THE LONE RANGER

Stars: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter, James Badge Dale, Bryant Prince, Mason Cook and Barry Pepper.
Writers: Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio.
Director: Gore Verbinski

Rating: 2.5/5

Conviction far outweighs cohesion in Gore Verbinski’s panoramic but weirdly schizophrenic rebranding of the 70 year-old western hero, The Lone Ranger. Soaring then sinking jarringly, the director mashes up the genre-reworking skills he showed in his Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and animated western Rango to forge an adventure comedy both anachronistic and contemporary, though never entirely convincing in either regard.

Concerns that just another franchise-launching superhero origins story is the last thing moviegoers need are not entirely dispelled, with the grinding gears of corporate Hollywood’s influence occasionally peaking out from behind Verbinki’s dusty façade. His is a film that wants to be a honourable nod to the radio/TV series traditions, yet also feels overly compelled to pander to the multiplex mindset for whom the term ‘western’ holds little relevance.

This is evident nowhere more than in the game but misguided casting of Johnny Depp as sidekick, Tonto, to Armie Hammer’s masked avenger. Depp keeps it minimal but still manages to mug mercilessly, never finding a basis in reality from which to create anything other than a one-dimensional comic presence (unlike his Captain Jack Sparrow, which was both at odds with yet wonderfully central to the appeal of the Pirates… series). The superstars’ approach clashes with Hammer’s buffoonish hero, whose broad, physical shtick might have suited Brendan Fraser a decade ago; the actors are both playing the comedic sidekick role, giving the planned laughs nothing to bounce off. 

The plotting, perhaps intentionally, represents a workmanlike but unremarkable melodrama from the genre’s golden era (and bears more than just a passing resemblance to Lawrence Kasdan’s much-loved Silverado). The rail line is cutting a scar across the Midwest under the ruthless, charming control of Cole (Tom Wilkinson), who has brought on board recent law school graduate John Reid (Hammer) to facilitate a peaceful sharing of the land with the Comanche and Apache states. John will be working alongside his tough-talkin’, seen-it-all Ranger brother Dan (James Badge Dale), whose wife Rebecca (Ruth Wilson) once had a passion for the younger sibling.

Simultaneously, Tonto is on his own mission to avenge the exploitation of his land and people when he was only a boy and for which, we discover via flashback, he is largely at fault. A good hour into the film, he and Reid bicker and banter their way into a tenuous partnership over their shared goals. All of this exposition is framed by its own narrative set-up, in which a withered and aged sideshow attraction (Depp, in exemplary old age make-up, ala Dustin Hoffman in Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man) tells a fascinated young Ranger fan (Mason Cook) of a time and legend long since past.

Most bewildering is Verbinski’s disregard for tonality. The key villain, Butch Cavendish (an unrecognisable William Fichtner), has a penchant for eating the body parts of his slain enemies; two sequences featuring massacres (of Texas rangers and peaceful natives, respectively) are old-school bloodbaths; in one attack sequence, native American and cavalry forces clash violently, resulting in lifelike carnage. Picture if you can a film with these elements that also features a cross-dressing henchmen (Harry Treadaway), a legless bordello madam with shotgun-packin’ prosthesis (Helena Bonham Carter); a mystical white stallion with impeccable comic timing and a slapstick action sequence/shootout finale that defies logic and physics in the name of good ol’ fashion matinee nonsense.

The Lone Ranger is ultimately an unwieldy and, at an inexcusable 149 minutes, overlong indulgence offering occasional thrills and giggles but none sufficient to warrant the effort; we’ve seen its type before, in the form of Barry Sonnenfeld’s Will Smith misfire, Wild Wild West. Veteran DOP Bojan Bazelli offers some stunning widescreen vistas that integrate well with CGI elements (horses, buffalos, trains…lots and lots of trains…), but if the U.S. summer audience exits after 2 ½ hours waxing lyrical about the cinematography, Disney’s hefty investment will be in trouble. More problematic may be that it is unlikely they will be talking highly about any other aspect, if they are discussing it at all.

