Call us a little bit cynical, but the modern Oscars circus is little more than an extension of the studio marketing arms. Each year, the bestowed-upon contenders are probably not the ‘best’ movies of the year, but certainly are the ones that serve the image and integrity of Hollywood’s corporate masters most succinctly. That said, the Oscars are still a blast, not least for us ‘industry analysis’ types. We indulge in long ruminations about who is going to win and why, as if we are privy to the back room dealings and long lunches that draw those left-field votes from the Academy members. We aren’t that inside, of course, but that never stops us from conjuring wildly hypothetical scenarios to support our prognostications. To wit, the 2015 SCREEN-SPACE Oscar Predictions…
BEST ACTRESS: Julianne Moore will take home this statue. It is impossible to recall when a category seemed like such a lock and will present the defining moment of the entire evening if she misses out (see also, J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette in the supporting player categories). On merit alone, it should be a much closer contest - Marion Cotillard gives the performance of the year in Two Days One Night, but no one saw it; Reese Witherspoon hit a new career-high in Wild; Felicity Jones was the Tom Cruise to Eddie Redmayne’s ‘Rainman’ and deserves any acting kudos far more than her co-star. Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike’s inclusion at the expense of Jenny Slate (Obvious Child), Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year; Miss Julie), Jennifer Aniston (Cake) or Essie Davis (The Babadook) now seems daft.
BEST ACTOR: Like Moore, sentimental favourite Michael Keaton seemed a similar ‘sure thing’ a few months back. But the race has tightened. American Sniper’s enormous success has seen Bradley Cooper surge; with no Best Director nomination and the adapted screenplay sparking credibility debates, this category may be the only opportunity to reward the surprise hit. Redmayne’s impersonation of Stephen Hawking pales next to the likes of Daniel Day Lewis (who won for My Left Foot) and Tom Cruise (nominated for Born on The Fourth of July), but he has the BAFTA and SAG trophies already in his cabinet. No Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel) or Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler) undermines this category, for sure. Hollywood will reward it’s own and give Keaton the gong.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY and BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Pundits will get some idea if The Grand Budapest Hotel is going to contend for a Best Picture win if it bumps Boyhood and Birdman in the Original Screenplay category. It will have certainly picked up some below-the-line honours by this stage, but will need this nod to maintain momentum; the recent BAFTA crown is a good sign. Foxcatcher is firming as the evening’s also-ran; Nigtcrawler should win, but won’t. Wes Anderson by a hipster’s whisker. Adapted Screenplay is most likely the last big category The Imitation Game can win, but that seems unlikely against American Sniper and The Theory of Everything. Inherent Vice is (fittingly) the rank outsider; would’ve been nice to see James Gunn’s smart, sweet reworking of the comic book source Guardians of the Galaxy get recognition here. The 2015 surprise may be Damien Chazelle (pictured, left) taking the gold for Whiplash. With five nominations, the film has a lot of love amongst AMPAS members; JK Simmons didn’t just make up those vicious, tyrannical rants. Whiplash in an upset.
BEST DIRECTOR Morten Tyldum’s understated, workmanlike job on The Imitation Game was fine, but not one of the year’s five best. Foxcatcher auteur Bennet Miller’s rigid, austere eye was much admired, but did anyone come out of that film exclaiming, “God, I loved it”? Wes Anderson will be rewarded with the Original Screenplay gong. That leaves arguably the night’s toughest split decision – Alejandro Inarritu’s giddy, bewildering, technically dazzling spin on the artist-as-a-tortured-soul, or Richard Linklater’s warm celebration of every-home Americana. For its widely publicised production schedule and his intensely personal conviction, Linklater will probably claim it. No, I’m not that enamoured with the meandering mediocrity of Boyhood or its mopey leading man, but everyone else seems to love it and Linklater has certainly paid his dues, so good luck to him.
BEST FILM: In such a tight year, it is inconceivable that any kind of ‘clean sweep’ will emerge. If Boyhood wins here, it will have three of the top slots (Director, Supporting Actress). Boyhood won’t be ‘that’ film. If Redmayne surprises in the Best Actor category, Linklater takes the directing honours and The Grand Budapest Hotel nabs tech awards, the highly-touted pre-ceremony frontrunner Birdman may be shutout. Frankly, I can’t see that happening. Both the critics and the creative community adored Inarritu’s vision; that warmth will carry it to Best Picture glory in one of the tightest races in recent memory.
For what it’s worth… Ida for Best Foreign Film; Big Hero 6 for Animated Feature; CitizenFour for Doco, and; ‘Glory’ from Selma for Best Song.
America's favourite go-to awards MC, Neil Patrick Harris (pictured, below) will usher in the 87th annual Academy Awards in a matter of moments. From the Dolby Theatreon Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue, the 2015 Oscars have weathered their fair share of controversy, but all that counts for for little more than monologue fodder come the big night. As the celebration unfolds, SCREEN-SPACE will be live-blogging all the evening's key moments as they happen - every award, every presenter, all the spontaneous craziness that comes when tense celebrities meet free booze. Bookmark and refresh the page for all the latest Oscar moments...
LIVE FROM LOS ANGELES' DOLBY THEATRE, THE 87TH ACADEMY AWARDS...
An uncharacteristically rainy LA welcomes the celebs. Red carpet chit-chat turns from the tension of the evening to how the downpour will affect the hair and dresses.
Harris' strengths as a showman launch into an ol'-fashioned song-and-dance number about the magic of cinema. He 'Crystals' things up by putting himself in the frame with classic film scenes of yore.
Anna Kendrick and Jack Black weigh in with some self-deprecating humour, that actually works. Then some dancing storm-troopers...wait, what?
Solid opening that gets the show of to a high-gloss, upbeat start. Uh-oh, now he's talking...
First presenter, Lupita Nyong'o, introduces the nominees for Best Supporting Actor.
WINNER: JK SIMMONS, WHIPLASH
As expected, journeyman actor JK Simmons (pictured, below right) proves a popular choice for Whiplash. Co-star Miles Teller is clearly happy for on-screen tormentor. Wife Michelle leads the thank yous, followed by his kids,followed bya plea to "call your parents." Nice touch. No industry acknowledgements in speech! Is that a first?
Silly diversion about Price Waterhouse Cooper and NPH's predictions. Move on.
Liam Neeson introduces the Best Pic nominee clips, for The Grand Budapest Hotel and American Sniper respectively. Full black tux-&-tie ensemble very dashing.
Dakota Johnson introduces 'Lost Stars,' Best Song nominee from Begin Again, performed by Maroon 5, fronted by the music-biz pic co-star, Adam Levine. Tight set.
Show yet to spark. Slick but lacking...
The actress from Anaconda and Captain Kirk step up for Best Costume Design announcement.
WINNER: MILENA CANONERO, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Presenter Reese Witherspoon weathers an awful pun and condescending hillbilly play-on to present Best Makeup & Hairstyling.
WINNER: MARK COULIER and FRANCES HANNON, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Coulier honours the late Dick Smith, revered makeup artist, in his speech.
Channing Tatum steps up to introduce winners of the Team Oscar search, young filmmakers whose 60 second films were chosen from hundreds of entrants.
NPH has a Travolta moment introducing Chiwetel Ejiofor who, with Nicole Kidman, present the Foreign Film nominees.
WINNER: IDA (Poland).
First Oscar trophy for Polish film industry from 10 nominations. Director Pawel Palikowska (pictured, below) blows off orchestra play-off to deliver first memorable moment of the night, thanking all his drunk Polish friends and honouring his deceased wife and parents.
Shirley Maclaine struggles a bit talking up next three Best Picture nominees, Boyhood, Birdman and The Theory of Everything.
The old 'crowd-walk' bit is saved by Steve Carrell's quick wit.
Marion Cotillard who, we are reminded by some twee play-on music, is French, introduces the next Best Song nominee, The Lego Movie anthem Everyting is Awesome. Andy Samberg and co mash-up song-styles to garish, gaudy excess. This is more like it!
Kerry Washington and 'the most well-adjusted former child star in the room', Jason Bateman, present Live Action Short Film contenders.
WINNER: THE PHONE CALL, Matt Kirby and James Lucas.
...and straight into Best Documentary Short.
WINNER: CRISIS HOTLINE VETERANS PRESS 1.
Viola Davis introduces the recipients of the 2015 Governor's Awards, presented prior to the ceremony. They were Maureen O'Hara, Hayao Miyazaki, Jean-Claude Carriere and Harry Belafonte.
Another crowd-walk, in which David Oyelowo is put on the spot. Ouch.
Gwyneth Paltrow introduces Tim McGraw, who gives moving rendition of Best Song nominee, I'm Not Gonna Miss You. The nominated artist, the great Glen Campbell, in the grips of late-stage Atlzheimers, is in the audience.
NPH, perhaps realising the show is a bit staid, drops trousers for Birdman bit before introducing Margot Robbie and Miles Teller, who present clip package of AMPAS Technical Awards evening. Looked like fun.
Star eye-candy continues with Chris Evans and Sienna Miller onstage for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories. First, the Mixers...
WINNER: WHIPLASH, Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, and Thomas Curley.
..then, the Editors...
WINNER: AMERICAN SNIPER, Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman.
Winners know where their bread is buttered, and thank Mr Eastwood first off.
A freshly clothed NPH introduces Jared Leto in silver-blue tux (yikes), who wins points for Meryl Streep gag (Her nomination is a condition of a California State Law, apparently). The Oscar goes to...
WINNER: PATRICIA ARQUETTE, BOYHOOD.
Arquette rips into a speech certain to cause much post-ceremony commentary, as she demands wage equality across the US for women and justice for the hard-working middle-class moms, such as her character in Boyhood. Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez and co-star Ethan Hawke rise to scream support. A powerful moment.
Best Song nominee Grateful, word and lyrics by Dianne Warren, from Beyond the Lights, stakes a solid claim for the trophy with a soaring rendition by Rita Ora.
Ansell Elgort and Chloe Grace Moretz front for Visual Effects category.
WINNER: INTERSTELLAR, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher.
Kevin Hart and Anna Kendrickdo some 'short person' schtick ahead of Best Animated Short announcement.
WINNER: FEAST, Patrick Osborne and Christina Reid.
Zoe Saldana and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnstone pony up for Animated Feature award; NPH says what everyones thinking, "Where's The Lego Movie?"
WINNER: BIG HERO 6, Don Hall, Chris Williams, and Roy Conli.
AMPAS president Sheryl Boone-Isaacs speaks loud and proud for freedom of creative speech and expression. "We honour the courage of filmmakers who cross borders and expand boundaries," she says.
New Hollywood gets a look in with 2014's breakout stars Chris Pratt and Felicity Jones, who step up for Best Production Design announcement.
WINNER: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock.
Some one needs to stop Adam Levine's gf from being on-camera...
Idris Elba and Jessica Chastain present Best Cinematography award. This will be telling. Another Budapest trophy could put a stop to Birdman's night...
WINNER: Emmanuel Lubezki, BIRDMAN.
Meryl Streep (pictured, below right) introduces the much-loved In Memoriam montage. She is clearly moved...
Mickey Rooney, Paul Mazursky lead the artfully rendered presentation. HR Giger, Anita Ekberg, Louis Jourdan, Gordon Willis, Richard Attenborough, Ruby Dee. A young Robin Williams...
Jennifer Hudson sings a tribute to the many we've lost. Not necessary, given the emotion of the montage, but fitting.
Naomi Watts and Benedict Cumberbatch remind us just how white the night is. They present the Best Editor honour to...
WINNER: Tom Cross, WHIPLASH.
Is the playing field changing re the Best Picture race? Whiplash and The Grand Budapest Hotel are building unexpected momentum. We'll see...
Terence Howard stumbles awkwardly (autocue problems; banging the mic stand) while announcing the remaining Best Picture nominees, Whiplash, Selma and The Imitation Game.
Best Documentary Feature category give David Oyelowo and Jennifer Aniston the stage time they deserved. And the Oscar goes to...
WINNER: CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, and Dirk Wilutzky.
Not for the first time tonight, NPH undercuts a serious moment with a stupid joke. After CitizenFour director Laura Poitras gives a poignant speech, the host smugly guffaws, "Edward Snowden couldn't be her tonight, for some treason." Geddit? Terrible. Is he ad-libbing?
Octavia Spencer intoduces John Legend and Common (pictured, left) to sing the Best Song nominee, Glory, one of only two categories in which Selma features. Rousing, heartfelt rendition; crowd rises for prolonged SO.
John Travolta and Idina Menzel get big laughs reliving last years 'Adele Dazeem' moment. John's a bit touchy-feely! They have the honour of awarding the Best Song to...
WINNER: 'GLORY' from SELMA, Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn.
Common rips into the night's best speech, uniting the world through the fight against injustice in countries everywhere. John Legend backs it up with his own impassioned words.
Scarlett Johansson, elaborately attired, fronts for what seems to be a tribute to The Sound of Music 50th anniversary. And they say the Academy is an anchronistic institute for old white people!
The job falls to Lady Gaga to make it relevant. This show DOES NOT need a Sound of Music medley tribute right now... In fairness, Gaga nailed it. 'The incomparable' Julie Andrews materialises and recalls the impact of the film. Seems the production number was a primer for the Best Original Score category (wasn't The Sound of Music based upon a stage production?).
WINNER: Alexandre Desplat, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL.
Great funnyman Eddie Murphy kicks off the Screenplay categories with Original work nominees.
WINNER: BIRDMAN, Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo
Alejandro takes centre stage, likely aware Linklater has firmed as favourite for the Director award.
Oprah Winfrey glides onstage, to deliver Adapted Screenplay trophy.
WINNER: THE IMITATION GAME, Written by Graham Moore.
Moore uses the platform to encourage tolerance, truth and self-belief, opening up about his teen suicide attempt.
Shrugging off NPH's vaguely racist intro, Ben Affleck steps up for Best Director announcement.
