As I drove home from watching Johnathon Glazer's Under the Skin, the sort of rain that doesn't really need the lowest wiper blade setting on, but in its own way kind of does, started to fall. It wasn't light rain, or heavy rain, it was snow like rain. Just peacefully falling. I say this, because it feels appropriate for the film of Under the Skin. When I stood up in the cinema and turned around there was a man sitting at the back of the cinema by himself. Standing, he would probably be six foot four or six foot five tall. He had a long beard and no hair on his head. His beard went down to his knees and he sat with both hands on his knees staring as the credits rolled up. I had thought it was going to be a loud talker session as prior to the film starting, a lady who sat by herself brought a bottle of wine out her somewhat small handbag. She drank from the bottle throughout the film. I didn't notice if she had finished it by the end or not. Two young men sat in front of me, one with a hoody and a hat on - a bit redundant really - and the other just a regular young man. One said to the other, 'this is the film where Scarlett Johansson gets naked'. She does get naked, a few times in fact. A few random men also get naked. It's not sexual though, it's simply one of those things that happens in the film. Glazer previously made the wonderful Birth and the truly joyful Sexy Beast. Both have some of the best performances of Nicole Kidman, Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley's career. Scarlett Johansson is relatively vacant in Under the Skin, but it's a performance which I found was comparable to Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, or Paddy Considine in Dead Man's Shoes. I've not been impressed with Johansson in the past, but here she brings an otherwordly presence to her nameless character. It's eerie, haunting and almost like Michael Myers in Halloween. When I returned to my car, there was a set of four police cars and an ambulance in the mostly vacant parking lot in Leederville. They had surrounded a small red car, a hatchback. On the ground was a body with a sheet over it. I'm not sure of what happened to the person; yet it felt strange driving away just how normal that felt. I've never seen a situation like that before, but it felt normal. It was a nice, beautiful evening in its own way. It doesn't snow in Perth, but the feeling was that of a warm street after light snow fall. Otherwordly, strange. There isn't much to actually review with Under the Skin as it's more of a film that washes over you, rather than one that you pinpoint particular moments and discuss them. There are shots in this film which are mesmerising to watch and will linger on in your memory for a while - not too dissimilar to Only God Forgives. This review is more about how I felt after watching the film rather than anything else.
Another week, another round of film releases. This week is decidedly intelligent ape or intelligent giant robot free.
Charlie's Country
Needless to say, this could be the film of the year for me. Rolf de Heer's films are always challenging but always rewarding. His long time collaborator David Gulipil is given the spotlight here in what could be his finest performance. Timely and topical - this is my choice of film of the week.
Under the Skin (WA)
Other states have already had their run of Under the Skin but now it's WA's chance. Recently this screened for the Revelation Film Festival and sold out so I can imagine either audiences really enjoy seeing Scarlett Johansson naked, or they're big Johnathon Glazer fans. I think it's the Johnathon Glazer fans that are swamping to see this.
Words and Pictures
Another Australian director has a new film hitting, this time Fred Schepisi. Fun story. I went and saw Fred Schepisi's last film, The Eye of the Storm at the Windsor Cinema in Nedlands. It's a great film and I strongly recommend watching it. When I arrived, Fred Schepisi was there and had just finished introducing the film and was walking out of the cinema as the film was just about to begin. I was running a little late and passed Schepisi as he was leaving and he chastised me saying, "you're late". So, it's always good to make sure you're on time to your films otherwise you could get in trouble from the films director for being late.
Venus in Fur
Roman Polanski has a new film! This one is an adaptation of the stage play, Venus in Fur. I assume that's a euphemism or an analogy or something. I don't know. I haven't read it. This stars the always good Mathieu Amalric (an actor who when I first saw Steven Spielberg's Munich I thought was actually Roman Polanski for some strange reason) and Polanski's wife and Amalric's co-star in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Emmanuelle Seigner. This is entirely in French which should be a nice change from the supremely dull English language films Polanski has been throwing out lately (I'm still bitter about how poor The Ghost Writer is).
Reaching for the Moon
The great Miranda Otto stars alongside other women (yes, I just said "other women") in this film about women doing women things in Brazil which is known for failing at soccer and its women (among other things). Other than that, I'm sorry to say that I don't know much else about this film although I am hopeful that the women in this film will eventually be able to reach the moon.
