Movies

The interwebs was aghast at the news that there may or may not be a sequel to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in the near future.

A teaser trailer has been making the rounds featuring Matthew Broderick as Ferris all grown up reciting the classic line from the 1986 film “How can I handle work on a day like today?”. The nine second clip uploaded this weekend by user “chuckachucka2012” has managed to get the world’s attention.

It appears that the mysterious video clip was made as a Super Bowl commercial (the Super Bowl is next week) but what it’s meant to advertise nobody knows.

Continue reading "Has the Ferris wheel rolled around again?" »

Robert Redford was born in Santa Monica, California. Burt Lancaster was born in East Harlem, New York. There the similarities end.

Redford claims to be a facilitator of alternative artistic dreams and talent. Lancaster genuinely was. Redford can’t act. Lancaster could.

Redford has never risked playing characters that make him look malevolent or wrongfooted or unpleasant. Lancaster often played characters without redemptive traits. In 1961, with the war still close to many damaged hearts, he played a Nazi war criminal jurist in “Judgment in Nuremburg”.

Continue reading "Over-rated Redford and the Sundance kidding" »

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…" »

It’s a jungle in there -the cinema, I mean. If only going to the movie of your refined choice involved nothing more than buying a ticket, taking your chair and letting the good times roll.

If only.

No, the cinema is a volatile habitat where all kinds of wildlife are on the prowl to make your big-screen experience seem all the smaller.

Continue reading "Are you famished, misguided, connected or unsettled?" »

Dear big Hollywood cigar-smoking guys: If you make a cake and everyone likes it, you can make it again. Nobody minds if you use exactly the same ingredients, the same oven, and the same hilarious apron with ‘Kiss The Cook’ printed on it. You could even say that it’s a cake ‘remake’.

Now, this is the important part, so I want you to put down your cigar and read this very carefully:

MOVIES ARE NOT CAKE.

Continue reading "These movie producers are getting a bit too Footloose" »

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" »

Labels are the problem. Male or female, black or white, comedy or drama, PG-13 or R? In which section of the DVD store will this film end up? How do we market it? To whom should the product placement and the trailers before the film be skewed?

It is for these reasons that a gem like Bridesmaids receives qualified approval like “the funniest R-rated female driven comedy of all time”. There’s a glaring missed opportunity, given the ethnicity of one of the film’s leads – surely an enterprising reviewer will dub it “the funniest mixed-race buddy film R-rated female-driven romantic comedy of all time”. Perhaps with an exclamation mark or two for good measure.

Bridesmaids stars Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote the film with Annie Mumolo, and a host of other Saturday Night Live alumni. At the time of writing, it has made almost US$125 million in the US alone and is one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.

Continue reading "Bridesmaids: The funniest mixed-race buddy film ever" »

Yesterday, News Ltd national defence writer Ian McPhedran argued that it’s our moral duty to stay the course in Afghanistan, both to honour fallen diggers and for the sake of the mission itself. Many ordinary people took exception, arguing the best way to honour the fallen is to withdraw from the whole exercise.

In any war in which Australia is involved, mainstream public figures rarely question our commitment to the conflict. To do so is seen as the equivalent of saying the fallen died for nothing.

Ordinary people know better. In war, as in life, the ground shifts. The perfectly valid reason you got involved several years back may no longer hold up today. Funny thing is, war movies have long echoed this theme. Maybe it’s time our leaders took a trip to the video store…

Continue reading "Six famous war films, and their lessons for our leaders" »

Most of the time I use the internet to research stories, look up movies or stalk… errm, I mean keep in contact with friends using social media. If I’m feeling particularly exciting I might check out a YouTube video of a cat playing the piano or a panda sneezing.

My computer, on the other hand, is busy running around extorting people as part of an organised crime gang or working as a double agent for foreign governments. And in its down time it hires itself out as a mercenary.

And there is a good chance yours is doing this too.

Continue reading "Botnets: My PC is a zombified gun for hire" »

It sure is nice to see everyone upset with a culture of inequality and sexual objectification in the Australian Defence Force Academy. And then what happens after all the stern faces and head-shaking about those wayward ADF boys?

Coming up next…Two and a Half Men! Or how about a premiere screening of Observe and Report starring that adorably hilarious Seth Rogen? Or a special repeat screening of the inexplicably popular Wedding Crashers? Or maybe you don’t make it through the ads and turn off after a commercial for the new Hawaii Five-0.

Maybe a DVD instead; how about a perennial classic like a James Bond movie or teen-flick American Pie? Sick of TV, why not head outside and check out the unavoidable posters plastered all over bus-shelters for the new Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston flick, Just Go With It?