WINNER: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, BIRDMAN
Genuine cries of shock as Iñárritu pips Linklater at the post. The Mexican is humbled before his peers, acknowledging the fellow nominees. Linklater's expression is one of "Oh, well..." SCREEN-SPACE has been open about its ambivalence to Boyhood, but it is a shame that Linklater may go home empty-handed.
Cate Blanchett primes the crowd for the Best Actor award. Keaton, Redmayne or Cooper in a shock..?
WINNER: Eddie Redmayne, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
Suddenly, I want to watch Tropic Thunder.
Matthew McConnaughey steps up to reveal Best Actress winner. Getting the feeling it will be the Year of the Afflicted in the lead acting categories...
WINNER: Julianne Moore, STILL ALICE.
Deserving and popular choice.
NPH returns to a running gag about his predictions, locked in box the whole show. It seemed silly four hours ago; now, with the big award pending and everyone's arse numb... well. Turns out its a bit, that doesn't really make sense. Best forgotten.
Sean Penn to announce the Best Picture. Can Boyhood salvage something...?
WINNER: BIRDMAN, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, and James W. Skotchdopole, Producers.
Cast and crew take the stage, each making sure Michael Keaton gets some moment in the spotlight. Given the mike, he says, "Look, it's great to be here, who am I kidding. This is great fun."
As is fitting for a Broadway legend, all of the seven films directed by the late Gene Saks were adapted from legit theatre triumphs. He gave legendary comedienne Lucille Ball her most famous bigscreen role in Mame, and guided Goldie Hawn to a Supporting Actress Oscar in Cactus Flower. But it was his collaborations with Neil Simon that have created his true legacy. In honour of the 93 year-old, who passed away on March 28, SCREEN-SPACE revisits the four films that Saks and Simon crafted, each one a vivid, loving and funny slice of East Coast mores and memories…
Barefoot in the Park (1967) After a hit run of 1530 performances under the guidance of director Mike Nichols, Barefoot in the Park served as the film debut for Saks and the second bigscreen outing for Simon (following After the Fox, the previous year). Robert Redford had become the toast of Broadway as newlywed WASP, Paul Bratter, the stuffed-shirt foil to his new wife, the free-spirited Corie (Jane Fonda). The film got lukewarm reviews (The New York Times said, “an old-fashioned romantic farce loaded with incongruities and snappy verbal gags.”) but audiences adored the chemistry of the leads; it grossed US$20million (converted, a whopping US$142million). Mildred Natwick, reprising her stage role as Corie’s mother, earned the film’s sole Oscar nomination. Still a date night favourite, it is nevertheless undervalued as timely commentary on the changing face of mid-60’s New York, when the ‘Greenwich Village boho’ lifestyle was rattling the establishment cage. Did you know…? – Redford’s stage wife, Elizabeth Ashley, was not considered for the film role, despite coming off a BAFTA-nominated turn in The Carpetbaggers. Actresses considered for the role included Geraldine Chaplin, Sandra Dee, Natalie Wood, Yvette Mimieux and Tuesday Weld.
The Odd Couple (1968) When Saks and Simon paired up for their second collaboration, few predicted that the The Odd Couple would turn into one of the biggest hits of the decade; the final US box office figure of $44.5million converts to a staggering $300million, making it Paramount’s highest earner of 1968 and topping the likes of Bullitt, The Planet of The Apes and Rosemary’s Baby (and not far behind the top-grosser, 2001: A Space Odyssey). Having played 964 packed-house performances between March 1965 and July 1967 (again, with Mike Nichols directing), it was going to be a challenge to open up the largely single-set staging to the bigscreen. Another hurdle was recasting the pivotal role of Felix Ungar, after Art Carney was not considered for the movie version. With Walter Matthau still on board as the slovenly Oscar Madison and Jack Lemmon now in place (in their second film together), it fell to Gene Saks to recapture the on-stage magic of Neil Simon’s buddy comedy. The script earned Simon an Oscar nomination and won him the Writer’s Guild Screen Writing trophy; Saks understated direction was harshly ignored, earning just a single nomination from his peers at the Director’s Guild. Did you know…? – The film broke several records during its season at the famous Radio City Music Hall, including longest single run (14 weeks) and highest gross (over US$3million) in the then 42-year history of the venue.
Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) Saks and Simon would wait four years before reteaming on Last of The Red Hot Lovers, a darker-hued comedy that showed the maturation of two storytellers willing to tackle the very contemporary theme of infidelity. The play ran 706 performances at Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre with the portly character actor James Coco as anti-hero Barney Cashman, a restaurateur in a lifeless marriage and determined to have an affair. Paramount had more faith in Alan Arkin as their leading man (despite his expensive flop Catch-22 only a year prior), his smooth good looks at odds with the hopeless, chubby lothario that Simon originally envisioned. The play’s temptresses (Doris Roberts, the Tony-nominated Linda Lavin) were also upgraded to the screen sirens of the period (Sally Kellerman, Paula Prentiss). Simon’s and Sak’s trademark ageing, middle-class Jewish spin on the sexual revolution didn’t play well with critics or audiences, already feeling dated despite only having premiered on stage a few short years before the film adaptation. Did you know…? – A union strike all but shut down location shooting in New York City just as Last of The Red Hot Lovers was getting set to begin filming. Despite Simon’s and Sak’s beloved NYC being central to the narrative, the production was largely shot in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.
Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986) 14 years after the lukewarm response to Last of the Red Lovers, Saks and Simon would reunite for a melancholy walk down memory lane in the form of the acclaimed Brighton Beach Memoirs. As middle age began to encroach on the pair (Saks was 65; Simon, 59), they pooled their collective memories into the autobiographical story of Eugene Jerome (Jonathan Silverman, replacing Matthew Broderick from the Broadway run) and the idiosyncratic family life of 1937 Brooklyn, an existence that influenced his passion for baseball, storytelling and pretty girls. Having directed and shared in the acclaim of the Broadway season, Saks’ adds his trademark flavoursome eye for location detail (aided by the wonderful production design of Stuart Wurtzel), crafting the warmest, most cinematic film of the pair’s oeuvre. Both the film and play took some stick for employing a rose-coloured rear view (Roger Ebert said, “Simon and Saks should have taken some chances and cut closer to the bone.”) but neither apologised for the warm sentimentality and loving embrace they showed in recounting those awkward ‘teenage manhood’ years. Blythe Danner is a standout as the extended clan’s matriarch. Did you know…? – Despite winning a Tony for playing Eugene in the initial stage run of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Matthew Broderick passed on the film version when the shooting schedule clashed with his lead role in John Hughes’ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Broderick would, however, play Eugene in the film version of Simon’s sequel, Biloxi Blues, opposite Christopher Walken.
From Chevy Chase, Jon Stewart and Craig Ferguson to Jimmy Fallon, Martin Short and Whoopi Goldberg, the ‘Chair Behind the Desk’ late-night hosting gig has seen a great many talented talkers ease the sting of fickle fame with a shot at chat show popularity. But one man reversed the big-to-small screen stigma, melding television immortality and movie stardom.…well, sort of. Remember David Letterman in Cabin Boy…?
Adam Resnick and Chris Elliott connected as staff writers on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman in the late 1980s. Integral to the core creative team, the caustic Resnick and off-kilter Elliott befriended the notoriously prickly but comedy-savvy ex-weatherman, who was being groomed for the chair left empty by the great Johnny Carson. But when sly manoeuvring by rival Jay Leno infamously robbed Letterman of that spot, the Indiana native downed tools and took some months off to rework the format for a new employer, CBS.
As the high-profile ‘War for Late Night’ was unfolding, Resnick (picture, right; on The Late Show in 2014) and Elliott watched the fate of their old boss from afar, having decamped to LA. They produced two seasons of Fox’s bewildering comedy series Get A Life, described by one critic as an ‘anti-sitcom’; Resnick’s unique comic perspective attracted the likes of Charlie Kaufman and Bob Odenkirk, while Elliott upped his Hollywood profile with acting gigs in The Abyss, New York Stories and Groundhog Day.
The time was right for the writing duo to graduate to feature films. From their off-centre chemistry sprang a starring vehicle for Elliott, a weird re-imagining that combined elements of MGM’s 1937 adventure Captain’s Courageous and the Greek epic poem, The Odyssey. The pitch found favour with the Disney offshoot, Touchstone Pictures; for the mini-studio, the key factor was the chance to secure the services of the pair’s script collaborator, Tim Burton.
"Disney was sort of kissing (Burton's) ass at the time because they wanted him to make a deal there," Resnick told a packed Q&A audience in 2005. "(The film) would’ve been great, if Tim had gone through with it. But he changed his mind at the last minute." The proposed budget of $40million took a hit without Burton’s marquee name; Touchstone now wanted the same script shot for $10million. Meanwhile, the studio fostered Burton’s pet project, Ed Wood, while the director was also working on Cabin Boy. Said a circumspect Resnick in 2012, “I don’t like to disparage the people that were involved…” (Pictured, left; Burton on the set of Ed Wood).
Burton’s eleventh-hour departure did not halt production, with Resnick taking on directing duties. The shooting script followed an uppity ‘Fancy Lad’ who mistakenly boards a rustic vessel, The Filthy Whore, and finds himself at sea with a band of gruff seamen (Brion James, Brian Doyle-Murray and James Gammon), a dim-witted swabby (future Conan O’Brien offsider, Andy Richter), mythical creatures (Ann Magnuson’s randy Octo-woman; Russ Tamblyn’s half-shark/half-man) and a pretty long-distance swimmer (Melora Walters).
“My immediate reaction was, ‘I don’t know how to direct a fucking movie,’ (and) I said no,” Resnick told Splitsider in 2014. “But then all the chatter started. ‘Don’t worry, Adam, we’ll surround you with good people’ and my agents (saying) ‘Do you know how many people would kill for this chance?” In a 2014 interview with The AV Club, the director recalls, “If I were going to direct my first movie, Cabin Boy would be the last sort of thing I’d come up with. It was written for Tim’s sensibility.” The finished film would become the stuff of Hollywood nightmares; debuting January 7, 1994, on a weekend when ice storms shut down much of the US East Coast, and with a tidal wave of negative press crashing against its bow, Cabin Boy sputtered to less than $4million at the US box office. What was once touted as Tim Burton’s follow-up to Batman Begins now seemed destined for movie oblivion…
But one incredible stroke of good fortune had befallen Resnick and Elliot - the Cabin Boy shoot had taken place when David Letterman was between his talk-show commitments. It would be in those fateful few weeks that their old friend agreed to film a cameo as ‘Old Salt in Fishing Village.’ As Fancy Lad wanders a seedy coastal village, Letterman’s cigar-chomping stall owner offers the greeting, “Well, well, well, what’s on your mind, little girl?” After several awkward platitudes and off-colour observations (“You remind me of my sister, Sally. She’s a dietician.”), Letterman brings all his character actor finesse to a line reading that would seal his place in the annals of cinema history…
“Hey, would you like to buy a monkey?
“Adam and I were both really so lucky that Dave agreed to do it,” Elliott told Vulture.com. It is the only character part that Letterman has on his IMDb page, despite being listed in the end credits as ‘Earl Hofert.’ The short scene, barely a minute long, became fuel for Letterman’s caustic brand of self-effacing comedy, with references turning up many times as part of his iconic ‘Top 10 List’ (Top 10 Things Overheard at the Academy Awards - No. 9: If this goes well, I hear they'll offer Whoopi Cabin Boy 2; Top 10 Cool Things About Winning an Academy Award - No. 9: Might get offered the lead in the sequel to Cabin Boy).
When David Letterman hosted the 67th Academy Awards in 1995, the notoriety of Cabin Boy and the profile that he had afforded his ill-fated bit part meant it was right for skewering on Hollywood’s biggest stage. Despite the professional and personal battering Resnick took following the film’s failure (he told The AV Club, “I never wanted to direct again. I didn’t have the strength to endure that level of failure and embarrassment.”), the director agreed to oversee a short that would air during the Oscar broadcast, in which some of cinema’s biggest stars reveal their Cabin Boy auditions.
The Cabin Boy creative team have both restored their tarnished reputations. Elliott would become a TV regular with recurring roles on Saturday Night Live and Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as scene-stealing turns in There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin and the soon-to-be-released The Rewrite, opposite Hugh Grant. Resnick rose to co-executive producer on the highly-acclaimed The Larry Sanders Show and penned the John Travolta/Lisa Kudrow vehicle, Lucky Numbers, and the dark Edward Norton comedy, Death to Smoochy; in 2014, he published his memoirs, Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation.
Even their much-maligned debut feature has experienced a resurrection of sorts, with screenings and Q&A events filled to capacity with fans for whom the fresh insanity and bizarre tone of Cabin Boy represents a period of studio experimentation long since gone. “We’ve grown fonder of it over time,” says Resnick. “It’s kind of unique; it’s its own little strange thing. And there are people out there who really like it.”
The Late Show airs its final episode on May 20; Cabin Boy is available to Australian readers via Touchstone (Aust) YouTube channel
“I'm a white male aged 18 to 49! Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.” – Homer Simpson.
Vocal sections of the Men’s Rights activism community have been bleating about the heroic central roles that women play in George Miller’s Mad Max Fury Road (no, I won’t provide links). As a director, Miller has always favoured strong female characters and attracted top-tier actresses to his all-to-rare projects (Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Witches of Eastwick; Sarandon again, in Lorenzo’s Oil). Most importantly, what the MRA knuckle-draggers fail to realise is that powerful female characters have always been central to his Aussie action franchise. (WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD)
Pictured, above; Star Charlize Theron with Mad Max Fury Road director, George Miller.
