Showing all posts about film
CODA wins Best Picture, Zack Snyder Oscar Twitter awards
28 March 2022
CODA, trailer, directed by American filmmaker Sian Heder, has been named winner of the Best Picture in the 2022 Oscars. A full list of winners can be seen here.
Meanwhile Zack Snyder has taken out both of the inaugural “people’s choice” awards. He won the #OscarsFanFavorite poll for Army of the Dead, and #OscarsCheerMoment for Justice League.
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film, Oscars, Sian Heder, trailer, Zack Snyder
Diana the Musical wins worst film Razzies gong
28 March 2022
Before the Oscars serve up the best films of the last year (as voted by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at least) this morning Sydney, East Coast of Australia time, over the weekend parody award show the Razzies, announced the worst films of 2021 (in their opinion) for us.
Diana the Musical, directed by Christopher Ashley, was adjudged Worst Picture. With a lowly Metacritic score of twenty-nine though, I guess that wasn’t hard to see coming.
LeBron James was named Worst Actor for his part in Space Jam: A New Legacy, with Jeanna de Waal collecting Worst Actress for her part in the aforementioned Diana the Musical. Meanwhile Jared Leto picked up Worst Supporting Actor for his role in House of Gucci, a film that had been the talk of the town prior to its release.
American actor Bruce Willis won the Golden Raspberry in Worst Performance By Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie, a special category this year, for his work in Cosmic Sin. Willis received eight nominations in this category and must’ve surely been sweating on the outcome.
Update: The Razzies have withdrawn their award for Bruce Willis in their special category “Worst Performance By Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie”, following news of his aphasia diagnosis. Quite right. As a humourous dig, it seemed like a little light-hearted fun, but not anymore.
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The Australian Feature Film Summit 2022
28 March 2022
The Australian Feature Film Summit (AFFS) takes place in Sydney on Thursday 12 May 2022, with the goal of bringing all involved in the feature film production process, including exhibitors, distributors, producers, and investors together for the first time.
The mission of the AFFS is to harness the current success of the Australian feature film sector and strategise how to make more commercially successful and culturally relevant films going forward.
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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Grosvenor, Paul Brennan
22 March 2022
The Summer Hill Grosvenor Theatre, was a grand old cinema that once stood in the inner west Sydney suburb of Summer Hill. The cinema opened in October 1930 and could seat over two-thousand people in its auditorium.
As a cinema though The Grosvenor had something of a chequered history, frequently changing ownership, and opening and closing on numerous occasions. For a short time between cinema operators, the building served as a warehouse. The Grosvenor finally closed as a film-house in 1969, and the building, after becoming dilapidated and vandalised, was demolished a few years later.
The Mysterious Disappearance of the Grosvenor is a documentary made by Australian cinema historian and film distributor Paul Brennan, and brings the The Grosvenor back to life though intricately rendered CGI recreations. It seems inconceivable today to sit in a room with two-thousand other people watching a film.
A short clip of Brennan’s work From Station to Door, offers a glimpse of a long vanished way of life, when a trip to the movies would have been an occasion, a night out on the town, even. This coming from someone who would rather stay at home and stream films.
The two closest classic art deco cinema experiences that come someway to replicating the scale of The Grosvenor that I can think of in Sydney would be the Ritz Cinema, in Randwick, and the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace, in Cremorne.
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Australia, cinema, film, Sydney
A trailer for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
19 March 2022
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, trailer, directed by Tom Gormican, seems like it is a movie for movie people, about movie people, by movie people:
A cash-strapped Nicolas Cage agrees to make a paid appearance at a billionaire super fan’s birthday party, but is really an informant for the CIA since the billionaire fan is a drug kingpin and gets cast in a Tarantino movie.
But it is a little more than that. As of the time of writing The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was enjoying a one-hundred percent rating on film and television review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. It is a rare distinction, and in doing so rubs shoulders with the likes of Three Colors: Red directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, Singin’ in the Rain from 1952, Slalom, directed by Charlène Favier, and Before Sunrise starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke.
