Films about rugby league are so rare that it's a shame this one - which I think is the only rugby league biopic (I could be wrong) - isn't better. It's about the first tour of an Australian team in Britain, which took place in 1908 - a difficult trip, from all accounts, with players having to work as stokers to pay their way, but it helped establish the international bona fides of the game and saw some marvellous work from Dally Messenger.
The best thing about this movie is they've cast actors who actually look like they could play rugby league - Dominic Sweeney, Tony Martin, Dennis Waterman. And I always enjoy Chris Haywood, who's the manager.
But it's dull. The director is slow paced and plodding the script bland and amateurish - scenes feel as though they drag on forever. The challenge of filming the matches in an interesting way is not met, there's little complexity, gags are repeated incessantly. The novelty of the concept meant I made it through to the end but it was very hard going.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Movie review - "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" (2014) **
Really, really annoying movie because once upon a time I was into Jack Ryan novels in a big way and I've always enjoyed the movie adaptations, but they completely stuffed it. There was nothing wrong with the idea of doing a Ryan origin story - sure, they'd already turned the movie of The Sum of All Fears into one, but why not do it again? But instead of using one of the best selling source novels, several of which remain unfilmed, they thought they'd come up with an original story - and it's a crap one.
It feels as though this was done on the cheap, too. I guess Chris Pine isn't that cheap, and Ken Branagh could probably charge a little more after Thor, and Keira Knightley must have been paid something to hold her nose - but surely Kevin Costner doesn't cost that much? There's not really many other prominent characters in the movie. Spectacle is thin on the ground - there is a decent chase through the streets of Moscow and later one through New York, but in general television does this a lot better.
TV does story telling better too - which here is noticeably poor. The biggest flaw more me is the character of Ryan. The whole point of Jack Ryan was that he was a guy next door, a pencil pusher and family man who occasionally got caught in amazing adventures - an antidote to James Bond. He wanted to be a soldier but couldn't after being injured - he went into finance and made a quick fortune, then turned to academia, which led to a career in the CIA. He had a bad back, a fear of flying, a strong Irish Catholic influence, a keenly developed sense of intelligence and history - it's an interesting character. He's not gung ho Mr Macho killer - that job is given to John Clarke.
And the movies had done a decent enough job of depicting that until now - he wasn't really an ordinary guy but he was an action movie genre's version of an ordinary guy. (This is why Harrison Ford was so good).
Here Jack Ryan is just another super hero. Which might have worked (though what's the point?) but the filmmakers try to have their cake and eat it too by having him say "I'm just an analyst" and "I'm just an ordinary person" a few times. Well he isn't. For starters he enlists in the army after September 11, which makes him a moron and not true to character. Then he finishes his PhD and joins Wall Street and becomes part of the CIA because of his ability to... read patterns? Then he's sent on a mission to Russia and someone tries to kill him only Ryan gets in first in a ridiculous Daniel Craig James Bond type sequence.
This for me was the turning point of the film - when it showed that the filmmakers didn't have a vision. Because after that Pine/Ryan meets mentor Kevin Costner (played someone called Thomas Harper not in the novels... why not use John Clarke? Or Admiral Greer?) and goes on about how hard it was to kill someone the first time, you think "that's not true you found it easy, you looked like a bad ass". Then there's this horrible bit where Costner talks about his first time killing someone, an innocent bystander, and you're wondering how you're meant to take that character, who is a mentor but also distant, and there's no warmth (nothing to compare to what James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman brought).
Then we see Ryan "analyse" stuff - he really seems to brain storm and kick ideas around and guess what the baddies are up to without much proof, but he always guesses right. And for all his inexperience he manages to rescue Keira from assassins and then later on stop a terrorist by engaging in a motorbike chase and a fight on a moving truck. It's ridiculous.
So much of this is dumb. Keira Knightley looks beautiful but her role is horrible; they don't even show a courtship, just them meeting and bang they're in love - and she thinks he's having an affair (he ducks away to see Sorry Wrong Number at a revival house... way to go with updating the character), then she follows him to Moscow so she can be kidnapped (the best sequence in the movie to be fair) then she is rescued and doesn't do anything in the last third.
The action stuff lacks balls. Clancy never did - he set off an atomic bomb in the US in Sum of All Fears and had a plane crash into the White House in Debt of Honour (predicting September 11) and killed off leading characters. This is all tentative - all the goodies live the baddies die Wall Street is saved. No big stakes no nothing. It's annoying - because Ryan is such a good character who's had interesting adventures. But they completely stuffed it.
