Review: South Solitary

South Solitary
Dir. Shirley Barrett
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 116mins

Shirley Barrett’s first feature film in 10 years – and only her second since winning the prestigious 1996 Camera d’Or in Cannes for Love Serenade – is a sad movie-going experience. Set on the island of South Solitary off the coast of NSW in the 1920s, Barrett’s film seems to be aiming for quirk, but turns out to be a dispiriting and deflating film. People constantly ask why the Australian film funding bodies give money to the filmmakers that they do – even in this year of successes like Animal Kingdom, Bran Nue Dae and Daybreakers – but if you need an example of the problem then South Solitary is it. It is an adequate-looking, nicely acted movie in which absolutely nothing of any interest happens for an audience of zero.

Read the rest at Onya Mag

I have been having some odd reactions to movies lately. Dreamland made me feel meditative, The Loved Ones, which I'll be review soon, made me feel... well, let's not give that one away, shall we? And South Solitary actually made me sad. Yes, it's terminally dull and a useless movie, but rarely do movies make me feel actual sadness for the people involved and for the state of affairs that the movie finds itself in.

It's no wonder Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Bettany dropped out due to "scheduling conflicts". D

Review: Me and Orson Welles

The career of cult director Richard Linklater has been a varied and often wonderful thing to behold. From the high school comedy of Dazed and Confused to the Parisian romance of Before Sunset and the animated science fiction of A Scanner Darkly, Linklater has scuttled from genre to genre with ease. Now he takes a detour back to 1930s New York to tell the tale of Orson Welles’ famed Broadway revival of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It’s an at times ambitious, but frustratingly limited, film that gets by on the energy of its cast.

Read the rest at Trespass Mag
I don't have anything extra to say about this movie, really, other than what's in the review. B-

MIFF 2010 Review: Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Machete Maidens Unleashed!
Dir. Mark Hartley
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: TBC
Running Time: 85mins

Have you heard of these movies? The Big Bird House? The Hot Box? Cleopatra Wong? How about Ebony, Ivory & Jade, Cover Girl Models, Night of the Cobra Woman, Beyond Atlantis, Dynamite Johnson, TNT Jackson, Savage! or Black Mama, White Mama? If not then you are in for a treat with Machete Maidens Unleashed!, an unofficial sequel to Mark Hartley's brilliant 2008 documentary Not Quite Hollywood that charted the history of Aussie genre films of the 1970s and '80s. All of those titles listed above, and others like The One-Armed Executioner and the Beast of Blood franchise, spawned out of the Filipino film industry with the help of American filmmakers like Roger Corman and now rank as near unknown and forgotten cult niche titles for the amusement of stoned college students.

The same crew that worked on Not Quite Hollywood - the opening night film of MIFF 2008 and my #6 film of that year - have again been assembled to craft this ode to Filipino action movies. Snappily edited, Machete Maidens Unleashed! is simply 85 minutes of clips from movies about nubile young actress firing rifles, karate chopping and waving machetes around in between bouts of baring their breasts while mud wrestling in jungle prisons and causing political uprisings through the backwater swamps of he Philippines.


Interspersed throughout all of this pan and scan insanity (most of the films have never been remastered for DVD release) are interviews with well-known directors like John Landis, Brian Trenchard-Smith and Joe Dante as well as notable behind the scenes figures like George Corman, Eddie Romero, Jack Hill and an assortment of actors that made a presence for themselves in this sub-genre of film. Names like Gloria Hendry, Margaret Markov, Colleen Camp, Judy Brown and Marlene Clark may not be familiar names, but they should be after you've heard their fascinating anecdotes about working in the jungles of the Philippines. Higher profile names like R Lee Ermy, Sid Haig and Chris Mitchum are also there for their own hilarious stories, but unfortunately Pam Grier, surely the biggest name to arise out of the Filipino genre films - she made The Big Doll House, Women in Cages, Twilight People, The Big Bird Cage and Black Mama, White Mama before blaxploitation hits Coffy and Foxy Brown made her a star - refused to be interviewed. While everyone seems at least partially ashamed of their contributions to cinema here, they are all open and admit to being willing participants. It's a shame that Grier didn't see it the same way.