Continue reading "This one time, on ADFA camp…" »

The queue of mature cinema-goers that snaked its way on Saturday night from the local art house cinema, and halfway out of the shopping complex that houses it, looked more like something you would expect at a summer rock festival than in the leafy private school belt.

(Here’s a cinema interview that the 40 plus types will like)

But people will queue - because in the 40+ market, the cinema seems to have triumphed.  This particular venue has refined its product to the point where the mirrors in the bathroom don’t show anything below the bosom, and the lights Photoshop you in a flattering 40w - which is ideal for any middle-aged viewer as she mulls over what to select at the candy bar.

Not so long ago, the potential supremacy of the cinema as a leisure activity was undermined by the absence of alcohol.  But this hurdle has now been overcome - with the double-edged result that you can experience the tension in your bladder rise in tandem with the tension in the plot.

Continue reading "Cinema: Culture without the boring bits" »

Many of us wouldn’t recognise old Hollywood anymore but when Elizabeth Taylor made her acting debut in the early 1940s, the glamour and glitz was going full pelt.

Impossibly beautiful women and ridiculously handsome men were gadding about, making movies in exotic locations and being chauffeured to cocktail parties.

Smoking long cigarettes and wearing elbow-length gloves, they’d swan around swimming pools in Christian Dior evening dress; the kind of life any ordinary person could only ever dream about.

Continue reading "Farewell to Elizabeth Taylor and old Hollywood glamour" »

The relationship between actors and the parts they play is an odd one.

Directors in the pursuit of authenticity in their production often cast characters pulled from the same streets, and sometimes with associations to the same criminal societies from which they draw their artistic inspiration. When these actors start getting into trouble for much the same things as their characters did, it poses an interesting question: which came first, the actor or the gangster?

Here’s a few notable examples of actors turned gangster, or is it the other way around?

The Wire’s Felicia “Snoop” Pearson

Continue reading "Bad things happen when gangsters play actors" »

There’s a large contingent of Beatles devotees who firmly believe that the Fab Four replaced Sir Paul with a look-a-like after he secretly died in 1966.

Start googling “Paul McCartney” and you’ll find that the second most popular search term is “Paul McCartney dead”. Modern conspiracy aficionados say this is because Google killed the real Paul McCartney so a fake Paul McCartney could form a real band called “Wings”, which would make Google a small amount of money, allowing them to purchase part of The Beatles catalogue so the real Paul McCartney could buy shares in Google.

Confused? So is poor ol’ Paul who routinely has to fend off sandal-wearing fat blokes who shove Wikipedia printouts in his face as conclusive proof that he’s dead.

Continue reading "Conspiracy: the final frontier" »

I feel like I’ve been the subject of George Lucas’ booty calls for way too long now.

I was too young to experience his creation, Star Wars, in all its glory. Born in 1980, my mother tells me she was pregnant with me when she went and saw The Empire Strikes Back in the cinemas. I like to think that it infused me with an appreciation of what the real Star Wars experience was like. Unfortunately, I’ll probably never know.

Each time the films have been released, they’ve been altered ‘for the better’ in an endless amount of ways. Scenes have been rewritten, added, and edited. Dialogue has been altered. Special effects beefed up. Characters and actors replaced. Han shot first. Then Greedo shot first. Then they shot at the same time. No two releases of Star Wars have been the same.

Continue reading "How many times can you reinvent the wookiee?" »

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?" »

Follow The Punch’s updates of triumphs and faux pas from the Oscars red carpet with our stellar fashion correspondent Nedahl Stelio throughout the afternoon.

MOST UN-BLACK SWAN LIKE: MILA KUNIS

It’s more than that, it’s positively pretty. All lacey and lilac-y and girly and flowy, Mila, who not only managed to hold her own with Natalie Portman in the film, proves that she ain’t bad in the style stakes either.

For her very first Oscars, this is stellar choice. It says, “I’ve made it, kind of, but I’m not going to be flashy about it. I’m keepin’ it real.”

Continue reading "Oscars 2011: The good, bad and extremely good looking" »

As an avid consumer of news, I’m considering adopting a few new hobbies over the next few months.

They include: Developing a crystal meth addiction, having 12 sugars in my morning coffee, throwing cinder blocks through shopfronts, having unprotected sex with at least four people a day, permanently wearing one of those beer helmets and making a giant inflatable ark-type thing out of all those condoms I won’t be using. 

In case you’ve been living under a rock in a Cold War-style nuclear bunker, the end of the world has been slated for 2012… or 2036… or something.

Continue reading "It’s the end of the world as we know it - and so what?" »

American adventurer Aron Ralston is just about to fly home, after a whirlwind visit of considerably less than 127 hours to promote the Oscar-nominated film 127 hours, which recounts his amazing survival story.

