THEN CAME YOU

Stars: Craig Ferguson, Kathie Lee Gifford, Ford Kiernan, Phyllida Law and Elizabeth Hurley.
Writer: Kathie Lee Gifford
Director: Adriana Trigiani

Rating: ★ ★ ★

In what feels like, for most of its running time, two old friends having a lark in the Scottish countryside finds just enough heart and honesty at key moments to keep Then Came You from being just a sweetly disposable confection. Craig Ferguson, exuding true leading man charisma, shares genuine chemistry with co-lead and scripter Kathie Lee Gifford…which is fortunate, because it’s all the narrative really asks of them.

In an all-too-rare bigscreen outing, Ferguson transposes his stand-up/talkshow persona into the role of Howard Awd, a widower overseeing a lochside estate that was once his home but is now a guesthouse. With his best mate Gavin (Ford Kiernan, delivering the goods in that rom-com staple role), Awd is struggling to keep alive the memory of his late wife by maintaining the magnificent but increasingly dilapidated manor (shot at the picturesque Ardkinglas House in the Scottish coastal hamlet of Cairndow).

Into Awd’s life comes Annabelle Wilson, a Nantucket widow carrying her late husband’s ashes in an empty chocolate box (because her husband’s favourite movie was Forrest Gump, in the first of many movie references that include Titanic, The Way We Were and, amusingly, Braveheart). As Annabelle, Gifford is no Streep but she certainly does all she has to do to convince as a likable fish-out-of-water Yank with a little dark cloud over her soul.

From the moment she’s off the train and in Awd’s care, the pair are giggling and bonding and bickering like a couple of silver-haired teenagers. This almost becomes too much of a good thing, until Ferguson brings the acting chops in a scene where he fronts up about the true nature of his own grief. It’s a relatively brief sequence but it is all the film needs to provide enough grounded emotion in the pic’s second half.

Despite sharing above-the-title credit, Elizabeth Hurley (more breathtakingly beautiful than ever) has only a handful of scenes as Awd’s fiancee; the great Phyllida Law pulls of a thankless role as the pivot of a subplot that never rings true. Adriana Trigiani, ably directing her first feature since the undervalued 2014 melodrama Big Stone Gap, unloads large passages of exposition via disembodied dialogue; Annabelle’s reason for being in Scotland is plonked down by an off-camera Gifford as the pair drive around the stunning countryside (the hardest working crew member was the drone pilot, without a doubt). 

That’s not a big deal, as narrative is secondary to niceties in this type of mature-age romantic fantasy. With two seasoned performers outfront, clearly comfortable in each other’s company, Then Came You will nicely serve the Senior’s Club ticket holders seeking postcard locales and personable dramedy.

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Samara Weaving, Bridgette Lundy-Paine, Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi, Kristen Schaal, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Jillian Bell, Holland Taylor, Beck Bennett, Hal Landon Jr., Amy Stoch and William Sadler.
Writers: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon.
Director: Dean Parisot

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

Balancing the silly, the spirited and the soul-enriching has been one of the great triumphs of the Bill and Ted films, thanks to the depth of understanding that stars Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves bring to the characters. Frankly, it is astonishing that the pair have slipped into the roles for the first time since 1991’s Bogus Journey and lost none of their empathy and chemistry for the Wyld Stallyns duo. While it is unlikely the production foresaw it while shooting, and it’s entirely likely most audiences won’t believe it until they watch it, but the ease with which the giggles and good will flows in Bill & Ted Face the Music make it exactly the film that 2020 needs right now.

Writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon have guided the giddy, goofball comedy/fantasy pics since Reeves’ Ted Theodore Logan and Winter’s Bill S. Preston Esquire first paired up in 1989 for director Stephen Herek’s feel-good sleeper hit, followed in 1991 by Peter Hewett’s slightly ‘stonier’ sequel (split by two seasons of a largely-forgotten animated series in 1990). In Face the Music, middle-aged Bill & Ted have somehow stayed married to their Princess brides (Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays) and attained a degree of middle-class suburban status, yet they are clinging to rock-n-roll dreams that have clearly passed them by; any notion that they have written the song that will unite the world is lost on everyone but them.

