For the peak 2013 Christmas holiday movie-going season, 20^th Century Fox has gambled on a new adaptation of James Thurber’s short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Having debuted as an article in New Yorker magazine in 1939, the story of the daydreamer with a heart of gold was most famously adapted into Norman McLeod’s 1947 classic, starring Danny Kaye (pictured, below; with co-star, Virginia Mayo). But its modern retelling has bounced around within the Hollywood studio system for nearly three decades. SCREEN-SPACE takes a look at its troubled production history…

The property was adapted into various stage versions throughout the 1960’s and featured in the 1972 cult fantasy, Scarecrow in the Garden of Cucumber (with David Margulies in the role). But it would not be until 1994, when Samuel Goldwyn Jr, son of the legendary producer of the 1947 film, reignited interest in the Water Mitty story as a vehicle for the red-hot star of Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Jim Carrey. Imbued with a modern spin and leading man potential, the story of the innocent dreamer took on a new Hollywood life.

Goldwyn Jr had launched Carrey’s leading man career in the vampire comedy, Once Bitten, and wanted to mould the actor into the Mitty role. The industry’s most respected comedy writing team, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Splash, Vibes, Parenthood) were hired for the project and their longtime collaborator, Ron Howard, with his production company giant Imagine Entertainment in tow, became attached. But contemporising the story proved a sticking point.

Carrey (pictured, left) was determined to headline, at one point enlisting the director of his breakout hit The Mask, Chuck Russell, with Peter Tolan (Analyze This) working on rewrites. When Russell bailed (just shy of a 2000 production start-date), Carrey sought out Steven Spielberg, who had struck up a friendship with the comedian as producer of Dreamwork’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Dreamwork’s distribution partner, Paramount Pictures, was high on the pairing and solidified it as a tentpole project (Goldwyn’s son, John, oversaw the studio’s motion picture group).

But the project imploded. A series of heated lawsuits between Goldwyn, Dreamworks and co-rights holder New Line Cinema saw the rights revert back to Goldwyn’s camp but by then, the principal players had moved on (Carrey and Spielberg were by then developing Meet the Parents).

Paramount’s management, backtracking from its December 2005 start date, began repackaging the project for the likes of scripter Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King; pictured, left), director Mark Waters (Mean Girls) and stars Owen Wilson, Will Ferrel and Scarlett Johansson, but it proved a cumbersome undertaking. The studio ultimately decided that the project was moribund and put it into turnaround (a term that notifies the industry that it’s no longer a goer with the current administration and is up for grabs). The top bidder was 20^th Century Fox, who acquired the package in early 2007.

Despite the troubled history of the project, talent circled. Screenwriters Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) and TV veteran Jay Kogen (The Simpsons) took on months of rewrite duties (Kogen’s version found favour with Mike Myers management, leading Myers to undertake a full rewrite that was ultimately disregarded).  In April 2010, 20^th Century Fox structured …Walter Mitty as a follow-up vehicle for Sacha Baron Cohen in the wake of the studio’s hugely successful pick-up of Borat. It was announced Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski would direct the umpteenth version of the script, this one penned by The Pursuit of Happyness author, Steven Conrad (Verbinsk’s preferred leading man, Johnny Depp, was offered the part, but both departed for Disney’s The Lone Ranger).

It would fall to 20^th Century Fox’s ‘golden boy’, Ben Stiller, star of the studio’s cash-cows There’s Something About Mary and the Night at the Museum films, to recapture the magic of Thurber’s short story. Industry buzz is still out on how successful Stiller has been with the tent-pole release (at time of press, it stands at 36% on the Rotten Tomatoes site). Worryingly, the Internet is littered with images of scenes that were cut from the final cut, including Stiller and co-star Kristen Wiig in old-age make-up and Wiig as a NYC policewoman; co-star Josh Charles, having shot scenes as Wiig’s romantic interest, has been excised from the film entirely.

Only time will tell if Samuel Goldwyn Jr.’s (pictured, right) passion to get his long-overdue reworking of Thurber’s story to the screen for the second time will honour his father’s vision.

Read the SCREEN-SPACE review of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty here.

It has been the role to score amongst Hollywood’s young actress ranks. For the last three decades, it you are a starlet under 30 with a surprise hit or a model with the right dimensions, you were tested for the role of DC Comic’s iconic super-heroine, Wonder Woman - the one superhero franchise that the industry can’t seem to tap. Is an ex-Miss Israel with only 10 industry credits to her name the woman to carry the weight of the greatest female super-hero on her shoulders?

Zack Snyder’s Batman vs Superman has its Wonder Woman, in the form of Gal Gadot (pictured, top). The 28 year-old ingenue, mostly known for her role as Gisele in the The Fast and The Furious sequels, was born in the contemporary central Israeli enclave of Rosh Ha’Ayin. Gadot has been a star in her homeland since representing her nation at the 2004 Miss Universe pageant. Bit parts in TV series such as the supermodel soap-opera Bubot led to a top-tier Hollywood debut in 2009’s Fast & Furious followed by a single-episode spot on the series Entourage and a recurring role on The Beautiful Life. After walk-ons opposite Steve Carell in Date Night and Tom Cruise in Knight and Day, she reprised her ‘Gisele’ role before returning to Israel for much-touted guest spots on the home-grown series Asfur and Eretz Nehederet.

The alter-ego she will embody has endured a far more complex back-story.

Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, debuted in 1941, replete with bondage imagery (author William Moulton Marston acknowledged the character’s S&M influence) and a ‘man-hating’ agenda (several commentators accused the character of 'lesbian' tendencies). It took until 1966 for Wonder Woman to begin her multi-media divergence; she debuted as an audio book in 1966, then was the subject of a failed TV pilot called ‘Who’s Afraid of Diana Prince?’

Various kid-friendly incarnations followed (a guest spot on The Brady Kids; a co-starring slot in Super Friends; a dedicated episode of The Muppets) before Cathy Lee Crosby fronted a series pilot (that never progressed). In 1975, the part was recast with Lynda Carter (a Miss World USA contestant, no less) and the most iconic representation of the character was born. As recently as 2011, an expensive series pilot penned by David E Kelley and starring starring Adrianne Palicki (Gi Joe: Retaliation; Red Dawn) was lensed but shelved.

So, in a modern cinematic era where such meagre super-hero figures as Daredevil, Elektra and The Shadow get big-screen treatments, why has Wonder Woman taken so long to graduate to franchise status? (Editor’s note – While acknowledging that Hollywood studios have struggled to foster all but a handful of action-based female leads, this article will focus on other elements). Crucial factors include her costume (sexy and marketable but anachronistic and hard to take seriously) and origin story (hailing from an island of Amazonian warriors, as she does).

Stars have been attached over the years; Sandra Bullock, Rose McGowan, Emily Blunt, Megan Fox, Elodie Yung and Yvonne Strahovski were just a few of those tested but were passed over. Australian supermodel Megan Gale was announced as being cast, before George Miller’s Sydney-based production was shut down; genre experts David S Goyer (the Blade trilogy) and Joss Whedon (The Avengers) went after the project but pulled out. Director Snyder wanted Oblivion co-star Olga Kurylenko, but Warner’s held out for the super-hot Gadot, counting on her being relatively inexpensive now but with a career trajectory that feels legitimate.

It is arguably the casting announcement of the year. Warner Bros have a grand plan to spin off Justice League projects, in exactly the same way the Marvel Universe has proved a goldmine for competing majors, Universal and Disney. If all goes well for Gadot, she may be the biggest female star of the next decade. If all goes well…. 

Lee Daniels’ The Butler emerged as the breakout hit of 2013’s American box office season. A word-of-mouth sleeper that would bank US$116million and featuring a cast strewn with Oscar winners, it was considered an awards season front-runner. But when nominations for the 2013 Golden Globes were announced this week, it was nowhere to be seen. It doesn’t take much to impress the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the brilliant minds behind the Globes’ judging process. So why didn’t The Butler walk away with any mention come Hollywood’s second biggest awards evening? Or did the global press representatives get it exactly right?

1. It is The Foreign Press Association:
According to the Box Office Mojo site, nearly 72% of The Butler’s worldwide gross was domestic; a headline-grabbing hit at home, it only crept to an ok US$46million from the 28 territories in which it ran theatrically. That is the antithesis of the current industry mantra, ‘Domestic covers costs; foreign reaps the profit’. Overseas print and web outlets weren’t clamouring for content about The Butler, so the film was not high on the list amongst the roster of journos who provide coverage – and determine Globe worthiness.

2. Overseas critics didn’t follow their US peers:
Those ultimate purveyors of ‘event picture’ marketing, Bob and Harvey Weinstein (pictured, right), got word out early on the film, ensuring US critics saw The Butler as ‘an important work’. Offshore, their influence is far less potent and many critics drilled down on the film’s soft focus sentiment and simple-minded politics. The Financial Times said, “The Butler is like some bonkers Advent calendar of American history”, while The Globe and Mail opined, “…the White House feels like comic relief, with a parade of presidential caricatures.” The Rotten Tomatoes site has The Butler at 74%, undeniably at the low end of award season contenders. The HFPA have to work with these people and were clearly swayed by their colleague’s editorial.

3. But they nominated 12 Years A Slave and The Help:
Yes, they did, but look closer. 12 Years A Slave is a British director (Steve McQueen) and two British stars (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender), with global box office golden boy Brad Pitt on board as producer. The Help featured Hollywood’s It-Girl of the day, Emma Stone, playing an idealistic journalist (!) who comes to the rescue of downtrodden Mississippi maids. Let’s not forget they bestowed 5 nominations/2 trophies on Tarantino’s cartoonish slave-era revenge-fantasy Django Unchained just last year, so African American-themed stories aren’t off their radar… 

4. …or are they?:
Despite closing in on US$100million at the homegrown box office, Brian Helgeland’s 42 (pictured, left) saw no love from the HFPA either. The racially-charged biopic of baseball legend Jackie Robinson featured much buzzed-about performances from Chadwick Boseman in the lead role and an against-type Harrison Ford as his mentor. But it has barely been seen in overseas markets, where sports pics and black history themes struggle – and where HFPA members earn their keep. The nominations shut-out of Ryan Coogler’s much-hyped urban-set drama Fruitvale Station, a Cannes winner and festival hit, adds weight to this argument. It took an Oscar-winning turn from Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side to get noticed and it still only took US$53million offshore, a meagre 17% of its worldwide gross; tellingly, she was the film’s only Golden Globe contender. 

5. The HFPA are just calling it like it is:
The Butler hasn’t featured heavily in the awards season preamble. With several of the major critics groups having already handed out their gongs, The Butler has managed notices from second-tier ceremonies like the Satellites (3 nominations), Camerimage (a nomination for DOP Andrew Dunn) and The People’s Choice (1 nomination), with its only silverware from the Hollywood and Hamptons film festivals. If AMPAS honours Lee Daniel’s drama with a bevy of nominations come January 16, it might be seen as a shot across the bow of the Golden Globes growing popularity. Should the film be similarly ignored by Academy members…well, maybe the overseas scribes, the very same who deemed starlet Pia Zadora worthy of its highest honour in 1982's biggest industry scandal, will eventually be credited with some level-headed wisdom.

We have all perused those Best Of… and Worst Of… lists over the years, and in 2013 the web is flooded with them. But what about those movies that fall in between; the films that weren’t quite good enough to make the grade but were far better than anyone had any right expect. SCREEN-SPACE slaps the backs of ten movies that were never serious contenders for the end-of-year honour lists, but were a whole lot better than any of us thought they would be…

PAIN AND GAIN
Michael Bay’s oeuvre encapsulates muscle-headed tributes to all-American machismo (Bad Boys; Armageddon; Pearl Harbour; the Transformers trilogy). Who would have thought that he had within himself a smart, scathing satire of that very mindset? That he wrangled dimwitted action-movie poster-boys Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson (pictured, above) to sell the gag is as inspired as the conceit itself. Sort of Get Shorty crossed with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

EVIL DEAD
“Don’t touch it,” screamed the holier-than-thou webheads who rose up in defiance of Fede Alvarez’s remake of Sam Raimi’s low-budget horror classic. “F*** you!” said Alvarez, who delivered an R-rated, high-octane splatterfest gem that both honours the anarchic energy of the original and the expectations of the fan base who hold the series in such high regard. 

