Movie review - "Twilight Zone The Movie" (1983) **1/2

A film totally overshadowed by the accident, which is fair enough, people died (though more people die on films than you might think).

Interesting people constantly pop up in the cast - Steven Williams from Jump Street, John Larroquette as a Klan member. 

The Landis segment is in the spirit of the show - heavy-handed but effective, and Vic Morrow is very good. The Spielberg one isn't very much - he does his tricks, all that, it's just meh. 

Joe Dante's with the powerful kid is better, even if Kathleen Quinlan seems bored. The George Miller segment is, as commonly agreed, the best, helped with the strongest story, John Lithgow going for it, and high stakes.

Movie review - "The Riddle of the Stinson" (1988) ***1/2

 Very strong TV movie with an excellent script from Tony Morphett that bewilderingly got poor crits at the time. It's hard to dramatise these stories because there's a lot of dolphining along, as William Goldman put it - Jack Thompson trudging through the rainforest. How he keeps things interesting until then is a notable demonstration of skill. Morphett really brings to life the characters with lovely little moments: pilot Mark Lee asking out aviatrix Sue Lyon and being teased by co pilot Dennis Miller, the salesman spruiking books, the American theatre designer Len Kaserman, the shady Norman Kaye, the uptight Huw Williams, the young Richard Roxborough who just catches the flight.

I like little touches such as them asking what the cricket score was, the banter among the bushies. There is a wonderful harmonica score and some lovely acting. Terrific locations. Jackie Mackenzie makes an early appearance. Esben Storm is fun as a journo who accompanies the rescue expedition.

Movie review - "Flirting" (1991) ****

 This suffered a little at the time in comparison with The Year My Voice Broke but has developed its own reputation and cult following. It's more positive, less harrowing, more warm... though boarding school is clearly still horrible.

John Duigan's sense of observation is as strong as ever. This is full of recognisable scenes and moments: the dopey idiot with braces (Kiri Paramore is perfect as a true Australian type), the chubby kid with boobs talking about girl breasts, the dopey school captain hero who is dull as dishwater talking about his grazier father being "a man for all seasons", the banter, the depiction of racism, the sadism of Marshall Napier, the amiable ignorance of Jeff Truman, the bullying "Backa" Burke, the awkward chat between Newton's and Taylor's parents.

Nicole Kidman is a little too old for her part not helped by the wig (and her dimension basically means she wants it). It's fun to see Naomi Watts and Kym Wilson as her mates though neither has much to do or play. Bartholomew Roberts is great as Noah Taylor's pompous friend, another familiar type.

Thandie Newton and Noah Taylor are superb in their roles - it does make a difference knowing that Newton and Duigan had an affair.

But it's a lovely romantic film full of excellent moments.

Movie review - "The Year My Voice Broke" (1987) ****

 While Kennedy Miller TV was super collaborative, the features division was more auteur driven. This came from John Duigan, who had just made Vietnam.

Some of this is just so spot on, achingly so - the pack of kids throwing Leone Carmen into the water, Ben Mendhelson almost drowning Carmen, the boorish bullies (including a young Rob Carleton) who read out Taylor's poetry and thump him at school, Harold Hopkins giving a speech to the football team as they eat oranges at half time, the blokes always at the pub heckling away.

Few films captured unrequited love as well - helped immeasurably by the casting. Noah Taylor is insecure, small, rat faced (sorry but it is), tiny... it's clear why he's besotted with Leone Carmen, blonde and gorgeous, and why she's keen on Ben Mendelsohn, the swaggering cocky guy with the ridiculous laugh. All three are very Australian, familiar types.

Some of it is of its time - Taylor looking at Carmen's panties for instance. The one clunky scene was when Taylor walked past his parnts room and heard them arguing about Carmen's mother.

I remember not liking this when I saw it as a teenager. Then I saw it again in my late twenties and thought it was the best movie ever. Years later it impresses but I don't have the same emotional reaction. I recognise this is all personal.

Movie review - "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" (1985) ***

 I'm never quite sure where this film stands with fans. It remains well known but doesn't seem to be as beloved.

