Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 30 September 2012

Directed by:	PJ Hogan
Written by:	PJ Hogan
Starring:	Toni Collette, Anthony LaPaglia, Rebecca Gibney, Liev Schreiber, Caroline Goodall, Kerry Fox, Deborah Mailman, Lily Sullivan
Released:	October 4, 2012
Grade:	B+

Released back in 1994, Muriel’s Wedding was a life-changing film for two people – star Toni Collette and director PJ Hogan.  For Collette, who was just 22 years old at the time, the role earned her a Golden Globe nomination and helped launch her international career.  She’s now one of Australia’s most recognisable actors with close to 50 credits to her name.  She took home an Emmy for The United States of Tara and earned an Oscar nomination for The Sixth Sense.

The success of Muriel’s Wedding was also a big confident booster for the Brisbane-born PJ Hogan.  Funding bodies in Australia weren’t too keen on his script and it took the faith of French investors to get the film off the ground.  It’s ironic given that it’s now become one of Australia’s most well-known movies.  Hogan then escaped to Hollywood where he directed My Best Friend’s Wedding (one of my all-time favourite romantic comedies) and a live action version of Peter Pan (with a $100m budget).

It’s taken almost two decades but finally, Collette and Hogan have collaborated once again.  Mental is set in the fictitious beachside suburb of Dolphin Heads – a nice touch given that Muriel’s Wedding took place in the similarly named Porpoise Spit.  The film opens with Shirley Moochmore (Gibney) dancing her backyard while belting out the lyrics to “The Hills Are Alive” from The Sound of Music.  She doesn’t care that the neighbours are watching.  She just wants her family to be like the Von Trapps.

Shirley’s five daughters couldn’t be more embarrassed.  Coral, Jane, Leanne, Kayleen and Michelle have all hidden themselves inside the house.  This is just another “incident” that will contribute the family’s reputation as being a group of lunatics.  It’s also part of the reason why Shirley’s husband, Barry (LaPaglia), never comes home any more.  He’s in the middle of a mayoral election campaign and would rather not be associating with his socially outcast family.

After a few more bizarre events, it is decided that Shirley will spend some time in the local mental institution and get a better grasp on reality.  The self-centred Barry doesn’t want this to derail his mayoral re-election and so the official word is that his wife is “holidaying in Wollongong”.  He instructs his daughters to tell everyone the same thing.

The catch is that Barry now needs a permanent babysitter.  He doesn’t have the time or the patience to look after his five annoying children.  Instead of going through the normal process of finding a qualified carer, Barry picks up a hitchhiker by the side of the road.  Her name is Shaz (Collette) and her belongings include a knife, a bong and an angry dog called Ripper.

It’s a plot that must sound bat-shit crazy, right?  This stuff doesn’t happen in real life, right?  This is like one of those zany, silly Hollywood comedies, right?  Wrong!  This is a story based on actual events!  PJ Hogan’s mother was institutionalised when he was 12-years-old and his father (who was running in the mayoral elections) recruited an unknown hitchhiker, complete with a growling dog, to take care of the family.

The path taken by Hogan is to transform this tale into a black comedy.  It’s a decision that has divided audiences so far.  I’ve spoken to a few detractors who have been puzzled by the messy premise and been insulted by the film’s comedic approach towards mental illness.  Is it appropriate to be making jokes about rape, depression and suicide?

Hogan’s approach was again, drawn from his upbringing.  He has acknowledged a history of mental illness within his extended family and in his experience, laughter has been the best medicine.  If you're easily offended, it's perhaps best to steer clear.  On the flip side, if you are willing to go along with the darker comedy, the outrageous nature of many scenes will leave you laughing openly.

Mental’s not-so-subtle message is neatly articulated by Shaz – “there’s no such thing as normal, just different shades of mental.”  She is always encouraging the five Moochmore girls to embrace who they are and not bow to the conventions that are placed on them by society.  It seems like a fairly straight forward mantra but I enjoyed watching the complications thrown up late in the film when Shaz’s true character is revealed.

Toni Collette headlines a wonderful group of performances from the predominantly female cast.  18-year-old Lilly Sullivan is terrific as Coral, the oldest of the Moochmore girls.  She does a nice job illustrating her character’s insecurities and it’s hard to believe this is her first acting role.  It’s Deborah Mailman (The Sapphires) who earns the most laughs though with her scene-stealing supporting performance as an old friend of Shaz.

