Weekend coffees deserve to be a little bit more special than the average weekday cuppa — especially if there's a birthday to be celebrated. And soon that'll be the case for Collingwood's Into Coffee, which is turning one and marking the occasion by giving out a bunch of free boozy coffees. From 12–4pm on Saturday, February 11, the minimal-waste cafe will be pouring whiskey-spiked iced lattes — on the house. The concoction is the brainchild of local distillery The Gospel, blending its signature rye spirit with Into Coffee's leftover Industry Bean coffee grinds. You've got a choice of milk, too, with options from Oatly and Schulz Organic Dairy. The drink is pre-blended and poured using the cafe's Udder Way tap and keg system — the same it uses to pour its milk. Sister brand Into Carry — known for its bespoke upcycled creations — will also be running giveaways throughout the day. Nab a golden ticket to score goodies like their cult-fave oat milk carton bags, and exfoliator bars crafted from coffee grinds and surplus milk.
What's charm got to do with it? In What's Love Got to Do with It?, plenty. A rom-com with absolutely nothing to do with Tina Turner, the song that instantly springs to mind or the 1993 biopic about the singer's life, this British affair from the producers of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, the Bridget Jones films and Love Actually — and the more-recent Yesterday and Cyrano, too — thrives on the charisma of its leads. It has to. Lily James (Pam & Tommy) and Shazad Latif (Profile) are nicely cast, but they're also all-so-crucially required to help patch over the movie's flagrant formula. Indeed, as penned by journalist-turned-producer-turned-screenwriting first-timer Jemima Khan, and helmed by Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, What's Love Got to Do with It? interrogates its own premise in its template-like nature. Is it better to stick to a tried-and-tested route or let surprises reign? In the way it's made and the tale it tells, at least, this flick repeatedly advocates for the former. For documentarian Zoe (James) and oncologist Kazim (Latif), childhood pals, neighbours and each other's first kiss, What's Love Got to Do with It?'s big battle isn't about romantic comedies, of course. And, it certainly isn't about whether the latest entry in the genre should paint by numbers or dare to diverge from the trusty path. But the same conflict underscores Zoe and Kaz's differing approaches to love and marriage, as Zoe is shocked to discover at Kaz's brother Farooq's (Mim Shaikh, Doctors) wedding. That's where the man she's known her whole life announces he's getting hitched, even though he hasn't met someone. Happy to skip the chaos of dating, not fussed with casual hookups, and buoyed by his parents Aisha (Shabana Azmi, Halo) and Zahid's (Jeff Mirza, Eternals) success with arranged nuptials, he's putting his trust in assisted marriage to find someone to share his life with. What's Zoe got to do with Kaz's decision, other than being a friend by his side? There's the glaring answer and then there's how Khan's script keeps her central pair in each other's orbit other than just as mates. As Zoe gets knocked back for funding for her next project, she doesn't blink before suggesting examining assisted marriages in Britain instead. (My Big Fat Arranged Marriage is her producers' dream title.) Kaz is understandably reluctant, but soon Zoe's camera is capturing everything, including the parade of events that her mother Cath (Emma Thompson, Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical) chats, drinks and dances her way through. Making a doco out of Kaz's quest to tie the knot can't help Zoe avoid her mum's stereotypical pestering about her own romantic prospects, however, complete with setting her up with family vet James (Oliver Chris, Emma). Due to rom-com logic, convention and expectation, there's a dose of My Best Friend's Wedding to What's Love Got to Do with It?, although Zoe doesn't ever try to sabotage Kaz's big day. There's also more than a dash of When Harry Met Sally… to Kapur's first feature in over a decade and a half (other than a segment of New York, I Love You) as Zoe and Kaz constantly discuss their varying ideas about relationships. And, to zero astonishment as well, there's pure and simple obviousness at work. Almost any rom-com focused on these two characters, enlisting these two actors, and benefiting from James and Latif's easy chemistry — and their innate likeability in both parts, especially Toast of London and Toast of Tinseltown's Latif — is going to do exactly what the audience not only wants, but what What's Love Got to Do with It?'s genre has primed them for. Accordingly, the real questions at the heart of What's Love Got to Do with It? aren't whether Kaz's assisted-marriage plan will succeed, or if this is a sensible way to meet one's other half in these always-swiping times. A culture clash comes with the setup, with Kaz's choice hailing from his Pakistani heritage, but diving into what that tradition means for better and for worse is a mere subplot. Rather, the film asks the most straightforward query it or any romantic comedy can or ever does. The specifics vary from flick to flick, but it's the same predicament. Here, it plays out like this: how will employing Muslim matchmaker Mo (Asim Chaudhry, The Sandman), video chatting with law student Maymouna (Sajal Aly, Ishq e laa) and following what happens from there — right through to three days of colourful ceremonies in Lahore, which Zoe records and the excited Cath wouldn't miss for the world — obstruct and complicate Zoe and Kaz's unspoken but plain-as-day feelings for each other? Inevitability drips through every moment of this sunnily shot and cosily staged movie as a result, but thankfully doesn't breed contempt. Again, that's thanks to James, Latif, their engaging performances and their comfortable rapport as What's Love Got to Do with It? embraces being exactly the type of fluffily predictable romantic comedy it is. That said, Khan and Kapur do take risks, but their film ends up worse for it. Although it's an eagerly knowing touch to have a former on-screen Cinderella play a woman who frames her love life as revised fairy tales, those narrated montages — popping up intermittently and told as bedtime stories to children, but echoing over Zoe's bad dates and morning-after regrets — flounder and feel like filler. What's Love Got to Do with It? doesn't judge Zoe's romantic exploits, nor should it, just as it avoids the same with Kaz — but, while it's accepting of amorous mess and assisted marriage alike, it isn't always certain in its tone or thoughtful with its supporting characters. Thompson's role proves an inescapable example, as much of a treasure as the great English actor is (see: her phenomenal work in 2022's Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, plus too many other past parts to count). Instead of exuberant, free-spirited, or even a gleefully silly example of an older generation broadening their world, Cath comes off as one-note and cartoonish. A white woman whose personality is defined by her fixation on another culture was likely to, sadly, in a movie that's fine with skewing broad and affable over shooting for sparks.
Can't stop, addicted to the shindig? Then you'll be excited about the latest huge music tour heading to Melbourne. Get ready to give it away, give it away, give it away now, too — your money, obviously, to see Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Los Angeles-based rockers are bringing their new global stadium tour our way, with Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith and John Frusciante singing songs to you beneath the marquee at Marvel Stadium on Tuesday, February 7 and Thursday, February 9. The band's dreams of Californication are zipping around the planet as part of a hefty tour that kicked off in June 2022 in Spain, and also includes stops in London, Paris, Dublin, LA, Chicago, New York and more alongside its Down Under leg. And yes, the Chili Peppers have a record to plug in the process, aka Unlimited Love — their 12th studio album, which dropped back in April last year. [caption id="attachment_859838" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Clara Balzary[/caption] Both Unlimited Love and the tour mark the return of guitarist Frusciante, who left the Chilis back in 2009, then rejoined the band in 2019. And, the tour will see the group head to this part of the world for the first time since 2019, too — and playing plenty of hits from their almost four-decade run so far, obviously. There's a hefty number of songs to choose from. Since their self-titled first EP in 1984, the band has sold more than 80 million albums, won six Grammys and entered the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. They've also released tracks spanning 'Under the Bridge', 'Scar Tissue', 'Breaking the Girl', 'By the Way' and 'The Zephyr Song', as well as 'Otherside', 'Soul to Squeeze', 'Around the World', 'My Friends' and 'Suck My Kiss'. Red Hot Chili Peppers will be joined Down Under by someone else who's sold just as many records: Post Malone. Yes, it's a two-for-the-price-of-one kind of tour — two massive music names, that is. Post Malone heads our way fresh from releasing his fourth studio album Twelve Carat Toothache in June 2022. Images: Pavel Suslov
Somewhere in the multiverse, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is terrific. In a different realm, it's terrible. Here in our dimension, the 28th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe teeters and twirls in the middle. The second movie to focus on surgeon-turned-sorcerer Dr Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog), it's at its best when it embraces everything its director is known for. That said, it's also at its worst when it seems that harnessing Sam Raimi's trademarks — his visual style, bombast, comic tone and Evil Dead background, for instance — is merely another Marvel ploy. Multiverse of Madness is trippy, dark, sports a bleak sense of humour and is as close as the MCU has gotten to horror, all immensely appreciated traits in this sprawling, box office-courting, never-ending franchise. But it stands out for the wrong reasons, too, especially how brazenly it tries to appear as if it's twisting and fracturing the typical MCU template when it definitely isn't. Welcomely weirder than the average superhero flick (although not by too much), but also bluntly calculating: that's Multiverse of Madness, and that's a messy combination. It's apt given its eponymous caped crusader has always hailed from Marvel's looser, goofier and, yes, stranger side since his MCU debut in 2016's plainly titled Doctor Strange; however, it's hard to believe that such formulaic chaos was truly the plan for this follow-up. Similarly, making viewers who've long loved Raimi's work feel like their strings are so obviously being pulled, all for something that hardly takes creative risks, can't have been intentional. It's wonderful that Multiverse of Madness is clearly directed by the filmmaker who gave the world Army of Darkness and its predecessors, the Tobey Maguire-starring Spider-Man movies and Drag Me to Hell. It's fantastic that Raimi is helming his first feature since 2013's Oz the Great and Powerful, of course. But it's also deeply dispiriting to see the filmmaker's flourishes used like attention-grabbing packaging over the same familiar franchise skeleton. Multiverse mayhem also underscored Multiverse of Madness' immediate predecessor, for instance — aka 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home. That's the last time that audiences saw Stephen Strange, when he reluctantly tinkered with things he shouldn't to help Peter Parker, those actions had consequences and recalling Raimi's time with Spidey came with the territory. Strange's reality-bending trickery has repercussions here as well, because Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen, Sorry for Your Loss) isn't thrilled about her fellow super-powered pal's exploits. Yes, Multiverse of Madness assumes viewers have not only watched all 27 past MCU movies, but also its small-screen offshoots — or WandaVision at least, where the enchantress that's also Scarlet Witch broke rules herself and wasn't still deemed a hero. Multiverse of Madness begins before its namesake and Wanda cross paths after their not-so-smooth moves, actually. Strange's latest escapade kicks off with monsters, moving platforms, a shimmering book, and a girl he doesn't know and yet wants to save. It's a dream, but said teen — America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez, The Babysitters Club) — is soon part of his waking life. Hailing from another dimension and possessing the ability to hop through the multiverse, she's still being chased. Interrupting Strange's brooding at his ex-girlfriend Christine's (Rachel McAdams, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) wedding, rampaging critters reappear as well, while a sinister tome called The Dark Hold also factors in. The mission: save the girl and all possible worlds, aided by Strange's old friend and now-Sorcerer Supreme Wong (Benedict Wong, Nine Days), and via a run-in with nemesis Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Locked Down). An evil book, basically being dragged to hell, reanimated corpses, a scrappy young adventurer, wisecracks, a leading man with the initials BC: they're all Raimi staples, and they're all accounted for in Multiverse of Madness. So is a signature casting move that's to be thoroughly expected, and remains as delightful as ever. Michael Waldron, the writer/producer behind Loki, has scripted the feature with its filmmaker firmly in mind — or tinkered with the screenplay after OG Doctor Strange helmer Scott Derrickson left the sequel — and Raimi has taken those nods and run with them. But magic isn't about conjuring up the easily apparent, as the flick's cloak-wearing protagonist has learned over his time. Off-screen, that's something Marvel rather than its creatives-for-hire need reminding of, and what makes Multiverse of Madness a strategic exercise above all else. (It doesn't help that an inventive, clever and bold blast of multiverse movie, unrelated to the MCU, has beaten the latest Doctor Strange to cinemas by mere weeks. Everything Everywhere All At Once is inescapably chaotic, but gloriously, entertainingly and revealingly so, and never in a checklist-marking way.) Marvel has a pattern, though. It hires directors with distinctive styles and vibes, uses them to differentiate any given MCU instalment from the last, and hopes that counteracts the formula at work. And, it can. Even this many pictures in, great films eventuate that don't completely feel squeezed through an assembly line in every frame; see: Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnarok, Ryan Coogler's Black Panther, Cate Shortland's Black Widow and Chloé Zhao's Eternals. If Multiverse of Madness wasn't also saddled with other well-used, patently recognisable Marvel tactics, that might've proven true here, too. If only it had. But when a new MCU entry leans on multiple versions of its main figure (again), plus wholly fan-servicing cameos (again) — going for more is more several times over (yes, again) — and then attempts to freshen itself up by splashing around a famed director's beloved touches (again), it's always going to struggle to be convincing. Gleefully pushing obvious buttons and trying to incite easy cheers was No Way Home's main aim as well; Multiverse of Madness fares better, thankfully. It's a lesser auteur-helmed MCU movie and a lesser Raimi-directed film, but it still benefits from the latter doing what he's able to within company-controlled confines. Danny Elfman's (The Woman in the Window) moody score always sets the right tone, and the kaleidoscopic imagery has its dazzling moments — albeit with too many pixels showing in the name of serving up a shiny spectacle. And, in all of its key roles, Multiverse of Madness is still extremely well-cast. Indeed, the scenes that linger are those shared by Cumberbatch with either Olsen, McAdams, Wong or Gomez that call for genuine emotion rather than dwelling on superhero schtick, nefarious villains, multiverse mechanics, incursions, surprise guests and the like. Alas, being gifted more of that, and more of anything that doesn't have to tick 75,000 of Marvel's usual boxes along the way, sadly and frustratingly isn't a reality for this film in our caped crusader-worshipping universe.
Once a year, Monster Fest treats cinemagoers to a weird and wonderful film festival filled with genre and cult movies — but that's obviously not often enough. So, behold Monster Fest Weekender, aka the fest that the Monster team hosts midyear when it's not rolling out the full shindig. Hitting Melbourne's Cinema Nova from Friday, May 6–Sunday, May 8, this three-day affair will screen the films you can't wait till later in the year to see — such as Sundance oddity Hatching, a body-horror flick about a girl nursing an egg; Dark Glasses, the latest big-screen release from original Suspiria director and all-round horror master Dario Argento; and monster- and OTT scientist-filled stop-motion effort Mad God. Other highlights: a 35th-anniversary session of Miami Connection, a cult martial arts movie that really has to be seen to be believed; documentary The History of Metal and Horror, which spans everyone from Alice Cooper to John Carpenter; a 4K restoration of 1985's Cat's Eye, a Stephen King adaptation starring a very young Drew Barrymore; and Pennywise: The Story of It, which takes a making-of look at the Tim Curry-starring TV miniseries that first brought the creepy clown to screens.
Even if you're on a strict 'no spend' budget, you'll want to check out this giant sale of some of Australia's most iconic labels this weekend — after all, it's for charity. From Friday, April 29 until Sunday, May 1, the Make-A-Wish Melbourne Warehouse Sale will see some of country's best-loved brands including Alias Mae, Apéro, Maurie and Eve, Sass & Bide and Dr Denim at absolute bargain prices. The best part? 100 percent of the proceeds are going directly to Make-A-Wish Australia, to help them keep granting life-changing wishes for critically ill kids. Celebrities and influencers are also getting in on the action, donating unopened beauty products, clothes, accessories and shoes. If you've ever been green with envy over an Instagram unboxing, this is your chance to get your hands on some of the goods. The sale can be found at the Clifton Street Market this weekend, with doors open on Friday from 8am-7pm, Saturday from 10am-4pm and Sunday from 10am-1pm. We'd recommend grabbing some fashion-loving friends and getting in line bright and early before work on Friday morning — as we said, it's for charity.
All of the kitchen staples, none of the excessive packaging: that's what's on offer at Mount Zero Olives' returning Zero Waste Warehouse Market. MZO is teaming up with a range of small businesses for another event that's all about encouraging sustainable consumption — and this one just happens to fall during Plastic Free July. Here, you can shop a range of products without the unnecessary plastic, with products also available to buy in bulk if you're stocking up for the chilly months. It's all going down from 9am–2pm on Saturday, July 30, at MZO's Sunshine West HQ. As the name suggests, you'll need to bring your own reusable containers with you to carry your haul. Bags, bottles, jars, buckets with lids — if you can put food in it, seal it and take it all home with you, it counts. Here's what you'll be buying and stuffing into those containers: Mount Zero Olives' olives, of course, plus olive oils, pulses and grains. You can also nab some Koji & Co's miso and shio koji, and Market Lane's carbon-neutral filter coffee for your morning cuppa. This time around, MZO will also be running a hands-on Extra Virgin Olive Oil Taste & Blend Workshop, where you'll learn the ins and outs of olive oil and score a bottle of your own to take home. Tickets to the class are $20, available online.
