The Movie Club

Plot

We meet a woman as she is happily jet-skiing on a Hawwain beach. We then flash to her husband Matt King (played by George Clooney) who is a lawyer, father of two daughters and the sole trustee of a beautiful and large plot of land on the island of Kaua'i. Matt has to decide what he wishes to do with the land as the family trust will soon expire. Before Matt and his many family members formally decide on a deal to sell the land, Matt learns of a boating accident involving his wife Elizabeth, where wackiness ensues!

Review:

The Descendants is the long awaited movie from the director of SideWays, a movie that explored the relationship between two middle-aged males at one of life’s cross-roads, nestled in the beautiful Napa Vally winery region. Here, we are in Hawaii, and the environment, atmosphere and ambience is palpable. You can feel the heat of the breeze, smell of the ocean and completely understand its inhabitants’ cruisy way of life as dictated by the surrounding environment, much like the Australian tropics.

Reportedly, George Clooney wanted to play the role of 'Jack' in Sideways, however Payne turned him down, saying that he wanted someone lesser known for the role, Thomas Haden Church, best known for his role in television’s Ned and Stacey at the time. Here George Clooney gets his chance, and headlines with a relaxed, scruffy, quiet, gentle type of character, which is most notably his flaw.

This time around however, George is accompanied by a trio of young actors who more than make up for this character trait, none-more so than his on-screen daughter Shailene Woodley. At first glance Matt’s daughter’s (including Amara Miller) and his eldest daughter’s dim-witted beach dude friend (played by Nick Krause) are quite straight forward spoilt little brats who unravel during the film to show well-rounded characters whose true selves do give way during this horrible crisis.

The tone of the movie is interesting: amongst a very serious and morbid plot device, the director does not shy away from the fact that George’s wife, and mother to his children, is extremely morally flawed and is unglamorously hospitalized, looking like a corpse in front of her friends and family. George’s mission to make sure all of her family and friends receive the opportunity to say good-bye, amongst pressure from his extended family to sell the plot of land to the ire of residents, lays a ground-work for effortless characterization (no head-bopping here!) which, amongst a grim background, is funny in the delivery due to the way the characters are: a family that, despite all of their history and gripes, do actually love one another and who do look out for, and after, each other, when they are needed the most.

Rating  

I give The Descendants 4.5 ukuleles out of 5. Fully deserving of its Golden Globe successes (best film, best actor)!

                                                                          Luke McWilliams, January 2012

Plot 

We meet Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig), who is an investigative journalist and co-owner of Millennium magazine. Blomkvist  has just lost a libel case against businessman Hans-Erik Wennerström leaving his professional reputation in ruins and facing bankruptcy.

Fortunately Blomkvist is contacted by Henrik Vanger who wishes to hire Blomkvist to solve the 40-year old cold murder of his niece. Eventually Blomkvist finds he needs the assistance of a researcher. Enter the very researcher who performed an extremely thorough background check on him, a young girl called Lisbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara), who has a dragon tattoo on her back, where wackiness ensues!

Review

I am a huge fan of the Millenium Trilogy, as is already covered on The Movie Club here. I saw the Swedish movie version, and was so blown away by its ambience (cold, isolated cabin-in-the-woods, with only books, laptops and endless supply of coffee for company), characters (creepy suspects) and Agatha Christie closed-room murder mystery that I immediately bought the book and read it cover to cover. From there, I couldn’t stop myself from reading the next book before the movie sequel came out. I only got through the first part of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest before the movie came out, and need to actually finish it off.

Part of me doesn’t want to. Stieg Larsson unfortunately died suddenly after he delivered the manuscripts of his Millennium series to his publisher. Even though the published books form a trilogy, Stieg’s unfortunate passing puts an end to his series, as there is rumored to be four other manuscripts in debatable completion. Ironically, under Swedish law, his de-facto partner has no legal rights to his property, instead his estranged father and brother have the rights to the manuscripts, and it would be up to them as to whether-or-not further adventures of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Blomkvist will see the light of day, in either novel, television or movie medium.

Larsson was an investigative journalist who witnessed the shocking gang rape of a 15 year old girl named Lisbeth. Perhaps through his Millennium series he was trying to pay amends to the incredible guilt he felt at not doing anything to help her. By naming his heroine thusly, and giving her a horrible fate, Larsson uses the Lisbeth character to thwart not only violence against herself, but to other women within Swedish society (victims of sex trafficking), ultimately escalating to a political arena.