DARK SKIES
Scott Stewart’s slow-burn, small-scale, suburban-set alien invasion-meets-haunted house thriller bombed (it went straight to DVD in most territories). Yet this expertly-crafted story of a terrorised family and the phenomenon that befalls them is a goose-pimply joyride that rewards the patient viewer; The Conjuring wooed the ticket buyers, but Dark Skies is a better film. Keri Russell channels Poltergeist’s Jobeth Williams as the every-mom coping with unwanted intruders.

WARM BODIES
The Gen-Y cynicism of director Jonathan Levine (All The Boys Love Mandy Lane; The Wackness; 50/50) meets the romantic warmth of author Isaac Marion; the result is Romeo-&-Juliet for The Walking Dead generation. Scary, funny and sweet in equal measure, Warm Bodies preaches ‘love the one you’re with’ to a movie-going demographic that that seeks out both thrills and truths.

CLOUD ATLAS
It proved impenetrably dense for the mainstream mindset (the US box office topped out at US$27million), but the Wachowski’s weren’t pandering to the multiplex mentality; how they convinced Warner Bros to back this project is anyone’s guess. The upshot is that the sibling’s extraordinary vision of David Mitchell’s novel now exists in that rarefied realm that includes Brazil and Waterworld; expansive, ambitious visions that with a derisive repuatation yet have established a fierce following. 

WHITE REINDEER
Zach Clark’s pitch-black Christmas tale is dark Yule-tide classic; sort of an ‘It’s a Not So Wonderful Life’. As real-estate agent/Donna Reed wannabe Suzanne Barrington, Anna Margaret Hollyman should get Oscar attention, but won’t; her journey from WASP princess to drugged-up orgy participant to fully rounded self-fulfiller is 2013’s strongest character arc.

THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK
A nutty narrative about an alien invasion that fails because ‘they’ fall in love with our capacity for love and music draws you in; the soundtrack provides the greatest toe-tapping moments in 2013. The most wonderfully engaging comedy this year.

MADRAS CAFÉ:
US cinema had Argo, Ben Affleck’s zippy, giddy cinematic poltical thriller. International cinema had Shoojit Sircar’s volatile Madras Café , a work that blends fictional construct and factual background to form a deeply humanistic take on regional conflict. John Abraham is a great lead, mixing action-hero muscle with conflicted moral foil.

YOU’RE NEXT
The best Australian actress on screen this year was Sharni Vinson. As the ‘final-girl’ archetype at the heart of Adam Wingard’s home-invasion bloodbath, Vinson resurrected the ballsy action-heroine lead character that once belonged to Sigourney Weaver. This gory, funny, terrifying film didn’t start as her star-making vehicle, but by the final frame, she emerged every bit the next decade’s Jamie Lee-Curtis.  

THE SPECTACULAR NOW
Director James Ponsoldt’s adaptation of Tim Tharp’s novel is as potent a study of alcoholism as Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas. But it also encompasses teenage alienation, first love anxiety and familial discourse; why is this stunning work not an Oscar front-runner? Leading man Miles Teller is this generation’s Tom Hanks; Shailene Woodley outdoes her Oscar-nominated turn in The Descendants.

In the mid 1980s, few actors had the career trajectory of Kevin Costner. The Californian native was establishing himself as Hollywood’s latest ‘Golden Boy’; a charismatic, compelling screen presence exuding savvy industry smarts combined with a fierce determination to succeed. He would soar to Oscar-winning heights, plummet to unbankable lows and now, with three films set for release, is in the midst of a well-orchestrated career resurgence.

Costner threw in a corporate marketing career to back his talent in Hollywood. Legend has it that a chance encounter with the late Richard Burton, during which the notorious Welsh actor loudly encouraged him to follow his dream while sharing a seat on a commuter flight, was the turning point for the then twenty -something Costner.

However, the early years were a slog. His debut, Richard Brander’s Sizzle Beach USA (aka Malibu Hot Summer; pictured, left), was an exploitation cheapie filled with soft-core nudity that surfaced in 1981 but was reportedly filmed in 1978. Bit parts in Chasing Dreams, Ron Howard’s Night Shift, the Hollywood biopic Frances and the Jon Voigt vehicle Table for Five paid the bills, but Costner was not being noticed by casting agents. His congenial good looks and laidback ease in front of the camera suggested his range was limited.

This all changed in 1983. Having scored a lead role in the forgettable gambling comedy, Stacy’s Knights, he befriended director Jim Wilson, establishing a friendship that would lead to a production partnership named Tig Productions. Costner generated industry heat with a small but potent role in Lynne Littman’s nuclear-war drama, Testament. But it was as Alex, the college friend whose suicide brings the ensemble of characters together in Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill, that Costner would find his breakthrough role; ironically, flashback scenes involving Costner were entirely cut from the film, but the director was suitably impressed. Kasdan let Costner steal every scene as ace gunslinger Jake in his acclaimed 1985 western, Silverado (featured, below).

It would be the year that audiences accepted Kevin Costner as leading man material. Long-time friend, Kevin Reynolds, directed him in the college road-trip cult favourite, Fandango; John Badham captured him at his smouldering best in the sports drama, American Flyers. And Steven Spielberg applied his magical touch by casting him in the pilot episode of the anthology TV series, Amazing Stories (pictured, right).

By the turn of the decade, Kevin Costner was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. In 1987, he fronted Roger Donaldson’s sleeper hit, No Way Out, opposite Gene Hackman (featured, below; the actor being interviewed for the films release); Brian De Palma found in the actor his Eliot Ness,  the unshakeable moral core of the gangster classic, The Untouchables. Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham solidified the actor’s sex symbol status, the heat generated opposite Susan Sarandon as on-the-slide baseball star Crash Davis a highlight of the cinema year; the All-American goodness of the actor infused Field of Dreams, helping to make the gentle fantasy-drama Costner’s biggest hit to date.

Despite the hiccup that was Tony Scott’s Revenge, a trouble-plagued shoot that audiences ignored, 1990 was the year that Costner reached the pinnacle of Hollywood’s power elite. His directorial debut, the 3 hour western Dances with Wolves (featured, below), defied all expectations; at a time when the genre was considered box office poison, it would win seven Oscars, including Picture and Director, and gross $500million worldwide. Costner could do no wrong; in quick succession, he hit big with Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Oliver Stone’s JFK and the blockbuster romance, The Bodyguard, opposite friend Whitney Houston.

Career wobbles beset Costner when he decided to broaden his range. A dark, violent turn as an escaped convict in Clint Eastwood’s A Perfect World was a critical hit, but the public liked their Costner squeaky clean and heroic; it bombed. Kasdan’s dark, mythic western, Wyatt Earp, with a grizzled Costner in the lead role, was an expensive dud; Jon Avnet’s The War, in which Costner played a troubled Vietnam vet trying to raise Elijah Wood, was DOA.

Costner then undertook the project that would redefine his career. The mega-budgeted action epic Waterworld would garner headlines beyond the bitchy trade papers; its spiralling cost became the thing of legend, the money-pit production problems earning it the moniker, ‘Kevin’s Gate’. Contrary to popular belief, it did not bomb when it finally hit theatres in 1995, though the cost overruns certainly prevented it from turning a profit.

He reteamed with Shelton for the likable golfing comedy, Tin Cup, in 1996. But his standing hit rock-bottom a year later when The Postman, a wildly over-indulgent post-apocalyptic adventure that he starred in and directed, got scathing reviews and withered away at the box-office (the US$18million return on its US$80million budget means it is a far greater financial blackhole than Waterworld ever was). Costner’s fan base eroded further in the wake of a costly, high profile divorce from his sweetheart bride, Cindy.

The next decade saw Costner working, though the output seemed mostly directionless. He exhibited strong character actor traits in Thirteen Days (2000), the terrific Open Range (2003), opposite Joan Allen in The Upside of Anger (2005) and as part of the ensemble in Company Men (2010), but mostly coasted in underwhelming vehicles that failed to restore his lustre (Message in a Bottle, 1999; For Love of the Game, 1999; 3000 Miles to Graceland, 2001; Dragonfly, 2002 [pictured, right]; Rumor Has It, 2005; The Guardian, 2006; Mr Brooks, 2007; Swing Vote, 2008; The New Daughter, 2009).

It would be television, a medium that Costner had steered clear of since his Amazing Stories episode 28 years ago, that began the resurrection of Kevin Costner’s industry standing. His 2012 mini-series passion project, Hatfields & McCoys, was a ratings juggernaut and would earn Costner the Best Actor gongs at the Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild ceremonies.

Fresh bigscreen opportunities beckoned; Zach Snyder played upon Costner’s down home warmth, casting him as Pa Kent in Man of Steel. He will next be seen as mentor William Harper in director Kenneth Branagh’s franchise reboot, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (pictured, left), opposite Chris Pine and Keira Knightley, the role a vote of confidence from the studio heads who would not back him for most of the last decade. On its heels will be two films that recast Costner in mature leading man roles – Ivan Reitman’s rousing NFL drama, Draft Day, and the violent Taken-type actioner, 3 Days to Kill (featured, below), from producer Luc Besson. Beyond that, he softens his image by reteaming with Upside of Anger director Mike Binder for the tearjerker Black and White before returning to the sports film arena in New Zealand director Niki Caro’s track-&-field tale, McFarland.

Over the lean years, Kevin Costner lost none of the drive that took him to the top of the Hollywood pecking-order. But with age (he turns 59 on January 18), he has softened; the backlash he suffered in the eyes of the industry and the audience (his detractors cite a ruthless brashness and egotistical air weaknesses) has waned. He is slipping comfortably into the role of consummate professional and learned statesmen within the studio system. With nothing left to prove, Kevin Costner appears to be embracing the next phase of his career with grace and humility.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit opens January 16 in Australia and North America. 

Hollywood is mourning the loss of Tom Sherak, the industry executive and philanthropist whose reputation as one of the cutthroat LA industry’s nicest men was beyond reproach. Passing away on Tuesday at the age of 68, Sherak’s death was not sudden, as he had been bravely fighting prostate cancer for over a decade; his family and friends were gathered for his final moments at his home in Calabasas, California. But the industry grief is profound, a testament to the legacy that Sherak left behind after five decades in ‘the biz’. SCREEN-SPACE honours the man with a look at the defining moments of Tom Sherak’s career…

THE 20^TH CENTURY FOX YEARS: Sherak served under the legendary Robert Evan’s in Paramount’s distribution division in the early 1970s (upon hearing of Sherak’s passing, Evan’s tweeted, “He singularly raised the bar of integrity with those of us who were lucky enough to know him. What a fine human being.") before a stint as chief film buyer for General Cinema. But it would be Sherak’s ascension through the corporate ranks of 20^th Century Fox, first as President of Domestic Distribution & Marketing, followed by Senior Executive Vice President and ultimately Chairman of the film division’s domestic operations, that would consolidate his status amongst the industry’s great executives. From the early 1980’s until his departure in 2000 (Sherak once noted that he survived 10 regime changes), he oversaw a roster of films that included Romancing the Stone, Aliens, Broadcast News, Wall Street, Die Hard, Home Alone, There’s Something About Mary, Edward Scissorhands, The Fly, True Lies, Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, Speed, Predator and Titanic. When George Lucas (pictured, right: with Sherak) began taking meetings to negotiate the domestic distribution rights for Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, Sherak made a short film in which he starred as a Luke Skywalker-type hero; it was called ‘Episode VII -- The Distribution Wars’. Lucas issued a statement soon after the Sherak's passing, stating ""Tom's passion for everything he did made him an inspiration to work with. His boundless enthusiasm for Star Wars earned him an honorary Jedi master title."

