ENTOURAGE - film

A spin-off from a the very popular TV show of the same name, this film follows movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his 'entourage' made up of hopeless and not-nearly-as-attractive-as-Vince brother Drama and childhood friends E and Turtle.

This film has had some pretty stinking reviews so I went in with fairly low expectations. They were exceeded! I laughed a lot mainly thanks to the cutting humour of Vince's one time manager, now movie studio head, Ari Gold played by Jeremy Piven.

If you enjoyed the TV show, I reckon this will give you what you want in the main. It's still Vince, E, Drama and Turtle being the same old guys kicking around Hollywood trying to make it big. In the film, Vince is having his first run as a film director which plays out fairly predictably but not in an unpleasant way.

My only significant criticism of it is that I HATED the ending. I don't want to spoil it but I will say this - you can't spend eight seasons of a TV show making us believe a character is a complete loser and then expect us to suddenly believe he's a winner.

Two star review from the Sydney Morning Herald here if you want to hear what a proper critic thinks and/or know more about the story.

Trailer here.

PARTISAN - film

You know those films where it's really well done, it make you think and the performances are excellent and yet watching it made you feel all blergh? This is one of those.

Now, that can be a good thing. If your taste skews towards arthouse films and you don't mind watching something pretty challenging, I think you'll like this. However if you're someone who goes to the movies once or twice a year for a bit of light escapism, this is definitely not for you.

This is an Australian-made film with a Melburnian directing (Ariel Kleiman) but I doubt you'd guess that if you saw it not knowing. 

Set somewhere in war-ravaged Eastern Europe, it's the story of Gregori (Vincent Cassel), who is basically a creepy cult leader, and his mission to recruits kids and train them to become assassins. It's the kind of plot which, in the wrong hands, could go very wrong but it's handled delicately by Kleiman.

I wonder if Kleiman wrote it off as part of the mystery as to where this film is set but I did find it a bit jolting when the accents didn't seem to add up. For example, at least one of the kids had a pretty clear Australian accent and hearing it really distracted me and jolted me out of the story.

Australian critics are divided. Two stars here from Fairfax and four stars here from News Ltd.

Trailer here.

A ROYAL NIGHT OUT - film

A fictional-but-apparently-based-on-a-handful-of-actual-facts account of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret hitting the town in London incognito during the Victory in Europe celebrations in 1945, this film is charming.

It's not going to win any awards for being groundbreaking but it's fun and lovely to watch. 

There's not a lot of reviews around to direct you to as it's only just released overseas. Coincidence that it coincides with the birth of Princess Charlotte? I think not! But ok, ok, it's actually more about the timing of the anniversary of VE day - 8 May.


Regular readers of this blog will know I'm not a fan of long films. 90-100 minutes is optimum, I say! This one comes in at 98 minutes, the perfect length for an inoffensive and fun flick like this.

Here is one review though from 'Screen Daily' if you want to read more about the story etc.

Trailer here.
 

PITCH PERFECT 2 - film

This film is damn good fun. If you liked the original Pitch Perfect, definitely get along to this one for more laughs.

The makers of this film know their audience and give them what they want. It helps to have seen the first film but this does stand alone just fine.

I laughed a lot, with Rebel Wilson's character 'Fat Amy' getting the lion's share of the gags. She delivers time and time again in this.

Trailer here.

And if you're not familiar with the Pitch Perfect phenomenon & want to know more, read up on it here.

THE AGE OF ADALINE - film

If I explained the implausible storyline of this film to you, I know with absolute certainty you'd say 'that's so dumb' so I'm not going to bother. 

Just know it somehow stars talented actors like Ellen Burstyn and Harrison Ford and yet it induced derisive laughs from the group I watched it with. Actual laughs, guys. And not in a good way.

If you are interested in how silly the story line is, I will break it down for you below.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERTS TO FOLLOW DO NOT SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED.

Woman (Blake Lively) with 6 year old child is in car accident.
Car accident causes woman to become 'ageless' meaning she will be 29 years old forever.
Woman moves towns and changes names regularly so as to not arouse suspicion.
Her child ages normally and grows into elderly wise woman with a 29 year old mother.
Elderly daughter convinces 29 year old mother to 'stop running' and find love.
29 year old mother meets a guy & falls in love.
29 year old mother meets said guy's parents.
Said guy's father recognises her as the love of his life from back when they were both young.
WHAT A COINCIDENCE, GUYS!
Said guy's father tries to make her come clean.
She runs away.
She has a car accident while running away.
Boyfriend finds her in car wreck.
At hospital, she wakes up and explains implausible situation to boyfriend BECAUSE SHE'S IN LOVE AND CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.
She discovers the car accident somehow fixed the ageless problem.
YOU GUYS!
They live happily ever after.

Trailer here.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

A quick look at the small list of comedians I've seen at the festival this year, if you're looking for a recommendation...

Brilliant/ loads of laughs / highly recommend:
Judith Lucy
Rhys Nicholson

Great / worth a look:
Justin Hamilton
Joel Creasey

Good potential / room for improvement / up & comers who will probably be on TV & radio in 5-10 years:
Dilruk Jayasinha
Becky Lucas (This show was only 40 minutes long & had a strangely abrupt ending & sombre tone.)

I found hilarious but suspect it's an acquired taste:
Karl Chandler

MANNY LEWIS - film

Oh boy.

It's usually actually a bit fun to blog about a film that's terrible but to be honest, it always hurts a little to do it to an Australian film.

This film is Australian. And it's pretty terrible.

Written by and starring comedian Carl Barron, you'd think there'd be a bunch of laughs but sadly, there's not much of that.

It's meant to be a "feel-good quest for love" for Barron's Manny Lewis but the character spends the vast majority of the film being depressed and you know what it's like to watch a film where the lead character is depressed? Depressing. And not very funny.

I'd tell you to give this a miss but I suspect this is the first you will have heard of it and given there was only four people in the session I was in on the weekend and it only came out a week ago, it'll be gone before you'd even thought seriously about seeing it. Another sad day for the Australian film industry.

If this film is in any way biographical, I think Barron ought to see a therapist instead of making a film next time he feels the urge.

Never one to mince words, News Ltd's Leigh Paatsch called it "one of the most truly terrible Australian films in living memory". 

Trailer here.