Film rating: 4/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 0/5
BPM sighting: No

Irascible and lazy, Rupert ‘Ratz’ Kramer is a 35-year-old slacker who plays out his patricidal fantasies through the development of a violent computer game. A chance call from an old flame sends him to New York, where he hopes to sell his creation to a games company, but instead becomes embroiled in events that begin to pose increasingly uncomfortable moral questions.

Part thriller, part psychological family drama, part exploration of German–Austrian war guilt, this film from Michael Glawogger defies categorisation.

Adapted from the novel Das Vaterspiel by Josef Haslinger.

Interesting and believable characters, along with a mysterious script with lots of room for guessing, ensure that you can’t take your eyes of this film. But it turns out to be a slow-burner, with everything building up to a stunning under-egged scene featuring a Nazi war criminal talking about his guilt, fear and lack of remorse. Kill Daddy Goodnight certainly defies categorisation and leaves you thinking for hours afterwards.

Film rating: 5/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 2/5
BPM sighting: Yes

Actor–director Baltasar Kormákur calls his modernised version of Anton Chekhov’s play Ivanov a ‘dramedy’, inspired by the likes of Pedro Almodóvar and Woody Allen.

A middle-aged professor braces himself for his second marriage, to an ex-student half his age, but as his guests flock to the wedding’s remote island locale, he starts to get cold feet. After a long ‘white night’ of drinking and thinking, will he make it to the church on time?

Kormákur’s expertly juggled tone – slapstick tinged with darker and more perverse elements of Chekhov – has seen White Night Wedding become one of Iceland’s highest-grossing domestic hits.

“Dramedy” indeed. A heart-wrenching tale of relationships and life told with a just-right application of humour and understated slapstick. As the protagonist lurches towards his wedding day, with flashbacks to the disintegration of his first marriage, viewers are invited to ponder the fragility of human interaction and the way that middle age brings with it the realisation that life is a series of wasted opportunities. White Night Wedding keeps you guessing right up to the penultimate scene, which seems to provide a Hollywood ending, only to have that illusion shattered as the credits roll.

The best part, but? I was riding home from the cinema and came to a stop at a red light. A couple of seconds later another bike pulled up next to me so I looked over and it was … Bicycle Pump Man! However, I wimped out and didn’t get a photo.

Film rating: 4/5 (Scott); 3.5/5 (John Surname)
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 4/5
BPM sighting: Yes

The directorial debut of Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), this claustrophobic sci-fi feature stars Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey.

Heralding a fresh renaissance in indie sci-fi flicks, Moon eschews big budget CGI effects for slow-burn combustible tension, telling the story of a man on a solo mission on the moon who begins to suffer hallucinations, as he succumbs to the isolation and monotony of his assignment.

An intimate character portrayal in a starkly impersonal outer space setting, Moon is a claustrophobic drama that harkens back to classic sci-fi of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Scott says: Moon is an atmospheric study of life, death, isolation and human desire. Set to a cracking soundtrack that perfectly creates a mood to match the action, and featuring an excellent performance by solo actor Sam Rockwell, Moon lets us imagine the nature of space exploration in the near-ish future and prompts us to question what the implications are for humans’ needs.

The director mostly lets viewers discover plot twists on their own, although a few are rammed home a little too obviously. Once the major twist is revealed the film plays out a touch too predictably at times, but enough mystery is retained to command your attention until the conclusion which is mercifully free of an overblown and trite Hollywood ending.

Moon is a film that will make you look inside and question your own emotions, needs and desires.

** SPOILER ALERT — READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW PLOT **

Read the rest of this entry »

Film rating: 2.5/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 2/5
BPM sighting: No

From within the straightjacket of a highly controlled film industry, Iranian visionary Asghar Farhadi (The Beautiful City, Fireworks Wednesday) miraculously emerges with an uncompromising chronicle of middle-class Iranian malaise.

A group of friends holidaying on the Caspian Sea play matchmaker between a divorcé and schoolteacher Elly. When she disappears, a sticky mess of seemingly innocuous deceits – some being the product of tarouf, a type of Persian cultural politeness – prove dire in their consequences.

One of the best Iranian films in years – and accordingly well-awarded at this year’s Tribeca film festival – it’s also the final one to feature Golshifteh Farahani, who inflamed controversy by appearing in Ridley Scott’s Body of Evidence, in turn causing About Elly to be banned in Iran.