THE EVOLUTION OF REVOLUTION STUDIOS: Sherak’s departure from the Fox fold in 2000 led to his involvement as an equity partner in Revolution Studios, a high-profile start-up venture that was the brainchild of Joe Roth. Roth had been chairman of 20^th Century Fox from 1989 to 1993 and worked closely with Sherak; the pair would shepherd such films as XXX, Black Hawk Down, Punch Drunk Love, Maid in Manhattan, The Missing, Anger Management, Hellboy (pictured, right: director Guillermo del Toro with Sherak), Rocky Balboa, Click and the ambitious Julie Taymor vision, Across the Universe. The pairing was not without its commercial and critical misfires (Gigli, Hollywood Homicide, Zoom, Next, Rent), but, due in no small part to Sherak’s sense of old-school showmanship and business acumen, turned solid profits on a slate of low-brow/low-cost comedies (The Animal, The Master of Disguise, Daddy Day Care, 13 Going On 30, The Benchwarmers) and minor genre works with major star power (Halle Berry and Bruce Willis in Perfect Strangers; Julianne Moore in The Forgotten). Revolution ceased its film operations in late 2007.

THE AMPAS PRESIDENCY: After a stint as Treasurer and an ongoing seat on the Board of Governors, Tom Sherak was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science in 2009. He moved swiftly to reform the Oscars ceremony, which was in danger of becoming an irrelevant relic of Old Hollywood. He would be instrumental in expanding the Best Picture nominees from five to ten, allowing for more audience-friendly fare to feature; negotiated primetime broadcast agreements that will last until 2020; set in motion a long relationship with the state-of-the-art Dolby Theatre as the event venue; and, forged a relationship with the LA County Museum that will result in an extensive film museum, the first of its kind in Hollywood, designed by architects Zoltan Pali and Pulitzer Prize-winner Renzo Piano. Having served three consecutive terms, he stood down in 2012 having cannily handled the James Franco/Anne Hathaway hosting debacle and Brett Ratner/Eddie Murphy storm; he announced his departure by issuing a heartfelt letter of resignation to the membership.

THE PHILANTHROPIST: Tom Sherak’s daughter Melissa (pictured, right: with her father) was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1993. As his career soared at Fox, his family life was under tremendous strain. But he rallied in the face of adversity and had soon organized a charity event to help sufferers of MS from all walks of life. As chairman of the annual MS Dinner of Champions, he would draw donations in excess of US$45million to the cause. In September 2013, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti bestowed upon Sherak the role of ‘film czar’, his primary duty to draw production activity  back to the city he loved most of all; for this enormous task, he asked for an annual salary of US1.00

Sherak dealt with his disease for 12 years, though rarely mentioned it in public.  At the Academy Governor’s Awards in November 2011, he drank a toast to the late cancer victim Laura Ziskin, honouring the example she set with her strength and personality “for all of us who have struggled with cancer.” Sherak was due to attend the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 14; the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce arranged to have the monument brought to his bedside ahead of the ceremony.

Tom Sherak is survived by Madeleine, his wife of 45 years, and their children Melissa, Barbara and William.

Harold Ramis, the Chicago born comic who rose from the legendary stable of Second City performers to become one of his generation’s most iconic comedic figures, passed away on February 24 after a four year fight with the rare disease auto immune inflammatory vasculitis; he was 69. SCREEN-SPACE honours the great funny man with a look back at a career peppered with some of the most beloved moments in American comedies of all time…

TVTV at the Super Bowl:

Ramis and comedy cohorts Bill Murray, Christopher Guest and Brian Doyle-Murray were given unprecedented access to the locker rooms and lives of the players, coaching staff and fans in the lead-up to 1976 Super Bowl X between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys. The result was freeform faux-journalism at the dawn of television’s big-money commitment to sports coverage, predating the current cable net comedy giants by over three decades. Ramis shared multiple duties with a pre-SNL Murray and pre-Spinal Tap Guest, but it would be his skill and timing as director that shone through (watch the full video here). It lead to him overseeing such comedy classics as National Lampoon's Vacation (1983; pictured, right, the director on-set), the Al Franken SNL spin-off Stuart Saves His Family (1995), Multiplicity (1996) with Michael Keaton, the remake of Bedazzled (2000) and the John Cusack film, The Ice Harvest (2005).  

The Screenwriter - Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes:
Having served as Head Writer on the television offshoot of the improv troop Second City, Ramis co-wrote one of the most successful comedies of all time, the John Landis directed Animal House (1978). He tailored the part of frathouse wildman Bluto for his good friend John Belushi, with whom Ramis had been sharing the Second City stage since 1972. The films blockbuster status opened doors for the young writer; in quick succession, his scripts for Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980) and Stripes (1981) were in production. Other Ramis scripts included Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School, Robin Williams’ Club Paradise and John Candy’s Armed and Dangerous (all 1986); Analyze This (1999) and its sequel, Analyze That (2002); and, his final bigscreen effort, the 2009 Jack Black/Michael Cera farce, Year One.

When Harry met Billy…:
By the time Bill Murray and Harold Ramis played opposite each other in Ivan Reitman’s Stripes, they had been inspiring each other’s unique talents for a decade. Ramis arrived in New York from Chicago in 1972 and was soon working alongside Murray on The National Lampoon Radio Hour. Ramis’ script for Meatballs provided Murray with his breakout hit; their late-night improv sessions led to Murray’s Carl the Groundsman in Ramis’ directorial debut, Caddyshack. When Dan Aykroyd presented Ramis and Murray with his dark, edgy script about a trio of paranormal investigators in NYC, Ramis worked on lengthy rewrites to better accommodate the three actors distinctive stylings; Ghostbusters (1984; pictured, right) would become the most successful comedy of all time.

“Don’t drive angry!”:
When Ramis came on board to direct Danny Rubin’s script for Groundhog Day, he tweaked the concept considerably (among other things, Rubin’s script began in the midst of one of Phil’s repeated days) and set about finding a leading man. Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks and John Travolta all tested, but Ramis felt all played too ‘nice’. Bill Murray was approached and the film, along with their Ghostbuster collaborations, became an iconic work for which both will be forever remembered. In 2007, the films status as an American classic was ensured when it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.

The Great Straight Man:
“The moment I knew I wouldn't be any huge comedy star was when I got on stage with John Belushi for the first time," Ramis told the Chicago Tribune in 1999. “"I stopped being the zany. I let John be the zany. I learned that my thing was lobbing in great lines here and there, which would score big and keep me there on the stage." From his debut as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (featured, above), Ramis made the absolute utmost of every part he played. He was one of cinema’s greatest straight-faced comedy leads as Dr Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters; other notable film appearances included Baby Boom (1987), Love Affair (1994), As Good as It Gets (1997), Orange County (2002) and Knocked Up (2007).

Harold Ramis was surrounded by family and friends when he passed away at 12:53am on February 24. He is survived by his wife, Erica Mann Ramis.

Of the many adoring obituaries that have been published to commemorate the sad passing of cherished actress Wendy Hughes, very few have detailed the troubled project that would be her American film debut, Happy New Year.

Wendy Hughes had become one of the most beloved screen actresses working in Australia after a run of critically lauded hit films, emerging as a central figure in a period of production referred to as the ‘Australian Film Renaissance’. Having built her reputation on films such as Petersen, Newsfront, My Brilliant Career, Hoodwink, Lonely Hearts, Careful He Might Hear You and An Indecent Obsession and dominated the small-screen during the mini-series boom period (Power Without Glory; Lucinda Brayford; Return to Eden), Hughes secured an LA agent and ventured to Hollywood.

At the height of Hollywood’s obsession with French remakes, journeyman director John G Avildsen (Joe; Save the Tiger; Rocky; Neighbors: pictured, right) was preparing a remake of Claude Lelouch’s delightful 1973 farce, La Bonne Annee. Hoping to tap into the successful trend of hit remakes such as Three Men and a Baby, Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Three Fugitives, Columbia Pictures greenlit the jewelry heist romantic comedy Happy New Year, based on a script by Nancy Dowd (working under the pseudonym ‘Warren Lane’) and starring funnyman Peter Falk, character actor Charles Durning and Brit import Tom Courtenay. Wendy Hughes, with barely a US credit to her name, was cast as the romantic foil, Carolyn.

In a 2007 interview, Hughes recalled the daunting nature of filming a big Hollywood studio comedy after a decade of small Australian films. “It just used to terrify me, because you'd go on and do an intimate little scene and there'd be 200 crew behind the camera, or a hundred people, and that I found intimidating. Normally we have five or something,” she said. “(Projects of) that bigger scale, can be really, um...well, for me, sort of intimidating.”

Despite her reservations, the shoot went relatively smoothly; principal photography wrapped in mid-1985. Falk (pictured, top and left; with Hughes) gives a wonderful comic performance, donning heavy make-up to play both an elderly woman and grumpy old man (the picture would earn a single Oscar nomination for Robert Laden’s prosthetic effects). The chemistry between the cast is strong, with Hughes contributing a sweet but strong-willed turn and matching her more experienced old-school comedy stars stride for stride.

But Avildsen’s comedy soon found itself hog-tied by a dispute between the director and the studio. Delays in post-production forced Avildsen into conflict with his current project, The Karate Kid Part II; contractually bound to finish the martial arts crowd-pleaser for a summer release date, Columbia rode roughshod and shelved Happy New Year until Avildsen delivered the Ralph Macchio sequel.

By the time Avildsen returned to Happy New Year, the studio was involved in one of the most turbulent boardroom power struggles in Hollywood history: after a merry-go-round of executive ‘hires and fires’ following Coca-Cola’s purchase of the studio in 1982 and studio head Frank Price’s departure in 1983, projects that carried the baggage of past administrations were giving little support. By the time British producer David Puttnam assumed the mantle of studio head in 1986 and oversaw production and PR nightmares such as Ishtar and Leonard Part 6, the fate of Happy New Year was sealed.

Wendy Hughes’ US debut had become ‘cinema non grata’ to the new regime. Happy New Year surfaced briefly in the dumping ground that is the late summer theatrical schedule; it debuted August 7, 1987, in a mere 40 theatres and would play out its cinema run in 7 days, grossing US$41,232.00. It found favour on VHS in the rental boom period and is fondly remembered by those that saw it but, to date, has received no studio-backed DVD release (it is currently downloadable via Amazon Prime).

Wendy Hughes (pictured, right; with Falk) was noticed by the handful of analysts who saw the film. Critic John Varley described her as, “a cool Grace Kelly type who should be better known by now”; Carrie Rickey in The Philadelphia Enquirer, declared, “Hughes is, with Judy Davis and Mel Gibson, one of Australia's greatest gifts to the screen.” She would work intermittently in the US (opposite Kevin Kline and Jim Broadbent in the 1994 film, Princess Caraboo; guest stints on TV series Homicide and Star Trek: The Next Generation), but it would be her homeland that truly embraced and benefitted from her extraordinary talent.

Wendy Hughes passed away on March 8 after a battle with cancer. She was 61. 

At 21, Shailene Woodley was carrying a potential tentpole blockbuster. In November 2012, she was deep into production on Divergent (pictured, below) and still hot off her Oscar-nominated performance in The Descendants. Superstardom comes a lot sooner nowadays; Kristen Stewart (Twilight; Snow White & The Huntsman) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games; Silver Linings Playbook) were both A-list stars before they turned 21. But what of the screen goddesses of days gone by? Some, like Shirley Temple or Jodie Foster, were well into (or well past) their movie careers. But were the career paths of other great actresses mapped out for them by that tender age of 21…?

JULIA ROBERTS:
Happy 21^st! October 28, 1988
Her debut, the girl band drama Satisfaction, had just bombed, yet everyone was talking about the young actress who had stolen the limelight in the arthouse ensemble hit, Mystic Pizza. Insider word was that her performance in Herbert Ross’ adaptation of Robert Harling’s play, Steel Magnolias (pictured, right; with co-star Sally Field), was going to be her breakout performance. By early 1989, Roberts was preparing to star in her first romantic comedy…Disney’s reworking of the old ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ plotline.  

MERYL STREEP:
Happy 21^st! June 22, 1970
One year before graduating from the all-female Vassar College, the young woman that would become the greatest actress of her generation was taking on any role she could in school productions. Most notably, she played the title role in August Strindberg’s play Miss Julie (pictured, left), Frosine in the original production of The Miser and was preparing for her graduating performance as Sarah Millwood in The London Merchant. Her first film role, opposite Jane Fonda in Julia, was seven years away.