The title’s Metacritic score meanwhile is a slightly more circumspect seventy-eight out of one hundred. A release to look out for nonetheless.
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My Salinger Year: did Joanna Rakoff talk to J.D. Salinger?
14 March 2022
Still from My Salinger Year, courtesy of Mongrel Media.
In late 1995 twenty-three year old Joanna Rakoff abruptly leaves her degree course, and boyfriend Karl, at Berkeley, California, and returns to her native New York. She’s had enough of studying the work of other writers, she wants to write for herself. And what better place to do so than New York City. But she still needs to pay the bills.
Initially hoping to find work with a book publisher — and the industry contacts that would come with the role — Rakoff instead takes a job as an admin assistant at one of New York City’s oldest literary agencies. Little has changed in the agency’s office, she later quips to friends, since 1927, a place where the office photocopier is considered high-tech.
Computers are forbidden. Agency boss Margaret believes they create work, rather than reduce it. The literary agency appears to be as old-school as they come. But there is one consolation for Rakoff. The agency represents none other than reclusive author J.D. Salinger, he of The Catcher in the Rye fame, a book, ironically she has not read.
Released on 1 January 2021 in Australia, My Salinger Year is Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau’s screen adaptation of the 2014 memoir of the same name, written by literary journalist and author Joanna Rakoff, played by Margaret Qualley. But while Rakoff’s book was well received, Falardeau’s adaptation of her memoir did not meet with the same acclaim.
Salinger’s Miranda Priestly problem
Despite being a nostalgic stroll through a New York City that no longer exists, and a visual treat, with its warm, saturated hues, and lovingly rendered frames, My Salinger Year rates a paltry fifty percent among critics, according to film review aggregator Metacritic. Critics had a number of issues with the production.
Peter Bradshaw, writing for The Guardian thought My Salinger Year tried too hard to be another The Devil Wears Prada, and failed abysmally:
The provincial-making-it-in-the-big-city genre is well established, but the influence of The Devil Wears Prada is so clear it almost begins to feel like a upscale homage. It suffers in comparison because The Devil Wears Prada is forthright and funny with Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep delivering fireworks. Perhaps Qualley and Weaver could have done the same with a sparkier script. But the all-important master-servant hero-worship dynamic is always stymied: diverted on to the semi-unseen and necessarily unresponsive Salinger.
When I saw Margaret coldly ignoring Rakoff on her first day of work at the agency, I too thought of Miranda Priestly. But I’m not sure making Margaret out to be a Priestly clone was the filmmaker’s intention. Meanwhile Peter Debruge, writing for Variety, didn’t think Qualley’s portrayal of Rakoff as an aspiring writer was convincing:
Director Philippe Falardeau (who made one very good movie in the form of “Monsieur Lazhar”) has written Joanna Rakoff as well-read and intelligent, but Qualley has a dopey, nobody-home quality: The actor looks eager and ready to please, standing politely with her shoulders back and hands clasped like an obedient schoolgirl, but there’s nothing happening behind the eyes. Portrayed thus, Joanna comes across as childlike, naive and shockingly shallow. Though she’s no doubt plenty bright in person, close-ups in which she’s shown thinking are eerily unconvincing.
It’s true Qualley portrayed Rakoff with wide-eyed enthusiasm, and a breathy exuberance, but I wouldn’t say the lights were on but no one was home. Let’s not forget Rakoff aspired to other things, and working at the agency wasn’t exactly what she wanted in the first place. She didn’t see the role as a stepping stone, but rather a means to keep a roof over her head.
My friend Salinger
While My Salinger Year may not rate as award winning drama, the question remains. Were the interactions viewers of the film witnessed between Rakoff and Salinger the real deal, or were the producers’ taking some cheeky poetic licence? And while we may never know exactly what did transpire, Rakoff and Salinger indeed spoke to each other.
