Review: The Eternity Man

The Eternity Man
Dir. Julien Temple
Year: 2008
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 63mins

Julien Temple's The Eternity is a not a movie one should watch if they enjoy the delights of plot, dialogue or subtlety. If, instead, you enjoy your movies to be all pyrotechnics and razzle dazzle mise-en-scène then perhaps it is for you. And even then you will have to get past the singing. Oh yes, there will be singing. I will be the first to admit that opera isn't exactly "my thing", but I can handle it all well and good in small doses and if, ya know, performed well. And yet while I can't call myself a particularly good judge of what makes one opera good and another bad, I must say I found the nauseating operatic warblings in The Eternity Man to be an insufferable mess.

Starting with a ten minute long sequence that recalls the opening passages of Baz Luhrmann's equally radical musical Moulin Rouge! that features Christa Hughes decked out as a 1920s flapper gal in Sydney's Luna Park, Temple's film feels as if it is trying to assault your senses with as many bizarre images as possible. At only 65 minutes in length the film has less time than usual to show its images, and yet there are enough shoved in here to last a good half an hour more. I actually enjoyed this opening stretch. I found myself admiring the beautiful costume work of Wendy Cork (this being her first foray into period costumes) and the production design by Felicity Abbott. It was crazy and vaudeville, but I liked it nonetheless.


Unfortunately, then the story kicked in. The Eternity Man follows the story of Arthur Stace, a reckless drunk, who converts to a life of God and, for the rest of his days, writes the word "eternity" in chalk all over Sydney. International readers would be surprised - and perhaps even a few locals too - to learn that this is actually a true story and that the mysterious graffiti (as it was called) was once seen as a pest to the city until in the year 2000 when it was emblazoned on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in New Years Eve fireworks.

To say there's not much plot to the film is putting it lightly, but Temple more than makes up for that with his bravura visual design. Cinematographer Mark Wareham (Clubland) does a wonderful job in recreating eras and atmospheres, however it is the visual conceit of projecting classic stock footage upon buildings, surfaces and people that gives the movie it's visual edge. Sure, it's a very theatrical idea that would have worked just as well for the stage version (it is an adaptation after all), but it works equally well on film. The insertion of stock footage into the narrative, too, helps to create a dynamic energy. One particular scene that condenses the horrors of war into a brief but explosive couple of minutes is especially well done.


However, the one aspect that brings the film crushing down to Earth is its very reason for existence; the opera itself. As I said before, I can't claim to be an expert on this style of performance, but the singing on display within here is quite excruciating. Star Grant Doyle is responsible for most of it and his deep croaky voice does the material no favour, allowing a good large portion of the lyrics to become incoherent. Christa Hughes, as Arthur's sister Myrtle, fares little better especially during her big climactic scene at the docks during which she sounds like a cat being put through a mixer.

The story of Arthur Stace is perhaps one that could have been very fascinating, and without the music The Eternity Man would have been a beguiling visual exploration of a period of Australian life that is rarely, if ever, portrayed on screen. However, the film's sole reason for being is the music and so I think it is fair that this music should be the ultimate basis of the film's success or failure. At only a fraction over an hour in running time there isn't even all that long a time to have to grin and bare it. And yet as the film continues on exploring the decades that Stace was active as the graffiti artist of Sydney I could not overcome the frustration that boiled out of the score and its meandering nittying. On that basis I can't give a grade based on anything else. C-

Review: Beautiful

Beautiful
Dir. Dean O'Flaherty
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 97mins

Sometimes I watch a movie and can immediately tell what the pitch would have been. Disturbia was "Rear Window, but with teenagers!" or Australia was "Gone with the Wind, but with Aussie accents!" Such it was with Dean O'Flaherty's debut film as writer and director, Beautiful. I can picture the meeting now. "So guy, it's Blue Velvet, but with teenagers... and Aussie accents!" Which just makes the movie even more of a disappointment.

There is a good movie tucked away inside Beautiful and it occasionally rears it's head from time to time to perk the viewer's interest whenever it begins to slide due to unnecessary subplots and ridiculous flights of fancy. It is just that it never sticks around long enough to build towards a successful film. In fact, watching the film is a very bizarre experience, indeed. A bizarro-world mish-mash of ideas and images. Not once does O'Flaherty feel the need to explain why every household in the idyllic neighbourhood that the film is set in seem to have 1950s television sets and antique furniture or why characters watch INXS videos of VHS. Nor does he feel the need to rein himself in when in one odd scene his characters appear to enter a silent black and white movie with mock Grindhouse aesthetics.