It is a lot more Hollywood, with more gags, a lighter feel. Angry Anderson's bodyguard is cartoony. Tina Turner rock plays on the opening soundtrack, not booming Brian May. There's lots more saxophone - mind you Mad max's wife played that in the first film.

It reprises stuff from the earlier films: Bruce Spence in a plane (different character, has a kid, but still in a plane), some of the outfits, feral kids, man with Down Syndrome.

But it also does try to deepen the mythology: there's Bartertown (fabulous), run by Tina Turner (great) in conjunction with Master-Blaster. The Thunderdome sequence is electric. (Though are we went to have that much sympathy for Blaster who has been killing people and tried to smash Max's head off like ten seconds earlier?)

There's some marvellous hams on display, notably Frank Thring, little person Angelo Rossitto and Ted Hodgeman as the MC of Thunderdome. Hodgemen is heaps of fun - he should've been used more in Oz cinema.

A lot of familiar TV faces like Mark Kounnas, Mark Spain, Justine Clarke, Adam Wilits, Rod Zuanic, Rebekah Elmaloglou, Tom Jennings. The kids make it seem like a Steven Spielberg film - there's more wacky gags, Angry Anderson as Will-e-Coyote, Max is kinder and less selfish. And there's actually not much wrong with that. At least it's different.

The big flaw is structural. After Max is sent to gulag he just sort of stumbles along, finds these kids, some kids run away and Max goes to get them. Then they sort of stumble into Bartertown and decide to capture Master and it leads to a chase, but they have no idea of where they're going, they just head on the train tracks til it runs out and they're only saved via luck (running into Bruce Spence).

I think this could've easily been fixed. After seeing Max free Auntie could have chased after him to kill him, so when the kids find Max she finds them and goes "great a new slave population" so now Max has to lead all the kids to safety and he figures "the only way to do that is grab Master" so he heads back to Bartertown... which actually isn't that different to Mad Max Fury Road. Anyway, that's my two cents.

Movie review - "Fragments of War: The Damien Parer Story" (1988) **1/2

 Damien Parer story sounds interesting - young good looking photographer who shot some of the most famous images of the war, killed by the Japanese in 1944. But is it dramatic...?  Do films about photographers work? If they have sex with models and take a photo of a murderer, yes (Blow Up)... but if they are nice people who take photos... I'm not so sure. They've tried to make the Robert Capa story for ages but never been able to do it.

That's what this is. Parer films things. Some recreation is cut in with his amazing photography. Parer dies.

The film is full of female characters commenting on how good looking Parer is, and one woman asks Parer to photograph her nude.  There's actually a few one-off scenes with Parer and female characters - a nurse whose brother has died, a woman in Europe. Look, maybe that happened, and it's good to have female representation I just can't wonder if Duigan did it in part to gives roles to actresses who he tried to seduce. The screen time would've been better spent on Parer's relationships with more important people in his life, not random women - his mates, his family, his wife. Anne Tenney seems too old as the wife, btw - she's a good actor, she just seems wrong. Nicholas Eadie is good.

Film buffs will enjoy the appearance of Maslyn Williams (Huw Williams), Chester Wilmott (Steve Jodrell), Osmar White (Jeff Truman), and Ken G Hall (Bob Haines). Maybe there's a more interesting version of this story to be told. Or maybe there isn't.

Movie review - "The Clean Machine" (1988) **1/2

 Kennedy Miller's TV series of the 1980s gripped the nation - they were all watercooler shows. They made four TV movies in 1988 as well for $7.2 million... none seemed to have the same impact except for The Year My Voice Broke which was released as a feature. They also did Sports Crazy a TV series which no one seems to remember.

This is a look at corruption in the NSW police force, which has provided some of our best dramas - Scales of Justice, Blue Murder. This suffers in comparison to that. It's got this sort of TV sting music and some on the nose dialogue (Terry Hayes, normally so good, wrote it with Richard Mortlock and director Ken Cameron).