Ralston, you’ll recall, is the guy who got wedged by a boulder in a Utah canyon in 2003, and cut his own arm in sheer, gruesome desperation after five days with almost no food or water. So dehydrated was he, his pee literally turned black.

In countless interviews over the years, and again this week, Ralston has used words like “epiphany” and “euphoric moment” to describe the instant he decided to self-amputate. It’s hardly the overtly god-bothering language which some American athletes use. All the same, I’m convinced he experienced a “god moment”. Let me explain.

Continue reading "Ralston: Divine intervention or a bloody strong will?" »

It’s not hard to become a serial offender. It’s much harder to avoid becoming one. It’s hardest of all when your offence – serial, nearly serial, or otherwise – is Movie Rage.

This is a seriously under-studied syndrome suffered by usually polite and self-effacing people who go to the movies to see a film.

Not to have lunch, morning or afternoon tea. To see a film.

Continue reading "Confession: Movie rage made me ‘assault’ a stranger" »

Thursday December 9, 2010, was an interesting day for news in the world. It was the first time in human history a private company launched and returned a capsule from orbit, possibly opening transport possibilities to the International Space Station.

The interesting thing about this is the remarkable lack of fanfare surrounding anything to do with humanity’s exploits in space these days. 

When you consider that 40 years ago the world stood united by the feat of landing a person on the moon, it’s quite remarkable that now, when people are in space are doing life threatening work on a space station people really don’t care.

Continue reading "Space: The forgotten frontier" »

The world’s top space agency had a recent, desperate attempt to tap into popular culture - by having a crack at bad Hollywood science.

You really can’t fault NASA for trying. Last year it was told it must drop its dreams of replacing its dead Shuttle fleet and give up on its attempt to recapture the post Cold War frenzy of the world’s first Moon landing.

After all, this is the agency that brought the world its first reusable space craft and created the world’s second “permanent” space orbiter, SkyLab - a feat which continued to bring joy to earth-bound enthusiasts as its fiery debris rained down across our land and oceans.

Continue reading "NASA makes a failed landing on junk science" »

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" »

There was a collective, global sigh yesterday, when it appeared that hell had indeed frozen over and the inevitable had happened. Hollywood was remaking what cannot be remade.

If you hadn’t noticed, they’ve been working up to it for a while.

The Karate Kid (with Kung Fu), Clash of the Titans, A Nightmare on Elm Street, another Robin Hood (with a Robin and Marion surely too old to be climbing trees), more Predators, more Aliens, more Predators AND Aliens, Indy 4, Die Hard 4, Rambo 4, Rocky 6, and even news of Top Gun 2, set to take us back into the exciting world of… drone pilots.

Continue reading "Justin Bieber as Luke Skywalker, would they dare" »

Now this whole Harry Potter thing has rounded the turn and headed for home, I, for one, worry for the welfare of the (boy-)man himself, Daniel Radcliffe.

Sure, he might well be the richest thing in glasses this side of Bill Gates. 

But does DanRad have a fighting chance of staying on our screens once he no longer has a wand to wave in self-defence?

Continue reading "A magic looking glass into Harry Potter’s future" »

I have a passion which many others might quietly share: I am in love with the Mitford girls.

Such is my passion I have developed a parlour game which some players initially sneer at but soon become obsessed by.

What sisters they were: Dowdy and heroic Jessica, ultra sophisticated Nancy, gloriously beautiful Diana, Unity the tragic Valkyrie, and Pamela who, in Decca’s (Jessica’s) phrase, emerged as ``a you-know-what-bian’’ living with an Italian woman.

Continue reading "Hit or Mitford - everybody’s doing it" »

Is Flying High the funniest movie ever made?

This month the comedy classic Flying High (aka Airplane!) celebrated its 30th anniversary – and I’m pretty much certain it is still the funniest movie of all time.

No other film comes close to the sheer number of jokes packed into a trouser-dampening 88 minutes, so many quotable lines and visual gags that simply refuse to age like almost every other comedy.

Continue reading "Here’s to the funniest movie ever made" »

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" »

An unassuming bank manager who went missing in North Queensland is alleged to have made “full and frank admissions” to police about a missing $3 million from the community bank in which he worked.

The disappearance and subsequent arrest of bank manager Colin Carleton is a kind of crime story more fascinating than a heist pulled off by a gang of hardened criminals. The Courier Mail reports that Carelton is widely described as “quiet, down-to-earth, family man”.

Carleton’s alleged theft only came to light in the last few months, and is thought have taken place over a decade. He was due to meet with private investigators looking at financial irregularities at his Bendigo Community Bank when he disappeared on July 13, last seen going for a trail bike ride in the Herberton Ranges.

