2008 Movie Roundup

A little overdue, but better late than never and all that ...

My Top Movies of 2008

1. Grindhouse

Just see it. Seriously. I don't remember the last time I was so deeply and satisfyingly entertained in the cinema (or anywhere else for that matter - boom tish!). Technically, Grindhouse was released in 2007 but we caught it at the Chauvel Paddington really late in the season, around Australia Day '08.

Grindhouse comprises two films, complete with faux trailers for other grindhouse style films that I really hope get made. The first, 'Planet Terror' was directed by Roger Rodriguez and the second, 'Death Proof' was directed by the schlock man himself, Quentin Tarantino. Rodriguez and Tarantino's last effort at collaborating produced the fairly dreadful 'From Dusk Till Dawn', but don't let that put you off. Even if you're not really a Tarantino and/or Rodriguez fan I would still encourage you to check out Grindhouse. As a homage to the drive-in trash movies of the 70's and early 80's, Grindhouse simply blows them all away!

Planet Terror is your standard Hero Stripper Fights The Evil Zombies with a touch of Government Experiment Goes Catastrophically Wrong. You know that old chestnut. Performances from Rose "Cherry Darling" McGowan, Josh Brolin, Bruce Willis and many others were so f*cked up and hilarious, this one really needs to be seen to be believed.

Death Proof follows in Kill Bill's footsteps (sort of) by casting amazing, strong, arse-kicking female leads. You can really tell how much Tarantino adores and is in awe of women ... in his own unique and exploitative way. I don't remember seeing Kurt Russell ever play the baddie before, and he does a truly nasty and convincing job in this role. Rose McGowan makes another appearance here, but not quite as an arse-kicking hero type.

I enjoyed Death Proof so much I had to hand over the car keys to MBH for the trip home 'cause I knew there was a good chance I'd wanna pull off some pretty fun driving stunts ... see it for yourself, you'll see what I mean.

I'm waiting for Grindhouse to be released as a box set, currently only available as separate dvds and I'm not sure if the additional trailers are included on the indivdual releases. With titles like "Machete", "Thanksgiving", "Werewolf Women of the SS" and "Don't!" you need to see the trailers to get the full "grindhouse" experience. You can tell they had a lot of fun coming up with the trailers, tongue firming in cheek.

See Grindhouse. You have no choice.

2. Anvil! The Story of Anvil

We saw this at the Metro Theatre as part of the Sydney Film Festival, and Anvil! is easily the best rock doco, if not the best doco, I've ever seen. Better than Metallica: Some Kind of Monster which pretty much set the standard a few years ago. Anvil! follows the struggles of the Canadian metal band of the same name to keep rocking and hopefully one day break the big time, 30 years on. Anvil influenced bands like Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, but for some reason never really made it themselves. As Lars Ulrich puts it "maybe it's because they're Canadian".

The meat of the story is the relationship between the lead singer "Lips" Kudrow and his guitarist and childhood friend Robb Reiner. They fight and hug there way through a failed tour of Europe and recording their 13th studio album. Anvil! reeks of Spinal Tap, but somehow you get the feeling these guys are the real deal.

Criminally, Anvil! didn't get a cinematic release in Australia, however it has been released on dvd. I urge you to see it.

Check out the preview on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DT7v2nUcmek

3. King of Kong

Another doco that deserves a big recommendation is the fantastic, hilarious King of Kong. King of Kong takes us into the unexpected and inexplicably long-lived world of the arcade gamer. These guys who were in their late teens when classic games like Donkey Kong, Q*bert and Pac Man were released still hang out together, play games together and hold championships together. I know. Totally lame.

Their world is turned upside down when an 'outsider' submits the video tape of his top Donkey Kong score to the people who decide on the world rankings of such things. King of Kong is a classic story of good versus evil, and the weird part is I found myself really caring about what happened.

Definitely see this one, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shake your fist at the injustice.

Other Movies of 2008

Please note, I make it a rule never to recommend a movie that I rated less than 4 stars.

