MIFF Mini Review: O' Horten and 881

I don't really have enough to say about either of these titles to write much more what's below so I'm just presenting you guys with these mini reviews. Hope you like.

I happened upon this Norwegian film by director Bent Hamer (Factotum) after my screening of Yinan Diao's Night Train was cancelled due to a blown projector (naturally at the Greater Union cinema), but I'm actually glad because O' Horten turned out to be my second favourite film of the festival.

O' Horten is one of those films that right away you can tell it's a Scandinavian film. It's sense of humour in the face of sadness reminded me of Aki Kaurismäki's The Man Without a Past or Lars Von Trier's The Boss of It All. Those cold exterior landscapes are photographed so beautifully by John Christian Rosenlund, especially those opening shots of the tunnels of Norway, and the performances, especially the lead work by Bård Owe is exceptional. He had a way reminscent of actors such as Jean Rochefort in the way they handle the work so delicately, but evoke so much. If this film is ever released theatrically near you or screens at a festival do try and see it. It's a lovely way to break up the occasional depressing monotony that is a film festival. B+

Another impulse viewing as I had a spare two hours before My Winnipeg, so I decided to see Royston Tan's hyperactive musical 881, turns out I shouldn't have bothered. Tan's film is a mess that gets by because of it's bright splashy colours and it's occasionally fun music.

The performances certainly don't help make 881 any more palatable as nearly two hours of watching Ling Ling Liu overact the point of exhaustion is not my idea of fun. And while Liu is off gallivanting around like a madwoman, the performances of Yuwu Qi (who was in last year's AFI winner The Home Song Stories), Mindee Ong and Yann Yann Yeo are dreary and uninteresting. Only May Wan Tei and Chow Wan Tei get the right level of absurdist moxie as the villains of the film. The costumes are appropriately outlandish and the music differs between dull and cutesy fun, but not exactly the sort you would rush out and purchase the soundtrack for. I should note that for the first hour I was fighting and almost losing battle with the desire to nap, which, even during a film festival, is not a good sign.

I'm sure 881 will pop up on SBS from time to time and will get some sort of tag as a cult classic, but don't be sucked in. People may complain that movie musicals like Hairspray are soulless Hollywood endeavors, but they're far more entertaining that this dross. C-

MIFF Review: Acolytes

Acolytes is an Australian horror flick that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's moments as a pure unadulterated horror movie are great. The scenes in the forest and the basement climax are well done, but it's almost as if director Jon Hewitt (Bloodlust) didn't want to just make a straight scare flick and decided to throw a whole bunch of unnecessary heavy handed drama to the mix. Not that that should be discouraged, but it dampens what could have been a good ol' solid fright flick.

The movie, as it stands, is about three teenagers, James (Joshua Payne), Mark (Sebastian Gregory) and Chasely (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) who routinely wag school, smoke pot and walk around hitting things with sticks as Australian teenagers are want to do. Two of the three have a traumatic event in their past that rears it's ugly head again when the perpetrator is released from prison. James' girlfriend Chaseley is along for the ride as the common factor in a love triangle between the boys.


As the three begin to investigate a grisly discovery in the forest - one of the film's strongest sequences - it all starts to get a bit unfocused. I know the storyline revolving around Michael Dorman's shady character, whose participation in the plot I will not ruin for you, is ultimately incredibly vital to the whole film's development, it also proves to be a red herring to what the film is actually about. Especially when the far more sinister character played by Joel Edgerton, supporting this Aussie flick as the only "name" actor in the cast, takes centre stage.

The film has problems far beyond those of story structure mind you. The dialogue in the first act is quite stilted and the way Hewitt films it never once removes the illusion of this being a F-I-L-M. Even if characters did talk and act like this in real life (which they do not), the performances by the two boys don't help. There's a knack to casting debut actors and this film didn't pull it off, unfortunately. Lawrence's performance is impressive though, particularly towards the end where she gets to put her substantial lungs to good use. It is, however, blindingly obvious who the professional actors are in the bunch - that'd be Edgerton and Dorman - and who are not. Sue Dwyer has a delicious cameo as the mother of Dorman's character and gives one of the most perfect recreations of bogan middle class Australia I've seen in a long time.


