SFF Review: You're Next (Adam Wingard, 2013)

During the Davison family reunion to mark the 35th wedding anniversary of parents Aubrey and Paul (Barbara Crampton and Rob Moran), men wearing animal masks and equipped with guns, crossbows and axes invade their mansion home and begin brutally preying on the hapless guests, including the couple’s four children and respective partners. Erin (Sharni Vinson), the girlfriend of son Crispian (AJ Bowen), fronts their retaliation, revealing she is the best equipped to protect the rest of the family against their sadistic, unrelenting foes. Amongst a vocal and entertained crowd, this reviewer did not get a kick out this home invasion slasher.

What struck me throughout about You’re Next and severely influenced my enjoyment was the senselessness of the brutality. There was something excessively nasty about it. Some of the characters that meet their demise early are killed off in horrific fashion, and yet there is no evident justification. Rather than be entertained by this – I mean, on ‘most’ occasions watching people be killed on screen isn’t fun, but for some reason this expects an audience to find it so – I was actually sickened and felt uneasy.

Continue reading at Graffiti With Punctuation. 

New Releases (20/06/13)

In cinemas this week we have World War Z, Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 and Satellite Boy. 

World War Z - Moving at a frenetic pace this is a relentlessly intense experience with huge scale production. Within mere minutes we are already witnessing the ferocious outbreak. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a former United Nations employee, his wife Karen (Mireille Enos) and children find themselves embroiled in mob panic as a Zombie outbreak quickly spreads. They manage to escape in a camper van and make it to Newark where they are extracted by Lane’s former UN colleague and lay low in a rundown apartment block. From there Gerry is coerced into representing the UN and traverses the Globe – from South Korea, to Israel and finally to a World Health Organisation lab in Wales – in search of a means to save what is left of humanity, while his family are kept under Navy protection.

Monsters University - Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan are an inseparable pair, but that wasn't always the case. From the moment these two mismatched monsters met they couldn't stand each other. "Monsters University" unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

Despicable Me 2 - Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is no longer a villain after saving his three adopted daughters Margo, Edith, and Agnes from Vector in the first film. His calm and unexciting new life takes an unexpected turn when he is recruited by Lucy Wilde and Silas Ramsbottom and is taken to the headquarters of the Anti-Villain League, a society dedicated to fighting crime on a global scale.

Satellite Boy - Catriona McKenzie's directorial feature debut is a heartfelt, moving and uplifting story about a young boy's journey to save his home and ultimately himself. Satellite Boy follows Pete, a 12 year old Aboriginal boy who lives with his elderly grandfather, Jagamarra (Gulpilil). Home is the abandoned outdoor cinema in the outback town of Wyndham. When it is threatened with demolition, Pete sees his world in jeopardy and sets off for the city. He is joined by his friend Kalmain, who has his own reasons for leaving town. Together the boys travel through epic and stunning Kimberley country and when they get lost in the bush, Pete has to remember some of the old Aboriginal bush skills his grandfather taught him for them to survive. Fable-like in its storytelling, it shows a world torn between old and new, tradition and progress, nature and technology. Celebrating the importance of family, true friendship and cultural and spiritual identity, Satellite Boy is affecting. HERE IS A LINK TO MY INTERVIEW WITH WRITER/DIRECTOR CATRIONA MCKENZIE.

Weekly Recommendation: An interesting week, considering the pair of animated sequels/prequels. I have seen Monsters University and can declare it well worth a look. While not quite as inventive in narrative, this is one of Pixar's funniest films to date. World War Z is also worth a look to see the fusion of Zombie lore with epic scale blockbuster intensity. It works, despite the plagued production. Satellite Boy, a Kimberley-set tale of a young boy who never relinquishes his hope of saving his home, is also enjoyable. 

2013 Sydney Film Festival Awards Wrap Up

It is with a little sadness but also some relief that I bid farewell to another Sydney Film Festival, the 60^th year of it’s running and my third year of coverage. This year’s lineup was impressively strong, and I must extend huge congratulations to festival director Nashen Moodley and the entire team. I experienced no technical issues over my 28 films, and even the queuing system was well handled. Terrific execution.

Congratulations to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives for winning the Sydney Film Festival Prize for the Official Competition.

Of course, no festival is without dashes between the State Theatre and Event Cinemas, a desperate phone charge and the moment of panic when the app won’t load and you can’t prove you have a ticket. A common one this year was getting involved in a conversation at the Festival Hub and realizing I had less than ten minutes until my film.