THE CONJURING

Stars: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ron Livingstone, Lili Taylor, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy, Hayley McFarland, Shanley Caswell, Sterling Jerins, Shannon Kook and Steve Coulter.
Writers: Chad Hayes and Carey Hayes.
Director: James Wan

Rating: 3/5

The authenticity afforded any work under the ‘based on a true story’ banner is stretched to near breaking point in the name of old-school horror entertainment in The Conjuring. Bolstered by committed star turns from talent rarely attracted to this sort of malarkey, Australian-trained director James Wan (Saw; Insidious) continues to exhibit growth as a filmmaker with a keen eye for genre scares; if he can hone his ear to weeding out tinny dialogue, he will likely make a great film one day.

Working from a script by twins Chad and Carey Hayes (adapting from the House of Darkness House of Light trilogy of books), Wan eases us into the early 1970s world of self-proclaimed demonologist Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and his trance medium wife, Lorraine (Vera Farmiga). Glimpses into their home and work life share the film’s first act with the story of Roger (Ron Livingstone) and Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor), a blue collar couple who, with their four daughters, have moved into a large home in rural Harrisville, Rhode Island.

From the very first night, strange phenomena (entirely familiar to fans of the haunted house genre) begin to impact the family – foul odours, bumps in the night, broken trinkets. The degree of intrusion escalates - Carolyn develops bruises; the girls are tormented as they sleep; the family dog suffers the fate of most animal co-stars in films like this. When finally summoned to the house, the Warrens sense it is less a haunting than, more worryingly, a case of demonic possession.

Wan is clearly an aficionado of this horror subset, with many nods to films such as Poltergeist, The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror (which the Warren’s worked on in real life and is referenced in the final moments). He slow-burns the early sequences to chilly effect, creating several solid scares and crafting a blanketing menace that holds the attention throughout, even as the third act events spin from the incredible to the implausible. The 1970 setting proves particularly inspiring for production designer Julie Berghoff and art director Geoffrey S Grimsman, whose artistry creates a type of neo-Gothic mansion in modern-day east USA.

Unfortunately, creaking almost as loudly as the home’s doors and floorboards is the dialogue. The Hayes brothers have some high-concept/low-IQ works to their names, namely House of Wax, the Hilary Swank bomb The Reaping and the little-seen Kate Beckinsale non-starter Whiteout. None boast of cracking wordplay and The Conjuring almost unravels under the weight of some B-movie howlers; that Wilson and Farmiga play Ed and Lorraine with such earnestness both shows up the writing flaws yet elevates the material beyond its inherent worth. Wan’s skill with pacing and veteran DOP John R Leonetti’s rich widescreen lensing also help push leaden passages of blah conversation into the background.

Some unexplored opportunities are left on the table. Both Lorraine and Carolyn experience maternal angst as the unknown takes hold (thematically reminiscent of the 2011 Katie Holmes film, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark), though Farmiga and Taylor share little meaningful screen time together. The four Perron girls, richly observed and wonderfully played in the film’s first half, all but disappear as the investigation takes centre stage, only called upon to shriek a lot as the demonic force manifests.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Wan has crafted an effectively creepy work that honours both the work of Lorraine and the Ed Warren (he passed in 2006) and the dark legacy left by the tales of hauntings since storytelling began.  

THE FINAL MEMBER

With: Sigurdur Hjartson, Pall Arason and Tom Mitchell.
Directors: Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math.

Rating: 4/5

Eccentricity and ego are embraced and explored in The Final Member, a documentary that begins by welcoming us inside the world’s only penis museum then gets progressively weirder.

Directors Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math kick off their gentle journey into the macabre in Husavik, a small, traditional Icelandic village only 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. Here, we are introduced to Sigurdur Hjartson (‘Siggi’ to his friends and admirers), a man who has curated the world’s largest collection of mammalian penises, which he proudly displays at his internationally renowned Phallological Museum.

As retirement age nears, Siggi is becoming increasingly despondent, having yet to find the one genitalia he does not have in his collection – the human male. Fiercely nationalistic, he would like the specimen to be that of legendary Icelandic adventurer and ladies-man Pall Arason, though age may have withered his once virile male-muscle. But being the museum’s first human exhibit carries with it international fame, something that American Tom Mitchell is willing to sacrifice his all for.