With apologies to Bonnie Tyler, cinema isn't holding out for a hero — and hasn't been for some time. The singer's 80s-era Footloose-soundtrack hit basically describes the state of mainstream movies today, filled as screens now are with strong, fast, sure and larger-than-life figures racing on thunder and rising on heat. But what does heroism truly mean beyond the spandex of pop-culture's biggest current force? Who do we hold up as role models, and as feel-good champions of kind and selfless deeds? How do those tales of IRL heroism ebb, flow and spread, too? Pondering this far beyond the caped-crusader realm is Asghar Farhadi, a two-time Oscar-winner thanks to A Separation and The Salesman. As is the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker's gambit, his latest movie is intricately complicated, as are its views on human nature and Iranian society. As Farhadi has adored since 2003's Dancing in the Dust — and in everything from 2009's exceptional About Elly to his 2018 Spanish-language feature Everybody Knows as well — A Hero is steeped in the usual and the everyday. The 2021 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix-winner may start with a sight that's the absolute opposite thanks to necropolis Naqsh-e Rostam near the Iranian city of Shiraz, an imposingly grand site that includes the tombs of ancient Persian rulers Xerxes and Darius, but the writer/director's main concerns are as routine, recognisable and relatable as films get. One such obsession: domestic disharmony, aka the cracks that fracture the ties of blood, love and friendship. A Hero sprawls further thematically, wondering if genuine altruism — that is, really and wholeheartedly acting in someone else's interest, even at a cost to oneself — can ever actually exist. But it charts that path because of the frayed and thorny relationships it surveys, and the everyman caught within them. When A Hero begins, calligrapher and sign painter Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi, Cold Sweat) is no one's saviour, victor or ideal. While he definitely isn't a villain, he's just been given a two-day pass from an Iranian debtor's prison, where he's incarcerated over a family financial feud. Owing 150,000,000 tomans to his ex-wife's brother-in-law, he's stuck serving out his sentence unless he can settle it or his creditor, copy shop owner Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh, Capital), agrees to forgive him. The latter is unlikely, so with his girlfriend Farkhondeh (debutant Sahar Goldust), Rahim hatches a repayment plan. She has stumbled across a handbag filled with 17 gold coins, and together they hope to sell it, then use the proceeds to secure his freedom — except, when they attempt to cash in, they're told that their haul won't reach anywhere the sum they need. Instead, with a mixture of guilt and resignation — and at Farkhondeh's suggestion — Rahim decides to track down the coins' rightful owner. Cue signs plastered around the streets, then an immensely thankful phone call. Cue also the prison's higher-ups discovering Rahim's efforts, and wanting to cash in themselves by eagerly whipping up publicity around their model inmate's considerate choice. The media lap it up, as do the locals. Rahim's young son Siavash (newcomer Saleh Karimaei), a quiet boy with a stutter that's been cared for by his aunt Malileh (fellow first-timer Maryam Shahdaei), gets drawn into the chaos. A charity that fundraises to resolve prisoners' debts takes up the cause, too. Still, the stern and stubborn Bahram remains skeptical, especially as more fame and attention comes Rahim's way. Also, the kind of heroism that's fuelled via news reports and furthered by social media is fickle above all else, especially when competing information comes to light. It's always been apt that Farhadi loves warm hues — tones that are even golden here, as lensed meticulously by cinematographers Ali Ghazi (Zero Day) and Arash Ramezani (Headless). His pictures are so intimate, and so engrained in homes and daily lives, that the cosy neutral colours that shade these spaces automatically become the director's own. His work is never about black-and-white situations, either, and his exacting search through a plethora of shades of grey is also never cold or calculating. A Hero uses the glow of its imagery to help offer plenty of questions about its underlying scenario, in fact, including who might be right and wrong within it. Of course, solving that binary battle is not the movie's aim; rather, poking, prodding and probing it, examining why we're so obsessed with heroes and villains, and exploring what that means when social media's moods, whims and affinities can turn in a second, flickers scorchingly at the film's core. Also searing is Jadidi's performance, which couldn't be more complex. His smile charms, yet also has a flimsy tenor, the grin of someone who knows how embracing the world can be to him — and how closed. When the movie opens with Rahim making the difficult albeit spectacular climb up the Tomb of Xerxes to speak with his brother-in-law Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh, another debutant), who is working amid the scaffolding, it also immediately casts its protagonist as an ordinary man facing an insurmountable and age-old situation. Jadidi plays the part exactly that way, as someone striving to get by, grasping rare and unlikely chances with visible desperation, yet still bound by so much that's long proven unmovable about his country. His character is caught in a morality play where no good deed goes unpunished, too, and the weight of that truth ripples in his posture. But he's also the centre of a reckoning on what's worthy of praise and scorn — "where in the world are people celebrated for not doing wrong?" asks Bahram — and what that says about those cheering, condemning and flipping between the two. The brilliantly layered premise, the deep and cutting dissection of Iran today, the devastating lead portrayal, the incisive visual gaze, the station-full of trains of thought set in motion: it's all classic Farhadi, and he has the applauded past flicks to prove it. Thankfully, A Hero also sees the writer/director back at his best; despite that wealth of familiar elements, the feature is never as oh-so-expected as Everybody Knows and The Salesman, both of which felt like the filmmaker on autopilot. Tough, tight, tenacious, and terrifically disdainful of opportunism and obstinance alike, and of people and institutions guilty of both, A Hero is an excavation of secrets and lies as well — but its power can't be hidden, and its emotional impact is as true as cinema gets. And, although almost everyone in its frames is indeed holding out for some style of hero, few movies realise how fraught and futile that is, let alone with the same patient but unshakeable feeling and intelligence.
When Jurassic World Dominion was being written, three words must've come up often. No, they're not Neill, Dern, Goldblum. Those beloved actors reunite here, the trio appearing in the same Jurassic Park flick for the first time since the 1993 original, but the crucial terms are actually "but with dinosaurs". Returning Jurassic World writer/director Colin Trevorrow mightn't have uttered that phrase aloud; however, when Dominion stalks into a dingy underground cantina populated by people and prehistoric creatures, Star Wars but with dinosaurs instantly springs to mind. The same proves true when the third entry in this Jurassic Park sequel trilogy also includes high-stakes flights in a rundown aircraft that's piloted by a no-nonsense maverick. These nods aren't only confined to a galaxy far, far away — a realm that Trevorrow was meant to join as a filmmaker after the first Jurassic World, only to be replaced on Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker — and, yes, they just keep on coming. There's the speedy chase that zooms through alleys in Malta, giving the Bond franchise more than a few nods — but with dinosaurs, naturally. There's the plot about a kidnapped daughter, with Taken but with dinosaurs becoming a reality as well. That Trevorrow, co-scribe Emily Carmichael (Pacific Rim Uprising) and his usual writing collaborator Derek Connolly (Safety Not Guaranteed) have seen other big-name flicks is never in doubt. Indeed, too much of Dominion feels like an attempt to actively make viewers wish they were watching those other movies. Bourne but with dinosaurs rears its head via a rooftop chase involving, yes, dinos. Also, two different Stanley Kubrick masterpieces get cribbed so blatantly that royalties must be due, including when an ancient critter busts through a door as Jack Nicholson once did, and the exact same shot — but with dinosaurs — hits the screen. What do Star Wars, Bond, Bourne and The Shining have to do with the broader Jurassic Park film saga, which started when Steven Spielberg adapted Michael Crichton's book into a box-office behemoth? That's a fantastic question. The answer: zip, zero and zilch, other than padding out Dominion as much as possible, as riffs on Indiana Jones, The Birds, Alien, Mad Max: Fury Road, Austin Powers, the Fast and Furious movies, cloning thrillers, disaster epics and more also do. In nearly every scene, and often at the frame-by-frame level, another feature is channelled so overtly that it borders on parody. And, that's on top of the fact that recycling its own history is just Dominion 101. There's no theme park, but when it's mentioned that dinosaurs are being placed in a sanctuary, everyone watching knows that the film's human characters will get stranded in that spot, trying not to be eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex and the like. From all of the above, a loose narrative emerges — an overstuffed and convoluted one, too. A few years on from 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, people are endeavouring to co-exist with dinosaurs. Unsurprisingly, it's going terribly. Run by Mark Zuckerberg-esque entrepreneur Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, WeCrashed), tech company BioSyn owns that safe dino space in the Italian Dolomites, although palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern, Marriage Story) and palaeontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill, Rams) also tie the firm to giant dino-locusts wreaking existence-threatening havoc. Plus, ex-Jurassic World velociraptor whisperer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, The Tomorrow War) and his boss-turned-girlfriend Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard, Rocketman) head BioSyn's way when the adopted Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) — who links back to the first Jurassic Park thanks to Forbidden Kingdom's ridiculous storyline — is snatched. Oh, and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum, Search Party) works there, as does cloning whiz Henry Wu (BD Wong, Mr Robot). Just by finally managing to corral Neill, Dern and Goldblum back together, Dominion already had three exceptional elements going for it. None of its powers-that-be give the returning stars much to do, though, other than help the movie up its fan-service nostalgia quota. They're still among the best parts of the film because Neill and Dern's chemistry still sparks, and Goldblum's line delivery is still as winning as ever — because they're actors as talented as Neill, Dern and Goldblum, basically. They certainly make more of an impression than Pratt and Howard, who are saddled with the dullest versions of their characters yet. Also standing out far beyond the movie's top-billed duo: The Harder They Fall's DeWanda Wise as pilot Han Solo Kayla Watts, plus Archive 81's Mamoudou Athie as BioSyn employee Ramsay Cole, who is assigned to show Sattler and Grant around. If this franchise doesn't go extinct after this giant lizard-sized crater, fingers crossed that Wise and Athie are its future. Six movies and three decades into all things Jurassic, this dino series now has itself a dino problem as well. Dominion shoehorns dinosaurs into pale imitations of other pictures, gets Pratt to break out his now-routine raised hand movement at Blue and her baby Beta, and has various characters point out how big different creatures are. It doesn't seem to care about its jurassic-era critters, however, which are treated as an afterthought. Despite boasting bigger and new species, the film's dinos also look less impressive and distinctive than they ever have in this franchise. It doesn't help that Dominion arrives so soon after David Attenborough's Prehistoric Planet, which basked in observational nature-doco intimacy even with all of its animals merely CGI renderings. Here, the pixels and green screen of it all are bland rather than awe-inspiring or frightening. And when Dominion does glimmer visually, it's always aping another movie (but with dinosaurs) or lifting iconic shots straight from other Jurassic films. Being generous, you could say it's fitting that Dominion is the mess it is. Life finds a way and all that, even to give an awful feature some purpose. Mirroring the saga's own repeated narrative, Dominion rampantly splices together disparate parts and gleefully reanimates the past — and it pays a price for doing so, and carelessly. But making a film this trying clearly wasn't the point, even if that end result neatly matches the movie's themes. Also, displaying any depth about anything at all seems to concern Trevorrow as much as serving up a logical plot and directing coherent action setpieces, aka not at all. There's always been a hefty case of Frankenstein-meets-slasher flicks to the Jurassic realm, but smartly, thoughtfully, thrillingly and entertainingly when it's at its best — so, back in 1993. Dominion is a devolution, and primarily shows that bloated blockbuster franchises keep finding a way to chew up screens, time and attention, no matter the consequences.
"We are nothing without stories, so we invite you to believe in this one." So goes The Wonder's opening narration, as voiced by Niamh Algar (Wrath of Man) and aimed by filmmaker Sebastián Lelio in two directions. For the Chilean writer/director's latest rich and resonant feature about his favourite topic, aka formidable women — see also: Gloria, its English-language remake Gloria Bell, Oscar-winner A Fantastic Woman and Disobedience — he asks his audience to buy into a tale that genuinely is a tale. In bringing Emma Donoghue's (Room) book to the screen, he even shows the thoroughly modern-day studio and its sets where the movie was shot. But trusting in a story is also a task that's given The Wonder's protagonist, Florence Pugh's nurse Lib Wright, who is en route via ship to an Irish Midlands village when this magnetic, haunting and captivating 19th century-set picture initially sees her. For the second time in as many movies — and in as many months Down Under as well — Pugh's gotta have faith. Playing George Michael would be anachronistic in The Wonder, just as it would've been in Don't Worry Darling's gleaming 1950s-esque supposed suburban dream, but that sentiment is what keeps being asked of the British actor, including in what's also her second fearless performance in consecutive flicks. Here, it's 1862, and 11-year-old Anna O'Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy, Viewpoint) has seemingly subsisted for four months now without eating. Ireland's 1840s famine still casts shadows across the land and its survivors, but this beatific child says she's simply feeding on manna from heaven. Lib's well-paid job is to watch the healthy-seeming girl in her family home, where her mother (A Discovery of Witches' Elaine Cassidy, Kila's actual mum) and father (Caolan Byrne, Nowhere Special) dote, to confirm that she isn't secretly sneaking bites to eat. Lib is to keep look on in shifts, sharing the gig with a nun (Josie Walker, This Is Going to Hurt). She's also expected to verify a perspective that's already beaming around town, including among the men who hired her, such as the village doctor (Toby Jones, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain) and resident priest (Ciarán Hinds, Belfast). The prevailing notion: that Anna is a miracle, with religious tourism already starting to swell around that idea, and anyone doubting the claim — or pointing out that it could threaten the girl's life and end in tragedy — deemed blasphemous. But arriving with experience with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War behind her, the level-leaded, no-nonsense and also in-mourning Lib isn't one for automatic piety. A local-turned-London journalist (Tom Burke, The Souvenir) keeps asking her for inside information, sharing her determination to eschew unthinking devotion and discover the truth, but the nurse's duty is to Anna's wellbeing no matter the personal cost. Lelio's opening gambit, the filmmaking version of showing how the sausage is made, isn't merely a piece of gimmickry. It stresses the power of storytelling and the bargain anyone strikes, The Wonder's viewers alike, when we agree to let tales sweep us away — and it couldn't better set the mood for a movie that ruminates thoughtfully and with complexity on the subject. Is life cheapened, threatened or diminished by losing yourself to fiction over fact? In an age of fake news, as Lelio's movie screens in, clearly it can be. Is there far too much at stake when faith and opinion is allowed to trump science, as the world has seen in these pandemic-affected, climate change-ravaged times? The answer there is yes again. Can spinning a narrative be a coping mechanism, a mask for dark woes, and a way to make trauma more bearable and existence itself more hopeful, though? That's another query at the heart of Alice Birch's (Mothering Sunday) script. And, is there a place for genuine make-believe to entertain, sooth and make our days brighter, as literature and cinema endeavours? Naturally, there is. Keeping that tale-spinning interrogation going — adding to its layers, too — The Wonder takes cues from the 19th-century 'fasting girls' phenomenon. Some children did indeed claim not to need earthly nourishment as the angel-faced Anna does, and so Donoghue's novel, Birch's screenplay and Lelio's direction now use that chapter of history to muse on far more. All three are well-experienced at using fiction to speak to humanity's needs, wants and deepest yearnings, and their efforts simmer with raw potency when combined. The Wonder is patient and pensive, and also a film of immediate weight and emotion. Birch's winning ways with adaptations, and with dialogue loaded with feelings, continue after the also Pugh-starring Lady Macbeth, plus dual Sally Rooney-based TV series Normal People and Conversations with Friends. When Lady Macbeth cemented Pugh as an on-screen force to be reckoned with only six years ago, it also established the confidence, passion and vigour that's been an essential element of her work since. Those traits shine through again here in a complicated and commanding portrayal, as they have in a stellar list of parts in-between. Once again, Pugh plays challenging with aplomb, as she did so masterfully in The Little Drummer Girl and Little Women. Once more, she wrestles with grief and pain so grippingly that it seems real, as seen in Midsommar. One of the joys of watching Pugh is tracing the lines connecting each entry on her ever-growing resume, and witnessing how an instantly assured and powerful talent keeps building and growing. Another is knowing that nothing — not Marvel movies like Black Widow or wrestling dramedy biopics such as Fighting with My Family, either — ever gets anything but her very best. Even so, seeing her search so unflinchingly for the truth in The Wonder is high among her career standouts. This is an exquisitely led picture, and cast all-round, including the younger Cassidy as the girl finding meaning, having it ascribed to her and navigating life's burdens through her own story. As it follows Lib attempting to unravel Anna's mysteries, The Wonder is also strikingly shot and staged, looking and feeling earthy, aching, haunting and sumptuous. Indeed, Oscar-nominated Australian cinematographer Ari Wegner serves up painterly lensing of both sweeping landscapes and mesmerisingly lit interiors, doing so again after the also-phenomenal The Power of the Dog. As for Lelio, he keeps showing his knack for making every moment land with movie after movie, and his deft touch with his leads. When he ends The Wonder as it begins, back on that film set after a deeply felt emotional crescendo, he also brings another reminder: that being transported by spellbinding tales like this is fleeting but unforgettable. The Wonder screens in Australian cinemas from November 3, and streams via Netflix from November 16.
