Film

Long before the abomination known as Moves Like Jagger (Maroon 5 your days are numbered), the rubberfaced Rolling Stones frontman made a different move. He wore lipstick and lavish beauty products and took much more time than most of his male counterparts when getting ready.

Yep, Mick Jagger was the first Metrosexual. He was The Man…who slightly resembled a woman.

Modern day metros like Pharell Williams, David Beckham, Marc Anthony and Orlando Bloom should doff their fedoras to Jagger, the grandfather of metrosexuality and an outstanding individual who championed individuality.

Continue reading "Mick Jagger’s still putting the sex into metrosexual" »

Over the past year, millions of film buffs have spent countless hours squinting at blurry, distant shots of stars in assorted rubber outfits with the hope of being the first to declare a film they won’t see for several months a failure.

They sort through plot leaks, casting news, online debates over feline ears and heated discussions about how Russell Crowe’s jelly belly will affect his performance as Superman’s dad. Movies today are assembled in online forums by clever pseudonyms and ironic avatars long before the sets are even built.

The magic has always been in the finished product. When publicists and opportunistic assistants hurl unpolished stills across cyberspace, they permanently damage the illusion.

Continue reading "The world’s a racecar, but life is better when we take it slow" »

Today’s news that an Iranian actor faces a year’s jail and 90 lashes for starring in a South Australia-funded film is an affront to justice, artistic license and about 100 other things. It is, however, very good news for a certain K Rudd.

The man who was Prime Minister until he walked backwards into a very long scimitar has had a good week. Not since he confronted a jaded John Howard and his despised WorkChoices at the 2007 election has Rudd been presented with such a string of scenarios tailor-made for his popularity.

If politics is normally the equivalent of facing missiles hurled at 100 miles an hour, this week has been T-Ball for Rudd. First, he out-manouevred Gillard with the Kuta Kid, owning the news cycle and making Gillard’s phone call to the boy’s cell look like a desperate grab for attention. Now he’s got the chance to go into bat for Iranian actor Marzieh Vafamehr.

Continue reading "This must be a job for SuperKevin…" »

Here’s the thing about having the time of your life. You only have it once. You can’t go back there.

That’s why it’s stupid for Hollywood to say they want to remake the 1987 classic Dirty Dancing. 

Now, in purely business terms you can see why. There have been lots of remakes lately. But this one should be off limits.

Continue reading "Hollywood, get your dirty hands off my movie" »

Back in 1989, I was a brash seven-year-old who drove my parents insane by always going a million miles per hour. I would never do anything slowly. Should my parents look away for a second, I would be gone in a flash.

It was with this in mind that, on my 8th birthday, I got a present they thought symbolised my approach to life.  The book: a pictorial review of the 1988 Formula 1 season. What was Formula 1? I had no idea. All I knew is that the book was full of great pictures of the fastest cars on the planet and that got little eight-year-old me pretty excited.

That season was a watershed year in car racing.  On one hand it was the most lop-sided competition in sports history (two cars won everything and no one else had a chance). Yet, it was also one of the closest sporting events in history as the two drivers in the cockpits of these cars were the fastest drivers on the planet. The drivers: Alain Prost from France, and Ayrton Senna from Brazil.

Continue reading "That mad Brazilian bastard sure could drive" »

We’ve all read the headlines: “A disastrous weekend at the box office as Australian films fail dismally”.

The idea we don’t like our own movies has become so prevalent it was the subject of a panel discussion at the recent Mumbrella360 conference. 

Despite being an advertising nerd who’s never marketed a film in my life, I found myself sitting beside film-makers, an executive from Screen Australia, and a distributor, discussing the topic “What needs to be done to persuade Australian filmgoers to watch Australian films?”

Continue reading "How to turn a profit from Aussie film flops" »

We were due to start shooting at 8:00am. Legendary actor Bill Hunter, Billy to his mates, looked at me with one eye open, the other squinting and with a wry smile made it clear he wouldn’t be moving until I relaxed, sat with him and had a beer or two. He hadn’t said a word. His was a face that told a story.