It feels as though this was done on the cheap, too. I guess Chris Pine isn't that cheap, and Ken Branagh could probably charge a little more after Thor, and Keira Knightley must have been paid something to hold her nose - but surely Kevin Costner doesn't cost that much? There's not really many other prominent characters in the movie. Spectacle is thin on the ground - there is a decent chase through the streets of Moscow and later one through New York, but in general television does this a lot better.
TV does story telling better too - which here is noticeably poor. The biggest flaw more me is the character of Ryan. The whole point of Jack Ryan was that he was a guy next door, a pencil pusher and family man who occasionally got caught in amazing adventures - an antidote to James Bond. He wanted to be a soldier but couldn't after being injured - he went into finance and made a quick fortune, then turned to academia, which led to a career in the CIA. He had a bad back, a fear of flying, a strong Irish Catholic influence, a keenly developed sense of intelligence and history - it's an interesting character. He's not gung ho Mr Macho killer - that job is given to John Clarke.
And the movies had done a decent enough job of depicting that until now - he wasn't really an ordinary guy but he was an action movie genre's version of an ordinary guy. (This is why Harrison Ford was so good).
Here Jack Ryan is just another super hero. Which might have worked (though what's the point?) but the filmmakers try to have their cake and eat it too by having him say "I'm just an analyst" and "I'm just an ordinary person" a few times. Well he isn't. For starters he enlists in the army after September 11, which makes him a moron and not true to character. Then he finishes his PhD and joins Wall Street and becomes part of the CIA because of his ability to... read patterns? Then he's sent on a mission to Russia and someone tries to kill him only Ryan gets in first in a ridiculous Daniel Craig James Bond type sequence.
This for me was the turning point of the film - when it showed that the filmmakers didn't have a vision. Because after that Pine/Ryan meets mentor Kevin Costner (played someone called Thomas Harper not in the novels... why not use John Clarke? Or Admiral Greer?) and goes on about how hard it was to kill someone the first time, you think "that's not true you found it easy, you looked like a bad ass". Then there's this horrible bit where Costner talks about his first time killing someone, an innocent bystander, and you're wondering how you're meant to take that character, who is a mentor but also distant, and there's no warmth (nothing to compare to what James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman brought).
Then we see Ryan "analyse" stuff - he really seems to brain storm and kick ideas around and guess what the baddies are up to without much proof, but he always guesses right. And for all his inexperience he manages to rescue Keira from assassins and then later on stop a terrorist by engaging in a motorbike chase and a fight on a moving truck. It's ridiculous.
So much of this is dumb. Keira Knightley looks beautiful but her role is horrible; they don't even show a courtship, just them meeting and bang they're in love - and she thinks he's having an affair (he ducks away to see Sorry Wrong Number at a revival house... way to go with updating the character), then she follows him to Moscow so she can be kidnapped (the best sequence in the movie to be fair) then she is rescued and doesn't do anything in the last third.
The action stuff lacks balls. Clancy never did - he set off an atomic bomb in the US in Sum of All Fears and had a plane crash into the White House in Debt of Honour (predicting September 11) and killed off leading characters. This is all tentative - all the goodies live the baddies die Wall Street is saved. No big stakes no nothing. It's annoying - because Ryan is such a good character who's had interesting adventures. But they completely stuffed it.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Movie review - "Rocky III" (1983) ***
I loved this when I saw it as a kid - thought the fight between Rocky and Hulk Hogan was one of the funniest sequences in Hollywood history. On rewatching it years down the track I wasn't as enamoured but it remains slick, enjoyable entertainment and indicative of Sylvester Stallone's considerable ability to put a new twist on an old twist.
It helps that he's come up with a decent story - Rocky gets cocky and lazy and it clobbered by a young boxer; his trainer dies, but Rocky gets his act together with the help of his former adversary. That's a strong basic plot - and the film has two other ace in the holes: the thumping rock anthem "Eye of the Tiger", used with brilliant effectiveness, and the star making performance of Mr T as Rocky's nemesis. Carl Weathers, Burt Young, Burgess Meredith (ham alert!) and Talia Shire all add their patented bits, as do the extras.
It's very 80s - check out Stallone's physique and hair, plus the music - but enjoyably so.
It helps that he's come up with a decent story - Rocky gets cocky and lazy and it clobbered by a young boxer; his trainer dies, but Rocky gets his act together with the help of his former adversary. That's a strong basic plot - and the film has two other ace in the holes: the thumping rock anthem "Eye of the Tiger", used with brilliant effectiveness, and the star making performance of Mr T as Rocky's nemesis. Carl Weathers, Burt Young, Burgess Meredith (ham alert!) and Talia Shire all add their patented bits, as do the extras.
