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Entries in Australia (86)

Monday
Sep222014

BAZ DAZZLED!

Manuel here with some Spectacular Spectacular news!

This one goes out to those Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin fanatics out there (there’s still a number of us, right?). Since releasing The Great Gatsby ...sorry, two-time Academy Award winner The Great Gatsby, Baz has been flexing his muscles elsewhere: he directed some beautiful shorts for the Prada/Schiaparelli exhibit at the Metropolitan museum, he directed the musical stage adaptation of Strictly Ballroom currently playing in Sydney, and threw quite the lavish party (does he throw any other kind?) to commemorate the opening of Melbourne’s newest mall, Emporium. We’ve also been hearing whispers of him possibly directing the long-gestating Stanley Kubrick project on Napoleon for HBO. While we wait, those of us in the tri-state area (or those visiting) may get our Baz-fix from the holiday windows at Barney’s this winter in what the retail company is calling a “Baz Dazzled Holiday”; a title which is equal parts flamboyant, ridiculous, and flashy which is to say, Baz in a nutshell.

Style. Fashion. Razzle-dazzle. It really feels like a match made in Spectacular Spectacular! heaven. Let’s throw suggestions out here for what Baz & Martin might come up with for Barney’s. Are you hoping for some holiday pop mish-mash worthy of a Shakespearean couple, or maybe for a 1930s glitzy winter wonderland?

Also, I wouldn’t be doing this news tidbit any justice if I didn’t in some way shoehorn in this picture, taken during New York Fashion week of Baz and his two Moulin Rouge! stars, Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor which Nat may have missed in his TIFF-frenzy. They do make quite the dapper trio, don't you agree?

Friday
Sep052014

TIFF: Charlie's Country

Nathaniel's Adventures at TIFF. Day 1

There's nothing like the fresh smell of na movies in the morning. Or the coffee while watching the movies. I love starting the day with a movie. Always have. It's easy to do that at TIFF where things start rolling at 8:30 AM. So I popped out of bed and hit the theater. At my second movie at 11 AM, two filmmakers in the seats next to me joked that the fairly robust attendance on the first morning of press & industry screenings was because late night boozing hadn't begun yet. "Not so," I interjected, having been to a pre-TIFF party the night before and spotting some familiar faces. "I know for a fact that someone here has a hangover." They laughed and I realized, too late, that it probably sounded like a confession. T'was not, I swear! I left that pre-TIFF party sober and l-o-n-g before I hear it wound down. 

CHARLIE'S COUNTRY [Australia]
Time has been good to aboriginal actor David Gulipil's face. His first starring role was in Walkabout way back in 1971, but four decades later when you see him on screen in historical films like Ten Canoes (2006) or epics like Australia (2008) his shock of tangled grey and white hair and those visible years on his skin have granted his memorable face even more big screen potency. It's a great face to spend time with and the Dutch-Australian director Rolf de Heer knows it, often just leaving the camera on him for long stretches when not much is actually happening. His latest collaboration with Gulpilil (they co-wrote the film) is a character drama about an old man named Charlie who longs for the "old ways" and resents white Australia and all the policies of "The Intervention".

I know absolutely nothing about Australian politics that I didn't learn from the movies. No two ethnically and morally fraught political situations are exactly comparable -- I don't mean to be reductive --  but what we see in Charlie's Country (and every politically or historically minded Australian film before it), reminded me so strongly of America's own often shameful history and treatment of Native Americans that it was easy to be quickly engrossed without actually understanding details. Much of Charlie's struggles and personal setbacks are a complicated result of a mixture of that politically stacked deck, hopeless self-sabotage, and his respect for "the old ways" that feels both completely genuine and goosed up for whenever he wants feel righteously offended. Charlie longs to track and hunt but isn't allowed to have weapons, he hates fast food but that's all his community has easy access too. The film's best moments are when Charlie's natural sense of humor and feisty spirit busts through the sad political reality: Charlie pretending to be a better tracker than he is; the joy of cooking in nature's "supermarket"; Charlie's friendly antagonistic relationship with both the local cops (they greet each other with "white bastard / black bastard" bickering) and his own community. 