Four other well known Aussie actors were there too. We were shooting a self-funded pilot for a TV series (that was rejected by the networks). For once I didn’t babble. I watched and listened and learned. I can’t say I knew Bill Hunter, but I was pleased to my core as we sat back and opened a second beer before shooting, that I shared a few golden moments with a man who knew how to tell a story.

Bill Hunter had a knack of picking the right Aussie films to be in. He knew what a good story was. So many Australian feature films are a flop nowadays because we lack the ability to tell a good story on-screen. For all the modern gadgets, the hand-held video cameras, the hard-drives; the instant play-back generation simply doesn’t know how to tell a story on-screen anymore.

Continue reading "Airheads with gadgets have hijacked real storytelling" »

Who wants to see a free movie?

Here’s the guff about Incendies, which is in cinemas on April 21: The Academy Award-nominated film is a masterful cinematic achievement - at once a tightly woven mystery; an epic, sweeping family drama and deeply affecting, profound and transcendent work.

At the reading of their mother Nawal’s will, twin siblings Jeanne and Simon learn for the first time that they have a brother, and that their father, who they thought was dead, is in fact alive. Their mother’s final wish is that the twins find them both to deliver certain sealed letters.

Shifting back and forth in time, Incendies follows two parallel journeys, expertly interwoven: the twins’ journey to their mother’s Middle Eastern homeland, and Nawal’s journey 20 years earlier to find the baby boy she was forced to give up. An incredibly powerful film that unfolds in such unique and unexpected ways, Incendies will floor you from the very first scene. It is one of those rare, extraordinary films that restores your faith in the power of cinema. Watch the trailer here.

Continue reading "Freebies alert! The Punch is hosting a night at the cinema" »

As film producers and Screen Australia bureaucrats argue about whether Baz Luhmann’s 3D remake of ‘The Great Gatsby’ is more worthy than other feature films to be financed in part by the Australian taxpayer, some questions are worthy of consideration.

What will Australian taxpayers get for their $40 million contribution to the coffers of Warner Brothers - an American producer of film and television entertainment whose primary market is the United States?

What will NSW taxpayers get for their contribution to Gatsby’s budget – a sum that the Keneally government tells us, with its customary lack of transparency and accountability, must be kept secret?

Continue reading "Does Australia need the Great Gatsby?" »

In 2002, a triumphant Nicole Kidman swooped gawkily onto stage to collect her Best Actress statue for The Hours.

With war raging in Afghanistan and memories of the 9/11 attacks still fresh, many had wondered whether the ceremony should even go ahead .

“Why do we come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil?” Kidman’s awkward question rang out over the auditorium. “Because Art is Important.”

Continue reading "It feels wrong to care about the Oscars" »

Not planning on spending three hours of your life watching Ricky Gervais gamely work his way through his agonizing but compelling monologue, or realising Robert de Niro needs a script to sound intelligent?

Here’s a rundown of this year’s Golden Globes.

1. If there is one lesson to be gleaned from today’s glitz-fest it is this – smart girls get the bling.

Continue reading "In case you missed the Golden Globes…" »

What I’m about to say is pretty taboo but I don’t care any more.

This animal-loving thing has got way out of hand.

I’m all for saving the many-spotted snorkeling frog of South America and the endangered pine cone-licking mouse thing of Wacka Wacka Island, but enough is enough.

Continue reading "Not smarter than your average film" »

So Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal have stripped off for the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Surprised?

It’s becoming a trend in Hollywood to gain attention through everything but their actual profession -acting.

It doesn’t shock me though that these two got partially naked to promote their new film, Love & Other Drugs. Hathaway, 27, plays liberal artist Maggie Murdock in the movie, opposite Gyllenhaal’s commitment-phobic Viagra salesman Jamie Randall.

Continue reading "Lacking a bit of attention? Get your gear off" »

The Social Network opens in Australia later this week and whether you couldn’t care less about Facebook or you’re guilty of updating your status every time your toddler passes wind, there’s a lot to think about in this film about the world’s youngest billionaire.