"Rated R for Ridiculous", as the poster says, sums up Mark Hartley's second documentary feature perfectly. I haven't even got into titles such as For Y'ur Height Only that starred Filipino dwarf superstar Weng Weng as a James Bond spoof or Up from the Depths, which was made to cash in on the success of Piranha one year earlier. If movies such as Machete Maidens Unleashed! achieve anything substantial then it's making someone like me really want to seek out movies like Cleopatra Wong (nuns with assault rifles) and Dynamite Johnson (some undecipherable plot that involves a robotic dragon). Hopefully these titles get some sort of DVD release after this movie gets seen by the right people like many of the Ozploitation films did after Not Quite Hollywood.


Sadly, Machete Maidens doesn't achieve the levels of success that director Hartley had with Not Quite Hollywood. Whereas that film spanned various genres from sex comedies to horror and science fiction, this one is far more limited to the films it covers. It is easy to mistake many of the movie clips featured within as being all from the one movie about a group of sexy and sassy American women being held captive in a prison deep within the jungle wherein they must use their sexual force to break out of. There's also a distinct lack of passion compared to its predecessor. Perhaps its the fact that these films are even more obscure than Patrick or Dead-End Drive In of the so-called "Ozploitation" movement, but there's no effort made to show how the effects of these Filipino genre films are still being felt today. Perhaps the Filipino film industry is as closed tight as Imelda Marcos' box of secrets and umbrellas, but Machete Maidens Unleashed doesn't have quite the same insight. Nevertheless, it is still a wild and hilariously entertaining hour and a half of absurd insanity. B

MIFF 2010 Review: The Myth of the American Sleepover

The Myth of the American Sleepover
Dir. David Robert Mitchell
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: TBC
Running Time: 97mins

For a movie that was apparently "several years in the making", David Robert Mitchell's debut feature The Myth of the American Sleepover seems curiously unacquainted with its central characters. The likes of Maggie (Claire Sloma, who's given the most to do), Rob (impressive Marlon Morton), Claudia (Amanda Bauer) and Scott (Brett Jacobsen) all feel like recognisable and realistic teens, but lack a certain deeper understanding that Mitchell should have provided for his non-professional actors. The actors, uniformly good, play their roles, but they don't go anywhere that transcends the quaint material. This makes Sleepover an affable film to watch, but one lacking any substantial drama to make it truly memorable.

Set over one night towards the end of the American summer, several teenagers' experiences mimic one another as they trawl the neighbourhood, going from one sleepover to the next. I don't recall any of my sleepovers being this big and elaborate - unfortunately, no Ouija boards for me - so perhaps it is an American thing, but the character-based situations that arise are familiar and audiences should respond accordingly. Some of the characters will learn something about themselves and others over this night that, I imagine, but nothing incredibly important. Perhaps there is just too much restraint in showing this and instead makes the events transpiring feel a little bit too inconsequential.

All the archetypes are there - the horny boys, the girl desperate to be popular and her mousy friend, the gay boy who hasn't told anybody, the slutty one, the bitchy one and so on. Some are instantly more interesting than others and viewers will surely pin point the one they identify with moth. Familiar teenage occurrences that adults look back on with embarrassment and laughs like walking around the supermarket in circles just to catch a fleeting glimpse of that cute someone you passed earlier, swiping a can of beer from a stranger's open esky or doing anything, leaving behind all dignity, to "accidentally" cross paths with a crush are well played by the cast and feel organic to the story and brought a smile to my face. Only one plot strand, involving a college dropout who's attracted to a set of twins, is truly superfluous and should have been axed. This thread verges far to close to a juvenile Hollywood mentality.


Tracking shots featuring youthful exuberance remind of Van Sant and characters present an exterior that masks their inner feelings like one would expect from an independent study of teenagers. Cinematographer Juli Perez IV has made this suburbia recognisable and real and, thankfully, characters don't succumb to silliness and convene by accident like a Paul Haggis movie. I just wish these characters were given something truly affecting to work with. The Myth of the American Sleepover is a slice of life, sure, but when it's all over and done it doesn't feel like much has been gained or achieved by any of the characters or the audience. B-

MIFF 2010 Review: Dreamland

Dreamland
Dir. Ivan Sen
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: TBC
Running Time: 86mins

Ivan Sen burst out of the filmmaking gates eight years ago with Beneath Clouds, a beautiful film that preceded Samson & Delilah with its tale of two quiet Aboriginal teens on the run from the law and themselves. His second film has come 8 years later and it shares many things with Beneath Clouds while also sharing nothing at all. Dreamland is filmed in raw black and white and is, perhaps, trying to say something about our place on this Earth and in this universe. Dreamland is a film that I sat and watched and gradually surrendered to. It captivated me and by the time it ended I felt I had encountered something akin to a transcendental experience. It's truly special and I feel blessed for having witnessed it.

