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'Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu' Out February 10
The new Indian comedy EK MAIN AUR EKK TU opens on 10th February. Starring: Kareena Kapoor, Imran Khan, Randhir Kapoor, Boman Irani, Ram Kapoor, Ratna Pathak Shah Directed By: Shakun Batra Synopsis: 'Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu' is a witty, feel-good, slice-of-life comedy....
Over The Fence Comedy Film Deadline
(Nationwide)
Rottofest 2012: Call For Entries Now Open!
(Nationwide)
Australia’s Silent Film Festival To Present Restored Silent Classics
Darlinghurst(NSW)
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James Cameron Loses Long Time Australian Collaborators
Producer Andrew Wight and cinematographer Mike deGruy lose their lives in a helicopter crash.
Tropfest Finalists Announced For 2012
Fifteen filmmakers have been shortlisted for the country’s biggest short film festival...
Inaugural AACTA Award Winners Announced
'Red Dog', 'Snowtown' and 'The Slap' proved the big winners of the night.
Aussie Films at the Box Office in 2011
See how our host of local flicks fared at the box office last year...
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Brand New Day, Get It?
Have you heard the one about boys having sexual dreams about Na'vi girls?
Bran Nue Dae is a new, big Australian film and I can't wait to see how it's received by local audiences. I suspect that the same people who embraced the fairly poorly-reviewed Charlie and Boots, are going to get on board and celebrate the brand new day.
It's a cute little film enjoying a lot of cut-through because of some inspired casting. Jessica Mauboy, in real-life a charming, sweet and hard-working country girl, is perfectly cast as the love interest from Broome, WA - a charming, sweet country girl who, like Jessica, is also a pretty talented singer. With up-and-coming singer/songwriter Dan Sultan cast as the bad-boy in the love triangle, the main actor, unknown Rocky McKenzie, has a tough job convincing us that Jessica Mauboy would choose McKenzie's Willie over Dan Sultan's far more attractive and adult Lester. I know who I'd prefer to having strumming on my guitar!
Besides the limited range of the main actor and the passiveness of his character, a few other things imbalance the film. An extended cameo by another singer/songwriter (the far better-known), Missy Higgins is distracting - she's too radiant and working too hard on being likeable for us to ever believe she's someone else, and Geoffrey Rush as Father Benedictus proves that sometimes the Christmas ham really does go off.
Overall though, the effect is positive, and audiences are pretty much guaranteed to leave the cinema smiling. It's old-fashioned filmmaking, and the result is a film you could take your mum, grandma, and children to see.
(Not like Avatar! - If you're around school-age children you may have heard of a syndrome going around called ‘Pandorum' where kids who mightn't have been allowed in to see Avatar alone but were escorted by their parents or friends, are being disturbed by nightly dreams of large greenie-blue alien beings. And older boys are reporting having sexual dreams about Na'vi girls. No joke!)
Over on the far more serious side of filmmaking is the new Clint Eastwood adventure Invictus. The film follows the classic sports movie formula - underdog team faces insurmountable odds but must use extensive montage sequences to train and overcome their issues of self-worth to triumph on and off the field. Only this time the hurdle they must overcome is South Africa's history of apartheid and racial oppression. And this time the guy giving the pep talks is Nelson Mandela! Genius. It's a genius idea, put together brilliantly by gentleman director Clint Eastwood, who proves once and for all that he's not shy of a little slow-mo in key action sequences.
I love Clint and won't hear a bad word about him but the real revelation here is Matt Damon, who looks like he was born to play the part of Springboks team captain, Francois Pienaar. Their physical similarities are remarkable and Matt finally loses that preppy white-boy naffness he's carried through all his roles, and looks, at last, like a man.
Manhood and fatherhood are very much at the forefront of the The Road, which is out January 28. The highly acclaimed novel on which the film is based was written by Cormac McCarthy, the same guy who wrote No Country For Old Men - and I recommend you try to read the book before seeing the film. Both texts offer no explanation as to how the world has reached such a diabolical state of breakdown but in the book one feels a certain acceptance of this post-apocalyptic world. Unprepared viewers of the film may find themselves waiting for an inevitable denouement where everything is explained and happiness arrives. Oops. Fans of the novel will be pleased to hear that the film is very faithful to the book and actor Viggo Mortensen is wonderfully heartbreaking as the father.