MAD MAX Joanne Samuel (Jessie; pictured, right, with Gibson). Mel Gibson’s Max Rockatansky barely raised an eyebrow when Charlie copped a saucepan in the throat. When his best mate Goose got cooked, he had a hospital freak-out but began coping by taking some time off work (“Any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, you know?” Max says to his burly boss, Fifi.) But Max only went full-tilt ‘mad’ when they took his Jessie. The epitome of 70’s feminism strength and hippy loveliness, Joanne Samuel’s Jessie was the all-powerful feminine yin to Max’s borderline psychopathic yang. The ‘Mad Max’ we know today only exists because he was denied a strong woman counterpoint. As the clip below suggests, nor would you want to mess with the great Sheila Florence's gun-toting May Swaisey. So convincingly did Gibson embody the ‘unhinged widower’, he adapted the character into all his other career-defining roles – Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon series, William Wallace in Braveheart, and Reverend Hess in Signs.
MAD MAX 2 Virginia Hey (Warrior Woman); Arkie Whitley (The Captain’s Girl; pictured, right). The decimated wasteland of Miller’s amped-up sequel is ruled by leather-clad boy-gangs, lead by The Humungus (Kjell Nilsson). Women walk amongst them, but exist only to serve their crude, misogynistic lustings; the sole, sordid glimpse offered of a woman’s lot amongst the marauders is when a captured envoy is gang-raped. But when Max enters the more civilised realm of the refinery community, women characters emerge as strong, intelligent leadership types. Most notably, Virginia Hey’s towering action-heroine presence as Warrior Woman (clearly a foreshadowing of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa in Fury Road); and, Arkie Whitley’s nurturing, hopeful earth-mother, The Captain’s Girl.
MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME Tina Turner (Aunty Entity; pictured, below); Helen Buday (Savannah Nix); Justin Clarke (Anna Goanna); Tushka Bergen, Emily Stocker, Sandie Lillingston (Guardians). In Miller’s third instalment, a woman not only takes a central role for the first time in the franchise but is also afforded the coveted ‘villain’ part. As the overseer of Bartertown, Tina Turner’s Aunty Entity is to the post-apocalyptic enclave as Gordon Geeko was to Wall Street – a decadent, ungrateful wallower in trappings of wealth manufactured by the hardship of the those below her (As she says, “I’m up to my armpits in blood and shit.”) The director adorns Turner with an MTV-noirish ambience; just as the biker bad-boys of Mad Max 2 were manifestations of base male urgings, Aunty Entity is female sexuality at its most alluringly dangerous. Post Bartertown, Max is escorted to a place of social and spiritual rebirth, aka ‘The Green Gorge,’ by Helen Buday’s Savannah Nix; borne of dreams and perpetuated by mythology, it is populated by the innocent and nurtured by Justine Clarke’s angelic Anna Goanna. This is the New World, a place fresh in formation, yet forging a new dialect steeped in tradition (“We knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it”). For Max, this is as close to the future that a life with Jessie once promised; though unclear to his damaged self at first, he has already chosen this path. Fittingly, Gibson’s tenure as the character ended amongst women and children, whom he both saves and who save him.
MAD MAX FURY ROAD (again, spoilers) Charlize Theron (Imperator Furiosa; pictured, below); Zoe Kravitz (Toast the Knowing); Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (The Splendid Angharad); Riley Keough (Capable); Abbey Lee (The Dag); Courtney Eaton (Cheedo the Fragile); Megan Gale (The Valkyrie); Melita Jurisic, Gillian Jones, Joy Smithers, Antoinette Kellermann, Christina Koch (The Vuvalini). The world promised by The Keepers of The Green Gorge did not pan out, yet the pseudo-English language seems to have stuck. Could the descendants of Anna Goanna’s tribe have survived as The Vuvalini? Is the fabled land sought by Theron’s Imperator Furiosa conjured from memories of The Green Gorge? The mythology reinforces a narrative arc that brings Tom Hardy’s incarnation of Max back under life-reaffirming feminine ideals and fulfils his messianic role as ‘Captain Walker.’ It also ensures his righteous passage through the carnage of Fury Road and strengthens Miller’s thematic positioning of women as the keepers of the future world. Is it just a coincidence that the stillborn child of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s The Splendid Angharad is a son, or does his passing suggest a patriarchal future is already doomed? One wonders how the MR whiners might react to such a notion…
What is a ‘reboot’? Some might argue that several of the films included in the list of seven below are ‘sequels’, such as Jurassic World, which references characters and settings from JP’s 1 through 3. But the ‘Jurassic Park’ brand (tellingly, not used in the reboot’s titling) was dated and damaged, as were The Terminator, Vacation and Fantastic Four franchises. True sequels, such as Magic Mike XXL, Pitch Perfect 2 and Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation, rode on the back of relatively recent, blockbuster instalments. A ‘reboot’ must regenerate interest in a moribund property; for a ‘sequel’, the hard work is already done.
So, as the US summer winds down, it is time to analyse which of the bigscreen rebrandings American moviegoers embraced and which failed the reboot test. (All figures in US$s as of 8/27; source – Box Office Mojo).
JURASSIC WORLD (June 12) A dark cloud hung over a reboot’s theatrical prospects after Joe Johnston’s 2001 three-quel (despite its global gross of $370million). But the Jurassic Park brand has always been a cash-cow for Universal; home video, merchandising and a 2013 3D re-issue of Spielberg’s original kept that famous logo and all the associated thrills alive across a generation. Colin Trevorrow’s 2015 version garnered mixed reviews (Ed – One 2015’s worst films) but was the box office behemoth the filmmakers (and studio moneymen) anticipated. Rebooted? Oh, yeah! Debuted at #1 in 69 international territories, earning box office records for the biggest opening weekend of all time domestically, internationally and globally; it only took a record 13 days to reach $1billion worldwide. The first sequel is slated for June 22, 2018. Domestic - $639.6million; B.O. position - #1.
MAD MAX FURY ROAD (May 15) Delayed, then delayed again; reported friction between stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron; industry speculation that director George Miller’s remote shoot yielded hours of plotless visuals. Then, the trailer dropped, and the Internet went wild. Warner Bros spin doctors have already started the Oscar nomination buzz, citing Mad Max Fury Road as a type of transcendent enigma – the operatic R-rated action epic so vast in scale and ambition, the Academy dare not ignore it. Rebooted? Certainly. But Fury Road was the culmination of a career-spanning vision; it seems unlikely Miller will turn around a quickie sequel. Plus Warners will be more circumspect about budgeting next time around; despite the buzz, opened at 3702 theatres for an ok $45.5million. The week before release, the suits would have projected a late summer total closer to $200million. The $220million global revenue is what will keep Max mad. Domestic - $152million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #9
TERMINATOR GENISYS (July 1) ‘What-just-happened?’ plotting, disregard for franchise canon and that ridiculous title were just some of the major miscalculations star Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Alan Taylor made in trying to breathe life and energy into the Terminator tradition. All that was lean and thrilling about James Cameron’s first instalment is all but gone in a clunky time-travel storyline that ground the film to a halt far too often. The stink spread quickly amongst Arnie’s US fanbase, who stayed away in droves… Rebooted? …while international fans backed the Austrian Oak’s return to the Cyborg character to the tune of $263.6million (or 75% of its gross, and still counting). Whether the ageing action star will be back for a Genisys 2 may come down to foreign dollar involvement. Domestic - $89.1million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #14
VACATION (July 29) New Line Studios wanted us to believe that the four previous adventures of The Griswold clan were ‘beloved’ enough to warrant a reboot, and a vulgar, witless one at that. Star Ed Helms hasn’t found much love outside of The Hangover pics; here, he embodies a grown version of Anthony Michael Hall’s wise-cracking ginger Rusty from the 1983 original. Series veterans Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo are shoe-horned in. The Amy Schumer vehicle Trainwreck and Seth MacFarlane’s Ted 2 had left the R-rated comedy crowd fatigued by the time Vacation premiered. Rebooted? These comedies are relatively cheap, so a new raft of decreasingly worthwhile sequels may eventuate. Domestic - $52.4million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #18
FANTASTIC FOUR (August 7) From director Josh Trank’s Twitter tirade (“A year ago I had a fantastic version of this”) to star Miles Teller’s Esquire interview backlash to the mainstream media’s bloodlust box office coverage, Fox’s Fantastic Four became the cause celebre of summer movie scandals. An expensive and troubled production makes for good copy. Yet, despite the public flaying from all quarters, it crept into the summer box-office Top 20 and clawed its way to $50million, plus $80million from overseas. (Ed. – We liked it). Rebooted? Clearly, no. That said, should Fox turn over the negative to Trank and let him cut together the version he envisioned, perhaps give it limited engagements ahead of a home video push, it might be reassessed in a more favourable light. Frankly, what have they got to lose? Domestic - $50.1million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #20
POLTERGEIST (May 22) Despite being heavily web-tracked throughout its development, Gil Kenan’s reboot of Tobe Hooper’s 1982 suburban haunting classic was met with a resounding ‘meh’ by patrons when it landed early in the summer. The original impacted a generation of teen moviegoers, capturing the social and cultural zeitgeist; the reboot, toned down to appease a PG13 mandate, was wan and uninvolving. (Read the SCREEN-SPACE Review) Rebooted? Unlikely. Couldn’t crack $100million globally, suggesting only the ‘we’ll watch anything’ first-weekenders and melancholy 40-somethings were tapped. No chance the drawcard in the cast, Sam Rockwell (pictured, above), will reprise a role he seemed bored with the first time around. Domestic - $47.4million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #22
HITMAN AGENT 47 (August 21; trailer, below) Aleksandr Bach’s rebooting of Xavier Gens very minor 2007 vid-game adaptation landed with a thud, the core demographic of young males prefering a second helping of surprise smash Straight Outta Compton. The third DOA franchise hopeful for 20th Century Fox this summer (behind Fantastic Four and Poltergeist); the Murdoch stable couldn’t crack the US Top 10, their biggest hit being the Melissa McCarthy vehicle, Spy ($110million; #11). Canned by critics, HA47 may spawn straight-to-vid sequels but the brands theatrical pulse has flatlined. Rebooted? No. Domestic - $9.1million; Summer 2015 B.O. position #39
Screenwriter and author Melissa Mathison passed away on Wednesday, aged 65, at the UCLA Medical Centre, having fought neuroendocrine cancer for several months. Her Hollywood experience was legendary; the political-science graduate from Berkeley befriended Francis Ford Coppola (she would babysit his young children) and became his PA during the production of The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now. Over four decades, six of her screenplays would transition to the big-screen (including a co-writing credit with Stephen Zito on Caleb Deschanel’s 1992 drama, The Escape Artist); at the time of her passing, her adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG (the third collaboration with Steven Spielberg; pictured together, below, on the set of ET) was in early post-production. Her work, filled with warmth, humour and honesty, will never be forgotten…
THE BLACK STALLION (1979; Dir: Carroll Ballard) Having worked as a TIME correspondent, Mathison was encouraged to tackle her first screenplay by Coppola, playing the mentor role. With fellow feature debutants William D Witliff and Jeanne Rosenberg, Mathison crafted the adaptation of Walter Farley’s novel into the first of her classic family storylines. Under the stewardship of director Carroll Ballard and visionary eye of DOP Caleb Deschanel, Mathison’s lean, spiritual tale of the desert-island friendship between Alec (Kelly Reno) and The Black Stallion has endured; in 2002, it was admitted into the National Film Registry by the US Film Preservation Board. Classic line: “’Cause this Black, he can outbreak ya, y’know? He can outbreak ya. You’d just be sittin’ in mid air.” – Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney). Says Mathison, “We all agreed the movie should be like a children's book, with just pictures. That's when I learned to take out the words, to tell the story visually, which is the best training there is." (LA Times; July 9, 1995).
E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982; Dir: Steven Spielberg) With John Sayles and Ron Cobb, Steven Spielberg had written a 99-page treatment called Night Skies, a sequel-of-sorts to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While in the midst of the action-movie mayhem that was the Raiders of the Lost Ark shoot, Spielberg met his leading man Harrison Ford’s girlfriend (and future ex-wife) Melissa Mathison. She took the script’s final scene, in which an alien is abandoned on Earth, and crafted a first draft, entitled ‘ET and Me’, in just eight weeks. ““It was a script I was willing to shoot the next day,” Spielberg said on the DVD commentary of the film’s 30th anniversary re-release. “It was so honest, and Melissa’s voice made a direct connection with my heart.” The writer’s first sole screenwriting credit would become the most successful film of all time and earn her an Oscar nomination. Classic line: “I'll...be...right...here.” – E.T. Says Mathison, “In 1982, I was not yet a parent, but I was a stepmother, and had been a consummate babysitter and an older sister. The kids in E.T. can be directly linked to kids I knew. I even stole some of my little friends’ best lines: i.e. ‘penis breath.’ What adult woman could have thought of that?” (The New Yorker; October 3, 2012).
TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, Segment 2: KICK THE CAN (1983; Dir: Steven Spielberg) Working under the pseudonym ‘Josh Rogan’, Mathison adapted the original teleplay, ‘Kick the Can’ by George Clayton Johnson for the anthology reworking of Rod Serling’s cult TV series. Although it appears mid-film, it was the final segment shot during the troubled production. Following the on-set deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors while filming John Landis’ opening segment, Joe Dante and George Miller had shot their contribution; Spielberg, back behind the camera for the first time since ET, was tasked with delivering his special brand of magic in the tale of old folk literally rediscovering their youthful selves. Critics weren’t kind (the New York Times said the “rather ugly, sentimental comedy” was “inept in every way”), but retrospectively the narrative clearly captures Spielberg and Mathison at the most whimsical, least cynical juncture in their professional lives. Classic line: “Fresh…young…minds…” – Mr Bloom (Scatman Crothers).
THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD (1995; Dir: Frank Oz) Mathison’s first ‘family film’ in over a decade was an adaptation of Lynne Reid Banks beloved fantasy, in which 9 year-old Omri (Hal Scardino) finds a new friend in a tiny plastic Indian (played by native American actor Litefoot, of the Cherokee nation) that comes to life. It achieved middling box office upon its initial release but, like much of Mathison’s timeless work, has become a childhood staple for generations. Classic line: “You are always a great people, but it is not always so good.” – Omri (Hal Scardino). Says Mathison, “"If children are given some real content, they can feel powerful with their own understanding of it. I think a movie like 'Indian in the Cupboard' will instruct them how to proceed as people. They can think about whether they would have done something the way a character did, how they would have felt about an event in the story.” (The New Yorker; October 3, 2012)
KUNDUN (1997; Dir: Martin Scorsese) Director Martin Scorsese’s interest was pique when his then-agent sent him Mathison’s original screenplay, chronicling the early life and ascendancy of His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. “I read the script and liked its simplicity, the childlike nature of it,” Scorsese told Film Comment in 1998. “It wasn't a treatise on Buddhism or a historical epic in the usual sense.” A devout Buddhist, Mathison had spent time with The Dalai Lama at her home in Wyoming and worked through 16 drafts of her screenplay before the narrative became fully formed. Early screenings suggested it was an Oscar front-runner (it would earn 4 tech category nominations), but Disney allegedly stalled its marketing approach when Chinese officialdom attacked the film over their depiction. Classic line: “I believe I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.” – Dalai Lama (Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong). Says Mathison, “I think it's kind of pretentious or presumptuous to think that you could actually affect anything with a movie. Certainly, I hoped that people would be moved by this truth and maybe want to get involved on some level. I think when you set out to make a political statement through a movie, you're in big trouble.” (Hollywood Bitchslap; May 23, 1999).
Leaving the studio dross and multiplex clutter behind (we'll get to that soon), let’s consider the thrill of walking blindly into a film festival screening. You may have read the programme blurb, or liked the director’s last film, or heard some buzz from overseas. Or maybe you’ve just found yourself with an unplanned spare couple of hours. When you stumble on an unheralded gem, that wonderful sense of discovery that energises you…well, it’s why I do what I do. Below are ten films (in no order) that played the Australian film festival circuit in 2015, films that may still be searching for wider distribution, still working the international content markets or already available via various platforms, including self-distribution. Each proved a revelation, a little miracle of pure cinema…
JERUZALEM Screened at Jewish International Film Festival. The Paz brothers, Yoav and Doron, drag the Israeli film industry kicking and screaming (literally) into the found-footage genre with this end-of-the-world rollercoaster ride. Utilising the rich biblical influences of the region’s three key religions and working in the latest eyewear-camera tech with a fluid, sure-handed directorial touch, the young filmmakers relate the story of two American tourists (Yael Groblas, pictured above; Danielle Jadelyn) caught up in an apocalyptic uprising of demonic entities, as foretold in the scripture (or something like that). Frankly, logic be damned; the ‘shaky-cam’ moments are terrifying, the protagonists believable, the creature effects superb.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT CONCRETE Screened at Revelation Perth International Film Festival. “Shot on next-to-no budget over several years with friend and family non-pro actors in key roles, Stewart and Dohan have conjured a high-school classic; a ‘Gilliam-esque’ teen-dream landscape filled with giddy humour, sweet innocence and touching emotion…” Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review here.
RAIDERS!: THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE Screened at Sydney Underground Film Festival. Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos and Jayson Lamb were 11 year-old film fanatics when, in 1982, they set about shooting their wildly ambitious, passion-driven shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of The Lost Ark. In Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen’s doco, the men reunite to put everything on the line to get the one scene they were never able to conjure – the fistfight between a Nazi heavy and Indy under the whirling blades of a Luftwaffe flying-wing. The staging of the stunt is thrilling, of course, but it is the study in strained friendships and the corrosive impact of a creative dream unfulfilled that makes Raiders! such a bittersweet, emotionally resonant work.
A FIGHTING SEASON Screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival. Clayne Crawford (pictured, right, with co-star Lew Temple) gives a powerhouse performance in silent inner rage as the PTSD-afflicted infantryman returning to his forever altered small town life in Oden Roberts devastating drama, A Fighting Season. Tackling head-on such rich elements as military machismo, the shady ethics of military recruitment and the disassociation that ex-servicemen feel for the very society they were trained to defend, Roberts’ script addresses the neglect and loneliness that returning troops suffer through following repeated hot-zone deployment; Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker tackled similar issues, but with infinitely less honesty and insight. Read the SCREEN-SPACE interview with director Oden Roberts here.
THE SPIDERWEB HOUSE Screened at Melbourne International Film Festival. Mara Ibel-Eibesfeldt’s fantasy/drama tracks the disintegrating lives of three pre-teens left to fend for themselves when abandoned by their mother in working-class Heidelberg. Sounds heavy, and it is, but the lines between the harsh reality of an adult-free life and the collective power of the children’s imagination soon begin to blur. The result is a wondrous, if occasionally nightmarish fairy-tale vision of the strength of the human spirit and the bond shared between siblings during dire times. As the three kids, Ben Litwischu, Lutz Simon Eilert and Helena Pieske share a rare natural chemistry; they may be the year’s best acting ensemble.
BEREAVE Screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival. “Recalling Michael Haneke’s Amour in its exploration of fading memory, mature-age love and dwindling life force but played against the broader backdrop of the noir-ish LA sprawl, Bereave is an achingly insightful, darkly humorous, richly rewarding work…” Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review here.
ASTRAEA Screened at A Night of Horror/Fantastic Planet Film Festival. It was known as ‘The Drop’; the planet’s population all but extinguished in sixteen days by an unexplained natural occurence. Step-siblings Astraea (a superb Nurea Duhart) and Matthew (Scotty Crowe; pictured, right, with Duhart), somehow immune to the new death, have bonded in their struggle. Their journey of faith to find family in Nova Scotia leads them to fellow survivors, cousins James (Dan O’Brien) and Callie (Jessica Cummings), deep in the snowbound forests of Maine. Director Kristjan Thor melds desperation, humanity and survival instincts into a coming-of-age narrative that plays both deeply tragic and soulfully inspiring; earned Best Film honours from the Fantastic Planet strand of the festival.
SUNDAY Screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival. “With the cracked, crumbling façade of earthquake-ravaged Christchurch as a metaphorical backdrop, Michelle Joy Lloyd’s sad, sweet two-hander Sunday deftly explores the complexities of balancing the fantasy of youthful ‘true love’ with the realities of late twenty-something adult life…” Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review here.
THE VISIT: AN ALIEN ENCOUNTER Screened at Antenna Documentary Film Festival. Danish director Michael Madsen crafts a profoundly pondered, deeply intelligent and slyly ridiculous second feature with his gripping study in ‘What if…’ hypothesising. Having gathered scientists, philosophers and diplomats of international renown, Madsen poses the question, ‘How would we greet an alien visitation?’ The classic B-movie premise is afforded Mensa-level musings; Madsen’s pristine, high-gloss lensing adds to the (semi)seriousness. The result is a spellbinding piece of pseudo-factual filmmaking.
HELLIONS Screened at Monster Fest, Melbourne. Some critics carped the Canadian indie-cinema great Bruce McDonald’s latest was all homage, no real horror. And, to be fair, there are some familiar beats; the pregnant teenager (Chloe Rose; pictured, right) home alone on Halloween, tormented by wicked mask-wearers, has been done before. But McDonald, like fellow Canuck iconoclast Guy Maddin, is a student of cinema whose talent truly pulsates when he reworks well-established tropes. To wit, Hellions; his giddy, shocking, truly creepy journey down a rabbit hole to Hell and back again is both a disconcerting visual experiment (to accentuate the blood-red moon, much of the film is bathed in a crimson hue) and…well, a little nuts. In a good way.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: The Ground We Won, Tab Hunter Confidential, Palio, My Skinny Sister, H., Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, III, Goodbye Mommy, Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous, Black Horse Memories, The Horses of Fukushima.
Read The Year in Review, Part 2: Australian Cinema in 2015 here. Read The Year in Review, Part 3: Our Ten favourite Films of 2015 here.
With only hours left until we welcome in a fresh new year of cinema-going, here’s the final Best of… list you’ll have to endure. Chosen from the 545 films I’ve watched this year (it’s true; check out star ratings of every one we’ve seen via our Letterboxd page), here they are - The SCREEN-SPACE Ten Favourite Films of 2015…
10. YOUTH In the ironically titled Youth, Paolo Sorrentino explores the notion of wisdom, artistry and friendship; familiar ground for Italian director, the themes central to his 2013 stunner, The Great Beauty. If the auteur’s occasionally artful narrative proves testing, one can always bask in the stunning visuals; Youth is arguably the most beautifully lensed film of the year. Best bits: Jane Fonda’s acerbic cameo; Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel get giddy while sharing a spa with a naked Miss Universe (the majestic Madalina Ghenea).
9. CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA Like Sorrentino’s moody drama, Olivier Assayas’ finest work in years brings a bracing Euro-sensibility and vivid visual style to an exploration of how memory and melancholy work to redefine one’s later life. As the actress revisiting the seminal project of her career, a larger-than-life Juliette Binoche is warm and compelling; that Kirsten Stewart (pictured, right), as her insightful PA, matches her beat-for-beat is the film’s true revelation (earning the Twilight starlet serious new cred and a Supporting Actress Cesar). Best bits: Stewart takes command of a line reading for Binoche’s struggling diva; the clouds, snaking through the alpine valleys.
8. EX MACHINA The directorial debut of writer Alex Garland (28 Days Later; The Beach; Sunshine) melds moody chamber-piece/single-setting character drama with near-future AI super-tech. The result is a chilling, low-key, high-voltage cyber thriller that pulsates with dark humour and sexual tension; as the dream-girl android Ava, Alicia Wikander earned her ‘2016 It-Girl’ status with an iconic genre performance. Best bits: Oscar Isaac’s disco moves alongside Sonoya Mizuno; Ava’s breakout.
7. 99 HOMES Capturing that moment during the 2008 housing market crash when a ruthless adherence to capitalism took hold, writer/director Ramin Bahrani’s Faustian morality tale pits compromised everyman Andrew Garfield against the soulless might of financial sector hyena Michael Shannon. As the middle-class evaporates and suburbs become ghost towns, the dark heart of the crumbling American empire is exposed with a fierce clarity in this Wall Street for the new millennium. Best bits: That first eviction; “America doesn’t bail out losers. America was built by bailing out winners.” Read the SCREEN-SPACE interview with director Ramin Bahrani here.
6. THE AGE OF ADALINE “Krieger’s vivid, melancholic melodrama emerges as a major work in the tough-to-pull-off ‘romantic fantasy’ genre subset…” Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review of The Age of Adaline here.
5. WILD As real-life recovering addict and author Cheryl Strayed, Reese Witherspoon gives a career-best performance in Jean-Marc Vallee’s adaptation of the autobiographical bestseller, Wild. Every emotionally enriching, soul baring consequence of the 1,100 mile trek Strayed made along the Pacific Crest Trail is captured in Witherspoon’s interpretation; Vallee’s fluent non-linear narrative builds to a deeply moving denouement. Best bits: The fox; losing the boot; Laura Dern.
4. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION Tom Cruise’s fifth spin as super-agent Ethan Hunt gets the nod as 2015’s best action pic over Mad Max Fury Road, by a whisker (don’t worry, we rave about George Miller’s action epic here). Fury Road was pure kinetic energy and a technical marvel, but it was slight on story; Christopher McQuarrie’s slick, thrilling old-school spy adventure offered a dozen nail-biting moments and delirious B-movie plotting that both supported and drove the action. With Bond dropping the ball badly this year, Cruise’s M:I operative is cinema’s reigning superspy. Best bits: Rebecca Ferguson; that plane stunt, of course; the virtuoso ‘opera house’ sequence.
3. IT FOLLOWS Writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s first foray into horror riffed on every slasher pic trope in the book– the villain exists to punish the amorous; the ‘final girl’ archetype; absent and/or ineffectual adults; the final face-off. But It Follows was a study in deconstruction, and worked as a truly invigorating (and terrifying) new vision of those old standards. In Maika Monroe, horror has a fresh new muse; in the ever-walking force that stalks her, a classic new malevolence. Best bits: The kitchen encounter; the old, naked guy on the roof; checking out every background extra to see if they are ‘it’.
2. LOVE & MERCY “In succinct and sublime tones, Love & Mercy convinces that God only knows where American music would be without Brian Wilson…” Read the full SCREEN-SPACE review of Love & Mercy here.
1. INSIDE OUT That Pixar offered up another superb piece of smart, funny animated entertainment is not that surprising. It is a true family classic, the studio’s best film since Up, but something had to be. Inside Out is the year’s best film not because of its beautiful design elements or wonderful character rendering; instead, Pete Doctor’s and Ronnie Del Carmen’s vision soars as a profound study in teen anxiety, alienation, emotional upheaval and depression. Few films have ever conveyed the complexities of mental health with the clarity and devastating emotion achieved by this masterwork. Best bits: Riley runs away; the mixing of the spheres; “Congratulations San Francisco, you've ruined pizza!”
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Bridge of Spies, Shaun the Sheep, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Jupiter Ascending, The Visit, Everest.
Read The Year in Review, Part 1: The Ten Best Festival Sessions of 2015 here. Read The Year in Review, Part 2: Australian Cinema in 2015 here.
…AND THE WORST OF 2015: 2015 was a dire year for retread cinema, aka ‘The Reboot’ (Mad Max Fury Road being the exception that proves the rule). Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four got all the bad press, but it was a better film than the woefully ill-conceived Terminator: Genysis, the already-forgotten Poltergeist and the worthless new spin on Vacation. Worst of the bunch was JURASSIC WORLD, Universal’s wildly successful but grotesquely mounted bludgeoning of all that was enjoyable about the dino-trilogy to date. The box office suggested it worked for a new generation, but die-hard fans weren’t conned; like the genetic creation at the heart of its barely-there plotting, Jurassic World was borne of the same DNA as its ancestors but morphed into something both hideous and ridiculous.
DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS: Now Add Honey, Train Wreck, Chappie, Ride, The Walk, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence), Get Hard.
As wave after wave of universally awful reviews for Dirty Grandpa emerged, one key theme ran through most of them – what the hell has happened to Robert De Niro? One school of thought says he’s losing his mind, agreeing to grace such dreck. Well, school’s out! SCREEN-SPACE engages in a dialogue with itself (a bit weird, but go with it) as to why Robert De Niro is still Hollywood’s ace-in-the-hole…
All this hatin’ is because of Rocky & Bullwinkle, isn’t it?
True, the tide turned in 2000 when he signed on as ‘ Fearless Leader’ in Des McAnuff’s live action/animation mash-up of Jay Ward’s iconic ‘60s cartoon series. But consider that The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle was greenlit at a time when goofy big-screen riffs on old TV properties were booming; Brendan Fraser’s career spanned the idiotic hits George of The Jungle (1997) and Dudley Do-Right (1999), while Matthew Broderick fronted the inane blockbuster, Inspector Gadget (1999). A wildly imaginative, meta-rich Rocky & Bullwinkle seemed a no-brainer, especially considering the talent that was lining up to take Universal’s money (the budget – a whopping US$76million). The script was credited to one of America’s most respected playwrights, Kenneth Lonergan, an Oscar nominee for You Can Count On Me (2000), and hot off De Niro’s hit comedy Analyze This; the cast included then-bankable Rene Russo as Natasha, and the breakout star of TV’s Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, as Boris. The studio was so confident it had a hit, a mid-summer slot taking on the latest from Mel Gibson (Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot) and George Clooney (Wolfgang Petersen’s The Perfect Storm) was booked. Yet press zeroed in on De Niro’s wildly eccentric villain as symbolic of a lot of bad decisions on the film’s road to flop-dom…
And rightly so, I reckon. Maybe a buffoonish Nazi was not the best idea in a kid’s movie...
Well, it is certainly a way out-there bad guy part, the likes of which we all loved when Christopher Lloyd did similar in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Robert Zemeckis’ landmark toon epic was clearly on everyone’s mind when TAoR&B was okayed). But within the context of the insane plotting and high pitch for which the entire film reached, De Niro’s leather-clad, thickly-accented – dare I say, cartoonish – nemesis seems about right.
Mmm…that’s a maybe. Regardless, he seems to have shrugged it off and ‘fearlessly’ taken on other ill-judged roles, like 2001’s 15 Minutes with Edward Burns or 2002’s Showtime opposite Eddie Murphy…
Yep, minor works that weren’t ready to go before the cameras; totally agree. But Robert De Niro has always lived by the acting creed, ‘Just keep working.’ In the 30 years between the Scorsese classic Raging Bull (1980) and the hit sequel Little Fockers (2010), he featured in an incredible 58 films. He took flak for some (Neil Jordan’s We’re No Angels, opposite Sean Penn; Tony Scott’s thriller, The Fan; Kenneth Branagh’s expensive dud Frankenstein), but it was an incredibly diverse period that also yielded The King of Comedy, Casino, The Mission, Midnight Run, Goodfellas, Awakenings, This Boy’s Life, his directorial debut A Bronx Tale, Heat, Cape Fear, Copland, Wag The Dog, Ronin and Jackie Brown. Not to mention memorable bit parts in Brazil, The Untouchables, Angel Heart, Mad Dog and Glory and Sleepers, great roles in little-seen indies like Jacknife, Guilty by Suspicion and Flawless and sweet ‘everyman’ leads in Falling in Love (opposite Meryl Streep) and Stanley and Iris (opposite Jane Fonda). Which of his peers from his true heyday, the American cinema of the 1970’s, can boast of career longevity like that?
I think it’s the reputation from that last truly classic film era that has proved to be a heavy burden for Bobby. Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both ’73; The Godfather, Part II, ’74; Taxi Driver and 1900, both ’76; The Deer Hunter, ’78 (pictured; below)…
An extraordinary period for studio films in general, and De Niro in particular; no doubt about it. But he had also dealt with the commercial bomb The Last Tycoon in 1976 and critical dud New York New York in 1977; both were ambitious visions that didn’t quite gel, like several of the films that have come up short in his long career. Studios just aren’t making those ambitious, actor-friendly American films anymore. And if they did, who would match a young De Niro’s intensity? Di Caprio? Damon? I don’t think so…
And those ‘peers’ from 70’s…?
Sadly, the likes of McQueen, Newman, Heston, Bronson have all departed us. Big box office draws of the day like James Caan and Burt Reynolds maintain a Hollywood profile but aren’t ‘acting’ very much; Robert Redford has had a resurgence of late (All is Lost; Walk in The Woods), but favours behind-the-scenes mentoring and Sundance-aligned endeavours ahead of acting gigs; Michael Caine plays the occasional lead (Youth, 2015, opposite another ‘70s figure in Harvey Keitel) but prefers high-paying support slots. Hackman, Connery and Nicholson have all settled into retirement. Dustin Hoffman works steadily; Travolta and Duvall, too, though less so. Clint Eastwood has redefined his A-list status, happier behind the camera. Of the actresses, Meryl Streep is the only bankable ‘70s actress still at the top of her game; perhaps Diane Keaton, too, but not in lead parts. Only De Niro and his one true equal, Al Pacino, are regularly before the cameras.
Pacino!?! What’s he done lately?
Whereas De Niro will happily take a few days work for a good cheque or slip into a memorable support role, Pacino has focussed on offbeat ‘arty’ projects that no one sees but which still challenge his talent. Since banking the studio dollars opposite Adam Sandler in 2011’s Jack and Jill, he’s made films with Alan Arkin and Christopher Walken (Stand Up Guys, 2012), director Barry Levinson (The Humbling, 2014) and indie sector auteur David Gordon Green (Manglehorn, 2014). Just this year, he scored a Golden Globe nomination for Dan Fogelman’s terrific character piece, Danny Collins. Not to mention the TV roles, in Angels in America and playing Phil Spector and Dr Kervorkian…
Ironic then that perhaps the worst movie either of them has made, they played opposite each other!
Yeah, I’ll yield on that one. Righteous Kill was terrible.
So why make it! Surely some of the stuff that De Niro attaches to can’t be the best scripts that his agents are fielding? It’s Robert f***ing De Niro, for goodness sake!
There you go, still judging him above other actors on his reputation alone! Yes, much of the criticism levelled at De Niro when he turns up in genre B-pics like Godsend (2004), Hide and Seek (2005), Killer Elite (2011) or Red Lights (2012), or questionable comedies like the Focker sequels and Dirty Grandpa, largely consists of “Why would ‘The Greatest Living Actor’ take such a role?” But very few detractors will mention that, between the occasionally minor works or critical misfires, this 72 year-old (!!) is still scoring Oscar nominations (most recently for David O’Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook); is bankable enough to ensure quality mature-age films like Everybody’s Fine (2009), Last Vegas, The Family and Grudge Match (all 2013) are getting made and seen; and, is the go-to guy when today’s hot young leads (Bradley Cooper in Limitless, 2011; Anne Hathaway in The Intern, 2015; Jennifer Lawrence in Joy, 2015; Zac Efron in Dirty Grandpa, 2016) need the on-screen boost an industry pro like De Niro provides.
He could disprove all the naysayers who cry that he’s only in it for the money by committing to more directing gigs, surely?
I agree. A Bronx Tale was a beautifully handled film. His only other feature, The Good Shepherd, was a flop despite solid reviews and a starry cast. He did step behind the camera last year, for the short film Ellis, about the role of the American migrant in the country’s history and the entry point for many in the middle of New York harbour. And, you’re right, his heart was clearly in it.
So we should trust that, even during ‘that scene’ in Dirty Grandpa with the porn and lube, he knows exactly what he’s doing, has nothing to prove anymore and perhaps throwing shade his way is not the coolest thing…
No, it’s not, thank you. Ok, next - Nicholas Cage.
The ‘sentimental narrative’ is being bandied about with shameless abandon in most prognostications over the 2016 Academy Awards. Key categories are not being discussed on merit, but more so as if nominees are nearing death; those “Oh, it’s his time,” and “Wouldn’t it be fitting if…” kind of comments. SCREEN-SPACE can play that game as well as the best of them so, just over 24 hours out from host Chris Rock’s highly-anticipated opening monologue, here are our winners and why…
BEST PICTURE Bridge of Spies is the best film amongst the eight nominees, but Spielberg was bumped from the director category and its Cold War setting (and, yes, Tom Hanks’ casting) makes it feel like a throwback to a bygone Hollywood era. Room will earn kudos elsewhere; The Martian and Brooklyn will have been shutout across the board by this time of the night. With no nomination in the script categories, it would go against the grain for The Revenant to pick up the trophy, but that is likely to happen. The upside is that the absence of Innaritu and co-writer Mark L Smith from the writing honours list means Spotlight and The Big Short won’t go home empty-handed. But could Mad Max Fury Road steal the Best Picture spotlight….? Who will win: THE REVENANT. Who should win: INSIDE OUT.
BEST DIRECTOR …No, but the sentimental narrative will help its director George Miller to a surprise Best Director trophy. If the Academy rank-&-file are in a ‘body of work’ mindset, no one would be more deserving than the Aussie filmmaker; he has one trophy already, for Best Animated Film winner Happy Feet, and is high on the AMPAS membership radar after Babe (7 noms), The Witches of Eastwick (2 noms) and Lorenzo’s Oil (2 noms). Industry types know that the journey he undertook on the action franchise reboot was every bit as fraught with hardship as anything Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu and his team undertook on The Revenant. Adam McKay’s giddy, fresh vision for The Big Short could be the bolter; Tom McCarthy’s work on Spotlight was solid; Lenny Abrahamson for Room is this category’s ‘reward enough to be nominated’ guy. Who will win: GEORGE MILLER for MAD MAX FURY ROAD (pictured, above; on-set with star Tom Hardy) Who should win: GEORGE MILLER for MAD MAX FURY ROAD
BEST ACTRESS 45 Years star Charlotte Rampling had the sentimentalists on her side until she laid into the Academy over the diversity issue. Jennifer Lawrence’s industry pull and not her performance in Joy got her a spot on the ballot, but she’s doing no campaigning for the prize. It’s a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ for Saoirse Ronan, but the current is running against her for Brooklyn. And the frontrunner a few months back, Cate Blanchett in Todd Haynes’ lesbian romantic drama Carol, has found no awards season favour come trophy time (Ed: fine with that, it’s a hammy performance). When the terrific Ms Larson is cradling the little gold guy back stage, will any of the pap gallery have the verve to call out, “Hey Brie, say ‘cheese’?” Who will win: BRIE LARSON for ROOM. Who should win: CHARLIZE THERON for MAD MAX FURY ROAD
BEST ACTOR Just how the sentimental narrative surrounding Leonardo DiCaprio’s bare Oscar cabinet emerged is a mystery. He’s been “snubbed for this” and “denied for that” over the years, according to page after page of fawning editorial (in all fairness, he perhaps should have won for The Aviator…or Revolutionary Road…or The Wolf of Wolf Street). But his cause quickly became the catchcry of the modern American film industry, the shrill shrieking reminiscent of Oscar matriarch Shirley Maclaine’s “Give my daughter the stuff!” meltdown in Terms of Endearment. Fassbender is fantastic as Steve Jobs; the buzz on Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl was hotter than the technically proficient but chilly performance that finally emerged; Trumbo was undersen, so Cranston remained an outsider. Damon’s space dude from The Martian? Puh-leeze. Who will win: LEONARDO DICAPRIO from THE REVENANT. Who should win: GEZA ROHRIG from SON OF SAUL.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS No one begrudges Rachel McAdams’ nod for her fine work in Spotlight but she didn’t have the big showy moment that usually gets noticed amongst support players. Rooney Mara is the warm heart and soul in the otherwise overpraised Carol, but it’s a lead performance, surely? Winslet has a Lead Actress statue (and 6 other noms), which should be enough to discount her in a close race. If the 2016 Oscars fully commit to the sentimental, industry veteran Jennifer Jason Leigh could win for The Hateful Eight. Likely, though, that Alicia Vikander will top off a breakthrough year with the crown for The Danish Girl (also essentially a lead performance). If the male winners seem steeped in gooey sentimentality, the actress categories seem to be looking to the future of the industry. Who will win: ALICIA VIKANDER for THE DANISH GIRL (pictured, above) Who should win: KRISTEN STEWART for CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR No category pulses soloudly with a sentimental heartbeat as the Supporting Actor contest. Mark’s Ruffalo and Rylance (for Spotlight and Bridge of Spies, respectively) can feel hard done by; in any other year they would have been duking it out (pardon the boxing analogy, but it’s fitting). Christian Bale is in peak form at present; his role in The Big Short represents an actor mature enough to back his instincts and deliver. Tom Hardy had a great year and bad guys, such as the creep he played in The Revenant, often win this category. But does the potential for overflowing goodwill and a minutes-long standing ovation (if the broadcaster allows it) exist anywhere else in the Oscar schedule than with the feting of Sylvester Stallone? No, it doesn’t and he will win and win big. Who will win: SYLVESTER STALLONE for CREED Who should win: Well, take your pick – JACOB TREMBLAY for ROOM; PAUL DANO for LOVE & MERCY; MICHAEL SHANNON for 99 ROOMS.
OF THE REST… As stated, Adapted Screenplay honours will go to Adam McKay and Charles Randolph for The Big Short, while Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer will win Original Screenplay honours for Spotlight (both earned WGA gongs); Emmanuel Lubezki will win for lensing The Revenant, though John Seale could take this slot if the night turns in Fury Road’s favour; Mad Max will sweep the tech categories, including Editing, Makeup/Hair Styling, Production Design and the Sound categories; Inside Out is a cert for Animated Film; harrowing Holocaust drama Son of Saul for Foreign Film; the sentimental favourite for Original Score will be the legendary Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight, earning him his first Oscar; box office dominance will be rewarded with a VFX win for Star Wars The Force Awakens; doco honours for Amy; costuming to Sandy Powell for Cinderella; remarkably, the years forgotten hit Fifty Shades of Grey will earn Oscar bragging rights with a Best Song win, for ‘Earned It’ by The Weeknd.