Continue reading "Election-Free Zone: the man who wasn’t there" »

Insiders have confirmed what we suspected…. the Sandra Bullock/Scarlett Johansson MTV Awards smooch was a pre-meditated act orchestrated by Bullock herself.

Yep, The Blind Side star rearranged the MTV award schedule so her award could be presented by the blonde bombshell instead of Zac Efron.

Because it seems when you need a profile resurrection, there’s nothing like a bit of girl on girl action to nab those headlines.

Continue reading "Girl on girl award kisses: what a load of Bullock" »

Have you ever loved anything as a child only to grow and have someone completely ruin it for you?

Well that’s exactly how I’ve felt when I saw Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead in the new trailers for the ‘Prince of Persia’ movie.  Now I’m happy to admit that I have an unacceptable level of personal attachment to the franchise - it being my favourite computer game growing up and being of Iranian or ‘Persian’ heritage myself. 

Seriously, when did a dose of bad spray tan qualify someone as being Middle Eastern?  And it’s not just the lead role, none of the principal cast members are of Iranian decent. This is despite the fact that Iran has a thriving film industry that is always exporting talented actors and creative types courtesy of its hardline government. 

Continue reading "Jake Gyllenhaal stole my identity and my video game" »

Some like dialogue. Others go for the actors, the love scenes, the mood, the era or the style. But who doesn’t enjoy a good bullet?

Death by gunshot is a thing to treasure. It is almost certainly the most common cause of screen death, or injury, because a bullet can say so much.

The slowly raised pistol of the cornered woman as the sex-killer moves in. The bloke who, instead of being blown to the ground, is suspended in the air by a horizontal rain of lead. The panicked, scrambled reloading of weapons as all hope fades…

Continue reading "The 10 best gunshot scenes in movies" »

We’re the first to admit we heterosexual blokes haven’t always treated you, our fabulous homosexual brothers, with the respect and affection you so richly deserve.

We can only guess at the number of times some knuckle-dragger inserted your head in an S-bend at high school after being driven into a homophobic rage by your fashion-forward outfit, Truman Capotesque lacerating wit, or Elton John pencil case.

We can picture you now, pacing up and down your tastefully decorated bedroom thinking, “One day I shall I blow this tragic town, join Hollywood’s gay mafia, and create a zeitgeist-reflecting TV show revolving around four gay men cunningly disguised as self-obsessed single women.

Continue reading "An open letter to Sex and the City creator Darren Star" »

My old neighbour once sent her husband out to rent a video for them to watch together.  He returned with a film called ‘One Tough Bastard’.

After wondering how much longer their marriage would last, my mind turned to a loftier question: what would you title the sequel to ‘One Tough Bastard’?  Would it be ‘One Tougher Bastard’?  ‘Two Tough Bastards’?  ‘One Tough Bastard and a Baby’?  Sadly, there is no such sequel.  Apparently when you’ve conquered the summit of film achievement, there’s nothing more to say.

There are a lot of pitfalls in the movie-making business.  Agreeing to make or star in a sequel is surely one of the biggest.

Continue reading "Well read-head: Too much of a good thing" »

Saturation marketing might have alerted you to the fact the new Sex and the City movie is nearly on our shores, and I bet there’s a whole load of teenage girls either begging their mothers to take them to see it or planning on going with their friends anyway.

You might think they’d be better off skipping the sexually-charged antics of Samantha and co and instead heading to the latest installment in the chaste Twilight saga.

After all, Twilight is all about saving yourself for marriage, getting off on holding hands, and personal sacrifice. But as role models for young women go, I’d pick Carrie and her friends over Bella any day.

Continue reading "Why Sex and the City is better for girls than Twilight" »

Everyone matches wine to food, but what about matching wine to other things in life? Here are 12 classic drops to go with 12 classic movies.

Silence of the Lambs with Chianti
A thrilling and scary movie about a psychotic Dr Hannibal Lecter toying with the young but intelligent FBI agent Clarice Starling. The movie won 5 Oscars and included numerous famous quotes, but none better than, “a census taker once tried to test me, I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” So grab some pizza and your favourite Chianti Classico and bring a new dimension to your enjoyment of this thriller.

Back to the Future with Mateus Rose
Such an 80’s flick, quality usually isn’t mentioned in connection with this movie but everyone has watched it at some time. If my old’s are anything to go by Mateus Rose travels in the same boat, easily one of the biggest selling wines of all time but who admits to drinking it. Hey go back to the future and try a little rose with this classy movie.

Continue reading "A nice chianti: wines to match 12 classic movies" »

Rove sidekick Peter Helliar’s debut film is out today and whoever cut the trailer has seriously let the side down.