Everyone that is, except their daughters Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Bridgette Lundy-Paine), gender-swapped versions of their dads and each filled with similar visions of fame and no idea how to get it. Opportunity presents itself in the form of Kelly (Kristen Schaal), a time traveller from a future ruled by her mother The Great Leader (Holland Taylor), bearing news that Future Earth really needs that world-uniting song, like, by this evening, or time and space will collapse in upon itself and destroy reality.

The set-up gives Matheson and Solomon (cameoing as polite blue-collar trench-demons, if you look quickly) plenty of leeway to work over both the time-travel malarkey and follow-your-dream subtext with comic precision; a big plus is the addition of director Dean Parisot, a master of sentimental silliness with both Galaxy Quest (1999) and Fun with Dick & Jane (2005) on his CV. As with past instalments, there is much fun had with the co-opting of historical figures to fix very modern, even futuristic, problems; earning big laughs this time around are Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, to name a few.

Of course, the film’s sweet-spot is in the casting. Not only with the return of Reeves and Winter, who clearly adore each other’s company (wait for the post-credit sequence for ultimate proof of that) and have a blast creating future versions of themselves to discover and ultimately dodge, but also in Brigitte Lundy-Paine, who nails a spot-on riff on Keanu’s ‘whoa’ persona, and the wonderful Samara Weaving, a super-sweet and fiercely protective mini-me version of Winter. Check out the original Excellent Adventure for some indication of just how precisely the actresses mimic and enhance the performances of Reeves and Winter at the corresponding age. Franchise service is paid with the totally worthy reappearance of William Sadler's scene-stealing turn as Death, denizen of the underworld and master of the 40-minute bass solo.

Here’s a spoiler alert (I mean, really? But, ok…) When the world-saving song drops and it sounds a little bit like an Arcade Fire album track, it doesn’t really matter; the message that the moment imparts is bolstered when viewed through the emotional climate of the world, circa September 2020. The narrative builds to an ending that shouldn’t hit as deep as it does, but the truth is, we need reminding of that which unifies us now more than ever. While a time-skipping 91 minute three-quel, 29 years on the boil, should not carry the weight of making the world a happier place, it suddenly finds itself doing so. And doing so most excellently.

THE VERY EXCELLENT MR. DUNDEE

Stars: Paul Hogan, Rachael Carpani, John Cleese, Chevy Chase, Wayne Knight, Jacob Elordi, Nate Torrence, Kerry Armstrong, Roy Billing, Charlotte Stent, Julia Morris and Olivia Newton-John.
Writers: Robert Mond and Dean Murphy.
Director: Dean Murphy.

Rating: ★ ★

It seems entirely appropriate that The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, Paul Hogan’s latest feature film comedy, bypass cinemas to premiere on pay-platform Amazon Prime. Not only because ‘Hoges’ made his name as a small-screen comic 50+ years ago (a legacy that the production drives home in a nostalgic credit sequence), or because his only profile for many years was during the 6 o’clock bulletin. But because, under regular collaborator Dean Murphy’s static direction and a leaden script that asks too much of the leading man’s still-roguish charm, The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee plays like a sitcom pilot destined not to be picked up.

The 80 year-old Hogan plays a version of himself one suspects is not too far removed from real life. Still ensconced in the L.A. lifestyle, he has become a relic of 80s-era celebrity, not relevant at all since the second Crocodile Dundee film made some money a long while back. He is still taking meetings, discussing a new project with fawning Hollywood suits who think pairing him with Will Smith in a father-son premise is plausible (such is the level of industry satire in Murphy’s and Robert Mond’s script).

The big development in Hogan’s life is an invitation to accept an honour from Her Majesty, a ceremony that will only take place if he does what is demanded of him by his manager Angie (a game Rachael Carpani) - stay out of trouble. Cue trouble, largely in the form of Hoges’ inability to handle modern life, his largely befuddled state humoured by such celebrity pals as Chevy Chase, Wayne Knight, Reginald VelJohnson and Olivia Newton-John in cameo bits that fall flat. The only co-star who ups the ante is John Cleese, who riffs on his own tarnished celebrity as an alimony-burdened Uber driver willing to do anything for money.

The Very Excellent Mr Dundee is a particularly strange beast, in that it demands you recall what made Paul Hogan a global star, however briefly, then buy into why it has been a mixed blessing all these years. The takedown of a lifetime of celebrity trappings by a figure who has sought to exploit the very same feels awkwardly disingenuous. A sharper focus on the fleeting nature of celebrity or the long, dark shadow it casts might have worked; instead, the narrative dawdles and stumbles towards a contrived and convenient denouement. 

