TERMINATOR: GENISYS - film

The latest installment in the Terminator series of films (number 5) is what I imagine the previous installments are. That's right, I haven't seen them. Well, I think I might have seen Terminator 2, or at least some of it... if you're getting the impression this isn't exactly my genre, you'd be right.

So here's what I reckon. 

I was pretty confused by this film. I wonder if it would have helped to see the previous installments but I can't be sure. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but I thought I wouldn't at all so the bar couldn't have been any lower really.

Arnie features but as someone who's more into politics than Terminator movies, I found it very hard to process him as something other than a Governor. At a stretch, I can just picture him as a kindergarten teacher (or 'cop', if you like) saying "It's not a tumor".

I think if you've enjoyed the previous Terminator flicks you should consider seeing this. I'm not saying you'll enjoy it, I'm just saying you're the only hope this film has. I think if you haven't seen them or didn't enjoy them you should definitely give it a miss.

If you're considering it and want to know more, check out this one star review in The Guardian and this three star review in Rolling Stone magazine. (Three stars is as good as it gets, as far as I can tell.)

Trailer here.

INSIDE OUT - film

The latest animated flick from the Pixar crew, this one doesn't disappoint.

11 year old Riley moves to a new town with her parents and the main characters in the film are the feelings in Riley's subconscious as she deals with the move; Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust and Fear. Amy Poehler is the voice of their ringleader Joy and just bring so much, well, joy to the role.

As you could imagine, when an 11 year old moves to a new town it's not all smooth sailing. Sadness especially keeps creeping in and even Joy struggles to maintain the joy sometimes. I confess I shed a few tears. It's just lovely.

I think kids will love this and the parents who go with them will like it too. Like I said, not all joy, but the 'lessons', if you could call them that, aren't phoney or lame, just real-world emotion processing going on.

It's getting rave reviews and I can only add my voice to the chorus. Paul Byrnes from Sydney Morning Herald says in his review that it's an "astonishingly good movie, not just a great animation".

Trailer here.

ALOHA - film

It's not a good sign when a film director is getting publicity for apologising for his film. Oh dear, Cameron Crowe.

He says it's "misunderstood", I say it's "crap".

It's pretty hard to get past the fact that Emma Stone (above left) who is very much not either Hawaiian or Chinese plays a woman who is supposedly a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Chinese. And it's actually part of the story. She talks about that heritage. It's ridiculous, you guys.

I thought about how to explain the convoluted plot to you in a 'cut to the chase' style but you know what, given my message is to stay well away from this one, I'm not going to bother.

Just take my word for it and give it a miss. Happily I didn't have to pay to see it but if I'd dropped down a lobster to see this I'd be disappointed, to put it mildly.

The one saving grace for me personally is that it also stars Bradley Cooper who has the most beautiful face I have EVER seen. I could stare at him for days.

If you want to read more about the film check out this review in Variety. To give you the flavour of it, it opens with "Unbalanced, unwieldy, and at times nearly unintelligible..."

If you want to read about Cameron Crowe's defence of the film, check out this Fairfax article.

Trailer here.

ENTOURAGE - film

A spin-off from a the very popular TV show of the same name, this film follows movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his 'entourage' made up of hopeless and not-nearly-as-attractive-as-Vince brother Drama and childhood friends E and Turtle.

This film has had some pretty stinking reviews so I went in with fairly low expectations. They were exceeded! I laughed a lot mainly thanks to the cutting humour of Vince's one time manager, now movie studio head, Ari Gold played by Jeremy Piven.

If you enjoyed the TV show, I reckon this will give you what you want in the main. It's still Vince, E, Drama and Turtle being the same old guys kicking around Hollywood trying to make it big. In the film, Vince is having his first run as a film director which plays out fairly predictably but not in an unpleasant way.

My only significant criticism of it is that I HATED the ending. I don't want to spoil it but I will say this - you can't spend eight seasons of a TV show making us believe a character is a complete loser and then expect us to suddenly believe he's a winner.

Two star review from the Sydney Morning Herald here if you want to hear what a proper critic thinks and/or know more about the story.

Trailer here.

PARTISAN - film

You know those films where it's really well done, it make you think and the performances are excellent and yet watching it made you feel all blergh? This is one of those.

Now, that can be a good thing. If your taste skews towards arthouse films and you don't mind watching something pretty challenging, I think you'll like this. However if you're someone who goes to the movies once or twice a year for a bit of light escapism, this is definitely not for you.

This is an Australian-made film with a Melburnian directing (Ariel Kleiman) but I doubt you'd guess that if you saw it not knowing. 