The plot has a new state government appoint traffic cop Steve Bisley to form an anti corruption task force. Ed Devereaux is his boss. The team also includes Sandy Gore, Peter Kowitz, Marshall Napier, Mervyn Drake, and Tony Poli. Problems emerge when Bisley gets close to some really bad cops including Grigor Taylor as a Roger Rogerson type and they wonder if Devereaux is corrupt.

There are some effective moments particularly when the heat turns up on the corruption team but it didn't quite work for me. It didn't feel tonally consistent - part ep of a typical cop show, part realism (eg a stake out interrupted by the noise of a lawn mower), part of it based on cases I recognised (eg taking a shot at Bisley at home was like the shooting of Michael Drury in Blue Murder). I also got confused at times as to what was going on.

It lacked focus. It was about Bisley... then it was also about Kowitz, as a sort of dodgy undercover cop, and Napier.

Bisley is an odd-ish choice for a nerdy cop - but the moustache helps. (Also... his house has a pool... I didn't realise cops could afford them). Tim Robertson plays a character called "Milius".

There's a Down Syndrome character - Deveraux's son. Kennedy Miller used that in Mad Max 1 and 2.

Female roles aren't great. Bisley's wife is concerned (she's a good actor), a girl gives Devereaux massages, Robertson has some hot girl, Sandy Gore ia part of the team but doesn't really do anything. 

This was fine. Not terrible. Just not up to the standard of their other stuff. Hayes was writing Dead Calm and Bangkok Hilton around this time, his attention span was probably not great.

The Age 1 July 1988

The Age 21 May 1988

Movie review - "Mad Max" (1979) ****

 A marvellous movie. There's not much fresh I can eye. It saw the feature debut of a magnificent director who swept people up in his operatic vision.

It's wonderfully cast - the high pitched operatic work of Hugh Keays Byrne and Vincent Gil, the likeability of Mel Gibson and Joanne Samuel, the blonde friend Geoff Parry, the muscly camp of Roger Ward, the ockerism of Steve Bisley, the cop who gets a "saucepan in the throat", Tim Burns' psycho Johnny the Boy

As in Mad Max 2 the action sequences are superb  and less famously it's also marvelously suspenseful. There's a lot of fake outs eg Goose getting up the next day, falling over, then getting killed... ditto with the attack on Jesse.

There's a lot of humour and heart too. Would it have worked with James Healey in the lead and not Gibson? Yes but not as well because Gibson bought vulnerability.

I'm struck how low the death toll is in this. The night rider dies in the original chase and his girl but not pursuing cops. Goose still lives. So does Max's wife. (It's grim for both but not death.) The couple that are attacked at the beginning still live - he seems to have been raped and she was but they are still alive. And the initial bikies just come off the bridge. The kid is killed. And the later bikies.

Great movie.

Movie review - "Mad Max 2" (1981) ***** (rewatching)

 Gosh this film is so good. Music, direction, mood, everything.

Part of the strength is the depth of the support characters. There's the Gyro Captain of course, and Mike Preston's charismatic leader, and Vernon Wells' Wez with his boyfriend, and Humungous (who has clearly suffered major trauma)... but also Arkie Whitley's sweet girl (you need that character with this bleakness), the wry smart mechanic who figures out Max's car is booby trapped (Steven Spears) and his dopey assistant, the Warrior Woman (Virginia Hey), the fairweather friend Syd Heylen, the grey haired woman whose boyfriend/family member is killed early on, the wide eyed guy whose girlfriend is killed early on, the dog, the PR guy Max Phipps who is sort of like a News Ltd columnist.

It's scary. Tense. A great action movie yes but it's also the terror of the threat outside the base. The harsh landscape.

The humour is beautifully mixed too. Spence, Heylen, Phipps.

Such a good movie.

Script review - "Mad Max Two" (13 April, 1981)

Not sure of the exact draft of this screenplay - it seems reasonably close to the final product. The same set up is there, as is the structure - Max finds a tanker, meets the Gyro captain, arrives at the camp, goes and gets the tanker and brings it back, tries to escape but is injured, drives the tanker at the end. Pappagalo lives at the end of this one and is a lot more ruthless.

