SAVE YOUR LEGS – film

Urgh.

As with most Australian films, I wanted to like this, I really did. But alas, even a great cast including Steven Curry, Brendan Cowell and Damon Gameau, it’s a dud. It’s about an amateur suburban cricket team who go on tour in India (you’re seeing a problem already, aren’t you?) and predictable Delhi belly ‘humour’ ensues. To be fair, there’s much more to the story than that but it’s just not very… interesting. There was only two other people in the cinema and they laughed a bit more than me but the woman in the pair ceased to be a credible witness when she cackled at a lame ‘sharting’ joke. One moment where I laughed out loud was when someone did some good old fashioned slapstick and face-planted some chairs but I suspect that says more about me than the film. Actually, the name ‘Marcus Cobbledick’ in the titles at the end made me smile so yes, it’s definitely me.

Maybe I’d have liked this more if I liked cricket but anything would have helped really.

Trailer here

 

AMOUR - film

Nominated for various Oscars and deservingly so. About an older couple where the wife is suddenly struck by illness and is faced with life in a dreadful deteriorating state. The lead actress Emmanuelle Riva is spectacular. Like, truly amazing. I love Jennifer Lawrence as much as the next guy but there’s no way she was better in Silver Linings Playbook than Emmanuelle is in this – they got ‘best actress’ at the Oscars wrong in my view. Really wrong.

A beautiful film but a bit harrowing, not one to see when you want to buck up!

Official trailer
 

SAFE HAVEN – film

*meh*

OK, to be fair, I was sufficiently engrossed at one point that when someone appeared unexpectedly from the shadows I yelped embarrassingly loudly but still this one’s all just very ho hum.

Sole highlight would be Josh Duhamel for those inclined to have a bit of a perve at the lads. He’s divine. To look at. Hubba hubba.

You know all those films that have won Oscars today? Go see them instead. Any of them will be better than this.

Official trailer here

Movie 43 - film

Absolute stinker. Not at the movies, not on DVD... no way, no how.

In the interests of fairness, there was a couple of laughs but this compilation of short sketches is, broadly speaking, a rotten mess. How it secured the cast it did (Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Richard Gere, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Gerard Butler, Uma Thurman, Stephen Merchant, Hugh Jackman... the list really does go on) is one of the great mysteries of modern cinema.

I overheard another patron in my session (there was six of us) say at the end “That movie was really confusing”… I felt like saying “Any time you spend on trying to understand it is precious minutes wasted, lady.”

PS. This film has been widely criticised but the Crikey film reviewer Luke Buckmaster mounted a defence which makes an interesting read.

Official trailer here

ANNA KARENINA - film

I read some pretty ordinary reviews of Anna Karenina so went in with low expectations. It was a bit better than I’d expected but definitely didn’t love it. I already didn’t much like Keira Knightley and this cemented those feelings. Felt like it went for about five hours when in reality it was just over two. A DVD kind of film (at best), not worth the $19.50 for mine.

The ordinary experience was rounded out by having a young couple sitting behind me who appeared to be embroiled in some sort of emotional crisis that meant that they sniffed (she), talked (mainly he) and cuddled (both) most of the way through. You're not in your lounge room, people!

Trailer here

ZERO DARK THIRTY - film

This is a fantastic film, no surprises it’s getting so many accolades. It follows the ten year hunt for Osama Bin Laden following the September 11 attacks in America. If you’re anything like me you followed that hunt to a degree through the media coverage but this fascinating film fills in the details of how an operation like that would work. It’s really very eye-opening. One of the stars is Jason Clarke and I was occasionally distracted by the fact that sometimes in the film he reminded me of Nudge from Hey Dad! and then at other times I thought he was hot. HOW COULD HE BE BOTH? I hear you ask. Well, I’m afraid that remains a mystery. When I looked him up on IMDB I discovered he was born in Australia. Nudge’s long-lost cousin? Yes, I think so too.

I digress.

Other actors in the flick include Jennifer Ehle who played Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC Pride & Prejudice series and Joel Edgerton, one of my favourite Aussie actors. Also very happy to see the cinematographer is Grieg Fraser, a talent Aussie whose sister I used to work with!

Really enjoyed this one, catch it before someone declares it too highbrow and it winds up only on at the usually-inconveniently-located arthouse joints.

Trailer here.

DJANGO UNCHAINED - film

Not a big Tarantino fan but saw Django Unchained and the critics are bang on the money, this is a great film that I really enjoyed. It helps when you have virtually no expectations and I also had no idea what the film was about but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s an old school western with a big theme of slavery and whilst some scenes around that slavery were pretty disturbing it’s done well and all in a palatable context. There was one scene that I really hated, interestingly the one which Tarantino cast himself! He attempts an Australian accent but it just comes out as a weird mix of Australian, New Zealand, British and American. And when you combine that with John Jarratt playing a cringeful redneck Aussie, it really was pretty awful. But that was the only lowlight. The highlight for me was Leonardo DiCaprio as a plantation owner (& ‘owner’ of many slaves including the excellent Samuel L Jackson) who the main characters Django (Jamie Fox) and Dr King Schultz (Christoph Walz) find themselves negotiating with. It’s a spectacular delivery of a hideously slimey character & one that’s made me a much bigger fan of DiCaprio’s work. Also loved the performance of Christoph Walz who you might recognise from Water for Elephants – he won the best supporting actor at the Golden Globes for this performance when many expected it to go to DiCaprio).
 
 Warning for the sensitive… as is Tarantino’s custom, this is full of graphic violence. In a couple of places it’s so bad that you just have to laugh but it’s peppered throughout the movie and gets very gruesome though strangely it didn’t bother me as much as violence normally does and certainly didn’t bother me as much as Tarantino’s onscreen performance did.

A surprise winner for me and I add ‘me’ deliberately as this film has scored a couple of Golden Globes already & is likely to feature at the Oscars also so hardly a ‘surprise’ hit! A nice reminder that you can be well rewarded if you try a film that’s not what you’d usually go for.

Enjoyed the soundtrack too for what it’s worth.
Trailer here if you want some more detail on the storyline.