Set somewhere in war-ravaged Eastern Europe, it's the story of Gregori (Vincent Cassel), who is basically a creepy cult leader, and his mission to recruits kids and train them to become assassins. It's the kind of plot which, in the wrong hands, could go very wrong but it's handled delicately by Kleiman.

I wonder if Kleiman wrote it off as part of the mystery as to where this film is set but I did find it a bit jolting when the accents didn't seem to add up. For example, at least one of the kids had a pretty clear Australian accent and hearing it really distracted me and jolted me out of the story.

Australian critics are divided. Two stars here from Fairfax and four stars here from News Ltd.

Trailer here.

A ROYAL NIGHT OUT - film

A fictional-but-apparently-based-on-a-handful-of-actual-facts account of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret hitting the town in London incognito during the Victory in Europe celebrations in 1945, this film is charming.

It's not going to win any awards for being groundbreaking but it's fun and lovely to watch. 

There's not a lot of reviews around to direct you to as it's only just released overseas. Coincidence that it coincides with the birth of Princess Charlotte? I think not! But ok, ok, it's actually more about the timing of the anniversary of VE day - 8 May.


Regular readers of this blog will know I'm not a fan of long films. 90-100 minutes is optimum, I say! This one comes in at 98 minutes, the perfect length for an inoffensive and fun flick like this.

Here is one review though from 'Screen Daily' if you want to read more about the story etc.

Trailer here.
 

PITCH PERFECT 2 - film

This film is damn good fun. If you liked the original Pitch Perfect, definitely get along to this one for more laughs.

The makers of this film know their audience and give them what they want. It helps to have seen the first film but this does stand alone just fine.

I laughed a lot, with Rebel Wilson's character 'Fat Amy' getting the lion's share of the gags. She delivers time and time again in this.

Trailer here.

And if you're not familiar with the Pitch Perfect phenomenon & want to know more, read up on it here.

THE AGE OF ADALINE - film

If I explained the implausible storyline of this film to you, I know with absolute certainty you'd say 'that's so dumb' so I'm not going to bother. 

Just know it somehow stars talented actors like Ellen Burstyn and Harrison Ford and yet it induced derisive laughs from the group I watched it with. Actual laughs, guys. And not in a good way.

If you are interested in how silly the story line is, I will break it down for you below.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERTS TO FOLLOW DO NOT SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED.

Woman (Blake Lively) with 6 year old child is in car accident.
Car accident causes woman to become 'ageless' meaning she will be 29 years old forever.
Woman moves towns and changes names regularly so as to not arouse suspicion.
Her child ages normally and grows into elderly wise woman with a 29 year old mother.
Elderly daughter convinces 29 year old mother to 'stop running' and find love.
29 year old mother meets a guy & falls in love.
29 year old mother meets said guy's parents.
Said guy's father recognises her as the love of his life from back when they were both young.
WHAT A COINCIDENCE, GUYS!
Said guy's father tries to make her come clean.
She runs away.
She has a car accident while running away.
Boyfriend finds her in car wreck.
At hospital, she wakes up and explains implausible situation to boyfriend BECAUSE SHE'S IN LOVE AND CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.
She discovers the car accident somehow fixed the ageless problem.
YOU GUYS!
They live happily ever after.

Trailer here.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

A quick look at the small list of comedians I've seen at the festival this year, if you're looking for a recommendation...

Brilliant/ loads of laughs / highly recommend:
Judith Lucy
Rhys Nicholson

Great / worth a look:
Justin Hamilton
Joel Creasey

Good potential / room for improvement / up & comers who will probably be on TV & radio in 5-10 years:
Dilruk Jayasinha
Becky Lucas (This show was only 40 minutes long & had a strangely abrupt ending & sombre tone.)

I found hilarious but suspect it's an acquired taste:
Karl Chandler

MANNY LEWIS - film

Oh boy.

It's usually actually a bit fun to blog about a film that's terrible but to be honest, it always hurts a little to do it to an Australian film.

This film is Australian. And it's pretty terrible.

Written by and starring comedian Carl Barron, you'd think there'd be a bunch of laughs but sadly, there's not much of that.

It's meant to be a "feel-good quest for love" for Barron's Manny Lewis but the character spends the vast majority of the film being depressed and you know what it's like to watch a film where the lead character is depressed? Depressing. And not very funny.

I'd tell you to give this a miss but I suspect this is the first you will have heard of it and given there was only four people in the session I was in on the weekend and it only came out a week ago, it'll be gone before you'd even thought seriously about seeing it. Another sad day for the Australian film industry.