That said, as the final act in the career of a beloved industry patriarch, one can (sort of) forgive the sentimentality and melancholy that plays out in the film’s final frames. The Very Excellent Mr Dundee wraps on a fairytale high that Hogan’s legion of fans undoubtedly believe he has earned in real life; too bad it is denied his movie alter-ego, who deserves a better send off than this.

HIDDEN ORCHARD MYSTERIES: THE CASE OF THE AIR B&B ROBBERY

Stars: Gabriella Pastore, Ja’ness Tate, Davey Moore, Vanessa Padla, Donovan Williams, Kim Akia, Hunter Bills, Diane D Carter, Camilla Elaine, Ole Goode, Kevin Robinson, Edward Pastore, Jaymee Vowell, Catarah Hampshire, Carlos Coleman and Orlando Cortez.
Writer/Director: Brian C. Shackelford

WORLD PREMIERE will be held online via CYA Live on Friday June 12 (7.00pm EDT)/Saturday June 13 (9.00am AET); tickets available here. Then from June 16 on platforms including iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, Xbox, Amazon, and FandangoNow.
 
Rating: ★ ★ ★

Two winning lead performances and the present-day reimagining of well-worn tropes go a long way to smoothing over some bumpy plotting in the family franchise kicker Hidden Orchard Mysteries: The Case of the Air B&B Robbery. As Gabby and Lulu, the tweenage besties whose sleuthing reveals an ugly underside in their well-to-do suburban life, Gabriella Pastore and Ja’ness Tate are wonderful; iGen Nancy Drews dealing with the weird adults around them as best they can.

Behind the manicured lawns and upmarket homes of the middle-class American world that is Hidden Orchard, where investment in the rented residential space of the title is the hot new thing, a break-and-enter rattles the population. Gabby and Lulu see an opportunity to spark their vacation time and set about solving the crime, allowing them to peer inside the lives of their neighbours. 

What unfolds is ‘Teen Mystery 101’, de rigueur for fans of young detective staples such as The Hardy Boys or Harriet the Spy. Director Brian C. Shackelford helms competently in a manner suited for the small-screen, though is let down by wavering tonal shifts in his script (working from a story by Joyce Fitzpatrick). His lead actresses have a lovely, natural chemistry and their time on-screen is the film’s greatest asset. However, support players range from broad ‘sitcom schtick’ (Carlos Coleman and Catarah Hampshire, as the local cupcake retailers, hit OTT heights rarely seen outside of The Disney Channel) to Scooby-Doo villainy (“I would’ve got away with it if not for you meddling kids!”) and all points in between.

Most interesting are the contemporary flourishes that are clearly an effort to bring the traditional ‘teen mystery’ narrative into 2020 (and may push the film into 13+ censorship brackets in some territories). Rarely in even her most daring adventures did the Nancy Drew of old have to deal with a weed-growing mom-next-door; a gun-wielding, tough-talking baddy; extramarital liaisons (don’t worry, mums and dads, it’s all off-screen); or, most diabolically, a shady insurance executive’s pitch presentation. 

The film’s best real-world drama happens between Gabriella Pastore and Camilla Elaine as her stepmom, Cynthia, as they struggle to deal with their new relationship. While Lulu is all sugar’n’spice, Gabby is a child of divorce and has a slightly jaded world view. Pastore and Tate find a nuanced truthfulness in their girl-power bond that conveys a particularly strong kinship; their friendship feels sturdy enough to survive whatever their broadening experience offers up, and then well into adulthood. 

To the production’s credit, Shackelford populates Hidden Orchard with a culturally diverse group, even if some border on caricature (Orlando Cortez’s Hispanic gardener; Jaymee Vowell’s screechy redhead busy-body). The June 12 premiere of the film will coincide with the ongoing #BLM protests in many U.S. states, giving added and unexpected weight to a line spoken by white Police Chief Wellar (Corey J. Grant). In a moment of contrition, he states, “Maybe my way is not always the best way.” The ‘teen detective’ narrative is an old one, but The Case of the Air B&B, from its title on down, is a very up-to-date reworking.

