer Coolidge is perhaps the only actor who’s able to shine since she has the innate ability to be even more deranged than Cage and Herzog put together. The brief moments where Herzog really goes off his medication, mostly moments involving alligators and iguanas, are amusing in a broad sort of way, but feel more like token oddities rather than anything truly organic.


The actual plot of The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans revolves around the trailer park shooting of a family of Senegalese refugees in the months after Hurricane Katrina. Herzog can be commended for his representation of New Orleans, he doesn’t sugarcoat this town’s misfortunes and there isn’t a pretty sight in the entire movie. As a murder mystery, however, it doesn’t even rise above the level of intrigue supplied by season 15 of Law & Order. Nor does it excite from a filmmaking point of view. None of the twists or developments feel exciting from a storytelling point of view, nor are they shown in any compelling form. Things happen and that’s about it.

Which brings me back to the lead character of Lieutenant Terence McDonagh as played by Cage. His foul behaviour is supposed to be the hook of this film, but it instead feels forced and even juvenile. I’m sure it was shocking to see Harvey Keitel strut around naked while snorting bags of cocaine whilst solving the crime of a nun being raped in the 1992 original, but in 2010 watching Nicolas Cage dive off the deep end is about as revolutionary as, well, Harvey Keitel nuding up.

And what of Nicolas Cage? A man whose tics and twitches have seemingly taken over his career and his mumbly vocals inserted itself into every performance. There isn’t anything about this performance here that we haven’t seen. Am I meant to find it better simply because he’s being directed by a man just as bonkers as he? Cage’s style perfectly fit the aforementioned Wild at Heart 20 years ago and at least that picture was stylistically on the same wavelength. And then there’s the issue of Cage’s accent, which strangely changes midway through the movie into some weird combination of Jimmy Stewart and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.


Ferrara’s original wasn’t even that good in the first place and even though there is no connection other than the bare strings of plot that they share, Herzog’s movie feels dated and warn out. As a movie made solely to frame Herzog and Cage’s duel wackiness around a story of ever-increasing moments of “shocking” depravity it lacks anything that can truly be described as shocking in this day and age as it plods along at a snail’s pace. Both of these men have done incredible work before, similar to that on display here, but The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a perfect example of two people being so perfect for one another that they end up cancelling each other out. Two pretty people equalling an ugly baby if you’d like a metaphor. It could be humourous if it wasn’t so ugly and putrid, both to look at and from an entertainment level. All that’s left in the end that’s truly new is a scene involving iguanas and that just isn’t enough. D