If this film is in any way biographical, I think Barron ought to see a therapist instead of making a film next time he feels the urge.

Never one to mince words, News Ltd's Leigh Paatsch called it "one of the most truly terrible Australian films in living memory". 

Trailer here.

'71 - film

This is a drama about a British soldier caught behind enemy lines in Belfast in 1971, during what's known as 'the troubles' - the violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

The film is fantastic. The tension is just so real, I could feel it physically in my body as it built. The soldier is accidentally left behind by his unit when they're caught up in a riot and the story follows his dramatic attempt to escape to safety.

Highly recommend this one and for what it's worth, it doesn't skew particularly to either gender - a general crowd pleaser I think.

For more on the story, check out this four star review in The Guardian.

Trailer here.

TOP FIVE - film

I wanted to love this. I really did. A comedy written and directed by a world-famous comedian should be amazing, right?! (I'd also read this rave review in the LA Times so went in with really high expectations which seldom works out well...)

Alas, this film from Chris Rock, also starring Chris Rock, is a liked-but-not-loved kind of scenario for me.

He plays stand-up comedian Andre Allen in this film and Andre is trying to break the mould he finds himself in after appearing as Hammy the bear in a trilogy of action comedy movies. He's also in a loveless relationship with a reality TV star - think Kardashian.

It's hard to escape the fact that the storyline is just so predictable. I did laugh a bit (the scenes where Andre goes back to hang out with his family who don't cop his 'rich & famous guy' thing are very funny and Chris Rock/Andre Allen doing stand-up was also great) but nowhere near as much as I hoped I would in a film from someone with this comedy pedigree.

In the interests of fairness though, I present this very positive review in Rolling Stone magazine, also good if you'd like to read more on the story.

Here's the trailer.

SEVENTH SON - film

I'll declare from the outset that fantasy films aren't really my taste so Seventh Son, an 'epic fantasy' was always going to struggle to please me.

But to my mind even if you like fantasy, you won't like this pile of excrement. Honestly, I just found it a total bore.

It stars Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore so I guess I hoped that even though it wasn't really my genre that it would still be ok. I mean, Julianne Moore just won the Oscar for best actress for crying out loud! Alas, she is let down by a terrible script. And as for Jeff Bridges, his character speaks like he has a mouth full of marbles, with an affectation fit for a leading man in a suburban theatre company Shakespeare production. (The kind of guy who can't quite work out why he isn't starring opposite Cate Blanchett in an Melbourne Theatre Company production... you know the type.)

Anyway, give this one a wide berth I reckon. DVD/digital at home, at best.

This review of it in Variety is pretty funny, if you're interested in reading more about the story and what a proper critic thinks. (eg. "Here, it’s downright uncomfortable to watch an actor as good as Bridges fumbling lame one-liners")

Trailer here.

PROJECT ALMANAC - film

 Knew nothing about this film when I walked in and quickly realised we would not get along.

Hand. Held. Camera.

I am a very light touch when it comes to motion sickness so this was a disaster for me. I really tried hard to stick it out FOR YOU GUYS. SEE WHAT I DO FOR YOU!?

But at the 50 minute mark, my stomach could take it no longer and I had to swiftly dash out the cinema. You can guess the rest, though I wouldn't recommend it.

The last time this happened to me was with the film Kenny. Urgh.

For what it's worth, the film is about three high school nerds, a cute sister and a hot popular girl from school who manage to invent a way to time travel. But (surprise!) they don't think through all the consequences of this. I wish I could tell you how that aspect of the film unfolds but I didn't return after my aforementioned exit. What I did get through I wasn't particularly impressed by, so if you're willing to take the word of someone who only got through 50 minutes of a movie, I'd say give this a miss.

Here's a two star review in the UK Telegraph for you if you want the full picture, more on the story etc. And trailer here.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY - film

This film is based on the international best-selling book 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by author E.L James. (Note that I haven't read the book so this is just a regular film blog to me.)

If you've been living under a rock you might not know that the book is famous for some pretty raunchy s&m sex between main characters Christian Grey (young rich 'business man') and Anastasia Steele (young innocent English Lit student).

In the film adaptation we have Jamie Dornan as Christian and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia. Anastasia meets Christian and he gradually tries to compel her get involved in his s&m world. Both give an ok performance in a film I found to be total rubbish. 

Honestly, it was just tedious. Some of the dialogue, I gather taken directly from the book, just made me wonder how on earth it was so popular.

For example (FRUITY LANGUAGE WARNING):

Anastasia to Christian: "Are you going to make love to me now?"
Christian: "I don't make love, I fuck. Hard."