Here is a list of my four star rated, and therefore recommended movies for 2008:

Juno - everyone liked this movie
Gone Baby Gone - directed by Ben Affleck, pretty disturbing in parts
Choke - another highlight from the Sydney Film Festival
The Dark Knight - hate to jump on the bandwagon here, but Heath rocked this movie
Wall-e - clever and funny critique of modern, consumer society
Man On Wire - see previous post for a review

***

3.5 Stars

I also saw these films at the cinema in 2008, but cannot recommend them as previously stated 'cause they didn't make the four star cut:

I'm Not There - Some kind of Bob Dylan life story re-telling *yawn*
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - lots of red paint
Ironman - I always like a bit of Robert Downey Jr
The Innocents - an old Deborah Kerr "gothic horror" as part of the Sydney Film Festival Deborah Kerr retrospective
The Savages - love Phillip Seymour Hoffman & Laura Linney, hate slow moving melodramas
Not Quite Hollywood - worth seeing for the interview with Quentin Tarantino, that man is a freak, but I'm still not a fan of so-called 'ozploitation' films
Tropic Thunder - I can't go past a Ben Stiller film, but it probably could have waited for the dvd release
You, The Living - subtitled Swedish film directed by Roy Andersson, rather slow moving as subtitled Swedish films tend to be
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army - directed by Guillermo del Toro, lots of fantasy fun, no need to follow the plot
Burn After Reading - Brad Pitt was great in this film and I expected to rate the newest Coen Bros higher, but here we are ...

***

3 Stars

Now we're getting into the really ordinary stuff.

Death at a Funeral - directed by Frank Oz
Lust, Caution - there was only one interesting scene in this film
Be Kind Rewind - directed by Michel Gondry with the cuteness of Mos Def
Lars and the Real Girl - unbelievable and therefore ultimately bad
Happy Go Lucky - directed by Mike Leigh, Scott the driving instructor was good
The Wackness - *yawn*
In Bruges - not sure why this film got such good reviews
Fear(s) in the Dark - comprised of short, animated nightmarish stories in black and white
Married Life - Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson and Rachel McAdams all upstaged by the gorgeous art deco set design and costuming
Persepolis - adapted from an Iranian graphic novel
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden - on reflection, I should have rated this doco much lower
Animals in Love - we got free tickets to this doco about animals courting and having sex
Twilight - oh man, this sucked!
The Day The Earth Stood Still - enviro conscious remake with Keanu as Klaatu, sure why not?

***

2.5 Stars

Dredging the bottom of the barrel now ...

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer - every time a character opened their mouth I cringed further into my seat

***

2 Stars

Deeply embarrassing to admit I paid money to see ...

The House Bunny - see previous post for a review of this dreadful pap

The Only Reason You Need to Get Outta Town This New Year's

Guess who's coming to town this New Year's Eve? That's right, the world's most hateful celebrity, Paris Hilton. This information came to me as a sting in the tail of an unsurprising fluff piece in the SMH about Paris' brand new, life size barbie car that she bought herself for Christmas. The new "barbie car" is a pink Bentley valued at around $200,000 and even has "anti-paparazzi" window tinting. If only City of Sydney would lash out and install some anti-Paris tinting on our fair city for the new year period.

Tinky Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Ever the consumate professional, Tinky posed for her yearly Christmas card photo shoot this afternoon. Despite overcast weather and what she described as 'a deeply embarrassing outfit that demeans us both' we managed to get the shot.

See for yourself. For my money, the first shot is the best. She looks real grumpy in some of the others ... 

Independent Cinema Closures - Part I

I've been getting around to writing something on this issue for a couple of years. And yes, this is going to be one of those fist-banging, impassioned plea type posts. It's also a cautionary tale along the lines of Don't Let Your Local (or not so local) Indie Cinema Close Down.

To begin. Ahem. 

When I was a girl, there were heaps of indie cinemas in Sydney. Let's see if I can remember them all ... the Valhalla in Glebe, the Mandolin in town, the Roma on George Street, the Walker Street Cinema in North Sydney, the Stanmore (Twin?) Cinema, the Greater Union on Pitt Street and the one that used to play a constant rotation of John Waters and Russ Meyers films - the Encore. Needless to say, all these fine indies are now long gone and with them the rich indie cinema culture that I used to so enjoy as a teen and 20 something.

I remember seeing Leon The Pig Farmer and Chasing Amy at the Walker Street in my lower north shore days (don't tell anyone, please). Oh, and who could forget seeing Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer at the Mandolin Cinema .... and of course there was the heart wrenching travesty of the Dendy Martin Place closing to make way for a *cough, splutter* Harvey Norman electronics store. Now that really hurts. I remember taking myself off to see Burnt By The Sun at Dendy Martin Place one work day afternoon. Memories and all that. 

