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Archive for the ‘Filmed in Australia’ Category

In Her Skin [I AM You]

17 Jul

In Her Skin [I Am You] – Written and directed by Simone North. Family Drama. A lovely 15-year-old girl goes missing, and her family refuses to give up on finding her, while a neighbor girl knows where she is all along. 108 minutes Color 2009.

* * * * *

Guy Pearce is the finest male actor his age, meaning 42. Essentially he is a character lead, remarkable in The Hurt Locker, The Factory, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, rather than a leading man or matinee idol, and he is not usually cast as a pater familias, but here he is. The role is essentially a silent one, and one wonders why he took it. The noisy part is given to Miranda Otto who is very capable as the mother of the daughter who disappears. It is a true story, and all the originals, but one, are alive, and all but two were available for Otto and Pearce to meet and learn from. Sam Neill is first class as the father of the neighbor girl. He makes the man as understanding and forbearing as anyone could be. For no human being could put up with this girl or know how to treat her or wish to be with her: she is a creature of murderous self-indulgence. Ruth Bradley, at 21, plays this remarkable human, the 19-yar-old Caroline, the neighbor girl, and the company was lucky to have this actress, and by what miracle they secured her I cannot imagine, for she is Irish, and the film was shot in Australia. She bares herself to the role above and beyond the call of duty. The remarkable family to whom this catastrophe happened appears in the extras, which offer interviews with Sam Neill, Miranda Otto, and an extensive one with Guy Pearce. You will cease to wonder why he took the role when you come to the scene of hyperventilation on the bed. There are moments in films which penetrate me; such a moment occurs later on the same bed as he slowly places a kiss on Miranda Otto’s temple. You may not find it so. But for me a great actor is one who in the odd moment always finds exactly the right thing to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: INTERNATIONAL REALISTIC, DOCUDRAMA, Filmed in Australia, Guy Pearce: ACTING GOD, MURDER MYSTERY, Sam Neill

 

Animal Kingdom

11 Mar

Animal Kingdom – directed by David Michod – Gangster Drama. A family of bank robbers and their mother welcome their nephew into the den. 113 minutes Color 2010.

* * * *

The inexcusably bumbling director on the Extra Features explains that this picture was meant to be large in scope and also austere. I could crown him. If the film were as phony as he is, I would, but the picture holds one’s attention because it does not spell out what it can let the audience gather on its own, and because of the Michod’s excellent writing and direction and because of the players who support the lead. Alas, the lead is played by an actor histrionically inert. He is means to be a David Copperfield character, a fill-in-the-blank person whom we are supposed to supply with ourselves. But the actor is too sleepy, too withdrawn, too dull for us to be or to want to be in the character’s shoes at any time. But this does gives one a chance to observe the various levels of performance around him, which range as they range in experience, the more experienced being the more telling. Every level is a high: level 1: Ben Mendelsohn, Sullivan Stapleton, Joel Edgerton as the gangsters. Level 2: Jacki Weaver as the Ma Barker of this group. Level 3: Guy Pearce. All Guy Pearce has to do is to quietly appear on screen for the entire artistic purpose of the film to take shape before one’s eyes. Here he has a scruffy and therefore un-menacing moustache in the role of the detective, which is a role within a role, since the profession of detective requires one already to play a role. Pearce’s task is largely one of inquiry, and nothing more needs be said about his performance but the fact, clear and simple, that as you watch him ask questions you can see that the character does not know the answers to them even though the actor does. This draws one into the situation, it produces suspense, it provides story. We, the audience, know the answers and the truth. And so we must wait out the issue of all of this until the end. This is an example of the enormous contribution this actor makes in movies in which he appears. The opening scenes of The Hurt Locker are a prime example of it. The rest of that film could not take place if he had not played those scenes the way he does. Fascinating.

