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QPIX STUDENTS ARE TROPFEST FINALISTS
Graduates of QPIX’s 2011 Diploma of Production course have won their way into the finals of TROPFEST, the world’s largest short film festival, with their student production PHOTOBOOTH. Set in the Afghanistan conflict, PHOTOBOOTH is one of a sequence of...
'Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu' Out February 10
(Nationwide)
Over The Fence Comedy Film Deadline
(Nationwide)
Rottofest 2012: Call For Entries Now Open!
(Nationwide)
latest news
Geoffrey Rush Joins Tropfest
The acclaimed actor and newly-crowned Australian of the Year, Geoffrey Rush, will be a key player in 2012’s Tropfest activities.
Naomi Watts To Play Princess Diana
The Aussie actress is set to play the people’s princess in an upcoming film that chronicles the final two years of Diana’s life.
Sullivan Stapleton Signs On To ‘300’ Prequel
The Aussie actor has beat out the competition to land a role in the upcoming blockbuster.
James Cameron Loses Long Time Australian Collaborators
Producer Andrew Wight and cinematographer Mike deGruy lose their lives in a helicopter crash.
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Audi Festival of German Films: Men Behaving Badly
A rom-com for guys?! Only at the Audi Festival of German Films
Right from its title, you can tell Simon Verhoeven's Men in the City is trying to do for guys what Sex and the City did for girls. Both are packed with the stereotypes that men and women apparently see in each other.
The interconnected storyline follows a group of thirtysomething males who all attend the same gym: the commitment-phobe, the awkward, lonely loser who surfs the Internet for dates, the high-strung guy with anger management issues (the one character who is rarely played for laughs and is really too intense for something this light), the guy contemplating fatherhood and responsibility, and the womanising bachelor who starts to wonder if there's more to life than partying and chasing skirts - and he obviously had to be played by walking GQ cover Til Schweiger.
If Verhoeven wanted to give insight into the male psyche, however, he failed; where we would naturally expect a raunchy laugh-fest with T&A (it is, after all, about guys), we get the typical comedy formula. But you have to give it credit for upholding Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I. as a symbol of manliness. If you want to pick up girls easily, then there's some sound advice: "Be Magnum".
Oddly enough, this movie looks and feels like a romantic comedy or a chick flick - only all the main characters are male. This accounts for the cheesy, out-of-place dramatic moments complete with overbearing, tug-at-your-heartstrings score, presented with all the subtlety of a slap in the face; and for its happily ever after multiple endings, where everyone ends up with everything they wish for; only in the movies. The show is ultimately stolen by an over-the-top, eccentric pop singer, particularly during his hilarious ‘We Are the World' style music video; it's worth sitting through the end credits for this one. The character is clearly modelled on Bill Nighy in the British romcom Love Actually, and in its own weird way, it's the film this one will most remind you of.
Men in the City does nothing new with the comedy genre, and most of its situations are clichéd and obvious, but it still has solid laughs and that's all you could ask from a movie like this: a painless and crowd-pleasing time at the movies.
The Audi Festival of German Films is held at Melbourne's Kino Cinemas and Palace Cinema Como, from 22 April to 02 May, with additional dates in Adelaide (07-09 May), Brisbane (28 April - 04 May), Perth (22-26 April) and Sydney (21 April - 02 May).