BEING GAVIN

Stars: Jamie Oxenbould, Catherine Moore, Kate Raison, Ed Oxenbould, Brian Meegan and Ray Meagher.
Writers: Mark Kilmurry and Sara Bovolenta.
Director: Owen Elliott and Mark Kilmurry.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Back before superheroes and their teen fanbase ruled the box office, studios made movies for grown-ups. Names like George Segal and Walther Matthau and Dudley Moore starred in movies about marriage, infidelity and midlife crises that were funny, sad and smart. They stopped making them when the star system faded and the audience grew younger, despite being box office gold and Oscar friendly in their heyday.

Being Gavin harkens back to films like Cactus Flower (1969, with Matthau), A Touch of Class (1973, with Segal) and 10 (1979, with Moore), in which comfortably married, middle-class husbands complicate their lives by taking vibrant young lovers who complicate arrangements by falling in love. Directors Owen Elliott (helming his first feature since the acclaimed Bathing Franky in 2012) and Mark Kilmurry have crafted a contemporary, re-energised spin on a genre most considered dated, even moribund.

The titular ‘Gavin’ is the owner of a struggling cafe inherited from his ageing father (Ray Meagher). His life changes one morning when, like a personality whirlwind, struggling singer Samantha (a lovably boisterous Catherine Moore) presents herself as the life force that Gavin didn’t know he needed. Despite their wildly divergent individualism (a genre trope, to be fair) and his patchy bedroom skills, Gavin and Samantha bond with promise of much loveliness to come.

But the co-directors have a second-act twist that puts pressure on both the lovebirds and his narrative. Gavin is in a 22-year marriage, not to some some shrill ballbreaker as might have been the case four decades ago when the genre was soaring, but to Elaine (Kate Raison), a caring wife and mother, successful professional and totally undeserving of the grief that Gavin’s actions make inevitable. As Gavin’s actions become comically frantic, and with his life twisting in on itself through his lack of responsibility and awareness, Being Gavin takes on a somewhat bittersweet trajectory; things aren’t going to end well for anyone, but let’s hope it’ll be fun getting there anyway.

Gavin is played by Jamie Oxenbould, a likable journeyman actor who has earned his leading man status after decades as a respected ensemble player. He has some lovely scenes opposite his real-life son Ed Oxenbould (Paper Planes, 2014; The Visit, 2015) who plays surly teen Josh. Notably, Oxenbould Snr. channels that other significant figure of the 'reluctant philanderer' genre, Woody Allen, with a performance that mirrors the comedian's breathy delivery and nervous energy. 

The directing team also takes cues from Allen's late ‘80s oeuvre, films such as Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Another Woman (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989) and Husbands and Wives (1992); works that tackled similar themes and revealed the maturing of the Oscar winner as an insightful observer of human foibles. There is further evidence of Elliott's and Kilmurry's fondness for Allen’s classics, with a shot of fireworks against Sydney’s skyline a homage to Manhattan (1979) and the use of Allen’s iconic Windsor Light credit font.        

If the first-act meet-cute machinations feel pitched a bit high, the dramatic developments and satisfying denouement provide Gavin’s re-emergence with a heartfelt honesty. Just as importantly, the film honours Elaine and Samantha in its truthful depiction of how they love, cope with and ultimately rise above Gavin’s flaws. Being Gavin grows wiser and smarter in line with its protagonist, shifting from fidgety shallowness to self-aware maturity in a narrative arc as wholly refreshing as it is delightfully old-fashioned.

Photo credits: 76 Pictures Pty. Ltd.

EXORCISM AT 60,000 FEET

Stars: Robert Miano, Bai Ling, Bill Moseley, Lance Henriksen, Kevin J. O’Connor, Robert Rhine, Kyle Jones, Silvia Spross, Kelli Maroney, Matthew Moy and Adrienne Barbeau.
Writers: Robert Rhine and Daniel Benton.
Director: Chad Ferrin.

Rating: ★ ★

The premise of Exorcism at 60,000 Feet reads like the opening to an inappropriate gag your drunk uncle barks out at Thanksgiving dinner. “Did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the dwarf on a flight to VietNam…,” it begins and, before any of your relatives can wrestle the sad, sick family jester to the ground, he screams and spits his way through a waffling, weird, wildly offensive mess of a joke.