Technically Acolytes is tops. Wonderful cinematography by Mark Pugh especially in those outdoor sequences, editing by Simon Marton and supurb sound and music design help in giving the film a more polished feel than other Australian entrants into the genre game. I can't help but feel though that when it comes to the middle part of the film, especially, director Hewitt ruined any chances of having Acolytes be one of the great Aussie horror flicks. By toning down the horror and turning up the more brain heavy aspects of the script by debut screenwriters Shayne Armstrong and Shane Krause he simply tries to do too much with a story that doesn't demand it. C+

Black + White Friday: Dead End Drive-In

At my screening of Mark Hartley's ace documentary Not Quite Hollywood it seemed the audience had quite a laugh-filled reaction to the brief segment reserved for this absolutely terrible horror comedy flick, Howling III: The Marsupials. I doubt many, if any at all, had actually seen it. I know if I hadn't already I would want to see it prono after watching it be discussed in the documentary as it appears to be a riot! Alas, it is not. It's awful. Absolutely awful. And I just so happen to own it on DVD (it came free with a magazine, you see). So, in honour of Not Quite Hollywood and all the ridiculous excessive silliness that it embraces, I decided to use it as this week's black and white specimen.

...unfortunately it's still really shit. That and, this I had forgotten, the quality is really bad. Like, below usual public domain standards. So, to keep the theme, I decided to use a much more normal movie - the excellent (you've heard me harp on and on about it lately) Dead End Drive-In, which just so happens to be Quentin Tarantino's favourite film of the "ozploitation" genre. The film is beautiful to look at in colour, so let's see if it's A-grade B thrillers still work on black and white.


One of my favourite moments in Dead End Drive-In is this quick joke that in the near future there will have been eight Rambo films. We did get to four with Rambo IV releases earlier this year, so they were close!


I like how director Brian Trenchard-Smith routinely puts the STAR DRIVE-IN sign throughout the movie, whether it be front and centre of just in the background. Constantly reminding that they're trapped inside such an un-hostile environment.


You can make anything related to a drive in black and white and it just looks so 1950s. Even if it includes panel vans!


I chose this shot because if you showed someone this picture they wouldn't have any reason to suspect it was from a 1985 Aussie flick about racist gangs trapped inside a post-apocalyptic drive-in. or would they? teehee.


One of the funniest parts of Not Quite Hollywood is when Quentin Tarantino jokes about how every Australian movie of this sort has a gang of youths in it. No matter where it's set, youth gangs will be there! It's funny 'cause it's true. Others things that will always be: the mix between old (jukeboxes) and new (graffiti) along with punk clothes and makeup. Always.


I just like this shot. Not sure why. Doesn't even look like it's from the same movie, actually.


That computer is an important plot point. It makes me giggle. My Commodore64 was more advanced.


I love any shot that has a drive-in movie screen in the background. It has some sort of calming effect on me. Even though what's happening around it is far from comforting.


The movie's most famous (which, considering the film's level of fame, means it's really not famous at all) moment is this record-breaking shot (or so Trenchard-Smith tells us in the audio commentary on the DVD) of a police car crashing through the neon sign seen in image #3. Looks better in colour.


What's kind of creepy is how this doesn't even look real. The early and final scene of Dead End Drive-In have a creepy look to them with it's deep red skies. They sort of look like painted backdrops (the specific name for them escapes me at the moment, ugh). This shot almost looks like it belongs to a computer game. Otherworldly.

MIFF Review: The Horseman

Steven Kastrissios' debut feature as writer, director, producer and even editor is a film that deserves to be seen. It is an unflinching and incredibly forceful film that made me, at least, question the amount of violence I am willing to witness on the screen. Much like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (both 1974 and 2003 editions) and Romper Stomper before it, I found myself feeling incredibly disturbed and wondering "do I really want to watch this?" However, unlike far more nihilistic and violent films such as The Passion of the Christ and Saw, the film around it is so incredibly strong and powerfully made that the violence is there to truly serve. It makes you question the lengths people will go to for justice, and the depths of depravity that lurk beneath the surface of even the most peaceful individual.

Peter Marshall stars as Christian Forteski, a divorced father whose daughter has recently died of a drug overdose, but there lies a far more devastating secret lying behind her death. He seeks out to get revenge on those who perhaps didn't kill the young Jesse (Hannah Levien), but didn't try to save her either. The methods he uses are gruesome and, for the men in the audience, particularly irksome. Blood sprays with wild abandon, but it's not for fun. Nobody will be getting enjoyment out of it. It's brutal and almost unbearably upsetting. If I am making The Horseman out to be just another horror flick, then I don't intend to.