Actually scratch that… there are two possibilities here. Whoever cut the trailer either A) didn’t know what they were doing or B) didn’t have much to work with.

Helliar’s film, I Love You Too, is an Australian-set romantic comedy templated on glossy US romantic comedies. All the moving parts are there: the goofball best friend (Helliar), the unobtainable beauty (Megan Gale) and a novel challenge for the central couple to overcome – he can’t say ‘I love you’.

Continue reading "Plenty of romance, pity about the comedy" »

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" »

A red carpet in Los Angeles. March 7, 2010: A handsome yet self-conscious Australian actor, who happens to have recently starred in the highest-grossing film of all time, is stopped for an interview while walking the red carpet at the Academy Awards.

When asked the mandatory question put to all Oscar attendees: “Your clothing, please discuss”, he replies “Payless Shoes and a friggin’ kick ass suit.” 
Quizzed as to the suit’s designer (it’s all about the labels, darling, hence the “who” and not “what” are you wearing) he shrugs “some bloke”.

Right on cue, the media in the actor’s homeland conclude this response to be proof of his down-to-earth appeal and marvel over his grounded, humble attitude amid a sea of Hollywood shallowness.

Continue reading "Wacko the diddle oh it’s a dead-set dinki di Avatar" »

Today I’m going to be a curmudgeon.  Let’s start with Avatar.  I hated it.  Before anyone starts:  yes, I know the special effects are amazing.  Yes, I saw it in 3D.  Yes, I know it’s nominated for a Best Film Oscar.  I still hated it.  The plot was lame and I resented being bashed over the head with the groaningly obviously political message.

While we’re at it, I also didn’t like Lord of the Rings. Fell asleep in the cinema in fact. Hell, as long as I’m bucking conventional wisdom, I may as well really disgrace myself: I find Monty Python terminally unfunny. I don’t get the big deal about Bob Dylan. And I don’t reckon Brad Pitt’s that attractive.

I usually keep these views to myself because of the reaction they provoke. The Monty Python one in particular attracts gasps of disbelief and horror.

Continue reading "Well readhead: Avatar, Dylan and Monty Python suck" »

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" »

At first it seemed as though becoming an Avatar would be a risky professional decision. I was hesitant about transferring my life-force into the body of a Na’vi alien body and moving to the planet Pandora.

Leaving earth would be hard: dying planet though it may be I’d still miss the new season of Big Love. Furthermore I hate using aeroplane toilets at the best of times so I thought holding it in over a five-year long haul spaceship flight would be a challenge.

Of course there are also immediate benefits: I would be taller and bluer beyond my wildest dreams (although to be honest I hadn’t previously fantasised too much about being 10-foot tall and blue). But really what sealed the deal was the lack of competition in the Pandora media market.

Continue reading "Why I became an Avatar" »

With nothing coming out of Copenhagen to rile the world’s anti-green conservatives, they’re aiming their Hummers at Avatar, James Cameron’s decade-later follow-up to Titanic.

For his right-of-centre critics, Cameron is a new Michael Moore; a manifestation elitist Hollywood whose 3D spectacular is filling kids’ minds with terrible ideas like greed is bad and green is good.

Miranda Devine wrote a few days ago in The Sydney Morning Herald that Avatar is infused with “Cameron’s sanctimonious hippie sensibility.” That’s right, the bloke who made Terminator and T2 – movies in which explosions and a Republican Governor save the day – is a hippie. It’s not hard to see why Devine et. al. are going after Cameron.

Continue reading "Avatar’s a film, not a call to take up arms" »

Curators of obscure movie history will, if they’ve had their eyes open, likely record 2009 as the year the ‘chick flick’ smartened up.

Rounded female characters showed up in everything from straight-out Oscar bait to rock ‘em-sock ‘em horror flicks, while some of the best films of the year centered around women and their distinct set of needs and challenges.

2009’s diverse honour roll includes everything from Drag Me to Hell and Whip It to An Education and Coco Before Chanel.

This year’s femme flicks starred women saying and doing interesting things, a seismic shift from the decades of wish fulfilment pap clued-up female moviegoers have had to sit through.

Continue reading "A blokes guide to the best chick flicks" »

Update 8.05am: The early birds have triumphed. All ten passes are accounted for. Sorry if you missed out - go see the movie anyway. Tors.

It’s hard to believe it’s Christmas Day this Friday, and The Punch is nearly 7-months-old. We’re here because of you, so thank you for that.

You may have noticed we’re a bit politically obsessed here, as it seems, are most of you. In the Loop is a movie for political tragics with a robust sense of humour (to call the language colourful is an understatement).

It’s out in cinemas here from January 21 - and the first 10 people to email me and ask (8.10am: they’ve all been allocated now, sorry) will get a double pass to see it.