In genre-speak, Exorcism at 60,000 Feet is that most dangerous meld of film types - the horror-comedy, which implies a measured balance of chills and giggles. Director Chad Ferrin, who impressed a few years back with the bloody urban thriller Parasites, doesn’t nail either horror or comedy with any degree of inspiration or skill. With co-writers Robert Rhine and Daniel Benton having to share some of the blame, Ferrin pitches for Airplane-meets-The Exorcist, but crash lands well short of the destination.

Like a lot of good comedies, Exorcism at 60,000 Feet opens on the mass murder of a family. Robert Miano plays hardened padre Father Romero, who arrives too late to save the deceased but just in time to identify the evil entity as ‘Garvin’, the resurrected spirit of his army buddy from ‘Nam. For some reason, he needs to return Garvin to VietNam, booking passage on the ‘hilariously’ titled Viet Kong Airways, the offensive moniker only made worse by its anachronism - will the target audience of first-time pot-smokers even know what is being referenced?

On board, the spirit of Garvin (played in terrible make-up by B-movie icon, Bill Mosely) is possessing the passengers, each one a grossly painted caricature of such wannabe comic stereotypes as the roided-up bodybuilder (Luca Pennazzato); the middle Eastern ‘potential terrorist’ (Gino Salvano); the peace-seeking Buddhist (Craig Ng); the anytime/anywhere sexpot (Stefanie Peti); the other anytime/anywhere sexpot (Jin N. Tonic, who shows some comedy chops); and, the Soprano-esque goombah (Johnny Williams). Most unforgivably tasteless is the ‘Mommy with toddler’ passengers, featuring Kelli Maroney (cult favourite from 1984’s Night of the Comet) as the mature-age woman who breastfeeds her obnoxious son Dukie, played by little person actor, Sammy the Dwarf.

Romero teams with orthodox rabbi Larry Feldman (co-scripter Rhine) and the flight crew, Amanda (Bai Ling, playing to the back row) and Thang (an occasionally funny Matthew Moy), to battle the demon, which manifests as a cheap-as-chips ‘green mist’. Garvin’s victims suffer ugly fates to remind the audience this is a ‘horror film’ - clean-cut Brad (Kyle Jones) meets a grisly end while ‘mile high’ clubbing; phone-obsessed millennial Ms Tang (Jolie Chi) must deal with an unwanted demon-pregnancy; and so on. Ferrin earns points for securing the likes of Lance Henriksen (as Captain Houdee...geddit?) and Adrienne Barbeau (pictured, above) for day-shoots, but their involvement is wasted on parts that prove just what good sports they are willing to be to pay some bills. 

The influence of the Zucker-Abrahams 1980 classic is everywhere, most notably in composer Richard Band’s shameless rip-off of Elmer Bernstein’s classic score, but there’s none of the comic pacing or inspired performances that made Airplane so memorable (or The Naked Gun series, which Ferrin also apes). Instead, the humour is of the ‘punch down’ variety - easy, ugly potshots based on race, gender or religion - placing Exorcism at 60,000 Feet dangerously close to the shock comedy stylings of a film like Uwe Boll’s Postal (2007).

That said, praise is certainly due cinematographer Christian Janss, who skilfully mimics the frantic camera moves George Miller employed in his Twilight Zone The Movie episode, ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’, and the effects team working under Joe Castro and Maricela Lazcano, who give exteriors shots of the plane careening through an otherworldly night sky legitimate authenticity. 

CRACKED UP

Featuring: Darrell Hammond.
Director: Michelle Esrick

DARRELL HAMMOND, director MICHELLE ESRICK and BESSEL VAN DER KOLK, author of the book 'The Body Keeps the Score' will be present for a live ZOOM Webinar on Monday May 4th at 4.00pm PST/7.00pm EDT, hosted by ACES CONNECTION founder Jane Stevens.
For further details and free registration, CLICK HERE. 

Available on:

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

For 14 years, Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond was the chameleon of late night comedy, the toast of political satire. His array of on-air impersonations, 118 in all by his own reckoning, mimicking the likes of Bill Clinton, Sean Connery and Al Gore, made him Lorne Michael’s go-to guy for big laughs and one of the series’ most celebrated cast members. 