Here's a job that no one would want: choosing just eight of Martin Scorsese's movies to celebrate. Palace Cinemas have done just that, though. How the chain's team whittled down the iconic auteur's efforts to just that many, we don't know — but Melburnians can now see the results on the big screen at Pentridge Cinema. Film buffs, get ready for Scorsese Season — because who needs spring or summer anyway? This retro showcase will run on Friday nights at 6.30pm from Friday, November 4–Friday, December 23, and it's all must-sees all the way. Given that the selection includes the seminal gangster flick Mean Streets and the Joker-influencing The King of Comedy, viewers are in for some Scorsese gold (and yes, Robert De Niro is as much of a feature as the director, with Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino screening as well). For those after a slice of Scorsese's later-career flicks — and his collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio — then The Departed well and truly ticks that box. Rounding out the lineup: concert film The Last Waltz, aka one of the best examples of the genre you'll ever see
When MPavilion hits Melbourne each year, it gives the city two gifts in one: a stunning new temporary structure built in the Queen Victoria Gardens, and a jam-packed lineup of events in and around the freshly erected space. Perfect for summer hangouts, the specially commissioned spot arrives when the weather is warm to add workshops, talks, performances and more to everyone's diaries. For its 2022–23 run, the time for all of the above is now. This year's winning MPavilion design is a vibrant canopied structure driven by celebrated architect Rachaporn Choochuey. Now open in its short-term inner-city home, the venue designed by Bangkok-based architecture and design practice all(zone) marks the ninth MPavilion in the series. After a couple of years spent indoors due to Melbourne's pandemic lockdowns, it also aims to offer a celebration of outdoor living. MPavilion 2022 will sit at Queen Victoria Gardens to host a season of events, before being relocated to a permanent home elsewhere in Melbourne after this year's lineup wraps up on Thursday, April 6. That gives the space four huge months to host an impressive array of festivities, starting with a dance party featuring John Gomez, Nick the Record and Dita, as well as a Thai Festival that includes a lantern-making workshop and Thai dances — all on this year's opening weekend from Friday, December 9. The venue's events program changes its theme regularly — like its hues — starting with 'Under One Roof' in December, which is all about championing shared experiences. From there, January and February turns the space into a 'Material Lab', focusing on humanity's use of different materials, while March and April have 'Unseen Design' in mind, aka spotlighting how the best design can be invisible. Across a lineup that includes more than 250 free events and spans the involvement of 500-plus creatives, that means specific sessions celebrating Indigenous voices in architecture, getting Cheated Hearts to unleash its party tunes, and screening ten short films about the experiences of individuals of African ancestry living in Melbourne. Also on the bill: DJs aplenty, pilates in the park, a chat-heavy summer salon, talks about concrete's afterlife and recycled plastics, and a Strictly Vinyl party to close things out. Also, in a first, the MPavilion Food Truck will make Queen Victoria Gardens its home all summer. Yes, that's your leafy picnics taken care of, complete with an MPavilion Pale Ale by Preston brewery Tall Boy & Moose. Across two sets of dates — from December 15–18 and March 30–April 2 — the food setup will collaborate with Parcs, too, with chef Dennis Yong creating a 'bootleg fish & chip'-themed menu that's all about sustainability. Images: Casey Horsfield and John Gollings.
"Nic fuckiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing Cage." That's how the man himself utters his name in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and he knows what he's about. Now four decades into his acting career to the year — after making his film debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High under his actual name Nicolas Coppola, playing a bit-part character who didn't even get a moniker — Cage is keenly aware of exactly what he's done on-screen over that time, and in what, and why and how. He also knows how the world has responded, with that recognition baked into every second of his his latest movie. He plays himself, dubbed Nick Cage. He cycles through action-hero Cage, comically OTT Cage, floppy-haired 80s- and 90s-era Cage, besuited Cage, neurotic Cage and more in the process. And, as he winks, nods, and bobs and weaves through a lifetime of all things Cage, he's a Cage-tastic delight to watch. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is Cage uncaged, busting out the jazz that is his acting and adoring it, and it's a self-aware, super-meta love letter to its star and all who stan him. It's also a feature that couldn't exist without the thespian who has everything from Guarding Tess and Captain Corelli's Mandolin to The Croods and Pig on his resume; replacing him simply wouldn't work. Again, it's a Cage gem in letting Cage devotees revel in Cage doing every kind of Cage. That said, this Cage comedy is also so overtly designed to inspire Cage mania that it's easy to feel the buttons being pushed. It's the Cage movie that the internet has willed into existence, or film Twitter at least. Case in point: it has Cage realise that Paddington 2 is one of the best movies ever made. It is, but given how well-accepted that is, and how much online attention has stressed that fact — including its once-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score — weaving it into this Cagefest is one of the film's many exercises in stating the obvious. There is narrative around all that "Nic fuckiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing Cage" and his marmalade bear-loving epiphany. Here, the man who could eat a peach for days in Face/Off would do anything for as long as he needed to if he could lock in a weighty new part. The fictionalised Cage isn't happy with his roles of late, as he complains to his agent (Neil Patrick Harris, The Matrix Resurrections), but directors aren't buying what he's enthusiastically selling. He has debts and other art-parodies-life problems, though, plus an ex-wife (Sharon Horgan, This Way Up) and a teen daughter (Lily Sheen, IRL daughter of Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen). So, he reluctantly takes a $1-million gig he wishes he didn't have to: flying to southern Spain to hang out with billionaire Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal, The Bubble), who is such a Cage diehard that he even has his own mini museum filled with Cage memorabilia, and has also written a screenplay he wants Cage to star in. Yes, writer/director Tom Gormican (Are We Officially Dating?) and co-scribe Kevin Etten (Kevin Can F**K Himself) task the always-likeable Pascal with playing The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent's on-screen audience surrogate. If you're watching a movie with Cage as Cage — one that begins with a clip from Con Air at that — then you'd likely jump at the chance to spend time with the inimitable figure. Who wouldn't? But that's just one element of the story, because two CIA agents (The Afterparty's Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz) inform Cage that his new pal is an arms dealer who's keeping a politician's daughter hostage to sway an election. And, they want him to indulge his host — undercover as himself, naturally — until they find the girl. The next key aspect of the tale: during this ruse, Cage and Javi genuinely become CBFFs (Cage best friends forever), including while working on a screenplay about new buddies who bond in chaotic circumstances. If The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent could only be described by referencing a different Nicolas Cage movie — and just one, despite how many references it throws at the screen like it's a Vampire's Kiss-style Cage cavorting in the street — it'd be Honeymoon in Vegas. The 1992 rom-com boasts an ever-watchable Cage performance as most of his work does, but it formulaically flirts with rather than matches his level. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent wants of be plenty of other Cage flicks, though, giddily and entertainingly so; however, the film itself can't meet his most memorable fare. In a Moonstruck-esque move, it's as enamoured with its leading man as he is with Cher in that 35-year-old gem. It plays its core bromance with Wild at Heart-level passion, and covets The Rock-style action mayhem. Cage is unforgettable as Cage here in a dream part for him and viewers alike, but striving for Raising Arizona's madcap antics, Adaptation's multi-Cage movie-industry metaness, Color Out of Space's full out-there Cage and everything in-between is a big ask. How glorious it is that this is the end result, though: a movie that's so unashamedly Cage, more than anything else has every actively tried to be, and yet also isn't quite Cage enough. It's still engaging and amusing enough, but it's noticeably broad and easy with its jokes, and too content to coast by on the nonstop, blatant-as-can-be Cageness of it all. Again and again, that made-for-the-internet feeling twinges, as if Gormican has fashioned a meme of a movie stitched together with gleefully retweeted and reposted Cage clips in mind. While The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent isn't an ego-stroking vanity project — a hefty achievement — or filled with anything but pure Cage dedication, it's the film equivalent of getting a casual line reading from its main man when you know what wild wonders only he's capable of. Indeed, as enjoyable as all this Cage-as-Cage-satirising-Cage is (Cage cubed, basically), the film is also workmanlike beyond the committed Cage and Pascal — both of whom light up the frame with off-kilter portrayals, make their characters' camaraderie feel authentic, and would shine together in a buddy comedy that isn't 100-percent Cage worship. There's fun and oh-so-much nostalgia for the Leaving Las Vegas Oscar-winner's career highs, lows and everything else, but there's also laid-on-thick cheese and little depth. While riffing on its central figure is the aim of the game, it's light when it comes to incisively skewering Hollywood, how it treats talents as distinctive (and massive) as Cage, and why his fame has taken the rollercoaster ride it has. But this sunnily shot, bouncily paced, well-intentioned affair definitely does the two things it needs to above all else: goes all-in on Cage, albeit not to a Mandy-esque degree, and makes everyone only want to watch Cage's work from now on.
Lurking behind every 18th birthday, beyond the alcohol legally drunk and nightclubs gleefully danced through, is an unspoken truth: life only gets more chaotic from here. That realisation doesn't usually spring during the celebrations, toasts and happy speeches of the big day itself — or necessarily within weeks, months or even a few years afterwards, either — however, it's inescapable nonetheless. In To Chiara, it blazes brightly for the movie's eponymous teenager (Swamy Rotolo). It shatters her sense of normality, too. But she isn't the one hitting the milestone that every adolescent yearns for. Instead, the party that helps start this Italian drama is actually for the 15-year-old's elder sister Giulia (Grecia Rotolo), with the pair's friends and relatives alike marking the occasion as countless other families have: with dinner, festivities and delighted emotions. As captured with a raw, fluid and naturalistic style like everything that both precedes it and follows, Giulia's birthday is a portrait of exuberance — until, for Chiara, it isn't. She plays up a garden-variety case of sibling rivalry, including during a performative dance contest. She revels in still being her doting dad Claudio's (Claudio Rotolo) favourite. And she thinks nothing of sneaking outside to have a smoke, only slightly worrying if her father will find out. But it's there, cigarette in hand, that Chiara watches her uncles get into a verbal scuffle outside. Then, in the aftermath, she spies her doting dad rushing off to deal with the fallout. Also, later that evening, perturbed by the feeling that something isn't quite right, it's Chiara who witnesses the family car explode outside their home, and spots Claudio fleeing under the cloak of darkness. The newest neo-realist film by Italian American writer/director Jonas Carpignano, To Chiara is also his third set in the Calabrian region, in the small coastal town of Gioia Tauro. It's the latest entry in a series that explores the area's mix of residents, segueing from refugees from North Africa in 2015's Mediterranea to the Romani community in 2017's A Ciambra, and now to the 'Ndrangheta. Call the latter the mafia, call them an organised crime syndicate, call them just part of living Southern Italy — whichever you pick, Chiara has always just considered them her loved ones without knowing it. Learning how her dad pays the bills and why he's now a fugitive, gleaning that her mother (Carmela Fumo) must be aware, trying to uncover where Giulia stands, attempting to cope with everything she thought she knew crumbling in an instant: that's what this gripping and moving film has in store for its young, headstrong, understandably destabilised protagonist from here. From the moment that Chiara begins to make her big discovery — piecing together the details stubbornly, despite being warned that her questions won't have welcome answers — it's easy to recognise why such a tale fascinates Carpignano. It's the story that sits in the shadows of other gangster flicks and shows, because so many are also about the bonds of blood; in decades gone by, it could've been Mary Corleone facing the same situation in The Godfather franchise or Meadow Soprano doing the same in The Sopranos. To Chiara also unfurls the ultimate tale of innocence lost, forever fracturing the bubble of an idyll that Chiara has spent her life inhabiting without ever realising, and causing her to now see the parent she has always adored in a completely different light. Nothing signals leaving childhood behind, no matter your age, more than having the entire foundation for your existence shift, after all. As gleams fiercely in its phenomenal lead's eyes, nothing is more devastating, either. Working with cinematographer Tim Curtin, as he did in A Ciambra — actors from which also pop up here, too, when Chiara starts expressing her shock via destructive outlets — Carpignano rarely ventures far from his protagonist. While film doesn't merely play out in close-ups, it'd be something else entirely without the deep and intimate gaze it holds with the teen, and the way it lets audiences stare into her soul as a result. Sometimes gliding, sometimes jittery, the handheld camerawork matches Chiara's inner state. Whether she's demanding answers from Giulia or following secrets into hidden spaces, every visual touch is aligned with her energy and her emotions, in fact. The score by Dan Romer (Dear Evan Hansen) and Benh Zeitlin (Carpignano's Mediterranea, and also his own Beasts of the Southern Wild) vibrates on the same wavelength as well, but To Chiara is always a movie about perception — and how it observes its titular figure, and also mirrors how she discerns the world around her, is oh-so-crucial to the feature's stunning impact. And, from its heady early moments to its poignant ending, this is indeed a stunning film. It's also a picture anchored by a remarkable lead performance — a jewel among a glimmering cast, all nonprofessional actors, as Carpignano has drawn upon for this entire trio of movies. As their names make plain, the talents behind To Chiara's main characters are all related, and all let that inherent comfort with each other calm and complicate their on-screen dynamic. Swamy Rotolo is nothing short of revelatory, though. Playing someone who once felt like she was sliding smoothly through the world, only to find that her fortunate status quo is slick not from luck, love or joy but the spoils of the criminal underworld, she's sincerely dogged and desperately uncertain at once. She sports the invincibility of youth, and also the pain when that facade fractures. That she often looks and feels like she could've stepped out of another female coming-of-age gem, Mustang, is the highest of compliments. Just as convincing: the slow-burning feature's delicate balancing act, with To Chiara careful not to judge or champion anyone's choices, or the path that's led some Gioia Tauro locals to the 'Ndrangheta, or to make its namesake a hero or a victim. Weighing up the two sides of the equation — the privilege and prejudices that Chiara didn't openly know she had and their sources, plus the stakes, costs and future ramifications of living a life tainted by crime — is the movie's central figure's task, which she navigates through emotional outbursts, tense glimpses inside her town's underbelly, on-the-ground forays into her father's reality and legally mandated foster-care arrangements alike. Accordingly and fittingly, when another 18th birthday party rolls around to bookend the deserving Cannes Film Festival 2021 Best European Film-winner, the idea that adulthood is chaos takes on a different tone. To Chiara never shakes that notion or tries to dispel it, but instead grapples and lives with it, and makes for potent and resonant viewing in the process.
Would the latest big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter have been better or worse if it had included The Prodigy's hit of the same name, aka the most obvious needle-drop that could've been chosen? Although we'll never know, it's hard to imagine a film with less personality than this page-to-screen remake. Using the 1996 dance-floor filler would've been a choice and a vibe — and a cliched one, whether gleefully or lazily — but it might've been preferable to the dull ashes of by-the-numbers genre filmmaking that's hit screens instead. Zac Efron looking so bored that blood drips from his eyes, dressing up King's 1980 story as a superhero tale (because of course) and having its pyrokinetic protagonist say "liar liar, pants on fire" when she's torching someone aren't a recipe for igniting movie magic, or for even occasionally just lighting a spark. That said, the best thing about Firestarter circa 2022 is actually its 'Firestarter'-free score, and with good reason. It hails from legendary original Halloween director John Carpenter, plus his son Cody Carpenter and regular collaborators Daniel A Davies (all fresh from 2018's Halloween and its follow-up Halloween Kills). It's a savvy touch not merely for the kind of atmospheric, eerie, mood-defining electro-synth sounds that only the elder Carpenter can deliver, but because he was originally slated to direct the first version of Firestarter in 1984, only to be ditched because The Thing — now a stone-cold sci-fi/horror classic — didn't do well enough at the box office. While both features could've desperately used Carpenter behind the lens, at least the initial flick didn't feel like all it was burning was the audience's time and patience. Then, now and in King's book, Firestarter follows the McGee family, whose lives would blaze brighter if they didn't have abilities most folks don't. After volunteering for a clinical trial in college, Andy (Efron, Gold) and his wife Vicky (Sydney Lemmon, Fear the Walking Dead) have telepathic and telekinetic powers; being experimented on with mind-altering chemical compounds will do that. And, from birth, their now 11-year-old daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong, It: Chapter Two) has been able to start fires with her mind. How director Keith Thomas (The Vigil) establishes this backstory says more than it should about the movie, how blandly it turns out and what it might've been with more flair. A flashback to Charlie getting fiery as a baby is laughable, and kindles exactly zero thrills, scares or unease. But, flickering over the opening credits as old video footage, Andy and Vicky's time as test subjects ripples with tension and creepiness — that's swiftly extinguished and never felt again. Unsurprisingly, the McGees have spent years attempting to blend in, hiding their powers and fleeing the shady government department, The Shop, that's responsible for their situation — and now sports a keen interest in using Charlie as a weapon. Alas, as the girl grows, holding her abilities back is becoming harder. Andy and Vicky argue about what's better: training her to suppress the flames or teaching her how to harness them. Then she literally explodes at school, The Shop head honcho Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben, City on a Hill) puts bounty hunter John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes, Rutherford Falls) on their trail and the heat is on. (No, that track from Beverly Hills Cop, which reached cinemas the same year that the OG Firestarter did, doesn't feature here either.) When a film gets its viewers thinking about the songs that aren't on its soundtrack, and more than once, it's a flaring warning sign. It's a scorching indictment of how uninvolving the new Firestarter is, too. Its predecessor isn't great, only really proving notable for starring a nine-year-old Drew Barrymore, but at least its chase-driven plot was propulsive. Here, Thomas and screenwriter Scott Teems (another Halloween Kills alum) scale back the story to spend half of the picture dwelling in the McGee's incognito existence, barely a few scenes on the run, and then turning in the least climactic finale in The Shop's secret base they possibly could. It all smacks of trying to cash in on King fandom after It and It: Chapter Two's huge success, and also continuing producer Jason Blum's penchant for remaking, reviving or riffing on movies gone by (see also: the Groundhog Day-but-horror Happy Death Day franchise, the latest The Invisible Man, Freaky Friday-but-horror flick Freaky and the past two Halloween films). At least this Firestarter doesn't have a white actor playing its First Nations hitman, although that doesn't mean that Greyeyes — who is so great in streaming sitcom Rutherford Falls — gets anything resembling a fleshed-out part. At least his character isn't written as inappropriately fascinated with Charlie this time, a wholly unpleasant aspect of the original's narrative that's thankfully cut. Asking much of its cast isn't on the new Firestarter's agenda, though. Reuben is cartoonish and saddled with clunky dialogue ("you are a real-life superhero," she somehow spits with a straight face); Kurtwood Smith (The Dropout) goes unhinged with aplomb as the man originally behind the mind-bending drug, but is underused; Armstrong is mostly tasked with scowling a lot. And while that blood oozing from Efron's peepers isn't genuinely caused by his visible lack of interest in his role, and there's a quiet power to his passive performance, it's the most relatable thing in the movie for audiences feeling just as underwhelmed. At least Firestarter 2022 is short, too, clocking in at 20 minutes less than the initial feature; there's a difference between burning fast and dazzling, however. When the psychokinetic pyrotechnics come — less often than you'd think in a film called Firestarter — the movie just looks cheap, the budget seemingly extending to a wind machine, a smoke machine, some shoddy CGI and piles of ashes. Letting King's underlying themes blaze away instead isn't the flick's aim, either. Firestarter is still about the sins of parents playing out through their children, as well as the ills of government wreaking havoc on ordinary families, but only in the broadest and most simplistic of ways. Even the Carpenter score, as welcome and excellent as it is, unintentionally undercuts the film — reminding the audience that the iconic filmmaker did helm a King adaptation once, aka 1983's haunted car flick Christine. Rewatching that is a far better move than seeing this cold Firestarter rehash fail to catch aflame.