Continue reading "A little Christmas present from The Punch" »

Spoiler alert: Life is complicated.

The finest, noblest and most powerful motion picture ever made, with the obvious exception of Weekend at Bernie’s, is without doubt Superman: The Movie.

Superman: The Movie is not just a work of staggering scale and genius, it was also the pioneer of movies identifying themselves as movies so as to avoid any confusion among the lower end of the demographic, who may have mistaken it for, say, Superman: The Stepladder.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema: Superman the Movie (1978)" »

There’s a very good reason why James Cameron’s Avatar, also known as The Most Expensive Movie Ever Made, stars a couple of computer-generated blue humanoid aliens.

Simply put, the mega-budget 3D sci-fi spectacle has been designed with a sort of ‘calculated universality’ and its 10-foot, cat-eyed protagonists are a central part of that strategy.

Film production is a tight business and risk-averse Hollywood isn’t about to throw big money at a production unlikely to make big returns.

Continue reading "Why Avatar just might make its money back" »

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" »

When director Chris Weitz took on The Twilight Saga : New Moon, he took on a juggernaut.

The first film in the franchise, Twilight, grossed over $380 million worldwide.

New Moon has already smashed box office records set by ‘Harry Potter and The Dark Knight.

Continue reading "A tick for Twilight New Moon" »

I watched Twilight New Moon at an inconspicuous cinema, at a very un-trendy hour. I figured that by strategically selecting the time and location, I would not have to be overwhelmed with screeching teeny boppers drooling over Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) or Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) as they vied for the attention of leading lady (and I use the term loosely) Bella Swan (Kirsten Stewart).

I figured wrong. When Edward made his first appearance, there was a scream, and it was not dissimilar to the cheer that enveloped practically all cinema patrons when Jacob took his shirt off (though admittedly, that was not an all too terrible sight).

It seems that where society was once divided along the axis of east or west, Angelina or Jennifer, Vegemite or Marmite, it is now divided along an axis of Edward or Jacob.

Continue reading "Thumbs down for Bella, Edward and Jacob" »

Every now and again a film comes along that defies your expectations, raises the bar for all film-makers working in the genre, and leaves you feeling much much better than when you went in.  When that happens you feel blessed; films that hit the mark like that come along so rarely they deserve your respect, your money and, dare I say it, your love.

I am an unashamed fan of disaster movies; they capture the essence of what is important about humanity and remind us that we people are one with nature and not apart from nature.  The first genuine disaster movie was Deluge, made in 1933 in which a paper model of NYC, and most especially the Statue of Liberty, is destroyed by a tsunami (Roland Emmerich referenced this in The Day After Tomorrow). Like all such films to follow it concerned the struggle of a good, honest working man, trying to protect his loved ones in the face of almost insurmountable odds.

Disaster films tend to introduce a new kind of special effect to the audience.  The Poseidon Adventure gave us the first realistic depiction of a capsised boat (though if you watch the capsising scene frame-by-frame you can actually see the actors pulling the table-cloths off the tables as they run past them).  The Towering Inferno was the first to show fire in reasonable proportion to the building (watch old episodes of The Thunderbirds  to see the opposite of this, where flames and water give away the scale of the models to humourous affect.)  Earthquake in 1974 introduced Sensurround to the jaded masses and The Swarm in 1978 (I saw it with my Mum) gave us some pretty convincing bee-clouds.

Continue reading "Best apocalypse I’ve ever had" »

The Blues Brothers, 1980. Spoiler alert: Marriages don’t always work out.

There is something about The Blues Brothers that is at once reassuringly wholesome and wildly decadent. It’s a bit like having a home cooked meal and then having sex with your cousin.

It begins as all good movies – and Hildebrand family stories – do, with somebody getting out of jail.* The person in question is of course Jake Blues, who exits a prison in suburban Chicago to be picked up by his brother Elwood Blues. It is at this point that some credit should be given to the parents of these two gentlemen, as had they not both had the surname “Blues” it is unlikely this movie would ever have been made.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema #12:  The Blues Brothers" »

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" »

As iconic movies go, you’d be hard pressed to find many that would top the Wizard of Oz.

But can you believe that some of the key Munchkin characters are still alive with their memories of the movie and love for Judy Garland still intact.

Watch this incredible interview with five of the remaining Munchkins now all aged between 85 and 90 years of age.

On a couple of occasions now a friend and I have met at a certain Italian restaurant where I consume a bowl of meatballs and a litre of house wine.

This has reached the point where it has become quite a tradition, or, to put it another way, quite a drinking problem. Fortunately I always offset the wine with several beers before and afterwards to ensure I remain clear-headed.