CATHERINE DENEUVE:
Happy 21^st! October 22, 1964
Deneuve had been working steadily since her teens; she was 13 when cast in Andre Hunebelle’s 1957 film Les Collegiennes. Her exquisite beauty and flawless talent was not lost on the French producers, who would cast her in seven movies over three years. In late 1963, the 20 year-old began production on The Umbrellas’ of Cherbourg, director Jacques Demy’s groundbreaking romantic-musical that would become an international sensation. At 21, Deneuve was European cinema’s hottest starlet.

JULIETTE BINOCHE:
Happy 21^st! March 9, 1985
The miracle of filming with Jean-Luc Godard was tempered by the controversy surrounding what would be Juliette Binoche’s second feature film. The actress turned 21 a few weeks after Hail Mary (pictured, right), the great director’s modern spin on immaculate conception, premiered across Europe to howls of religious protest. The ingénue buried herself in work, completing seven movies in three years; the workload lead to her acclaimed US movie debut, opposite Daniel Day Lewis in Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 1988.

AISHWARYA RAI:
Happy 21^st! November 1, 1994
Despite a modelling career that saw her represent key brands such as Pepsi and Ford in one of the world’s biggest markets, it would not be until 1997 that Indian cinema’s most successful actress debuted onscreen in a series of films that included Iruvar, The Duo and …Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya (for which she would win the Screen Award for Best Newcomer). In 1994, the 21 year-old Rai was coping with the adulation of a nation after having been crowned Miss World (pictured, left).

HELEN MIRREN:
Happy 21^st! July 26, 1966
The future Dame was barely dipping her toes in Britain’s cinematic waters at the age of 21. It would be the year she first stepped in front of a camera, with an uncredited bit part in the Norman Wisdom comedy vehicle, Press for Time. But her reputation as one of England’s great theatrical hopes was well established. By the time she started work in late 1966 on her second film, Australian expat director Don Levy’s Herostratus (featured, below), she had conquered the role of Cleopatra for the National Youth Theatre and was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. The 21 year-old Mirren made such an impact, she became the subject of John Goldschmidt’s documentary, Doing Her Own Thing (1970).

BETTE DAVIS:
Happy 21^st! April 5, 1929
The actress that many refer to as ‘The First Lady of The American Screen’ had not stood before a camera when she turned 21 in April of 1929. That would be the year that she would introduce herself to New York audiences in her Broadway debut, Broken Dishes. It would not be until 1931 that Davis would make her first screen appearance in the Universal melodrama The Bad Sister (pictured, right), opposite a charismatic leading man named Humphrey Bogart.

LOUISE BROOKS:
Happy 21^st! November 14, 1927
Arguably the most iconic actress of the first quarter-century of cinema, Brooks had survived a miserable childhood in Kansas to be an acclaimed dancer; in 1925 at the age of 19, she landed a featured role with the famous Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. Her beguiling beauty and offscreen reputation (at age 20, she had a well-publicised liaison with Charlie Chaplin) ensured film work was steady; by 21, she had eleven film credits and was being noticed by some of Europe’s leading filmmakers. Highest amongst those was GW Pabst, the German who would cast Brooks, nearing her 22^nd birthday, in her iconic role of Lulu in 1929’s Pandora’s Box. 

On the eve of iconic Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s appearance at the opening night of the 2014 Indian Film Festival Melbourne (IFFM), SCREEN-SPACE takes a retrospective glance at the late Yash Chopra’s epic 1975 crime-drama, Deewaar, the film that made Bachchan a star and crafted the creative template for the Bollywood industry to this day.

Often spoken of as ‘India’s The Godfather’, Chopra’s seamless vision of the script by the legendary writing team of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar (pictured, below right) proves utterly timeless, as relevant and captivating to both eastern and western audiences today as it was nearly 40 years ago. The legacy of the film courses through the very lifeblood of modern Indian cinema; in addition to the global status of leading men Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan (pictured above; from left, with co-star Nirupa Roy), the archetypal portrayal of strong matriarch figureheads in modern Indian cinema and the box-office goldmine that is the Bollywood crime melodrama can also be attributed to the long shadow cast by this intimate yet sweeping multi-generational epic.

Chopra establishes his film’s thematic elements of family, honour, social standing and revenge in a deftly handled extended prologue. Anand (Satyen Kappu) is a working class husband to Sumitra (Nirupa Roy) and father of two sons, Ravi and Vijay. As the leader of a strike against his corrupt boss, he is forced to sign an agreement against his will that ends the strikes and betrays his co-workers, none of which know the truth – the boss had threatened to kill Anand’s family had he refused the agreement. Shamed before his people, Anand leaves and his family is forced to flee to a life of destitution on the streets of Mumbai.

As the boys grow into manhood, their lives take divergent paths. Vijay (an impossibly charismatic Bachchan, in one of Indian film’s great performances; pictured, left) is swept up into the world of crime, amassing an enormous though immoral wealth and falling for bad-girl Anita (Parveen Babi); Ravi (a wonderfully animated Kapoor) ascends to the upper echelons of the police force with his integrity and reputation beyond reproach, his life enriched by the beautiful Veera (Neetu Singh). Inevitably, the brother’s personal and professional lives collide, the impact and conflict felt no more profoundly than in the heart of their ageing mother.

Yash Chopra’s control over the more melodramatic elements of his sweeping narratives became less important to the director over time, but here he displays a sublime technical prowess and storytelling fluency that ensures the heart and soul of his film is never compromised by the genre machinations. There are certainly some florid leaps made in the film’s chronology and logic (not uncommon at all in even the greatest of Bollywood films), but Chopra (pictured, right; in 2007) and his cast skim by them with never a backwards glance. Even after a weighty 176 minutes, the denouement is a richly emotional, deeply satisfying one.

Watching the film retrospectively, one is struck by how polished it looks and vibrantly plays out. Deewaar set several new standards for Indian cinema, not least of which being Babi’s ‘bad girl’ archetype, whose indulgent immorality shattered decades of meek female non-roles and pushed her into the international spotlight (pictured, left; the actress on the cover of TIME magazine, July 1976). The film emerges after 40 years as a work of global standing, while its impersonators within the Bollywood sector are too numerous to mention (including remakes in both Telugu and Tamil dialects). Despite originating from a film culture that at the time went largely unseen in western society, Deewaar exhibited the auteuristic flair that was redefining the film language of the day. Decades later, modern directors adopt its narrative beats and filmic energy; it exhibits a clear influence over such works as Brian De Palma’s Scarface and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.

Despite Chopra’s masterpiece sweeping seven categories at the 1976 Filmfare Indian Film Awards, Amitabh Bachchan did not score a Best Actor trophy for his landmark portrayal (it went to Sanjeev Kumar for the political drama, Aandhi); organisers have remedied this, with Bachchan now the most nominated actor of all time with 39 nods. It is a body of screen work and level of stardom that goes unmatched to this day and would not exist without his portrayal of Vijay Verma in Deewaar, unarguably a major work of cultural and artistic importance.

Amitabh Bachchan will attend the Opening Night ceremony and the Awards function this week at the IFFM. Further details are available at the event website here.

The SOR crowd at the launch of the 2014 Sydney Film Festival (SFF) program were suitably impressed this years statistics – 183 titles from 47 countries, 15 world premieres and 122 Australian premieres amongst them. There was almost a sense of relief when the announcement came that high-profile titles such as David Michod’s The Rover, Dreamworks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon 2, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and The Dardennes Brother’s Two Days One Night would screen, many direct from The Croisette. But what were the real gems, some hidden deep within the program, that suggests the 61^st edition of SFF is every true cinephile’s dream…?

BIGSCREEN SOCCER

With the greatest event on the international sports calendar, The World Cup, only weeks away, it should come as no surprise that SFF 2014 catches a little football fever. French sporty splatter-pic Goal of the Dead mashes zombie-apocalypse tropes with Euro-soccer action; Romanian director Corneliu Porumboui commentates uncut footage of a snowbound 1988 game in the bracingly unique The Second Game; two football-mad nations, Italy and Argentina, co-produce Paolo Zucca’s monochromatic farce, The Referee; and, the documentary Next Goal Wins (pictured, above), which charts the resurrection of the Samoan national side after their record-breaking 31-0 loss to Australia in 2001.

THE FILMS OF ISAO TAKAHATA
The animation veteran never achieved the mainstream profile of his Ghibli Studios contemporary, Hiyao Miyazaki, but Isao Takahata (pictured, right) is just as revered in his homeland and amongst aficionados of Japanese cell-art. Arguably his greatest achievement, the heartbreaking survival story Grave of the Fireflies, will screen in the Salute to Studio Ghibli retrospective; his most recent work, the moving, majestic fable The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, will be a Special Presentation screening at the appropriately grand State Theatre.

JAMES BENNING: THE VISIONARY OUTSIDER
Existing in a rarefied cinematic ether full of visions that dance between mainstream film language and avant garde experimentalism, Milwaukee-born Benning is an enigma in international cinema. Nick Bradshaw in Sight and Sound magazine observed, “James Benning’s movies pose an idealistic challenge, a spur to unattainably pure observation.” For four decades, his works have explored the American geo-political landscape through the lens of a patriot, albeit one that questions the murky ethics and humanist impact of his society. “All my films,” he has said, “are an attempt to ask, how liberated am I? Where did I come from? How am I progressing?” Benning will attend, along with director Gabe Kinger, who will introduce his documentary Double Play, a ‘Dinner with Andre’-style pairing of Benning and Richard Linklater.

SNOWPIERCER
No great shock that Bong Joon-Ho’s action epic will play in competition; the director’s long history with SFF dates back to 2004’s Memories of Murder, and the critically-acclaimed film has been a smash-hit in his home market, South Korea. The surprise, and a very pleasant one, is that local distributor Roadshow Films (notorious for sending hard-to-market niche product straight to DVD) will screen the director’s cut ahead of a planned Australian theatrical season. Starring Chris Evans, the film has only just set a US release date of June 27 after a protracted edit-suite war with distributor Harvey ‘Scissorhands’ Weinstein.

THE iMOM
Imagine Spike Jonze Her by way of Chris Columbus’ Bicentennial Man and you have Ariel Martin’s The iMom, just one of the stand-out finalists of this years Dendy Short Film awards. Fresh off its feting at Flickerfest, Martin’s imaginative take on hi-tech parenting will compete with new works from such talents as Warwick Young (Stuffed), Dave Wade (Welcome to Iron Knob) and Jessica Harris (Crochet Noir).

EXHIBITION: ROSEBUD
Thanks largely to the boundless enthusiasm of organiser Mathieu Ravier, the Festival meeting spot The Hub has become a vibrant space in which patrons can unwind and engage in buff banter. In 2014, it welcomes photo-art exhibition Rosebud, from famed lensman Hugh Carpenter, so named after the (spoiler alert) sled in Welles’ Citizen Kane. His work captures celebrities with the one item in their possession that they believe helps define them or holds some significant meaning.

WILLOW CREEK
It runs a lean 78 minutes, utilises the increasingly tiresome ‘found footage’ device, stars no-name actors Alexie Gilmore (pictured right) and Bryce Johnson and riffs on the hoary old ‘Bigfoot’ legend; not to mention it is directed by that comic from Police Academy 2 with the shrill, barking voice, Bobcat Goldthwait. So why is Willow Creek shaping up as the giddy thrill-ride of the always popular Freak Me Out program strand? It has some competition, though – Jerome Sable’s blackly-funny musical theatre/slasher effort, Stage Fright; Japan/Indonesia co-production, Killers, from the twisted minds of The Mo Brothers; and, the long overdue snowbound-zombie sequel, Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead.

Full details of the Sydney Film Festival 2014 program and ticket sales can be found here.   

