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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 October 2011

One of the highlights of my Toronto Film Festival experience was a “Super Saturday” of amazing films.  I caught The Hunter, The Ides Of March, Moneyball and The Descendants before it culminated with a 9pm screening of Drive is a cinema filled with more than 1,000 people.  Oh, and stars Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston were in attendance.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

A strong buzz has surrounded this film since director Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising) picked up the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival back in May.  You’ll realise why as soon as the unusual opening credits start to roll and the pulsating soundtrack thrusts itself through the cinema speakers.  This film is cool!

The story, which often feels secondary to the film’s distinctive style, revolves around a guy who works as a stunt driver in Hollywood movies by day and a “get away” driver in armed robberies by night.  We never get to know his real name – he is known simply as the “Driver”.

He lives alone and mostly keeps to himself but those lucky enough to meet the Driver will see a guy who is classy, confident and composed.  Ryan Gosling (The Notebook, Blue Valentine) does a fantastic job bringing this character to life.  Almost every member of the audience, both male and female, will be ensnared by his charm and sex appeal.  Further, toothpick sales should soon be on the rise (you’ll see why once you’ve seen the movie).

The Driver seems content with his solitary existence but that changes when he befriends a woman named Irene (Mulligan) and her young son who live in his apartment building.  With her husband serving time in prison, Irene is in need of companionship and her son is in need of a father figure.  The Driver ticks both of those boxes.  We finally get to see his softer side and the three enjoy spending time together.

At the Q&A following the screening at the Toronto Film Festival, Refn said the idea was to make a film where “half the movie is a John Hughes movie (Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and then the guy goes psychotic and kills everybody.”  That’s not quite how it comes off on screen but this is the part where Drive changes gears and puts its foot on the accelerator.

Irene’s husband (Isaac) is released from prison and he turns out to be a pretty decent guy.  Unfortunately, he owes money to some powerful gangsters for “protection” whilst behind bars.  The Driver agrees to help him pull off “one last job” so he can get the cash and keep his family safe.  However, it sets off a chain of events that will see the Driver’s world spiral out of control.

Squeamish viewers should brace themselves for the film’s second half.  The packed audience at my screening didn’t know quite how to react.  Some were laughing with shock.  Others were looking down at the floor with their hands over their ears.  Refn and writer Hossein Amini (The Wings Of The Dove) deserve praise for the audacious way in which they’ve mixed genres.  It’s a wild ride.

It’s no surprise that Drive has already developed a cult-like status before reaching Australia.  The movie currently sits inside the IMDB’s top 250 of all time as judged by the public.  I can’t fault the film’s style (particularly the 1980s themed score) but it does fall slightly short when it comes to story and dialogue.  It’s the only reason it can’t be compared to the best works of director Quentin Tarantino (such as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs).

If you can make it through one viewing, I dare say Drive is a film you’re going to want to watch again and again.

The Drive Q&A at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival with director Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 12 October 2011

The year is 1982 and a small group of researchers is on the brink one of the world’s greatest discoveries.  Deep below the ice in a remote part of Norway, they have found a huge spaceship and a perfectly preserved alien specimen.  Their preliminary analysis suggests that it’s been there for close to 100,000 years.

The team brings the frozen alien to the surface and they start celebrating while they wait for it to thaw out.  That brings the “nice” part of this story to a close.  It’s now time for some serious thrills.  The alien springs to life and devours one of the scientists in a rather gruesome fashion (I’d expect nothing less).

There’s more to this alien that meets the eye however.  The researchers manage to set it on fire and think they’ve killed it but alas, that’s not the case.  It has the power to mutate into anyone that it comes in contact with.  They now must ask the question – who amongst them has been infected?  Who amongst them is no longer human?

It’s a great premise and I found this surprisingly suspenseful.  Aside from “the thing” being really freaking looking, I enjoyed watching the shifting relationships between the team members.  No one’s quite sure who to trust.

What elevates this above your average thriller is the rational manner in which the characters act.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) stands out with her portrayal of a palaeontologist.  She keeps a cool, logical head whilst others around her start to panic.  It’s a refreshing change from your traditional horror film where the characters do moronic things as if to prolong the story.  That’s not the case here.

Credit also belongs with the special effects and make up crews who have brought the alien to life.  This isn’t like Cloverfield where you don’t get a good look at the creature until the very end.  It’ll be in your face not long after the 30 minute mark.  Its long tentacles, sharp teeth and wide mouth left me squirming more than once.  

