The Movie Club

Join Luke McWilliams, Marisa Martin and Travis Craigg as they review new to cinema releases;

Join Luke McWilliams, Steven Robert and Marisa Martin as they review new to cinema releases;

Join Luke McWilliams, Steven Robert and Marisa Martin as they review new to cinema releases;

• Oranges and Sunshine; and
• Super 8

Steven reviews a favourite movie, E.T.

Special Guest: Managing Director and Co-founder of Bearcage Productions, Michael Tear.

 It was a difficult choice. As a child of the 80s, I had The Breakfast Club and Labyrinth, Hellraiser and Terminator and even Aliens on my list, but I've decided to go with a film that I still find haunting even after many viewings:

The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, released here in 1980.

Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), a recovering alcoholic, has taken the job as winter caretaker of the very large and very isolated Overlook Hotel.  He tells the manager he plans to write a novel and his family will enjoy the peace and quiet.  His wife Wendy (Shelly Duvall) and young son Danny (Danny Lloyd) join Jack at the Hotel as the rest of the staff pack up to leave.  Danny has a psychic gift, identified by the Hotel's chef as 'The Shining' – the ability to see echoes of past traumatic events and the hotel has had many. 

Jack slowly lets the hotel take him over, Danny tries in vain to ignore the increasingly disturbing images he sees and Wendy tries to keep the family together.

The reasons I love this film:

I first saw it at an impressionable age – I was 14 and somehow my friends and I (dressed in Catholic school uniforms no less) were able to rent this R rated film.  We watched it huddled together in the dark and shrieked at every jump and scare. I'm sure it was instrumental in my growing love of the horror genre.

The visual aesthetics of this film are very strong.  The 1970s décor, the strong symmetrical framing, the stillness and controlled pace of the descent into madness. 

This film was one of the first to extensively use stedicam, a motion stabilising camera rig, allowing for eerily smooth floating camerawork.  Those seemingly endless shots following Danny on his tricycle around the hotel are moody in the extreme.  The images of the elevators that release a tsunami of blood that wash the furniture away, the two girls in identical clothes that meet Danny at the end of a corridor only to be seen chopped into hundreds of pieces moments later, the woman who tries to seduce Jack in Room 237 and then turns into a decaying corpse, the snow covered labyrinth that hosts the film's climax – all are extremely visual, frightening, complex and beautiful.

The use of sound in this film is extraordinary.  The menacing hums and tones, the grand classical music that covers the film's opening (which I'm sure is based on Berloiz's Symphony Fantastique), the use of diagetic sound (Danny's tricycle wheels as they go from hard floor to carpet, to hard floor to carpet) is mesmerising, even hypnotising.

Performances are typical Kubrick – after hundreds of takes, the emotion is almost entirely removed, hysteria and insanity are at the fore.  Jack Nicholson is unforgettable.  Shelly Duvall is an annoying screen presence and I try to ignore her.  I'm glad I saw the film before the Simpsons got it's hands on it, the film has been parodied so often, that a new viewer of the film would probably find themselves constantly going, 'I know that from somewhere' rather than being awed by the quality of the filmmaking on show.

The film stays with me because the imagery is so powerful, the atmosphere so overwhelming, the story so unforgettable.  There's a lot to see in the film and it rewards re-viewing.  It's nothing like the book, which I tried to read after I saw the film, and in turn, nothing like Stephen King's Television adaptation of his book from the 90s.  It is the definitive version of the story, Kubrick took it from King and truly made it his own. 

Like Jack, perhaps Kubrick was always the caretaker here.

Marisa Martin, May 2011

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 Bring It On 

Director: Peyton Reed  Writer: Jessica Bendinger  Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Jesse Bradford  

Bring it On follows the Rancho Carne High School Cheerleading Team, the Toros, as they continue their six year run at the title of National Cheerleading Champions.  New Captain Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) looks set to lead the team to another win until it’s discovered that their perfectly rehearsed routine was stolen by the former captain from an inner-city cheer squad called the Clovers.  No-one had noticed because the Clovers have never been able to afford to compete.  Torrance has her work cut out for her to rebuild the reputation of the Toro Squad and begins by enlisting the help of new student Missy (Eliza Dushku) who becomes her ally in the fight to maintain control of the cheer-team. They falter at first by hiring a Professional Cheer Choreographer, the hilarious Sparky Polastri (played by Ian Roberts), who belittles, taunts and in the end humiliates them in front of the entire cheer community.

This miscalculation on Torrance’s part leaves her again without the support of most of her squad, and Cheerleaders Courtney and Whitney planning a takeover.

This is not the end of Torrance’s problems however - she is trying to handle her cheerleader boyfriend who’s gone off to college and begun to ignore her as she starts to fall for Missy’s brother Cliff (Jesse Bradford) who hates everything cheery.

We watch to see if the Toros can overcome their internal cheer-rivalries and come up with a new routine good enough to regain their place at the National Cheeroffs, whether the Clovers will find the money to finally compete at the competition themselves and earn the title they deserve and whether Torrance will be able to choose between her cheery boyfriend and the non-cheery new boy.

Why I love this film

It’s funny, cheeky (occasionally bordering on filthy) and an absolute ball to watch.  Great characters, great dialogue, lots of laughs.  It knows what it is and doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

Endlessly quotable:

• Torrance Shipman: “You know, mothers have killed to get their daughters on squads.”
• Christine Shipman: “That mother didn't kill anybody. She hired a hit man.”
• Sparky: “I am a choreographer. That's what I do. You are cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded. What you do is a tiny, pathetic subset of dancing. I will attempt to turn your robotic routines into poetry, written with the human body. Follow me, or perish, sweater monkeys.”; and, of course,
• “Spirit Fingers!”

The routines are also great to watch and well shot and performed as is the whole film.  There’s never a dull moment in this cheer-fest.

Totally fun, a hearty 5 Spirit Fingers out of 5

Marisa Martin, May 2011

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New to Cinema Releases;

• The Hangover Part II; and
• Get Low

Luke also reviews a movie he ‘always wanted-to-see-but-never-got-around-to’;

• Casablanca