We probably don't need to remind you that two years of lockdowns equates to a whole lotta missed birthdays. But if you're one of the many Melburnians who got stiffed on one or more birthday celebrations due to a certain pandemic, the crew from Scratch Arts has your back. On Saturday, May 28, they're taking over the Abbotsford Convent to throw the ultimate do-over party, dubbed Lost Birthdays. This little shindig is out to make up for all those missed festivities, set to dazzle with an evening of tunes, drinks, performances and UV-lit antics. There'll be six different DJs hitting the decks, serving a dance-worthy mix of disco, house and techno. Meanwhile, a curation of circus artists and performers will be dishing up a program of roving entertainment, and there'll be craft stations for those looking to unleash some of their own creative energy. What's more, the same minds that brought us UV performance art party Blankë Pop will be putting together a neon-drenched blacklight playground for you to groove through in between dance floor sessions. You're going to want to curate your birthday party outfit accordingly.
Already this year, Melbourne movie lovers have been able to journey to France from their cinema seats. Hitting up Spain just by heading to your local picture palace has also been on the itinerary. Your next stop: Germany. Kicking off just as the weather gets colder to remind you of frosty European climes, Australia's touring German Film Festival is back for 2022 with a 26-movie program. From Wednesday, May 25–Sunday, June 19, GFF will hit Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, The Kino, Pentridge Cinema and The Astor Theatre — letting you see in winter with quite the lineup of new and classic movies. There's typically a couple of clear recurring themes in this annual cinema showcase, as there tends to be in German films in general. So, the fact that this year's GFF will open with A Stasi Comedy, about life a Stasi agent's double life as both an underground poet and a spy in 80s-era East Berlin, is hardly surprising. Nor are two of the fest's other big-name titles: The Last Execution, starring Babylon Berlin's Lars Eidinger and also set in East Berlin in the 80s; and The Forger, led by Dark's Louis Hofmann, who plays a young Jewish man in Berlin in 1942. They're just some of the 21 movies that'll enjoy their Australian premieres at the event — alongside drama My Son, about a teenager's relationship with his mother; crime comedy The Black Square, starring Toni Erdmann's Sandra Hüller; the post-WWII-set The German Lesson, which leaps from the page to the screen; and political thriller The House, which takes place in the near future. GFF is also showcasing new films from just beyond German's borders in Austria and Switzerland. So, you can check out films such as downhill skiing drama Chasing the Line, an Austrian biopic about Winter Olympian Franz Klammer — and Swiss effort Caged Birds, about a lawyer in the 80s battling the prison system. The festival's final five titles hail from its impressive retrospective for 2022, which takes a look back at German cinema over the past five decades. Cannes Palm d'Or-winner The Tin Drum gets the 70s slot, while the East German-set Sunny Side represents the 80s. Doing the honours for the 90s is the exceptional Run Lola Run, aka one of the best thrillers ever made. The movie that helped push The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's Daniel Brühl to stardom, Good Bye Lenin!, has the 00s covered, and kinetic one-take gem Victoria returns to the big screen to showcase cinema from the past decade.
Melbourne is home to an annual film festival focused on LGBTQIA+ flicks, but there's always room for another one. So, now that Pride Month is here, Cinema Nova has put together Pride On Screen, a program that showcases the great queer movies that have reached cinemas over the years — and a few must-see new queer flicks as well. Whether you need another excuse to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire on a big screen, you fell head over heels for Call Me By Your Name when it first released or you're a fan of Australian drama 52 Tuesdays, you'll find them on the bill. Also showing: everything from A Single Man, Head On and Moonlight to My Own Private Idaho, The Birdcage and Truth or Dare. Fans of Colin Firth, Alex Dimitriades, Mahershala Ali, Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Robin Williams and Madonna, rejoice. Pride On Screen runs between Friday, June 10–Wednesday, June 15, with different films showing at various times on different days. From the highlights from the brand-new selection, you can make a date with Fire Island, which is inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; get strange and meta with St Vincent and Carrie Brownstein via The Nowhere Inn; hit the rails through Russia with Compartment No 6.
Hamilton isn't the only hit musical from the past few years that took a few cues from the past, paired a well-known chapter of history with toe-tapping tunes and made on-stage magic. Another theatre show that did just that: Six the Musical. First premiering back at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, then jumping to London's West End, this hit takes inspiration from one of the most famous sextets there's ever been — because even if you don't know much about Britain's past kings and queens, you likely know that Henry VIII had six wives. The Tudor monarch's love life has inspired plenty of pop culture content over the years — including 00s TV series The Tudors and 2008 movie The Other Boleyn Girl — but this one takes the pop part rather seriously. It's presented as a pop concert, in fact, with Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr all taking to the microphone to tell their stories. Each woman's aim: to stake their claim as the wife who suffered the most at the king's hands, and to become the group's lead singer as a result. A five-time nominee at the Olivier Awards, Six the Musical is heading to Melbourne from Friday, June 17–Sunday, August 7, playing the Comedy Theatre. Hitting the stage: Kala Gare (Rent) as Anne Boleyn, Loren Hunter (Strictly Ballroom: The Musical) as Jane Seymour, Kiana Daniele (Dirty Dancing) as Anne of Cleves and Vidya Makan (Green Day's American Idiot) as Catherine Parr — all reprising parts they've been playing since 2020. They'll welcome new co-stars Phoenix Jackson Mendoza (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Chelsea Dawson (Shrek the Musical), as Catherine of Aragon and Catherine Howard, respectively. Images: James D Morgan, Getty Images.
First, it was a popular 80s comedy starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Then, it became a five-season television sitcom led by Parton's real-life younger sister. In 2009, 9 to 5 made the leap to the stage too, because you just can't stop a good story about female empowerment in the workplace. Revived in the West End back in 2019, it's still a huge hit — and now, the stage production will finally play Melbourne. Just by reading the show's title, we know that you already have Parton's catchy song of the same name stuck in your head. Pour yourself a cup of ambition, because that tune isn't going away anytime soon. Indeed, you'd best get ready to exclaim "what a way to make a living" more than once when 9 to 5 The Musical hits the State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne from Sunday, July 10–Sunday, September 11. Ahead of its time when it first reached cinemas, this tale of three women who take on their sexist, egotistical and all-round despicable male boss is obviously still highly relevant today. Before #TimesUp and #MeToo, workmates Doralee, Violet and Judy decided to turn the tables by kidnapping their supervisor and reforming their office. Expect the same story in 9 to 5 The Musical, as penned by the original film's screenwriter Patricia Resnick — just with more songs. The Australian version stars Caroline O'Connor (a veteran of the movie version of Moulin Rouge!), Marina Prior (The Sound of Music, Phantom of the Opera), Casey Donovan (Chicago, We Will Rock You) and Erin Clare (Heathers the Musical, American Idiot), as well as Eddie Perfect as the workplace's controlling boss. With Parton herself writing the score — and earning Tony and Grammy nominations for her efforts — expect plenty of feel-good music as well. Although she doesn't appear on stage, the famous country star is still involved with the show, and with bringing it to Australia. 9 to 5 The Musical was initially meant to premiere in Australia in 2020, hitting up Sydney first and then heading to Melbourne, but was delayed due to the pandemic. Now, it's still debuted in Sydney before playing Brisbane, and then finally making its long-awaited arrival in Melbourne. Images: Pamela Raith.
Bob's Burgers, the loveable TV series about the burger-slinging Belcher family and their humble burg joint, has achieved many things in its 12 seasons so far. It has given the world a charming animated sitcom that's sweet, goofy, cute, funny and filled with top-notch food puns, for starters. It has also sported impressive voice work by everyone from Archer's H Jon Benjamin to Flight of the Conchords' Kristen Schaal, not to mention its hefty list of guest stars. And, it has been a source of fabulous musical numbers. The series' finest honour, though? Making everyone who watches Bob's Burgers feel oh-so-hungry for its animated burgers. Expect stomachs to keep rumbling when The Bob's Burgers Movie reaches the big screen, too — which it is doing Down Under on Thursday, May 26. There's one surefire way to counteract those burger pangs, however: heading along to the Coburger Drive-In on Monday, May 23. For one night only, from 6pm, the beloved Coburg Drive-In is getting a Bob's Burgers-themed makeover. On the menu: a sneak-peek screening of the movie before it officially opens wherever good burger-heavy animated flicks are shown, and food trucks serving up burgs. Beatbox Kitchen and Real OG Burgers will be doing the burger-slinging honours, and yes, some of the burgs will have punny names. Of course they will. Anything else just wouldn't be acceptable. So, get ready to tuck into The Gene-uine OG (featuring beetroot relish, cheese, beef, onion, lettuce and OG mayo), Cheese Louise (beef, onion, OG sauce, tomato sauce and Real OG's cheesy pour) and The Veg of Your Seat (the vegetable-heavy option, clearly), among other burgers.
If the way that cinema depicts cancer was plotted out on a scale, Babyteeth and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl could easily demonstrate its extremes. One sees its protagonist as a person first and a patient last; the other uses terminal illness as a catalyst for other people's sorrows and struggles (the "dying girl" part of its moniker, right there at the end, is oh-so-telling about how it regards someone with cancer as little but an afterthought). Nowhere Special thankfully sits at the Babyteeth end of the spectrum. That said, its premise screams weepie, and being moved by its story happens easily. But there's an enormous difference between earning that response through an intimate and delicate story about a person's plight — and, here, their quest to provide for the person dearest to them after they're gone — and merely treating their life-and-death tussle as easy grist for the tear-jerking mill. Nowhere Special follows a 35-year-old single father in Belfast, John (James Norton, Little Women), who needs to find an adoptive family for his four-year-old boy (first-timer Daniel Lamont). His cancer has progressed, and now the doting dad and window cleaner's days are numbered, so he's determined to save his son Michael from more sorrow than his absence will naturally bring — in a situation that's pure emotion-courting fodder, but never manipulatively treated as such. Indeed, writer/director Uberto Pasolini opts for understatement and realism, including over overtly endeavouring to incite the kind of non-stop waterworks that most movies with this premise would eagerly turn on. The filmmaker's last feature, 2013's Still Life, was also just as beautifully measured and tender without mawkishness. Although the gap between his two latest pictures is sizeable time-wise, Pasolini hasn't lost his touch for making sensitive and affecting cinema. Suffering an illness that's turned fatal, and possessing little energy to get through everything that comes with being a single father, John's own fate isn't his primary concern. Nowhere Special takes time to dwell in the routine that marks its protagonist's remaining days — washing panes of glass, making the most of the time he has left with Michael, trying to secure his son new parents, feeling exhausted by all of it but still soldiering on while he can — which seems both mundane and extraordinary in tandem. The always-unspoken fact that life goes on even when it doesn't lingers throughout the film, as stark as a freshly cleaned, newly gleaming window, and contributes to the prevailing bittersweet mood. That's Nowhere Special's baseline. As it charts John's efforts to get Michael the best future he possibly can without himself in it, it soaks in the ups and downs of the pair's life together, recognising that it's both ordinary and remarkable — because all lives are. The search at hand is a difficult one, even when pursued with the best of intentions — by John and with the help of social worker Shona (Eileen O'Higgins, Misbehaviour). Unsurprisingly, finding the right people, or person, to entrust your child to forever is a heartbreaking job, and the weight of what John grapples with never fades from the film's emotional landscape. Features that treat ailing characters so considerately may be uncommon, and they are; however, pictures that willingly face the complicated questions, worries and fears that come with knowing your existence is about to end are rarer still. It might come as little surprise that Pasolini found his tale in reality, reportedly after reading a newspaper article about a man in the same circumstances as John, but how gracefully, attentively and still unflinchingly Nowhere Special fleshes out its story never fails to astonish. Both visually and in his storytelling, Pasolini's approach is to dwell on small moments, as well as times shared in passing that might be forgotten by many but mean the world to John. See: the type of mirrored behaviour that a young son adopts from his dad, the sight of them walking around in matching baseball caps, and the joy that Michael gets from washing his toy truck — doing what his dad does in a way that he can, and showing how he idolises his father without needing to voice it. There's an unfussy, unsentimental but always empathetic feel to the Northern Ireland-set movie, and every shot, including in John's mission to relish every second that remains, and with his interviews with prospective new parents both doting and disastrous. While a lesser movie would've used the latter for comedic purposes, that's never part of Nowhere Special's remit. With windows such a key focus — being cleaned and peering into homes that might become Michael's — it's also little wonder that viewing Nowhere Special resembles gazing into a slice of life that isn't just poignant but cherished. Perhaps better known for his television work to-date courtesy of Black Mirror, McMafia, Grantchester and Happy Valley, Norton offers a glimpse into John's soul via his exceptional performance, which conveys a world of devotion and sorrow even when he isn't saying anything. In fact, Pasolini uses dialogue sparingly between his two main characters, knowing that this father-son duo don't always require words to express what they mean, and also recognising that finding the right thing to utter is arduous on both sides. With the also-magnificent Lamont, Norton inhabits scenes of comfortable and treasured silence. Also made plain as a result: that Michael's young mind will only keep the haziest of memories from these times, so it's the loving mood that truly matters above all else. Nowhere Special is easy to sum up: in contrast to its name, it's something outstanding. Its potency also springs from the lens it turns on the kind of character that's infrequently given such thoughtful attention, with or without terminal cancer. Every dollar counts for John, but it's clear that he spends what he has on Michael — as seen in the kid's new clothes and bedding — rather than himself. He's had his own experiences in the social-services system, which beats at the heart of his quest to lock in his son's future. He's been robbed of most of life's opportunities, and he's devoted to ensuring the same doesn't happen for his boy. He's also still wounded by Michael's mother leaving without providing any contact details in her absence, and he's as doting a dad that anyone could ask for. Thanks to both Pasolini and Norton, John is a fleshed-out portrait of someone on the margins, even before his illness factors in. Feeling for his plight isn't just a case of heartstring-tugging; here, it comes as naturally as breathing.