CANNES, April 19: Artistic director Edouard Waintrop (pictured, below) set a solemn tone at the press conference to announce the line-up for the 2016 Director’s Fortnight sidebar. In an emotion-filled speech, he paid tribute to the late Israeli actor/director Ronit Elkabetz, who had succumbed to cancer only hours before after a long and determined fight.
In 2014, Waintrop had programmed Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, the 51 year-old auteur’s most acclaimed work. Elkabetz, a mother of four year-old twins to husband Avner Yashar, had served the Cannes Film Festival with honour in 2015 as Jury President at the Critic’s Week sidebar.
Following his kind words, Waintrop proceeded to the order of the day and the unveiling of the 2016 Director’s Fortnight selection. Slightly down in number from the traditional 20 films to a tighter 18, the selection skews heavily to European productions. Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, starring Berenice Bejo, snared the Opening Night slot and is one of three films from the country to feature in the sidebar (alongside Paolo Virzi’s Like Crazy and Claudio Giovannesi’s Fiore). The region’s strong showing should go some way to silencing dissent that arose when no Italian works were for Official Competition. (Pictured, right; director Marco Bellocchio)
Homegrown fare features strongly, with French cinema accounting for seven titles in the mix. They are Sebastien Lifshitz’s Les Vies de Therese; Rachid Djaidani’s volatile racial drama, Tour de France; Claude Barras’ stop-motion drama My Life as a Courgette; Sacha Wolff’s Mercenaire; Joachim Lafosse’s L’econimique du couple, a co-production with Belgium; the late Solveig Anspach’s L’effet aquatique; and, Uda Benyamina’s Divines.
Other continental entrants include Denmark’s Wolf and Sheep, from Afghani director Shahrbanoo Sadat; Neruda, the Gael Garcia Bernal thriller from Pablo Larrain that sourced production funds from France, Spain, Chile and Argentina (pictured, left); and, the legendary Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry, a co-production between France, Chile and Japan.
Tough-guy American auteur Paul Schrader closes the sidebar with his noir-ish crime melodrama Dog Eat Dog, starring Nicholas Cage (reteaming with the director after the trouble-plagued Dying of The Light) and Willem Dafoe. Other North American entrants include Laura Poitras’ Risk, a study of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange; and, Two Lovers and a Bear, the highly anticipated follow-up to War Witch from director Kim Nguyen.
Asian cinema’s sole representative is Psycho Raman, a serial killer thriller from India directed by Gang’s of Wasseypur helmer Anurag Kashyup. The cinema of the United Kingdom was shut out, as was representation from New Zealand or Australia (despite the readiness of Cannes favourite Cate Shortland's latest, Berlin Syndrome).
On May 11, Woody Allen will make history when his latest work, Café Society, has its World Premiere as the Opening Night film of the 69thCannes Film Festival. It will be the third feature from the revered director to debut in the prestigious slot – the first time that a filmmaker has earned that honour. For the 80 year-old New Yorker, it is the latest declaration of respect and admiration from the event that has feted his work for over three decades…
MANHATTAN debuts in 1979 Like the rest of the cinema-going world, French cinephiles warmed to Allen as a true auteur in the wake of his blockbuster hit, Annie Hall. His early comedies Sleeper and Love and Death had played well to Euro audiences, but it was the 1977 Best Picture Oscar winner that put him on the map; a huge French hit, it would be nominated for the Foreign Film Cesar. When it was announced his follow-up would be a cinematic love letter to The Big Apple, interest from the Cannes Film Festival organisers was piqued. Manhattan opened in the US on April 25 to positive reviews and audience favour; a fortnight later, it had its international premiere Out of Competition at the 32nd Cannes Film Festival. Despite the reclusive Allen’s decision not to attend the screening (actress Mariel Hemingway represented), it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Cannes and Woody. The Cesar voting body said thank you by honouring Manhattan with the Best Foreign Film trophy. (Pictured, right; Mariel Hemingway in Cannes, 1979)
(Above: Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose)
Allen’s 80’s Americana – BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, RADIO DAYS and NEW YORK STORIES. Allen’s cinematic fortune ebbed and flowed in the following years. Stardust Memories (1980) divided critics; A Midsummer’s Night Sex Comedy (1982) was considered a trifle; Zelig (1983) restored his critical lustre but only posted arthouse numbers. The resurgent career impetus that Allen would enjoy for the remainder of the 1980’s began when the 1984 Cannes Film Festival programmed out-of-competition the Oscar-nominated Broadway Danny Rose (the slot resonated with Allen, as it put him in the company of his film idol, Ingmar Bergman, who was presenting After the Rehearsal). Featuring a brilliant comic turn by then-wife Mia Farrow, Broadway Danny Rose was the first on Allen’s ‘Americana’ films, works that embraced the melancholy of show business’ early days, and the Cannes crowd loved them. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) would win the coveted FIPRESCI Prize at the 1985 event; Radio Days (1987) screened Out of Competition in 1987. Allen’s first taste of Opening Night prestige was 1989’s New York Stories, an omnibus film that featured Allen’s ‘Oedipus Wrecks’ short alongside contributions by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola; the film garnered a mixed reaction and would be the last of Woody Allen’s film on the Croisette for over a decade.
HOLLYWOOD ENDING opens the 2002 Cannes Films Festival. Cannes gave Woody some breathing space throughout the 1990’s, a decade that featured some of his most revered works (Husbands and Wives, 1992; Bullets Over Broadway, 1994; Mighty Aphrodite, 1995; Sweet and Lowdown, 1999). It would not be until 2002 that Cannes rekindled the love affair when they afforded his contemporary LA-set comedy, Hollywood Ending, his first solo Opening Night red-carpet rollout. In hindsight, the film seems an odd choice; it is not regarded as one of Allen’s best and represents, alongside 2003’s Anything Else, what many consider a low point in the filmmaker’s output. But the coverage provided in the world’s press, trumpeting the appearance of Allen in Cannes for the first time in his long career, was pure showbiz and entirely in line with the A-list event glamour one expects from the Cannes Film Festival. (Pictured, right; Co-stars Tiffani Thiessen and Debra Messing accompany Allen and wife Soon-Yi at the Cannes 2002 premiere of Hollywood Ending).
The European Films of the 00’s – MATCH POINT, VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER. The director sensed that true creative freedom and an enriched appreciation of his work were best explored in Europe (much of his funding had been sourced from continental backers in recent years). Despite the occasional sojourn to his homeland (the underappreciated Melinda and Melinda, 2004; Whatever Works, 2009), the 2000s brought a re-energised Allen back to the critical and commercial forefront with three European-lensed films that played to adoring Cannes audiences. In 2005, his potent London-set thriller Match Point played Out of Competition, the ecstatic response paving the way for his best box-office performer in 20 years; in 2008, the erotically-charged Vicky Christina Barcelona set the Croisette ablaze, premiering at Cannes ahead of a US$100million worldwide gross and a Supporting Actress Oscar for Penelope Cruz; and, in 2010, Allen returned to London, this time with Naomi Watts and Josh Brolin, for the whimsical drama, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, premiering Out of Competition. It was a prolific period of production that saw the director at the height of his craft, offering a run of films that culminated in Allen’s second Opening Night honour…
(Above: Allen at the You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger press conference, Cannes 2010)
The Triumph of MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. Cannes organisers knew Allen’s 41st film was something special when they secured it for the 64th edition’s May 11 Opening Night slot in 2011. The Festival broke with tradition and opened the event to both industry types and the general public. It was a coup for Allen’s French distributor, who put the film into day-and-date national release, ensuring massive media coverage. The director jumped on board the promotional juggernaut, bringing to the Croisette his stars Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Adrien Brody and local starlet Lea Seydoux. And critics were unanimous; Midnight in Paris was Woody Allen’s best work in years, the time-hopping romantic fantasy ultimately earning Allen the Best Original Screenplay Oscar (from the pic’s four nomination). Robert Weide’s Woody Allen: A Documentary would follow in 2012, and the director himself would return in 2015 with his Emma Stone/Joaquin Phoenix starrer, Irrational Man, but the rapturous Midnight in Paris soiree remains the night to remember from the Cannes Film Festival’s long and affectionate romance with Woody Allen. (Pictured, right; Allen with his Midnight in Paris cast, Cannes 2011).
The 69th Festival International du Film de Cannes will launch with a screening of Woody Allen’s new film, Café Society, on Wednesday 11 May in the Palais des Festivals’s Grand Théâtre Lumière as an Official Selection Out of Competition title.
Becoming the biggest teenage movie star in the world came at a price for Kristen Stewart. As the star of the most succesful YA franchise in film history, her every movement, every word and every romance (notably with co-star Robert Pattinson) was media fodder. Her often surly public persona masked a general distaste for the level of celebrity she had obtained. So, when planning a post-Twilight career, fame and fortune were inconsequential; instead, the indie world and international cinema beckoned.
Her potential for greatness was glimpsed in commercial non-starters shot between Twilight chapters (Adventureland; The Runaways, On The Road). Early Oscar buzz for Peter Sattler’s 2014 Guantanamo Bay drama Camp X-Ray failed to bolster the box office for the Sundance hit, though praise was unamnimous for the leading lady (“Stewart is riveting,” said Variety). It would be her performance in Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria that firmed her as a world class talent; as Juliette Binoche’s wise PA, Stewart won the Cesar for Best Supporting Actress – the first time an American actress has taken home a ‘French Oscar’. She shared some intense scenes opposite Julianne Moore in Still Alice and shone in a quality ensemble (Corey Stoll, Sam Waterson, Glenn Close, Gretchen Moll) in Tim Blake Nelson’s little-seen campus crime drama, Anesthesia.
2016 may prove to be the defining year in the re-emergence of Kristen Stewart. She hasn’t opened a film since the 2012 global hit Snow White and The Huntsman, and has suffered the ignominy of a box office bomb with American Ultra. But she wowed opening night audiences at Cannes 2016 opposite Jesse Eisenberg in Woody Allen’s Café Society. It was the first of five diverse films that will snake out globally in the months ahead, each with the potential to strengthen her crown as the #1 International Movie Star of her generation. (Pictured, right; Stewart and Eisenberg in Cafe Society)
EQUALS (Dir: Drake Doremus / U.S.A.; 101 mins) Stewart plays Nia opposite Nicholas Hoult’s Silas, two lovers in a Utopian future metropolis whose secret feelings for each other fly in the face of the repressed, emotion-free world of tomorrow. Romance and genre have been kind to the actress, though early buzz suggest some style-over-substance issues affect indie-kid Doremus’ first major work. Each generation have their own Logan’s Run or Gattaca, films that don’t usually break box office records but tend to develop an adoring fanbase. Launches May 26 in the U.S.
PERSONAL SHOPPER (Dir: Olivier Assayas / France, Belgium; 101 mins) Reteaming with her Clouds of Sils Maria director, Stewart appears in almost every frame of Olivier Assayas’ strange, startling supernatural drama/stalker thriller. As the PA to a spoilt-brat super model who shops for her employer by day and channels the spirit of her dead twin by night, Stewart is fearless on-screen, energising a character arc that takes in such extremes as horror, grief and sexuality. The recent Cannes premiere got wildly diverse reactions from the world’s press, though none questioned Stewart’s ability to plumb emotional depths. French season starts October 9; will test Stewart’s pulling power outside the director’s homeland.
CERTAIN WOMEN (Dir: Kelly Reichardt / U.S.A.; 107 mins) Stewart joins Michelle Williams and Laura Dern in Kelly Reichardt’s three-hander about tough, independent women in smalltown America. Arthouse audiences and festival crowds know Kelly Reichardt’s name, but she is a determinedly non-commercial filmmaker; despite critical raves, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff and Night Moves stayed firmly niche. Working with Reichardt means Stewart is furthering her craft and credibility which, if positive press and award season support come the film’s way, may breakout and further strengthen her box office status. She also gets to play a gay character for the first time, reflecting an aspect of her private life about which much has been speculated and which she neither confirms nor denies.
BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK (Dir: Ang Lee / U.S.A.; tbc) Landing in time for serious Oscar consideration is Ang Lee’s latest, a stunning anti-war work taken from the best-selling novel. Some left-field casting (Steve Martin, Vin Diesel, Chris Tucker) and a hi-tech frame-rate will be talking points, but all eyes will be on Stewart. As the sister of returning soldier Billy Lynn, she will be carrying intense scenes with newbie Joe Alwyn in his debut film. If she nails a part that is crucial to the narrative’s emotional impact, her Cesar may have an Oscar be its side. Opens November 11 Stateside.
SCREEN-SPACE got the jump on some of the Sydney Film Festival’s big drawcards at Cannes, so no Julietta, Aquarius or Personal Shopper amongst this lot, however deserving. The vastness of the 2016 programme nonetheless ensures there were many special cinematic moments worth celebrating. Oh, and one that had us cringing. With the Festival winding down to Sunday's Closing Night screening of Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship, we line up (in no order) the frames of film that lingered longest in the memory (SPOILER WARNING)…
‘The Not-So-Nice Guys’ in WAR ON EVERYONE Writer-director John Michael McDonagh aced it with The Guard and Calvary, thoroughly earning this shot at the all-American ‘buddy cop’ genre pic. He winningly transplants his brand of rhythmic Brit banter and whip-smart in-jokes to the dusty New Mexican setting; Michael Pena and an unhinged Alexander Skarsgård (pictured, above) are the riotous, R-rated double act that we all hoped Crowe and Gosling were going to be in that other buddy pic. So many memorable moments; we’ll go with the African-American snitch that decides that Iceland, the whitest country on Earth, is a good place to hide.