It is Mitchell that emerges as the film’s most compelling character, if only because he seems such a genuine oddball. In his sixties, he is immensely proud of his penis (which he refers to as ‘Elmo’) and has no qualms about having it surgically removed, balls and all, so that it can live forever in Siggi’s penile palace. Mitchell is also a patriot, so much so that he has the Stars and Stripes tattooed on the tip of his member, and soon he and Siggi are clashing, with the Icelander more determined to have a countryman’s donation on his shelf than a foreigner.

The directors take a very matter-of-fact approach to the subject and that goes a long way to saving The Final Member from just being a silly, giggly, boys-own joke. Bekhor and Math capture the integrity and passion of Hjartson, a noble and gracious man who has found much respect amongst both the academic community and the Icelandic people. Similarly, the young filmmakers cast an incisive but non-judgemental eye over the irony-free and egocentric Mitchell. Wisely, the film explores the personal lives and family ties that have supported Hjartson over the years, including his wife, children (his son inherits the Museum) and, most convivially, his brothers.

There are certainly moments of tremendous humour (such as when the specialist Mitchell choses for to perform the procedure sees his tattoo for the first time) but they more often emerge from the characters and not at their expense. Thematically, The Final Member is an account of fame and obsession; the shadow of Arason's manly legend and the frail, bent man he has become is symbolic of the fleeting nature of dreams and ego. The three-way character-study of masculine traits takes as its central image a body part most often associated with masculinity, but proves to be about a great deal more.

Be warned; the film does not skimp on the more gruesome aspects of animal penis collection (anyone keen to see what the male harbour seal must carry around all day will not be disappointed).

THE WAY, WAY BACK

Stars: Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Liam James, Toni Collette, Maya Rudolph, Amanda Peet, AnnaSophia Robb, Rob Corddry, Alison Janney, Jim Rash, Nat Faxon, River Alexander, Robert Capron and Zoe Levin.
Writers/Directors: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

Rating: 3.5/5

When the summer-time feel-good dramedy, The Way Way Back turned up on the Sydney Film Festival schedule, there was a murmur from Harbour City cinephiles that a) suggested this sort of cute US teen tale can’t be worthy of a prime slot, and b) if it is, 2013 may be a lean year at the SFF.

Not for the first time, Harbour City cinephiles were wrong. The SFF 2013 programme was (mostly) up to standard; and, the writing/directing team of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (hot off their Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar win for The Descendants) have delivered an entirely Festival-worthy offering. This charming coming-of-age effort features a low-key, thoroughly winning lead character in Liam James’ 14 year-old misfit Duncan and a bottomless pit of quality co-stars basking in the glory of a smart, warm, funny script.

Misunderstood sad-sack Duncan is accompanying his mom, Pam (Toni Collette) and her new boyfriend, the jerk Trent (an against-type Steve Carell) on a summer season vacation trip to Trent’s holiday home. We learn early on Trent has history there; his neighbour, the usually liquored-up Betty (a wonderful Allison Janney) is in the party’s face as soon as they arrive, her daughter, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) checking out the new arrivals from the porch.

Seeking distance from his twisted home life, Duncan stumbles into a part-time job at the local Water Whizz theme-park, under the tutelage of ultra-cool substitute dad-figure Owen (Sam Rockwell, heir to Bill Murray’s droll but adorable everyman crown, in the role his fans have been waiting for him to play). While Trent and an increasingly disillusioned Pam get complicated with summer friends Joan (Amanda Peet) and Kip (Rob Corddry), Duncan finds new and better authority figures in Owen, park boss Caitlyn (Maya Rudolph), water-shute operator Roddy (Faxon) and surly confession stand long-timer Lewis (Rash).

Not quite the new Little Miss Sunshine the studio marketers would have you believe (that film’s Collette and Carell are very different here), The Way, Way Back most resembles the criminally underseen 2009 Jesse Eisenberg/Kristen Stewart film, Adventureland. Utilising the warmth of rose-coloured retro-vision, both films get away with 80’s-style sentimentality by balancing those elements with tart-mouth quips and real-world emotions.