In the upper-class suburb of Sunshine Hills two beautiful teenage girls have been gruesomely murdered and another is missing. Such is the launching pad for the movie and it's a good one, especially with the incredibly lush cinematography by Kent Smith, in his first feature outing, filling the screen with bright colours with immaculate close-ups and angles. The loner kid of the street is Danny (Sebastian Gregory) who always carries a camera gets tangled up with his not-so-girl-next-door sexual fantasy, Suzy (Tahyna Tozzi), and begins to investigate the goings on at creepy number 46. And all this while dealing with an is-he-isn't-he abusive father (Aaron Jeffreys) and stepmother (Peta Wilson).

If it sounds straight forward enough then you're wrong. Subplots come and go - one involving Wilson's character is particularly awkward - and the lines between myth and reality blur to almost inconceivable levels. The big climax of a twist ending especially feels forced and like a dead weight compared to the quite delicious coda that follows it. That Deborra-Lee Furness has the most interesting character and is really the entire force behind the movie is seemingly not of any worth to O'Flaherty.


Like a lot of Australian genre films the acting is hit and miss. Furness is impressive in her small role while newcomer Gregory has definitely improved since his role in Acolytes last year. Tozzi gives the film's strangest performance, seemingly a mix of five different characters none of which are in the same universe as Beautiful. There's also no denying that there's something frighteningly about her. The hair, the tan, the everything. "Sex bomb" for the Ralph set, I suppose.

The film's biggest strength is it's aforementioned aesthetics. It's so nice to see an Australian film filled with such vibrant images. They are images that deserve better than the screenplay they are servicing. A screenplay that deliberately presents a sort of hyper-stylised version of Australian suburbia, yet one that never connects the dots it laid out in fascinating and beautiful fashion. It's the most disappointing of misfires; One that really coulda been something. As it is, however, Beautiful is a big pretty mess. D+

Review: Dying Breed

Dying Breed
Dir. Jody Dwyer
Year: 2008
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 92mins

I had the distinct misfortune of watching Jody Dwyer's Dying Breed yesterday. An ugly and washed out horror movie that commits cardinal horror sins. Despite being filled with horrible unlikable characters, it's also incredibly boring. Barely one fright in an entire 90 minute running time is not good and there was only one moment that I would say I was surprised and "shocked!" (as the poster art would say and it involves a character in a tree and that's all I'll say).

It's plot is one you've seen a hundred times before (or more if you're a horror aficionado) wherein a bunch of city kids travel through the deep south and come across the locals who like to use said city slickers not only as bait to keep the bush-bound cannibals at bay, but also as breeding factories. Don't eat the meat pies if you ever visit rural Tasmania, okay! The actors are all boring and if one of them wasn't played by a recognisable actor I would be hard pressed to remember anything about any of them. They all play characters you wouldn't want to associate with in the real world and yet the movie plays it so dull that there is not even any satisfaction - if that's the word - in seeing them become Cannibal meat. And when they do become a meal it's like an afterthought. So much time was spent on making the locals look dirty and disfigured that they didn't spend enough time actually making the horror appear scary.


And that brings me to Nathan Phillips. He is a blight on the Australian film industry. Routinely making arsehole characters even worse with his arsehole performances. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that Dying Breed is the worst Australian film ever made - I saw two at AFI last year that were worse - it is a fair guess to assume that Phillips' "Jack" is the most reprehensibly vile and excruciating character to ever be vomited up from the depths of these filmmaking hells. I understand that he was meant to be a prick, but that doesn't mean I want to spend 90 minutes with him.

To come up with positives is to dig deep. I liked that, for a change of pace, an Australian horror movie decided to not use the outback as it's setting. And, in all honesty, the final act had some moments of genuine tension, even if you can't forgive the characters splitting up right in the middle of being chased down by ravenous cannibals. Unfortunately for the film after having sat through feet being eaten off, women being raped by bogans and faces being ripped apart it was all a bit "too little, too late". It's a snooze. D-

Review: Frozen River

Frozen River
Dir. Courtney Hunt
Year: 2008
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 97mins

It's a shame that Courtney Hunt's Frozen River is so good. It's unfortunate because now I will most likely be incredibly disappointed when this debut director falls between the cracks of the lead performance she helped create. Much like Kimberley Pierce, who took nine years to return after Boys Don't Cry, and Patty Jenkins, who has yet to direct another motion picture after Monster in 2003, Hunt's film is primarily getting attention for it's lead performance.