The Swedish television mini-series of the Millennium trilogy were cut to film-running time and distributed internationally as a film trilogy. The first chapter was the most cinematic, with the second two installments being helmed by new directors and were given a contemporary, gritty look.

With this American adaptation of the novel (NOT a remake of the Swedish movies), master filmmaker David Fincher is at the helm. His images are beautiful and chilling. Fight Club was perfect, lacing surrealism into a commentary against male identity amongst a material world, Se7en was a gothic, savage tale of sin and redemption, and The Social Network was a tour-de-force of the building of an empire while, simultaneously and ironically, crumbling of close relationships, shot in a dark, isolating Harvard University environment, with soft-focus only pulling their faces into focus.

This new outing for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo wisely keeps Fincher’s production team from The Social Network, especially Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross who won an Oscar for their soundtrack for Network and at time of writing, also won a Golden Globe for their efforts here. Roony Mara who delivered a very small, but powerfully significant role in Network IS Lisbeth Salander. Gaining the part amongst rich competition including Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson,Roony makes the role her own, and we are convinced of such in her very first scene: extremely anti-social,her aggressive body language, distracted but direct manner, and her bold language nails the character.

Daniel Craig is an immense improvement on the Swedish interpretation of Blomkvist, playing against his Bond persona, Craig is a crushed man, saying as much as he packs up and goes to live in an unforgivable location to perform an impossible task that is doomed to failure: a man who welcomes banishment and punishment as consequences for his inattention to detail. All characters are played extremely well, due to the pitch-perfect casting.

The cinematography is what we have come to expect from Mr Fincher: flowing cameras that open up landscapes and then just as easily lead us through rooms. As gorgeous as the tones are, the blacks are very black, with incredible detail to come in the Blue Ray Release.

This is a adaptation of the book which dedicates  more time to the relationship between Blomkvist, Lisbeth and Blomkvists lover Erika Berger (played by Robin Wright). Those who love the books will spot the small differences however, especially in terms of the deduction used to solve the mystery, Lisbeth’s morality, and the extended relationship she shares with Blomkvist. 

These are minor quibbles, made to add a director’s flavour and to open up the material to a wider audience. As soon as Fincher’s Girl starts, we can already see that this is HIS interpretation, as the screen is filled with pulsating black oil and tar, forming images foreshadowing the Millennium trilogy to come, amongst a screeching reinterpretation of a Led Zepplin song.  The sequence is almost a perversion of a Bond intro, telling us all and nothing about what is to come. And when it does come, it is pure Fincher; tighter and faster than the Swedish interpretation, with different emphasises on certain events as opposed to the Swedish counterpart. It is great that one can enjoy The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in all media, as they stand, live and breath on their own, peppered with different perspectives that add to the mix. 

Rating

The first is always going to be my favourite as it is my introduction to the Millenium trilogy. As I cannot un-watch it now, I perhaps unfairly give Fincher’s Girl - 4.5 tattoos out of 5. Although Tattoo only garnered a modest success, the next two chapters have been green-lit to be filmed back-to-back. I hope Fincher stays to direct the remainder to keep his flavour throughout this new interpretation!

                                                                       Luke McWilliams, January 2012

Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review new to cinema releases;

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; and

The Descendants

Luke has a look at a cult favourite, The Breakfast Club

Plot 

We met Irene Adler (played by Rachel McAdams) of the first film in 1891, who is to deliver a letter to her nefarious employer, a Professor Moriarty (played by Mad Men’s Jared Harris) only to have Holmes (played by Robert Downey Jr.) spoil her plans.

Flash to our dynamic duo where Holmes is explaining to Watson (played by Jude Law) that he is currently investigating a series of seemingly unrelated crimes and business deals that is connected to Moriarty. Holmes chooses to meet with the letter’s original recipient, the gypsy Simza (played by the original girl with the dragon tattoo Noomi Rapace) during Watson’s stag night where wackiness ensues!

 Review

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is darker than the original in look and tone, with a relatively more realistic, if not plausible, plot. Where the first Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes was an adventure movie with comic-book staging and effects, Shadows is a touch more menacing, especially in its depictions of violence.