Along his way Christian befriends are lonely hitchhiker, Alice (Caroline Marohasy), and finds within her a kindred spirit to his lost daughter. The film, thankfully doesn't make this storyline into a vile romantic one like you would expect out of the latest Nicolas Cage vehicle. The film's biggest strength, however, is the performance of Peter Marshall. In his first lead role - hell, his first substantial role of any kind - is astonishing to watch. It's one of the most intense and fiery performances of recent years. It's hard to imagine where Marshall got all the anger and nastiness from to inject it into his performance. He is absolutely devastating to watch, and even when the film becomes a splatter sport he keeps the effort up all the way. It's a marvel of a performance.


Kastrissios' direction too is incredibly well done. Memories of Geoffrey Wright are inevitable, especially for the film's final scenes. They are so claustrophobic in their intensity and so physically and psychologically draining that even though it has the tendency to fall into sloppy editing, it remains intense and disturbing. The Horseman is an incredible accomplishment and one that deserves to find an audience, an audience that knowing the Australian film industry of late, will be hard to come by. It's a shame really, because this film is the sort of independent cinema that should be championed, rather than yet another tired journey through the lives of miserable drug addicts. A-

MIFF Review: Gardens of the Night

I have seen my fair share of movies in my relatively short lifespan. Considering the "average" moviegoer sees something like five films a year at the cinema (or however many it is) and I'm seeing five this weekend alone, I think it's a fair assumption that that is true. I have liked a lot of the movies I have seen, loved a lot of them too. I've also disliked a lot, hated a few. Of the ones I didn't care for I have had issues with them for a multitude of reasons whether it be poor writing, inept directing, bad acting, silly camera choices or any number of possible issues one person could have about a film. However, I come to Damian Harris' Gardens of the Night and it is, surely, the first time I have ever been negative towards a film due to the lead actresses hair. And yet, I do. Oh sure, the film has some pluses to it's credit, but also other minuses, but... but... the hair!

I'll get to that in a moment.


Gardens of the Night is an, at times, quite harrowing film. It is split into two defining halves, the first dealing with the abduction and subsequent prostitution of a 7-year-old girl Leslie (well played Ryan Simpkins) and her new friend Donny (Jermaine Scooter Smith) by two evil men (Tom Arnold and Kevin Zegers). It's tough stuff, folks, but thankfully Harris didn't use arthouse cinema's de rigueur go-to tricks of the trade like handheld camera, natural light and intense closeups. The films looks gorgeous, and reminded me of Mysterious Skin in the way it contrasted it's physical beauty to the ugly issue of child abuse.

However, the first half of the film is ended by a daft scene involving police - what policemen would raid a possible child abuser's home and not have anybody at the back gate, I ask?! - and it's all downhill from there as we promptly cut to ten years later where Leslie and Donnie (now played by Gillian Jacobs and Evan Ross respectively) are asleep under a lifeguard post at the beach. No explanation of what went "down", but I can forgive it. The next scene is key, however, as we see these two homeless teenagers enter a public bathroom and wash themselves using paper towels. How is it key? Well, yeah, that's where my issue with the hair comes in.

As we quickly learn, Leslie and Donnie are homeless prostitutes routinely sleeping under bridges, in parks, on beaches and the like. Leslie takes drugs and is a chain smoker of epic proportions. I can't tell you how long she's been a homeless drug using chain smoking prostitute with no access to a shower but she has absolutely beautiful skin and hair. Her face is perfectly blemish free and her legs are waxed and tanned like a star's. She has a beautiful long and luxurious set of curly hair on top of her hair, although it does occasionally become straight within a blink of the eye. Her nails are manicured and her clothes are the type that you could imagine Lindsay Lohan sporting to a film premiere. Donnie has a pimple in one scene, other than that he looks quite well groomed too.

It was at this moment that the movie lost me. It's nice to know that their stunning Californian looks haven't suffered at the hands of fate that had been dealt. In their early scenes under the capture of Arnold and Zeggers they routinely eat fast food too. Leslie is quite simply the prettiest and healthiest looking prostitute I've ever seen, and there isn't even a brief mention of STDs, which even the most amateurish film of this nature mentions. Joke all you will about actors "deglamming" to win an Oscar, but I'd rather than than have them taking roles such as this and looking like a Hollywood "it girl" stepping out for a night on the town.


