latest notices
Careless Love Opening Night + Q&A
With director John Duigan ('The Year My Voice Broke') and cast Nammi Le and Peter O’Brien. THU 17 MAY – 7pm RITZ CINEMA, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick NSW 2031 TICKETS ON-SALE – book now www.ritzcinema.com.au “Careless Love” tells the story of...
Film Producing with Metro Screen
Metro Screen, Paddington Town Hall, Sydney(NSW)
Winners of Australian Directors' Guild Awards Announced
(Nationwide)
Gold Coast Indie Film & Television Network Presents 'Getting Behind The News'
Gold Coast(QSL)
latest news
The Sapphires To Open Melbourne International Film Festival
The feel-good feature is set to kick off the Melbourne film festivities.
Screen Australia Invests in 16 Features
An eclectic set of projects have been granted funding...
De Niro & Douglas To Headline ‘Last Vegas’
The two legendary gents look to be starring in this comedy centred around a Las Vegas bachelor party.
‘Housos’ Get Big Screen Outing
Writer/director/comedian Paul Fenech is set to make his debut feature.
search the site
newsletter
Enter your email address below to receive the weekly Filmink newsletter
THREE DOWN, HEAPS TO GO – DAY 3 OF SYDNEY FILM FEST. A DAILY BLOG
Today, Filmink took in a British double bill, two brilliant, wordy films that redefine the meaning of crudity.
First up, was 44 Inch Chest from Louis Mellis, scribe of Sexy Beast, where we meet walking contradiction Gary ‘Gal’ Dove (Ray Winstone, also of Sexy Beast), a hard man in paralysis from a broken heart. His wife Liz (Joanne Whalley, Scandal) has called it quits in their marriage, citing an affair with another man.
In a shabby room somewhere in London’s East End, Gal’s friends – Archie (Tom Wilkinson), the cantankerous and profane Old Man Peanut (John Hurt), the suave Meredith (Ian McShane) and the no-nonsense Mal (Stephen Dillane) – rally around him, suggesting a not unexpected form of revenge – on the flip of a coin it’s decided that Liz’s lover is going to cop it.
Before we know it, ‘Loverboy’ is kidnapped and interrogated firstly by Gal’s friends and then by Gal himself. It mightn’t sound like much of a premise but this is a film that’s driven more by its themes, plus a witty, crude and profane script (if this was censored you’d barely have any dialogue left) and richly drawn characters. Hurt is a standout as the craggy elder statesman of the group and Ian McShane is brilliantly charismatic, reveling in his portrayal of the openly gay Meredith. Winstone as you might expect gives another standout performance as the menacing but vulnerable Gal.
What’s most surprising is 44 Inch Chest’s rumination not only on revenge but the bond of love and marriage which Gal values so dearly – who’d have thought it, a sensitive hard man? “Love is like a Garden,” he tells Liz. “You’ve got to do the weeding to keep it beautiful.”
In fact, Gal’s five minute monologue has a distinctly Shakespearean feel to it while the film itself is inherently theatrical. The majority of 44 Inch Chest takes place in the one room but never feels claustrophobic with the ironic dialogue and performances thoroughly entertaining, drawing you in and the film becoming increasingly surreal as it approaches its denouement.
44 Inch Chest screens again on Saturday June 13.
Next up was In the Loop, a big screen spinoff of the Britcom The Thick of It created by Armando Iannnucci (I’m Alan Partridge).
Fledgling Minister for International Affairs Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) sets off a chain of events that will ripple across the Atlantic all the way to the White House. From the moment the bumbling polly opens his mouth it becomes clear that he’s headed on a cringe-inducing journey down the proverbial creek without a paddle. Simon has publicly stated that a war is “unforeseeable”, an act of extreme naivety at a time when war is clearly on the boil. Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi reprising his The Thick of It role as the seething, strangely eloquently uncouth Director of Communications to the Prime Minister) isn’t happy to say the least, going into damage control with typical bombast.
The fun really starts when Simon makes a further gaffe – “To walk the road of peace, sometimes we need to be ready to climb the mountain of conflict” he says – prompting White House political spin masters to pounce, drawing him in as their political pawn. From here on in, it’s a clash of social and political cultures between the polite Americans and the blunt Brits – although some of the former certainly give the latter a run for their money.
Each character is beautifully realised including cracking performances by Gina McKee as the sardonic British Press Secretary, Capaldi whose barbs could cut through steel, Hollander with his impeccable comic timing, a brilliantly uncouth James Gandolfini – like Tony Soprano in a uniform only 100 times funnier – and would you believe, My Girl’s Anna Chlumsky all grown up and sassy. An almost unrecognisable Steve Coogan turns up as one of Simon’s fiery constituents.
You wonder if, given its sitcom roots, that In the Loop might play out like an extended TV episode but the pace is swift just like the rapid fire dialogue. It never feels a stretch. In the Loop’s documentary, hand held style camerawork and awkward scenarios could easily see it compared to Ricky Gervais’ The Office were it not for – and this comes at the risk of sacrilege – the more acerbic humour and filthy chatter – it’s more like a distant, cruder older cousin. In fact, In The Loop ingeniously and unapologetically pushes the envelope of crude so those easily offended beware. But if that doesn’t bother you, there’s much to enjoy in this brilliantly witty film – its caustic turn of phrase, frequent pop culture references, the way it mercilessly lampoons the machinations and manoeuvres of international politics as well as the aforementioned stellar performances.
In The Loop has been described in the festival’s program as doing “for Downing Street and the White House what The Hollowmen does for Canberra” but that’s not giving this needle-sharp political satire the praise it deserves. It should go down in the annals as a bone fide instant comedy classic. Seek it out.
In the Loop has its final screening on Tuesday.
Red Carpet Watch – director Steve Jacobs, Anna Maria Monticelli and the revelatory actress Jessica Haines of Disgrace based on Nobel Peace Laureate J.M Coetzee’s novel of the same time. We’ll have more on that film in our next post.
For more information on films and screening times head to www.sff.org.au
