New Film Release - 26 June 2014.

Thursday 26th June 2014.

Here's the rundown of what the new films that are hitting cinemas today. 

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction is the continuation of the epic sage of Optimus Prime and the battle against CGI. This time Mark Wahlberg rolls along for a go at riding in an Autobot. Some people say this may be the best of the bunch, others say that it's the worst of the bunch. One thing you can be sure of, there will be more of these films. 

Ernest & Celestine

This is the Oscar nominated tale of a bear and a mouse. Not to be confused with the Oscar nominated tale of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. Ernest & Celestine is very different from that.

Yves Saint Laurent

As far as I understand, this is a film about clothes. And the people that make clothes. Yves Saint Laurent may be of interest to those who previously enjoyed films like The September Issue. 

The Last Impresario

The Last Impresario is a film about Michael White, whom I don't know anything about as I've not watched this documentary yet. It appears it details his stage career in the UK and his subsequent bankruptcy. 

Gabrielle

Gabrielle is a film about a woman who has Williams syndrome. I'm not too sure what that is, but this particular film details how it helps her have a great sense of rhythm and can dance very well. I'm sure I'm completely wrong here though.

Until next week... here's a song.

Jaws - The First Blockbuster and Its Legacy.

There's no denying it, Jaws is a great film. It's one of the most accessible horror films around alongside The Silence of the Lambs and The Sixth Sense. Alongside The Silence of the Lambs and The Sixth Sense, Jaws was nominated for Best Picture.

How could it not be? It is the first major blockbuster. Launching on around 400 screens, it earned its budget back in two weeks and gradually grew to being shown on 700 screens. This kind of behaviour is not seen anymore with Hollywood blockbusters. They need to make their money back in the first two weeks or they're out. 

Part of the success of Jaws was the non-stop advertising campaign for the film. The poster is one of the great film posters that displays exactly what Jaws is all about. A shark that is underneath ready to take you when you least expect it. It was the summer of 1975 and to build awareness of Jaws, they advertised the film on trash cans on beaches, they advertised non-stop on television, print campaigns were unavoidable. Simply put, Jaws was the summer of 1975. 

When you think of Jaws, you think of the theme immediately. You think of the beast lurking under the water. You think of the unseen. The history of Jaws is widely known - the shark didn't work which in turn necessitated Spielberg to reduce the screen time of 'Bruce' the shark.

When you look at the history of American blockbusters, or even American horror films, none featured a beast like the shark in Jaws. Most importantly, a real beast like the Great White Shark in Jaws. Yes, there were films where the villain is a man who kills, or an alien who kills, but besides the man who slaughters a town of virgin women, nothing is as real and unknown as a Great White Shark. 

The real aspect of what is truly unknown about Great White Shark's plays into the endless fear that Jaws has created. It's a testament to what a great film Spielberg has made that the effect that Jaws had on the real world is still being felt today.

The threat felt all too real. Spielberg had created a world that for American cinemagoers, it was their reality. Beaches remained empty for the summer of 1975. Shark sightings increased. The 'Jaws effect' came into place where fisherman flooded the oceans and caught thousands of these predators. 

The effect that Jaws had immediately - and continues to have today - on the public's perception on sharks was devastating. Part of what made the horror of the deaths in Jaws so powerful was the perception that this Great White Shark could remember particular humans and hold a grudge. This is taken to comical lengths in the sequels where a mother shark hunts down the humans who captured her baby. 

Science has shown that Great White Sharks aren't the serial killer sharks that Jaws has made them out to be. Whilst we still don't know enough about sharks, we're reaching a point where we're accepting that we need to learn more before they disappear. These are some of the oldest lasting species on Earth and unfortunately the 'Jaws effect' helped reduce the population of sharks so devastatingly that it's taken decades for it to recover. Alongside the Asian shark fin trade, it was a double blow to one of the worlds greatest predators. 

There are films that have a real world effect that change things for people or lives in the real world. DW Griffith's The Birth of a Nation helped boost membership with the KKK - something that certainly didn't help race relations in America at all. As terrible as it was, Super Size Me helped change the mentality of fast food in America. 

The 'Jaws effect' though is still in existence today. It's not the fault of Steven Spielberg or Peter Benchley. Both had no idea what the effect of the story they helped bring to life would have on the real world. Spielberg, no doubt, was thrilled at the reaction that people had to Jaws, but the long term reaching effects of Jaws he was probably unaware. Benchley has since stated that if he knew what the effect Jaws would have on shark populations around the world and the senseless slaughter of sharks, he wouldn't have written it. 