 
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Posted in bank robbers, CRIME, Filmed in Australia, Guy Pearce: ACTING GOD, Jacki Weaver

 

The Man Who Sued God

01 Mar

The Man Who Sued God — Directed by Mark Joffe — Comedy. A fed up lawyer quits and buys a boat which is demolished by lightning. Because the insurance company won’t pay for an Act Of God, he sues God.  97 minutes Color 2001

* * *

I rented this to see the inestimable Judy Davis. For she’s a always tonic. Billy Connolly is not a tonic. I have seen him elsewhere only in Mrs Brown. I do not find him inviting. I liked the theological arguments of this piece and I wish they had been set forth with the space of greater confidence and less speed to get them over with. The piece is a mildly amusing Thirties type comedy set in a fishing village near Perth Australia, which is pleasant to eye-visit. I always have low expectations so I am seldom disappointed. Judy Davis has comic gifts which here go unexploited, however. I guess she is going to stay in Australia now, playing sexy mothers with the wrong lipstick and a poor dye job. Pay no attention to me. I do not recommend or dis-commend pictures. I simply rattle on  a bit about what I see. Or do not see. As in this case.

 
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Posted in Filmed in Australia, JUDY DAVIS: SCREEN GODDESS; ACTING GODDESS, Light Comedy

 

Muriel’s Wedding

02 Feb

Muriel’s Wedding — directed by P.J. Hogan — a dumb Dora wants to be in the in-group, to which end she strives to be married, but she is such a mome no one will date her. She lies, cheats, and steals to achieve her goal. Good for her!  106 minutes Color 1994.

* * * * *

An Australian Georgie Girl, this ruthless satire on money, men, marriage, and mammaries brings into our welcoming sight the gifts of Toni Colette, as its forebear once did those of Lynn Redgrave. Colette brings to bear her wonderful bovine eyes and cowed head to play this moronic phony to the nines. She never lets up not getting it. Her cries of dismay are the dismay of the world and her cries of delight the delight of the world. So this is a really big conception for an actor. It’s a conception by an actor with nothing to lose and Toni Colette risks everything. For the difference with this ugly duckling is that in this version she is crowded out and nearly drowned by the other ducks. Colette makes her such an oaf that the brow-beatings bend her face to the mud but do not break her. Watch Colette “take it”, and come back for more. Into this concentration camp of cruelty rides Rachel Griffiths in rare form as a high-riding tomato, and it’s good to see her in one of her less nefarious sex-killer roles, for no actor male or female can threaten like Rachel Griffiths. This vengeful resentment is in play only later, as the story switches hands over and over. But until then, she displays a zest for fun and comedy and play that is a delight to see, and into it Colette dives with her, her character almost convinced that this fairy godmother’s rescue is real. See it, oh, see it!

 
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Posted in BROAD COMEDY, Filmed in Australia, MATING, MUST SEE, Rachel Griffiths, Toni Colette

 

The Everlasting Secret Society

29 Oct

The Everlasting Secret Family –– directed by Michael Thornhill –– a teen- age boys contrives to remain forever young as a weapon of power. 94 minutes color 1994.

**

The life of the homosexual is depicted as nasty, manipulative, and snide –– once again. It depicts homosex itself as kinky and controlling and fatal –– once again. In doing this, it exerts a condemnation of homosexuality –– once again. The picture purports to be an expose of corruption in politics, but that is really a put-up-job, for what it really wants to do is revel in a certain type of supposedly entertaining gay temperament, and by that I do not mean camp, of which in this movie there is not a trace — but rather the temperament of The Bitter Pill Of Homosexuality. A middle-aged politician easily and impenitantly seduces a teen-age boy. This boy, fearing to lose his grip over the politician and for that matter anyone else who appears before him, starts taking youth shots. Thus we have the theme of the homosexual mania for the young and beautiful. But it is impossible to identify with this theme, because here a mania for youth and beauty is limited to lust — love never enters into it — and because an itch for youth and beauty is natural to all orientations anyway. The problem is that the boy is never innocent and never vulnerable and never less than as evil as the corrupt souls around him. Moreover, the young man’s beauty is ugly. For one is asked to endure the revolting job of beholding his face continually distorted by arrogance, cunning and fifteen different hair-dos. Arthur Dignam is quite good as the older man. Cut out his performance and paste it into your scrapbook, but put the rest of the film right down there in the trash.

 
2 Comments

Posted in DRAMA, Filmed in Australia, Gay, MATING, POLITICAL

 
 
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