I'd like to heartily recommend Charlie's Country but the truth is it aggravated me as often as it moved me. The pacing is strangely glacial and some of its most superb moments are ruined by goosing them too far. Take for instance a tough scene in a hospital where a doctor asks Charlie if he can just call him that because "foreign names are hard for me to pronounce." If you're paying any attention at all the moment arrives like a cold hard slap. It's enough to enrage you on Charlie's behalf but he underlines it himself with a muttered "so now I'm a foreigner?" He rubs the sting away with his own vocalized indignation, no longer requiring yours. Worse yet is the repetitive (if thankfully sparse) musical score that sounds exactly like a Clint Eastwood parody. Eastwood shouldn't even score his own movies, let alone other people's! There's a wonderful moment late in the film in which Charlie remembers a dance performance from his youth and you hear, all too briefy, the thrilling indigenous didgeridoo. Why not use that for scoring since the movie's heart, like Charlie's, longs for the old country. B-/C+

Also at TIFFA Little ChaosWildThe Gate, Cub, The Farewell Party, BehaviorThe Theory of Everything, Imitation GameFoxcatcher, Song of the Sea1001 Grams, Labyrinth of Lies, Sand DollarsThe Last Five YearsWild Tales, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on ExistenceForce Majeure, Life in a Fishbowl, Out of NatureThe Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, and Mommy

Friday
Aug152014

Nicole's Return. The Dates Are Ever Changing.

When will our beloved Kidman return to us? For someone who works so consistently, doesn't it seem like it's hard to find Nicole Kidman in a movie theater? Grace of Monaco keeps threatening to arrive but never does leaving us to wonder if it will ever play in regular movie theaters after its shaming at Cannes (that place can be brutal). Any big dreams for the quality of Paddington (it comes from charming source material at least) her Christmas film, have been dashed by that hateful slapstick trailer and Colin Firth's exit as the voice. The wait is soon over though. For those of you who missed The Railway Man in theaters, it's just out on DVD and Blu-Ray. [Warning: Nicole's part is small enough that when the climax arrives, she's literally a blurry figure in the background.]

 

Next up though is the thriller Before I Go To Sleep which has a new poster (above) and a new release date: Halloween to be exact. Let's just hope it's better than The Invasion or Trespass. (It's apparently really hard to make a good thriller post-Hitchcock because not that many filmmakers are skilled at making them.)

After that picture all us Kidmaniacs will wait again for her other completed films to play the release date shell game. Most promising by far is Werner Herzog's Gertrud Bell biopic Queen of the Desert both because Herzog is an amazing director (another feather in Kidman's auteur-fetish cap!) and because the role is big and central. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Queen of the Desert is doing the fall festival circuit so maybe they're waiting until 2015?

CAST THIS!
This is one of those stories that was so obviously a Film Experience type of story that I pretended to myself that I'd already covered it on the blog. Like those dreams you have where you already went to class or work so there's no need to jump up and go when you wake up! Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon are now attached to the film adaptation of Liane Moriarty's comic best seller Big Little Lies about a group of three mothers whose kids are in the same Kindergarten class in a beautiful Australian seaside town (with secrets, natch). A sprained ankle sets off a series of events which eventually leads to a school riot and a murder. There are three major characters (and apparently a lot of broadly drawn but possibly scene-stealing supporting casts). No word yet on which of the moms Nicole & Reese are planning to play but obviously a third star will be joining them.

These are the characters...

Madeline: gleefully extroverted, fashionable, and still a "glittery girl" at 40. Her broken Dolce & Gabbana heel sets the plot in motion. She's happily married but still having trouble with her ex and his younger "new age-y" wife
Celeste: a nervous very beautiful mom with twins, who is married to a wealthy man
Jane: shy, plain and uncomfortable in her own skin. New in town but Madeline and Celeste befriend this single mom when her son gets in trouble the very first day of school

YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO PICK THEIR ROLES FOR THEM AND ADD A THIRD ACTRESS IN THE COMMENTS!