As with many of the great comedic talents, Hammond’s talent was borne of hardship, as the comic himself chronicled in his 2011 memoir, ‘God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked’. Director Michelle Esrick takes Hammond’s heartbreakingly open account of life as a survivor of child abuse and crafts a profile of an artist that goes far beyond what is expected of the ‘What makes comics tick?’ genre. Cracked Up is an artful, insightful, deeply thoughtful documentary that reveals not just how Hammond came to terms with his past but how it has helped him forge a new, meaningful direction that serves to heal fellow mental injury sufferers.

Framed by the ongoing evolution of his own creative process (the comic is rehearsing a one-man show with director Chris Ashley), Esrick’s camera follows Hammond as he returns to his childhood home in Wisteria Lane, Florida. In small increments, we learn of the extent to which the pre-teen Hammond was assaulted by his mother in a home he shared with a PTSD-suffering father. His first-person recollections of the abuse and his piecemeal memories of the attacks prove gruelling for both Hammond (who occasionally breaks down) and the audience, who should take heed that some of the details are particularly horrendous.

Cracked Up is a work that delicately balances the most profound aspects of Hammond’s suffering with the journey he underwent to recover from it. At the height of his fame on SNL, he was in the grip of self-medicating with dangerous levels of alcohol; his pain was so internalised, he would function as a performer even while cutting his own flesh, as many as 49 times. His suffering became so pronounced, friends such as SNL producers Lorne Michaels and Steve Higgins stepped in, leading to Hammond’s year-long stint in a mental health facility.

Esrick’s most compelling directorial ploy, aside from the forthright honesty she elicits from Hammond, is the plotting she employs based on the comic’s own colour-based impersonation methods (Porky Pig is yellow; Popeye is blue). Of the hundreds of voices in his head, none are represented by the colour red; the life-changing meaning behind this development and the healing moment it allows Hammond spins the film from the tragic trajectory of childhood trauma into the first steps of healing and acceptance.

For a man renowned for capturing the essence of other men, Darrell Hammond bares his scarred but healing soul like few ever have for the camera. He rarely falls back on his remarkable talent to paint over his pain and when he does, it is such a sadly bittersweet experience that it gives a fresh depth to the relationship he has with his gift. Cracked Up sheds Hammond of the barrier of celebrity he built up and hid behind for all of his adult life. 

Addressing a roomful of fellow mental health sufferers and trauma survivors, he is adored not for doing his ‘Bill Clinton’ but for revealing his ‘Darrell Hammond’. As the final frames of Michelle Esrick’s superb film reinforce, children are sharing the comic’s suffering in any house on any street right now. With Cracked Up, Hammond is only doing what he hoped someone might have done when he was a child - speaking up. 

VHYES

Stars: Mason McNulty, Rahm Braslaw, Kerri Kenney, Charlyne Yi, Courtney Pauroso, Thomas Lennon, Mark Proksch, John Gemberling, Cameron Simmons, Tim Robbins, Natalie Mering, Nunzio Randazzo, Jake Head and Christian Drerup.
Writers: Nunzio Randazzo, Jack Henry Robbins.
Director: Jack Henry Robbins.

Available from July 9-19 via Perth Revelation Film Festival's online screening event, COUCHED.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

A skit-filled ‘Kentucky Fried Movie’-like takedown of kitsch 1980s media culture develops into a far more prescient and surprisingly moving satire in Jack Henry Robbin’s VHYes. Capturing that moment mid-decade when VCR/camcorder technology fused, allowing American society to change the course of how visual media was created, captured and consumed, this wacky but wise boys-own adventure as seen through the lens of late-night television and self-made home movies won’t connect with everyone (it is shot entirely on VHS and Betacam, for goodness sake!). But for those who lived that cultural shift, it’s a smart, subversive blast.

Framed as a best-friends/suburban-family adventure story (think ‘80s staples like E.T. or Explorers or The Goonies), feature debutant Robbins’ protagonist Ralphie (Mason McNulty) is introduced on Christmas morning 1987, being gifted the latest in home video technology - the camcorder. The character’s name and this setting will invoke to many U.S. viewers Bob Clark’s yuletide classic A Christmas Story, in which a young boy’s dreams were also enabled by a gift that allowed him to shoot randomly with little regard for the consequences.