These three films do indeed have more in common with each than a mere powerful central female performance. Most importantly, all three have such an incredible sense of place, all revolving around the ubiquitous themes of woe in Small Town, USA. Whether it be the murky grotesqueness in the late 1980s of Monster (one of my very favourite films of that year), the endless horizons of the bigoted country town of Boys Don't Cry or the snow-covered regions of Frozen River, each of the films makes the landscape a vital part of the film. Without it there is no real understanding of the films or their characters. Hunt's opening shots are of iced-over rivers, muddy stretches of road and lands casually dotted with trailers all covered by gray clouds and it immediately sets a tone. One rich with texture and intrigue.


In the northern border region of New York state we meet Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) whose husband has skipped town with the money they were to use to purchase their new double-wide home. Scant of cash and in need of more than the part time wage the shopping mart provides her with she begins to ferry illegal immigrants over the border after an encounter with a young Mohawk woman (Misty Upham). Sounds bleak, but it's done in a similar way to the aforementioned films that really works. The final act effectively works as a thriller, but not in the traditional sense of the word and it ends in a way you wouldn't expect even if you see the general idea coming from the opening scenes (I did, so I imagine many others will too).

As for Melissa Leo, who has certainly been keeping herself busy lately, will surely have "broken out" after this and it's hard not to see why. While not as violently explosive as Charlize Theron or brutally moving as Hilary Swank, she feels equally as evocative as the desperate but not dispirited Ray. Upham is affecting in moments and Charlie McDermott is impressive as Leo's teenage son. I, too, thought the treatment of the Native American storyline was well-done. It was fascinating to me as somebody who knows almost nothing about this culture to see it so thoroughly portrayed with what I assume was respect and it's yet another vital contributor to the film's success.


Frozen River isn't as downbeat and depressing as it may appear, honestly. I'd hazard a guess and say this film isn't anywhere near as grim as others may like to paint it as, actually, thanks to Hunt's intuitiveness. It is a tough watch at times, sure, but it is also so powerfully acted and skillfully made - Reed Morano's cinematography and the minimal score by Peter Golum and Shahzad Ismaily need special mention - that you forget about all that and instead focus of the impeccably made film beneath. Frozen River is a very strong film and one that felt like a breath of fresh air in a year that has felt distinctively unimpressive and been-there-seen-that. A great story tell-told, is what I say. A-

The Best (and Worst) Posters of 2008

It is frustrating sometimes being a movie lover and not living in New York City (oh to dream). I am routinely unable to do a top ten list until June! Luckily for your guys I don't have to have seen all the movies to be able to judge their key art. As anybody who has read Stale Popcorn for longer than a week will know, I love posters. I talk about them a lot. This past year I even did a top 100 countdown and so here on the even of 2009 I present my favourite (and least favourite) pieces of poster art for the year 2008. I'm sure I've missed something that I will regret leaving out (such as the Zoo poster from last year's countdown), but thems the breaks!


(All posters can clicked on to enlarge)
(All posters accumulated at IMP)

THE TEN BEST POSTERS OF 2008
10. Wall-E

Retro animation at it's finest.

9. The Strangers

Okay, so it spoils the film's biggest and best scare - although, so does the best trailer of 2008, side note - but it does everything a poster should: Makes you want to see the movie. If the thought behind this poster's image doesn't get you then you were never going to see it anyway.

8. In Bruges

I love a poster that is playful like this. See also The Bank Job.

7. The Black Waters of Echo's Pond

For all the huss-and-fuss over the poster campaign for last year's Grindhouse, these two posters for an obscure horror flick are the two most retro designs that I have seen recently. From the tea-stained borders, the creases and the hand-drawn aesthetic. All so wonderful.

6. The Wackness

You know you're on the right track with a movie set in the early 1990s when your key art instantly brings back memories of recording mix tapes. Such pitch perfect design here.

5. The House Bunny

No poster made me laugh as much as this poster, which puts Anna Faris front and centre where she belongs.

4. The Dark Knight

I couldn't decide which of these I liked more. The more classically beautiful city shot or the twisted and crazier Joker design. I cheated and used both. They're both excellent.

3. Goliath

I knew I had to rank this poster high because I have no idea what the movie is and yet I feel like I must see it or else I will EXPLODE. A lot of the time posters for these low budget independent movies can be really bad, but sometimes they have the luck of hiring a great designer who can come up with something like this. Another of these nearly made it in for the movie Fix, but it fell just short of the top ten.

2. Dear Zachery: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Just absolutely beautiful. Stunningly so.

1. Funny Games

Was there ever any doubt. Truly a masterpiece.

Now Just For Fun...
(excluding previously mentioned posters)

Best Rip-Off:
The Spirit

For ripping off everything about Sin City.

Best Poster That Could Have Easily Been Terrible:
27 Dresses

Essentially for not being this or this or (heaven forbid) this.

