Movies: This month I am still seeing films that are nominated in the AFI’s, they are the Australian Film Industry awards. There are 25 films and the screenings are every Saturday and Sunday for 4 weeks. 12 down 13 to go. So 3 movies a day on weekends for the next 2 weeks. I will be filmed out by the end, but it’s a good chance to catch up on the local production that has happened over the last 12 months. Each mini review will start with a blurb from the makers.

Looking for Alibrandi: Director: Kate Woods Writer: Melina Marchetta.

At seventeen Josie Alibrandi (Pia Miranda) is a girl with attitude about to enter her final year as a scholarship student at an exclusive Catholic College. It’s the year her life is turned upside down and changed forever. She meets her father (Anthony LaPaglia) for the first time, discovers some astonishing things about her family heritage, falls in love – with the wrong guy (Kick Gurry)- and has her first painful encounter with grief.

An enjoyable movie with very likeable and quirky characters. This is a family of Sicilian origin who has brought their culture and heritage with them to Australia. Although they have been here for 2 generations they still keep their traditions alive. Much to the annoyance of Josie. She is embarrassed by the behaviour of her (in her words) wog family. The story keeps us interested and it trips along at a good pace. A lovely performance by Elena Cotta as Josie’s Nonna, and strong women’s roles all around make this a delight. Greta Scacchi as Josie’s mother is believable as the middle class Aussie mum. The obligatory shots of Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the Opera House are tastefully done.

Verdict: Looking for an overseas market.

The Magic Pudding: Director: Karl Zwicky. Writers: Harry Cripps, Greg Haddock and Simon Hopkinson. From the story by Norman Lindsay.

An animated feature about a puddin’ that can turn itself into just about anything, with a rather cantankerous temperament and an exhausting habit of always running away but never running out. Oh, and everyone is trying to steal it. John Cleese is Albert the Magic Pudding, with Geoffrey Rush as Bunyip Bluegum, a koala on a journey to find his parents. Bill Barnacle (Hugo Weaving) is a loud, land locked sailor happy to adventure as long as he gets his fair share of puddin’. Sam Neill is Sam Sawnoff, a performing penguin whose flippers have floored more than one puddin’ thief. Lastly Jack Thompson is Buncle – a ruthless wombat determined to get his greedy paws on the pudding.

This story is a delight and one known by most Australian children. The grumpy pudding that begs to be eaten and as soon as he is, becomes whole again. I was looking forward to the treatment it was given with wonderful actors doing the voices, but I found it all a bit overwhelming. Very loud and played at a frenetic pace that assaults the senses with music that would seem more at home in Star Wars or Indiana Jones movies. I enjoyed it but it could have been so much better.

Verdict: The LOUD pudding.

Mallboy: Director: Vincent Giarrusso. Writer: Vincent Giarrusso.

Shaun (Kane McNay) spins between chaos at home, hanging around the mall with his mates and girlfriend, small time crime, ditching school, avoiding his youth worker. His dad (Brett Swain) is just out of jail and Shaun’s hoping things are about to get better. Wrong. As his world tips further off it’s axis, Shaun realises that he is the only one who can change his life.

I must admit I found this a little hard going, although those around me seemed to enjoy it. I can see it was well made and acted, particularly Brett Swain and Nell Feeney as the mum and dad, but I couldn’t find any empathy for the characters until close to the end. They are not at all likeable characters, and seemed to me to be selfish and self obsessed, making it difficult for me to want to follow their stories.

Verdict: Maybe I’ve seen too much of the real kids.

Me, Myself, I: Director: Pip Karmel. Writer: Pip Karmel.

Pamela Drury (Rachel Griffiths) is in a crisis, struck by the realisation that she has made a complete mess of her life. Sure, she has traveled the world, has an award-winning career, and owns real estate. So why does she have the overwhelming feeling that she’s missed the boat to love and happiness? What happened to Mr. Right? Pamela comes to the conclusion that she let him go when she turned down Robert Dixon (David Roberts) thirteen years ago. Racked with regret and at the brink of despair, Pamela magically collides with someone who is to change her life; herself. The Pamela who did marry Robert Dixon all those years ago.

Another take on the Sliding Doors scenario, but ver y well done and with a great central performance by Rachel Griffiths as both versions of Pamela. The hard nosed journo and the down trodden housewife are both cleverly and subtly played. It is so refreshing to see an actor who doesn’t care if her makeup is streaked down her face and who is not scared to appear in less than glamourous moments on screen. More power to Ms. Griffiths.

Verdict: Two Rachel Griffiths is still not enough.

My Mother Frank: Director: Mark Lamprell. Writer: Mark Lamprell.

