David and Malcy review Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.

David: Despite its flaws – and it certainly has flaws – I think Australia is an impressive and important film… three and a half out of five.

Malcy: I think it was a great film… five out of five or four and a half out of five.

GrodsCorp’s favourite documentary director, the lovely J,The (I’m putting these brackets here purely to separate the comma in J,The’s name and the comma that follows it), has written about the yin and the yang of our respective fillum reviewing styles.

Jackie and Ed’s Movie Show

I have the Editor to thank for this insight. He and I did some hard-core film festival attending a couple of years ago, when I lived in Melbourne. We would review the films we had seen to each other afterwards. It was then that The Editor first told me that I review films in a singularly thematic way, skipping all the actual detail. When he pointed that out to me I realised with horror how wanky my film reviews are and I tried for a while to modify them, but despite my good intentions, I’m still a hopelessly abstract movie-reviewer. Ed, you should know better than to ask me by now!

Here’s an example of the kind of phone conversation we might have:

Me: So what was “Lars and the Real Girl” about?

The Editor: About this guy who buys a plastic blow-up doll, and turns it into his girlfriend. And then his brother and sister-in-law take him to the doctor, and the doctor becomes his therapist. And then…(etc). So, what about “No Country for Old Men?”

Me: It was about the amorality of god and how that plays out in a deterministic fashion in every man’s life, and how these lives interact to create the unavoidable chain of causation that makes up the world we live in.

The Editor: Ah-huh. So, but what was it actually about?

So just like you’re either a Margaret or a David, are you a J,The or an Ed?

Without even trying GrodsCorp seems to have become the favoured interweb location for moofie distribution companies to source reviews of their fillums. The Editor and J,The’s throwaway reviews of Melbourne International Film Festival films have ended up in some strange places.

Invisible Waves
MRA Entertainment have included one quote about this film in its press kit: GrodsCorp’s. Well, it’s actually an amalgam of comments made by both J,The and The Editor at this post. Consequently this:

J, The says: This is an excellent film.

About halfway through it, I had serious misgivings. I went to see this film without really reading the blurb in the guide, because my cinematographic idol Christopher Doyle shot it. He also shot all of Wong Kar Wai’s really good films, and as far as I am concerned, he is an absolute genius with a lens. I know I am gushing. I just think this review needs context.

So I was prepared to love this film regardless of storyline, but about an hour into it and I was bored. Everything was moving sloooooowly. I was sick of the time we were spending with the main character and his guilt, with very little intrigue to punctuate it. I was getting close to even being disappointed with Mr Doyle’s colour grade, which was depressingly washed out, greyish green to match the ocean I guess.

All was forgiven, however, in the last 30 minutes of the film. I am sure you have had the same experience before – you are watching and waiting, watching and waiting, you don’t want to walk out and leave with a disappointed feeling but are praying that something is going to happen soon – and it does.It’s not that something extra suddenly happens on the screen or the style of film changes to one you are more accustomed to enjoying. It’s simply that you hit the zone. You and the film are keeping the same rhythm. You get it. You like it.

I am not going to give away the story in this review. But I am going to say that the last few dialogues and the interactions between the hitmen in the film are what made it for me. I left all full; a slightly stunned feeling in my gut, as if those hours and hours (probably one, all told) of boring time in the dingy hull of a ship with the lead character had carved out a space there unbeknownst to me and the final half hour filled it up. Thank goodness I didn’t walk out. I get to continue my adoration of Mr Doyle and I get to add another director (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) to my must-see lists. Go and see it and if you do – stay until the end.

The Editor says: J, The is essentially spot on. This film would’ve got a 4/5 instead of 3.5 if only they remembered to employ an editor. A unique and impressive cinema experience provided you’re in the mood for a quiet and contemplative style of film.

Becomes this:

Media Quotes:
“This is an excellent film… A unique and impressive cinema experience.” Grodscorp

The Great Happiness Space
This film’s website links to a PDF of media quotes. For some reason the PDF doesn’t open properly but Google’s HTML version reveals that J,The’s review impressed the distributor so much they quoted it:

I thoroughly recommend this film, congratulate its makers,
and send hopeful prayers to its characters.
– GrodsCorp, Australia ★★★★★

The Host
I gushed about this movie when I saw it but little did I know the entire post, including references to Bicycle Pump Man (BPM) would be lifted verbatim and reproduced on an Asian movie website.