The French Minister
This is not a spin off of Yes, Minister or The Thick of It which I think might be disappointing to some. It's also reviewing poorly and is in French, two things that may turn you off seeing the film. However, people went to that French film about the guy in the wheelchair and the black guy breaking down barriers in the French countryside and this is nothing like that, so who knows.
Sex Tape
Jason Seagull and Cameron Diaz star in this film that could be a really good advertisement for how effective the Apple Cloud is. Filming something and want to save it immediately? The Cloud is here to help! I don't know if this will be good or not, but I can tell you that in this trailer there is a Ken Taylor print in the background and that's really cool.
And that wraps up another week of film releases. A lot of 'alternative' and 'foreign' films being released which usually people avoid. But please, do your best to watch Charlie's Country, or at least say that you meant to watch it but the kids needing walking and the dogs needed feeding and life is just so hard.
If Michael Bay is worried about what the critics think of his films, it doesn't show in his work. I'm of the frame of mind that Michael Bay is a twisted genius. There's simply no way that a man who has directed four incoherent Transformers films - big budget films based around robots than can change into vehicles - has no idea what he's doing. These films have amassed billions of dollars of profit. This is not the work of a man who has no idea what he is doing.
Do I look like I'm worried? Oh shit! Air conditioner!
Transformers: Age of Extinction begins with dinosaurs versus robots. Or rather, space robots causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. It's a well designed moment that's refreshing to see in a series which has had a giant robot with wrecking balls for testicles (see what you did writers strike, you gave us a giant fucking robot with wrecking ball testicles). Before too long we're in the lush massive fields of Somewhereville Random, Texas with Mark Wahlberg's unlikely named Cade Yeager and his questionable eye candy daughter Young Somebody Yeager.
They even have hooks on them for fucks sake. A giant robot with testicles that have hooks on them.
Yeager and The Funny Guy From Silicon Valley (not the 'Which one? Which one?' funny guy, but the ginger from Chelsea Lately) are inventors. Or rather, Cade Yeager is an inventor who is dead broke yet has a huge property which has a two story house and a huge barn. Anyhow, they take this job doing something with an old cinema. It's a random point in the film where I honestly have no idea what kind of commentary Bay is going for here, but anyhow, I'll try and explain.
One of these guys is the funny one. Only one.
This old cinema is broken down and there's a bunch of old camera's - you know, film projectors, not digital. The guy who owns the building starts being all disparaging to the projectors ("maybe they're digital, maybe they're IMAX") but Yeager defends these old projectors. It's a random moment in a film full of random moments. Especially more random given that a fair amount of T4 was filmed on IMAX camera's. Before too long, Optimus Prime rocks up quite pissed off. Because of the destruction of Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (which is a poor film, but very worthwhile catching for the destruction of Chicago), Transformers are being hunted down by the CIA who are assisted by a giant Transformer who can turn his face into a gun. You know, just because.
Translation: Bumblebee Says Communism is Good for You AND Me!
T4 feels like it could make a comment about the McCarthy era Communism witchhunts with actors giving up their friends relating to the Transformers being hunted down and destroyed. But, now I'm getting too deep for a bloody Transformers film, they'd never do that. Given how incoherent the previous Transformers films are - even the first film which had battles that simply didn't make sense visually - it's a surprise, and a joy, to see how coherent T4 is. That's not to say that the plot is coherent, but the action is. The plot progresses because things happen "just because". They need to get to China? No worries, they'll get there just because. Robot dinosaurs? Sure. Just because.
Transformers: Just Because. (Is this like, interspecies sex here? Or how the robots mate?)
In fact, the whole film could be called Transformers: Just Because and it'd still do wonderful at the box office. Which is where this review gets serious for a moment. I thoroughly enjoyed Transformers: Age of Extinction a lot more than I should, and maybe that's because I paid attention to the random slavery, the odd misogyny, the very strange incestuous romance plot, the love for destruction. These things happen and I'm not entirely sure that the audiences that flock to see the Transformers films are aware of it. Heck, T2 had some of the most racist characters featured in a film - Skids and Mudflaps, racial stereotypes who are just cringeworthy - and had the aforementioned robot with wrecking ball testicles. T4 has a samurai transformer named Drift. I don't really see that being too racist myself - and maybe that's a racist comment that I don't find it racist, fuck, I'm in a racist rabbit hole here - but others did.