I actually heard someone in the cinema mutter "Oh please" at that bit.

OK that was me who muttered that.

The film is attracting some controversy as to whether it glamorizes domestic violence. Obviously that's not something that can be examined within the confines of my short 'cut to the chase' style, but if you do want to read more about that, try this article.

But quite apart from any of that, I think this is just a really ordinary film and I'd be disappointed if I'd paid $20 to see it. If you're looking for titillation it would be way too soft for you (it's not even R-rated, it's MA 15+) and if you're not into that you'd probably have no interest in the film anyway.


Fairfax film critic Phillipa Hawker didn't hate it as much as me, for the record. Here's her 3 star review if you're interested in that perspective and more on the story. The Today Show's Lisa Wilkinson hated it and gave it a big ol' serve on her show, which you can watch here.

Trailer here.

THE GAMBLER - film

Imagine a friend is a gambling addict and you have to watch them dig themselves deeper and deeper into debt and crisis, making bad decision after bad decision. That would be pretty awful to watch, wouldn't it?

Welcome to The Gambler.

Mark Wahlberg is our gambler and I never really became invested in him and his plight, nor the mediocre mini love story in this.

All in all, it was just pretty *meh* and definitely not worth laying down a lobster (and then some) to see at the cinema.

The one thing I did enjoy though is John Goodman as one of the blokes owed money. I'd forgotten how great that guy is. 

(Side note: thumbs down to any film maker who makes Mark Wahlberg look as unattractive as he does in this.)

Trailer here.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING - film

This is the story of famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's life, based on a memoir by his ex-wife Jane. Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and went on to defy expectation and make amazing discoveries in physics. (That's my layman's take on it but I'm not a a physicist so leave me alone, ok?!)


As you would imagine, the role of Hawking is challenging to play but actor Eddie Redmayne is amazing. He won the Best Actor Golden Globe and may well go on to win the Oscar also.

I personally found this film pleasant enough viewing but not amazing. Redmayne's performance aside, my friend I agreed that it was a bit dull. If the opportunity arises, sure, watch away, but I can't say I'd suggest rushing out for it. Especially during award season when the market is flooded with great films.

For more on the story, check out this three star review in The Telegraph (UK). Three stars sits about right with me - good but not great.

Trailer here.

WILD - film

 Reese Witherspoon takes the lead in this film based on a true story - Cheryl Strayed's account of her 1770 kilometer trek through American desert in 1995.

We jump from now, when she's actually trekking, to moments in the past that explain why she came to be on such a significant journey. Much of it goes back to the death of her 45 year old mother played by Laura Dern and where her grief takes her. (Hint - it ain't pretty.)

Witherspoon is nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for this film which speaks volumes. This is a huge role (she's in almost every scene) that really carries the entire film and she is excellent in it.

At first as we watched this young woman, so inadequately prepared for such a huge physical challenge, walking through the desert I was taken back to the Australian film Tracks in which Mia Wasikowska plays a woman trekking through the desert with a camel. Despite the critical acclaim I found that film a giant snooze fest so I was worried this would follow in a similar vein but there's plenty of action outside of the desert challenges to keep this one interesting.

This positive review in the LA Times captures it nicely, if you're keen to read more.

Trailer here.

STILL ALICE - film

In this film, Julianne Moore plays a 50 year old academic diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease. She is brilliant in it and deservedly just won the Best Actress Golden Globe and is a got chance of winning the Oscar for same.

Her experience of the disease taking hold is a journey she goes on with her husband, played by Alec Baldwin, and her children, played by Kristen Stewart (who does sullen predictably well), Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish.

This film is spectacularly beautiful and I would highly recommend it but be prepared for an emotional experience. You will need tissues!

For more read this four star review from The Guardian... "An effortlessly excellent film about a difficult subject."

Trailer here.

ST VINCENT - film

Loved this! Bill Murray at his blistering best as grumpy, wacky old Vincent, neighbour to Melissa McCarthy's Maggie and her son Oliver.

Maggie and Oliver are new to the neighbourhood and circumstances see Vincent become unlikely babysitter to Oliver. Not surprisingly it's far from a usual babysitting arrangement but the two characters develop a lovely connection and get into a bit of mischief.

There's also more to it including a role for Naomi Watts (for which she was expected by some to get a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination but was 'snubbed') but you don't need the details, just go and see it!

Highly recommend this one.

Here's a positive review (surprisingly only matched with 3.5 stars) from News Ltd's Leigh Paatsch if you want more and here's a trailer.