It's very 80s - check out Stallone's physique and hair, plus the music - but enjoyably so.
Movie review - "Incubus" (1966) ***
This movie is best remembered for two things, both of which made me love it before even seeing it, a) the fact it was shot in Esperanto, and b) the curse associated with it - several people who worked on the film have had tragic ends.
It's a surprise to find that it's actually a decent movie - ambitious, genuinely creepy and unsettling. I don't want to over praise it or anything but the atmosphere is very effective, heavily influenced by Ingmar Bergman. Conrad Hall was the cinematographer so it looks beautiful. And all the Esperanto does create an off-kilther, otherworldly feeling.
The story was a little confusing in places but basically effective: an evil creature (Allyson Ames) who lures men to their deaths surprises herself by falling in love. The rape and murder of Ann Atmar is genuinely unsettling and probably the movie's most powerful sequence. (At heart it's about an independent woman who turns "good" via the love of a good man, which will offend some). William Shatner is the guy Aymes falls in love with.
It's a surprise to find that it's actually a decent movie - ambitious, genuinely creepy and unsettling. I don't want to over praise it or anything but the atmosphere is very effective, heavily influenced by Ingmar Bergman. Conrad Hall was the cinematographer so it looks beautiful. And all the Esperanto does create an off-kilther, otherworldly feeling.
The story was a little confusing in places but basically effective: an evil creature (Allyson Ames) who lures men to their deaths surprises herself by falling in love. The rape and murder of Ann Atmar is genuinely unsettling and probably the movie's most powerful sequence. (At heart it's about an independent woman who turns "good" via the love of a good man, which will offend some). William Shatner is the guy Aymes falls in love with.
Movie review - "Top Secret!" (1984) ****
Loved this as a kid and it still holds up well with about ten times the genuine laughs as modern day spoofs - I must sound so old saying something like that but if you don't believe me check it out. It's bewildering to think this wasn't a hit - apparently it did okay but was a disappointment considering the budget and expectations.
I think maybe they spoofed a genre too far. There is a good basic premise here - rock star gets involved in the Cold War busting a scientist out of prison - with a strong basic dramatic arc (cocky kid grows up and finds love) but the film constantly veers between World War Two and the Cold War. I think it needed to pick one - probably the Cold War, and just set it in the sixties. That would have meant losing all the French resistance and Nazi stuff but it could be done. As it is, I think it was too much of a mixture.
Anyway, that's hindsight. To praise the good thinks: there's the song 'Skeet Surfing', so many classic lines ("truck load of dead rats in a tampon factory", "I just can't bring my wife to orgasm"), the names of the resistance (Montage, Mise-en-scene, Deja Vu, Latrine), the slapstick battles, the villain who only knows what he reads in the New York Post, the Blue Lagoon flashbacks.
This was a great way for Val Kilmer to start off his career, and Lucy Gutteridge does a great Ingrid Bergman impression. Some fun cameos by Peter Cushing and Omar Sharif - I wish there'd been more of them a la Flying High. But it's wonderful.
I think maybe they spoofed a genre too far. There is a good basic premise here - rock star gets involved in the Cold War busting a scientist out of prison - with a strong basic dramatic arc (cocky kid grows up and finds love) but the film constantly veers between World War Two and the Cold War. I think it needed to pick one - probably the Cold War, and just set it in the sixties. That would have meant losing all the French resistance and Nazi stuff but it could be done. As it is, I think it was too much of a mixture.
Anyway, that's hindsight. To praise the good thinks: there's the song 'Skeet Surfing', so many classic lines ("truck load of dead rats in a tampon factory", "I just can't bring my wife to orgasm"), the names of the resistance (Montage, Mise-en-scene, Deja Vu, Latrine), the slapstick battles, the villain who only knows what he reads in the New York Post, the Blue Lagoon flashbacks.
This was a great way for Val Kilmer to start off his career, and Lucy Gutteridge does a great Ingrid Bergman impression. Some fun cameos by Peter Cushing and Omar Sharif - I wish there'd been more of them a la Flying High. But it's wonderful.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Movie review - "Wherever She Goes" (1951) **1/2
Very few films were made in Australia in the 1950s - this was one of them, and it doesn't enjoy much of a reputation, even among Aussie film buffs. But I was surprised - it's definitely no classic, and I doubt I'd ever want to pay money to see it, but it's a sweet little movie.
Its about the early years in the life of Eileen Joyce, little remembered today but in the 30s, 40s and 50s one of the most famous pianists in the world, and she was an Aussie. Apparently the film is heavily fictionalised, although she was definitely poor as a kid.