Sen has spent the last eight years mostly making Australian television documentaries, most notably Yellow Fella in 2005, but I can't help but feel something happened to him on a personal level between then and now. Dreamland was, for me, concerned with issues of life and death, Earth and space - who we are, why we are and where we come from. By film's end has "Dan", the film's only major character, discovered the birthplace of life as we know it? Has he discovered the secret to life on other planets? I'm not sure, they are mere theories, but as human being are we not prone to seek out mysteries? The mysteries of alien life, the mysteries of Dreamland. Are they, perhaps, one and the same? Is Sen's film an essay of sorts on what it means to feel alien to ourselves and to others? Are we the aliens? Take the baton and the run with it, folks, I imagine the possibilities of this film are infinite.


Dreamland stars Daniel Roberts as Dan, a man to spends the entirety of the film's 86 minutes travelling through the Nevada desert, home to Area 51. He visits various locations that have history in terms of abductions and UFO sightings. He drives around these areas and hikes up mountains; he performs star jumps, guzzles water and urinates on the side of the road. He occasionally comes across other people, but we never learn anything about them. They could be as lost as he, seeking their own private redemption. Dan never speaks. He does meet, albeit briefly, April, his soon-to-be ex wife who is played by Tasma Walton. Is it really her? Is she an illusion or an oasis? She doesn't seem real, materialising right in front of us and seemingly speaking in riddles. "Have you found that thing that you’re looking for?” Dan doesn't respond. Is he looking for aliens, for himself, for her, for God or for something completely foreign to us?

The film has next to no dialogue whatsoever apart from the sounds of a frequency radio and the brief scenes with Walton. Sequences seem to have no rhyme or reason to them other than to provoke some sort of internal reaction. There are moments of horror, like the scene where Dan hears something cry out in the Nevada desert. Interspersed throughout are scenes of space footage that may or may not be real. Is it Dan? The movie is a soundscape of ideas and the speakers are constantly blaring out a mixture of bleeps, boops, static, alien voices and synthesised score. There are on screen quotes by Giordano Bruno, a famed astronomer who was burnt at the stake in 1600 and a speech by former President of the USA Harry Truman.


There is a pureness to Dreamland that made me want to weep. I could be reductive and call this a cross between David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and if that makes you feel better than by all means go with it. It is as apt a description as I could come up with, but there are also aspects of Rolf de Heer's Epsilon, Lawrence Johnston's Night and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dreamland, however, is not a film that can be judged based on traditional crafts such as acting, writing, directing, editing and photography. Much like INLAND EMPIRE, but even more dramatically, Dreamland is probably more concerned with being an art project that just happens to be exhibited in cinemas rather than being classified as actual film. Sen directed, wrote, photographed, edited, composed and designed the sound while it was filmed on location. The black and white photography, filled with camera tricks and visual distortions, lends the region a definitely otherworldly atmosphere.

I’ve never been one of those people who feel gradings are beneath them, or who only assign films a mark due to some sort of cinephile peer pressure. With Dreamland, however, I have decided to refuse a score for the simple fact that no amount of fives, sevens, nines or tens out of ten, nor any A+, C- and F grades can truly express the feeling I hold deep within my soul for this movie. This film touched my heart in ways that goes beyond mere letter grades and touched a pure point within that only I can tap into and reference. No matter what I say, think or feel I can guarantee that you will feel different about it so to quantify it with a grade would be dishonest to myself and to you dear readers. It touched the very essence of my being in a way I may not ever understand and for that I will be eternally grateful.


Dreamland has one more MIFF screening on Wednesday 28 July. If you can attend, please do. I am sure there are many out there who will hate this movie - the man sitting next to me yesterday was not impressed and spent the second half with his head in his lap - but I feel this film is so important and yet probably won't even get distribution here. Why spend money of Scott Pilgrim or The Kids Are All Right at MIFF when there is something like Dreamland waiting to be discovered?