There is an adorable ease with which the feel-good elements of Rash and Faxon’s story unfold. James makes for an atypical teen lead but that ultimately serves the story immeasurably; even as Act 3 kicks off, the script never hints as to how bittersweet things will become for our hero. It is a work of outward simplicity but resonates with a depth that anyone who was ever an awkward teen will identify with instantly.

WORLD WAR Z

Stars: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken, Fana Mokoena, David Morse, David Andrews, Moritz Bleibtreu, Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove.
Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof; based on the novel by Max Brooks.
Director: Marc Forster.

Rating: 3.5/5

Director Marc Forster transforms the geo-political/first-person focus of Max Brooks’ bestseller World War Z into an inter-continental blockbuster for a Hollywood star to play the all-American everyman. Fans of the novel had every right to be nervous, especially amidst reports of well-documented production problems and spiralling budget levels.

Thankfully, Forster delivers big-scale action entertainment, a compelling work that flexes its own sinewy muscles while still fulfilling the hopes of zombie fans, who have wanted to see the walking dead given the mega-budget treatment for some time. Die-hard supporters of the novel will begrudge the shift in focus and lack of ideological insight the novel presented. Most, though, will be thrilled to see wave after wave of flesh-eaters rendered large and in multiplexes.

Brad Pitt stars as family man Gerry Lane, whom we first meet at home cooking breakfast for his wife Karin (Mireille Enos) and pre-teen daughters, Constance (Sterling Jerins) and Rachel (Abigail Hargrove). As they banter, television news coverage features scenes of global chaos, as populated centres fall into unexplained anarchy.

Soon, we are with the family in a Philadelphia traffic jam. Helicopters whirl, distant screams can be heard, people are soon running. Almost instantaneously, the Lane clan are caught up in the downfall of civilisation; citizens are going all cloudy-eyed and twitchy, transforming into teeth-chattering, flesh-craving monsters. Forster kicks his film off with this extended sequence that is classic edge-of-the-seat filmmaking; the first 30 minutes, during which the family flee the city via helicopter (Jerry has friends in high places), is truly thrilling.

What follows are a series of immersive action scenes as Jerry, whose experience uncovering terrorist cells somehow makes him an expert re a global health pandemic, traverses the globe trying to establish the cause of the outbreak so that he may develop a cure. A floodlit, rain-soaked take-off in South Korea; a massive wave of zombies scaling one of Jerusalem’s giant walls; and, finally, an outbreak aboard a commercial airliner in which Gerry is travelling, are all handled with a directorial flair that utilises every corner of the widescreen frame (Oscar-winner Robert Richardson shot all the early footage, though is uncredited; Ben Seresin is afforded sole DOP status).

The zombies themselves are never seen chomping into pink flesh or ripping at entrails, as hard-corers who grew up on the George Romero classics might expect. They are portrayed more as a singular surge of destruction, not unlike the African killer ants in Byron Haskin’s The Naked Jungle. The script, which was worked over by lots of LA’s best script doctors but has been credited to Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Godard and Damon Lindelof, takes a very softly softly approach to even uttering the Z word; this is a depiction of the zom-pocalypse that wants to keep it very real (similar to the approach Steven Soderbergh used in his version of a cheesy disaster flick, Contagion).

Where the film will divide lovers and haters is in the finale. In a Vanity Fair article that details exactly how expensive it is to rework a tentpole film that doesn’t play well on first viewing, it is revealed a massive Moscow-set zombie bloodbath was filmed then discarded. It is clear from what is left on-screen that the film was gearing up to a huge denouement (its is called ‘World War’ Z, after all), and given Forster’s handling of the action in the film’s first two acts, it is a shame we don’t get to see the footage (the Blu-ray extras menu will be awesome).