This is the story of meddlesome 51-year-old Frances Regina Aileen Nano Kennedy, a.k.a. Frank (Sinead Cusack), who is forced to grow up by her 18-year-old son, David (Matthew Newton). Everyone thinks Frank should get a life – from her friend Jean (Lynette Curran), who wants her to open a dress shop, to her mentors/tormentors, two 80 year old nuns, the Sisters Sebastian and Bernadette. Even David gets in on the act and tries to get her to enrol in a course somewhere. After initial resistance, Frank enrols in a degree at the same University that David attends. Soon the two worlds of mother and son collide and Frank finds herself doing battle with just about everyone. Frank-the-worrier becomes Frank-the warrior, a kind of geriatric Rocky, engaged in warfare with the fearsome Professor Mortlock (Sam Neill), who sets before her a road fraught with trials and obstacles.

Another enjoyable light comedy that we seem to be doing a bit of lately. Played with a deft touch by Cusack whose Irishness does not seem at all out of place in this Sydney Catholic setting. Its not made an issue and doesn’t get in the way. Sam Neill with straggly long hair and looking suitably crumpled belies his leading man status with a nice character role that seeks to support rather than steal this movie.

Verdict: Next year, My Mother Doris.

Russian Doll: Harvey (Hugo Weaving), a neurotic P.I. and wannabe writer, desperately wants to marry his girlfriend but can’t find the right moment to pop the question. Then, while solving a routine adultery case, Harvey makes the painful discovery that the adulterer is cheating with his very own beloved. He wallows in despair, booze and the odd disastrous date. Meanwhile Katia (Natalia Novikova), a young Jewish woman from St. Petersburg flies into Sydney after answering an ad with an international matchmaking agency. But, instead of matrimonial bliss, she finds her prospective groom dead on arrival. At her lowest ebb, she meets Ethan (David Wenham), Harvey’s married best friend, who takes her under his wing and into his bed. When Ethan asks Harvey to marry Katia, to keep her in the country, Harvey’s life spins out of control. But was it ever in control?

There were a few laughs in this one. Another of the romantic comedies, but not as successful as some. Possibly the script was a little underdeveloped, however the performances were ok. Another leading man playing the shambling character that one doesn’t expect him to.

Verdict: Just hope there’s not another one inside.

City Loop: Director: Belinda Chayko Writer: Stephen Davis.
It's a slow night at Speedies - a takeaway pizza shop - but time soon spins around as five interlinking stories about the young people who work there unfold. There's Dom (Sullivan Stapleton) - who's freaked out, shot at and almost run over in a seemingly innocent walk through the city. Then there's Misha (Ryan Johnson), a virgin with something to prove (to Dom). And Robert (Brendan Cowell) and Erin (Kellie Jones) - close friends confronted by the sticky problem of sex. Katie (Hayley McElhinney), the shop manager, has to decide between love and pride. And Stacey (Megan Dorman)- former "employee of the month" - spirals out of control, at the same time bringing all the night's stories together. In the end, almost as much is lost as is gained. A bittersweet comedy about life, love and the meaning of it all.
More teen angst, set in Brisbane but with little to engage or interest us along the way. However Sullivan Stapleton gives a performance that teases us with a glimpse of the power yet to come. He has the potential to be anything he wishes. Good looks and a likeability that the camera loves. I also liked Hayley McElhinney, but not much else that engaged me in this movie.

Verdict: Take the first exit.

Cut: Director: Kimble Rendall, Writer: Dave Warner.
1985. The cast and crew of the horror flick Hot Blooded are learning first hand what it means to be stalked by a masked killer. When the director (Kylie Minogue) is viciously murdered on set the production is shut down and the film locked away, incomplete. But every time the footage is screened, somebody dies... Fourteen years later a group of enthusiastic film students decide to finish Hot Blooded. Led by Raffy (Jessica Napier), the director and producer Hester (Sarah Kants), they manage to track down Vanessa Turnbill (Molly Ringwald), the star of the original film, who reluctantly agrees to return to Australia. After shooting commences on the original eerie location, the students start to disappear one by one. Now they have just to finish the film before it finishes them.

I went into this one having spoken to a couple of people who had seen it and said it was a crock. I am not into horror genre films, but I actually enjoyed the spoof and over the top violence and blood and gore that this movie threw at me. Tongue planted firmly in combined cheeks this is fun if we suspend belief and go along for the ride.

Verdict: A slasher.

The Day Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon: Director and writer: Michael J. Rivette.

When 33-year-old Michael (Scott Ferguson) accuses his father of never spending any time with him when he was a kid, Jack (Rob Steele) grudgingly agrees to complete the fishing trip they had begun twenty years earlier. Over three steaming days in the vast Australian bush, they discover just how little they know one another. Thrust together and forced - often humorously - to confront the demons in their relationship, they discover that the turning point for them both was a single event that took place on the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

Basically a two hander once they get over the early family stuff, this film is worth seeing just for the wonderful Australian scenery. The Aussie bush is the 3^rd star of this movie. Thought provoking, in asking us to look at our lives and what is important to us and those we love, this father and son discover the love they thought was never there.