What a difference Mads Mikkelsen can make. What a difference the stellar Danish actor can't, too. The Another Round and Riders of Justice star enjoys his Wizarding World debut in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, taking over the part of evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald's Johnny Depp — who did the same from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them's Colin Farrell first, albeit in a scripted change — and he's impressively sinister and engagingly insidious in the role. He needs to be: his fascist character, aka the 1930s-set movie's magical version of Hitler, wants to eradicate muggles. He's also keen to grab power however he must to do so. But a compelling casting switch can't conjure up the winning wonder needed to power an almost two-and-a-half-hour film in a flailing franchise, even one that's really just accioing already-devoted Harry Potter fans into cinemas. Capitalising upon Pottermania has always been the point of the Fantastic Beasts movies. Famously, this series-within-a-series springs not from a well-plotted novel, where the eight Boy Who Lived flicks originated, but from a guide book on magical creatures. That magizoology text is mentioned in the very first HP tome, then arrived IRL four years later, but it was only after the Harry Potter films ended that it leapt to screens. The reason: showing the Wizarding World's powers-that-be the galleons, because no popular saga can ever conclude when there's more cash to grab (see also: Star Wars and Game of Thrones). For Fantastic Beasts, the result was charming in the initial movie and dismal in its followup. Now, with The Secrets of Dumbledore, it's about as fun as being bitten by a toothy textbook. Nearly four years have passed since The Crimes of Grindelwald hit cinemas, but its successor picks up its wand where that dull sequel left off. That means reuniting with young Albus Dumbledore, who was the best thing about the last feature thanks to Jude Law (The Third Day) following smoothly in Michael Gambon and Richard Harris' footsteps. Actually, it means reuniting Dumbledore with Grindelwald first. And, it involves overtly recognising that the pair were once lovers. The saga that's stemmed from JK Rowling's pen isn't historically known for being inclusive, much like the author's transphobic statements — and it's little wonder that getting candid about such a crucial romantic connection feels cursory and calculating here, rather than genuine. The same applies to The Secrets of Dumbledore's overall message of love and acceptance, which can only echo feebly when stemming from a co-screenwriter (alongside seven-time HP veteran Steve Kloves) who's basically become the series' off-screen Voldemort. Referencing Dumbledore and Grindelwald's amorous past serves the narrative, of course, which is the real reason behind it — far more than taking any meaningful steps towards LGBTQIA+ representation. Years prior, the two pledged not to harm each other, binding that magical promise with blood, which precludes any fray between them now. Enter magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, The Trial of the Chicago 7) and his pals. Well, most of them. Newt's assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates, Call the Midwife), brother Theseus (Callum Turner, Emma), No-Maj mate Jacob (Dan Fogler, The Walking Dead), Hogwarts professor Lally (Jessica Williams, Love Life) and Leta Lestrange's brother Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam, Stillwater) are accounted for, while former friend Queenie (Alison Sudol, The Last Full Measure) has defected to Grindelwald. As for the latter's sister Tina (Katherine Waterston, The World to Come), she's spirited aside, conspicuously sitting Operation Avoid Muggle Genocide out. Dumbledore's plan as the movie hops from New York and Hogwarts to Berlin and Bhutan: to stop Grindelwald via Newt and company, and also stop him seeing the future to rig an election. To put his new world order into effect, Grindelwald needs to become the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, but a fantastic beast just might foil his chances. The Secrets of Dumbledore is largely a grey-hued, grimly serious political thriller that frequently feels like it just happens to take place amid wand-waving folks (its nods to actual history are that blatant), but it occasionally remembers to include the critters mentioned in its moniker. That said, courtesy of a cute but mostly superfluous scene with Newt, Theseus and a hip-wiggling scorpion dance, it fares better at acknowledging mythical animals than spilling many Dumbledore secrets. A villain swap, a half-hearted queer romance, past protagonists shunted off or playing second exploding tuba to fan favourites, a prequel series that doesn't recall what it was originally about, a title that's barely fulfilled: these aren't the ingredients for a great or even average movie, let alone an entrancing one. While some of the above occurs for sound reasons — Law swiftly outshining Redmayne in the last picture, for instance — The Secrets of Dumbledore is the filmic equivalent of throwing whatever's at hand into a cauldron and expecting a life-changing potion to bubble up. It's stitched together from shards of ideas, glimmers of possible good intentions and heavy sprinklings of nostalgia (quidditch and all), but the most it manages to be is perfunctory. Helming his seventh Wizarding World instalment, director David Yates retains a knack for setpieces at least — but even with plenty of chases and duels, and with his technical team doing much of the feature's heavy lifting, the visual wonders are still few and far between. Two more Fantastic Beasts entries are currently slated; you don't need Grindelwald's sorcery to know HP won't leave screens anytime soon. But as The Secrets of Dumbledore demonstrates over and over, this saga struggles with purpose. That isn't surprising given that keeping the series going by any means necessary, and trying to keep everyone who grew up loving all things Potter in the late 90s/early 00s happy as well, remain its chief aims. Those kids are now adults, which is why the Fantastic Beasts movies focus on fully grown witches and wizards rather than Hogwarts students. Little else here has matured with them, though, or been fleshed out — despite obvious World War II parallels and nods to today's divided times playing key parts. Call it arrested franchise development, call it a floundering spell, call it an exercise in disenchantment: they all fit, and The Secrets of Dumbledore doesn't have the elixir, incantation or even ambition to magic up anything else.
Back in 1962, in the first-ever Bond film Dr No, the suave, Scottish-accented, Sean Connery-starring version of 007 admires a painting in the eponymous evil villain's underwater lair. That picture: Francisco Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. The artwork itself is very much real, too, although the genuine article doesn't appear in the feature. Even if the filmmakers had wanted to use the actual piece, it was missing at the time. In fact, making a joke about that exact situation is why the portrait is even referenced in Dr No. That's quite the situation: the debut big-screen instalment in one of cinema's most famous and longest-running franchises, and a saga about super spies and formidable villains at that, including a gag about a real-life art heist. The truth behind the painting's disappearance is even more fantastical, however, as The Duke captures. The year prior to Bond's first martini, a mere 19 days after the early 19th-century Goya piece was put on display in the National Gallery in London, the portrait was stolen. Unsurprisingly, the pilfering earned plenty of attention — especially given that the government-owned institution had bought the picture for the hefty sum of £140,000, which'd likely be almost £3 million today. International master criminals were suspected. Years passed, two more 007 movies hit cinemas, and there was zero sign of the artwork or the culprit. And, that might've remained the case if eccentric Newcastle sexagenarian Kempton Bunton hadn't turned himself in in 1965, advising that he'd gotten light-fingered in protest at the obscene amount spent on Portrait of the Duke of Wellington using taxpayer funds — money that could've been better deployed to provide pensioners with TV licenses, a cause Bunton had openly campaigned for (and even been imprisoned over after refusing to pay his own television fee). First, the not-at-all-inconsequential detail that's incongruous with glueing your eyes to the small screen Down Under: the charge that many countries collect for watching the box. Australia and New Zealand both abolished it decades ago, but it remains compulsory in the UK to this day. As played by Jim Broadbent (Six Minutes to Midnight), Bunton is fiercely opposed to paying, much to the embarrassment of his wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren, Fast and Furious 9) whenever the license inspectors come calling. He's even in London with his son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead, Voyagers) to attempt to spread the word about his fight against the TV fee for pensioners when Goya's painting is taken — that, and to get the BBC to produce the television scripts he devotedly pens and sends in, but receives no interest back from the broadcaster. Even the Bond franchise couldn't have dreamed up these specifics. The Duke's true tale is far wilder than fiction, and also so strange that it can only spring from reality. Directed by Roger Michell (My Cousin Rachel, Blackbird) — marking the British filmmaker's last fictional feature before his 2021 passing — it delivers its story with some light tinkering here and there, but the whole episode still makes for charming viewing. Much of the minutiae is shared during Bunton's court case, which could've jumped out of a Frank Capra movie; that's the feel-good vibe the movie shoots for and easily hits. Such a move couldn't be more astute for a flick that surveys an incident from more than half a century ago, but reaches screens in a world where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots just keeps widening. Yes, it's basically a pensioner-and-painting version of Robin Hood. Decrying the gap between the wealthy and the not-so, calling out government priorities that only broaden that divide, fighting against injustice, sporting a healthy distrust of the powers that be: these all flicker through Bunton, his TV license crusade and his portrait-stealing trial, and through the movie itself. Michell and playwrights-turned-screenwriters Richard Bean and Clive Coleman (Young Marx) aren't shy about the anti-authoritarian sentiment, but package it up with can-do underdog cheekiness — the brazenness of the little guy sticking it to the man, naturally. That class clash gives The Duke depth as it dances through its caper, and does so with an upbeat, congenial and even farcical tone. Here, a feature can stress a point about the money-coveting state of the world and its impact upon the working class, and it can have an affable time saying it. Most opportunities to surprise disappear along the way, but the result is endearing and likeable rather than routine or pandering. The Duke's story was always going to demand notice, but it mightn't have proven so pleasing — so crowd-pleasing, to be precise — with any other casting. Although he ensures that it appears otherwise, the ever-reliable Broadbent doesn't have a simple role; veer too far in one direction and Bunton could've been seen as foolish, tip over to the other side too forcefully and he might've just been lecturing and scolding. When it comes to balancing the amiable and the passionate (someone winsome but with the strength of his convictions), the veteran on-screen talent hits the jackpot. Mirren and Whitehead's parts have fewer layers, but they each turn in engaging performances. And in Mirren's case, after her aforementioned spot in the Fast and Furious franchise, plus The Good Liar and Woman in Gold on her recent-ish resume, her love of heists and/or subterfuge shines through from beneath Dorothy's sterner surface. There's a cosiness and gentleness to The Duke, and an ease, sentimentality and sweetness. They all couldn't suit the film better, actually. With cinematographer Mike Eley (The Dig, Off the Rails), Michell gives the movie a comforting look and feel, too, but it's also lively, resonant and charismatic as well. It's little wonder, then, that feature slides nicely into the director's body of work alongside the likes of Notting Hill, Venus and Le Week-End. As many of those pictures did — and the tonally heavier The Mother and Enduring Love as well — The Duke has more than just entertaining in mind, though. Charting an escapade that no screenwriter could've convincingly conjured up, it rallies against societal divides and also wades through grief. Little is too shaken or stirred, but it all goes down smoothly and delightfully — and with some bite.
The Makers and Shakers Market is cooking up a big return to Melbourne this March, complete with more than 100 stalls filled with handmade goods — spanning everything from clothing to candles. Shoppers at the two-day market at the Seaworks Maritime Precinct will be able to peruse stalls featuring Australian-made wares, and also participate in creative workshops and product tastings. And, you can listen to DJ sets and have a drink at the outdoor bar as well. Vendors include sellers like Tiny Pots, a quarantine-conceived business that creates functional ceramics between one and four centimetres tall; and East Forged, which makes organic nitrogen tea that mimics the look and taste of beer. Obviously, the list goes on. This edition of Makers and Shakers is a joint venture with The Slow Fashion Market, an event dedicated ethical and sustainably made clothing. And, it has been certified by the Australian Made campaign, which means that it will showcase only genuine locally made products. It all takes place from 10am–5pm on Saturday, March 26–Sunday, March 27, with entry to the market costing $4 for adults.
Melbourne's favourite all-vegan pizza joint has clocked up half a decade and it's celebrating with a big night of specials at both its OG Collingwood and Prahran outposts. This Friday, February 11, join Red Sparrow to cheers five years as the festivities take over each restaurant from 5pm. The drinks will be flowing, with a selection of beers and wine going for $5 a pop, all night long. Of course, the main event here is those famed plant-based pizzas and sure enough, you'll also be treated to some specially priced pizza — specifically, $10 pepperoni beauties on offer until 7pm. If you're yet to try Red Sparrow's signature treats, you've really been missing out. The wood fired pizzas, crafted on hand-stretched dough that's been fermented for 48 hours, are some of the best in town — vegan or otherwise. [caption id="attachment_677657" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Red Sparrow Collingwood[/caption] Top Image: Simon Schultz
UPDATE, August 12, 2022: Drive My Car is available to stream via Stan, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. More than four decades have passed since Haruki Murakami's debut novel reached shelves, and since the first film adaptation of his work followed, too; however, the two best page-to-screen versions of the author's prose have arrived in the past four years. It's easy to think about South Korean drama Burning while watching Drive My Car, because the two features — one Oscar-shortlisted, the other now the first Japanese movie to be nominated for Best Picture — spin the writer's words into astonishing, intricately observed portraits of human relationships. Both films are also exceptional. In the pair, Murakami's text is only a starting point, with his tales hitting the screen filtered through each picture's respective director. For Drive My Car, Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi does the honours, taking audiences riding through another of the Happy Hour, Asako I & II and with Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy helmer's layered, thoughtful and probing reflections on connection. Using Murakami's short story from 2014 collection Men Without Women as its basis, Drive My Car's setup is simple. Yes, the film's title is descriptive. Two years after a personal tragedy, actor/director Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima, Silent Tokyo) agrees to bring Chekhov's Uncle Vanya to the stage in Hiroshima, and the company behind it insists on giving him a chauffeur for his stay. He declines— he'd asked to stay an hour away from the theatre so he could listen to recorded tapes of the play on his drive — yet his new employers contend that it's mandatory for insurance and liability reasons. Enter 23-year-old Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura, Spaghetti Code Love), who becomes a regular part of Yūsuke's working stint in the city. Drive My Car doesn't hurry to its narrative destination, clocking in at a minute shy of three hours. It doesn't rush to get to its basic premise, either. Before the film's opening credits arrive 40 minutes in, it steps through Yūsuke's existence back when he was appearing in a version of Uncle Vanya himself, married to television scriptwriter Oto (Reika Kirishima, Japanese TV's Sherlock) and grappling with an earlier heartbreak. His wife is also sleeping with younger actor Takatsuki (Masaki Okada, Arc), which Yūsuke discovers, says nothing about but works towards discussing until fate intervenes. Then, when he sits in his red 1987 Saab 900 Turbo just as the movie's titles finally display, he's a man still wracked by grief. It's also swiftly clear that he's using his two-month Hiroshima residency as a distraction, even while knowing that this exact play — and Oto's voice on the tapes he keeps listening to — will always be deeply tied to his life-shattering loss. This prologue does more than set the scene; there's a reason that Hamaguchi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Takamasa Oe (The Naked Director), directs so much time its way. Where tales of tragedy and mourning often plunge into happy lives suddenly unsettled by something catastrophic or the process of picking up the pieces in the aftermath — typically making a concerted choice between one or the other — Drive My Car sees the two as the forever-linked halves of a complicated journey, as they are. The film isn't interested in the events that've forever altered the plot of Yūsuke's life, but in who he is, how he copes, and what ripples that inescapable hurt causes. It's just as fascinated with another fact: that so many of us have these stories. Just as losing someone and soldiering on afterwards are unshakeably connected, so are we all by sharing these cruel constants of life. The reality that anyone can have a history as complex and as coloured by pain is a lesson for Yūsuke to learn. Although he makes a living plumbing the depths of human emotion through art, and cathartically so, reading those same feelings into the people around him — recognising the same highs and lows in their experiences, as in his own — is a thornier path to chart. But in his daily treks to and from his theatre rehearsals, he starts making the trip towards that realisation as Misaki sits behind the wheel of his trusty Saab. Initially, neither speaks, with Oto's line readings via cassette breaking the silence. Yūsuke saves his words for the International cast he auditions and then directs, each relaying Uncle Vanya in their native tongues (or, in one instance, by an actor who is deaf and signs her dialogue). Slowly, though, the drives find their own language, as Misaki opens up about her past and vice versa. Forget Green Book and Driving Miss Daisy, American Oscar-applauded films similarly about drivers, passengers and unexpected camaraderie — Drive My Car is in a lane of its own, and not just because it isn't a simplistic and saccharine attempt to weave a heartwarming story out of racial reconciliation. Hamaguchi takes his central pair and his audience on a patient, engrossing and rewarding trip that cuts to the heart of dealing with life, love, loss, pain, shame and despair, and also sees how fickle twists of chance — a recurrent topic in the director's films — unavoidably dictate our routes. Another thing that the filmmaker does disarmingly well: ponder possibilities and acceptance, two notions that echo through both Yūsuke and Misaki's tales, and resonate with that always-winning combination of specificity and universality. Drive My Car is intimate and detailed about every element of its on-screen voyage and its character studies, and also a road map to soulful, relatable truths. Sitting — while driving and during rehearsals — is a recurrent sight in Drive My Car. It's fitting; this is a film to sit with. The movie's lengthy duration lets viewers take in its gorgeously shot visuals as they might revel in landscape spied from a car window, whether cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya (Ju-on: Origins) is lensing the road as it winds by the Seto Inland Sea, spending time with the feature's core duo or chronicling Yūsuke's efforts at the theatre. Crisp, poetic and revealing even in a visit to a waste treatment facility, Drive My Car's naturalistic imagery provides a striking canvas for its affecting performances, too, with Nishijima and Miura as quietly expressive as any film — and any Murakami adaptation — could hope of its actors. In one of the picture's most stunning sequences, they chat by steps near the ocean, and the camera sees everything about their characters, and simply existing, and also tussling with life's pain, in each emotionally loaded closeup and sweeping, waterside wide shot. These are moments that drive a movie to greatness, and this moving and perceptive masterpiece is filled with them.
If snacking on fresh seafood is one of your go-to summer pastimes, Cutler & Co has a little extra goodness in store for you right now. The acclaimed fine diner is seeing out the end of summer with a bonus menu of ocean-fresh fare and seasonal sips for its Summer Crustacea Bar offering. It's starring at the Cutler & Co Bar on Thursday to Sunday nights, as well as Sunday lunch, up until Sunday, February 27. The weekly-rotating menu is inspired by the sea and peppered with premium Aussie produce; featuring treats like Shark Bay scallops with nori and pickled fennel, devilled crab toasts, poached Torrumbarry yabby served chilled, and Skull Island tiger prawns paired with marie rose and Scotch Bonnet hot sauce. You'll even find serves of Giaveri beluga caviar, and whole Fraser Island spanner crabs matched with brown butter sauce and warm brioche. As you'd expect, there's some top-notch drinking to be done also, across a tight curation of fizz and classic cocktails. Team your seafood feast with a glass of Tassie's Ghost Rock Catherine Cuvée Brut or a frozen vodka martini and you're looking at one heck of a summer session. Both bookings and walk-ins are welcome. [caption id="attachment_841983" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jo McGann[/caption] Images: Jo McGann
It's that time again: time for the Alliance Française French Film Festival to gift Australian movie-goers with its annual cinema showcase. 2022 marks the event's 33rd round of fests, so get ready to watch your way through more than 40 flicks that'll whisk you off to France while you're munching popcorn in your cinema seat. There's no shortage of highlights from this year's complete lineup — including the festival's opening night pick, the 19th-century Paris-set Lost Illusions — but Claire Denis' Fire is easily one of the most exciting films on the bill. It'll play AFFFF straight from the Berlinale, and marks the acclaimed French filmmaker's first release since 2018's exceptional High Life. It also stars her Let the Sunshine In lead Juliette Binoche, with the romantic drama pairing the latter up with French actor Vincent Lindon (Titane) for the first time. Also a standout: Happening, winner of the 2021 Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, which adapts Annie Ernaux's autobiographical novel about the rights of women in France in the 60s. It just nabbed filmmaker Audrey Diwan a BAFTA nomination for Best Director, and follows a bright young student who gets pregnant, then sees her options — for her future, and regarding what to do about her situation — quickly dwindle. When AFFFF heads to Melbourne's Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Como. Palace Westgarth, Pentridge Cinema, The Kino and The Astor Theatre between Thursday, March 3–Sunday, April 10 (including its encore sessions), the exceptional Petite Maman also sits at the very top of the fest's must-see list. The latest film from Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Céline Sciamma, it already made a few Australian festival appearances in 2021, and channels the director's trademark sensitivity and empathy into a sci-fi-skewing tale of mothers and daughters that's instantly among Sciamma's best. Other top picks include the latest film in the OSS 117 spy spoof series, OSS 117: From Africa With Love, once again starring The Artist Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin; François Ozon's Everything Went Fine, which sees the Summer of 85 filmmaker tackle the right to die with dignity; Paris, 13th District, a love story from A Prophet and Rust and Bone's Jacques Audiard; and Murder Party, a murder-mystery with big Cluedo vibes. Or, there's also Anaïs in Love, a rom-com about a woman having an affair with a married man but then falling for his wife; bipoic Authentik, about French hip-hop duo Suprême NTM; World War II drama Farewell, Mr Haffmann, as based on the play; and friendship drama The Braves, about two twentysomething women following their dreams to become theatre actors. Plus, AFFFF's retro program is also a cinephile's delight, showcasing the work of actor and filmmaker Alain Delon — including via Purple Noon, which adapts Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr Ripley.