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 11 of Scream (0:37:24-0:38:19)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 11
Length: 1min 26secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Tatum Riley, Deputy Dewey, Mrs Riley, Cotton Weary (Liev Shreiber)
Pop Culture References:

• None
  

Oh look, an American flag! Worth mentioning is that this scene brings us to the Scream franchise's theme song of sorts in Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" having appeared in all three films of the trilogy. Will it be in Scream 4?


This shot reminds me of why I kinda became obsessed with the USA in the first place. My first real memory of truly wondering "what is this country and why is my country so different?" came through music videos like those for - and I'm not joking - Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" and Julian Lennon's "Saltwater" (ignore the music during the latter since YouTube rules the song and the video can't go together for some reason, blerg). I used to love reading atlases and books about geography and as I read more about America - most of my favourite musicians being from there and all, I was a music fiend before a cinema fiend - I fell in love. Something about how their nature looked so much different to our nature. As I started to watch movies and seeing things like skyscrapers, which living in a town like Geelong I had never seen before, and wondering why Australia was so different.

I've been to America twice now and am planning a third visit (which won't eventuate for a good 2 years or so) and it is this third visit where I intend to finally see some of this part of America. The stuff I was originally so hooked on. I'm sure it can't possibly live up to the nostalgic memories I hold, but I'm willing to take the risk.

So, yes, this shot reminded me of all that. Vividly. Australian towns just don't look like that when I was growing up. Well, not Victorian ones, anyway. Don't get me wrong, growing up here had its own beauty, but much like FBI Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks and his obsessed with Douglas Furs I guess I'm in love with this sort of imagery that Australia just doesn't have. Scream was filmed in Santa Rosa, California, so maybe I should mark that down as somewhere I need to visit. Experience it for myself and soak it all in. It is fascinating that I can drum up so much from one simple shot, to think that as a kid I used to wish I could live in one of these sort of American towns with the two story house (always with the two story houses, you Americans!) and parks that look like Yosemite. I'm sure if I saw these places in person they'd look much the same to what we have here, but I guess old memories die hard and it's why I will always have that yearning for this kind of stuff.


Firstly, I love that Dewey still lives at home. Secondly, don't "Corn Chex" sound like a disgusting cereal? Thirdly, this is Tatum's third hairstyle of the movie. First she had her normal hair with nothing done to it, then she had a ponytail and now plaits. Adorable.


One night as I was watching the Golden Globe Awards with my mother and brother I said I was cheering for Liev Shreiber to win the award for his performance as Orson Welles in RKO 281. My brother shot me down saying I only wanted him to win because "he was in Scream" and my brother was right. That's the hold that his trilogy had on me for a good long while. I do like seeing Shreiber these days having so much success knowing that the first two Scream movies were pivotal moments in his early career.


"We're checking every cellular accounts in the county. Any calls made to you or Casey Becker are being cross-referenced. It's gonna take some time but we'll find him."
The telephone lingo in Scream is often hilarious. So dated!!


A light, consoling punch by my gal Tatum! I want a light, consoling punch from Tatum. ME!

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 10 of Scream (0:35:56-0:37:23)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 10
Length: 1min 27secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Tatum Riley, Deputy Dewey, Mrs Riley (Frances Lee McCain)
Pop Culture References:

• MacGyver (Poster on wall)
  

The 100th screencap of this series belongs to Tatum and Sit sitting in Tatum's room being fawned over by MacGyver! Not exactly "apt", but charming, definitely. Meanwhile, I don't believe Tatum Riley would ever have bed linens that look like that? It's hard to imagine she and Stu making out on one of those beds, can you? Although she does wear baby blue pyjamas with clouds on them, so...


"God, I loved it! 'I'll send you a copy' - BAM, bitch went down. 'I'll send you a copy' - BAM! Sid! Super-bitch! You were so cool."
Seriously, how great is Tatum? She and her white fluffy teddybear. Definitely one of my favourite lines from the entire trilogy. If there was one character I could change the fate of it is Tatum. She is so entertaining. But, alas, the big-breasted girl had to die, those are the rules.


This entire scene is just to show much I would want Tatum as a friend, isn't it? Damn them!