Ralphie grabs the first apparently blank VHS cassette he can find and starts filming, unaware he is erasing his parents’ wedding day memories. This is a familiar comedic set-up, however it takes on a darker relevance as Robbin’s themes unfold. Soon, the unlimited potential the camcorder affords Ralphie - to both express himself and discover the bold new world that is midnight-to-dawn TV - is capturing hard truths about his household. The innocence of his young mind is being usurped, while the undercurrent of detachment his mom (Christian Drerup) and dad (Jake Head) are experiencing is being unwittingly chronicled. Appearing fleetingly between the insurgent new late-night content, we glimpse their happier times.

Ralphie’s adventures in after-dark television offer up some hilarious parodies of recognisable cable-net ‘80s programming, recalling segments from Peter Hyam’s Stay Tuned (1992), Ken Shapiro’s The Groove Tube (1974) and the anthology Amazon Women on The Moon (1987). Best amongst them include bickering telemarketers Tony V and Cindy, featuring Thomas Lennon’s ‘heirloom-pen’ salesman (“…it literally does everything that a pen can do.”); the basement-shot talk show, Interludes with Lou, hosted by Lou (Charlyne Li); and, the heavily-edited adult entertainment offerings from Cinemax-like porn peddlers, (tonight’s feature, Sexy Swedish Illegal Aliens From Space XXX). Robbins also expands upon comedy shorts he’s previously filmed, including fresh episodes of Painting (and Cooking, Plumbing and Sleeping) with Joan, featuring a side-splitting Kerri Kennedy, and the global warming-themed sex romp, Hot Winter.

The parody channels fly by, reflecting precisely the impact on a remote control of a teenage boy’s attention span, until Ralphie settles upon a true-crime special that profiles a girl’s murder at the hands of her own sorority sisters in his very neighbourhood. With best friend Josh (Rahm Braslaw) reluctantly by his side, Ralphie takes his camcorder into the burnt-out shell of a home that was the scene of the crime hoping to record a ghostly presence.

The sequence allows Robbins to come full circle in his skewering of western culture’s obsession with self-image; Ralphie becomes the star of his own handheld-horror film, the kind that came into existence as a by-product of the handy-cam boom (notably The Blair Witch Project, but there were so many). VHYes captures and contemplates the moment thirty-three years ago that has since morphed into the YouTube/selfie/profile-obsessed world that we are slaves to today.

In one final image, Jake Henry Robbins stops just shy of condemning ‘image culture’ entirely – in the credit-roll outtakes, he captures the film’s co-producers, his separated parents Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, having a happy moment on his set. The footage, which lasts mere seconds, impacts like a polaroid, providing a vivid recollection of memories captured in an instant. They are frames filled with warmth for both the viewer and, one assumes, the director and underline his point that not everything needs to be filmed and filtered and posted. Finding the essential truth in singular moments is the true skill to recording personal history.

SOUTH AFRICAN SPOOK HUNTER

Stars: Matt van Niftrik, Taryn Kay, Ashley Winter, Ella Kean, Paul Dewdney, Daniel Brace, Valentine Landeg, Daniel Rands and Lamin Tamba.
Writers/directors: Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray and Daniel Rands.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Peter Venkman-meets-David Brent in Matty Vans, the plumber/spirit sleuth whose ignominious misadventures fighting paranormal activity in middle-class London are captured in the occasionally riotous mock-doc, South African Spook Hunter. Collaborators Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray and Daniel Rands nail the comic timing and display the genre knowledge needed to pull off this kind of pitch-perfect takedown of those naff supernatural ‘reality’ shows. 

Likable far beyond what any South African millennial ginger deserves to be, Vans is the creation of actor/comic Matt van Niftrik, who works with MacCorgarry’s and Rand’s structured narrative then improvises the hell out of the setting and dialogue. An everyman nobody who struggles in vain to capture evidence of the afterlife (“I thought it was a spirit life light, but it was a girl whose friend was taking a wee behind a tree.”), Matty Vans is a great comic creation; van Niftrik plays both big and small for the laughs, which come unexpectedly and often.

Vans rents a doco crew - cameraman Jono (co-director Rands) and soundman Gary (Valentine Landeg) - who are growing weary of following his enthusiastic but dead-end dives into the netherworld. When suburban housewife Caroline Damon-Murray (Taryn Kay) contacts him with images of possible poltergeist intrusion impacting daughters Paige (Ella Kean) and Amber (Ashley Winter), Matty senses he is onto the case of his wannabe career. Finally, he’ll be spoken of in the same sentence as his media hero, psychic smoothie and the host of ‘Enter Gomorrah’, Danny Gomorrah (Daniel Brace).