What's here is entertaining enough in an ambling way - little Eileen is living in rural Tasmania when she discovers music via the harmonica of a passing swagman. When she visits Hobart she sees a piano for the first time and becomes hooked. Then her family move to Kalgoorlie where dad (Nigel Lovell) has rotten luck on the goldfields but Eileen manages to find a way to practice the piano and becomes very good. It's cute how the miners chip in to hep and the neighbours grumble about her but support her.
Suzanne Parrett is winning as the young Eileen, running around barefoot and getting into adventures. She doesn't come across as a genius but she's got a lot of spunk. I also enjoyed Tommy Drysdale as her brother. Both have natural chemistry and presence. Nigel Lovell and Muriel Steinbeck offer solid support as mum and dad. George Wallace has a small role as the manager of a talent competition - it was a shock to see him, he looks so old and fat. Joyce appears at herself at the beginning and ending.
This is definitely no classic but it's got good child actors, location filming of Tasmania and Western Australia, plenty of music and a good heart.
Its about the early years in the life of Eileen Joyce, little remembered today but in the 30s, 40s and 50s one of the most famous pianists in the world, and she was an Aussie. Apparently the film is heavily fictionalised, although she was definitely poor as a kid.
What's here is entertaining enough in an ambling way - little Eileen is living in rural Tasmania when she discovers music via the harmonica of a passing swagman. When she visits Hobart she sees a piano for the first time and becomes hooked. Then her family move to Kalgoorlie where dad (Nigel Lovell) has rotten luck on the goldfields but Eileen manages to find a way to practice the piano and becomes very good. It's cute how the miners chip in to hep and the neighbours grumble about her but support her.
Suzanne Parrett is winning as the young Eileen, running around barefoot and getting into adventures. She doesn't come across as a genius but she's got a lot of spunk. I also enjoyed Tommy Drysdale as her brother. Both have natural chemistry and presence. Nigel Lovell and Muriel Steinbeck offer solid support as mum and dad. George Wallace has a small role as the manager of a talent competition - it was a shock to see him, he looks so old and fat. Joyce appears at herself at the beginning and ending.
This is definitely no classic but it's got good child actors, location filming of Tasmania and Western Australia, plenty of music and a good heart.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Book review - "The Master of Ballantrae" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1889)
Everyone knows the classic Stevenson tales - Jekyll and Hyde, Kidnapped, Treasure Island - but this would rank on the second level, probably along with The Black Arrow. It's a surprisingly dark and bleak tale with a strong central idea - a Scottish lord has two sons, a wastrel and a more reliable type, and during the 1745 rebellion it's decided one should remain loyal while the other joins Bonnie Prince Charlie; they flip a coin and the wastrel gets to go Jacobite. Everyone misses him and thinks he's the better brother, and when he comes back he sets about psychologically torturing the "good" brother.
If this were an everyday tale it would be clear-cut good and evil and for a long time it seems to be that, with the Master (the wastrel, Jamie) behaving appallingly - but when the bad brother chases the good to the American colonies, the good brother snaps and starts taunting, tormenting the bad brother.
This might have been a better book had the brother (Henry) snapped earlier. Because for a lot of it he is frustratingly passive, paying off Jamie's mistress, and taking a lot of crap, including from his dad and wife who both adore Jamie. Also passive are their father, the steward who narrates the tail, and even the wife.
However Jamie is a bright, vivacious character - an evil little turd to be sure, but he's always doing something, turning pirate, or setting up business in India, or trying to blackmail his brother, who he becomes obssessed with. A very strong villain who has interesting adventures (piracy, burying treasure in America etc). It's a genuinely different sort of adventure tale, very different in tone to the 1953 Errol Flynn version.
If this were an everyday tale it would be clear-cut good and evil and for a long time it seems to be that, with the Master (the wastrel, Jamie) behaving appallingly - but when the bad brother chases the good to the American colonies, the good brother snaps and starts taunting, tormenting the bad brother.
This might have been a better book had the brother (Henry) snapped earlier. Because for a lot of it he is frustratingly passive, paying off Jamie's mistress, and taking a lot of crap, including from his dad and wife who both adore Jamie. Also passive are their father, the steward who narrates the tail, and even the wife.
However Jamie is a bright, vivacious character - an evil little turd to be sure, but he's always doing something, turning pirate, or setting up business in India, or trying to blackmail his brother, who he becomes obssessed with. A very strong villain who has interesting adventures (piracy, burying treasure in America etc). It's a genuinely different sort of adventure tale, very different in tone to the 1953 Errol Flynn version.
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