A well-constructed character study that revolves around the social norms at play in middle-class Iran. At first the characters’ action were difficult to understand as a Westerner, but as the film progressed it became easier to accept why seemingly stupid decisions (from an audience perspective) were the only option available to the protagonists. However, the film lost a bit of momentum towards the end and offered no new insight or surprise; the ending was predictable once the invisible rules binding the characters were revealed. A solid, but not sensational film.

It’s on! The Melbourne International Film Festival launched last night and my personal MIFF ‘09 experience begins tomorrow night. After spending an agonising couple of hours over a couple of pints of Guinness with the festival program, I’ve whittled my shortlist of 30 films down to the 13 allowed by my festival pass and I’m gearing up for two weeks of darkened cinemas, sleep deprivation and awesome international cinema. Just like in ‘05, ‘06, ‘07 and ‘08 I’ll be assaulting you with my film reviews whether or not you want them.

This year’s big questions:

• Will Craig faint in the middle of a packed cinema again?
• Will I finally snap that photograph of Bicycle Pump Man that I’ve been trying to get for four years?

Film rating: 3/5 (The Editor); 2.5/5 (John Surname)
Walkouts: 1/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 2/5
BPM sighting: No

Happily settled with his wife Smaranda (Anamaria Marinca of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) and their 4-year-old son, 30-something Bogdan takes them on a mini-holiday to a sleepy seaside resort. Things go off course however when he runs into his old school buddies Sorin and Vali, who know him only as ‘Boogie’, the hard-drinking party boy of their teens.

After staying out too late Bogdan gets on Smaranda’s bad side and storms off in a huff, back to the boys of his youth. But it’s not long before the trio realise that things aren’t what they used to be.

The Editor says: Basically, this film would be familiar to any person, male or female, who’s been in a long-ish term relationship. Dude wants to spend time with old mates he runs into on a family holiday. Chick wants dude to stay home with her because they’re on a family holiday. Both dude and chick make valid points about the superiority of their thinking on the matter and then have a hideously uncomfortable (for the viewer) argument before dude storms out to spend time with old mates. Dude’s conscience starts to prickle during the night and the guilts kick in.

I’m not going to say any more because Surname summed this film up perfectly in seven words when the credits rolled and I’ll wait for him to post them here. Stay tuned. (Update: posted!)

John Surname says: When the film ended that first thing I said to The Editor was “It’s just a GrodsThink with a prostitute”, because that’s what it was. The majority of the film follows “Boogie” and his friends as they traverse Romania’s exciting (not) nightlife, before winding up at a hotel with a prostitute. This was a four star film for two thirds of it, and I felt like I knew most of the characters, but it just faded away towards the end. Their night dragged on and you just wanted it resolved. The longer you spent in the company of his friends, the more you realised they were losers, and by the time Boogie was being blown by a prostitute he had also outstayed his welcome.

Film rating: 3/5 (The Editor); 4/5 (John Surname)
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

Faced with a growing number of unemployed teenagers, the Australian government has started locking them up in a drive-in cinema where they are fed a diet of junk food, beer and all night movies. Cars have been converted into dwellings and a punk suburbia has emerged.

Lauded by Quentin Tarantino as the go-to guy for Aussie action films (and most pointedly homaged in Death Proof), filmmaker Brian Trenchard-Smith (Turkey Shoot, MIFF 08) conjures up a destructive automotive wasteland in this 80s Ozploitation classic. Sparks fly in frenetic high-speed chases, outrageous stunts and explosive shoot-outs.

Based on a short story by Peter Carey.

The Editor says: I was torn when scoring this film. In terms of filmmaking it’s a solid no stars, yet it greatly entertained me for ninety minutes in a five star kinda way. So three stars it is.

The film started with a Greater Union ident that would’ve looked dated in 1981. I leaned over and whispered to Surname, “Now in glorious STEREO!” I bet that ident looked great on Laserdisc.

But with tongue so firmly in cheek that it distorted the face, Dead-End Drive-In was a rollicking good time despite its so-bad-it’s-good acting and utterly ludicrous storyline. I laughed a lot during this film: half the time it was at the craptasticness, and half the time it was with the craptasticness.

I laughed neither at nor with Wilbur Wilde, though. Let’s just be clear about that.