Dreamiest Use of Colour:
Slumdog Millionaire


Best Poster Series:
(Excluding The Dark Knight and Wall-E to be fair!)
No Right Turn

I know they're all fairly simple, but I like these posters, don't you?

Best Saul Bass Impersonation:
Burn After Reading

Runner-Up: Flawless - it would've won if it completely gave in to the idea.

Sexiest Poster:
Elegy

Might as well sell your movie on Penelope Cruz' posterior, no?

Best "Do They Realise?" Moment:
Paranoid Park


Worst Photoshopping:
Sex and the City: The Movie

Or, since the scene is actually in the movie, Worst Non-Photoshopping When Photoshopping Was Necessary?

Unscariest Poster for a Scary Movie:
Dying Breed

Runner-Up: One Missed Call

Worst Backtracking:
August

Ummm... they went from a poster that told you enough to one that doesn't tell you a thing other than "Josh Hartnett wears clothes in this movie" and who wants that, honestly?

Worst False Advertising:
Sex and Death 101

Bridget Fonda circa the early '90s is not in this movie!

Worst "Empty Space" Offender:
Revolutionary Road


Most Unappealing Poster:
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Ugh, why would I want to see this smug-looking piece of garbage?

The "This Deserves a Better Poster" Award:
WHERE DO WE START?!?
Milk, Revolutionary Road, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Rachel Getting Married, Changeling... etc etc. What a terrible terrible year for Oscar movies and their posters. Literally all of the above were dreadful!


~~-~-~~

The First Annual Showgirls Honourary Award for Brilliance in the Face of Ineptitude in Poster Design:
Whore

~~-~-~~

And that's that, folks. I can't be bothered doing any more because I'll go blind. What did you think? Did I miss anything? Speak up in the comments, please!

Black + White Friday: Moulin Rouge!

Sorry for the lateness, but as I originally wrote, yesterday was a very long day and so here I am doing this now. Voila!


It's is probably not at all surprisingly to learn that I spend a lot of my day thinking about Baz Luhrmann's Australia and then yesterday I had a hankering to rewatch (for the millionth time) Moulin Rouge!, the film that gave birth to what will likely be an entire lifetime of devotion to the man and anticipation of every single project he will ever embark on. However, upon rewatching it last night, I decided to take a different tact with Moulin Rouge! in this "Black+White Friday" series. Most of the other movies I have screencapped for you guys have had me trying to turn the original into something else, something classical that I think the originally was going for (see, for example, The Others and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), but while it would be easy to do this for any musical and say "let's see what it would look like if it were made in the heyday of the Astaire and Rogers!" it is impossible to do that with Moulin Rouge! It could never have been made in any other time, by any other person or in any other way, which is why it's such a case of bravura filmmaking.

So, instead, I merely found a bunch of moments that I thought would look nice in black and white - there are plenty - because to try and drain this or this of colour is both silly and a crime against humanity/cinema/life/etc, don't you think?


Upskirt shot! How rude. But seriously, what an incredibly shot.


Proof positive that Nicole Kidman would've been a star in any generation. Not every actor can look so classic in both colour and black and white, but she does it. But, then again, we already knew this, didn't we?


This shot has always made me chuckle. Something about it makes me think it should be in a horror movie about a brood of bald men who come together on Halloween to steal the souls of children (or something to that effect).


One of the (many) film posters I have saved onto my computer is one for the 1954 film The Barefoot Contessa (here is an alternate version of the one I have, I can't remember where I found it unfortunately) and it wasn't until I took this grab that I realised how similar the two shots are. Hmmm.


This moment reminds me of Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary. Strange, but true.


Oh Kerry Walker, bless you. And as an aside, I actually think this scene is Kidman's best in the entire movie and perhaps one of the purest in the film. A lot of people think the musical scenes only work in this movie because of the production Luhrmann puts behind it, but this tiny moment shows there's true power in it and that Kidman actually does have a good voice. I am indeed quite interested to see how she handles her next musical, Nine.


"The Show Must Go On" is routinely one of my favourite unappreciated moments from the film and I remain adamant that it is Kidman's strongest moment vocally. I do have a random question for all you Oscar-philes out there. How long was it between nominations for a musical performance? Surely Kidman's Best Actress nod in 2002 was the first for quite some time, right? Anybody know? I could try and research it myself but, ugh, effort!


How cool and retro-horror is this shot? Answer: Very.


Funny story: I once received an e-mail from somebody claiming to be Lionel Haft (who plays The Duke's manservant "Warner") - and who would fake that, honestly? - who was angry at me for ripping apart his performance in the terrible schlocky Aussie crapfest Solo. I mean, it doesn't top receiving an e-mail from Rena Riffel (another true story), but it still amuses me.


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