Things start to go awry after Vans and his crew move into the Damon-Murray residence. All evidence points to a hoax, with Vans the last to cotton on, but his interactions with the family are ceaselessly funny and his to-camera moments reveal the well-intentioned ambition and integrity in his heart. The twist isn’t that hard to see coming, but the feel-good factor remains high and those seeking a smattering of chills will be satisfied.

Supporting van Niftrik’s character work are MacCorgarry and Rands skill at creating mirth in the detail; their hero’s obsession with The Bourne Identity pays off with a big giggle, and his constant use of the insult ‘worm…’ (a South African colloquialism, we guess) proves exponentially hilarious.

Delivering a mockumentary so consistently funny is no easy feat; it’s why the films of Christopher Guest (Best in Show, 2000; A Mighty Wind, 2003) are spoken of so highly. With its engaging comic lead and a directing team finding a rich vein of the ridiculous to satirise, South African Spook Hunter spinal-taps the supernatural with a gleeful giddiness.

BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE

Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Lauren Lapkus, Ryan Gaul, Edi Patterson and Jiavani Linayao.
Featuring: Will Ferrel, Matthew McConaughey, Keanu Reeves, Chance the Rapper, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, Jason Schwartzman, John Cho, Brie Larson, David Letterman, Paul Rudd, Chrissy Tiegen, John Legend, Jon Hamm, Hailee Steinfeld, Awkwafina, Tiffany Haddish, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tessa Thompson, Peter Dinklage and Gal Gadot.
Writer/director: Scott Aukerman.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

The centrepiece success story of the Funny or Die comedy site transfers to the bigger small-screen with everybody associated doing as little as possible to make it a success. Which sounds like a bash, but it isn’t; frontman Zach Galifianakis and director Scott Aukerman have got this insult-interview schtick down-pat and, with a by-the-numbers road-trip half-plot as a framework, they deliver the laughs and a little extra for the fans.

Eleven years after it transitioned from a bit-skit on Aukerman’s unrealised comedy pilot The Right Now! Show into a web-sensation (first guest – Michael Cera), Between Two Ferns finds itself ideally suited to the streaming-platform popularity surge. There is not enough substance to the finished feature to suggest it would have made the leap to the bigscreen, as many Saturday Night Live properties did back in the day (most without enough substance either, to be fair). BTF:The Movie is a bread-&-butter Netflix initiative, the kind of fan-service concept reworking that will keep bums on couches.

The ‘Zach Galifianakis’ of Between Two Ferns doesn’t have the breakout Hollywood hit The Hangover to his name; he is a North Carolina local-cable identity somehow capable of pulling the likes of Barack Obama, Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron onto his low-rent chat show. When a plumbing issue nearly kills Matthew McConaughey and all but destroys the studios of FPA-TV, the head of Funny or Die, a coked-up Gordon Gekko-esque version of ‘Will Ferrel’ (Will Ferrel) has had enough. FOD sets new terms; 10 new BTF interviews in 2 weeks and they’ll bankroll Galafaniakis’ dream gig – a late night talker all his own – but if he fails, he’ll be cut loose.

With a team of three in tow – producer/PA with a heart of gold, Carol (the lovely Lauren Lapkus); irritable cameraman, Cam (Ryan Gaul); and, soundie ‘Boom’ (Jiavani Linayao) – they undertake the journey to LA, endeavouring to secure talent along the way. The road-movie tropes soon kick-in; time in the car allows for some character building, with Galifianakis peeling back some personal layers of his alter ego. It is all perfunctory banter, never particularly engaging or insightful, but it does provide time for Aukerman to pace his comedy beats into feature length (just, at 82 minutes).

Most importantly, nothing about the expanded format dilutes the hilarity of the inappropriate interviews. Best of them is David Letterman in full-beard (“Crystal-meth Santa Claus”), Keanu Reeves (“Out of 100, how many words do you know?”) and Benedict Cumberbatch (“Do people think you’re a good actor because of your accent?”).

As expected, the end-credit outtakes represent the funniest sequence in the film, but it also undoes the conceit; both Zach and his guests regularly crack up, revealing the degree of performance actually involved in the tapings. Of course, as with the rest of the film’s unambitious shortcomings and simple rhythms, fans won’t care.