They even give one of them buck teeth. Y'know, just because...
So when near the end of the film Optimus Prime frees some dino-robot prisoners and says (paraphrasing here) "you are free" and then in the same breath "you must obey me or I will kill you", well, it's hard not to laugh. Optimus Prime is supposed to be the leader of the Autobots, a leader who is fair to all except the Decepticons and who is a diplomat. Not a creature who enslaves others. Yet, every second line that comes out of his mouth during battle is "I'll kill you" or a variation of it. It's a strange move for the character, and one which I don't know if regular audiences will even care about. The subtle slavery doesn't particularly bother me because it feels like a reflection of the audience of these films - it reflects the slightly racist, very misogynistic views of the audience. Maybe it should bother me that people flock to see these films and embrace this kind of behaviour, this message that this is ok, but it amused me more than anything else. Michael Bay has created a film which plays like a big fuck you to everything in America - yet nobody would notice it. It's hilarious really.
The relationship with Cade and his daughter and her boyfriend plays like a relationship out of a rom-com where Cade is one of the lovers vying for the girls affection. It's weird, disturbing, yet oddly enough might actually be how some people raise their children in America. Wahlberg brings a bit of charisma to this character - a lot more than Shia The Beef ever did in the first three films.
Fact: Stanley Tucci chewed less scenery in The Hunger Games: Dinner Time Yet? than he did in Transformers: I Get Paid For This Shit.
The actors have a good time all round here. Stanley Tucci was meant to chew scenery and here he does it so well. The films worthwhile watching just to see him have a great time. Kelsey Grammer continues his random appearances in films that are as far away from his Frasier character as possible. John Goodman voices a fat Transformer, because, y'know, he's fat in real life, so he has to be fat in the film. The point in the film where he shoots an alien that looks like a vagina with teeth should be surprisingly misogynistic but isn't. When the only 'female' Transformer in the film is a sexy looking chrome car which doesn't speak, well, you know what role the women play in this universe. Then there's the nihilistic uncaring destruction of China that ends the film. It's a wonderful action sequence which looks spectacular - as it should. Bay doesn't care for the collateral damage in these films - heck, he never has - and the destruction here reminds us that we have taken these kinds of films too seriously for too long. It's refreshing to see a film which doesn't care about the mass deaths that occur. Some may argue that that's a failure with the film, but I feel that it's simply a reflection of the audience loving seeing destruction (in real life and in film) and not caring for the consequences of it. Really, how enjoyable would a Transformers film be if after Optimus Prime crashes into a building you cut to seeing a mother crying over her squashed baby? Yeah, not very.
First thing that came up when googling "Desensitized to racism". A goat.
Does that mean we're getting desensitized to caring about human death, racism, etc? Well, maybe. But a Transformers film is only part of the problem. It's only a small piece of the troubles that plague the world today. A Transformers review is not the place to go into it though.
Pretty sure I just made all two of you who are reading this and are Buffy fans cry. Good.
Overall, this is a ridiculously enjoyable film if you don't take it seriously. I found myself laughing at the film quite a bit, but also laughing alongside it. Michael Bay is a genius director, he knows how to make incoherent shit watchable and work. Is he the death of cinema as we know it? No. I don't think so. I know at least that if he keeps on turning out films like Pain & Gain, The Rock and Bad Boys 2 - and now, Transformers: Age of Extinction - I'll keep sitting my ass through them. Some are truly awful films, but somewhere along the line the insane politics and plain offensiveness of them becomes enjoyable. I should be concerned.
Three and a half Robot Wrecking Ball testicles out of Five. (I did google Three and a Half Robot Testicles for an image here, but did not find anything satisfactory, so here's a picture of Chuck Yeager.)
"So you're teling me, they have a character called Yeager and they didn't call me? I can't catch a break."
(No, I lie, here's a picture of some testicles. New Transformer maybe?)