The first question viewers will discuss after seeing the story of the man who was just 19 when he created the world-wide internet phenomenon of Facebook will be: is Mark Zuckerberg an asshole?

And judging by the flurry of examination of the issue overseas - the second question will be: is this movie misogynistic/about misogyny?

Continue reading "The Mad Men of social networking" »

If the nastiness of this election is getting you down, perhaps it’s time to take a break. If you want to forget that Mark Latham even exists, it’s probably time to open your brain to the full-frontal lobe sensory assault that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

It’s hyperreality stretched to the limit, an ADHD teen-nerd rom-com packed with Atari-style graphics, manga and anime. And you’ll either love it or want to chew your own eyes out.

The plot, adapted from a comic book series, is ludicrous: Scott Pilgrim – played by quintessential geek Michael Cera – meets the girl of his dreams, but in order to date her, he must first defeat her seven evil exes in battles that make The Matrix look like Raging Bull.

Continue reading "Triumph of the geek in an assault on the frontal lobe" »

Update 7.21am: The ten passes have been nabbed. But go and see the movie anyway, it looks like a cracker. Tors.

Time Out Magazine called Four Lions “The most explosively funny bomb-com ever made.” The first feature film from British comedian Chris Morris (Brass Eye, The Day Today) tells the story of a group of British would-be suicide bombers as they pursue their increasingly ridiculous dreams of jihad.

The Punch has ten double passes to give away to preview screenings this coming weekend (13th, 14th and 15th of August) in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart.

I’ll pop them in the mail to the first ten readers to email me at tors(at)thepunch.com.au this morning with a friendly message of hello.

Another day, another tape exposing Mel Gibson as a wretch. In the latest recording his ex-girlfriend asks him what kind of man hits a woman with a child in her hands, “breaking her teeth twice in the face”. Gibson shouts back: “Oh, you’re all angry now? You know what, you f—king deserved it.”

Troubled artists are hardly a modern phenomenon but the ways in which their darker sides get exposed certainly are. Their worst character traits are amplified by “Hollywood enablement”, the destructive modern culture of the Thirty Mile Zone that allows stars to believe they can behave as they wish, supported as they are by coteries of flunkies and yea-sayers instead of actual friends. By the time this behaviour takes hold - as in the case of Gibson but also arguably in that of the much younger Lindsay Lohan - they have no fear of failure any more because their success is already secure.

In the best piece I’ve read on the affair since the first tape emerged, Tina Brown at The Daily Beast outlines how it makes a devastatingly strong case for celebrity leaks. She calls it a “high watermark in celebrity outing”, arguing the most unsettling aspect is not his racism - of which much has been made over his use of a particular word - but his vile misogyny. Amen to that.

Continue reading "Mad Mel Gibson and the stars we have to hate" »

If you don’t want to be ripped off this weekend, don’t watch Clash of the Titans or Alice in Wonderland in 3D.

Both films were shot ‘flat’ – two-dimensionally – and converted to 3D after the fact, an unsatisfactory process known as ‘up-conversion’ or ‘dimensionalising’.

If you’ve already watched Alice or Titans in 3D – and paid the premium 3D ticket price for the experience, thank you very much – you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Continue reading "Three-dimensional films a one-dimensional rip-off" »

There is movement at the police station, for the word has passed around, that there won’t be any piss on Australia Day.

While we’re hardly about to dip our toes back into the dry waters of prohibition on Fair Dinkum Day, the NSW police appear to be flying in the face of our deep seated tradition of inebriation, seeking to ban take-away sales of any beer worth bottling and proposing some sort of two can limit, as if the boundary at the SCG now stretched past Broken Hill.

And while one of our many national shames is indeed the battle of the binge, for me the only thing worse than our inability to keep our elbows from bending is our inability to make a film that looks like it hasn’t just fallen from a blue cattle dog’s bumhole.