Thank Christ we've still got the Chauvel and the Orpheum!

It wasn't all beer and skittles though. The Stanmore Cinema was pretty overpriced for what you got and had next to no ambience. And I remember numerous times gagging on the smell of rising damp in the main theatre of the Valhalla. To make matters worse, the uber-cool Valhalla staff didn't seem to grasp the technology of properly carbonating the post mix soft drinks, so you always ended up with a flat coke or fanta. AND sometimes they would leave the outer door to Hereford Street and the cinema doors open, so you could hear passing cars during the movie. And the last film I saw at the Val was an extremely disappointing French film called Red Lights. BUT that's no reason to turn the Valhalla into commercial offices. Come on! That place was a mecca in the 90's. I saw almost all the good films there - Naked Lunch, Barton Fink and Delicatessen for a start.

I'd like to provide some proper history on the closure of indie cinemas in Sydney over the years, but that will require some research and I haven't really gotten around to doing any of that yet. Plus there were some significant closures that happened when I was a bit too young to remember, like the Regent on the corner of Bathurst & George Sts. Now replaced by a revolting tower block and crap arse shops at the base. Hence, the promise of an 'Independent Cinema Closures - Part II'. 

Stay tuned.

Patricia Piccinini's Related Individuals at Roslyn Oxley9

Alerted by a favourable review in the SMH, I set out the see the infamous Roslyn Oxley9 gallery for myself, sans the witch of the hour, Bill Henson. Piccinini's work in this exhibition is right up my alley. All about the blurry line between human and animal and the idea of empathising with what we regard as 'other'. 

I had a sneaky poke of a couple of the works, Doubting Thomas and The Long Awaited, to see what they felt like. Latexy is the answer, but that alone doesn't really convey how the attention to detail, such as hair and skin discolouration, conspired to create such lifelike fantastical creatures both human and non.

The Long Awaited can be yours for a respectable $220,000.

More on the topic of Ice Cream Sandwiches

I don't think it's possible to consume too many Monaco Bars. As mentioned in a previous post, they are both yummy and delicious. But don't let your devotion to the Monaco Bar blind you to the charms of other ice cream sandwiches. I am not talking about the hugely disappointing Maxibon, which is stupidly named and stupidly constructed. Nay, I speak of an ice cream sandwich that is totally worth tracking down - Pat and Stick's. So fucken good. So far I have only discovered them in two locations, the Chauvel Cinema in Paddington and The Carlton Deli in Glebe, but there is a list of stockists on the website and apparently they turn up at farmer's markets too.

The Pat and Stick's ice cream sandwich comes in a selection of yummo flavours: Vanilla Lace, Vanilla Choc (Monaco Baresque), Caramel Pecan, Choclate Lace, Double Chocolate, Espresso Lace, Mochaccino and Strawberry Choc Chip.

Need any more encouragement to try a Pat and Stick's ice cream sandwich? Well, I don't know what to tell ya.

* Oh, and all appetising pics have been er, borrowed from the Pat and Stick's website. Thanks guys!

Freaking Out Bob Carr and Drinking Nudies

Gosh, I'm a natural with politicians. I attended the Voiceless Awards night at The Mint last week. All the usual suspects were there - Malcolm Caulfield, Katrina Sharman, Angela Radich, Stephen Lee, Rasha Skybey, John Mancy, Nick Patrick, Brian Sherman, Ondine Sherman and Maryland Wilson. The tight-knit group that is the Australian animal rights law community, and some of my favourite people. We stood around before the awards bit kicked off, drinking Nudies and chatting about live exports and kangaroo culling. You know, normal party conversation.

Hugo Weaving is the Voiceless spokesperson/mascot, so he hung around looking unshaven and famous and discharged his duties by shaking hands with the awards recipients.

After the awards were handed out Bob Carr launched the new Voiceless report From Nest to Nugget. His speech was impressive and he spoke of the 'killer facts' in the report that ultimately win the animal rights debate. Some time after that I was waiting outside for MBH to pick me up when Bob Carr sauntered outside to wait for his driver. I said 'Good speech Bob' but I didn't expect him to come over and strike up a conversation. Unfortunately, I immediately developed a bad case of blathermouth and said many, many irrelevant, embarrassing and downright weirdy things. He looked deeply relieved when his carr (geddit?) arrived and he sprinted into it and off into the night.