Verdict: Characters to care about.

Sample People: Director: Clinton Smith. Writers: Clinton Smith and Peter Buckmeister.
Sydney, on the brink of the new millennium. The city is intense, sophisticated, hard-edged and relentless. Deep within the inner city twelve young lives interweave and ricochet off each other as they seek escape routes over the course of one sweltering weekend. Hyper-real and glam, hip-hop, trip-hop, pop rock, brimming with the sub-cultures of a dense metropolis, the world of Sample People takes an entire city to unfold.

My wife left after ten minutes of this one. Wish I had done the same. A lot more left along the way but I managed to stay to the end. Do I get a medal? Were we really supposed to care about these people? Am I supposed to be interested in these charmless no hopers? At one point one of the characters asked, “What’s going on?” and an audience member said, “I wish I knew.”

Verdict: How do they get the money?????

Sensitive New Age Killer: Director: Mark Savage. Writers: Mark Savage and David Richardson.
Paul Morris (Paul Moder) is your average struggling family man; except for one difference...he's a hitman. Down on his luck lately Paul dreams of the one big job that will set his family up financially and gain him the respect of his peers. Paul looks at life through rose coloured glasses and after misconstruing the motivations of his childhood hero "The Snake", a legendary hitman (Frank Breen), he has also embarked on a crusading career as a hitman...except he only kills bad guys. Caught in a bizarre love quadrangle, Paul is comically handicapped not only by his principles but by a neurotic partner (Kevin Hopkins) who is trying to get him killed, and a female cop (Caroline Bock) who is blackmailing him for sex once a week.

Probably the worst thing about this one is the fact that with a slightly different approach it could have worked really well. As it is, it frustrates. When it is good it is good, but there are some very awkward and tacky moments. There is a gunfight sequence however that is so long and ridiculous that it becomes very funny. Lost count of how many shots were fired but the guns must have had 500 bullets each. The crew obviously had a great time making this one, but not all of the fun makes it onto the screen. I had a small role in the first 15 minutes, but it survives that.

Verdict: Low budget shoot ‘em up.

Selkie: Director: Donald Crombie. Writer: Rob George.
Selkie is about a 16 year old boy (Shimon Moore) who, on reaching adolescence, discovers that as well as the usual hairy, spotty and relationship problems he has to deal with, he has an additional handicap - he turns into a seal every time he goes into water. He's the inheritor of an ancient Celtic gene.

 Basically a kids or young adolescent’s movie with nice production values and high moral values, I thought the overall story needed a more thorough final draft as some of the dialogue really clunked. A pity because this had the possibility of being a lot of fun. Unfortunately some of the performances were not as believable as they need to be on film.

Verdict: Not a tight enough seal.

The Wog Boy: Director: Aleksi Vellis. Writer: Nick Giannopoulos and Chris Anastassiades.
Steve (Nick Giannopoulos) liked Celia (Lucy Bell) from the moment they met. But following a clash with her boss, Raelene Beagle-Thorpe, Minister for Employment (Geraldine Turner), he finds himself on national television, branded Australia's biggest dole bludger. (Someone who lives welfare.) Now Steve has to prove to Celia, to himself and to the whole country, that there's more to him than meets the eye. And with a little help from his friends, he might just do it. As long as he can keep his best friend Frank (Vince Colosimo) away from Annie (Abi Tucker), Celia's little sister...and protect Frank's cousin Dom, from Tony, the insane local crime lord to whom Dom owes money.... and prevent Theo, an enterprising neighbour, from throwing himself in front of a car to collect the insurance ...and stop Frank's dad Mario from sustaining injury while he tries to body slam pizza dough. Mate, there's just got to be an easier way to meet chicks.

About 15 years ago a group of Melbourne performers wrote and performed a show called “Wogs Out of Work” in which they celebrated their ethnic backgrounds and the fact that in this strikingly multicultural city they were first and foremost Australians. They were rebelling against being always cast as “wogs.” An Italian would be cast as Greek, Italian, Spanish, Yugoslav or any number of nationalities, but never as an Aussie. They were born here, raised here, schooled here, but they felt they didn’t belong in the TV, theatre or film industry unless they put on a funny accent. They wrote their own show and it was a huge hit around the country. A TV series followed, and now the film celebrates another milestone in Giannopoulos’s career. Intensely likeable and personable, he makes this movie such fun to watch. We have the bad guys in the government who try to pigeonhole him, to boo, and we cheer him and his mates as they make monkeys of the bureaucrats and get the girls.

Verdict: Wogs working very hard.