John Surname says: How does one review a film like this? A far cry from lame European coming-of-age dramas that lack drama, Dead End Drive-In is an unpretentious romp set in a dystopian future. Crabs (nicknamed so because “…I thought I had crabs once”) takes his (hot) girlfriend on a date to the local drive-in cinema, only to have the police steal his wheels. With the gates locked, and his wheels gone, they have no way of leaving.

Thus begins the film. Crabs soon finds the drive-in is really concentration camp for the young, who are kept anesthetised by movies, rock music, beer and drugs (the latter being supplied by the police).

It’s difficult to give a rating to it, because it is a different kind of film. It’s not trying to give us the meaning of life, it’s entertainment – if we do get anything out of it, that’s a bonus.

Bad acting, terrible dialogue, Wilbur Wilde – it’s one hell of a fun film.

Film rating: 5/5
Walkouts: 1/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

In 1981 Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican, starved himself to death as a protest against the British government. He died painfully and – in the eyes of the IRA – as a martyr. Hunger unrelentingly depicts the last months of his life in Belfast’s Maze prison, where the motives and moralities of Bobby and the other prisoners are not only a representation of the troubles of the time, they are the heart of it.

Hunger is the first feature film from visual artist Steve McQueen, who shows his hand here as a new force in cinema.

This was a stunningly atmospheric and emotional portrait of Northern Ireland in the middle of “the troubles”. Absolutely flawless acting, inspired direction, and brilliant cinematography combined to shake the viewer to the bone. Much of the story was told with little dialogue and through the visual depiction of both the mundane and the unusual. There was scant focus on the main character until about halfway through the film which allowed the story’s context to be fully developed.

Then the dialogue happened. In the lead up to the climactic scenes there is an intense twenty minute conversation between two characters in an empty room, at least 90% of which was shot in a single take and with a static camera. It was a powerful and jaw-dropping sequence.

By the end of the film I was repulsed, angry and inspired in equal measure.

Film rating: 4.5/5
Walkouts: 4/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

Silent Light opens with what is, arguably, the single most remarkable shot of the year: dawn breaking over a breathtaking rural landscape. One of cinema’s most distinctive auteurs, Carlos Reygadas, has created a deeply moving tale of love and sacrifice played out against the pastoral backdrop of the North Mexican Mennonite community using a cast of non-actors.

Johan is a married man who, against the laws of his faith, falls in love with another woman, leaving him with an impossible dilemma – betray his wife and the apparent stability of his community, or surrender his true love and future happiness.

Winner of the Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Indeed, the opening and closing shotswere simply stunning. I’m not sure what proportion of them was CGI but I don’t care because it just worked.

This was a looooong film. Long, lingering shots were the theme and they were beautiful shots. If the film were re-edited to the minimum length required to tell the story it would run for 25 minutes, but at 140 minutes it contained so much more atmosphere and allowed you to better “feel” the characters.

For non-actors the leads did remarkable jobs, although they must’ve received outstanding direction. The cinematography and detailed sound design made the film a true pleasure to experience. My only gripes are that the long, lingering shots got a little tedious towards the end, and that the ending didn’t quite fit for some reason. Can’t put my finger on it.

Excellent film, but.

Film rating: 3/5
Walkouts: 2/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 4/5
BPM sighting: No

Filmmaking provocateur Bruce LaBruce’s (The Raspberry Reich) latest film features a hoodie-wearing zombie, Otto, who reticently rises from the grave and wanders the gay clubs of Berlin. In his journey of self-discovery he stumbles across an underground filmmaker, participates in a documentary about himself and attempts to reconnect with a former boyfriend, with disastrous results. Moral boundaries and acceptable levels of ‘decency’ are challenged, as is the modus operandi of writer, filmmaker, actor, photographer and pornographer LaBruce.

This gay zombie flick with tongue firmly planted in its cheek amused and shocked in equal measure. On the one hand it’s a bit confronting to see a dude have sex with another dude’s gaping stomach wound, but on the other hand it’s so ridiculous (and presented so ridiculously) that it’s impossible not to laugh. The characters of Otto and his grand director were brilliantly funny, as were simple tricks like the black-and-white silent movie character.

I’m not sure that I walked away from the film with any sense of an overarching message but I had a good laugh. And that’s nice, innit?