Fears that Pitt’s character lost his family-oriented, audience-friendly persona in favour of a zombie-slaying Rambo type demanded reshoots. The new ending is a workmanlike rehashing of Resident Evil, but it plays at odds with the scale and overall aesthetic of Forster’s setpieces up to that point. It is a little hard to get too worked up over 80 zombies in a closed-in environment when your hero has just escaped 2000 of them in the Middle East.

Nailing the everyman archetype while still exuding action-hero chops, this is certainly Brad Pitt’s picture, but there are some support players whose presence (or lack thereof) hint at the film we may have seen. David Morse, German star Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run) and British actor Peter Capaldi (In The Loop) are reduced to 20-word parts; worse, Matthew Fox gets just a profile shot, his entire role all but excised. Most impressive is Daniella Kertesz as an Israeli soldier befriended by Pitt's character and who allows the family-oriented hero to focus on his caring-for-others side at critical moments. 

Overall, though, fears that the film was shaping up as a Heaven’s Gate/The Postman/Howard the Duck-style money pit have well and truly been laid to rest. World War Z delivers perfectly exciting mainstream thrills guided by a savvy A-list star and box office receipts should reflect that. 

AFTER EARTH

Stars: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Sophie Okonedo, Zoe Kravitz, Glen Morshower and Kristofer Hivju.
Writers: M Night Shyamalan and gary Whitta; story by Will Smith.
Director: M Night Shyamalan.

Rating: 1.5/5

M Night Shyamalan’s laborious, plodding sci-fi adventure stumbles out of the blocks with a grating voice-over and lame ‘3 days earlier…’ title-card and goes downhill from there. Only the most forgiving of Will Smith’s dwindling audience will find anything of any worth in his portrayal of a career soldier and stoic father who must rely on his wayward son (real-life spawn, Jaden) to get them both home safely.

From its flashback-and-forth narrative to a voice from the grave that saves the day and offers redemption, Shyamalan’s one-trick gimmickry is employed to meagre effect yet again. Bar that daft detour into hired-hand territory with The Last Airbender, After Earth is as Shyamalan as Shyamalan gets; its father-son/grief-infused narrative probably most recalls Signs (for me, his best film) but there are recognisable bits that nod to The Sixth Sense, The Happening and, to a lesser extent, Lady in the Water.

The premise is hoary old sci-fi 101. A deep space mission hits some asteroid debris, jumps into hyper-drive to escape certain death and pops out in the galaxy at a point just a stone’s throw from Planet Earth. With the crew all dead and Earth now a vicious jungle where all creatures have developed into maneaters, it is up to Kitai (the younger Smith) to find the rescue beacon that will save his badly wounded Dad (the older Smith).

Shyamalan mashes up the man-vs-nature journey with some post-apocalyptic sci-fi stuff, and neither manages to hold audience interest. Dragging everything down is the monotonous dialogue, mostly spoken between Will from a chair in the crashed space-craft and Jaden out in the wilds. The elder Smith has mastered the art of ‘ghosting’, a fear-control mechanism that allows him to fight the Ursas, an alien species that tracks you by the scent of your fear pheromones. It also means one of the most vibrant leading men in Hollywood is reduced to a stoic (read, ‘bored’) look throughout. Young Jaden seems far too young to play a warrior-type and lacks the charisma to carry an action lead.

There are some ok effect-driven interludes, notably an airborne sequence which has Kitai being chased by giant condor; but, in line with the skewy logic at the centre of the film, its ‘predator/prey’ tension is undone when said condor turns saviour. It is one of many dumb moments that reveal the thinly-etched fabric of the plot.

There are also the much-discussed parallels with the Scientology principles; Smith and wife Jada Pinkett-Smith have long been rumoured to be closet disciples of the faith (they refuse to comment on any involvement). Those familiar with the basic tenets of the religion can’t help but draw comparisons between the hero who has learnt to control his fears, the young rebel who learns to toe the line and imagery such as volcanoes (central to founder L Ron Hubbard’s ‘Dianetics’ book). It should not cast a shadow over the film’s drama, however unengaging that may be, but it unavoidably will for some.

