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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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I Wish I Had a Surrogate
Yumi Stynes checks out the latest releases and discusses why she'd like a robot to take over her life and why she doesn't feel a need to head to Couples Retreat.
In the Couples Retreat universe all the women are extremely fit, and work hard on their physical appearances and all the men are jowly, sour and overweight. Whoooo-hoo! I can't wait to grow up and head to that couples retreat!
This strange new comedy is relatively light on laughs, and in spite of a stand-out cast of accomplished actor-comedians, trawling through the length of this film is an ordeal that could send a couple into therapy.
Vince Vaughn is with Malin Akerman, John Favreau is ‘married' to Sex and the City's Kristin Davis, and they're all dragged to an idyllic couples retreat by their friends, a self-satisfied white couple made up of Jason Bateman and Kristin Bell. Does anyone care as they sit around and discuss their relationship problems? I don't. As Jason Bateman said when I interviewed him last week for MAX, "It's a short film. It's not too long."
Couples Retreat did do some good though. It reminded me of my long-standing love for Jason Bateman, a man whose mid-life career resurrection has only been rivalled by John Travolta's and maybe Mickey Rourke's (Mickey Rourke needs to do one other good film besides The Wrestler for it to truly be a resurrection, otherwise by definition it's just a fluke).
Bateman enjoyed a career resurrection after a decade in the wilderness when his TV show Arrested Development became a cult hit and lasted three seasons.
Top 5 Most Excellent Jason Bateman Characters:
1. Michael Bluth - Arrested Development.
Michael Bluth was the straight man struggling to keep it together as his conniving and crazy family bicker and try to sleep with each other. Incest never looked so appealing as celebrity lesbian Portia de Rossi plays his sizzling hot sister, and in one episode Jason's real-life sister Justine Bateman plays his potential lover.
2. The Doctor - The Invention of Lying (in cinemas November 26)
This movie is just about to come out and stars Ricky Gervais as the only man on earth who can lie. In a brief but awesome cameo, Jason Bateman plays the Doctor and uses his amazing face to silently convey repressed thoughts, a technique he perfected in Arrested Development.
3. Rip Reed - Smokin' Aces
This Joe Carnahan crime comedy should've been a lot bigger than it was if for no other reason than Joel Edgerton's hilarious portrayal of a luggish henchman and Jason Bateman's film-stealing cameo as a degenerate boozy loser stuck in a hotel room in his underwear.
4. Dominic Foy - State of Play
A pretty forgettable thriller starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck was made slightly palatable for the few short minutes Bateman appeared as an effete and treacherous hustler Dominic Foy.
5. Mark Loring - Juno
Okay, so Mark Loring is not an excellent guy, but Bateman gives excellent characterisation as the potential adoptive father of Juno's unborn baby who spends more time bonding with the pregnant teenager than is completely socially appropriate.
An Australian actor in big time Hollywood is Radha Mitchell, who first came to our attention in the heroically successful Aussie indie-film Love and Other Catastrophes. She's done loads of cool films that include the big croc adventure of Rogue and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. Her latest silver screen adventure is in a Bruce Willis vehicle called Surrogates that has an interesting premise: what if our online avatars could represent us all the time, and have all our experiences for us?
There are terrific ideas that could've been explored with this concept - at what point in your youth do you first use a surrogate? And how do humans relate to their real bodies after that? What does life feel like through a surrogate and how does one settle on a particular identity?
Unfortunately the philosophical potential is abandoned from the outset as plot and terrible acting take over. Bruce Willis now seems to choose roles based on the attendant hairpiece. I recommend you wait for this to screen on cable.