This friend of mine had recently quit his job, and was planning to fund the remaining 20 years of his working life by writing the great Australian novel.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1 a week cinema #10: Dirty Harry" »

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" »

As any regular moviegoer could attest, it is a truth regretfully acknowledged that to glimpse an actress with a wrinkled forehead has become a rarer occurrence than a genuine sighting of a UFO. 

So perhaps it was inevitable that photographs of the fortysomething stars (indeed fiftysomething, in the case of cast member Kim Cattrall) of the upcoming Sex And The City sequel would unsettle a public unaccustomed to a mature-age woman playing a character outside the confines of mother/grandmother.

Captured on location in New York, the shots reveal Sarah Jessica Parker and her on-screen cohorts in an array of characteristically fashion forward outfits (1980s flashbacks notwithstanding).

Continue reading "Elusive search for footage of women ageing naturally" »

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" »

There was so much fanfare when The September Issue first came out, with everyone caught up in the hype of “Anna, the Ice Queen” and “Anna, the Bitch” and “Anna, the Hardcore Alien” it was hard to assess the movie objectively because as usual, all the hype pointed in one direction. I, for one, definitely wanted to see it for the sole reason of judging what Anna was actually like in, you know, almost-real-life.

I wanted to see her cut-throat ways and watch her spiking staff with her whiplash tongue first hand. I wanted the camera to be in an elevator when Anna stepped in and watch the look of fear on the faces of those cowering out of her way.

This is the Anna I was expecting. Like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Someone vicious and uncaring and completely insensitive of other people’s feelings.

Continue reading "Is Anna Wintour really a bitch, or just doing her job?" »

Schwarzenegger, by request: Commando, 1985. Spoiler alert: The commando is no racist.

With the possible exception of Kevin Rudd’s stimulus package, no force on earth has done more for world peace, sexual emancipation and fiscal rectitude than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Across four decades Schwarzenegger has loomed large in the global psyche as an omnipotent moral guardian, as well as a cautionary example of the dangers of dental steroids.

What is most impressive about Schwarzenegger is that he overcame poverty, hardship and a strong family background in Nazism to become the very embodiment of the American dream.*

Continue reading "Joe’s $1-a-week cinema #8: Commando, by request" »

Filming in the Big Apple started this week on the latest instalment in the Sex and the City hexology, sending upper middle-aged women around the world into mildly incontinent hysterics.

Sarah Jessica Parker was snapped in character as the ever-youthful Carrie Bradshaw, skipping across a Manhattan street in a pair of Hush Puppies, falling into the arms of her on-again-off-again lover Mr Big (who has been played by Zac Efron since SATC V).

All four of the leading ladies have returned for the sixth film, after protracted negotiations rumoured to have almost broken down over the huge cost of providing their health insurance.

Continue reading "Meet the GILFS*: Imagining Sex and the City VI" »

Today is the 64th anniversary of the mass publication in America of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a book considered one of the most influential of all time. 

What a pity I’ve actually never read it. 

And this is despite the fact that I’ve owned a copy since I was 17, when everyone else I knew read it. Or did they?

Continue reading "Five reasons to read the book before watching the movie" »

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" »

Special Edition: First Blood, 1982; Rambo: First Blood Part II, 1985; Rambo III, 1988; Rambo, 2008. Spoiler alert: Rambo has difficulty re-adjusting to civilian life.

Centuries from now visiting aliens will come across humankind’s 2008 film catalogue and think that the most powerful warriors among us were chosen by the length of their ear-hair.

They will have discovered The Age of the Late Sequel – an era of elderly Indiana Joneses, Rocky Balboas and John Rambos – and they will pity earthlings for it.

“No wonder they didn’t see that meteor coming,” they will say.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1 a week cinema #6: All the Rambo movies" »

Hollywood director John Hughes, who directed some of the greatest comedy movies of the past 25 years, has died of a heart attack at 59. The one standout of his life’s work is, of course, the utterly brilliant Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

A question, though: What was it that made Hughes’s Bueller character so great? He wasn’t especially good at anything: he was neither clever nor witty, he didn’t wear cool clothes, he liked daggy songs. And yet women wanted to be with him, and men wanted to be him. Was it just raw confidence?

Some links to some online Bueller memorabilia below, but over to you: How much did you love Ferris Bueller, and why?

Continue reading "Just what was it that made Ferris Bueller so great?" »

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" »

Tango and Cash, 1989. Spoiler alert: Tango and Cash start out hating one another but become friends.

The Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell film Tango & Cash was the last of the great ampersand films of 1989, following hot on the heels of Turner & Hooch and Milo & Otis.

For all of that landmark year filmmakers had been experimenting with various human/animal combinations in an effort to find out what audiences would most respond to. In Milo & Otis they tried using two animals, in Turner & Hooch they tried a human and an animal and in Tango & Cash they used a human and Sylvester Stallone.