That being said it is still a great piece of fun. The action sequences are great, aided by brilliant cinematography which uses an evolution of ‘bullet-time’ and Ritchie's modus-operandi from his Lock-Stock days, to speed up and slow down the action in beautifully framed scenes with magnificent detail. It is also fantastic to ‘see’ Holmes’ detection method. Here, Holmes is constantly observing his surroundings and weighing up the pros-and cons of possible future actions, playing his hand in his head on the fly, referencing lessons from Sun Tzu’su’s  The Art of War as opposed to his literary arm-chair detective counterpart. Here is a man who is both blessed and cursed with the ability of this method, never being able to turn it off. It is also interesting to see that this ‘talent’, or mental illness, is starting to rub off onto his partner in crime-solving, Watson. 

The Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes series is one for those who grew up with Sherlock and already has a back-catalogue of Holmes’ ways. This current film series deals with the relationship of Holmes and Watson in its fading days as opposed from the origins of the pair or their hey-day. If you are fresh to the mix, and yes, there may be many, you may wonder why and how Sherlock can get away with what he does, much like last week’s Tintin. Originally, Holmes was an amateur crime solver, with police coming to meet with him to explain the case that had them puzzled. For a price, Holmes would solve the crime with his method, and the police would get the credit. Only when a crime needed more details would Sherlock even leave his apartment at 21 Baker Street to gather more clues, something that thrilled him! This relationship with the police lead to him being a controversial figure, but one that had a certain leeway and agreement with the local police force.

Shadows’ plot is based on the Sherlock Holmes story, The Final Problem, but a lot of creative latitude has been used. As with Tintin, the script borrows here-and-there from the original text to create something new. Although this may irritate purists, it also gives them a new adventure to enjoy too, instead of re-treading years of books, movies and television series plots.

Robert Downy Jrs Sherlock is an absolute: a committed bachelor, much like James Bond circa 1800, whose only real purpose in life is to solve crimes with his almost scientific method. RDJ plays Sherlock intelligently with wit, great humour and a hint of parody, although his scenes with Moriaty are rightly laced with fear and caution.

Whereas one may have expected Sherlock’s arch-enemy to stick to the shadows until a later outing, much like Emperor Palpatine of the Star Wars series, he is completely revealed in the opening of Shadows, and is played chillingly by Jared Harris. It is pleasing that rumours of a bigger star were not correct (Brad Pitt’s name was thrown around), as Jared encompasses the role well, playing Moriaty as an evil academic, as interested in defeating Holmes as Holmes is in the same. A perpetual chess game, much like the X-men’s Magneto and Professor Xavier, serves as an apt metaphor of these men’s relationship to each other, and also of their methods of deduction.

Shadows is a great action movie, with very big stakes, much like the original. Where Nooni Rapace has very little to do, Jude Law was born to play Watson, and who else would you get to play Sherlock’s know-it-all brother than Stephen Fry of QI fame. However I am more of a fan of the current Sherlock television series which encompasses the character, and his adventures, more authentically, albeit in a modern context. A simple murder (or two) is all that is required for Sherlock and his hetero-life partner to spring into action, all with the local police vying for, and profiting from, his actions.

Unfairly, I may be too entrenched with the Basil Rathbone archetypical Sherlock performance to ever believe RDJ’s and Ritchies Bohemiam Sherlock to be the real deal, no matter how well it is played. That being said, like Batman Begins and Casino Royale, it is fantastic that such an original interpretation made its way into a blockbuster, especially in the increasingly risk-adverse Hollywood environment, where the bottom dollar is king over art and originality.

Rating 

Undoubtedly you will enjoy this new outing of Sherlock. Its exciting, bombastic and the leads are doing something which is quite rare in movies nowadays: having fun! I’m looking forward to the many adventures sure to come! 4.5 out of 5 whodunnits!

                  Luke McWilliams, January 2012

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• The Iron Lady,
• We Bought a Zoo; and

• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
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·    Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Luke and Katy will also share their favourite party movies;

·    Old School; and

·    Clue

Special Guest: J.Harkness, writer, producer and director of the Australian Feature Film, Birthday

Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review new to cinema holiday season releases;

Puss in Boots; and

New Year's Eve

Luke also shares a cult-classic Christmas favourite, Gremlins.

Special Guest: Writer, producer and director of the Australian feature film, Birthday.

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Join Luke McWilliams and Marisa Martin as they review new to cinema releases:

·      Attack the Block; and 

·      The Inbetweeners Movie

Marisa also updates us with the latest in local film news.

Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review new to cinema releases;

• The Ides of March; and 
• Immortals

Special guest: Marisa Martin from Enemies of Reality Media, creator of The Della Morte Sisters.