The film isn’t without its flaws and it’s the male characters who heavily contribute towards this fact.  Barry’s election campaign doesn’t make a lot of sense.  I also struggled to keep up with the hot-and-cold relationship he shares with his children.  Liev Schreiber plays the owner of a travelling shark show – an odd subplot that doesn’t come together as cleanly as it should.

It’s been an interesting month for Australian films at our local box-office.  Kath & Kimderella has been immensely popular while Bait 3D has been an epic failure.  How will Mental fare?  I hope it’s a big hit.

You can read my interview with star Toni Collette by clicking here.

 

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 19 September 2012

Directed by:	Gennedy Tartakovsky
Written by:	Peter Baynham, Robert Smigel, Todd Durham, Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman
Starring:	Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, CeeLo Green
Released:	September 20, 2012
Grade:	B

It’s not easy being a monster.  It can be a tiring, exhausting profession with little chance of respite.  Thankfully, there’s now a place they can go to relax and unwind – the 5-star Hotel Transylvania.  It is run by the entrepreneurial Count Dracula (Sandler) and is located in a secluded forest that is inaccessible to humans.  The monsters can hang out with their “own kind” and not have to worry about the nasty humans.

It’s a busy time at the Hotel with many guests arriving for an important birthday party – Dracula’s only daughter, Mavis (Gomez), will finally be an adult.  She’s about to turn 118.  The guest list includes Frankenstein and his wife, a family of werewolves, an overweight mummy and an invisible man with red hair.  You’ll have fun trying to pick their voices with many recognisable names amongst the cast.

Mavis isn’t interested in the party though.  She’s spent her entire life cooped up in the hotel under the protection of her control freak father.  She’s keen to “leave the nest” and explore the rest of the world.  Count Dracula isn’t prepared to let go through.  His wife was killed by the humans many years ago and he’s intent on making sure that Mavis doesn’t meet the same fate.

The arrival of an unexpected party guest sharpens their conflicting views.  A dopey, 21-year-old backpacker named Jonathan (Samberg) has somehow navigated his way through the forest and arrived at Hotel Transylvania.  He’s the first human to have ever set foot inside its walls.  It sends Dracula into a panic and he’s worried that if the monsters find out, it will threaten the future of his exclusive hotel.

In a ham-fisted attempt to fool everyone, Dracula puts Jonathan in a monster costume and tells everyone that he’s been employed as a “party planner”.  Once all the festivities are done, he’ll be able to sneak him out the hotel and make sure he never returns.  It sounds like a workable plan but there’s a major loophole that threatens to bring everything undone – a quickly developing attraction between Jonathan and Mavis.

With a nice message and an easy to follow storyline, Hotel Transylvania is one of the year's better animated releases.  It's probably the pick of the family films over the September school holidays.  Adam Sandler’s Dracula persona gets a little repetitive but he shares some fun banter with fellow Saturday Night Live graduate Andy Samberg (Hot Rod) and Selena Gomez (Monte Carlo).

It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of the “supporting monsters” but I can understand the need for condensing this story into 90 minutes given the film is being pitched at a young audience.  Steve Buscemi is great as a forlorn werewolf who has been driven to the brink of exhaustion by his many kids.  David Spade also steals a few scenes in his role as the Invisible Man.

It’s not a game changer but given the weak crop of animated films so far in 2012 (in which Brave has been the stand out), Hotel Transylvania could earn itself an Oscar nomination for best animated feature.

  

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 September 2012

Directed by:	Nicholas Jarecki
Written by:	Nicholas Jarecki
Starring:	Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Tim Roth, Nate Parker, Laetitia Casta
Released:	September 27, 2012
Grade:	B

This is the most important week in the life of 60-year-old Robert Miller (Gere).  He’s on the verge of selling the investment management company that has made him a multi-millionaire.  Robert just needs to get clearance from the auditors and negotiate a final price with the buyer.  We’re talking about a figure that exceeds $500 million.  It should be more than enough for him to retire!

It’s not that simple though.  There’s a huge $400 million loss in one of his company’s hedge funds that Robert is trying to hide.  It was the result of a business deal that went horribly wrong.  Robert’s borrowed a simple $400 million from an extremely trustworthy friend and is using it to hide the loss from the auditors until the company is sold.  He can then repay the loan from the sale proceeds and no one will be the wiser.