Continue reading "Joe’s $1 a week cinema #5: Tango & Cash" »

Last weekend marked the launch of the sixth in the now eight-part movie saga that is Harry Potter. As is surely apparent by now, the movies sit not as a substitute for the books but a complement to them. They succeed where they can visualise magic that cannot be done in words - the creatures, the castle and a large part of the action. But they fail where the books have their most significant: in the complex characters and the deeper moral issues.

But in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince one of those deeper but unstated moral issues arose neatly and somewhat humorously in the movie: the role of academia. It came in the form of Professor Slughorn, a marvelously imagined character who is a teacher who cares only about the best in the class and seeks them out to the exclusion of all others. He, in turn, is a character that is perhaps the most instrumentalist of at least the “good” guys in the saga. Slughorn, at various points, commits self-interested acts claiming “academic purposes”. For instance, he is caught removing valuable leaves from a plant, claiming their scientific merit but we know being motivated by the black market value.

That, however, is not where this issue comes to the fore. It is hard to describe it without giving away too much of the plot but Slughorn cites the very same “academic” disclaimer when handing over clearly dangerous knowledge to a young Voldemort. Slughorn later clearly realises his error and attempts to cover his tracks but the message is clear: there is a danger to the academic shield.

Continue reading "Harry Potter’s uneasy relationship with academia" »

Die Hard 2: Die Harder. Year: 1990 Spoiler alert: Bruce Willis gets back together with his ex-wife again but it won’t last.

I was something of a late bloomer in my early teens, which is really the only phase of one’s life in which it is important to bloom on time.

When I was 14 years old the most exciting thing to me was the newly constructed Capital Centre in Dandenong, the Melbourne suburb which produced both myself and the highest violent crime rate outside of Johannesburg. For the first time in my whole life Dandenong had a cinema - 10 cinemas in fact - and the possibilities for nightlife were suddenly endless.*

Continue reading "Joe’s $1 a week cinema #4: Die Hard 2 - Die Harder" »

I just saw Public Enemies, the upcoming Johnny Depp-as-John Dillinger gangster flick, and boy oh boy did it get me thinking about ‘guy movies’. With its suite of expertly choreographed bank jobs and jailbreaks, smoothly criminal wardrobe and salty tough guy dialogue, it’s exactly the sort of muscular entertainment best enjoyed in the company of men.

And even though Depp-as-Dillinger does find time to romance a Depression-era beauty played by French Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose), she’s on hand mostly to get him philosophising about armed hold-up.

‘’I can hit any bank I want, any time. They got to be at every bank, all the time,’’ he tells her, dropping the first genuinely quotable line of dramatic Hollywood dialogue in many years.

Continue reading "Public Enemies and the top 5 guy movies of all time" »

Gifted comic Sacha Baron Cohen has shown misplaced restraint by snipping an inoffensive Michael Jackson joke from his upcoming moneymaker Bruno.

[Bruno in the early days. Clip contains strong language]

So what do we deduce from this? A public figure’s ripe for a skewering as long as they’re alive, but become off-limits on death?

When can we start forwarding those corny text message jokes about Jacko’s plastic surgery and questionable private life? How soon is too soon?

Continue reading "Bruno cuts Jackson scene - who’s the biggest loser?" »

RUSSELL Crowe knows better than most the blurred line between news and entertainment. “I’ve been living it for 30 years,” he tells The Punch while in the UK to film his latest blockbuster Robin Hood.

So it’s a little surprising to hear him bemoan the death of the “noble profession” of newspaper journalism, as across the United States, in particular, flag ship periodicals are closing or are being slashed to the bone.

Clearly the recession is to blame, combined perhaps with poor overall management. But Crowe believes it’s also because the reader has evolved into a cynic with an inability to discern fact from fiction due in no small way to the celebrity culture.

Continue reading "This generation doesn’t know bullshit from truth: Crowe" »

I have never seen as many dead animals on screen as I have in the past two weeks. From grasshoppers roasted over an open flame in to kangaroos mercilessly slaughtered in the night, I have been witness to a macabre cinematic menagerie of dead and dying fauna.

The Sydney Film Festival ended on the weekend, over for another year. And while there may not have been a programming strand dedicated to films with dead animals in them, the sheer number of those that did will remain with me as one of the most striking and unexpected things about those twelve days.

Obviously, it is the sort of observation that can only be made when one has attended a lot of films at the festival, an observation supported, as it is, by sheer weight of numbers. When more than one third of over forty-five features contains either a dead or dying animal, one begins to take notice of the trend.

Continue reading "Animal death toll soars at groovy film festival" »