All of the kitchen staples, none of the excessive packaging: that's what's on offer at Mount Zero Olives' returning Zero Waste Warehouse Market. MZO is teaming up with a range of small businesses for another event that's all about encouraging sustainable consumption. Here, you can shop a range of products without the unnecessary plastic — and products will be available in bulk, too, so you can keep fully stocked as the colder months approach. As the name suggests, you'll need to bring your own reusable containers with you come 9am–2pm on Saturday, April 30. Bags, bottles, jars, buckets with lids — if you can put food in it, seal it and take it all home with you, it counts. Here's what you'll be buying and stuffing into those containers: Mount Zero Olives' olives, of course, plus olive oils, pulses and grains. You can also nab some Koji & Co's miso and shio koji, Market Lane's carbon neutral and small-batch roasted espresso or filter coffee, and free samples of oat milk ice cream from Gundowring. And don't forget to walk away with a two litre tub of your favourite Meredith Dairy goat cheese, which are going at $60 each.
Most folks haven't spent time in a prison for the criminally insane. If you live in Australia, odds are that you haven't navigated the American welfare system, either. And, you likely didn't go to a New York City high school — and you probably haven't walked into a Florida domestic violence shelter as well. But watch the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman and you'll feel otherwise. His observational films peer deeply at the institutions they're surveying, and offer viewers the next best thing to being there. It was true of In Jackson Heights, which is set in the culturally diverse NYC neighbourhood. It's the same of Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, which is clearly about the obvious. And it's accurate of Central Park, gloriously so. For the past 55 years, Wiseman has amassed quite the filmography — and a selection of his movies will be flickering across Melbourne's ACMI thanks to a retrospective program in conjunction with the Sydney Film Festival. At It Takes Time: Ten Films by Frederick Wiseman at ACMI, the documentarian's first-ever directorial effort, Titicut Follies, will get a showing. So too will 2020's City Hall. Pretend to spend a whole lot of time staring at the screen, being transported to the US and savouring every second of it. Also on the lineup: 2009's La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, spreading the Wiseman love beyond American institutions. This ode to the now 92-year-old filmmaker will kick off on Sunday, May 22 and run through till Sunday, September 25.
If you've ever visited Japan, you've likely made your way to the top of one of Tokyo's tall towers — Tokyo Tower, even — and tried to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji. You might've even made the trip to the active volcano yourself, and you probably saw its shape splashed across plenty of souvenirs. And you likely spotted variations of Katsushika Hokusai's art work featuring it, too. His Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, which includes The Great Wave off Kanagawa, is one of the things he's best known for. Actually seeing Mount Fuji for yourself might be off the cards at the moment, but you can learn more about Hokusai and his work at Australia's annual Japanese Film Festival. It's back for its 25th year in 2021, screening at select cinemas across Melbourne from Thursday, November 18–Sunday, December 5, with biopic Hokusai kicking off the festival on opening night. Also on the 21-movie program: Oscar submission True Mothers, which sees acclaimed filmmaker Naomi Kawase spin a story about adoption; Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, a Berlinale 2021 Silver Bear for director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi; and The Deer King, an animated film that steps into a world plagued by disease — and follows two survivors who might have the cure. Or, you can check out Under the Open Sky, about an ex-yakuza starting again after 13 years in prison; hostage thriller Masked Ward, which comes to the screen from the pages of a medical mystery novel; and comedy Not Quite Dead Yet, about a singer who wishes for her dad's demise. A number of movies by avant-garde directors Shūji Terayama also grace the lineup and, from Monday, November 15–Sunday, November 21, JFF is screening a range of titles free online — so you can keep watching even when you're not in a cinema. Want to transport yourself to Japan? Let the Japanese Film Festival whisk you away from November 18–Sunday, December 5 at select cinemas throughout Melbourne. For more information and to book your tickets, visit the website. Images: © 2021 NEOPA / Fictive and Copyright © 2020 HOKUSAI MOVIE.
It's been a heck of a long time between drinks, but iconic container bar Section 8 is back and ready to party. And to celebrate its return, it's firing up your Melbourne Cup Eve with a good old-fashioned, tune-filled laneway shindig. From 6pm on Monday, November 1, the beloved bar will be cruising into the public holiday with some sonic treats, cool drinks and general good vibes in abundance. Taking over the decks, you'll catch a lineup of musical mates, including Mrs Wallace, Naoto and Kgomotso, spinning through until 1am. The bar will be slinging its usual selection of liquid treats to match. And as always, Section 8 will be taking walk-ins only, with free entry — so you don't even need to worry about wrangling a booking. Images: Julia Sansone
Like lots of Melburnians this year, Fonda will be celebrating its birthday month in lockdown. But fiestas will still be in strong supply regardless of restrictions, thanks to the restaurant group's newly dropped takeaway offering. In honour of its tenth birthday, Fonda has launched a menu of DIY taco kits and bottled margaritas that are primed for nights in and sunny picnic sessions alike. At $60, the taco kit comes packed with everything you need to make eight tacos — corn tortillas, fresh fillings, guacamole, pico de gallo and chipotle aioli, plus your choice of the signature chicken, slow-cooked beef brisket or roasted sweet potato. To wash it all down, you'll find a range of pre-batched margaritas in house flavours like Coconut, Makrut & Chilli, Watermelon & Lime and Chilli Mango. Grab a mixed four-pack of 100ml serves for $60, or try any flavour by the share-friendly half-litre bottle for $65. What's more, the Fonda folk have put together the ultimate playlist to soundtrack your festivities, sure to transport you to a night out at the OG Richmond restaurant — find it here. The taco kits and margaritas are available for pick up from Fonda Hawthorn, Windsor, Richmond, Collingwood and its Bondi outpost in Sydney. Pre-order online.
Four decades ago, the nephew of a famous film director took his first big-screen acting gig playing a character so minor, he didn't even get a name. Six years later, the star in question nabbed a Golden Globe nomination. Before the century was out, he won an Oscar. These days, he also has eight Razzie nominations, too. But if ever an actor has straddled the vast chasm between the ridiculous and sublime, it's the one and only, always-inimitable, ceaselessly fascinating Nicolas Cage. Cage has crooned Elvis songs for David Lynch, married Elvis's daughter in real life and acted opposite himself in Adaptation. He took to the skies with criminals in Con Air, named one of his sons after Superman, and starred into two of the worst Marvel-affiliated movies ever thanks to Ghost Rider and its sequel. The list goes on — and in his 40 years in the business, Nicolas Cage has amassed 100-plus screen credits. Sometimes, he's hunting down the person who stole his pet pig, and also turning in one of his best-ever performances. At other times, he's wordlessly fighting demonic animatronics. In his latest flick, he simply plays himself. We could continue, but everyone knows that talking about Nicolas Cage isn't anywhere near as great as watching Nicolas Cage, although both are mighty fun. Also, for some reason, it just feels better to use his entire name. Don't just take our word for it about any of the above, however — take Palace Cinemas', which is celebrating all things Cage across a 13-week retro season. Starting on Thursday, April 14, then running at 6.30pm every Friday from April 22–July 8, the chain's Pentridge venue is going all in on Nicolas Cage mania. As part of the Palace Encore program, this Cagefest has been dubbed the Calendar of Cage, and has amassed quite the showcase of Nicolas Cage's work. But, let's be honest — they really could've picked any of his flicks and it'd be amazing. Still, this is one peach of a lineup, all ready for fans to eat up for days. Attendees will get into the mood with the long-locked glory of newbie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, then watch Cage think he's a bloodsucker in Vampire's Kiss, swoon over Cher in Moonstruck, get his Coen brothers on in madcap comedy Raising Arizona and go on the run with Laura Dern in Wild at Heart. Also included: jailbreak drama The Rock, unhinged thriller Mandy, and the sublime Martin Scorsese-helmed Bringing Out the Dead, plus the aforementioned Adaptation, Pig and Willy's Wonderland as well. Tickets cost $15 per film (and $10 for members) for all sessions except on Thursday, April 14 — which is when The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent screens as a sneak peek with a beer on arrival, and costs $24/$18 for members. Obviously, the memories you'll have seared into your brain forever will be priceless. And a word of warning: spending this long staring at Nicolas Cage's various crazy grins won't be easy to shake.
Twelve months is a long time to wait between film festivals. Don't worry — the folks behind Melbourne's annual queer cinema showcase feel your pain. With the Melbourne Queer Film Festival hopping around in terms of dates and formats over the past few years due to the pandemic, the event is giving LGBTQIA+ movie buffs a little something extra in 2022, thanks to a three-day feast of flicks between Friday, April 29–Sunday, May 1. Called Melbourne Queer Mini Film Festival, this bite-sized bonus festival will serve up 12 features and documentaries at Cinema Nova. And, while it's definitely a brief affair, it's all about quality rather than quantity. MQFF's program includes Tramps!, which heads back to Britain's New Romantic scene in the 80s; Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day?, a must-see for its blend of Arab folktales and Egyptian pop music; Canadian flick Wildhood, about a rebellious teen who runs away with his half-brother; and Benediction, a moving exploration of First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon's life by filmmaker Terence Davies (Sunset Song). Also among the highlights: Taiwan's Fragrance of the First Flower, Hong Kong coming-of-age effort The First Girl I Loved, France's The Divide and Spanish docu-drama Sediments, with the latter about the lived experiences of six trans women who are actors.
When word arrived in 2021 that Melbourne was getting a new European-focused film festival, it couldn't have been better news for movie lovers. Europa! Europa is all about showcasing flicks from across the whole continent, so you can see the latest and greatest titles from France, Spain, Italy, Romania and more all at the one event — and, when it debuts at the Classic and Lido cinemas from Friday, February 4–Sunday, February 27, it'll kick off with one mighty fine program. Opening the lineup is The Souvenir Part II, sequel to 2019's exceptional The Souvenir — which means that Europa! Europa is launching with the new team-up between rising star Honor Swinton Byrne and her mother Tilda Swinton. The follow-up picks up where the first movie left off, with Swinton Byrne's aspiring filmmaker attempting to cope with the tragic events of the last flick, all while she shoots her next project. Once again directed by British helmer Joanna Hogg, it'll start the festival in sublime form. (And if you're keen to see the original, it's on the bill as well.) Also bookending the fest: closing night's France from inimitable writer/director Bruno Dumont (Joan of Arc, P'tit Quinquin). A satire of the media industry, it stars No Time to Die and The French Dispatch's Léa Seydoux as a journalist forced to navigate the aftermath of injuring a pedestrian in a traffic accident. Other standouts include 13 films that were submitted as their country's entries for this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina's social-realist fairytale The White Fortress and North Macedonia's Sisterhood, which is about toxic friendships — and a number of titles that wowed last year's Cannes Film Festivals, like Norwegian supernatural thriller The Innocents and the Before Sunrise-esque train-set love story Compartment No 6. Or, there's also Andrea Arnold's (American Honey) Cow, aka the most gripping and moving documentary portrait of a dairy cow's life that you're ever likely to see; Earwig, the English-language debut of acclaimed French director Lucile Hadžihalilovic (Innocence, Evolution); Vortex, which sees Climax filmmaker Gaspar Noé swap his usual wild fare for an Amour-style look at ageing; and No Fucks Given, starring Blue Is the Warmest Colour's Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant for a low-cost airline.
If all you want for Christmas is a big night of chuckles, then Comedy Republic has you covered. This week, the venue kicks off the second edition of its annual Christmas Pageant, serving up a side-splitting program of nightly laughs from December 16–18 and again from December 21–23. Hosted by the talented Tina del Twist, it'll deliver a fresh lineup of comedy, cabaret and other festive fun each night, with the stage set to welcome some of your favourite local names. Among them, you'll catch a special return show from Sammy J and Randy Feltface, who'll be performing together for the first time in more than two years. Inimitable acts including Nath Valvo, Sami Shah, Ruby Slippers, Michelle Brasier and Scarlett Sohungson will also be making appearances, along with the cheer-inducing Granny Bingo crew. Tickets start from $29 — snap yours up here.
UPDATE, December 23, 2021: Don't Look Up released in select Australian cinemas on Thursday, December 9, and will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 24. Timing may be everything in comedy, but it's no longer working for Adam McKay. Back when the ex-Saturday Night Live writer was making Will Ferrell flicks (see: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Step Brothers), his films hinged upon comic timing. Ensuring jokes hit their marks was pivotal to his scripts, crucial during editing, and paramount to Ferrell and his co-stars. Since 2015, McKay has been equally obsessed with timeliness. More so, actually, in his latest film Don't Look Up. As started with The Big Short, which nabbed him a screenwriting Oscar, his current breed of politically focused satires trade not just in laughs but in topicality. Skewering the present or recent state of America has become the filmmaker's main aim — but, as 2018's Vice so firmly illustrated, smugly stating the obvious isn't particularly funny. On paper, Don't Look Up sounds like a dream. Using a comet hurtling towards earth as a stand-in, McKay parodies climate change inaction and the circus that tackling COVID-19 has turned into in the US, and spoofs self-serious disaster blockbusters — 1998's double whammy of Deep Impact and Armageddon among them — too. And, he enlists a fantasy cast, which spans five Oscar-winners, plus almost every other famous person he could seemingly think of. But he's still simply making the most blatant gags, all while assuming viewers wouldn't care about saving the planet, or their own lives, without such star-studded and glossily shot packaging. Although the pandemic has certainly exposed stupidity on a vast scale among politicians, the media and the everyday masses alike, mining that alone is hardly smart, savvy or amusing. Again, it's merely stating what everyone has already observed for the past two years, and delivering it with a shit-eating grin. That smirk is Don't Look Up's go-to expression among its broad caricatures — in the name of comedy, of course. Trump-esque President Orlean (Meryl Streep, The Prom) has one, as does her sycophantic dude-bro son/Chief of Staff Jason (Jonah Hill, The Beach Bum). Flinging trivial banter with fake smiles, "keep it light and fun" morning show hosts Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett, Where'd You Go, Bernadette) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry, Those Who Wish Me Dead) sport them as well. But PhD student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence, X-Men: Dark Phoenix) and her astronomy professor Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) aren't smiling when she discovers a Mount Everest-sized comet, then he realises it's on a collision course with earth and will wipe out everything in six months and 14 days. And they aren't beaming when, with NASA's head of planetary defence Dr Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan, The Unforgivable), they try to spread the word. The world is literally ending, but no one cares. Conjuring up the premise with journalist/political commentator David Sirota, McKay turns Don't Look Up into a greatest-hits tour of predictable situations bound to occur if a celestial body was rocketing our way — and that've largely happened during the fights against climate change and COVID-19. The President's reactions stem from her clear-cut inspiration, including the decision to "sit tight and assess" until it's politically convenient or just unavoidable, and the later flat-out denial that anything is a problem. The character in general apes the same source, and bluntly, given Orlean is initially busy with a scandal surrounding her next Supreme Court nominee, and that her love life and the porn industry also spark headlines. The insipid media and social media response, favouring a rocky celebrity relationship (which is where Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi come in), is also all too real. The list goes on, including the memes when Dibiasky gets outraged on TV and the worshipping of Mindy as an AILF (Astronomer I'd Like to Fuck). A Steve Jobs/Jeff Bezos/Elon Musk-style tech-company head (The Trial of the Chicago 7's Mark Rylance, putting in the movie's worst performance) also gets involved — poking fun at putting capitalism ahead of the planet's best interests — as does a stoner skater (Timothée Chalamet, The French Dispatch) enamoured with Dibiasky. The list goes on here as well, because Don't Look Up is as overstuffed as it is toothless. Satire is meant to use irony and exaggeration to highlight failings and flaws, but McKay pads out the bulk of his 138-minute film with first draft-style sketches and figures that say the bare minimum, then hops quickly from one to the other in the hope that something lands. Yes, amid its on-screen text explanations, montages of stock clips, a superfluous pop song and overactive editing, Don't Look Up has a comic timing problem, too. And the scenes it does hover on, including the grating White House confrontations, could've easily been cut in half. McKay has zero faith in the world's ability to face existential and apocalyptic threats (understandably), and no hope his audience would notice if he didn't slickly spoon-feed surface-level commentary (insufferably), but he places plenty of responsibility upon DiCaprio, Lawrence and Morgan. The film's key trio aren't given much to work with, but everyone else — aside from the underused Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets) as Mindy's wife June — plays a one-note gag. Mindy is sweaty and swayed by attention; Dibiasky is defined by her two nose rings, flame-hued hair and the Wu-Tang Clan lyrics she's introduced singing; and Oglethorpe is the only competent government employee. It's a credit to all three actors that they turn in convincing performances and make their characters the most compelling part of Don't Look Up, although no one is anywhere near their best. The entire planet definitely isn't at its finest in Don't Look Up, which is the whole overstressed point; however, in weakly holding up a mirror to truths everyone's already painfully familiar with, it didn't need to embody the same concept itself. Forget following in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb's footsteps, or Wag the Dog's, or mustering up an iota of Succession's astuteness (McKay is one of the latter's executive producers) — Anchorman felt shrewder and more incisive. Maybe Don't Look Up might've worked if it had pre-dated the pandemic. It undoubtedly would've been improved by ditching the puffed-up snark, as its closing scenes demonstrate; it's a far better movie when it switches to earnestness and even takes a few cues from Lars von Trier's immensely superior Melancholia, as unearned as the tonal change proves. Perhaps a humanity-is-damned flick that crashes itself is McKay's ultimate joke, though, because that's just the doomed world we find ourselves in. Don't Look Up releases in select Australian cinemas on Thursday, December 9, and will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 24. Image: Nico Tavernise/Netflix.