Shark populations are slowly returning back to higher levels - these are animals that have the ability to live for seventy to eighty years after all. Education about these great predators of the sea is being more widely pushed and the public perception of Great White Sharks is becoming more accepting. We wouldn't ruthlessly slaughter lions or tigers just because they exist, so why ruthlessly and randomly slaughter sharks? 

Jaws is one of the finest horror films ever made and it celebrated its 39th birthday on the 20th of June 2014. Next year will be 40 years of Jaws. As a horror film lover, it is great to see that a film like Jaws is still having a cinematic effect on viewers. As a shark lover though, I recognise the lengths that shark conservation has still got to go.  

However, thanks to the education of sharks we now have a dedicated week set aside for sharks. There is a great respect for these perfect fish. Yes, there are hurdles to go, but I feel there is hope for this apex predator in the future. 

References: 

http://www.livescience.com/8309-jaws-changed-view-great-white-sharks.html

http://www.elasmo-research.org/conservation/jaws_reconsidered.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-blog/8737558/The-ten-films-that-changed-the-world.html

Australia - We Make Good Movie.

This post has been a long time coming, and no doubt I won't be able to cover all the points I want to make, but I'll give it my best shot. 

When people talk internationally about Australian films, usually they mention Crocodile Dundee or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Both very good films and both successful internationally. Heck, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (rightfully) won an Oscar for Best Costume Design and it's even spawned a stage musical. 

However, Australia has produced some even better films since they came out. Films that rightfully should have been successful internationally - Wolf Creek, Animal Kingdom, Lantana, The Loved Ones - barely made a ripple. Yes, Animal Kingdom managed a surprise Oscar nomination and a late career revival for Jackie Weaver, but it didn't do well enough internationally. 

The problem with the Australian film industry is that as a nation, Australian's have no interest in seeing Australian films. In the hey-day of the Australian film industry in the nineties, Australian's managed to keep films like Muriel's Wedding, The Castle, Shine and Babe at the top of the box office and with the high quality were even able to score a Best Picture nomination for Babe (yep, the singing pig film) and a Best Actor Oscar for Geoffrey Rush. 

And then something happened near the end of the nineties and through the 2000's - we failed desperately at making entertaining films. People stopped seeing Australian films. For a time we started making films about ourselves, which whilst they were still good, they became depressing. For a good decade or so Australian films were relegated to indie cinema's - where they still are relegated to - or festival circuits due to people avoiding them. Australian's films became synonymous with being depressing.

Granted, these depressing films were still great - Alexandra's Project is one of Australia's best films, but I tell you what, no amount of cold showers will ever wash the feeling of that film again. Three Dollars and The Bank were also great films, but just before the Global Financial Crisis, people weren't rushing to see these films. 

If they weren't depressing, they simply weren't funny. For a period of time we were throwing up terrible Australian comedies like You Can't Stop the Music or Lets Get Skase. The less said about Horseplay, Thunderstruck and Danny Deckchair the better. These were bankable films with bankable stars who made the transition from television to film, and they failed. There were good comedies that were released then - Lucky Miles, Undead, Dirty Deeds - but unless they featured a tubby man cleaning toilets, they just weren't successful. 

So what does the Australian film industry need to do to be successful again? Films aren't cheap to make of course, and Australia being a small country can't even have a film that is homemade be successful in Australia and have that be enough. A film like Tomorrow, When the War Began should have been able to have yearly additions to the series and be a self sustaining series, but given how much it cost to make it just wasn't ever going to be successful enough. 

Back when Muriel's Wedding was out, films could stick around at the box office for months on end. How Titanic made its money was by sitting out in cinema's for nine months in a row. Now films need to make their profit right there and then and there's no slow build for them. There's no ability to have the word of mouth build over time. Back when The Full Monty came out, it was slightly successful for a short period of time, but as more people saw it, more people talked about it and rewatched it. It was a major hit. It's a film which would have done great as an Australian film. 

Part of what helps us being able to make our own films is by being a place for international films to be made cheap. The Star Wars series, the Matrix series, Superman Returns were all major films that were made in Australia that helped boost the Australian film industry. We're still able to assist in producing some fantastic international films and that does certainly boost Australia's ability to make good films. The Great Gatsby, The Lego Movie, Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2 are all fine examples of successful films being made in Australia. Not to mention the CGI effects we've assisted with on major blockbusters like X-Men: Days of Future Past and the Men in Black series. 

But these aren't films that define Australia as a whole. Whilst there is a resurgence of good Hollywood produced films made in Australia - Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby, Bright Star - they aren't stories about Australia though. Films like Tracks and Oranges & Sunshine are great films about the history of Australia, but not films that people have seen. 