Guest review by Craig

Film rating: N/A
Walkouts: 2 people (Craig and The Editor)
Pretentious clapping at credits: N/A
BPM sighting: WTF?

Living alone with his mother in a wintry and miserable Stockholm suburb, shy and lonely 12-year-old Oskar is a victim of school bullies. He spends his days plotting revenge, keeping a knife under his pillow and a scrapbook full of paper cuttings of heinous crimes. When a strange little girl named Eli moves in next-door, Oskar and her gradually become friends. But a series of ritual killings in the neighbourhood lead Oskar to suspect that there is something terribly wrong about his new neighbour…

Adapted for the screen by John Lindqvist from his own award-winning novel, Let the Right One In is an original, atmospheric and intelligent twist on the vampire horror genre.

I can describe Let the Right One In in just 2 words: disturbingly realistic.

We arrived early. I had to queue up with the plebs, while the pretentious Editor walked right on in and saved a couple of seats for us. This film’s opening scenes were shocking, with a score the just screamed horror at me. I should have left right away, however, seeing that The Editor had pre-purchased the ticket for me and saved a seat I thought I had better stick it out.

The film centres around a 12 year old Swedish boy who sleeps with a knife under his bed, is bullied at school, and has a very suspicious neighbour. The turning point in this film for me was very early on. In just the second scene the plot spirals down to the dark murky waters of ritualistic murder and serial killing with the first victim strung up from the branch of a tree by his feet like a piñata and promptly drained of his life sap. Cut from the neck like an animal, the blood ran over the curves that made up the face of the victim before running into a dirty drum with the help of a funnel.

It was at this point that I could take no more and slowly drifted off to a safer place: my mind. I came to with The Ed calling my name as loudly AND at the same time as quietly as you can in a cinema.* “I think I almost fainted,” I said.

“You did,” said Ed. “Let’s go.”

With that, we left the cinema. Not even 10 minutes in and it was lights out for me. That was poor form. I must say.

Based on the small portion of the film that I did see, I highly recommend it — if you are into that sort of stuff. I personally would prefer to watch the director’s cut of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

* The Editor notes — What Craig doesn’t remember is that it took me over a minute to wake him up from his twitchy, eyes-rolled-back stupour. Since I couldn’t lift his legs above his head for blood flow I resorted to inflicting pain while everyone in the cinema watched, thinking I was reviving a mate who’d drawn a little too much happiness into the syringe.

Film rating: 5/5
Walkouts: 1/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

The graduation film of German filmmaker Niels Laupert, Seven Days Sunday is based on a true story that occurred in 1996.

The film tracks Adam and Tommek, two teenage boys living in the slums of Leipzig. On a random Sunday, bored of petty crimes they decide to up the ante and make a wager, the stakes being the highest they’ve known: someone else’s life.
After failing and wounding one victim, the boys succeed on their second attempt – killing an innocent, and sending their lives into a spiral.

Bam! Third five star film of the festival! This compelling portrait of youth and boredom in rundown ex-communist Germany was a fantastic, if challenging, film experience. Atmospheric direction and cinematography along with gripping performances from the lead actors made my skin crawl and my mind race. The sound design and visual style employed during the key murder scene was masterful and chilling. My only negative is also a positive: at a mere 80 minutes duration I was left wanting more. The film could’ve easily been 15 or 20 minutes longer in the first half to flesh out the two boys’ characters and their complicated relationship.

Film rating: 5/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 4/5
BPM sighting: No

Oscar-winning filmmaker Jan Sverák (Kolya) once again teams up with his father, Zdenek Sverák, who wrote and also leads the cast of this comedy about a man who faces life after retirement. This heart-warming production poses a compelling central question: are you ‘done’ once you retire?

Josef, a high school literature teacher, one day realises that he no longer enjoys teaching and promptly quits. After attempts at various occupations, Josef suddenly recognises his strength through a part-time position at the bottle return counter at the supermarket. Always a meddler, Josef’s gentle involvement in other people’s lives soon leads to complications and some dramatic solutions.

Two five star films in three days is pretty bloody special, and definitely worth getting up for pre-midday on a Sunday. This gentle comedic exploration of a man’s struggle to deal with the “autumn years” of his life was a load of fun and stimulated thought. The script was tight and nuanced, the acting was flawless, and the cheese meter stayed just on the correct end of the scale for the whole film.

