Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review new to cinema releases:
Marisa Martin of Enemies of Reality Media also joins us to give us the low-down of what is happening in Canberra film-wise for this month of June!
Check us out on Facebook!
Normal 0 0 1 72 416 3 1 510 11.1539 0 0 0
Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review new to cinema releases;
Katy also reviews a movie favourite, Om Shanti Om.
Special guest: Mr Christian Doran, Director of the 2012 Canberra Short Film Festival!
Luke also shares a Tim Burton film-favourite , Sleepy Hollow!
Love in the Buff; and
The Lucky One
Luke also shares his favourite romantic movie, Splash!
Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review new to cinema releases;
One For The Money; and
My Week With Marilyn
Katy also has a look at the movie classic, Some Like It Hot!
Normal 0 0 1 53 305 2 1 374 11.1539 0 0 0
Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review movies dealing with addiction, new to cinema releases;
Luke has a look at cult-favourite, Leaving Las Vegas.
Join Luke McWilliams and Katy Haynes as they review movies new to cinema dealing with young folk coming to life’s crossroads;
Luke also reviews a movie favourite, Beautiful Girls.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a British-American action mystery adventure directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by uber producer Joel Silver of the Matrix Trilogy and the Lethal Weapon series fame to name just a few, and is the sequel to the 2009 movie Sherlock Holmes, based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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
The Room is a drama written, produced, executively produced and directed by its lead actor Tommy Wiseau.
Plot
We meet successful banker Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau), as he comes home to his beautiful San Francisco townhouse apartment to give his fiancée Lisa (played by Juliette Danielle) a red dress. Johnny has a fantastic life: he loves his fiancée Lisa, he has adopted and protects Denny, a neighbouring college student, and has a plethora of friends, Peter a psychologist, some random guy and, most notably his best friend Mark. Lisa however soon confesses to her mother Claudette that, apart from the financial security that Tommy gives her, she finds him incredibly boring. Soon, Lisa seduces Tommy’s best friend Mark, where wackiness ensues!
Review
I have known about the Room for some time now, however I was ill-prepared for the massive turn-out at a late-night showing on a Saturday no less! Lining up amongst a crowd wearing black wigs and sporting footballs, I went into the cinema with my friends, collected a fistful of plastic knives and spoons, a brochure of things to yell at the screen and settled in for a quite a unique experience.
The Room is known as the worst movie ever-made and it is quite obvious to see why. What is an obvious vanity project from the movie’s director Tommy Wiseau, Tommy has micro-mismanaged every aspect of the movie while also giving himself all the credit!
Originally written as a play, Tommy Wiseau.developed and raised funds for the film version of the Room himself over a period of 5 years, raising 6 million dollars that went to the film’s production and marketing, and also for the rotating cast and crew. Buying a ‘complete beginning director package’ the movie is similar to Rebecca Black’s Friday: a packaged, ready to go product available for anyone who can afford it.
Unlike the super-low budget The Evil Dead which had its Director fundraise on nothing more than his perseverance and obvious talent, Tommy had millions at his disposal, which in better hands could have gone quite far. Drive for example was produced on a budget of 13 million.
The movie limits itself in terms of locations around the rented soundstage and of course, the Room. Characters spend time outside throwing a football around, upstairs having a chat and walking into Tommy’s apartment quite freely, one couple even coming in inexplicably to have sex.
Where The Evil Dead lost many of its cast during its overlong production, Sam Raimi had ‘Shemps’step into place, albeit under layers of prosthetic make-up. The Room made no allowances for actors leaving. Instead, the dialogue would be given to a new character without bothering to introduce them!
The movie has a number of plot-inconsistencies, continuity errors, bad dialogue and horrendous acting, mostly from Tommy himself. It is a vanity project in every way. Tommy’s on screen character is selfless: he has adopted a child, treats his ‘future wife’ as a princess, and helps his many friends out in any way he can, even grabbing a drug dealer and giving him over to police. Like the Mark Zuckerberg character in The Social Network, it is Tommy then who seems so out of place in this world that he created: amongst a roomful of young, flawed characters he is the sore thumb, with his acting being easily the worst amongst them.
Rating
The Room deserves the ire of an audience throwing cutlery and insults at the screen!
0 out of 5 spoons!
Luke McWilliams, December 2011