M Night Shyamalan, who takes a co-writers credit with Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli), has some fun with the look and feel of the mankind’s future world but never lifts the suspense above the most mundane level. An episodic, tension-free, trope-filled movie whose layers and levels of difficulties reflect more aesthetically video-game plotting, After Earth is another DOA misfire that must bring into question the director’s ongoing worth to Hollywood.

FINAL CUT - LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

Director: Gyorgy Palfi

Rating: 4.5/5

If there is a film buff who exits a screening of Final Cut - Ladies and Gentlemen without their cheeks aching from the 90-minute ear-to-ear grin that Gyorgy Palfi’s stunning montage film inspires, they need to hand in their union card. It is inconceivable that a lover of all things cinematic will not find this extraordinary work just about the most fun they’ll have in a theatre over the duration of their love affair with movies.

The director of the far more hard-edged Taxidermia has compiled clips from over 450+ films, from high-profile classics (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Singing in the Rain, Psycho, Dr No, Avatar) to the most niche cult items (Johnny Corncob, 80 Hussars, Bizalom), and melded then into a classic love story narrative. No actor or actress plays the same part twice, yet every one onscreen helps create a vivid, instantly engaging romantic journey that celebrates storytelling and film language in the most unique of ways.

Constructed over three years by the filmmaker, co-writer Zsofia Ruttkay and a team of four editors, the project took shape when the Hungarian film sector collapsed its subsidy scheme and Palfi was left with production dollars but no way to spend them. Ingeniously, he utilised his vast knowledge of film history and love for international cinema and set about constructing his wonderfully playful, very moving and occasionally boldly graphic love story. He refers to it as his ‘recycled film’, obviously referring to his pilfered footage but also a nod to the clichéd but beautiful plotline which, most nobly, honours the notion that ‘cinema is romance’

Given the copyrights nightmare the film represents, it is unlikely to ever see a DVD/Blu-ray release, but there is something perfectly ok with that. Final Cut - Ladies and Gentlemen should be seen in a theatre as a shared experience, recalling the very early days of the artform when crowds would flock to see the latest flickering images. The millions of frames that have made up a century of cinema are honoured here in one of the most exhilarating montage constructs ever produced; it is a suitably grand yet deeply intimate work.

THE RAMBLER

Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Lindsay Pulsipher, James Cady, Scott Sharot, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Blott, Robyn Reede and Christopher Dempsey.
Writer/director: Calvin Reeder.

Rating: 2/5

Dermot Mulroney’s ‘Man with No Name’ drifter is all too appropriately at the centre of offbeat auteur Calvin Reeder’s ‘Film with No Point’, The Rambler. Overflowing with dreamlike imagery, illogical narrative progression and impenetrable directorial vision, this dusty, dimwitted indulgence will seem cool to some who think its very obtuse nature is reason enough to praise it. It isn’t; The Rambler is mostly just ridiculous.

Mulroney, a solid presence in both mainstream and indie cinema for two decades, goes out on a career limb associating himself with a work of such niche appeal and debatable worth. The film certainly benefits from his involvement, but what he could possibly gain from taking on the titular role (or, more precisely, what artistic growth could he achieve) is beyond me.

We meet ‘The Rambler’ as he is released from prison into an American Midwest filled with dark-hearted eccentrics. Among them, Rambler’s trailer-park girlfriend (Natasha Lyonne, making a welcome return to the screen) who boots him out of their shared RV; a cab driver (Scott Sharot) with an obsession for old monster movies; a twisted mad scientist (James Cady) whose VHS dream-recorder literally blows the mind; and a girl (Lindsay Pulsipher, working with Reeder again after 2010’s little-seen The Oregonian) who inexplicably falls for Mulroney’s bad-boy caricature.

Reeder’s vision invites consideration and involvement for most of its first half. There is something compelling about Mulroney’s road-trip journey (he is on his way to his brother’s property to work breaking in horses) and sideways detours into odd landscapes, invariably accompanied by a pulsating ambient soundtrack, hold a certain allure. It is clear that Reeder is a big fan of David Lynch, his film rather shamefacedly drawing on imagery from Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, though ultimately minus the character definition that was so crucial to Lynch’s work.