Festival director Nashen Moodley assumed the role in 2013 and immediately set about expanding the reach and appeal of the Sydney Film Festival programme. But he also knows that the Harbour City cinephiles, who make up the core audience, have to be satisfied too. So SFF2014 presents a wide range of films on films; works that capture the scale and scope of cinema. SCREEN-SPACE looks at the features, documentaries and shorts that turn the camera on the industry itself…

LIFE ITSELF (USA; 118 mins; Dir: Steve James):
Hoop Dreams director Steve James' study of the life and work of the late, great film critic Roger Ebert (pictured, above) beautifully balances its tone between eulogistic reverence and celebratory joie de vivre. Featuring admirers such as Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog; the title is taken from his bestselling memoir, a reworking of his famous quote, “The only thing I love more than movies is…”.

THE LAST IMPRESARIO (Australia; 85 mins; Dir: Gracie Otto)
The wildly charismatic producer Michael White is not a household name, but many of his films are instantly recognizable (among them, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s The Hound of The Baskervilles, White Mischief and Nuns on the Run). Director Gracie Otto (pictured, right; Otto with White at the London premiere of the film) retraces the life of a man that became one of the most sought-after A-list raconteurs and confidant to the stars all over the world in her giddy tribute film.  

ABUSE OF WEAKNESS (France, Belgium, Germany; 104 mins; Dir: Catherine Breillat)
Writer/director Catherine Breillat, most famous for sexually confronting explorations of gender politics such as Romance, An Old Mistress and Anatomy of Hell, recounts the true story of that moment when she let an ex-con into her life to star in a project, only to be fleeced and left close to bankruptcy. Isabelle Huppert stars as the director, who adapts her autobiographical tale with trademark frankness.

DOUBLE PLAY: JAMES BENNING AND RICHARD LINKLATER (France, Portugal, USA; 70 mins; Dir: Gabe Klinger) Director Gabe Klinger and his subject James Benning (both guests of the Fest) team with iconic maverick director Richard Linklater (whose Boyhood screens at SFF) for this relaxed profile of two iconoclastic talents who also happen to be friends. Bonding over their love of film, baseball and Americana, Benning and Linklater riff together frankly in this casual but deceptively insightful talk-piece.

THE GOLD SPINNERS (Estonia; 72 mins; Dirs: Hardi Volmer, Klur Aarma)
Throughout the 1960’s, Eesti Reklaamfilm was one of the most prolific film production facilities in the USSR. It was run by one Peedu Ojamaa,  a vibrant personality with a head for business and a heart for ‘making the sale.’ In the late 60’s, the Kremlin hired Ojamaa to create a series of commercials in which Soviet life was sold with all the integrity one would expect from the world of advertising. The Gold Spinners brings the hilarious realities of 50 year-old Soviet spruikers to Sydney audiences.

JODOROWSKY’S DUNE (USA, France; 88 mins; Dir: Frank Pavich)
It is considered one of the great missed opportunities in modern cinema; the pairing of surrealist maverick filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the vast vision of author Frank Herbert’s immense sci-fi novel, Dune. Filmmaker Frank Pavich pieces together, with the help of such luminaries as Moebius, Dan O’Bannon, the late H.R. Giger and Jodorowsky himself, a version of what may have eventuated if this insanely ambitious collaboration had materialised.

A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM (UK; 101 mins; Dir: Mark Cousins)
Mark Cousins’ ongoing obsession with the world of cinema (he compiled the landmark 2011 series, The Story of Film: An Odyssey) focusses in on the depiction of children onscreen in his latest work. The ultimate clip montage reworked into a moving, funny tribute to child actors, A Story of Children and Film sources 53 films from 28 countries, from much-loved classics (ET The Extra-Terrestrial; The 400 Blows) to barely-seen revelations (the Iranian tearjerker, The Boot; Astrid Henning-Jensen’s Palu Alone in the World).

SUPERMENSCH: THE LEGEND OF SHEP GORDON (USA; 85 mins; Mike Myers)
Comedy superstar Mike Myers (Wayne’s World, Austin Powers) makes his directorial debut with this biographical profile of one of Hollywood’s most charismatic talent agents, the legendary Shep Gordon (pictured, right; with the director at the Toronto premiere). Packed with superstar cameos and recollections from his most famous clients, Myers paints a portrait of a man who weaved a personal seam of integrity and vitality in a world of joyous hedonism and A-list indulgence.

JUNKED (Australia; 11 mins; Dir: Gus Berger)
In 2008, director Gus Berger (pictured, left) captured the formation of a British music mivement with his lauded doco, Duke Vin and the Birth of Ska. With Junked, it is the sad demise of traditional 35mm film projection at the iconic George Revival Cinema in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda that Berger’s camera captures with insight, affection and melancholy. One of Australia's great revival picture palaces held out in the face of the digital incursion into the exhibition sector; the Melbourne-based filmmaker was there as the reels of film unspolled.

Session information and ticket sales for all the screenings can be found at the Sydney Film Festival website here.

Paul Mazursky carved a unique niche in the contemporary Hollywood landscape. The writer/director, who passed away on June 30 in Los Angeles at the age of 84, was born into a Ukrainian Jewish home in working-class New York, his mother a musician, who gave recitals for dance classes; his father, a hardened labourer. That ‘art/work’ dichotomy infused his cinematic view of his world, from his beginnings as an acting student of Lee Strasberg to stints in stand-up comedy and finally a place amongst Hollywood’s A-list for over two decades.

In a career that spanned 19 films, he boldly tackled modern reworkings of Fellini (Alex in Wonderland, 1970), Truffaut (Willie and Phil, 1980), Shakespeare (Tempest, 1982) and Bergman (Scenes from a Mall, 1991). He has delivered one deeply personal work (1976s desperately undervalued Next Stop, Greenwich Village) and was not without his misguided follies (Columbia Pictures deemed his 1993 film industry satire, The Pickle, “unreleasable”). But more often than not, Mazursky’s words and images captured the zeitgeist, leading to some of the most caustic social satires and compassionate dramatic comedies in American cinema history… 

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Mazursky had directed the short Last Year at Malibu and penned the script (with co-writer Larry Tucker) for the Peter Sellers 1968 hit, I Love You, Alice B Toklas (Tucker and Mazursky had teamed on TV writing gigs, notably the pilot episode of The Monkees). For his feature directorial debut, he drew upon his experiences at a new-age communal retreat he had visited with his wife. The film, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, captured the tune-in/drop-out, free-love ethos of a rebellious America; it became a blockbuster hit (its US$30million gross equates to US$188million today), wowed critics (the esteemed Pauline Kael called it, “…the liveliest American comedy so far this year…”) and earned 4 Oscar nominations.

Blume in Love (1973) and Harry & Tonto (1974)
The enormous success of his debut gave Mazursky creative freedom, which he frittered away with the bizarre 1970 oddity, Alex in Wonderland (“…self-indulgent emptiness,” said critic Vincent Canby). After a sabbatical in Europe, he returned with two small-scale but insightful works that would re-establish his reputation. Blume in Love, starring George Segal, put a human face on the scourge of Me Generation America, the divorce lawyer, earning Mazursky a WGA nomination; and, Harry and Tonto, the touching story of a displaced old man (Oscar-winner Art Carney), his cat, Tonto and the road-trip they undertake to discover a country that casts aside its elderly in the name of progress.

An Unmarried Woman (1978)
Hitting cinemas with its themes of gender role redefinition and personal freedom at a time when American women were most vocal in the loud, proud fight for equality and independence, Mazursky had his biggest commercial hit ever with An Unmarried Woman. Starring Jill Clayburgh in an iconic, Oscar-nominated performance, the story of Erica and the reclamation of her spirit after her well-to-do Upper East Side marriage crumbles, became a social phenomenon.  Roger Ebert called it, “…one of the funniest, truest, sometimes most heartbreaking movies I've ever seen.”

Moscow on the Hudson (1984) and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
His ambition went unrewarded when follow-up projects Willie & Phil (1980) and Tempest (1982) tanked, but the country was reshaping itself. Gone was the ‘personal improvement’ mantra of the 1970s, replaced by the Reagan-era ‘red, white and blue’ patriotism that frowned on foreign influence and celebrated gaudy monuments to wealth. Mazursky refocussed his satirical eye accordingly - Moscow on the Hudson (1984) gave Robin Williams his best role in years, as the Russian musician finding the new America not the land of opportunity he was promised; and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), the smash-hit satire about life amongst LA’s vacuous elite, which rejuvenated the careers of Nick Nolte, Bette Midler and Richard Dreyfuss.

Enemies: A Love Story (1989)
Mazursky’s last truly memorable work was his sweet, ‘romantic love triangle’ comedy drama Enemies: A Love Story, adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel by the director and journeyman writer Roger L Simon (The Big Fix, 1978; Bustin’ Loose, 1981). The film failed to click with audiences, but the aging auteur’s love letter to the New York of his boyhood was one of his most critically acclaimed films (Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers said, “This is a stunning film, richly detailed and brilliantly acted”), earning Oscar nominations for the adapted screenplay and leading ladies Lena Olin and Anjelica Huston.

Life Itself, director Steve James' moving, insightful adaptation of the late Roger Ebert’s memoirs, takes its title from perhaps his most famous quote, “The only thing I love more than movies is life itself.” But falling afoul of his generosity was never pretty; the critic that cherishes the artistry of cinema is quick to deride those that fail to honour his lofty ideals. Just ask Rob Schneider…

Rob Schneider found fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live before a stop/start bigscreen career that included Judge Dredd, Down Periscope, The Animal and a regular support bit in a lot of Adam Sandler films as the guy who yells out ‘You can do it!’ Despite a fratboy fanbase that made minor hits out of The Hot Chick and The Benchwarmers, his leading man cred ground to a halt after 2007’s dismal Big Stan.

Schneider’s biggest hits were the Deuce Bigalow films, in which he played a worthless schmo who finds himself an in-demand male whore. Critics tore them to shreds, of course, none more so than Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times, who stated that the 2005 sequel, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (pictured, right), was overlooked at the 2005 Oscars “because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third Rate Comic.”

The admittedly nasty review was the final straw for Schnieder, who took out full-page ads in the daily trade papers blasting Goldstein’s own lack of award silverware. The comic pointed out that the critic did not have a Pulitzer Prize because they didn’t have a category for “Best Third-Rate, Unfunny, Pompous Reporter, Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers”.

What has all this to do with the late, great Mr Ebert? Well, as the critic himself often pointed out, Roger Ebert does have a Pulitzer Prize, for Criticism, which he won in 1975; he was the first film critic to be so honoured. Deciding to weigh in on the very public slanging match, Roger Ebert penned one of his most deliciously caustic commentaries, elegantly stating, “As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize,” before concluding his review of the film with, “Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr Schneider, your movie sucks.”*

‘Your Movie Sucks’ would become the title of his follow-up book to ‘I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie’ (its title taken from Ebert’s lees-than-favourable take on Rob Reiner’s North), both bestselling collections of his most scathing reviews. As Life Itself continues to play to warm audience reception and critical acclaim, we are reminded of his witty but blistering rhetoric in these excerpts from the pages of his 2007 compendium…

Half Past Dead (2002; with Steven Seagal and Morris Chestnut; directed by Don Michael Paul).
Plot: A criminal mastermind sets in motion a plan to infiltrate a high tech prison to unearth a hidden $200million in gold, with an undercover FBI agent the only hope to stop the scheme before it is too late.
Said Ebert:  “Half Past Dead is like an alarm that goes off while nobody is in the room. It does its job and stops, and nobody cares.”; “Seagal’s great contribution to the movie is to look serious, even menacing, in close-ups carefully framed to hide his double-chin. I do not object to the fact that he’s put on weight. Look who’s talking. I object to the fact that he thinks he can conceal it from us with knee-length coats and tricky camera angles. I would rather see a movie about a pudgy karate fighter than a movie about a guy you never get a good look at.”

Fantastic Four (2005; with Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba and Chris Evans; directed by Tim Story).
Plot: A group of astronauts gain superpowers after a cosmic radiation exposure and must use their new powers to fight the rise of their enemy, Dr Doom.
Said Ebert: “Are these people complete idiots? The entire nature of their existence has radically changed, and they’re about as excited as if they got a makeover on Oprah.”; “(The) really good superhero movies, like Superman, Spiderman II, and Batman Begins, leave Fantastic Four so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in some of the same theatres.”