Unfortunately for Robert, his daughter (Marling) uncovers his fraudulent activity.  She’s one of the chief investment officers at the company and the discovery has boxed her into a corner.  If she alerts the authorities, it will destroy her family’s fortune and her father will likely spend time in jail.  If she stays quiet, she’s now complicit in the fraud and risks her own reputation if discovered.

But wait.  There’s even more to this story.  Robert has been cheating on his wife (Sarandon) with a young art-dealer named Julie (Casta).  Julie is killed however in a late-night car accident where Robert was behind the wheel.  With just a small cut to his head, Robert makes a snap decision to flee the scene.

It’s not his car and there was no one in the area to witness the crash.  Perhaps he can get away with it?  If so, his wife will never learn of the affair and it won’t jeopardise the sale of the company.  He takes advantage of a nearby phone booth and gets an old friend (Parker) to pick him up and sneak him back home.

You should be getting a pretty clear picture that Robert isn’t a very nice guy.  Within the space of a few days, he’s committed both fraud and manslaughter.  It therefore makes Richard Gere (Pretty Woman, Primal Fear) a curious choice for the role.  He’s smooth, he’s charming and he wears a nice suit.  It’s as if writer-director Nicholas Jarecki is trying to lure us into liking him (and I say that as a positive).

The car crash marks the arrival of Michael Bryer (Roth), a police detective that has been assigned to investigate the accident.  He’s confident that Robert was driving the car but he just doesn’t have enough evidence.  He decides to target those close to Robert to see if one of them will slip up and reveal the truth.

As you can see, it all adds up to a film that has a bit of everything.  There are cover-ups, police investigations, family conflicts, cheating husbands, interfering lawyers and dodgy investments.  If it were to actually happen, I’m sure the folk at Today Tonight and A Current Affair would be scrambling to get their hands on the rights.

It’s a juicy narrative that will keep you interested but it does feel a little staged.  I struggled with the way in which Robert was so easily able to escape the car accident and come up with a clear, immediate plan to avoid detection.  It’s like watching an episode of NYPD Blue or Law & Order in the sense that it’s an entertaining story that you’ll go along with… but the pieces fit together too neatly in the end.

  

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 September 2012

Directed by:	Kimble Rendall
Written by:	John Kim, Russell Mulcahy
Starring:	Xavier Samuel, Julian McMahon, Phoebe Tonkin, Sharni Vinson, Alex Russell, Lincoln Lewis
Released:	September 20, 2012
Grade:	C

We could start a debate about the best shark movie ever made… but it’s only go to lead to one answer – Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, released back in 1975.  It didn’t have the luxury of flashy, computer-generated special effects but it left most audiences on the edge of their seat.  The film took home three Academy Awards an earned a nomination for best picture (losing to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest).

With the benchmark set, this niche genre has taken two divergent paths in recent years.  Films like Deep Blue Sea (1999), Open Water (2003) and The Reef (2010) are thrillers that have tried to replicate the “scare factor” of Jaws (with moderate success).  On the flip side, we have movies that can be best described as comedic entertainment.  That list would include Shark Night 3D (2010), Dinoshark (2010) and… wait for it… Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus (2009).

The problem with Bait is that it doesn’t know what side of the fence it wants to sit on.  Given the absurd premise, I was expecting a comedy.  It’s set in a supermarket by the beach that becomes flooded due to the effects of a massive tidal wave.  This happened at the exactly the same time that an armed robbery was in progress.

Anyway, water has inundated the building and the front entrance has been blocked by debris to prevent an easy escape (an obvious plot device).  We’re now left with a small group who have perched themselves atop of the supermarket shelves and are trying to find a way out.  They could stay and wait to be rescued but lo and behold, the water level is rising (yep, another obvious plot device) and time is running out.  I should also mention that there’s another group of people trapped in the underground car park.

The time has come to introduce… sharks!  I’ve seen folk on Twitter refer to this film as the shark equivalent of Snakes On A Plane.  Perhaps a more appropriate title would be Sharks In A Supermarket.  These sharks aren’t interested in the Corn Flakes, Tim Tams and two-minute noodles that can be found in aisle 7.  They’d prefer some fresh meat, straight off the human bone.

With this ridiculous situation now established, the script stumbles.  Instead of being a fun, silly comedy, it tries to be a heart-pounding thriller.  It doesn’t work.  Bait takes itself way too seriously and there are only a handful of witty one-liners.  It leaves us with a flat thriller starring a bunch of characters we couldn’t care less about.  The unconvincing special effects will also leave you confused – are the sharks supposed to be scary?