The films’ last 40 minutes, quite frankly, are indecipherable. Reeder indulges in 80s-style gore, physical monster effects, a messy aural mix and swift editing to crazy up Rambler’s descent into a dissociative, nightmare state. Dogs snack on corpses, rotting demon-monsters accompany country-and-western tunes, our hero stoically stares down all manner of B-horror manifestations. None of it makes a lick of sense to anyone bar Reeder himself and his disciples, but it drones on for 99 minutes of incomprehensible inanity.

If the film achieves anything, it is in its raising of the question of just how much responsibility a director has to both his vision and its audience.  Bravo to Reeder for getting this before festival crowds, but outbreaks of full laughter and frustrated walkouts, as happened at the Sydney Film Festival screening that SCREEN-SPACE attended, can’t have been what he envisioned. He has somehow managed to not only hold onto but also bring to festival audiences the type of gaudy pretentiousness usually drummed out of over-confident students in their first year at film school. Which is not to say there isn’t a place for totally off-centre works like The Rambler, but inside public theatres is not it.  

LOVELACE

Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Noth, Debi Mazar, Juno Temple, Sharon Stone, Hank Azaria, Bobby Carnavale, Adam Brody, Robert Patrick, Wes Bentley, Chloe Sevigny, Eric Roberts and James Franco.
Writer: Andy Bellin
Directors: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.

Rating: 2.5/5

Perhaps four decades of generating an iconic status put the telling of Linda Lovelace’s life story behind the eight-ball from the get-go, but as this biopic unfolds under the direction of doco-vets Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman, well…there are just not that many surprises.

Lovelace ticks all the boxes that audiences lining up for this sort of sordid content will expect: small town girl, ultra-religious parents, violent boyfriend, exploitative producers. What is lacking is a distinctive point of view that differentiates the biggest name in adult entertainment from every other misguided, abused waif caught up in the maelstrom of the sex-for-profit film industry.

What doubly disappoints is that between them, the directorial duo has some of the most profoundly insightful factual-film explorations of sexual politics of the last 30 years. Grounbreakers such as The Times of Harvey Milk, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet and the James Franco starrer Howl are all held in enormous regard. That their take on one of the most influential figures of the sexual and, ultimately, social revolution of the early- to mid-1970s should prove so anaemic is the source of greatest dissatisfaction.

There are some potent moments and compelling performances. As Linda, a fearless Amanda Seyfried (clearly not averse to embracing and embodying sexuality, after temptress roles in Chloe and Gone) bares all emotionally and physically in the title role. Hers is a vanity-free performance, the actress proudly displaying the curvier, ‘ungroomed’ preferences of the period and ageing convincingly from the late teens to mid-30s.

Support players waiver between cartoonish caricature (Hank Azaria as director Jerry Damiano; Bobby Carnavale as production go-between Butchie Peraino) and convincing (Robert Patrick and an unrecognisable Sharon Stone as Linda’s parents; Chris Noth’s thuggish money-man). The extended period the film spent in post-production suggests problems, as does the two-sentence appearance of Chloe Sevigny as a TV interviewer and the complete excision of Sarah Jessica Parker, whose portrayal of Gloria Steinhem is totally absent and hints at the deeper exploration of Lovelace’s impact on a generation that fails to materialise. 

Central to the drama is Peter Sarsgaard as the abusive boyfriend, Chuck Traynor; it is a compelling portrayal of a controlling, manipulative brute, but one that was given far more scope by Bob Fosse in 1983s Star 80. That story of slain Playmate Dorothy Stratton casts a vast and superior shadow over Lovelace, to the extent that Eric Roberts, who played the similar role to Sarsgaard’s thirty years ago, has a bit part here.

As a biopic of the woman that brought hardcore pornography to mainstream audiences, Epstein and Friedman’s Lovelace is just far too strait-laced. Given content that screamed out for a vital, ‘Boogie Nights’-style treatment, what we get is a workmanlike biopic that feels TV-safe rather than big-screen daring. Like her alter-ego, Seyfried seemed totally up for the challenge; it is a terrible shame that the material steadfastly refused to go with her sense of all-or-nothing professionalism. 