Be Cool (2005; with John Travolta and Uma Thurman; directed by F Gary Gray)
Plot: Disenchanted with the movie industry, Chilli Palmer re-invents himself in the music biz and woos the widow of a big-deal record executive.
Said Ebert: “Be Cool becomes a classic species of bore; a self-referential movie with no self to refer to. One character after another, one scene after another, one cute line of dialogue after another, refers to another movie, a similar character, a contrasting image or whatever. The movie is like a bureaucrat who keeps sending you to another office.”

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004; with Milla Jovovich; directed by Alexander Witt)
Plot: Our heroine awakes to find her surrounds infested with monsters and zombies and must escape before all is destroyed by a nuclear missile.
Said Ebert: “Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children.”

The Hills Have Eyes (2006; with Ted Levine an Kathleen Quinlan, directed by Alexandre Aja)
Plot: An all-American suburban family detour into a deserted desert landscape where mutants hunt them for their flesh.
Said Ebert: “It always begins with the Wrong Gas Station. In real life, as I pointed out in a previous Wrong Gas Station movie, most gas stations are clean, well-lighted places.”; “Nobody in this movie has ever seen a Dead Teenager Movie, and so they don’t know 1) you never go off alone, 2) you especially never go off alone at night, and 3) you never follow your dog when it races off barking insanely, because you have more sense than the dog. It is also possibly not a good idea to walk back to the Wrong Gas Station to get help from the degenerate who sent you on the detour in the first place.”

*The long feud that ensued between Schneider and Ebert was laid to rest in some thoughtful correspondence that the comedia shared with Roger Ebert's widow, Chaz, which she reproduced in full on her blog page at rogerebert.com in October 2013.

Virna Lisi, the Italian actress whose career was both enhanced and hindered by her photogenic assets, has passed away in Rome after a brief, determined battle against an unspecified cancer. She was 78.

Born Virna Pieralisi in the picturesque central Italian seaside city of Ancona, she made her debut at age 17 in Carlo Borghesio’s 1953 melodrama, La corda d’acciao (The Steel Rope), having been discovered in Paris by producers Antonio Ferrigno and Ettore Pesce. Audiences were immediately captivated and Lisi found steady work - as the luminous Maria in Armando Grottini’s musical E Napoli canta (Napoli Sings, 1953); opposite legendary funnyman Toto in the anthology comedy Questa e la vita (Of Life and Love, 1954); and Francesco Maselli’s La donna del giorno (The Woman of the Day, 1956), in which she excels as ambitious model Liliana, who conjures a rape story for publicity only to have the consequences spin out of control.

However, these early career highlights were tempered by works that merely exploited her rare beauty, such as Mario Mattoli’s Le diciottenni (Eighteen Year Olds, 1955), an uncredited turn in Antonio Pietrangelo’s Lo scapolo (The Bachelor, 1955) and Alex Joffe’s broad comedy Les hussards (Cavalrymen, 1955). She turned to the blossoming world of television to further establish her acting credentials, taking on the lead role in the landmark 1957 mini-series ‘Orgoglio e pregiudizio’. The format would serve her well over the course of her career, with roles in such hits as ‘Una tragedia american’ (1962), ‘Philo Vance’ (1974) and ‘Beauty Centre’ (2001) as well as dozens of TV movies helping her maintain a high public profile.

A support role in Sergio Corbucci’s blockbuster historical epic Romolo e Remo (Romulus and Remus, 1961) and her potent presence in Joseph Losey’s 1962 erotic-drama Eve brought Lisi to the attention of Hollywood producers at a time when studios were unveiling a Monroe-like starlet almost weekly. But Lisi’s talent and craft was already well-honed and she was sought to co-star with many of the international industry’s top male stars - Jack Lemmon (How to Murder Your Wife, her 1965 American debut); Marcello Mastroanni (Casanova ’70 and Kiss the Other Sheik, both 1965; The Voyeur, 1970); Alain Delon (The Black Tulip, 1965); Vittorio Gassman (A Maiden for The Prince, 1966); Frank Sinatra (Assault on a Queen, 1966); Tony Curtis (Not With My Wife, You Don’t!, 1966); Anthony Quinn (The 25^th Hour, 1967; The Secret of Santa Vittoria, 1969); Rod Steiger (The Girl and The General, 1967); George Segal (The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No, 1968); William Holden (The Christmas Tree); Charles Aznavour (The Heist, 1970; Love Me Strangely, 1971); David Niven (The Statue, 1971); and, Richard Burton (Bluebeard, 1971, alongside Raquel Welch).

Virna Lisi was aware of the dangers of being typecast in the ‘exotic beauty’ role. She famously turned down Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, the international sensation that would make Jane Fonda a star, and bought out her contract with the United Artists studio, convinced the were withholding strong parts from her in favour of skin-deep support turns. She went to great lengths to challenge herself in often non-commercial fare, such as an early starring role alongside Gastone Moschin and Nora Ricci in Pietro Germi’s Signore & Signori, which would earn the Grand Prix trophy at the Cannes Film Festival. As she matured, accolades were bestowed upon her for Liliana Cavani’s Al di la del bene e del mal (Beyond Good and Evil, 1977), Alberto Lattuada’s drama La cicala (The Cricket, 1980); Carlo Vanzina’s comedy Sapora di mare (Time for Loving, 1983); and, Luigi Comencini’s romp Buon Natale, Buon anno (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, 1989). Her greatest triumph would come in 1994, when she was cast as ‘Catherine de Medicis’ opposite Isabelle Adjani’s titular monarch in Patrice Chereau’s La reine Margot (Queen Margot); the role would earn Lisi honours at Cannes (Best Actress) and France’s Cesar Awards (Best Supporting Actress). She has been honoured with eight career achievement awards, including acknowledgement from Venice, Lecce and Taormina festival bodies.

She has largely worked in television since completing Christina Comencini’s 2002 Italian ensemble dram, Il piu bel giorno della mia vita (The Best Day of My Life), her dominant matriarch winning acting honours at the Italian Film Journalists Awards and the Flaiano Film Festival. Her final film, Latin Lover, reteams the actress with Comencini and is due for realease in 2015.

Married to architect Franco Pesci for 53 years (he passed away in 2013), Virna Lisi is survived by her son, Corrado, and three grandchildren.

Reflecting upon the cinematic year, I recalled not so much the movies I saw (681 in total, with thanks to the awesome Letterboxd site) but the lively discussions, heated debates and vast opinions I enjoyed with those I am fortunate to call colleagues and friends. So below you won't find my Best/Worst of the Year opinions (if you're inclined, you can find that here), but more a revisiting of the issues and events that left an impression upon me...

“Another round, bartender…”
In 2014, ‘Hollywood Blockbusters’ mostly resembled drunks in a seedy bar early on a Wednesday afternoon. There was the refined gentleman acting above his fellow patrons yet, deep down, fully aware he was the just like them (Captain America: The Winter Soldier); the increasingly haggard old broad (The Hunger Games: Mockinjay Part 1) who dragged along her innocent daughter (Divergent) for her first sip; the hulking, brooding boozer who threatens to erupt but mostly just mumbles to himself (Godzilla); the fading 40-somethings who loudly reminisce about the good old days when they were relevant (X-Men Days of Future Past; The Amazing Spiderman 2; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, top); the violent, obnoxious jerk who everyone hates (Transformers: Age of Extinction); the douche-bag hipster, covered in brand names, who gets less funny the longer he drinks (The LEGO Movie); and, the sad little nobody that no one talks to and most forget is even there (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit). But then there were the films who peeked into the bar, saw the worst that they could be and said “no”; blockbusters that instead developed vibrant, funny personalities (Guardians of the Galaxy; 22 Jump Street; Neighbors), serious smarts (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Edge of Tomorrow, above) and human, empathetic souls (The Fault in Our Stars).

Film Critics Can Make of Break Your Movie. Except if you’re The Babadook. Or These Final Hours. Or Tracks. Or Predestination.
Respected Australian critic Margaret Pomeranz had a lot to say in the wake of director/star Josh Lawson’s A Little Death (pictured, below) tanking domestically. Pomeranz, who called time in December on a 28 year career as the yin to David Stratton’s yang on the iconic At The Movies show (the pair; pictured right), penned an op-ed piece in which she took her peers to task for bagging the sex-themed rom-com (on which her son, Josh, was an EP). Toronto critics liked it (it had its US premiere there, so the festival mood was...festive), while Australian journos largely derided it. “(When) effort is made and talent is discernible, I think it ought to be acknowledged rather than have its undeniable flaws recklessly highlighted,” Pomeranz opined. It was an embarrassing outburst of self-serving personal opinion by Pomeranz; she has bagged innumerable films with one or two star reviews, most of them made with good intentions and plenty of talent attached, though few of them Australian (“I have become well-known for supporting Australian films, I've been accused of being too generous, of awarding half a star too many, whatever,” she deflects in her rant). It was one of the many bewildering contradictions in the piece. “What is it with Australian critics of Australian films? Are we setting the bar so high that no one can possibly jump over it?” she bleats. Well, Australian critics loved The Babadook, These Final Hours, Felony, Galore, Charlie’s Country, Tracks and Predestination; they mostly liked Healing, The Rover, The Infinite Man and The Turning. But shitty marketing and outmoded distribution strategies hurt them all. Pomeranz should have used her profile to force answers from decision-makers in the sector and worried less about the general opinion of a minor work in which she has personal investment.

No, television is not ‘The New Cinema’…
Television continued its highly touted ‘renaissance’ in 2014, which led many to declare that film would soon be dead in the water. Which is, of course, nonsense. Television is offering up some terrific entertainment, such as 2014 newbies Gracepoint, Broad City, Peaky Blinders and Olive Kettridge and holdovers The Walking Dead, Masters of Sex, The Americans and Orange is the New Black. But television, by its very nature, is bound by convention, from the 43 or 22 minute commercial framing to the very platform on which it is seen (no matter how big TVs get, they will always be ‘the small screen’). What has improved is the boldness of the writing; not the quality per se, just the themes and narratives being tackled by some of Hollywood’s best wordsmiths. But television can never mimic the scale and scope of cinema, the fully immersive sensorial experience, the all-consuming atmospherics. In his popular podcast, Bret Easton Ellis chatted with director James Gray (on-set of his 2014 film, The Immigrant; pictured, right) on the essential value of seeing films on the biggest screen possible. “The specialness of the event, of going to the theatre, with a lot of people, in a big room where you (eat) your warmed popcorn with the bad butter,” said an impassioned Gray, “well, that was amazing. I don’t think anything tops that. Certainly not watching it on my iPad."

The Booming Irrelevance of The Oscars…
Actually, that needs clarification. The Oscars circus is still crucial to the movie-making industrial complex. The award season madness, which culminates with the glitz and glamour of the Academy Awards ceremony, provides a point-of-difference for Hollywood’s marketeers, allowing them to cover their respective studios in the glow of socially redeeming, issue-based films, the kind that can make money without fast food tie-ins. The films need not be very challenging, very insightful or even very good; earlier this year, such earnest, average voters-bait as 12 Years A Slave and Dallas Buyers Club triumphed, while Her and American Hustle were elevated far beyond their worth to provide an element of ‘cool relevance’; in a few weeks, the vastly over-rated Boyhood, this year’s BIG issue-pic Selma and obligatory Brit contenders The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything will dominate the 2015 line-up; we can only hope Birdman (pictured, left), Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Nightcrawler brighten Oscars’ podium with their unique visions. Of course, I’ll clear my calendar to watch it live. 

Also, it just crossed my mind that...

Scarlett Johansson is in a very good place. From the fearless ferocity of Under the Skin, the lunacy of Lucy and the sexy, good-time physicality she exuded in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the actress (pictured, right) had a great 2014.

Shailene Woodley will be America’s next great film actress. Two big hits in 2014 (the franchise-starter, Divergent; YA phenomenon The Fault in Our Stars), a hotly-anticipated indie (Gregg Araki’s White Bird in a Blizzard) about to roll-out, and the lead in the new Oliver Stone film locked in, Woodley is on track for super-stardom.

