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AFTRS Opens its Doors on Open Day
Australia’s premier film, television and radio school is set to hold its opening days in Sydney and Melbourne over the coming days...
Working for Change
We speak to award-winning Aussie filmmaker, Genevieve Clay, about her role in the first ever Live & Love Short Film Competition.
Different Focus
The Focus on Ability Festival recently wrapped for its second year and we spoke to the festival’s founder and this year’s winner.
Kick Starting Talent
M2 Entertainment (M2E) has relaunched as a film finance and production company which aims to nurture emerging and established talent.
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Hurt’s So Good
Bad child acting In Percy Jackson and possibly the first female to take out the Best Director Oscar?
I knew that young actor Logan Lerman would be more than just a one-off when he gave a luminous performance as Christian Bale's son in 3:10 to Yuma. In that film, directed by James Mangold, he was the trophy in the battle between Bale's flawed and cowardly good guy Dan Evans and Russell Crowe's genuinely badass but charismatic Ben Wade.
All grown up now (he just turned 18) he's the leading man in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, a new fantasy film from a guy who knows a lot about making family-friendly entertainment, Chris Columbus (Harry Potter 1 & 2).
Any teenage male hottie with a thick head of fashionably-cut dark hair and blue eyes is going to attract comparisons to Zac Efron but I'm afraid Percy Jackson reminded me far more of my colleague Lisa Hensley's review of the last Narnia movie. She said, "Three words: Bad. Child. Acting." There's a fair bit of that with Lerman's wide-eyed disbelief getting harder to believe and his heroic sword-wielding made me wonder why Taylor Lautner's trainer wasn't available that day? No matter: His female offsider Alexandra Daddario, as Annabeth, will make you long for Megan Fox who at least is consistently awful.
I think the lesson in this is that directing children isn't easy and James Mangold won the contest. Other people rated this movie but it was all a bit Flash Gordon for my liking.
Six months ago The Hurt Locker was going to go straight to DVD in this country, much to the dismay of critics who'd been lucky enough to check in with advance screenings. Fortunately, a whole lotta industrial-strength hype has built up around the film courtesy of several Oscar nominations and now it's getting a cinema release and is being reviewed with gushing praise. It's thrilling to see quiet-achieving director Kathryn Bigelow finally attracting glory and she stands a good chance of being the first female to ever win the Best Director Oscar.
Kathryn Bigelow Top 5
5. James Cameron (1989 - 1991)
Okay, so he's not a film but the fact that she used to be married to the world's most successful director means she must have a tolerance for bull, and that would be primo training for dealing with Hollywood and its actors.
4. Near Dark (1987)
A vampire movie starring Adrian Pasdar, who was the Gael Garcia Benal we had before Gael Garcia Bernal came along.
3. Strange Days (1995)
Okay, you thought Tom Sizemore was a deviant and Ralph Fiennes was a louche? Here's proof.
2. Blue Steel (1989)
Revolutionary in its time for its portrayal of tough women, starring Jamie Lee Curtis as a cop in peril from a stalker. Bitchin'.
1. Point Break (1991)
Keanu Reeves [as Johnny Utah]: "You're saying the FBI's gonna pay me to learn how to surf?" Genius, and the first movie I ever paid to see twice at the cinema.