If a film like Tracks was promoted properly, it would have been more successful. Audiences aren't averse to watching a drama, they just need to be sold the right drama. A film like The Square, Noise or Animal Kingdom should be at the top of the box office if they were marketed properly. But because they're Australian films, they're not given the money to be marketed properly, and they're also not able to be shown in the big chain cinemas, and they're also not allowed to be in cinemas for a long period of time to build word of mouth. 

So what does the Australian film industry need? More marketable films? Sequels? Australian stories that don't focus on the Australian part? 

Marketable films helps. However, they need to be high quality films as well. Like this years I, Frankenstein for example. It was an Australian written, directed and filmed film. And it was God awful. Stuart Beattie had written the multi-billion dollar franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean, had also written and directed Tomorrow, When the War Began, and when he's given a project like I, Frankenstein, well, it's terrible. And it was marketed up the wazoo. 

Sequels. For sure. Wolf Creek 2 was a success. And Red Dog 2 is coming along as well (Dead Red Dog?). However, we need to be quicker with getting these sequels out. The Wog Boy 2 came out ten years after The Wog Boy and was a colossal failure. If it had hit maybe two years after The Wog Boy, it would have still been able to ride on the success of the first film. Instead it took the international travel route - which seems to be the tact that Australian sequels follow - and was a box office bomb. 

The games industry is almost solidly built on sequels alone. A new intellectual property is a hard sell and generally doesn't perform as well as the sequels that are out there. So, build on that theory and release a few more sequels. 

Australian stories that don't focus on the Australian part? Well, let me clarify here. We should certainly tell Australian stories that matter, or stories of our past. However, they need to be less Strine. We are very accepting of being Australian, but there seems to be a disconnect with the audience when we see Australians on the big screen talking with an Australian accent. 

Take 12 Years a Slave and Samson & Delilah for example. People gladly saw 12 Years a Slave in droves - great reviews and awards helped it reach that goal. Samson & Delilah did well enough here in Australia, however, not 12 Years a Slave well. It had the great reviews - even a rare double five star rating from David & Margaret - and the awards to go behind it, but people just did not go and watch it. The Strine aspect probably didn't help, but the fact that it was a film about two aboriginals also didn't do it any favours. 

That's a deeper problem with Australia as a whole though rather than just Australian cinema goers. They'll happily watch a 'feel good' aboriginal film like Rabbit Proof Fence, but not one as dire as Samson & Delilah. They would be surprised by how enjoyable and funny a film like Ten Canoes is - a film which has more in common with Buster Keaton style films than Walkabout - but because it's a film about aboriginals with subtitles (double whammy of no sir, not seeing that) nobody saw it.

We're at a point with Australian cinema where the Federal Government has reduced funding to Australian films (and the less said about the abysmal treatment to Australian music and our non-existent game industry the better) and the onus has fallen onto the states to support local film. South Australian Film Corporation do a great job of making great Australian films - even ones that are based in West Australia, they have funded (Wolf Creek, Lucky Miles). Lotterywest is starting to help fund great Australian films - Red Dog for example - and that certainly is helping. 

Australian film goers need to accept Australian films more and stop writing them off as being depressing or bad. It's simply not the case. If our audiences will see films here, then the audiences overseas will see them there, and then we may have a vague idea of a film industry. There's hope yet. 

The A & B Film Podcast Links.

The following links will take you to the latest episodes of The A & B Film Podcast. Feel free to have a listen. 


                       Episode One - There Will Be Andrew

                       Episode Two - The Bernadette Club

                       Episode Three - The Giant Sandwich Trilogy

                       Episode Four - A New Hope For More Listeners

                       Episode Five - Days of Future Podcasts

                       Episode Six - All You Need is This Podcast

                       Episode Seven - The Mask of the Rover

                       Episode Eight - The Exorcist of Nymphomaniac Creek
                       
                       Episode Nine - The Fault in Our Communist Transformer

                       Episode Ten - Introducing Bo Derek

                       Episode Eleven - Naked Scarlett Johansson

                       Episode Twelve - 20,000 Days of Jubilee Street

                       Episode Thirteen - Cold Dinosaur 13

                       Special Edition: Marvel: Better Than Star Wars?

                       Special Emmy Prediction Episode

                        The News Rundown - Episode One

                        Episode Fourteen - All This Raidhem

                        Episode Fifteen - Check Your Hoses

                        The News Rundown - Episode Two

                        Episode Sixteen - T.U.S.K.

                        Episode Seventeen - Gone Girl the Whip

                        The News Rundown - Episode Three

                        Episode Eighteen - Skunts

                           Episode Nineteen - A Slight CASE of TARS

                        Episode Twenty - My Neighbour Aaron Swarz

                        The News Rundown - Episode Four