‘Janis’ School Reunion’ in JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUES Janis Joplin had fled her smalltown life, the victim of callous bullying by her school peers. When she guests on the Dick Cavett show, she flippantly tells an enormous television audience she is heading home for her high school reunion. A media frenzy, 70’s style, ensues, capturing both her defiance and discomfort with vivid acuity. Amy Berg’s best film ever is full of extraordinary moments culled from the songstress’ life, none more insightful than her return to the high school hellhole that drove her away.
‘Weiner Does it Again’ in WEINER Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s fly-on-the-wall account of the New York politician’s professional self-immolation moves at cracking pace from the first frame, capturing the momentum of a career public servant fast-tracking himself to the upper echelons of New York society. Then, with one dick-pic scandal behind him, another breaks and the house-of-cards resurrection he and his team had accomplished comes crashing down. It is train-wreck documentary gold, and plays out as such in this teeth-gnawingly entertaining film.
‘That Song’ in TONI ERDMANN Maren Ade’s 162-minute black comedy masterpiece (that we missed in Cannes, despite it being the festival’s best reviewed film) skates by on an emotional razor’s edge of anxiety and embarrassment. How to release crucial audience pressure as the narrative veers towards excruciating humiliation? Have your incognito anti-hero, ‘Toni Erdmann’ (the wonderful Peter Simonischek) accompany his put-upon daughter (a near-perfect Sandra Huller) in an impromptu rendition of a classic 80’s power ballad. The sequence is as hilarious and empowering as any on-screen moment this year.
‘That Line’ in GREETINGS FROM FUKUSHIMA The great German auteur Doris Dorrie took her two leads – stunning countrywoman Rosalie Thomass and enigmatic Japanese actress Kaori Momoi – deep into the devastated Fukushima landscape for this moving story of grief, friendship and forgiveness. The impact of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown is beyond horrific, as was captured in the line, “The ghosts still can’t believe they’re dead.” The words, spoken nonchalantly by Momoi’s grieving Satomi when she learns of the spirits that materialise while she sleeps, echoed silently in the cavernous State Theatre; they convey both the terrifying suddenness and immense scale of one of the worst tragedies in human history.
‘Mermaid Vagina’ in THE LURE Frankly, there are about 50 remarkable moments we could have selected from Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczynska’s insane vampire-mermaid-musical, a sort of Rocky Horror Show-meets-Showgirls-meets-Splash concoction that is unlike anything Australian audiences have seen….well, ever. When sultry siren Silver (Marta Mazurek) wants to seduce bass player Mietek (Jakub Giierszal), she reveals to him exactly where on her huge tail he needs to concentrate. Yeah, that’s right…
‘Ragin’ Mel’ in BLOOD FATHER Young moviegoers view Mel Gibson as an old Hollywood ‘boogeyman’, his real life anger issues far more defining than the two decades he spent as one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Those of us who prefer to recall his edge-of-insanity onscreen moments in Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, Hamlet, Ransom, Braveheart and Payback were thrilled to see ‘Meltdown Mel’ back in full-force in Jean-François Richet’s dad-and-daughter road movie. As he unloads a verbal tirade on a double-crossing Michael Parks, Gibson taps into the true nature of madness and desperation; stare into the actor’s eyes at these moments, I dare you.
‘The Old Man at the Bedroom Door’ in UNDER THE SHADOW Iran’s first foray in the horror genre is a claustrophobic haunted-apartment yarn that works ancient Djinn demonology into the modern life of a young Tehran family. With her medico husband is called into active duty, young mum Shideh (Narges Rashidi) must care for her increasingly anxious daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi), who has formed an unhealthy, perhaps unholy alliance with a presence in their apartment. The extent of their troubles is revealed in one particularly bone-chilling moment, when the deceased old man from upstairs appears in their bedroom doorway at night. In a display of precise unity, the audience at the sold-out ‘Freak Me Out’ session lifted off their seats as one.
‘The Old Man at the Film Archives’ in A FLICKERING TRUTH New Zealand documentarian Pietra Brettkelly embedded herself in Kabul to capture the film archival efforts of Ibrahim Arify and his team, who endeavour to save the remaining spools of Afghanistan film history. In addition to a powerful story of determination in the face of a regime’s destructive cultural redefinition, Brettkelly discovered Isaaq Yousif, the self-appointed keeper of the Archives who had lived in the building for 30 years. Ageing and frail, Yousif lead a shut-in’s life through the worst years of the Taliban’s rule, determined to preserve what he could of the region’s cinematic heritage. The old man’s narrative may be the greatest heroic arc of any at this year’s festival.
‘A Little Girl’s Tears’ in UNDER THE SUN Russian director Vitaly Mansky gained unprecedented access into the life of a seemingly normal Pyongyang family. What is revealed is how meticulously staged all the ‘normal’ moments really were. At the centre of the film is 8 year-old Zin-mi, whose transformation from spirited, smiling sweetie into a confused, indoctrinated cog in the DPRK ideology is heart-breaking. Mansky’s devastating final frames capture a little girl consumed by the pressures of adhering to Kim Jong-un’s dictatorial rule. Zin-mi weeps despite herself; when an off-screen voice demands she finds happy thoughts to quell her tears, she can find none. Instead, she summons politicised rhetoric, like the good citizen into which she has been moulded.
HONOURABLE MENTION: Two incredible shorts that left indelible impressions – Axel Danielsen and Maximilien van Aertryck’s high-dive tummy-tightener, Ten Meter Tower; and, the nightmarish Id-on-the-rampage vision, Manoman, from Simon Cartwright.
And the worst moment of 63rd Sydney Film Festival…
‘Dead Deer Ukulele Eulogy’ from COCONUT HERO The Sydney Film Festival programmers love the ‘Sundance Film,’ the feel-good, sentimental yarn wrapped in an indie aesthetic made popular at the Redford’s Utah love-in. At best, they look like Little Miss Sunshine (SFF, 2006), but in recent years they have found a just-ok middle ground (The Way Way Back, SFF 2013; Liberal Arts, SFF 2012). In 2016, the ‘Sundance Film’ parodied itself with Florian Cossen’s insufferable millennial navel-gazer Coconut Hero, in which outsider dullard Mike (Alex Ozerov) mumbles through a worthless existential non-crisis. A road trip with man-saviour caricature Miranda (Bea Santos) turns bad when they hit a deer; things get worse (for the deer and the audience) when the pair take out a ukulele and giggle their way through an improvised musical farewell – over the dying animal. Hipster disconnect from real-world emotion in favour of indulging one’s own unique (read: self-centred) perspective has never been so clearly articulated, though one doubts that was the filmmaker’s intention.
Diarised months ago by any serious collector of cinema ephemera was midday, August 6. That is when the latest incarnation of the Fitzroy Film Fair opens for business and pleasure. The movie-themed bazaar that springs to life periodically in Melbourne’s inner–city mecca for all things cool is nestled into the confines of The LuWow, the South’s most swingin’ Tiki-themed enclave. The traditionally vibrant get-together promises to be the celebration of movie pop-culture fandom that founder Stuart Simpson (pictured, below; far left, at a recent FFF) had always hoped it would be. “It’s a relaxed social event where you can come and pray at the alter of movie madness,” he tells SCREEN-SPACE…
“I loved going to flea markets but always ended up at the film/tv/comic sections,” says Simpson, one of Australia’s leading underground auteurs who, as principal at Lost Art Films, directed the cult hits The Demons Among Us (2006), El Monstro Del Mar (2010) and Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla (2014). “I've always thought about how amazing it would be if the whole place was dedicated to the love of movies.” When approached by The LuWow founder Josh Collins with a concept for a film-themed event, Simpson envisioned a marketplace where true film buffs could indulge their passions with like-minded fans.
“I know there are giant conventions and all that, but (I wanted) something that was more about the old and forgotten stuff, the gems of yesteryear, those hard-to-find rarities,” he says. “The Luwow is such a perfect place for it, too; it even looks like a movie set. It seemed like a no-brainer to me.” The first event was held in September 2015 and proved so successful, Simpson moved quickly to ensure collectors and buffs never had to wait long for the party atmosphere to return; the second coming of the Fair was in December of last year, then again in April 2016. (Picture, right; actor Glenn Maynard manning his VHS-themed table).
The Fitzroy Film Fair ‘selling floor’ is a literal dream-come-true for the movie nerd, where the army of stallholders offer a myriad of collectible delights. The current craze for classic VHS packaging, aka ‘slicks’, and hard-to-find titles on the antiquated format is well catered for, as are those offloading newer libraries that have outstayed their welcome. “Variety is the key,” Simpson says, “I like to keep it open to all kinds of vendors of all sorts of quality. So you will find the old, dusty VHS right next to brand new Blu-ray.” Some of the most in-demand items are the vintage pop culture items, such as toys, promotional material and literature. “We've got something for everyone. One thing I do request is that prices are kept fairly low, (as) I want punters to feel like they are getting a bargain.
The celebratory mood extends beyond the buying and selling of silver screen artefacts. The December event hosted legendary B-movie goddess Kitten Natividad, star of the Russ Meyer classic Up!; in April, the Fair headlined a 16mm screening of the anarchic 80s nuclear-punk shocker, Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em.
Scheduled for the August Fair are three sidebar events that speak directly to the B-movie thrillseeker - live special effects makeup demonstrations from the students of the Australian Academy Cinemagraphic Makeup (pictured, right; work from the AACM student body); the launch of a new horror-themed T-shirt label called Squirm, the latest venture from The Search for Weng Weng director Andrew Leavold; and, a gallery of works from Brisbane artist, Jesse Breckon-Thomas. “He paints reproductions of Italian Giallo horror/pulp film poster art with his own unique stamp,” says Simpson, who promises the artist’s originals will become must-owns for lovers of Euro horror.
Adding to the unique ambience afforded by The LuWow’s vibrant décor will be soundscape and soundtrack selections piped into the two rooms that host the Fitzroy Film Fair plus an eclectic series of 16mm film projections, courtesy of Perth’s Revelation Film Festival director, Richard Sowada. For Stuart Simpson, the end result is enticingly simple. “To (create the) perfect place to meet, buy, swap, and sell with other collectors and film makers,” he says, “and have a drink or two as well.”
“[Parental Alienation is] the deliberate attempt by one parent to distance his/her children from the other parent and in doing so, the parent engages the children in the process of destroying the affectional ties and familial bonds that once existed." - Reena Sommer, Ph.D. M.Sc. (Family Studies), Ph.D. (Psychology & Family Studies); author of "Children's Adjustment to Divorce: The Case of Parental Alienation Syndrome"; 2004.
As soaring divorce rates in the 1970s left a previously uncharted emotional impact on a generation of children, studies began to identify a new form of abuse that would come to be known as ‘parental alienation’. Yet it has only been in the last decade that mental health advocates, child protection officials and, slowly, progressive family court judges are acknowledging the detrimental effects of the deliberate manipulation of a child’s emotional and mental state. One of the most vocal and determined advocates in the battle to have parental alienation unreservedly accepted by the legal and medical communities is filmmaker Ginger Gentile. Her 2014 documentary Erasing Dad (Borrando a Papá), an examination of gender bias and self-serving officialdom in the Argentinian family court system, was initially denied a release when said officials objected to their portrayal as perpetuators of a broken system that ignored family suffering in favour of hugely profitable court congestion. For her follow-up film Erasing Family, she will examine the global scale of the parental alienation problem and the effort to reunite those families torn apart by the insidious practice.
“As I was making Erasing Dad, I realized that I had suffered alienation when my parents divorced, and was still suffering, even as I made the film,” Gentile told SCREEN-SPACE from the US, having returned to her homeland after 12 years in Buenos Aires, where she co-founded San Telmo Productions with producer Gabriel Balanovsky (pictured, right; with Gentile). A father denied access to his daughter for five years despite having a visitation agreement in place, Balanovsky would become the inspiration for the documentary. “As filmmakers, we used his experience as the jumping off point for our investigation,” says Gentile, who shared directing duties on Erasing Dad with Sandra Fernández Ferreira (pictured, below). “We discovered many other fathers just like him, who were suffering from what we call ‘Family Bond Obstruction’ and that the courts were not doing anything about it.”
Gentile revealed the backward attitudes and shocking actions of child and family therapists, perpetrated in the name of the deeply prejudicial court system they serve. She recalls, “interviewing professionals who did court ordered reunification therapy who did everything possible to not reunite dads with their kids.” So systemic was this practice, says Gentile, “they admitted to it, with pride, on camera. One psychologist even said, ‘the most dangerous place for a child is her own home, due to the presence of a man, her father.’ It was shocking to here this spoken so openly, and this is what shocked our audience.”
The findings of the documentary point to outdated ideologies being propagated by those with professional self-interest. As Gentile puts it, “[The notion that] one parent is better, or gender biases that can work against moms and dads, combine with the personal interest of the professionals involved who make more money the longer the case goes on.” Other factors include the availability of government subsidies that encourage sole custody and the over-reporting of alleged abuse, be it entirely false or the elevation of small incidents to imply violence. In one case, recalls the director, “one father is accused of violence because he speaks Russian to his child.”
When Erasing Dad premiered in August 2014, the inflammatory nature of the film’s conclusions brought extensive media coverage, as well as a wave of litigation – from the very individuals in the film. “These professionals got a civil court to censor the film in Argentina, saying that it made them look bad,” recalls Gentile. “We still have problems showing the film, because once people see it they cannot look at the family court system in the same way.” Undaunted, Gentile turned the legal actions against the litigators, promoting the film via social media sites and Parental Alienation advocates both in Argentina (the Spanish language Facebook page has more than 38,000 followers) and across the world.