Given the nature of Rakoff’s work at the agency, corresponding — by way of standard, clipped, responses — to the volumes of Salinger fan mail the agency received, regular communication between the pair might go without saying. But the hermit-like Salinger had no interest in what his readers had to say.
But on learning Rakoff wrote poetry, Salinger warmed to her. He even encouraged her writing, almost chastising her for doing humdrum office work. “Don’t get stuck answering the phone Joanna, you’re a poet,” he said to her on one occasion. He cared, even if the then partly deaf author did get her name wrong, when they first spoke:
Salinger, when Rakoff finally plucks up the courage to converse with him, is indeed kind to her. He is extremely deaf, and gets her name wrong. But he also encourages her to keep writing her poetry (he reveres poets).
While Salinger didn’t ask to see her work, it’s hard to imagine Rakoff being disappointed. When a literary giant is in your corner, rooting for your writing ambitions, what more do you need? Who wouldn’t give up the dead-end day job, and follow their dreams. And this is who My Salinger Year — for all its apparent faults — really speaks to: the dreamers with the big ideas.
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film, J.D. Salinger, Joanna Rakoff
A trailer for the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV mini-series
12 March 2022
A teaser/trailer for the upcoming Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi six-part TV mini-series, that delves further into the Star Wars saga. Both Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reprise their roles as Obi-Wan and Darth Vader, respectively.
The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat — the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.
From this snippet, Obi-Wan Kenobi looks promising. Though some have been better than others, I’m wary of some efforts to “fill in” gaps in the original Star Wars saga, or more the point, the first six films, as, to me, episodes seven through nine didn’t feel the least bit like Star Wars.
While I thought Rogue One, depicting events immediately prior to A New Hope, wasn’t too bad — terrible CGI representation of some characters aside — Solo, the Han Solo “origin story”, was unnecessary to say the least.
Given almost twenty-years separate events of Revenge of the Sith, and A New Hope, there’s probably enough room to insert a story half-way between episodes three and four, without compromising the integrity of the saga. Time will tell. Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts on Wednesday 25 May 2022.
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film, science fiction, trailer
Adaptable 2021/22 text to screen longlist announced
11 March 2022
Adaptable is an initiative of the Queensland Writers Centre that connects aspiring screen writers, working across all genres, with film and television producers.
Adaptable seeks material for film or television adaptation. Open to writers across Australia and New Zealand, the contest accepts any genre, fiction or non-fiction, published or unpublished. Queensland Writers Centre also identifes several early career unpublished/emerging writers to pitch their work to screen creatives, with these writers receiving mentorship and advice prior to the pitching sessions.
A longlist of contenders was unveiled this week, with the shortlist to follow shortly.
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Apollo 10 1/2, a film by Richard Linklater
10 March 2022
Talk about the trip of a lifetime. American space agency NASA accidently builds an Apollo Moon lander that’s too small for adult astronauts. So the investment doesn’t go to waste, a young boy is clandestinely recruited to take the vessel to the lunar surface, in Apollo 10 1/2, trailer, an animated feature directed by Richard Linklater.
The story of the first moon landing in the summer of 1969 from two interwoven perspectives. It both captures the astronaut and mission control view of the triumphant moment, and the lesser-seen bottom up perspective of what it was like from an excited kid’s perspective, living near NASA but mostly watching it on TV like hundreds of millions of others. It’s ultimately both an exacting re-creation of this special moment in history and a kid’s fantasy about being plucked from his average life in suburbia to secretly train for a covert mission to the moon.
Apollo ten and a half, this is Houston. Do you read?
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animation, film, Richard Linklater, trailer
Trailer for My Brilliant Friend season three
8 March 2022
A trailer for season three of the HBO produced series My Brilliant Friend, based on Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the third novel of the four part Neapolitan Novels series, written by Italian author Elena Ferrante, between 2011 and 2014.
And in case you (somehow) missed it, a Netflix made teaser for the in production Lying Life of Adults series, based on Ferrante’s 2019 novel of the same name, which is coming to a screen near you maybe later this year.
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