By now the film has all but chosen to make any use of the telephone be preceded by an ominous menacing shot of the telephone. Like in the time-honoured tradition of horror movies turning previously innocuous objects, creatures and locations and twisting them into evil forces of... evil. This shot perfectly encapsulates that. By now audiences should be screaming "DON'T PICK UP THE PHONE!"


I think the first ever image I saw of Scream - above a review in, oh I dunno, WHO Magazine? - was of this moment. Isn't that nice?


I love this shot for some reason. Maybe I have an affection for big closeups? Or maybe it's just Neve Campbell's flaring nostrils? I'll never know...

That line "you'll find out soon enough, I promise" is so good. Chilling.


"Hello?"
Oh Deputy Dewey. You're precious.

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 9 of Scream (0:31:49-0:35:55)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 9
Length: 4mins 6secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Billy Loomis, Deputy Dewey, Sheriff Burke, Tatum Riley, Gale Weathers, Kenny the Cameraman and Hank Loomis (CW Morgan)
Pop Culture References:

• None

Gah! It's been nearly a week since the last entry, which is exactly why this project is going to take so long. And I can't guarantee an abundance of entries over the next couple of weeks, what with MIFF and everything that festival entails taking up so much time, but I will try.

But back to business, let's look at Dewey's desk, shall we?

• Red trucker's hat
• Red novelty handcuffs
  
• Dunkin' Donuts bag
• "Comic Cops" signs
• Picture frame

I've been praising the production design so far, but that's some fun set decoration going on right there. I bet he has some floppy discs under those papers, too!


"Let me ask you this; what are you doing with a cellular telephone, son?"
Firstly, HYSTERICAL! A question like this with lingo such as "cellular telephone" is as dated as The Net. However, I must point out completely insensitive this scene plays out by having Sidney and her presumed attacker separated by nothing more than some flimsy venetian blinds. Especially when it allows him to look at her... LIKE THIS!



Although that is some good framing there.


Billy's dad has always felt like a bit of a creep to me. No wonder Mrs Loomis (*where have we heard of her before?*) left him. He's a skeeze. I also like that he seems more concerned about "You went out last night?" as opposed to the HIS SON BEING ARRESTED FOR MURDER, but what would I know?


Do you think Skeet Ulrich was cast based purely on his similarity to Johnny Depp, star of Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street? This entire scene is framed around Ulrich's hair and how it dangles delicately across his sensitive manboy face.


"They're not letting anybody in."
"I'm not just anybody."
Damn straight you're not, Gale!


If there were a Gale Weathers appreciation society, I think I would join. Love this woman! Especially for moments like this: "Hey, watch the hand! Don't you know who you're dealing with here?" Amazing. I like to imagine she and Kenny the Cameraman were filming a live cross to Woodsboro and that all of this stuff went to air.


One of the things I am enjoying about sharing all of this with you dear readers is pointing out tiny little moments that would otherwise go unnoticed. Such a moment is now, as Sidney sits having just had Billy walk past screaming out at her. In comes Tatum who proceeds to walk over to comfort her. Tatum's walk is what amuses me. Everytime I see it I think of the Seinfeld episode "The Summer of George" in which Molly Shannon plays a woman who must go into physical rehabilitation in order to swing her arms when she walks. It makes me chuckle.


Do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out what a "five and dime" was. A LONG TIME!


"What did Mom tell ya? When I wear this badge you treat me like a man of the law."


"I'm sorry Deputy Dewey Boy, but we're ready to go!"


Poor Deputy Dewey Dwight Riley!


"He's my superior!"
"The janitor is your superior."


Which is scarier? Ghostface lunging at you with a knife or a bitchy tabloid news reporter wearing a lime green ensemble bounding towards you with an overweight cameraman? Hmmm. A question for the ages.


I see what Marilyn Manson saw in Rose McGowan now. She certainly isn't tanned! I do love this last bit of the scene out the back of the Police station between Gale, Tatum and Sidney. The bitchery is off the chart.


"No, Tatum, it's okay, she's just doing her job."


"Yes, that's right."


"So, how's the book?"


"Well, it'll be out later this year."


"Oh? I'll look for it."


"I'll send you a copy!"






"Bitch!"
Yes. Bitch, indeed.

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8