Pots of gold and leprechauns are one thing, but if you'd rather find a rainbow with bottomless seltzers at the end of it, just head down to the Provincial Hotel. The Fitzroy pub has teamed up with Moon Dog Brewing for its new rooftop pop-up Over the Rainbow. And yes, it's as colourful as it sounds, rocking vibrant florals, a giant neon rainbow and even a rainbow swing for happy snaps. What's more, the venue's installed a self-serve tap station pouring Moon Dog's famed Fizzer seltzer in a rainbow of varieties — think, Piney Limey, Pink Flamingo and Lemon Squeezy. And you can enjoy two hours of bottomless seltzer for $49, at any time right through summer — book here. Free-flowing Fizzers also now star in the Provincial's weekend bottomless brunch, which runs from 11am and 2pm every Saturday and Sunday. For $60, you'll get your choice of brunch dish — think, espresso martini waffles, maple-glazed bacon and egg burgers, and lobster and prawn rolls — teamed with two hours of free-flowing drinks. Go for the self-serve seltzers, or a swag of other options including spritzes, tap brews and prosecco.
There's something oh-so-relaxing about staring at the sea, even if you're feasting your eyes on the water via the big screen. That's the concept behind the Ocean Film Festival Australia. You can't always spend all your time at the beach, by the river or in a pool — but you can spend an evening peering at the next best thing in a cinema. On two nights in March, the festival will unleash a cinematic feast of water-focused wonders onto the silver screen at Melbourne's Astor Theatre. Head along at 7.15pm on Wednesday, March 23 and Thursday, March 24. Film-wise, viewers will spend time both above and below the ocean's surface thanks to a compilation of shorts from around the world. Expect to chase big waves, explore a range of sea life and get a hefty ocean rush, plus a heap of other sea adventures. The program is united by a love of the ocean, an appreciation of the creatures who dwell in its waters and a curiosity to explore the substance that comprises more than two-thirds of the earth. It's the next best thing to diving in, all without getting wet. [caption id="attachment_840734" align="alignnone" width="1920"] John Kowitz[/caption]
Don't mistake the blaze that starts Nightmare Alley for warmth; in his 11th film, Guillermo del Toro gets chillier than he ever has. A lover of gothic tales told with empathy and curiosity, the Mexican filmmaker has always understood that escapism and agony go hand in hand — in life, and in his fantastical movies — and here, in a carnival noir that springs from William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel and previously reached cinemas in 1947, he runs headfirst into cold, unrelenting darkness. As The Shape of Water movingly demonstrated to Best Picture and Best Director Oscar wins, no one seeks emotional and mental refuge purely for the sake it. They flee from something, and del Toro's life's work has spotted that distress clearly from his first dalliance with the undead in his 1993 debut Cronos. The Divinyls were right: there is indeed a fine line between pleasure and pain, which del Toro keeps surveying; however, Nightmare Alley tells of trying to snatch glimpses of empty happiness amid rampant desolation. That burning house, once home to the skulking Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper, Licorice Pizza), is surrounded by America's stark midwestern landscape circa 1939. Still, the terrain of its now-former occupant's insides is even grimmer, as Nightmare Alley's opening image of Stan dropping a body into a hole in the abode's floor, then striking a match, shows. From there, he descends into the carny world after hopping on a bus with only a bag and a radio, alighting at the end of the line and finding a travelling fair at this feet. Given a job by barker Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe, Spider-Man: No Way Home), he gets by doing whatever's asked, including helping clean up after the geek act — although, even with his ambiguities evident from the outset, stomaching a cage-dwelling man biting the heads off live chickens to entertain braying crowds isn't initially easy. While set in an already-despondent US where the Depression is only just waning, the shadows of the First World War linger and more are soon to fall via World War II, Nightmare Alley still gives Stan flickers of hope. Adapted from the novel by del Toro with feature debutant Kim Morgan, the movie doesn't ever promise light or virtue, but kindness repeatedly comes its protagonist's way in its first half. In fortune-teller Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette, Dream Horse) and her oft-sauced husband and assistant Pete (David Strathairn, Nomadland), Stan gains friends and mentors. He takes to mentalism like he was born to it, and his gift for manipulating audiences — and his eagerness to keep pushing the spiritualism further — is firmly a sign. Soon, it's 1941 and he's rebadged himself as 'The Great Stanton' in city clubs, claiming to speak to the dead in the pursuit of bigger paydays, with fellow ex-carny Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara, Mary Magdalene) as his romantic and professional partner beyond the dustbowl. The tone may be blacker than del Toro's usual mode — positively pitch-black in the feature's unforgettable ending, in fact — but Stan is just doing what the director's main characters tend to: trying to find his own place as he runs from all that haunts him. "My whole life, I been lookin', lookin' for somethin' I'm good at — an' I think I found it," he says, his elation palpable. Although his first altercation with Dr Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett, Don't Look Up) starts with a public scene at one of his swanky gigs, he's equally as thrilled that his crowd-pleasing act attracts her attention, and by the psychologist's suggestion that they team up on wealthy mark Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins, Kajillionaire). But here's the thing about being a grifter, even one who was so recently a drifter: if you're fleecing someone, you're likely being fleeced back in turn. Fox Mulder was right, too. In The X-Files, the David Duchovny-played character's main maxims contradicted each other yet also rang true, because people do want to believe even if they know they should trust no one. That iconic sci-fi series had its own ace carnival episode, and TV also went there in HBO's exceptional early-00s series Carnivàle — and while both pop to mind when watching Nightmare Alley, del Toro doesn't follow slavishly in anyone else's footsteps. As he's done with ghosts (The Devil's Backbone), superheroes (his two Hellboy films), fairytale worlds (Pan's Labyrinth), kaiju (Pacific Rim) and haunted houses (Crimson Peak), he's intensely astute at twisting familiar realms to suit his stylistic flourishes and thematic fascinations, and making it all feel brand new. Nightmare Alley doesn't lack influences, the entire history of film noir that the original flick hails from chief among them, but it's always its own towering beast. Like getting lost in its funhouse sideshows, jewel-hued costumes and the velvety art-deco furnishings of life after the road, this endlessly mesmerising movie is always sordid yet immaculate as well, and creepy yet slinky and pulpy yet ravishing. Pondering a road to hell paved with self-serving intentions, it has a heart of darkness that courses with inky, icy blood, and it's also as alluring a film as del Toro has helmed. Yes, it's a feature that lives the idea that something that draws you in vividly and instantly might be prowled by monsters both hidden and not-so, with Nightmare Alley pumping one of its central notions through every technical touch it can. Aided by cinematographer Dan Laustsen's (Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water) gliding imagery and production designer Tamara Deverell's (the del Toro-produced vampire TV series The Strain) vibrant staging, every frame is visual perfection — not just by looking spectacular, but by so heartily embracing its settings, genre and dissection of humanity's bleakest impulses. Cue a commanding performance by Cooper to match every move that Nightmare Alley makes; thanks to Licorice Pizza and now this, he's having a career-best moment. While never convincingly as youthful as dialogue intimates, he captures the same thing that del Toro constantly interrogates, playing a slippery and unsettling man who knows how to lure people in — it takes time for Stan to segue from barely speaking to smooth patter, but the latter more than does its job — and how to twist a knife to devastating effect. He isn't alone in his stellar portrayal, though, with Collette and Strathairn soulful and tender, Mara beaming with heart, Dafoe hardened and nightmarish, and Jenkins cuttingly crafty. An energetic yet sinister presence who couldn't be more at home in her thorny part, Blanchett could've walked right out of the 30s and 40s herself, too, although that's oh-so-much about del Toro's latest masterpiece all over. Top image: Photo by Kerry Hayes. © 2021, 20th Century Studios, all rights reserved.
It's been 12 years since Inception melted our brains with dreams within dreams within dreams — and El Camino Cantina might've just come up with the margarita equivalent. Already known for its wild marg flavours, and for turning other beloved foodstuffs into frosty 'ritas, it's now swirling its latest batch of varieties together. So you might be sipping an ice block within a margarita within a swirled cocktail, for instance. First, the flavours. Calippos and pine lime splices aren't just for eating now, with El Camino's calypso crush and pine lime Splice varieties interpreting the beloved icy treats. Or, there's also mango strawberry, watermelon mint, and both lychee colada and lychee lagoon. Yes, lychees feature in a big way. Available from Tuesday, February 1–Monday, February 28, this whole margarita special is called Summer of Swirls, and costs $20 for a 15-oz glass, $24 for the 20-oz size and $35 for a tasting paddle of four 220-millilitre glasses. In Melbourne, you'll find them quenching your summer thirst at El Camino in Fitzroy.
UPDATE Thursday, January 27: Due to COVID-19, a number of dates for The Wedding Singer: The Musical Comedy's Melbourne run have been rescheduled, including the January 27 opening night performance. Dates will now run from February 5–20. Head to the website to see which shows are affected and when they've been rescheduled for, and to buy tickets. Classic flicks just keep making the leap to the stage, turning their big-screen tales into song-filled musical adaptations in the process. From 9 to 5 and Muriel's Wedding to Moulin Rouge! and Shrek, a hefty number of beloved movies have done just that — and now Adam Sandler's smash-hit film The Wedding Singer has joined them. The Wedding Singer: The Musical Comedy originally hit Melbourne in 2021 — but one season just wasn't enough. So, it's bringing its tunes to town again, playing Arts Centre Melbourne from Thursday, January 27–Sunday, February 13. If you've seen the movie, then you'll know what you're in for — with The Wedding Singer: The Musical Comedy delivering an all-singing, all-dancing stage show based on the hilarious 90s flick. And it's from the same crew that propelled it to sell-out success on Broadway and across the UK, including the writer of the original movie, Tim Herlihy. This one will yank you right into The Wedding Singer's 80s world of big hair and classic wedding bangers, thanks to a toe-tapping score that's sure to prompt a few hearty crowd singalongs. It retells the story of party-loving wedding singer and wannabe rock star Robbie Hart, who's left stranded at the altar at his own nuptials. Heartbroken, he sets out to destroy every other wedding he's a part of, until a chance encounter with a waitress: Drew Barrymore's character Julia. Now, he just has to win over the girl... and somehow put a stop to her own upcoming marriage along the way.
When something shows you its true colours, believe it. The Kingsman franchise certainly did when it debuted in 2014, as viewers have been witnessing ever since. That initial entry, Kingsman: The Secret Service, gave the espionage genre an irreverent and energetic spin, and landed partway between update and parody. But, while making Taron Egerton a star and proving engaging-enough, it didn't know when to call it quits, serving up one of the most ill-judged closing moments that spy flicks have ever seen. Since then, all things Kingsman haven't known when to end either, which is why subpar sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle arrived in 2017, and now unnecessary prequel The King's Man. Another year, another dull origin story. Another year, another stretched Bond knockoff, too. Stepping from 007's latest instalments, including No Time to Die, to this pale imitation, Ralph Fiennes takes over leading man duties in this mostly World War I-centric affair. He looks as if he'd rather be bossing Bond around again, though, sporting the discomfort of someone who finds himself in a movie that doesn't shake out the way it was meant to, or should've, and mirroring the expression likely to sit on viewers' faces while watching. Simply by existing, The King's Man shows that this series just keeps pushing on when that's hardly the best option. It overextends its running time and narrative as well. But as it unfurls the beginnings of the intelligence agency hidden within a Saville Row tailor shop, it ditches everything else that made its predecessors work — when they did work, that is. Most fatally, it jettisons its class clashes and genre satire, and is instead content with being an outlandish period movie about the rich and powerful creating their own secret club. Adapted from Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar's 2012 comics, the Kingsman series hasn't cut too deeply in its past two movies, but it did make the most of its central fish-out-of-water idea. It asked: what if a kid from the supposed wrong side of the tracks entered the espionage realm that's so firmly been established as suave and well-heeled by 007? Finding out why there's even a covert spy organisation staffed by the wealthy and impeccably dressed for that young man to join is a far less intriguing idea, but returning filmmaker Matthew Vaughn — who has now helmed all three Kingsman films — and co-screenwriter Karl Gajdusek (The Last Days of American Crime) don't seem to care. Vaughn has mostly ditched the coarse sex gags this time, too, and for the better, but hasn't found much in the way of personality to replace them. It's in a prologue in 1902 that Fiennes makes his first appearance as Orlando Oxford, a duke travelling to South Africa during the Boer War — and soon made a widower, because The King's Man starts with the tiresome dead wife trope. Twelve years later, Oxford is staunchly a pacifist, so much so that he forbids his now-teenage son Conrad (Harris Dickinson, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) from enlisting when WWI breaks out. But the duke hasn't completely given away serving his country himself, overseeing an off-the-books intelligence network with the help of his servants Shola (Djimon Hounsou, A Quiet Place Part II) and Polly (Gemma Arterton, Summerland). That comes in handy when a nefarious Scottish figure known only as The Shepherd interferes in world affairs, with King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (all cousins, and all played by Bohemian Rhapsody's Tom Hollander) his targets. Using real-life history as a backdrop, The King's Man weaves in Rasputin (Rhys Ifans, Spider-Man: No Way Home), too. If only it possessed the sense of humour to include Boney M's 70s dance-floor filler of the same name, or even a vodka-filled shot glass of its vibe. Rasputin, the character, is actually the best thing about the film, and solely because he's the most entertaining. Ifans plays the part like he's in on a joke that no one else in the production has gotten, amping up a goth mystic, busting out dance-inspired fighting moves and proving the liveliest thing in a feature that's frequently ridiculous yet rarely fun. Making a screwy but banal First World War spy-fuelled action flick surely wasn't on the franchise's agenda, but The King's Man can barely be considered a comedy. Vaughn does stuff his overladen plot with lip-service sentiments fired in a few directions, however, tearing into war and colonialism — but that, like everything that The King's Man purports to do, comes across as half-hearted. In showing the horrors of combat, it doesn't help that 1917 is so fresh in cinematic memories (and it's definitely unfortunate that Dickinson could easily play the brother of 1917's star George MacKay). It's also hardly handy that Vaughn and Gajdusek's script manages to both rally against imperial rule and eagerly celebrate monarchies and the British Empire. That's the kind of thematic muddle the film wades through, making it clear that no one has thought too deeply about any of these concepts. The same applies to Oxford's pacifism, given that The King's Man heartily splashes around OTT violence. Here, an idea or position is only convenient when it's needed to further the story, and it's thoroughly disposable seconds later. Manners may maketh man, as the series' eponymous society has intoned in three pictures now, but throwing together whatever disparate parts happen to be at hand doesn't make a good movie. If the same approach was taken to tailoring, the resulting suits wouldn't pass the central secret service's sartorial standards. Poking fun at the past, name-dropping historical figures, giving Hounsou and Arterton so little to do: none of that turns out well, either. Plus, while zippily staged, all of the film's action scenes that don't involve Ifans get repetitive fast. But The King's Man still commits to its franchise duty, pointlessly setting up a sequel that no one wants in its dying moments. A follow-up to The Golden Circle, called Kingsman: The Blue Blood, is also in the works, as well as a TV show about its American Statesman offshoot. Keeping on needlessly keeping on: that's still this spy series' main trait, as it always has been.