As the films goes on from this moment it drifts about between storylines including one about a young girl at a youth centre (Carlie Westerman, the little girl from Me & You & Everyone We Know fyi) and the discovery of Leslie's parents. There's also the silliest transexual I've ever seen in a film. It is the part about Leslie's parents though that makes me think the film could have been so much more, as even after not doing near enough to deserve them, the film got me to shed a few tears in the tender, albeit too brief, final moments.

To compare it back again to Mysterious Skin - one of the finest films of the decade so far if you ask me - then the film comes up incredibly short. A topic as big and deeply affecting as all this doesn't deserve to be undermined by such silliness, but it is. The opening half worked so hard towards what it was aiming for that the second half feels even more infuriating that it already is, which is just plain disappointment of the highest order. C

Glenn saw Gardens of the Night as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival and would love to hear from you if you saw this or any other films at the fest.

Black + White Friday: Chicago

I took inspiration today from this weeks entry of "Best Pictures from the Outside In", a weekly series co-run by The Film Experience, Nick's Flick Picks and Goatdog. This week they discussed Calvacade and Chicago, which got me wondering what the latter would look like if it were actually filmed in the 1930s when it is set and if it were, ya know, black and white (that being the whole gist of this series). However, upon popping the disc into the player I realised I had made a terrible mistake. You see, I find it incredibly hard to just flick through Chicago to find screengrabs. No, I start by watching "All That Jazz" and then I must watch "When You're Good to Mama" and "Cell Block Tango" and then definitely "Roxie" and... well, needless the say, this entry took a bit longer to compile that it normally does.


Well I had to choose this image. Black and white is all about shadows and I love this one from the opening "All That Jazz" number.


Perhaps a bit risque for the 1930s, no? I love that Catherine Zeta-Jones is still smack bang in the centre, even though it's an ensemble musical sequence.


As they say, "she's the spittin' image" of an old MGM movie star, and I actually think Renee Zellweger looks better in black and white in this movie. It helps distract from her shiny skin and way-too-lithe frame. Alas, it is moments like this that make me lean on the side of "she gives a great performance!" than on the side of "she can't sing! etc".


Now it looks like some sort of surreal Lynchian experience. Which makes me think about what it would be like if David Lynch directed a full on out-and-out musical. We throws musical numbers into pretty much all of his films (think "Llorando" from Mulholland Drive, "In Dreams" from Blue Velvet, "The Locomotion" from INLAND EMPIRE, the many Julee Cruise moments from Twin Peaks, etc) so what if he took the next step and just made a musical. I think I'd officially die.


Is it just me or does Renee looks freakishly like Marilyn Monroe in this shot? I guess considering, at times, she's doing a bit of a Monroe act that it fits, however it is only this scene in the movie that I think the comparison actually works.


Yeah, from a purely visual point of view "Roxie" is my favourite musical number in the film. I love the visuals (obviously, I've taken three shots from it alone) and the setups and I think it's Zellweger's best work in the movie. Plus the song is pretty catchy to boot, no? This one shot feels like something out of a Lloyd Bacon (42nd Street, Footlight Parade) though and that's why I took it.


Wow, that red neon sort of looks crap, doesn't it? Nevertheless, I still really like the shot. Reminds me of the videoclip for Madonna's "Vogue".


If there's one scene in particular that definitely does not benefit from black and white it is "I Can't Do It Alone". All those deep reds and blues are what make the scene pop outside of Catherine Zeta-Jones' immaculate one woman show.


I chose this shot simply because there just hasn't been enough of Zeta-Jones and she looks so good here.


One of my biggest pet peeves with movies is when there's a performance scene like this one that is supposed to be happening in real life (on Broadway in this instance) and it is not based in reality. Like when character change costumes by moving out of frame (I'm looking at you Centre Stage) or they do things that may work for the movie, but they forget that there are supposedly people sitting in the audience watching it and they'd have no clue what the hell is going on (I'm looking at you Staying Alive). I do, however, thoroughly believe that this finale - even if it is oddly short, where's the rest? - would "thrill!" the audience watching it. I think they made the right decision to end the movie this way, and as an extra bonus for this series it looks great in black and white.

Black + White Friday: The Others

Alejandro Amenábar's 2001 suspense tale The Others is already pretty monochromatic, so I thought for this week's edition for Black+White Friday I'd take it one step further and turn it into a two shade flick, the movie that I have a sneaking suspicion that Amenábar wanted to make, but didn't have the chance (thanks Harvey Weinstein!)