Indie Horror is where it’s at! Studios have bailed on horror fans (Annabelle? Ugh, puh-leeze; Eric Bana's Deliver Us From Evil was terrible) but the independent sector delivered the year’s most memorable midnight movie-going moments with nerve-rattlers like Honeymoon, Starry Eyes, The Sacrament, How to Save Us, Oculus and Inner Demon.

Keanu Reeves is back. Not just because he was in the year’s bloodiest, most exhilarating action film, John Wick (pictured, left), but also because he handled with grace the wave of ill-will about his actually-quite-awesome flop 47 Ronin, took on the new technological paradigm of digital filmmaking as frontman on the doco series Side by Side and directed the martial arts bone cruncher, The Man from Tai-Chi (yes, 2013, but saw it this year).

Subtitles rule. Iranian Nami Javidi made his directing debut with the unnerving, compelling drama, Melbourne. Other foreign sector must-sees were Cannes favourites Leviathan and Winter Sleep; the dialogue-free social document, Manakamana; the 5½ hour Filipino drama, From What is Before; and, Ida.

And, from the desk of Amy Pascal. Change all your passwords, now.

Thanks for all your support in 2014 and have a happy and safe New Year.
Simon Foster, Managing Editor

Just how crowded is the film marketplace in 2015? In compiling this feature, Meet the Filmmakers had to cull the latest from James Bond; new films from Michael Mann, Guillermo del Toro, Robert Zemeckis and Quentin Tarantino; Pixar’s first theatrical title in two years; the final instalment of The Hunger Games franchise; and, Ah-nold’s return as The Terminator. As 2014 winds up, here are the 2015 films (with US release dates included) that are piquing our interest…

10. ANT-MAN (July 17)
News of Marvel’s latest was all the Internet could handle when director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz; Shaun of the Dead) announced his new film would be the comic giant’s niche cult-hero, Ant-Man (pictured, above). But when ‘creative differences’ led to his departure well into pre-production, fans braced themselves. The replacement – Hollywood journeyman Peyton Reed, best known for the cheerleader romp Bring It On; the star – Paul Rudd, a solid if safe choice who’ll be playing darker than his on-screen persona has ever allowed; ace in the hole – Michael Douglas, who stuck with the project despite the departure of Wright.
HIT/MISS – Guardians of the Galaxy gave Marvel Films the creative shot-in-the-arm it needed and if Ant-Man finds its own, fresh voice, expect big things. If it proves to be a ‘boardroom’ film, pandering to shareholders needs and playing safe, fans may revolt given the missed opportunity Edgar Wright’s departure represents.

9. PEANUTS (November 6)
The estate of the late Charles Shultz must be licking their lips now that the cartoonist’s iconic group of friends is getting the Hollywood 3D animation makeover. Charged with making 1950’s suburban kids relevant today is Steve Martino (the colourful, if a bit one-note, Horton Hears a Hoo!; the uninspiring Ice Age: Continental Drift). The comic strip ended a 50-year run in 2000, so the key under-10 demo will have to rely on Mum and Dad to upsell the backstory. The animation (as seen in the teaser trailer) finds an intriguing balance between old and new, but is it too cutesy in the Pixar era?
HIT/MISS – The potential for merchandising profits is too huge for 20^th Century Fox to drop the ball here. They will make sure it connects.

8. TOMORROWLAND (May 22)
In the can for over a year (it was originally slated as a summer 2014 release), Tomorrowland is Brad Bird’s latest, a filmmaker who has yet to put a directorial foot wrong (The Iron Giant; The Incredibles; Ratatouille; Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol). Despite its extended post-production period and high-profile leading man, George Clooney, the fact is very little is known about its plot; two teens create a device that can propel them through time and space in an instant, bringing them to the Utopian society of the title. Or something like that.
HIT/MISS – It’s Bird’s long-in-gestation passion project, and his instincts have been spot-on so far. Despite the difficulty Hollywood execs have selling a fresh idea and with the charming Clooney to woo the talk show circuit, it’s a hit.

7. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (May 15)
Dr George Miller’s reboot of his own iconic creation, the ‘Road Warrior’ lone cop Max Rockatansky, has travelled its own long, bumpy highway to its May 2015 release. Originally aiming for a 2014 slot, industry buzz suggested that the post-production period was going to be immense. Seems Miller (pictured, right; on location with star Tom Hardy) shot logistically daunting and wildly spectacular stunt sequences yet neglected that other crucial element – a plot. Allegedly, the mantra during the shoot was “We’ll fix it in post.” On-set tension was also cited; reports hinted at bitterness between stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.
HIT/MISS - Which will all mean nothing when Mad Max Fury Road opens to huge figures. It is yet another reboot, sure, but Max is an iconic film figure that crosses generational demographics. He will rule the early US summer landscape.

6. UNTITLED STEVEN SPIELBERG PROJECT (October 16)
Never underestimate Spielberg, the most commercially successful filmmaker of all time. His most recent film was 2011 Lincoln, a 2½ hour historical drama that would take an extraordinary US$182million domestically. Prior to that, he broke new technological ground with The Adventures of Tintin and survived the worst reviews of his career to turn Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull into a blockbuster; even the noble failure War Horse took US$180million globally. In 2015, he reteams with Tom Hanks, with whom he has crafted some of his best late-career work (Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can and, yes, even the unfairly-derided The Terminal) for a Cold War thriller that recalls arguably his best film of the last decade, Munich (pictured, left; the star and director on-set).
HIT/MISS – Hit, of course, but skewing older and dependent upon critical raves to breakout. With Joel and Ethan Coen supplying the screenplay and Hanks’ resurgence in full swing after Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks, the October release date pins it as an Oscar contender. 

5. JURASSIC WORLD (June 12)
Spielberg again, but wearing his producer’s hat for this fourth trip to an island of the coast of Costa Rica. Is it a sequel? Is it a reboot? Whatever; that kind pre-release analysis will count for nought when this drops June 12 and becomes one of the biggest films of the year. The unknown factor is director Colin Trevorrow, who showed great skill with character chemistry and gentle fantasy in Safety Not Guaranteed, but has no runs on the board in the blockbuster, effects-heavy, summer tentpole stakes. Trump card – Chris Pratt, in his first action hero role since Guardians of the Galaxy. And new-look dinosaurs. And Spielberg.
HIT/MISS – Come on, really?

4. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (February 13)
EL James’ literary phenomenon made the complexities of a BDSM relationship palatable and smoothly stylish to the masses. Converting that to the bigscreen will be a tricky task; no one is pretending these airport novels were Pulitzer-worthy, but they envisioned a world of intricate intimacies that built a big, passionate following. That could easily unravel when translated to a commercial film template (pictured, right; stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson). Perhaps fittingly, everything we’ve seen about the film to date – the young, pretty stars; the trailer; Beyonce’s contribution to the soundtrack – reeks of style over substance. Slotting the World Premiere for the prestige Berlinale suggests a high level of confidence in critic’s reaction, but that could backfire if the knives come out.
HIT/MISS – Will open huge, but word-of-mouth will be crucial. At best, it will set pulses racing and upscale audiences talking, ala 9½ Weeks or Fatal Attraction; at worst, it is this years Showgirls. Reports that multiplex audiences were giggling at the trailer is not a good sign; European filmgoers will probably wonder what all the fuss is about. Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho; The Canyons) pitched hard for the gig, but studio types found his take too raw (read; commercially risky).

3. THE MARTIAN (November 25)
His output has grown erratic, but news of a ‘Ridley Scott sci-fi adventure’ still quickens the pulse (pictured, left). This adaptation of Andy Weir’s cult novel posits Matt Damon alone and trying to survive all Mars can throw at him until his rescue craft arrive. Big plusses are co-stars Jessica Chastain and Kate Mara (in for quite a year, with her Fantastic Four reboot also pending). Next up for Scott will be the Blade Runner sequel, so here’s hoping The Martian will be a return to form.
HIT/MISS – Dunno. Scott is having a rough trot, with Prometheus, The Councillor and Exodus Gods and Kings all earning blah notices and mid-range box office; the last movie that took us to the red planet was the infamous John Carter; big, ambitious sci-fi films like Interstellar and Gravity divide opinion (though, admittedly, rake in the bucks).

2. AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (May 21)
All the gang are back, this time to take on James Spader’s bad guy Ultron in writer/director Joss Whedon’s follow-up to his own 2012 box-office behemoth. Expect more of the same city-wrecking, hulk-smashing entertainment, as only Marvel can deliver (over and over again, it would seem). New cast members Elizabeth Olsen (as Scarlet Witch) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Quicksilver) were hot when cast, but their blah chemistry as husband-and-wife in Godzilla may see them pushed into the background in all key art (Johnson is nowhere to be found in the latest trailer).
HIT/MISS – Early footage feels a little too much like those clunky, grinding Transformer films and the wheels will fall off this whole Marvel superhero tentpole trend eventually. But not in 2015 - this is a certifiable blockbuster.

1. STAR WARS: EPISODE VII - THE FORCE AWAKENS (December 18)
The teaser trailer broke the web, with 20million YouTube views on its day of release. Director JJ Abrams, a Star Wars devotee, further appeased fans by bringing in veteran scriptwriter Lawrence Kasdan, the man who penned The Empire Strikes Back. Casting news, whether new players (Daisy Ridley, Oscar nominee Oscar Isaacs, Adam Driver) or the return of old friends (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill), ran across all media, fan-based or not. Word is that the plot takes place 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, but no details have been forthcoming.
HIT/MISS – Invincible against any and all outside influences. Critical reaction, box office competition, the unpredictability of the weather – The Force Awakens is the four-quadrant event film of 2015.  

In hindsight, the Sundance Film Festival timed its run very nicely. As a new wave of American independent cinema was emerging, so to was the festival that would become synonymous with the freshest film voices. From its roots in the late 1970s as the Utah US Film Festival to its rebranding in 1985 under the guidance of Sundance Institute head Sterling Van Wagenen and chairman Robert Redford, The Sundance Film Festival has solidified its status as American industry’s premiere film event.

Few labels in the film industry carry as much importance as ‘Sundance’s breakout hit’. Best exemplified by the Sundance-inspired success of Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), each year a parade of indies vie to be the festival’s most buzzed-about new film. Directors who owe their careers to Sundance include Joel and Ethan Coen (Blood Simple, 1985), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, 1992), Kevin Smith (Clerks, 1994), Christopher Nolan (Memento, 2000; pictured, above), Behn Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2012), Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, 1992) and Steve James (Hoop Dreams, 1994).

Last year, the title went to Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, currently a frontrunner for several Oscar nominations. So which of the 2015 Sundance slate will be this years ‘Breakout’ film? MEET THE FILMMAKERS looks at five who might have the goods…

Slow West
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Rory McCann, Ben Mendelsohn, Brooke Williams, Caren Pistorius.
Director: John Maclean, Screenwriters: John Maclean, Michael Lesslie. (New Zealand).
A hardened teenager journeys across the 19^th-century American frontier on a romantic odyssey, with a mysterious traveller by his side and an outlaw in pursuit. Fassbender has both indie cred (Frank) and Oscar heat (12 Years a Slave), but needs to drive a hit film; Aussie acting might in the form of next-big-thing Kodi Smit McPhee (The Road; The Young Ones) and Ben Mendehlsohn (Animal Kingdom; Killing Me Softly). World Premiere

Call Me Lucky
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait (USA)Goldthwait is one of the most enigmatic directors working the US indie scene. With hard-bitten satire (Shakes the Clown; God Bless America) and found-footage horror (Willow Creek) already stamped with his imprimatur, he turns to politico-showbiz documentary with Call Me Lucky, an account of the life of fearless stand-up Barry Crimmins. The comic/peace activist/political satirist is seen through the eyes of those whose intellect and talent were affected deeply by Crimmins.

Racing Extinction
Director: Louie Psihoyos (USA)
Academy Award-winner Louie Psihoyos is not one to sugar-coat the environmental agenda of his films; anyone who has The Cove will attest to that. In Racing Extinction, the filmmaker/activist assembles a crack unit of investigators and infiltrators in an effort to take down black market operators, poachers and white-collar criminals exploiting the animal world. Docos don’t usually hit big at the box office, but The Cove became a cult hit in ancillary; the charismatic Psihoyos can put a sellable spin on even the most challenging subject matter.