This year the Melbourne International Film Festival offered for the first time a membership option. For $80 a year you get discount tickets to the festival along with year-round discounted entry at a bunch of cool cinemas around Melbourne. These things are cool, and are probably enough to make me purchase a membership, but there’s one benefit that really floats my boat.

Priority queuing.

Let’s get something straight: I’m totally OCD when it comes to where I sit in the cinema. (I mean, I’m totally OCD about a bunch of other things too, but cinema seating is a big one.) So when I found out that a MIFF membership would allow me to enter the cinema before all the plebs, thereby practically guaranteeing the best seat in the house (two thirds back from the screen, dead centre), I nearly wet my pants in excitement. In previous years I’d been showing up at least 45 minutes before the screening to bags a place near the front of the line and I had been known to use elbows to ensure optimal seating outcomes.

So this year I’ve been gaining a disturbing amount of pleasure from walking into chaotic cinema foyers and waltzing up to the very civilised members’ queue, free from pleb smells, smug in the knowledge that I can sit wherever the hell I want without having to run and punch. Tonight I joined the members’ queue for a film (perhaps a dozen people) right outside the cinema door while hundreds of unwashed people snaked down the stairs and outside around the building in the cold. I was standing in front of an old lady who was wearing very, very high class clothes and held herself with a certain poise, when the ticket scanning person came to scan tickets. Everyone held out their festival passes but I held out a scrappy paper ticket. (You see, I have a festival pass but a friend of mine who is working at MIFF this year scored me a staff complimentary ticket to this particular film.) Anyway, the person scanned my ticket and then the old lady pursed her lips, looked at me severely, and said, “That’s rather sneaky.”

I was taken aback. Obviously this woman thought that since I had a plebeian paper ticket I surely mustn’t be a MIFF member. I decided to play along.

“How’s that?” I enquired politely.

“Well,” she said accusingly while looking down at my clothes like I was an unwashed sack of shit*, “are you a member? This is the member’s queue.”

I played dumb, relishing every moment. I pulled out my wallet and presented her with my Mini Pass, which is a ticket rather than a membership. “Do you mean this?” I asked.

“Oh no!” spat the old lady with disgust.

So I let a beat go by and then looked at my wallet with confusion. I pulled out my membership card. “Oh, is this it?”

I’m not entirely sure what the old lady did next, but it was a cross between blushing, swallowing, rolling the eyes, and eating one’s own liver. She turned away and ignored me.

Old lady: pwned.

* Just in the old bag’s defence, I did look like an unwashed sack of shit.

Film rating: 1.5/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 0/5
BPM sighting: No

Child actor-turned-filmmaker Teona Struger Mitevska shines a light on the plight of Macedonian women, floundering in a society failed by both communism and capitalism. The women are three sisters: one sex-obsessed, one a recovering drug addict and one – the baby of the family – who hasn’t spoken since their parents death and, at 27, remains a virgin. In the broken city of Titov Veles, the sisters battle to make a start on life.

This was a pretty poor film, and events at the start of the screening didn’t bode well. Allow me to explain.

Most of the films at this year’s festival are showing at the old Greater Union cinema on Russell Street. I imagine this is because the Regent is out of action (damn you, Wicked) and because MIFF would be getting bargain basement prices from a cinema so desperate for custom. The foyer of the complex is pretty small and can’t even come close to holding the punters lining up for three sold out cinemas of festival films, so the ushers herd people out of the fire exits at the end of films rather than have to deal with them in the foyer. This makes for a lovely end of a film experience, what with being chucked out into a stinking and dark alley full of bins and piss.

Anyway, as the day goes on the films inevitably start to screen later and later as the load/unload of cinemas is clearly taking longer than the organisers expected. I Am From Titov Veles was scheduled to start at 7.20pm and they didn’t even start letting people in until a few minutes before this time. So I’m sitting there in the cinema and people are still streaming in the door and up the aisles and the lights go down and the freakin’ film starts! While people are still having their tickets scanned in the line outside the door!

What absolute and utter bullshit. I was appalled. Why should the poor punters at the end of the line miss the start of the film just because MIFF can’t get its shit together and run things on time?

But back to the film, I suppose. It was tedious. Nice cinematography but bugger all plot development, character arcs or genuine moments of emotional tension. At least the people who missed the start didn’t miss anything important.