THE GREAT GATSBY

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Amitabh Bachchan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Clarke and Jack Thompson.
Writers: Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce; based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Director: Baz Luhrmann

Rating: 1.5/5

A vapid, cartoonish rendering of a literary work that has achieved greatness only after decades of academic dissection, Australian aggrandiser Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is unlikely to garner any interest at all from future generations.  An impenetrable folly of gaudy excess and crass emoting, the film’s only achievement beyond the technical prowess of its staging is in highlighting the shortcomings of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tome: as an allegory, it is masterful, but as a romantic narrative, it is a meagre work.

Peopled by flapper-era caricatures partaking in white-collar social orgies fuelled by selfish hedonism, Luhrmann’s interpretation of Fitzgerald’s oft-debated novel emerges as grotesque melodrama that plays more like a Mexican telenovela than a respectful reinterpretation of 1920’s New York high society.  

The director has earned the right to put his spin on classic literature after his ultra-modern take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the dazzling reworking of the legend of the Moulin Rouge, but those works lent themselves to an aesthetic that embraced high drama and rewarded an adventurous vision. Though superficially a chronicle of the partying lifestyle of the wealthy few before their greed subverted a nation, The Great Gatsby novel is never in any way a celebration. And if Luhrmann’s films excel at anything, it is in self-conscious celebration, mostly of their own visual cleverness. The result is a film that, perhaps moreso than any other bigscreen adaptation, seems intrinsically, even defiantly, at odds with its source material.

Most strikingly, what emerges from the film is Luhrmann’s utter disregard for dialogue. Whether in the script stage, where the words he co-authored with regular partner Craig Pearce were penned with a grating affectation (undoubtedly to mimic Fitzgerald’s prose), or during post-production, where those words are forced into the background amidst arrhythmic camerawork and fragmented editing, the director determinedly refuses to let his cast construct and finish sentences. The camera soars clear of the action for another sweeping CGI cityscape, a dozen partygoers shimmy between the characters and the audience, the throbbing Jay-Z-produced soundtrack wells; Luhrmann finds a hundred different ways to rob his able but overwhelmed stable of actors any real voice.

The plot is a standard recollection scenario centred on Nick Carraway (a wan and unfocussed Tobey Maguire), now a ravaged alcoholic writer seeking sanitarium treatment under Dr Perkins (Jack Thompson, one of many great Aussie actors who turn up for three lines and a rare Hollywood-size paycheque). He recalls, on the page, his time with the great J. Gatsby, a Howard Hughes-like figure whose parties were events of legendary largesse. Gatsby is played by Hollywood golden boy Leonardo DiCaprio (as it was in 1974, by then it-guy, Robert Redford), who makes the most of his close-ups and furrows his brow with exaggerated angst, but never fully convinces or engages. Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin and the apple of Gatsby’s eye, though she is all doe-eyed airiness and utterly disposable in the part.

All support cast members play to the back row, as no doubt instructed to by Luhrmann, but perhaps also as a means by which to be heard above the aural and visual shrillness of every scene. Joel Edgerton (as Daisy’s brutish husband, Tom) looks particularly uncomfortable and resoundingly miscast, though Isla Fisher (as the doomed Myrtle Wilson) and Jason Clarke (as her oafish mechanic husband, George) are fine. Most striking is Elizabeth Debicki as starlet Jordan Baker, though her part is giving short shrift by the third-act.

Luhrmann has pronounced his affinity for the novel and, in particular, the character of J. Gatsby. It is an analogous relationship that could come back to haunt the filmmaker, for there is indeed a very clear connection. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann loves to put on a party but has an addiction for the ornate that leaves no room for the emotion and intricacy of real life; it ultimately leads to both their downfalls.

Archetypically, Luhrmann's current creative mindset reflects more PT Barnum than J Gatsby; a manipulative showman able to conjure images of light and colour to dazzle the masses while wilfully neglecting their hearts and minds. In his last film, an entire continent was done a disservice by being viewed through this prism; here, it is just one man, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who must endure the ignominy.