Xavier Samuel and Julian McMahon headline the cast along with rising stars Alex Russell and Lincoln Lewis.  I don’t expect this film will be featuring too prominently on their resumes.

  

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 September 2012

Directed by:	Rian Johnson
Written by:	Rian Johnson
Starring:	Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Piper Perabo, Jeff Daniels, Noah Segan
Released:	September 27, 2012
Grade:	A-

As strange as it may seem, The University of Queensland offers a course on time travel.  It’s taught annually by Professor Dowe and “examines the implications of time travel for our understanding of time, causation, agency and free will.”

There’s a part of me that wishes I’d taken the course because it’s such a fascinating subject matter.  We’ve all thought about it at some point.  What if an individual did work out how to travel back and forth through time?  Would this be good or bad for our world?  It’s a topic that could be debated for hours.  Time travel could make us a more advanced, a more knowledgeable species.  On the flip side, it could completely destroy us.

It’s an idea that has been explored in countless films.  The key to these movies is whether the filmmakers can convince you to put aside your disbelief.  Can they make you believe that time travel is possible and would function in a way that logically makes sense?  For a realist (such as myself), that’s very difficult to achieve.

Writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) has given it his best shot with Looper.  It would rank highly on my list of “believable” time travel movies (if such a thing is possible).  Strap yourself in and let me do my best to explain…

The film is set wholly within the year 2042 and centres on a 25-year-old assassin named Joe Simmons (Gordon-Levitt).  While time travel isn’t possible in 2042… it will be thirty years after that.  A powerful gang from the future has accessed this banned technology and have created a clean, secretive way of eliminating their adversaries.  Instead of killing them in their own time, they transport them back to 2042 and get assassins like Joe, known as “loopers”, to do the dirty work.

Think about it.  You’d normally expect an element of risk in a profession that requires you to kill for a living but that’s not the case here.  For those in the year 2072, there’s nothing the authorities can do.  There’s no body, no blood and no murder weapon.  For the highly-paid assassins in the year 2042, there’s no pressure of being caught.  The people they are killing don’t even exist yet!  No one is going to be looking for them.

In effect, it’s a perfect crime… but with one important caveat.  The gang is worried that when these loopers reach the year 2072 (through natural aging), they’ll be able to alert the authorities about their illegal activities.  This can be prevented by “closing the loop”.  In other words, once the looper reaches 2072, he is captured by the gang and sent back to 2042 to be killed by, none other than, himself.

Have I lost you yet?  I hope not.  The crux of the story sees the 55-year-old version of Joe (played by Bruce Willis) sent back to 2042 to be assassinated by his 25-year-old self.  He manages to escape though and has an important plan.

55-year-old Joe is trying to find and assassinate the person who will ultimately become the leader of the gang.  It’s the only chance he has of changing the future and stopping the hell that has been created.  25-year-old Joe doesn’t care though about what’s happening in the year 2072.  He just wants to kill his older version, retire with a wad of cash and enjoy the next 30 years of his life.

For a film that’s just 118 minutes, it is amazing how much material Looper manages to cover.  It’s energizing to watch a fast-paced action film that challenges the audience.  The intricate, intelligent storyline demands that you pay attention at all times.  Its bold vision and clever premise reminded me of Inception, my favourite film of 2010.  There’s so much more to the plot that I haven’t outlined but that’s partly because I don’t have time and partly because I don’t want to spoil.

Looper is another merit badge for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50, The Dark Knight Rises) who carries the film with a passionate, invigorating performance.  It required him to mimic the voice and mannerisms of a younger Bruce Willis.  Levitt also spent three hours each day in the hands of make up artists who have given his character a Willis-esque nose.

It’s Rian Johnson who deserves the strongest praise however for creating this plausible premise within a cool, futuristic world.  To cover one of the essential elements of any time travel movie, Johnson has written a great scene in a roadside diner where Bruce Willis explains the “cloudy mind” that occurs when events from the past are altered.

All of that said, there are a few nagging elements that hold the film back from achieving full “awesome” status.  The year 2042 seems to be a time of social anarchy and whilst it’s touched on (e.g. a scene in which a guy is shot dead in the street), it isn’t fully explained.  I’m also not sold on the finale and the choices made by certain characters.  Does it all add up?

Selected as the opening night film of the 2012 Toronto Film Festival, Looper is a film to be seen at least once… but more likely… twice.