Two of the festival highlights were briefly chatting with Paul Wright, writer/director of For Those In Peril, and gushing about his film, and meeting Bob Rosen, the former Dean of UCLA and an annual Oscar voter. He was in town to watch the work of one of his former pupils, Alex Gibney (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks), and stopped into the Film Club for a chat.

The Film Club numbers were on some occasions quite small, but there were several days when there was a giant turnout. Film buffs from all over Australia, including visitors from Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth, descended on the Hub to chat about just about everything. I met some fantastic new people, and it was great to catch up with others I haven’t seen in twelve months.

Though I managed to avoid sickness, my energy levels over the last three days were depleted to say the least. I almost nodded off during Downloaded and had to work very hard to keep alert during Upstream Colour. I worked a few shifts, so adding a pair of films to the back of a hard day at work meant snacks were essential. I also tried to squeeze in as many reviews as possible and thoughts on fourteen of the films can be found on Graffiti With Punctuation, with more to come.

To wrap up the festival, here are some personal awards I’d like to honour some of the very best with:

Best Feature Film: Before Midnight

Runners Up: The Rocket, Prince Avalanche and The Past

Best Documentary: Dirty Wars

Runners Up: The Act of Killing, Blackfish and 20 Feet From Stardom

Best Debut Feature: Paul Wright, For Those In Peril

Runner Up: Haifaa Al-Mansour, Wadjda

Best Actor: Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, Prince Avalanche (tie)

Runner Up: Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight

Best Actress: Julie Delpy, Before Midnight

Runner Up: Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

Best Director: Park Chan-Wook, Stoker

Runner Up: Nicolas Winding Refn, Only God Forgives

Best Screenplay: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

Runner Up: Asghar Farhadi, The Past

Best Cinematography: Only God Forgives

Runner Up: The Rocket

Best Editing: Upstream Colour

Runner Up: Stoker

Best Score: Only God Forgives

  

Runner Up: Prince Avalanche

Best Scene: ‘Wanna Fight?’ in Only God Forgives and ‘Drunk’ in Prince Avalanche (tie)

What were your top films from this year’s Sydney Film Festival?

SFF Review: Prince Avalanche (David Gordon Green, 2013)

David Gordon Green has had a fascinatingly checkered career. After some promising early films, his most recent works range from inconsistent (Pineapple Express) to flat out abysmal (Your Highness) but this very funny offbeat buddy comedy is one of the surprise gems of the Sydney Film Festival and a highly competent return to form for the writer-director. Gordon Green was awarded Best Director at 2013 Berlinale and this wonderfully executed tale of broken masculinity and unlikely friendship is strange and unforgettable.

Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) are two mismatched road maintenance workers mending an area ravaged by bushfires in 1988. Isolated from their city lives, and sharing very little in common, they find naturally themselves at odds with one another. They repaint lines, install new signage and live off the elements. Every weekend they have time off and while Lance journeys back into the city to party and try and get laid, Alvin enjoys the solitude offered by the job and often stays back alone. Though they are of a different generation, Alvin is about in his early 40’s and Lance in his mid 20’s, they eventually start to develop a bond beyond the woman – Lance’s sister & Alvin’s girlfriend – that united them, and have a series of life-affirming misadventures.

Continue reading at Graffiti With Punctuation. 

Giveaway: 2-for-1 Passes for 'In the House'

In the House, the new film from Francois Ozon (Potiche, Swimming Pool) hits Australian cinemas June 27. Thanks to Transmission Films I have ten 'Buy One Get One Free' passes to give away.
  

To enter, all you have to do is email your name, address and 'There's always a way to get in' to andrew.buckle22@gmail.com with 'House Giveaway' as the subject. Restrictions apply on use of the passes - valid from its cinema release June 27 at participating cinemas. Winners will be notified via email.

