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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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You Are What You See
FILMINK's resident blogger Yumi Stynes gives us her run down on this week's films.
District 9 is this week's unmissable movie. It's a science fiction treat out of South Africa and a stunning debut from director Neill Blomkamp. South African-born and Canadian-trained Blomkamp is an accomplished animator, illustrator and filmmaker who made a version of District 9 as a 6-minute short film called Alive in Joburg in 2005. The ideas and design in District 9 can be seen clearly in Alive in Joburg (which can be found on YouTube) and even features a short appearance by District 9's star Sharlto Copley (who incidentally co-produced the short).
Sharlto Copley plays Wikus van der Merwe, a hapless bureaucrat at the frontline of dealing with alien intruders. It's a frightening and confronting job as Wikus is forced to go from shack to shack of District 9 to entice alien residents into signing eviction notices, sometimes using bribes and threats, sometimes lies. His drone-like hard-working cheerfulness make him an unlikely lead character but his story arc as he changes is freakin' wonderful to behold!
He starts as a cardigan-wearer with a gentle loathing of the aliens and ends with sufficient rage to power a Robocop. Do. Not. Miss. This. Movie. It reminded me of Children of Men and 28 Days Later in the way that a grimy, dystopian future created from the ground up never feels shaky or Hollywood. It's so convincing and the computer generated animation works seamlessly amongst the squalor and dust.
A movie you could easily miss is Orphan which is a paint-by-numbers horror about a creepy kid. Starring as the creepy kid's adoptive mother and main rival is Vera Famiga, who first came to our attention as Leonardo DiCaprio's object of desire in The Departed. She wore this amazing bra during the love scene with DiCaprio. Ten points for the bra. Zero points for Orphan which co-stars the perennially creepy Peter Saarsgard, an actor whose performances often suggest that off set, moments before cameras were to roll, someone punched him in the mouth. The one genuinely creepy bit in the film is when Esther, played by 12-year-old Isabelle Furhman, puts on one of her Mom's dresses and make-up and starts getting loose with her Dad. Maybe wait for Orphan to screen on cable to savour that moment...
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's latest, is a reflexive romp you'll find either amazing or infuriating, but either way, you'll have to admit that as a director, the basterd is audacious.
It's a fantastic conceit for a filmmaker to gallop through history, high-fiving historic giants from Hitler to Winston Churchill and to then turn around and simultaneously redefine Jewish identity and completely rewrite history. The inclusion of Brad Pitt as a major character lends the film a bit of an Ocean's 11 stupidity but luckily the lesser-known supports, most particularly German sexhorn Til Schweiger, who plays Sgt. Stiglitz, and 26-year-old French actress Melanie Laurent, who plays the adult Shoshanna, make a pretty good movie happen in Pitt's absence.
Basterds unfolds in the spirit of fun but with an undercurrent of savagery and vengefulness so fierce it's bewildering. Not for children or the fainthearted! And it's long, too, so pack snacks!
Finally, a couple of docos I caught recently: The Cove - a brilliantly-made espionage thriller from real life about Japanese fishermen slaughtering dolphins for their meat and the lengths one man, Ric O'Barry (former dolphin trainer on Flipper), will go to expose it. This film has won prizes all over the world but for some reason it left me with an unholy craving for sushi. I know, I know, I'm a disgrace. My Japanese half was mortified. (And hungry.)
The other documentary getting wide cinema release is The September Issue which tells the story of the most important issue of New York's style bible Vogue. What you see in this film are clever and powerful women at the top of their game who are confident and hard-working, interesting and fulfilled - and barely any plastic surgery or even make-up among them. Truly amazing. I'm not being flippant either: You never, ever see women like this represented on film or television. They're shamelessly old. It's fantastic.
Speaking of fantastic, please make sure you get out to see ANVIL: The Story
of Anvil when it's released on September 10. There may be no better feelgood buzz all year.
Thank you and goodnight. x x -