“We changed the debate,” says Gentile. “Family bond obstruction is not about parents fighting, it is about a system that profits from prolonging family conflict, and a society that stands by and does nothing to stop it. Parents who cannot see their children aren't the bad guys; they and their children are victims of institutional violence.” In the wake of the film, Gentile points out, “Argentina enacted joint custody legislation, and some judges began to reunite families. Some kids even saw the film and found their erased parents. The big lesson is that before the powerful take notice, first society must take notice.“
Erasing Dad engendered such passionate support, a sequel-of-sorts that further explored the parental alienation epidemic and the potential for the reunification of erased families was always likely. “Erasing Dad focused on fathers because in Argentina custody automatically went to the mother, until our film was released,” says Gentile, “ so our first idea was to make (a follow-up film) international and include stories of mothers as well.” Extended family members, including erased sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, will also be featured in Erasing Family. (Pictured, right; Gentile with actor Jason Patric, founder of the parental rights advocacy cause, Stand Up for Gus.)
Most importantly, the film will be about the journey faced by children, young or old, of erased parents. “Erasing Family will have the children themselves as the protagonists,” states Gentile. “They will discover that they were not abandoned, but were loved. The worse part is often when they reunite with their erased parent and extended erased family, the parent who did the erasing rejects them, often cutting off contact with siblings as well. So Erasing Family will follow the adult children as they reunite with their erased siblings.”
From one man’s story set against the archaic Argentinian family court system, Ginger Gentile and the San Telmo Productions team are coalescing a global movement that is on the verge of true social change. “Millions of children are obstructed from loving parents by the family court system,” she states. “Moms and dads alienated from their kids after divorce dream that their children will learn the truth about how hard they fought against forces that were intent on ruining the parent-child bond. The Erasing Family project will reunite families by creating a feature documentary film, interactive content and an awareness campaign that will show adult children of divorce how a perverse system stole a loving parent from them.”
The latest ‘New Wave’ of international genre talent was singled out for 2016 honours at the Melbourne horror celebration, Monster Fest, held at the Lido Cinema in upscale suburban Hawthorn last night. Attended by fans and filmmakers alike, the tone for the occasionally raucous event was set by evening sessions of Paul Schrader’s unhinged crime melodrama Dog Eat Dog and the highly anticipated Closing Night feature, Jim Hosking’s stomach-churner The Greasy Strangler.
Pictured, above; Olivia DeJonge and Levi Miller in Safe Neighborhood
The festival’s coveted ‘Golden Monster’ Award went to Raw, Julia Ducournau’s teen cannibal drama that wowed critics and audiences at Cannes, where it won the FIPRESCI Critics Prize, before earning similar kudos at festivals across the globe. A guest of Monster Fest since her film opened the event last Thursday, Ducournau was present to accept the award, along with the Best Effects nod, a hotly-contested category that saw Ben Wheatley’s squib-epic Free Fire and Dain Said’s Malaysian vampire folk-lore tale, Interchange, challenge for the prize.
Best International Feature was awarded to Andre Overdahl’s terrifying morgue-set nightmare, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, starring Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch (pictured, right). The Norwegian filmmaker’s follow-up to his cult hit Troll Hunter was shortlisted in several categories, but a particularly competitive field kept the trophy tally to one.
It was a unanimous jury decision to award the Best Australian Feature to Chris Peckover’s Christmas season splatterfest, Safe Neighbourhood. The Australian-shot, US-set black comedy also earned budding teen star Levi Miller (Pan; Red Dog True Blue) the Best Actor nod, for his wildly inventive, against-type portrayal of a good kid turned horribly bad, opposite Ed Oxenbould and the equally impressive Olivia DeJonge. The Best Actress honour was awarded to Mackenzie Davis for her spin on the sociopathic ‘single white female’-type in Sophia Takal’s Always Shine.
Polish director Bartosz M Kowalski earned Best Director for his scorching portrait of alienated teen psychopathology, Playground; the spiritually-infused ‘black magic’ thriller A Dark Song, from Irish feature debutant Liam Gavin, earned dual mentions for Cinematography (Cathal Watters) and Score (Ray Harman). At the behest of the festival jurors, a Best Documentary slot was created to honour Sympathy For The Devil: The True Story of the Process Church of The Final Judgement, director Neil Edwards’ study of the British occult movement f the 1960’s. A humble and truly surprised Edwards was on hand to acknowledge the honour.
Jury members also singled out for ‘Special Mention’ the cast and crew of Rohit Mittal’s Autohead, an Indian found-footage film that follows a repressed rickshaw driver’s descent into homicidal madness. The Monster Innovation Award went to Alice Lowe (pictured, right), the star and director of Prevenge, a ‘pregnant femme-fatale’ satire that the British actress conceived and shot while in the late stages of her own pregnancy. Festival director Kier-la Janisse had the honour of bestowing the Audience Award upon local-lad Addison Heath’s grindhouse shocker, Mondo Yakuza.
TWELVE DAYS OF CINE-MAS A traditional festive countdown, reflecting upon my 2016 movie-watching moments...
NINE SORRY SEQUELS Hollywood’s bottom line took a beating in 2016 when audiences turned their noses up at that revered cash cow, the sequel. Not all, of course; Captain America Civil War kept the Marvel flag flying. But only a year ago, Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Fast & Furious rehashes earned mega-bucks. So which nine flaccid follow-ups stand out as part of the problem…?
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS The ‘Dads with sons’ crowd bolstered this rush-job follow-up to the 2014 surprise hit to the tune of US$82million, but that represents a nearly 50% drop in takings. These kinds of sequels – ‘brand abuse’ fodder used to fill seats for 10 or so days before disappearing to Netflix – are what do immeasurable damage to consumer confidence. There were too many of these shallow cash grabs in 2016. The Numbers: Opening weekend was off 46% from 2014. Represented one of producer Michael Bay’s lowest wide release launches.
ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS This year’s Pan; a garish, charmless cash-grab, Disney shoe-horned ill-suited director James Bobin (who had already dropped the ball on another sequel, Muppets Most Wanted) when Tim Burton, who helmed the blockbuster original in 2010 (??) Everything felt manipulative and manufactured, and audiences weren’t conned. Depp’s falling star and scathing reviews (30% on Rotten Tomatoes) didn’t help. The Numbers: Alice in Wonderland opened to US$117million in 2010 vs Alice Through the Looking Glass topped out at US$27million; down 77%.
THE HUNTSMAN: WINTERS WAR In 2012, magical elements came together to turn Snow White & The Huntsman into a sleeper hit. Leading lady Kristen Stewart was hot of Twilight; Chris Hemsworth was on the cusp; the trailer sold the film as an action fantasy epic, just as the Lord of The Ring crowd were feeling forgotten; and, director Rupert Sander’s film punched above its weight, delivering stunning visuals and exciting plotting. The sequel? It stunk. Despite pay-chequeing a trio of top actresses (Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt) and securing a disinterested Chris Hemsworth to front up again, this was a tired, boring, cynical second role of the dice. The Numbers: Snow White & The Huntsman conjured US$155million after a healthy US$56million first weekend vs Winter Wars’ putrid US$19million opening salvo, on its way to a meagre US$44million; off around 65%.
ZOOLANDER 2 Another ‘Why bother?’ sequel, too long after the original for anyone to care. Opening numbers weren’t too bad; 15 years ago, Ben Stiller’s fashion industry send-up earned US15million, while his sequel hit US$13million. But then the reviews dropped (“Agonizingly paced and bewilderingly outdated”; “The worst thing Ben Stiller has ever done”) and audiences sniffed a stinker. The Numbers: #1 found most its love on home video, its US$45million box office take in 2001 qualifying it for sleeper status at best; the sequel sputtered to US$28million.
JASON BOURNE Bringing back Matt Damon and series director Paul Greengrass in the franchise they emboldened seemed a good investment. But the script was murky, uninteresting; the small-scale intensity and human interest element of the series best episodes was gone. This fifth instalment felt undercooked and overmarketed, now resembling the soulless action sequels that past Bourne franchise entries had subverted. Not even the presence of ‘It Girl’ Alicia Vikander was enough to woo critics. The Numbers:…were good. Topped out at US$162million domestically, more again worldwide. But have you ever met anyone who liked it? Testament to Damon’s popularity in the role, but #6 (ugh) must be better.
BAD SANTA 2 The crude/sweet vibe of the beloved Christmas black comedy original was always going to be nigh impossible to recreate. But did the sequel have to be so needlessly crass and heartless? Billy Bob Thornton hadn’t headlined a cinema release in God’s knows how long, and his recent support turns had been in expensive duds Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Entourage and Our Brand is Crisis. Thirteen years after the original built word-of-mouth on its way to a super-profitable US$60million, the sequel… The Numbers: …bombed from Day 1, playing to 2920 thinly patronised theatres for an anaemic opening gross of US$6million; final tally, US$17million.
X-MEN APOCALYPSE It was only two years ago that Bryan Singer, returning to the franchise that he launched so spectacularly, got some of the best reviews of his career for X-Men: Days of Future Past. In 2016, everything went wrong for the filmmaker and his beloved series, with the latest edition, X-Men: Apocalypse, getting some nasty notices and opening limply in the prime May 27 summer season slot. All the actors looked over it, none more so than Michael Fassbender, who really should give all that money back. A thoughtless ad campaign that featured Jennifer Lawrence being grabbed by the neck ensured bad press; Singer’s ambitious use of next-wave effects backfired, with fanboys complaining of the ‘video game look.’ The franchise has stagnated. The Numbers: The US$65million opening was down 28% on the last instalment, suggesting the fanbase demographic were the only ones who showed. That’s not ideal when your cast boasts Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Oscar Isaac. Still clawed it’s way to an ok US$155million, but that’s $80million down on Days of Future Past.
FINDING DORY Yes, it does seem ridiculous to cite this follow-up as being part of the ‘sequelitis’ problem. It topped US$1billion globally, US$486million domestically; for inflation, that’s kind of on par with the 2003 original. But what we question in the case of Finding Dory is the quality. Pixar set a high standard for themselves, and this story seemed rushed, was certainly without warmth or laughs, and lacked the visual artistry of the original (and most other Pixar pics). One theory is that the company was coming off their first real dud in The Good Dinosaur and needed a sure thing to appease shareholders, meaning this was fast-tracked for a 2016 release before it was entirely ready. The Numbers: They were fine.
NEIGHBOURS 2: SORORITY RISING Audiences decided, “Nope, don’t need it, don’t want it” from the start. The problem with lightning-strike-twice follow-ups – films that try to recapture the chemistry and dynamic of comedies, in particular - is that THEY NEVER DO! Actually, Neighbours 2 wasn’t that bad a film, but even those that liked the first film felt that once was enough. A little Seth Rogen goes a long way, and Sausage Party was getting lots of coverage, perhaps undercutting Neighbours’ pull. The Numbers: Opened a whopping 56% below the original; closed US$100million behind its predecessor. Internationally, 150+% less than #1.
TWELVE DAYS OF CINE-MAS A traditional festive countdown, reflecting upon my 2016 movie-watching moments...
EIGHT WONDROUS ONE-SHEETS Much was made in 2016 that the elegance and artistry of the great movie posters of yesteryear is dead and gone. Like the movies they spruik, key-art imagery is focus group tested and voted on in LA boardrooms with scant regard for aesthetics. Of course, there are the exceptions…(and, yes, the Star Trek Beyond quad art is not a one-sheet, but it is beautiful, so consider it a bonus.)
DREAMLAND Dir: Robert Schwartzman Stars: Johnny Simmons, Amy Landecker, Jason Schwartzman and Beverly D’Angelo. Plot: Part-time pianist Monty Fagan begins a May-December romance that upends his home life.
THE FAMILY FANG Dir: Jason Bateman Stars: Jason Bateman, Nicole Kidman, Christopher Walken and Kathryn Hahn. Plot: A brother and sister return to their family home in search of the world famous parents, who have disappeared.
LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD Dir: Werner Herzog Plot: A journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works.
AVA’S POSSESSION Dir: Jordan Galland Stars: Louise Krause, Carol Kane and Dan Fogler. Plot: Ava Dobkins is recovering from demonic possession. With no memory of the past month, she is forced to attend a Spirit Possession Anonymous support group, in the hope she can reconnect with her friends, get her job back, and figure out where the huge bloodstain in her apartment came from. But, plagued by nightmarish visions, she fears the demon is trying to come back.
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Dir: Gareth Edwards Stars: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna and Ben Mendelsohn. Plot: Jyn Erso, a Rebellion soldier and criminal, is about to experience her biggest challenge yet when Mon Mothma sets her out on a mission to steal the plans for the Death Star. With help from the Rebels, a master swordsman, and non-allied forces, Jyn will be in for something bigger than she thinks.
TONIGHT SHE COMES Dir: Matt Stuertz Stars: Jenna McDonald, Frankie Ray, Adam Hartley and Larissa White. Plot: After a girl goes missing, two of her friends and a mysterious set of strangers find themselves drawn to the cabin in the woods where she disappeared. They will laugh, they will drink, they will kiss, they will make love, and they must all die.
JACKIE Dir: Pablo Larrain Stars: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup. Plot: Following the assassination of her husband, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regarin her faith, console her children and define her husband’s historic legacy.
VINTAGE TOMORROWS Dir: Byrd McDonald Featuring: William Gibson, Coy Doctorow and Bruce Sterling. Plot: An examination of Steampunk's origins, explosive growth, and cultural significance. Is the Steampunk movement a homogenized, privileged subculture or a reclamation of technology from the hands of Silicon Valley?
BEST ACTOR:
Adapted Screenplay is most likely the last big category The Imitation Game can win, but that seems unlikely against American Sniper and The Theory of Everything. Inherent Vice is (fittingly) the rank outsider; would’ve been nice to see James Gunn’s smart, sweet reworking of the comic book source Guardians of the Galaxy get recognition here. The 2015 surprise may be Damien Chazelle (pictured, left) taking the gold for Whiplash. With five nominations, the film has a lot of love amongst AMPAS members; JK Simmons didn’t just make up those vicious, tyrannical rants. Whiplash in an upset. 
BEST DIRECTOR