Entries close Sunday 23rd June, 11.00pm

Germaine (Fabrice Luchini) is a frustrated old-fashioned English literature teacher who has all-but given up hope for the new generation when he expresses his dismay to his art-curator wife, Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas), at his students’ recent inept efforts. Only one pupil from his class, Claude (Ernst Umhauer), turns in anything proficient on a writing assignment. Intrigued by the boy’s interesting, but somewhat inappropriate account of his weekend (which ends with a ‘to be continued…’), he questions whether it is a recount of the truth, or if it has been influenced by his imagination. Germaine takes an unnervingly voyeuristic interest in the boy’s follow-up essays. We learn that Claude has befriended a classmate Rapha (Bastien Ughetto). Offering to help him with his mathematics, he manages to ‘infiltrate’ the house of what he declares to be the perfect middle class family. Soon enough Rapha’s parents (a jovial Denis Menochet and a suffocated Emmanuelle Seigner) begin to treat him like a second son. Over time his actions and intentions become more sinister, and Germaine, hooked on the story, begins to play a role in manipulating events (even procuring a test in advance to help Rapha pass math) to ensure that Claude continues to be invited into the house, and with means to elaborate on his tale.

Twitch Film call it "a seductive, witty and deliciously naughty piece of filmmaking" and you can check out my review of the film at Graffiti With Punctuation.

Best of luck!

SFF Review: For Those In Peril (Paul Wright, 2013)

Written and directed by Paul Wright, his debut feature film following a number of award-winning shorts, For Those in Peril is a visceral and complex psychological drama with an emotional intensity that continually keeps a viewer guessing. This is a fresh vision from a bold and talented filmmaker who has an interest in telling his stories and provoking his audience with inventive sensory experimentation.

Aaron (George MacKay, The Boys Are Back), a young misfit living in a remote Scottish fishing community, is the lone survivor of a mysterious fishing accident that claimed the lives of five men including his older brother, Michael. With ocean folklore an influence the village holds Aaron responsible for the tragedy, and he finds himself an outcast. Struggling with his own demons, unable to remember what happened out on the water, he refuses to believe that his brother has died and holds misguided hope in his return. Though he briefly finds comfort in spending time with his brother’s former girlfriend, his worsening anxieties eventually bring him in confrontation with his darkest fears.

Continue reading at Graffiti With Punctuation. 

Review: World War Z (Marc Forster, 2013)

World War Z’s journey to the screen has been plagued with issues – a ballooning budget and a seven week re-shoot following a re-written final act – but thankfully there are few signs of such production problems and plenty to admire about Marc Forster’s (Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) high-energy film. From my understanding of Max Brooks’ novel – an oral history of a Zombie war – that inspired the film, this is something else entirely. I found it to be a frighteningly visceral portrayal of a ‘Zombie-pocalypse’ in the vein of a scientific disaster film.

Moving at a frenetic pace this is a relentlessly intense experience with huge scale production. Within mere minutes we are already witnessing the ferocious outbreak. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a former United Nations employee, his wife Karen (Mireille Enos) and children find themselves embroiled in mob panic as a Zombie outbreak quickly spreads. They manage to escape in a camper van and make it to Newark where they are extracted by Lane’s former UN colleague and lay low in a rundown apartment block. From there Gerry is coerced into representing the UN and traverses the Globe – from South Korea, to Israel and finally to a World Health Organisation lab in Wales – in search of a means to save what is left of humanity, while his family are kept under Navy protection.

Continue reading at Graffiti With Punctuation. 

SFF Review: Grigris (Mahamet-Saleh Haroun, 2013)

Grisgris, screening at Sydney Film Festival on the back of its competition for the Cannes Palme d’Or, is a fascinating but largely forgettable drama from acclaimed African filmmaker Mahamet-Saleh Haroun. Grisgris (Souleymane Deme) has dreams of becoming a dancer, despite being crippled by a paralyzed leg. Though a hit on the local dance floors his impediment continually foils his higher aspirations. When his uncle falls ill, Grisgris is forced to find more work, in addition to his energetic entertaining and odd photography jobs. This leads to a dangerous working relationship with petrol traffickers and a profitable, if illegal, gambit. The consequences place his life, and those he loves, in danger.

What I found so disappointing about Grisgris was how conventional the story felt. If one has seen any film about a desperate youngster finding themselves out of their depth and in debt with some dangerous people, then little about this story will feel different or challenging.

Set in Chad, this study of an unfamiliar culture and way of life is indeed interesting all on its own. Add in the unique world of petrol smuggling and Grigris’ unlikely skills and aspirations and there is more than enough here to keep a viewer engrossed, if not fully invested for the duration. The entire film is beautifully shot and Haroun is always aware of telling his story through his images, respecting his audience to feel the most poignant of emotion themselves. When this story takes on its dark turn the ratcheted suspense results in some nail biting moments, but it didn't quite measure up to the high calibre competition.

My Rating: ★★★