Continue reading "Strike me pink it’s the crap OZ cinema drinking game" »

The 1950s was an extraordinary decade. It produced John Howard’s values, Tony Abbott’s existence and Marty McFly’s parents.

It was an age in which men were men and women were women and Supreme Court judges were white. People knew who they were back then and if they didn’t people were friendly enough that you could ask somebody and they’d tell you. Back then you could take all the drugs you wanted, as long as you were a housewife and had a prescription. You do that these days and people say you’ve got a problem.

Yet into this staid world exploded a force with such style, dark good looks and raw sexual energy that the cultural landscape of the entire western world was to be changed forever. I speak of course of the DeLorean DMC 12, a sports car whose fame is only eclipsed by its poor on-road performance and sudden withdrawal from production.*

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema: The Tony Abbott tribute edition" »

I felt nothing when Michael Jackson died. It’s not like I didn’t try to summon a tear but in the end the only emotion I could rustle up was ambivalence. This was surprising because usually when a celebrity dies, I do feel sad. Often extremely so.

When Natasha Richardson died, for example, I was deeply affected, even though I couldn’t name a single film she was in. When John Lennon died, I was terribly sad, even though I was only vaguely aware of The Beatles and I was only nine.

But when one of the world’s biggest pop stars died back in June, someone whose music had been the soundtrack to decades of my life, I was oddly unmoved. As much as I tried, I simply couldn’t connect to any great sense of loss or tap into that massive international out-pouring of grief.

Continue reading "This is an excellent piece of Michael Jackson propaganda" »

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991 Spoiler alert: Tenuous links between Kevin Costner, Joe’s mum, and the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival

In 1991 Bryan Adams had a good old fashioned tug at the world’s heartstrings with the smash hit ballad “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. The song was the theme to the classic motion picture Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and was written to express the way Robin Hood felt about Maid Marian. It also, by an uncanny coincidence, describes exactly how my mother feels about me.

This was never more clear than when I went home to Melbourne for the weekend on a racing junket and thought I would pop by the old family homestead afterwards. I won’t delve too much into a description of said homestead except to say that it is the sort of house which does not so much have rooms as it does narrow pathways cut through piles of old newspapers.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema: Costner in Robin Hood" »

Knight Rider, 1982. Spoiler alert: David Hasselhoff walks into a bar.

Civilisations are built on the backs of great men, and, where possible, great Pontiacs. In 1982, when humankind was still reeling from the release of the Toyota Camry and crying out for a hero, such a man and such a Pontiac answered the call.

His name was Michael Knight and he was to go on to change the face of crime-fighting for a generation, as well as deliver the 2000 Sydney Olympics on time and on budget.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema: Knight Rider" »

Point Break. Year: 1991. Spoiler alert: Fear causes hesitation.

The death of Patrick Swayze last week wreaked havoc within the media industry. Being the sensitive and well-honed professionals that we are, we naturally wished to present Swayze in a respectful light and only show examples of his best work. As a result all the montages went like this:

1. Water scene from Dirty Dancing
2. Pottery scene from Ghost
3. Field scene from Dirty Dancing
4. Fade to black.

This kind of blatant editorialising is based on the small-minded orthodoxy that classic films such as Road House (42 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes) and Next of Kin (43 per cent) are somehow unworthy of Swayze’s legacy.  In fact while reception was largely negative (the combined US box office was $0), more prescient sections of the media realised that history would judge both movies well.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema #9: Point Break" »

Popular science fiction has long explored the themes of race, racial tolerance, isolation and segregation.

Alien species as a metaphor for race is not rocket science and it goes as far back as 1953 with the movie It Came From Outer Space, where the aliens believe their hideous appearance will inevitably lead to conflict with humanity, and reflects the xenophobic thinking at the time, that is the “blacks” would show consideration for the “whites”.

It was the sort of thinking that in turn led to one of the most tragic social-engineering laws of our time - Apartheid.