Let's just pray this wasn't doesn't go the way of The Danish Girl which Nicole was attached to for quite some time until development hell took it from her plate. The film is still trying to get made but instead of an actress in the transgender lead role it's now Eddie Redmayne with his Les Miz director Tom Hooper guiding him through the transformation. 

Sunday
Aug102014

Son of a Gun. Brenton Thwaites, Anyone?

Here's a new movie poster for Son of a Gun (which will be released by A24 at some point) starring our beloved Ewan McGregor as a notorious criminal and rising star Brenton Thwaites as his young protege.

The protege is expected to help his mentor escape from prison.

A happy belated to Brenton who turned 25 yesterday! He leads The Giver next weekend (albeit with ample support from not one but two legends: Bridges & Streep) which is his fourth release already this year... so basically he's this year's version of Male Australian Hollywood is Trying To Make Happen. Australia is just relentless at hogging the male starring roles, yes?  I have the sneaking suspicion he's going to be like the boy version of Alison Lohman and his age will be impossible to pin down onscreen for decades to come and maybe he'll play teenagers when he's 40? You'd think it would be creepy for a 25 year old to play 16 year old Elle Fanning's love interest in Maleficent but he didn't look a day over his 16th birthday in that, right? I once saw an interview with him where he claimed that The Blue Lagoon (1980), a movie he was then remaking, was "a hundred years old" which annoyed me in the highly specific way only smug teenage  'I know nothing of the past and I'm proud of it!' comments can. That movie is only 9 years older than he is so I guess he's 91.

But that's quite a tangent.

What I meant to say was that I find it interesting that young male stars often rise up through this movie phase of being "mentored" in one way or another onscreen by an older famous star  (Cruise and DiCaprio did that, Brad Pitt did that spiritually with Robert Redford directing him who he was then often compared to, Jai Courtney is in the process of doing that with Bruce Willis and Russell Crowe, etcetera) like a sort of box office insurance policy in case they can't cut it since the older star will still draw crowds. Young female stars don't regularly have that phase usually just leading movies straightaway or co-starring with men instead of other women. Anne Hathaway is a notable exception given that her Princess Diaries and Prada film-carrying/star-making gigs would fit perfectly within this typically male star-building formula. Except that her vehicles were about make-overs... but let's not split hairs. 

Friday
Jun132014

Geo-Politics, Car Chases, and Keri Hilson Rhapsodies in 'The Rover'

Glenn here looking at a film from my homeland. As I sat watching David Michôd’s The Rover surrounded by a room of American film critics, I began to think about politically-motivated cinema and how it is perceived by audiences who do not have a distinct knowledge of the subject at hand. Like many “new waves” that come about (which is basically a fancy term for “look, we’re finally paying attention to you!”), these films are usually the result of angry artists using their form to critique a government or regime. Some do it with unmistakable blunt force, while others take the allegorical road. In the case of The Rover, it’s the latter. So as I sat then more-or-less engrossed (more on that in a little bit) and admiring what Michôd was saying about Australian geopolitics (intentional or otherwise), I couldn’t help but think that – quite frankly – a lot of people aren’t going to get it.

People that I asked seemed to be aware that the film was working on a level higher than mere outback action fodder, but would be hard-pressed to explain what it was all about. I don’t blame them – I wouldn’t want to follow Australian politics either right now if I weren’t personally invested in it. It's truly depressing. Furthermore, it’s not like I can claim to know the impetus behind any number of film movements, political or not. However, with The Rover I think it’s a tougher case to decipher because Michôd and his collaborators have made a very sparse film. These thoughts I was having came about during one of The Rover’s quieter scenes, of which where are many. It's film that surely could have been wound tighter in the editing room (although the work of newcomer editor Peter Sciberras is still effective, especially in the film’s impactful and exciting opening act) and perhaps a little more forthcoming with its details, if only to allow the international audiences that it’s bound to attract after the Oscar-nominated Animal Kingdom more of an access to its themes.

Michôd, Pearce, & Pattinson on set of 'The Rover'

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