Something for Kate - believe it or not - have reached a milestone in their career as one of Australia's finest rock bands. Yes, that's right, they've been around for twenty years. What better way to celebrate this than to provide a run down of twenty of the best Something for Kate songs. It's mighty hard to pare down such a grand career to twenty simple songs, but it's worth trying. (Note: Twenty Years unfortunately didn't make the cut, although I tried.) There is also a distinct lack of Hallways or You Only Hide. I've seen Something for Kate live enough in my life to never have to hear some drunk buffoon at the back of the crowd shout out prior to the last song... HALLWAYS. HAAALLLLLWAYS. Keep in mind as well, I got lazy and didn't write reasons for half the songs, but if that upsets you, then I'm sorry, have some cheese and onion chips. Always helps me.
20. Miracle Cure - Leave Your Soul to Science
I'm not a fan of Leave Your Soul to Science. Call me old fashioned, but I feel this album strays too far away from the Something for Kate I know and love. Yes, a band can evolve, and especially when there's six years between albums evolving is what will happen. However, jammed between the average songs and absolute corkers (I refuse to accept Star Crossed Citizens is a Something for Kate song, it's just too obnoxious to be a Something for Kate song) is Miracle Cure. Bordering on Paul Dempsey solo mode and The Official Fiction territory, Miracle Cure is a great song. 'All I want is a cure for miraces, but all she's got is a miracle cure.'
19. Moving Right Along - The Official Fiction The Official Fiction is a companion album to Echolalia. Tonally, they are very similar. Moving Right Along could be the most optimistic sounding song that Something for Kate have produced. Echolalia isn't exactly the happiest album around. Listening to The Official Fiction after Echolalia you're given this optimistic view - more musically than lyrically though.
18. Happy Endings - Echolalia Echolalia is an album about the city and its pressure on people. Happy Endings - just like Faster and Seasick - builds to a wonderful crescendo about escaping the mundane daily movements which the city presses onto people.
17. Working Against Me - Elsewhere for Eight Minutes
16. Transparanoia - Desert Lights
15. Hawaiian Robots - Phantom Limbs
14. Jerry - Stand Up - Echolalia I was late to getting into Something for Kate. They were already onto their fourth album by the time I got around to picking up Echolalia. The constant TV ads for the album had gotten to me - just like the ads got to me for Powderfinger's Odyssey Number 5 - and I bought Echolalia. Jerry - Stand Up was the first song on the album that really grabbed my attention - and it still does. The almost mantra like chanting 'fresh air, a nice new suit, a walk in the park every day or two' is like every self help book yelling at you to go out and do something. It's about growing up and going through the grind. And boy, it's still great.
13. A Fool's History Pt. 1 - Desert Lights
12. Pinstripe - Elsewhere for Eight Minutes
11. Faster - Phantom Limbs
10. Seasick - Echolalia
9. The Futurist - The Murmur Years
The Futurist hit at a point when new Something for Kate music was not looking like it was near. The Futurist
8. Kaplan/Thornhill - The Official Fiction
7. Truly - Phantom Limbs
A random song which was released on a random and rare EP is also one of the best kept secrets from Something for Kate. It's disappointing that it's not played live because it's simply chilling how good this track is. Maybe there's something more to it, but everything on this track works so well together. And there's a different kind of anger in Dempsey's singing here which is something else altogether.
6. Electricity - Beautiful Sharks
There's no explaining necessary for this song. Just listen to that guitar.
5. Captain (Million Miles an Hour) - Elsewhere for Eight Minutes
I'll get this out there straight away, the lyrics in this song make little sense. But then again, so do a bunch of other successful songs. Captain is - just like Electricity - one of the more recognisable Something for Kate songs. It doesn't disappoint with its naivety and basic chord progression. Plus whatever kind of person would encourage one to build a plane just to fly away from someone must be a pretty terrible person.
4. Private Rain - Leave Your Soul to Science
As mentioned earlier, I do not like Leave Your Soul to Science all that much. But just like Miracle Cure, nestled in the messy album is one of the most perfect Something for Kate songs produced. Private Rain makes Leave Your Soul to Science worthwhile. The key change midway through the song is something else entirely. I remember the first time I listened to this song and exactly where I was. I remember pulling over to listen to it again. It's a song which I've listened to on repeat many times over and each time feels like I'm listening to it for the first time.