The film has been crafted as a prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter movie which shares the same name.  The energetic closing credits suggest that a sequel is possible but as we all know, that will depend on one thing – success at the box-office.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 19 October 2011

The Isle Of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) is an annual event where some of the world’s best motorcycle riders compete in a series of races.  I’ll be upfront and say that I’m not a huge fan of the sport and hadn’t even heard of the TT prior to seeing this documentary.

It wasn’t until the narrator mentioned the number of fatalities in the event’s history that the power of the film really kicked in.  Since it began in 1907, there have been a total of 237 deaths either during an official race or practice session on the Snaefell Mountain Course.  That’s an average of more than 2 per year!

My first thought was that these must have occurred during the early years of the race when bike safety wasn’t as strong as it is today.  Nope, that’s not the case.  There have been 10 fatalities in the past 2 years alone – 5 during the TT races held in June and a further 5 during the Manx Grand Prix held in September.

You can now see why British filmmaker Richard De Aragues thought it the perfect subject matter for a feature length documentary.  He throws in a bit of history but his focus is on the 2010 TT event.  We get to see the 5 major races (each with their own drama) and we follow a few of the riders behind the scenes.  It’s riveting stuff.

It’s the death-defying nature of the sport that I’ll remember most strongly from this film.  These races are different from those of the MotoGP that are run on proper tracks with many safety features.  The TT races are run on normal streets.  The town is closed down and the riders navigate their way past houses, hedges and corner stores.  If they have an accident, they’re likely to be flung into someone’s front yard (where a spectator is probably standing by his letterbox and looking at the action).

To give you a further perspective, the final race is 243km long and the winner’s average speed throughout the race is roughly 207km/hr.  I was shaking my head with disbelief as I watched the riders navigate the sharp corners and avoid rock walls by a matter of inches.  De Aragues shows this action from a variety of angles – whether it be a camera strapped to the front of a bike or a helicopter flying high overhead.

The rider given the most amount of screen time is Guy Martin, a 28-year-old trying to notch his first TT win.  His thick British accent is a little tough to understand at times (I almost wish the film had subtitles) but his eccentric behaviour will provide some unexpected laughs.  I was a disappointed that we didn’t get to know some of the other riders a little better but perhaps they lacked Martin’s quirky charm.

They know the risks that they face but it’s part of the reason why these riders love the sport and this particular race so much.  They’re adrenalin junkies and I tip my hat to their bravery / stupidity (I’m not sure which).

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 09 October 2011

So many Melbourne Cups have been filled with drama and intriguing storylines.  In 1976, the weather conditions were so bad that the commentators couldn’t identify the horses for much of the race.  In 1991, Let’s Elope earned the win after surviving the first protest in Cup in history.  In 2005, Makybe Diva became the only horse to win the race on three consecutive occasions.

That said, there was something extra special about the 2002 Melbourne Cup.  Australia’s leading jockey, Damien Oliver, was set to ride Media Puzzle in the race for Irish trainer Dermot Weld.  The horse had won the Geelong Cup in the lead up and was going into the Melbourne Cup as one of the more fancied contenders.

Tragedy struck however.  Just a week before the Cup, Damien’s older brother suffered fatal injuries during a horse race in Perth.  Damien immediately left Melbourne and flew home to be with his family.  Given that his father had also died in a racing accident, it left Damien pondering his future in one of the world’s most dangerous sports.

After much soul searching, he decided to fulfil his commitment to Dermot Weld and take his mount in the “race that stops a nation.”  The rest, as they say, is history.  The record books will forever show that Media Puzzle ridden by Damien Oliver was the winner of the 2002 Melbourne Cup.  What they won’t show is the courage shown by Damien to get himself on that horse in the first place.

That’s something that writers Simon Wincer and Eric O’Keefe have tried to remedy with the new Australian film, The Cup.  It’s been a long-term project given they started working on the script not long after the race in 2002.  They tried to get it off the ground several times but a lack of finance made things difficult.  To give you a further indication of how long this took, the footage used in the film of the big crowds at Flemington and also at an AFL match were shot way back in 2007.

The film is designed to leave you in tears at the end.  Director Simon Wincer (Free Willy, The Phantom) and his team have done this by milking every ounce of sentimentality they could from the story.  Its teats must have been sore.  It’s effective though.  My own eyes were moist as the closing started to roll.