Partisan
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Jeremy Chabriel, Florence Mezzara.
Director: Ariel Kleiman, Screenwriters: Ariel Kleiman, Sarah Cyngler. (Australia)
In what reads like a ‘Doomsday Hoarder’ spin on Joe Wright’s teen-assassin thriller Hanna, Jeremy Chabriel plays Alexander, a prized member of the young army being trained by Vincent Cassel’s Gregori. Having been raised to view the world through Gregori’s bitter vengeful eyes, Alexander hits puberty and begins to form his own views about the worth of civilization.  Cassel replaced Oscar Isaac (who bailed to star in Star Wars The Force Awakens); the Frenchman spent several weeks in Australia’s southern mountain regions for the tough shoot. A very high-profile slot for writer/director’s Kleiman’s debut feature. World Premiere

Last Days in the Desert
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ciaran Hinds, Susan Gray.
Director/screenwriter: Rodrigo Garcia.
The resurgence of faith-based films (Noah; Exodus Gods and Kings; Son of God) may bolster Last days in the Desert. Auteur Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her; Mother and Child) imagines a struggle between Jesus Christ and the Devil over the fate of a family in a remote desert settlement. After a few too many paycheque performances, McGregor is seeking out edgy, interesting projects of late; he double-duties here in both key roles, offering a version of Christ as an existential everyman discovering the strength of his own soulful resilience. Lots of press coverage everytime cinema reworks biblical lore; could click with upscale, nonsecular audiences. Garcia has been a critical darling on the edge of the director's A-list for a while and is due a hit. 

Z for Zachariah
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, Chris Pine.
Director: Craig Zobel, Screenwriter: Nissar Modi (USA)
Zobel garnered lots of polarising opinion for his last effort, Compliance; both Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) are as hot as they will ever be. Throw in Captain Kirk and the promise of smart sci-fi and Z for Zachariah - a post-apocalyptic vision about a lone young woman and the sexual politics that emerge when two male survivors stumble upon her – is rightfully one of Sundance’s hottest tickets.

Only a few short hours before the red carpet turns a muddy purple under the heels of Sydney’s sodden socialites (it has really rained this week), SCREEN-SPACE takes a last minute stab at who will take home an AACTA Award at tonight’s Oz industry gala event, to be hosted by AACTA ambassador Cate Blanchett (pictured, below; at the 2014 event) and actress Deborah Mailman… 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Nowhere is the paucity of well written female characters in modern cinema more evident than in this years’ Supporting Actress category. This in no way reflects on the nominees, who all gave fine performances, but closer inspection indicates that the material was pretty thin. Jacqueline McKenzie emoted her heart out in what amounted to about 40 seconds of screen time in The Water Diviner. Ditto the wonderful Susan Prior in The Rover; why she is not an awards-laden international star is incomprehensible given her talent and resume. It looks like two solid if slight comedy turns from Josh Lawson’s The Little Death will fight over this one. In a coin toss, Kate Mulvany over Erin James.
Who should win – Angourie Rice who, as the innocent swept up in society’s destruction, was the heart and soul of Zak Hilditch’s otherwise grim These Final Hours. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
No such luck for The Little Death here – ensemble players TJ Power and Patrick Brammall will cancel themselves out. Kudos to Robert Pattinson for his bizarre, brazen psycho in David Michod’s The Rover, but it was a performance that earned just as many brickbats as bouquets. Veteran Turkish character actor Yilmaz Erdogan (pictured, right) thouroughly deserves the trophy for his stoic, honourable defeated warrior opposite Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner. One side note – why isn’t The Mule’s Hugo Weaving in this race?
Who should win – Noah Wiseman, whose troubled, enigmatic, horrified character Samuel will rank alongside the kid stars of The Shining and Poltergeist as one of the horror genre’s MVPs.

BEST ACTRESS
What’s with all these acting noms for the raunchy sitcom vibe of The Little Death? Kate Box is making up numbers here. But a winner is much harder to pick from the remaining three nominees. If the night becomes a ‘Babadook Sweep’, Essie Davis will win and deservedly so. But Predestination has three tech awards already, so there’s a lot of love for Predestination, thanks in no small part the wonderful Sarah Snook. And there was a lot of early Oscar buzz for Mia Wasikowska’s transformative journey in John Curran’s Tracks…
Who should win – A tie is not out of the question; Davis and Wasikowska might split it. We’ll lean towards Davis (pictured, left). 

BEST ACTOR
The great skill of Russell Crowe’s performance in The Water Diviner is that he was able to rein in his movie-star grandness and play an everyman so convincingly. Did he make it look too easy, though? Damon Herriman is an industry favourite, but The Little Death won’t contest in this category (he should’ve been awarded for 100 Bloody Acres). The Rover’s Guy Pearce did his best Clint Eastwood and was very good at it. But with a Cannes gong and an APSA honour already to his name for Charlie’s Country, this is David Gulpilil’s night.
Who should win – David Gulpilil. 

BEST DIRECTOR
Rolf de Heer’s sublimely understated direction of his lead actor and friend in Charlie’s Country is superb, but the Best Original Screenplay award may be where his contribution is honoured. David Michod (The Rover) and brothers Michael and Ian Spierig (Predestination) have long, worthwhile careers ahead of them, but will take a back seat Jennifer Kent tonight. Horror is not always favoured by the high-minded who hand out industry kudos, but The Babadook is a superbly crafted, emotionally resonant work from an exciting new auteur.
Who should win – Kent (pictured, right), but Zak Hilditch for the end-of-days thriller These Final Hours can feel unloved given the category had time travel, dystopian future and fairy tale horror contenders front and centre.

BEST PICTURE
The lack of Best Director consideration will nix the night for The Water Diviner and The Railway Man; so too Tracks, though John Curran’s brilliant work was wrongfully snubbed. Charlie’s Country is a serious ‘actors’ piece, and will earn its trophy in that category. A week ago, The Babadook was a lock, it must be said, but Predestination’s slew of craft trophies may have tipped the scales back in in its favour.
Who should win – The Babadook.

The 4^th annual AACTA Awards will be held at The Star Event Centre in Sydney’s Darling Harbour precinct tonight.

At time of writing, several of the big Oscar contenders (Birdman, Foxcatcher, CitizenFour) had yet to roll-out internationally, so watch for those twelve months from now. Which is not to suggest there wasn't plenty of prime movie meat to chew on in 2014. SCREEN-SPACE swam against the current on some of the award season contenders (when will the rest of the world twig to the meandering mediocrity of Boyhood?) and got a glimpse of some of 2015's cinematic surprises (watch for Jason Trost's chilling How to Save Us). Settling on a subjective, occasionally indulgent, Top 10 of 2014 (in no particular order) was not easy, given the wealth of wonderful work world cinema had to offer...

NIGHTCRAWLER
Writer/director Dan Gilroy’s glistening, ghoulish vision of Los Angeles’ and the immoral hunger for fame and fortune it inspires proves every bit as potent and disturbing as past LA-noir classics Chinatown and The Player. As the skeletal sociopath Lou Bloom, whose predatory instincts and myopic ambition know no boundaries, Jake Gylenhaal (pictured, above) embodied dark dreaming and feverish insanity to create the perfect American psycho.

FROM WHAT IS BEFORE (Mula sa kung ano ang noon)
The societal structure of a small coastal barrio unravels to chilling, heartbreaking effect in Lav Diaz’s dreamlike political allegory, From What is Before. Non-festival crowds will find the film (if they find the film) particularly challenging – a monochromatic masterpiece, the narrative (set on the eve of Ferdinand Marcos’ imposition of martial law in 1972) unfolds over five-and-a-half-hours in regional Filipino dialect, albeit with mesmerising artistry.

HONEYMOON
Newlyweds Harry Treadaway and the wonderful Rose Leslie find their idyllic post-ceremony holiday devolving into a tortuous psychological fight against unknown forces, both external (what is that beam of light in the darkness?) and from within (“You taste the same, but you’re different.”) The leads bring a crucial humanity to this classic ‘cabin-in-the-woods’ horror premise, just one of many tropes deconstructed in Leigh Janiak’s paranoid, nerve-shredding, slow-burn directorial debut.

THE BABADOOK
As the increasingly fragile single mum desperately clinging to her sanity while her son conjures to life his own dark fantasies, Essie Davis delivers one of the great pieces of horror film acting in Australian auteur Jennifer Kent’s instant boogeyman classic. Steadily building a word-of-mouth reputation that strengthens with every viewing; Noah Wiseman's terrified, disturbed, courageous Samuel deserves a place alongside The Shining's Danny and Poltergeist's Carol-Anne as one of the great horror genre child characters.

TRACKS
The unforgiving landscape of Australia’s outback, captured with an artist’s eye by DOP Mandy Walker, is no match for the unyielding strength of spirit that drove lone explorer Robyn Davidson in her cross-continental journey. John Curran explores the pain and perseverance of one of Australia’s unsung heroines; Mia Wasikowska (pictured, right) embodies it in an unforgettable portrayal as the driven heroine (a coveted part that, at various stages of this daunting shoot’s long development, was attached to Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan and Cate Blanchett).

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Wes Anderson finally silenced his detractors with The Grand Budapest Hotel, a frantic, fabulous farce that danced between light and dark amidst the most beautiful set design of the year. Heading an all-star cast of perfectly employed blink-and-miss-them cameos is Ralph Fiennes (pictured, left; with co-star Tony Revolori) as the wonderfully immoral concierge M. Gustave, Anderson’s most idiosyncratic and lovable ne’er-do-well lead character to date, in the comedic performance of the year (yes, that Ralph Fiennes).

THE DARK HORSE
The great New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis (pictured, right) gives a masterclass in character acting in The Dark Horse, James Napier Robinson's account of troubled chess-champion Genesis ‘Gen’ Potini. From Gisborne’s mean streets and its unforgiving maori gang culture springs a story of family values, achieving goals and shaping destinies. A tough, strikingly-shot film that earned Curtis the Asia Pacific Screen Award trophy for Best Actor, his leading man looks shed for full immersion as the chipped-tooth, overweight, bald bipolar sufferer.

THE IMMIGRANT
If film award ceremonies actually reflected critical opinion, Marion Cotillard would be short-odds favourite for most Best Actress trophies in the weeks ahead (at time of writing, she had just one, from the New York Film Critics Circle). Some would be for the Dardennes Brothers stirring Two Days, One Night; most would be for James Gray’s sweeping, personal and criminally underseen epic, The Immigrant, in which she plays a new American swept up into a life of exploitation and heartbreak the minute she steps off the boat. A majestic work that soars as both an emotional journey and a grand production, it is the director’s masterpiece, a darkly-hued homage to ‘Old Hollywood’s vision of the American dream, as well as his leading lady’s shining silver-screen moment.

PADDINGTON
Writer/director Paul King’s adaptation of Michael Bond’s children’s books takes all that was endearing about the adventures of the little bear ‘from darkest Peru’ and crafts a giddy gem of heightened whimsy and magical movie moments. Great comic turns by Hugh Bonneville and the wonderful Nicole Kidman as the treacherous taxidermist out to stuff our hero are second only to Paddington himself, a CGI-creation (voiced by Ben Whishaw) with more heart and personality than just about every actor working today.

MELBOURNE
Eliciting that ‘What would you do?’ response from audiences with gripping potency, Iranian Nami Javidi announces himself as heir apparent to countryman Asghar Farhadi with his stomach-tightening debut. A young couple (Peyman Moaadi, Negar Javaherian) are packing for their life-changing relocation to the titular Australian city when tragedy strikes. How they react – the decisions they rationalize, the secrets they are willing to keep – makes for gripping drama, the kind of cinema that has you uttering “Oh my God…” to yourself.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: John Wick, Under the Skin, Guardians of the Galaxy, Life Itself, The Fault in Our Stars, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash, Ida, Calvary, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr Moreau, Blue Ruin, Manakamana, The Raid 2, Stranger by the Lake, Goodbye to Language 3D, Edge of Tomorrow, Winter Sleep.