3. Deja-Vu - The Official Fiction
Something for Kate's singles are usually some of the weaker songs on the album. Just like Gomez though, they also manage to turn a truly weak song into an epic live version that transforms the song from what it originally was. Deja-Vu on The Official Fiction is a good song, it's serviceable, it helped sell the album. Deja-Vu as a live song on the other hand is a completely different beast. The inflection in the live version where the song usually fades off saves Deja-Vu and changes it into a powerful ballad. And when you see this live, it's hard not to smile watching Stephanie with no shoes on swinging her hair around just loving the bass lines in this.
2. Back to You - Beautiful Sharks
The crescendo is what makes this song. The drop at the end, the 'back to you' is a heart breaking moment created by Dempsey. Lyrically, this is Paul Dempsey at his finest. Back to You performed live is just something else. Clint on the drums at the beginning building the song up through a drummer boy like progression to the first strum of the guitar, it's hard not to be swept up in this beauty of a song.
1. Feeding the Birds and Hoping for Something in Return - Echolalia
As Paul recently said, this is the perfect song about an anxiety attack. Or rather, a city full of an anxiety attack. The lyrics in this song kill me every time. One of Australia's great songs.
Naturally I decided to start putting the film releases for the week up on this old blog here and forgot to do the second week. Off to a great start! None the less, school holidays are upon us so last week and this week have a bundle of big releases.
Lets start off with...
Jersey Boys
I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood's films. He has made some very fine ones, but they are mostly very pandering films. Word on the street suggests that Jersey Boys is going to be his New York, New York. Watch at your own risk.
Tim's Vermeer
I like art and I like the idea of a novice being able to paint a beautiful painting. I'm looking forward to watching this simply as an assessment of art and peoples ability to paint.
Calvary
Brendan Gleeson is a great actor and this looks like a role that he will do wonders with. John Michael McDonagh's previous film, The Guard, was greatly received and this certainly looks like it will be just as well received. I find myself getting Martin McDonagh confused with John Michael McDonagh. They may be related. They are Irish after all.
The Volcano
The Volcano looks like it reaffirms my belief that the only person who knows how to use Danny Boon properly is Jean-Pierret Jeunet. Watch Micmacs with all its great perfection and Rube Goldberg machine and tell me I'm wrong (I am probably wrong because I haven't seen that many Danny Boon films, but he does deserve a good slap though, just because). The Volcano is about two people who have to travel together because of a volcano that disrupts flights. Sounds riveting.
The Lunchbox
I do like Irrfan Khan quite a bit. He has a wonderful screen presence. I'm sure he'll have even more of a wonderful screen presence than the titular Lunchbox, but you will have to see it to decide if that's the case or not. No Richard Parker's here sadly.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
If you ask Bernadette and her friend Mark, one of the most enjoyable things in life is watching videos of chimpanzees going crazy and beating up their owners. For some reason, you will sometimes hear them say quite often, 'he's tearing off her face'. As far as I understand, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes does not have any face tearing in it. It has already been compared to The Dark Knight and The Empire Strikes Back, but I did also compare the banana I ate this morning to yesterdays banana and it wasn't a fair comparison. If that makes sense.
Belle and Sebastian
Belle and Sebastian is about a boy and his dog. Or a Scottish pop band. No, a boy and his dog bring down the Nazi regime from the inside out. It's an unlikely tail (HAH!) of mishaps and murder and mystery. And a Scottish pop band.
Beatriz's War
I am not entirely sure what the plot of this film is and my internet is so slow that it won't even load a gif. I'm going to assume from the stills that this is about a woman named Beatriz who is struggling to make ends meet in Vietnam or Cambodia. Life is hard. She eventually teams up with Belle and Sebastian and helps them take down the Nazi regime from the inside. So, it's a sequel.
All This Mayhem
This is a film I'm greatly interested in seeing. It's about the Pappas brothers - two Australian skateboarders who were some of the finest skateboarders of their time. The path their lives takes is very interesting and I'm quite keen to catch this one eventually.
Rio 2
I did not like Rio all that much. It was a film that was tolerable enough. Rio 2 follows the story of some macaw's in Rio. No way! Essentially this series looks like Madagascar but without the gay zebra or lion or hippo. Anne Hathaway does a voice in this film which usually would be enough to get me to see the movie, but instead I will not watch it.
And that's the film releases for the past week and this coming thursday.