Does this make it a great film, however?  The answer is no.  A few tears doth not a good movie make.  You could have pulled this together as a documentary (like the recent Senna) and generated just as much, if not more emotion.  Just watching Damien Oliver’s actual post race interview on Youtube leaves me feeling sentimental.

The Cup doesn’t dig deeply enough into its characters.  Everyone is portrayed in a positive light and it’s as if the writers were too afraid to challenge the audience.  Following the death of Damien’s brother, trainer Dermot Weld (played nicely by Brendan Gleeson) keeps reiterating that Damien is the only jockey that can ride Media Puzzle and that he wants to give him as much time as possible to make a decision.  Ok, that’s what was said publically but was Weld really thinking?  We see a disagreement between Weld and the horse’s owner but again, it’s only fleetingly touched upon.

The film also tries to bite off more than it can chew.  A big inspiration for Damien Oliver was North Melbourne football player Jason McCartney who was badly injured in the Bali bombings a few weeks prior to the 2002 Melbourne Cup.  To bring this subplot into the movie, the writers have had to show Damien and his brother at an AFL game, show them watching the Bali bombings unfold on television and then show Damien meeting McCartney in hospital.  It’s a distraction from the main story and I’d question its relevance.  The same could be said of the Godolphin stable and their horses.

The Cup’s most obvious weakness is its clichéd dialogue.  Some of the lines from these characters belong in a B-grade telemovie.  I’d also ask why we needed the myriad of sports commentators?  The list includes Eddie McGuire, Steven Quartermain, Bruce McAvaney, Dennis Commetti, Gerard Whateley and even the Coodabeen Champions.  Their commentary has been used to help explain events as they happened but I found it more distracting than informative.  Perhaps it’s been included for the benefit of international audiences who won’t know as much about AFL and horse racing.

I don’t want to come off too critical because close to $15m has been poured into this production and I’d like to see it succeed at the Australian box-office in a similar vein to the recent Red Dog.  It’s important for our industry as a whole.  The film was received warmly by racing fans last Friday night at its Brisbane premiere and it’s been given a strong endorsement by the real Damien Oliver and his family.  I stand by my criticisms but perhaps you’d better off taking their recommendations over mine.

You can read my interview with director Simon Wincer and star Stephen Curry by clicking here. 

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 15 October 2011

Whilst many could validly argue that Woody Allen’s best days are behind him, the success of Midnight In Paris shows that there’s life in this 75-year-old filmmaker.  It’s become his highest grossing film at the U.S. box-office with a total of $55m.  That’s more than his last 5 movies combined!  I realise the statistics would look a lot different if you adjusted for inflation (1977’s Annie Hall would have close to $143m) but it’s still a noteworthy achievement.

Just as amazing is the fact that Midnight In Paris contains such a simple story.  There’s not much to it at all.  Gil (Wilson) and Inez (McAdams) have travelled to the “City of Light” for a quick vacation before they get married.

You’ll quickly get a sense that they’re not right for each other.  This is best illustrated in an early scene where they run into another couple who are visiting Paris.  Inez wants to accept their invite and hit the town for a night of drinking and dancing.  Gil isn’t quite as social.  His plans for the evening are to take a romantic stroll and check out some of the landmarks.

The two decide to make the best of the situation.  Inez goes partying with the couple, Gil goes walking on his own and they’ll see each other when they both get home.

There’s a key twist to this tale however.  Gil’s stroll through Paris’s beautiful streets takes him to a rather unexpected location.  That’s about all I’m willing to reveal since the trailer does a wonderful job keeping it hidden from the audience.  I will throw in a few adjectives though – delightful, enthralling and magical.  Hopefully they’re strong enough to tweak your own interest.

Woody Allen’s movies are synonymous for having a nerdy, insecure guy in the leading role (often played by Allen himself).  That’s again the case here but Owen Wilson (Hall Pass, Wedding Crashers) demonstrates these traits in a subtler manner (suiting the film’s tone).  He turns out to be a perfect casting choice and is well supported by a great group of actors including Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard and Michael Sheen.

All of that said, it’s the writing that I love most about Woody Allen films.  He has a gift for creating witty, intelligent dialogue and capturing the intricacies of the complex human condition.  He’s done it again with Midnight In Paris and the film finishes a thought-provoking observation.  If you don’t leave the cinema with a smile on your face, I’ll be very, very surprised.