Continue reading "The alien film that’s a true story - sort of" »

I cried watching Ghost. But then I cried at the end of Platoon, so maybe I’m not the best judge of a movie’s weep-inducing capabilities.

“Ditto,” though, is surely one of the great one-word one-liners. Patrick Swayze‘s character in Ghost, Sam, couldn’t bring himself to tell Molly he loved her, and used the phrase whenever she said “I love you.”

It’s at the top of our list of the most memorable quotes from Swayze, who has died of cancer. He was 57. We’re looking for your input to build the list so add your suggestions and discuss your favourite Swayze moments in the comments.

Continue reading "Patrick Swayze’s greatest movie moments" »

With only four months left until we leave the awkward-to-say noughties behind, why is no-one yet talking about the annointment of the “best film of the decade”?

Despite terabytes of movie blog and opinion sites, all hungry for content, there’s precious little undercurrent for this film or that: no “camps” of bloggers waving the flag for Adaptation, There Will Be Blood, Ratatouille or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Quentin Tarantino this week listed his top 20 favourite flicks since 1992 (the year Reservoir Dogs was released) and even that didn’t spur a response narrowing things down to the decade.

Continue reading "You’ve never heard of the best film of the noughties" »

Yes! Stick this in your eye, over-analytical movie critics: Quentin Tarantino has named his favourite 20 movies of his directing career, and it’s a laundry list of pop shtick including Speed, The Matrix, Fight Club, and Team America - World Police, while the closest it gets to a Semillon Sauvignon Blanc is the palatable Lost in Translation. 

To my fellow trashy-movie-loving Philistines who have been hiding in the closet: it’s time to celebrate. Liking movies with bad guys and guns is OK. Quentin Tarantino, one of the finest directors of his generation, says so.

The list includes some off-the-wall Japanese and Korean martial arts and monster flicks - which I haven’t seen and probably won’t, ever - but the rest help make up one of the most quotable lists you’ll see this year.

Continue reading "At last, a movie buff who says it’s OK to love trash" »

That’s all she wrote for ‘newspaper movies’, with the fruitful subgenre to breathe its last once the Russell Crowe thriller State of Play slips this week from Australia cinemas.

No longer will Hollywood stars loosen their ties and roll up their sleeves as scoop-hungry newspaper reporters, no more will veteran character actors bring knowing splashes of avuncular charm to the stock role of the grizzled editor. No longer will the movie news be broken in print.

State of Play, with Crowe as a Washington journalist chasing a far-reaching Capitol conspiracy, marks the end of an era simply because 21st century audiences assume, correctly or not, that news now happens online.

Continue reading "Time to pronounce the death of the newspaper ... movie" »

Whether you love or loathe the Academy Awards, there’s no doubt that winning one of those heavy gold statuettes can be a career-changing experience for those in the movie industry.

It’s not surprising then that the announcement that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has lifted the number of nominations for Best Picture from 5 to 10 for 2010 has drawn interesting responses from fans and critics alike.

Some film professionals are delighted that the pool of competitors is being deepened, declaring that this decision will allow more cinematic contenders to vie for what’s undoubtedly the most prestigious prize of the night. Hope for the Australian film industry has even been expressed – but apart from this year’s winner of Canne’s best film, Warwick Thornton’s Sampson and Delilah, that wish is more akin to chasing rainbows.

Continue reading "Double the chance of nomination for an Oscar" »

It’s everywhere: God, the Bible, sinners, commandments, the fires of judgement. The whole theological lot is currently centre-stage in pop culture, news media and university lecture halls across the nation. You can’t even escape religious discussion at the two-star-review end of the cinema.

And that (possibly lower down) is exactly where you find the new Jack Black comedy, The Year One. I haven’t endured such a dense smog of sexual stereotypes, fart jokes and poo-eating since Year 8 sailing camp.

But the film’s real subject matter is religion, ancient and modern and your need to be set free from it. Religion is not only ridiculous but also corrupt, and you must pursue your own destiny, whatever you think that might be.

Continue reading "Year One: a parody of biblical proportions" »