Some of the character names aren't very politically correct: "gay boy berserkers", "The Lusty Girl" (the Arky Whitley part). I feel a lot of this may have been changed during shooting. But even at script stage this has tremendous mythical power and is a gripping read. The characters are simple but clearly defined via action. You could film it tomorrow.

Movie review - "Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015) ****1/2

The title could be Mad Max: Cover Girl Models and the character of Max could actually be cut out of the movie and not that much lost story wise (everything important he does could be done by Charlize Theron or Nicholas Hoult's characters), which is never a good sign... But what fantastic big screen entertainment!

It's basically one long chase with a few pauses, and very little character development apart from "burnt out person finding humanity" which is given to three people - there's tough bitter Max who finds his again (for the third movie in a row), female warrior Theron who finds hers (with a connecting-with-the-sisterhood slant), and brainwashed fanatic Hoult who finds his (rather like a deprogrammed ISIS fighter). I guess there's also Abbey Lee Kershaw who starts as an angry cover girl model/wife and becomes nicer after befriending Melissa Jaffer.

But all that's primeval and completely works as drama. And what a fantastic chase - tremendous stunts, some of which literally take your breath away. I felt a pang it couldn't have been shot in Australia but the Namidian desert looks gorgeous and most of the supporting cast speak in Australian accents. Art department, costumes, etc are fantastic.

I also really enjoyed the cast - Tom Hardy made a very good new Max (so glad they didn't go with Sam Worthington), Theron is a first rate kick arse heroine, Rosie Hungtinton Whiteley is a spectacularly good looking Queen Bee, Hoult excellent in perhaps the film's best role, Megan Gale a believable Valkyrie. I loved how these grand dames of Australian tv and theatre like Melissa Jaffer and Jennifer Hagan finally get the chance to play action heroines, and the nod to series heritage by having Hugh Keays Byrne back.

The film is jammed full of great touches - like John Howard as a book keeper type figure with massive feet, Quentin as a genius (was he meant to be like Master from Beyond Thunderdome?), the rock guitarist leading the baddies into battle (like a piper for Highland regiments), the ISIS parallels, the whole world.

I get the feeling the original concept of the film had Max in Charlie Therzon's role - i..e the person who is bad but then changes their mind and helps the wives get to safety - then George Miller and co realised that had unpleasant men-owning-women overtones so added Therzon's character... with the result that Max's got a little sidelined. (This is only guessing I could be wrong).

Incidentally I can see why men's rights groups got upset with this because Hugh Keays Byrne, the villain, is after sole custody of his kids and the movie takes a pro-mothers-should-have-custody-over-their children line.

Movie review – “Mad Max 2” (1981) *****

Stunningly good Australian film – the best ever made here? – which still holds up well. There was never a cooler action hero than Max, battered and worn (cf the callow youth of the first film), with his tousled hair and leather, not to mention his great dog and car. That’s one of the many things about this movie that are incredibly Aussie despite it being set in a post-apocalyptic never-never land: plus the crippled mechanic smart enough to figure out the bomb on the car who insists on going in the truck at the end (love that dialogue exchange with his dopey mate about when the truck can be ready); Syd Heylen; the gay bikies doing circle work; the 80s era fashion. 

Mel Gibson is terrific in the lead – one of my favourite bits of movie star acting ever is his tired, resigned smile to Bruce Spence at the end – but he’s backed by a strong support cast, including hands-on tormented henchman Wes (put on a chain by his boss); Emily Minty as the Feral Kid (looking genuinely feral); Virginia Hey as a terrific Amazon woman (oh so 80s), sweet Arkie Whitely; good egg Mike Preston (whose death scene is kind of thrown away); likeable Bruce Spence; imposing Humungous (who seems to genuinely believe the promises he makes); the dog. It’s a fabulous film and a credit to all who made it.