UPDATE, October 28, 2022: All Quiet on the Western Front opened in Australian cinemas on October 13 and streams via Netflix from October 28. War makes meat, disposable labour and easy sacrifices of us all. In battles for power, as they always are, bodies are used to take territory, threaten enemies and shed blood to legitimise a cause. On the ground, whether in muddy trenches or streaming across mine-strewn fields, war sees the masses rather than the individuals, too — but All Quiet on the Western Front has always been a heartbreaking retort to and clear-eyed reality check for that horrific truth. Penned in 1928 by German World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque, initially adapted for the screen by Hollywood in 1930 and then turned into a US TV movie in 1979, the staunchly anti-war story now gets its first adaptation in its native tongue. Combat's agonies echo no matter the language giving them voice, but Edward Berger's new film is a stunning, gripping and moving piece of cinema. Helming and scripting — the latter with feature first-timers Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell — All My Loving director Berger starts All Quiet on the Western Front with a remarkable sequence. The film will come to settle on 17-year-old Paul Bäumer (astonishing debutant Felix Kammerer) and his ordeal after naively enlisting in 1917, thinking with his mates that they'd be marching on Paris within weeks, but it begins with a different young soldier, Heinrich Gerber (Jakob Schmidt, Babylon Berlin), in the eponymous region. He's thrust into the action in no man's land and the inevitable happens. Then, stained with blood and pierced by bullets, his uniform is stripped from his body, sent to a military laundry, mended and passed on. The recipient: the eager Paul, who notices the past wearer's name on the label and buys the excuse that it just didn't fit him. No one dares waste a scrap of clothing — only the flesh that dons it, and the existences its owners don't want to lose. Paul's parents are against him signing up with the Imperial German Army, but his pals Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer, The Island), Franz Müller (Moritz Klaus, Die Chefin) and Ludwig Behm (Adrian Grünewald, also The Island) are doing it, so he's soon forging a signature and receiving his pre-used uniform. You could say that the high schooler and his friends get the shock of their lives once they make it to the front, because they do; however, as the Germans and the French keep tussling over a ridiculously small stretch, making zero impact upon the greater war in the process, Paul and company's lives — shocks and all — couldn't be more expendable. In the unit's first big push, the teenagers' numbers already diminish. Building upon the movie's potent opening, Berger ensures that nothing about war remains romanticised in their gaze. Call it hell, call it a nightmare, call it a senseless throwing away of innocent life and a needless robbing of the future: they all fit. Eighteen months later in November 1918, All Quiet on the Western Front moves to Paul and his compatriots behind the trenches. Trying to survive is still their only aim, and any sense of excitement, passion, enthusiasm and patriotism for their service has long dissipated. Sometimes, with the older and brotherly Stanislaus "Kat" Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch, Berlin Alexanderplatz), making it through the day involves attempting to steal food from French farms. Sometimes, it means looking for new recruits who haven't shown up. When orders come as they unavoidably do, though, the front is inescapable. Alongside 1917, All Quiet on the Western Front proves a masterclass in conveying armed conflict's relentlessness, terror and futility — from a first-person perspective, and also via lengthy, unbroken, like-you're-there shots steeped in gut- and heart-wrenching wartime brutality. Every second of Berger's feature is harrowing, even its quiet moments of tender camaraderie — including one while sharing a bog over a communal log — and its gleaming glimpses of nature's beauty. Lensed by cinematographer James Friend (Your Honor), the latter would do Terrence Malick proud; his A Hidden Life, about an IRL Austrian farmer-turned-conscientious objector in the Second World War, would make a striking companion piece to this. Inevitability lingers over All Quiet on the Western Front as well, whether or not you've read the novel or seen previous screen versions. Either knowing or predicting where Paul's WWI torment goes doesn't make everything that eventuates any less distressing, but puts viewers in the same position as the officials pulling the strings away from the front lines. The leaders sending their men to their deaths mightn't be distraught, but the watching audience is. In a significant departure from the source material, All Quiet on the Western Front spends time with some of those head honchos: politician Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl, The King's Man), who endeavours to convince German High Command that an armistice is the only move available amid such mounting casualties; and General Friedrich (Devid Striesow, The Last Execution), who sees a ceasefire as treason. Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch (Thibault de Montalembert, Heartstopper) isn't willing to allow any saving face either way, giving the Germans a 72-hour deadline to accept a deal as is — and that's more than enough time for more troops to meet thoroughly escapable ends. While Berger's decision to balance the on-the-ground onslaught with behind-the-scenes manoeuvring builds in moments of respite for his viewers, that occurs viscerally rather than emotionally. Anguish still radiates, as it must, as every passing minute means more soldiers slaughtered. Germany's submission for the 2023 Best International Feature Oscar, All Quiet on the Western Front is a film haunted: by the callous disregard for human lives by power-seekers far removed from any fatal consequences, the wide-eyed fervour and blind faith with which boys pledge themselves to war, the desperation and fear that ripples in the thick of the fray, and oh-so-much death. Its ominous and foreboding score by Volker Bertelmann (Ammonite), often repeating a handful of notes, is equally tortured; neither watching nor listening is an easy experience. Viewing a movie pales in comparison to enduring everything this one depicts, of course, but all that bloodshed, and the evocative performances behind the bleeding, is impossible to forget. Almost a century after it first hit the page, this tale has lost none of its power, urgency or relevance — an indictment upon humanity that Berger's iteration silently but clearly stresses.
On the night of the 12th, the incident that makes that date worthy of a movie's moniker happens quickly, heartbreakingly and horrifyingly so. It's October 2016, in the French Alps-region city of Grenoble, and Clara Royer (Lula Cotton-Frapier, Mixte) is walking home alone after an evening at her best friend Nanie's (Pauline Serieys, Grown Ups). It's 3am, the streets are quiet, and she's giddy with affection, sending a video message telling her pal how much she loves her. All it takes is a hooded figure emerging from the dark, whispering her name, dousing her with liquid and sparking a lighter, and Clara will never arrive home. Before this occurs in The Night of the 12th's opening scenes, director and co-writer Dominik Moll (Only the Animals) shares details just has distressing and dismaying: the French police are tasked with solving 800 murders a year, 20 percent of them never can be and, sadly, the case in this feature is among the latter. It might seem a strange decision, giving away the film's ending before it even begins; however, while The Night of the 12th is about the search for Clara's killer, it's never about the murderer. Instead, as it adapts 30 pages from Pauline Guéna's non-fiction book 18.3 — A Year With the Crime Squad, takes a Zodiac-style procedural approach and opts for a Mindhunter-esque survey of interrogations as well, it makes clear how easy and common it is for situations like this come about, especially in a world where women are slain at men's whims with frequency (then typically blamed if any of their own actions can be wrongly perceived to have put themselves in danger). Alongside David Fincher's serial killer fare, Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder casts a shadow, too, as detective Yohan Vivès (Bastien Bouillon, Jumbo) and his partner Marceau (Bouli Lanners, Nobody Has to Know) scour the area for suspects and answers. "The problem is that any one of them could have done it," Yohan observes after potential culprit after potential culprit fields their queries and flouts their engrained misogyny. Was it the bartender boyfriend (Baptiste Perais, The Companions), who saw Clara as nothing more than a fling on the side? The gym buddy (Jules Porier, Simone Veil, a Woman of the Century) that's guffawing seconds after the cops bring up the killing, all while bragging about a friends-wth-benefits setup? A rapper (Nathanaël Beausivoir, Runaway) knew the police would come calling because he wrote a song about setting Clara alight, while an awkward local squatter (Benjamin Blanchy, Spiral) welcomes the attention. By the time that her dalliance with an older man (Pierre Lottin, Les Harkis) with a violent past and convictions for domestic abuse comes up, one of Yohan and Marceau's colleagues is joking about Clara's taste in men. Judgemental views about women don't just fester among the interviewees; how many cases have been hindered by such prejudiced perspectives, The Night of the 12th silently gives viewers cause to wonder. Played as meticulous and passionate by Bouillon, the newly promoted Yohan isn't one of those chauvinist officers. More prone to splashing his feelings around in Lanners' hands, neither is Marceau. The film's central duo is dutiful and dedicated, and their efforts turn The Night of the 12th into a chronicle of devoted and hard-working people doing what they're supposed to — and well, and with care — even if viewers instantly know they won't achieve their desired outcome. In the script by Moll and his regular co-scribe Gilles Marchand (Eastern Boys), both men find the case impacting them in different ways, though, including the fact that their obsessive endeavours don't and won't wrap up the case. Amid chasing leads, making enquiries and sitting down with the men in Clara's life, Yohan lives a spartan existence in his spick-and-span apartment and in his relationships. Marceau is navigating a marriage breakdown, and his emotions run high personally and professionally. It might seem strange, too, crafting a movie about a murdered young woman that's actually about men. (If that one word hadn't already been used as a film title this year, also for a Cannes-premiering flick about the terrors that haunt a patriarchal society, it would've fit here). But as Moll puts it, and as won't come as a surprise to anyone watching for a second, The Night of the 12th's focus on male cops and assailants is simply and mournfully realistic. Still, his feature is as committed to ensuring that Clara is never a mere statistic as its main duo are to trying to find the person responsible for her death. The reality this story is based on has made her one of many unsolved cases, but that Clara lived, loved and was loved is never in doubt within the movie's frames. (Among the picture's many supporting performances, Cotton-Frapier's leaves an imprint.) Also indisputable: Nanie's contention that her friend only died, and in such an appalling manner, because she was female; plus Yohan's reflection to a magistrate (Anouk Grinberg, Deception) overseeing the proceedings years later that "there is something seriously amiss in the relationship between men and women." The Night of the 12th's details express these sentiments anyway, and Moll prefers to let the story and its minutiae do the talking, but overtly stating such notions never feels forceful. That's the film from start to finish, in fact, because this is a richly elaborate piece of cinema that lets its presence be known in a lived-in way, including via Patrick Ghiringhelli's (Only the Animals) crisp cinematography and Olivier Marguerit's (Méduse) brooding score. The Night of the 12th is a feature to sleuth along with, as Moll's second whodunnit in a row, but it's also a picture to sink into as its stark truths inhabit everything seen and heard. Three choices, all contributing to much of the striking imagery, perhaps encapsulate this patiently powerful affair best — and all that it aims to convey. Yohan and Marceau's interrogations span a varied lineup of spaces, from dank bedrooms and crumbling shacks to bars and airy apartments, inherently stressing how pervasively threats to Clara's existence have lurked. A moodily lit velodrome gives Yohan his sole outlet from the case, offering a much-needed physical coping mechanism, and all that pedalling around and around is innately symbolic. Then there's the mountainous Grenoble and the Maurienne valley setting overall, moved from Versailles where Guéna spent a year in the Criminal Investigation Department, and not just naturally gorgeous but picture perfect and easy fodder for scenic French holiday dreams. Something atrocious, complex and unsolvable happens there, just as it can and does anywhere — and shaking that, and the tightly wound, deeply piercing movie overall, isn't easy.
Culture and cocktails collide this month as a new limited-edition pop-up bar arrives on Gertrude Street. Namely, The Melbourne Gin Company is joining forces with the strip's Oigåll Projects gallery space to deliver an after-hours art fix matched to signature gin-infused sips. From 4–7pm each Friday night from November 18–December 9, the duo promises to elevate your usual end-of-week knock-offs. Visitors can explore the gallery's current showcase of works from contemporary Australian artists and designers while sipping seasonal concoctions courtesy of the renowned Yarra Valley-based distillery. On the menu, you'll find the likes of a Gin & Grapefruit Soda, the spicy Gin-ger Smash and a G&T crafted on MGC's award-winning Single Shot Gin. And if you're hoping to inspire some warmer weather, there's the Negroni Float — a negroni spritz reimagined with vanilla ice cream and blood orange dust to garnish. As for what you'll be looking at, the exhibition roster changes, but Billy Vanilli, Michael Giittings, Eryca Gree and Kate Rohde are just some of the names to grace Oigåll Projects in recent weeks.
One of Melbourne's venues is going green this summer, celebrating a big pop-culture phenomenon that's still getting plenty of affection two decades after it first hit. Yes, after all this time, everyone still loves animated favourite Shrek. So, Ballers Clubhouse is hosting the ultimate Shrek party for adults: Shrek Rave. Rediscover why it really isn't easy being an ogre while listening to a Shrek DJ set, and joining in on a Smash Mouth sing-along. Still remember the words to the band's version of 'I'm a Believer'? Of course you do, and you have the song stuck in your head right now. Also part of the fun: Shrek-themed drink specials including Shrek Juice, Donkey Drank and Farquaad Fizz; free green glow sticks; an all-green dress code (obviously); a free green glitter bar; and a prize for best Shrek-inspired outfit. Here, all that glitters is indeed gold — and green — with the party happening from 10.30pm on Saturday, November 19. Tickets cost $42.41 per person.
"If nothing came, we just hadn't looked properly." Partway through The Velvet Queen, writer Sylvain Tesson utters these lyrical words about a specific and patient quest; however, they echo far further than the task at hand. This absorbing documentary tracks his efforts with wildlife photographer Vincent Munier to see a snow leopard — one of the most rare and elusive big cats there is — but much in the entrancing film relates to life in general. Indeed, while the animals that roam the Tibetan plateau earns this flick's focus, as does the sweeping landscape itself, Munier and his fellow co-director and feature first-timer Marie Amiguet have made a movie about existence first and foremost. When you peer at nature, you should see the world, as well as humanity's place in it. You should feel the planet's history, and the impact that's being made on its future, too. Sensing exactly that with this engrossing picture comes easily — and so does playing a ravishing big-screen game of Where's Wally?. No one wears red-and-white striped jumpers within The Velvet Queen's frames, of course. The Consolations of the Forest author Tesson and world-renowned shutterbug Munier dress to blend in, trying to camouflage into their sometimes-dusty, sometimes-snowy, always-rocky surroundings, but they aren't the ones that the film endeavours to spy. The creatures that inhabit Tibet's craggy peaks have evolved to blend in, so attempting to see many of them is an act of persistence and deep observation — and locking eyes on the snow leopard takes that experience to another level. Sometimes, pure movement gives away a critter's presence. On one occasion, looking back through images of a perched falcon offers unexpected rewards. As lensed by Amiguet (La vallée des loups), Munier and assistant director Léo-Pol Jacquot, The Velvet Queen draws upon hidden cameras, too, but so much of Tesson and Munier's mission is about sitting, watching and accepting that everything happens in its own time. Letting what comes come — and acknowledging that some things simply won't ever occur at all — isn't an easy truth to grapple with. Nonetheless, it's also one of this contemplative feature's achievements, even though it's a type of detective story through and through. Tesson and Munier follow clues to search for the snow leopard, moving positions and setting up blinds wherever they think will score them their sought-after footage. In the process, they learn a lesson as all sleuths do. As they face the possibility that they might not be successful, which Tesson's perceptively navel-gazing narration explains, The Velvet Queen becomes a mindfulness course in filmic form. It has something astonishing that all the Calm, Headspace and similar apps in the world don't, though: the film's on-the-ground recordings (well, 5000-metres-up recordings), which show why finding peace with life's ebbs and flows is all that we can really hope for. Accompanied by a stirring score from Australian icons and lifelong bandmates Warren Ellis and Nick Cave — their latest contribution to cinema on a resume that includes The Proposition, The Road, Hell or High Water and Wind River before it — it's no wonder that The Velvet Queen's philosophising voiceover also notes that "waiting was a prayer". It's similarly unsurprising that Tesson penned a book, The Art of Patience: Seeking the Snow Leopard in Tibet, based on the trip captured in the documentary. In fact, if you're the kind of person who keeps their peepers peeled for feline life in any new neighbourhood you visit, or even if you're just strolling around your own, this feature firmly understands. More than that, it one-ups you, while also connecting with the act of scouring and seeking as much as the potential joys of getting what you wish for. To stress the point, poetic missives about being content with what you have are peppered through as well. Think: Werner Herzog (The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft) meets Terrence Malick (A Hidden Life), complete with the penchant for whispering that's such an established part of the latter's work. Keeping a hushed vocal tone is wholly justified when you're trying not to disturb nature, however, which is also key among The Velvet Queen's goals. It may not boast the descriptive and scientific run-through of a David Attenborough (Prehistoric Planet)-hosted nature doco, but this film is committed to taking in its worshipped namesake and the plateau's other residents in all their innate and inherent glory. Most of the narration is precisely deployed as a result, letting the movie's visuals do the bulk of the work — but helping, emphasising and augmenting what's already a ruminative mood. What majestic and magnificent imagery it is, too, especially when Amiguet, Munier and Jacquot are standing back, taking in the land as far and wide as the lens can see, and letting the audience do the spotting along with them. A sense of distance radiates throughout the movie, visibly showing the remove that Munier and Tesson remain at for their safety, and to increase their chances of seeing a snow leopard — and also underscoring that chasm between humanity and nature that Tesson talks about. When The Velvet Queen does zoom closer during its 92-minute duration, the end product is similarly breathtaking. Scenes of a Pallas' cat in pounce mode give off a mischievous vibe — again, the connections with everyday life are plain to see; anyone with a cat in their lives will recognise the links — and a sequence of portrait-like telephoto-lens closeups belongs on gallery walls. Add The Velvet Queen to the ranks of meditative and transportive cinema, alongside films such as Jennifer Peedom's River and Mountain, for instance — features that know the power of communing with our environment and its vast array of other inhabitants. Add it to the list of such movies that look on in spellbinding awe but never with simplicity, including when surveying the complexities of making this very documentary. Add it, as well, to the always-needed reminders about interacting with the tangible over the digital, knowing how existence's cycles affect us all, finding serenity where and how you can, and accepting life's unshakeable certainties. The Velvet Queen doesn't always need lines as flowery as "prehistory wept, and each tear was a yak" or "for me, a dream; for him, a rendezvous" to go with it, but it's always a film of beauty, feeling, insight and inspiration.