Film News: Six Australian films have been accepted into the London Film Festival that screens from 1-16 November 2000. 'The Dish' by Rob Sitch (Haven’t seen it as yet, but reliably informed its a beauty.) 'Better Than Sex' by Jonathan Teplitzky (See last month’s review.)'The Goddess of 1967' by Clara Law (Also not seen but sounds good too.)

Documentary -  'The Diplomat' by Tom Zubrycki, Shorts- 'Stop' by Anthony Mullins 'Triple Word Score' by Armagan Ballantyne

Theatre:

2 Pianos 4 Hands: Written by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt. Directed by Ted Dykstra. Starring Edward Simpson and Jonathan Gavin. The Comedy Theatre Melbourne.

This show started life in Canada and after playing to sell out seasons also had a life in the States and it is no wonder. A joyous and sometimes painful journey into the world of piano music and the lives and struggles of two aspiring pianists. The journey starts with their first fumbling scales and leads us through fascistic teachers and parents who can’t make up their minds whether these kids practise too much, or not enough, and on through exams, competitions, and practice. The musical treats include classics such as Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Billy Joel and Elton John. For the performers it is a workout of the highest order. Not only requiring virtuoso piano skills, but also multi character work as actors. No costume or makeup changes to aid their transformations, they rely on their skill as actors. And both of these performers have skill in bundles.

Funny, poignant, and thought provoking, it asks the question of us all, have we used our talents and skills to the greater good, or have we wasted what we were given. At the end of last night’s performance, the performers thanked the audience for coming out on a night when 3.5 Billion people around the world were glued to their TV sets watching the opening of the Sydney Olympics. Personally, I got to watch the opening on tape, and that’s another story, but I was glad I saw 2 Pianos 4 hands.

Verdict: 2 Pianos 2 Brilliant Performances.

The Foibles: Directed by Denis Moore. Writer: Barry Dickins.

Performed by Jim Alexander and Faye Bendrups.

You are in a cheap Irish Catholic pub with dangerous company and the only way out is to laugh at life’s foibles.

Barry Dickins is a Melbourne institution; his humour seems to embody the soul of his city’s people. We laugh at things in his work that might seem hurtful or obscene from another, but we know that his heart is pure and that there will be a point to his cruelty. Others don’t always get it, but we do. I guess we feel that he is our voice, our naughty boy.

Faye Bendrups as M.C. and pianist and singer starts the evening brightly coloured, in pink and orange and green and with the music she has deftly scored to Barry’s words, she guides us through the evening.

Jim Daly plays a number of characters, each broadly but carefully drawn, and deftly weaves his way through the minefield of Dickin’s words. We first see him as a guide who tells us of our foibles and those of the characters we are about to meet. Stan the paranoid hitman who may have just murdered three policemen is the first. Did he…or didn’t he. Even he doesn’t know. Nervous and paranoid he utters lines like: “ I hate this pub. They won’t even serve you if you haven’t murdered someone.”

Then Henri LaGrope a French chef cooking soufflé, except he is not really French, just pretending. The Family man who tells us of his mundane life, while he gets ever more agitated.

At interval we were treated to Guinness and Irish stew, and in the second half we met Arthur Psycho, a Homophobic, xenophobe based on a well known sporting identity here in Australia. He is awful. Just appalling, but we laugh at his racism and the homophobic jibes till he leads us to The Anglican Priest, even more homophobic than Arthur, and a seriously disturbed being.

My Favourite character though came in the form of Brian Shakespeare, Will’s younger brother. Green with envy and seething with loathing for his brother, he tells us how he wrote Romeo and Juliet, Will just wrote the words. He is a bit player in the company, and plays the bear in various plays. The Guide wraps it all up at the end, and we realize through these people that we have many of the same foibles that we have been shocked and disgusted at in others.

Denis Moore’s direction is superb and uses the space at Chapel Off Chapel very well indeed.

Verdict: An evening of calm hysteria.

Two Beats in a Bar: With Judith Roberts and Charmaine Gorman. Directed by Kate Gorman.

With Kevin Hocking at the piano. At Capers Cabaret.

A Family affair this one, and what a family. Judith Roberts has been entertaining Aussie audiences in musicals and on TV, stage and film for 39 years. Charmaine and Kate are her two daughters and just for an understanding of this family, Dad (Reg Gorman) is an actor and brother Karl a fight choreographer and performer. The show is loosely based around relationships, mother to daughter, daughter to boys and men and both to music. It is a great excuse to do a few songs and very funny sketches, all performed with great love and energy. Judith was senior lecturer in Dance and movement at a local performing arts academy until recently and many of her students were in the audience to cheer and come to an understanding of what she has been teaching for 3 years. Seeing her do it, as one student said to me, it all makes sense. They sing, dance and play with each other with such joy, that the entire audience was grinning from ear to ear. From tap to soft shoe, from Sondheim to Willy Russell, these two are consummate performers.

Verdict: Doesn’t quaver for a moment.

© 2000 Don Bridges ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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