Mini series review - "Bodyline" (1983) *****

Kennedy Miller’s TV mini series classic about what remains still the most famous test match series in history: the 1932-33 Australia vs England series, where tough Pommy captain Douglas Jardine (Hugo Weaving, in a star making performance) concocts a strategy that came to be known as ‘bodyline’, whereby England’s fast bowlers, led by Harold Larwood (Jim Holt), would aim their deliveries at the batsman’s body. The strategy was devised to combat the batting ruthlessness of Australia’s Don Bradman (Gary Sweet, very charismatic); it succeeded, but at great cost.

The long running time (330 minutes) enables Kennedy Miller to really explore the game of cricket at the time – not just the rules (wittily explained for the novice via a non-cricket character) but the myths and archetypes that around it. England’s cricketers are show to be a combination of upper class twits, ruthless aristocrats, and forelock-tugging coal miners; the Australians are democratic, down-to-earth, and incapable of reading French menus.

Stirring stuff, very well done, with lots of humour, intelligence and good acting in amidst the run-scoring montages. The series has come under criticism for some factual errors, some of which is fair enough (Bill O’Reilly’s contributions are barely mentioned, Jessie Bradman consoles Don after getting a duck – on his way back to the dressing room!) but a lot is simple nitpicking (eg. David Firth’s comments in the recent book, Bodyline Autopsy). It’s certainly no less accurate than most cricket autobiographies you read, and they get a lot of it right. Deduct two stars if you don’t like cricket.

Mini series review - "Bangkok Hilton" (1989) ****

Kennedy Miller’s last mini series of the 80s was a fitting end to a great collection of programs. After having dealt with such quintessential Aussie subjects as war, cricket and the outback, Kennedy Miller here tackle a more contemporary aspect of Australian society: namely, being wrongly accused of drug smuggling in a third world country. Nicole Kidman, in a star-making performance, plays a shy girl whose dodgy con man boyfriend (Jerome Ehlders) makes her unknowingly carry some smack at Bangkok airport and does the bolt when the cops arrive. She winds up in prison and it’s up to her estranged father (Denholm Elliott, excellent as always) and a lawyer (Hugo Weaving) to get her out.

Screenwriter Terry Hayes piles on everything but the kitchen sink to get a response - nasty gaol wardens, disgraced army captains, oppressive mother figures a la Now Voyager, mansions in the middle of nowhere, sex, heroin addicts who only smuggle to help their retarded brother - but it is all extremely entertaining, ending with a thrilling climax and touching resolution. The performances are all excellent (though I don’t think a single Thai character is portrayed sympathetically), as is Ken Cameron’s direction. Sets a high standard to be matched if ever Shapelle Corby wanted to do a telemovie, and makes one wish (yet again) that Kennedy Miller would go back to making television.

TV review - "Vietnam" (1988) ****

Stunning mini series from Kennedy Miller about the effect the Vietnam War had on Australian society in the 60s and 70s, as exemplified by a Canberra-based family. Dad (Barry Otto) is involved with the Liberal government, keen to stop the communist menace; mum (Veronica Lang) is a repressed housewife who gets an itch to be liberated; the son (Nicholas Eadie) gets conscripted and finds Hell and love in the Vietnam jungle; the daughter (Nicole Kidman) becomes involved in the anti-conscription movement and learns about sex.

Incredibly well done all along the line – superb acting (particularly from Nickers –what a good actor she can be, much better here than in something like The Hours), sensitive direction, and intelligent writing. Kennedy Miller’s skill in using humour to enliven potentially dreary subjects has rarely been better illustrated, and while the series is sympathetic to the isn’t-it-great-Gough-Whitlam-came-along-and-made-everything-good view of Australian history, other points of view are expressed as well.

Many memorable moments: Brett Climino’s speech about how “we all might die” being used by Nicholas Eadie to pick up chicks, Climino standing on a mine, Kidman’s courtship with draft-dodging John Polson, Mark Lee (Eadie’s army mate) making a speech at the end, Eadie’s work in special forces (led by Tim Robertson, giving one of the all-time memorable Australian performances).

The only scene that doesn’t work for me is the rape of a Vietnamese by some American GIs, which seems like a poor retread of Platoon – interestingly, this is the only scene that doesn’t involve Australians. Funny, exciting, beautiful, touching. One of the best mini series ever made.