Already it has the authentic feel of a black and white film. A time when blacks weren't exactly always "BLACK", but a murky grey. Also, why does Kidman seem more convincing in this one screenshot as Samantha from Bewitched than she did in the entire film version of that series? Bizarre...


I love the look of these moors, clouded in mist. No matter what the film - think Hitchcock's The 39 Steps or Frankenstein - they always look superb on camera. Don't you agree?


I'm not sure how many times I paused my VLC player on moments like these of Nicole Kidman looking frightened, but I did it a lot because there are a lot of them and she always looks so good in them. I can't help but be transfixed.


I always found it slightly weird, but intriguing, that Alakina Mann who was cast as Kidman's daughter looks, at times, eerily similar to Linda Blair from The Exorcist. Seriously. Next time you watch The Others keep an eye out for it.


This was a stunning little scene wasn't it? From the music cues, to the red herrings, to the voice, to this moment where a previously closed door appears to be closing again by itself. I love this movie.


I feel traumatised Nicole - something she has gotten down to a fine art - is scarily fascinating to watch. No wonder Lars Von Trier wanted to torture her and make her suffer in Dogville, huh?


I think that Javier Aguirresarobe's photography is, perhaps, the best framing of Nicole Kidman... ever? Even moreso than Birth or Moulin Rouge!, there are moments in The Others - like this scene, which feels like a lost outtake from Jacques Tourneur's Cat People - that are so beautiful and you can't do anything but stare are Nicole. Gorgeous.


Sorry, but you can clearly tell that I got a bit obsessed while collating this entry. How could I not? I love that this screenshot feels like 'Merchant Ivory Does Hitchcock'!


Remember earlier up there I mentioned Frankenstein?


I chose to include this moment because it's probably the film's biggest jump moment. Even seeing it in pictures though you may not be able to fully remember how much your bones jumped out of their skin with this appeared as if from nowhere. Those eyeballs are creep no matter what colour scale they're in!

I think we can all agree that The Others looks sublime in black and white. It reminds me of a mix between Robert Wise's The Haunting, Bryan Forbes' Seance on a Wet Afternoon and the Val Lewton RKO horror films of the 1940s, which I think is a mighty fine combination. But, if nothing else, it's an absolutely gorgeous reminder of how amazing Nicole Kidman is. This film, and Kidman's performance, is actually far far better than I remember (and I liked it immensely before now), which is more than I can ask for, really.

Black + White Friday: Mulholland Drive

David Lynch has worked with black and white before on two of his earliest films, Eraserhead and The Elephant Man so I thought for this weeks instalment we'd test drive his magnum opus Mulholland Drive and see how it holds when given the black and white treatment.


Yup, still scary in black and white.


I must point out that the little... what you call it? Is it an apartment complex? Not really. I don't know. Anyway, whatever it is, this little enclave of sorts is absolutely stunning in colour. In black and white it reminds me so much of Sunset Boulevard, which I am quite certain was Lynch and production designer Jack Fisk's intention all along. Do these sort of places even exist anymore? I want to live there if they do.


Aaah, Gilda. One of my favourite black and white films. One of yours, too?


I chose this screenshot because it's my absolute favourite shot in the entire movie. Not exactly sure why, but it is. Doesn't Naomi Watts' skin kind of glow like it does in silent movies?


Like a Hitchcock heroine.


Jeepers creepers! Something about this amuses me so much. It's like Doris Day or Dusty Springfield. Now that's a Lynch collaboration that would've bear bizarre fruit.


Oddly, one of the film's most obvious '50s moments is this musical sequence to Connie Francis' "Sixteen Reasons", doesn't look that classic. Hmmm.


One of the best things Lynch does throughout the entirety of Mulholland Drive is mix with the identities of Betty and Rita. Constantly framing them so that their bodies and their faces have the lines blurred. Who is who and so forth. This shot was my favourite example of it. It's also quite ABBA, teehee.


The Lady in the Radiator returns! And she's singing Roy Orbison in SPANISH!!!!


Interestingly, the film's final act where everybody switches up proves less forthcoming with interesting stills, even though it is just as beautiful as the rest of the film. I chose this moment, however, because it reminded me of an old horror movie. Like The House of Usher or something, ya know? Dusty old mansions and the like.