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lee tamahori

The Devil’s Double [Updated]

By Asides and Cinema

After the abject dis­aster that was the Nicolas Cage vehicle Next, I am sur­prised to report that Once Were Warriors dir­ect­or Lee Tamahori has made anoth­er film. And even more sur­prised to report that it looks quite interesting.

The Devil’s Double is based on the auto­bi­o­graph­ic­al nov­el by Latif Yahia who spent a great deal of the 80s and 90s as the offi­cial fiday or body double for Saddam Hussein’s psy­cho­path­ic son Uday.

The film stars Dominic Cooper and Ludovine Sagnier and launches at Sundance shortly.

UPDATE (25 Jan 2011): Filmbrain has seen the film as part of the preper­a­tion for the Berlin Film Festival and tweeted his ver­dict here:

Filmbrain (Andrew G) (@Filmbrain)
25/01/11 5:35 AM
Wait…some people at Sundance actu­ally liked THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE? #awful #wor­seth­anaw­ful

Review: A Serious Man, Adam, What Just Happened, Flame & Citron and The Twilight Saga: New Moon

By Cinema and Reviews

A Serious Man posterWe’re born alone and we die alone and in between noth­ing goes accord­ing to plan and the people around us are mostly unre­li­able and occa­sion­ally malevol­ent. Meanwhile, God either doesn’t exist or is indif­fer­ent to our suf­fer­ing. Either way, A Serious Man, the new film by the prodi­giously gif­ted Coen Brothers, is a very ser­i­ous film. It is also a very funny one.

In a mid-west University town in the late 60s, Physics Professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) has a happy fam­ily, a great career and a beau­ti­ful house in a nice neigh­bour­hood. Actually, he has none of those things. His wife (Sari Lennick) has fallen for smooth-talking Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed) and needs a Get (a form­al Jewish divorce), his daugh­ter wants a nose job, his son is pre­par­ing for his bar mitzvah by smoking dope and listen­ing to rock music and his unsuc­cess­ful broth­er (the great Richard Kind) is sleep­ing on the couch and drain­ing his cyst in the bath­room. At the same time, the ten­ure com­mit­tee at the University is receiv­ing anonym­ous com­plaints and his white-bread, red-neck neigh­bours are mow­ing their lawns in a par­tic­u­larly threat­en­ing way.

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Review: 17 Again, Fast & Furious, Ong-bak and Sniper

By Cinema and Reviews

I’ve been grumpy all week for all sorts of reas­ons and the last thing I needed was a week­end of crappy films but that’s what I got. I mean, I’m spend­ing longer writ­ing this review than the writers of Fast & Furious or 17 Again spent on their scripts – put togeth­er, probably.

17 Again posterThe improb­ably named Burr Steers is the dir­ect­or of 17 Again but that’s where the fun stops. Matthew Perry plays a 37-year-old former high school bas­ket­ball star who chose the love of his preg­nant girl­friend instead of a col­lege schol­ar­ship and dug him­self deep into a dowdy life of fail­ure and regret. A mys­ter­i­ous bearded jan­it­or, a bridge (a frankly insult­ing homage to It’s a Wonderful Life) and an unspe­cified magic­al event put him back in his buff 17-year-old body which he uses to re-engage with his chil­dren and get to know his wife again.

I’ve got some time for the tele­vi­sion ver­sion of Matthew Perry (did you see “Studio 60”?), and des­pite his tra­gic cinema career choices he remains a com­ic act­or who is unafraid of (or unable to sup­press) the sad­ness behind his eyes. Unfortunately, he dis­ap­pears after 15 minutes to be replaced by High School Musical ’s Zac Efron, a smug pretty-boy with some dance moves and no cha­risma and it is he who car­ries the film to its des­ol­ate conclusion.

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Review: Hairspray, Ratatouille, Invasion, Next and Romulus, My Father

By Cinema and Reviews

Hairspray posterBaltimore in the 60s must have been quite a place as it has inspired films like Barry Levinson’s Diner and Tin Men as well as the entire John Waters can­on, from Mondo Trasho and Pink Flamingos to Hairspray and Cry-Baby in the 90s. Now Waters’ trans­gress­ive vis­ion of outsider-dom has been absorbed in to the main­stream with the san­it­ised, PG, ver­sion of Hairspray, now trans­formed in to a Broadway music­al and back on the screen. Full of stars hav­ing a gay old time, includ­ing the rarely seen Michelle Pfeiffer, Hairspray The Musical is a lot of fun and if the kids who enjoy it look up John Waters on the inter­net that would be a good thing too.

Ratatouille posterIn Ratatouille, there’s a lovely moment when Remy, a French rat with a nose for fine food, dis­cov­ers the beau­ti­ful pos­sib­il­it­ies of mix­ing fla­vours and a pas­sion for fine cook­ing begins. The anim­a­tion is bey­ond any­thing yet seen and the eye for the detail and respect for the kit­chen is extraordin­ary – the chefs have scars on their hands and burns on their wrists – but the story does­n’t quite meas­ure up to the tech­nic­al achieve­ment. Pretty enter­tain­ing, all the same.

The Invasion posterTwo films released this week go to prove that, even with mil­lions of dol­lars of stu­dio back­ing, mak­ing a film is very dif­fi­cult indeed if you don’t really know why you’re doing it. The Invasion is a remake of two clas­sic para­noid science-fiction films, both called The Invasion of The Body Snatchers, and stars Nicole Kidman as a psy­chi­at­rist try­ing to save her son who may be immune to the ali­en vir­us that is tak­ing over the plan­et. While The Invasion may con­firm everything you have always sus­pec­ted about hotel cater­ing, that may be all it is good for. A com­plete fail­ure on almost every level.

Next posterIncredibly, The Invasion was­n’t even the worst film I saw that day. Lee Tamahori’s Next was even more list­less than The Invasion and nobody involved looked even slightly engaged. A rogue nuke is miss­ing some­where in the con­tin­ent­al United States and rogue FBI agent Julianne Moore man­ages to divert the entire invest­ig­a­tion into find­ing Las Vegas magi­cian Nicolas Cage because he has the abil­ity to see two minutes into the future.

Meanwhile, the Russians and the French who have the nuke are also after Cage for no reas­on at all that I could work out. At one point an FBI agent watch­ing Cage on a sur­veil­lance mon­it­or exclaimed “Can you believe this shit?” and someone in the audi­ence yelled “No!”. Actually, on reflec­tion, that might have been me. Sorry.

Romulus, My Father posterBased on a best-selling mem­oir by suc­cess­ful aca­dem­ic and philo­soph­er Raimond Gaita, Romulus, My Father is the story of a dif­fi­cult child­hood in 1960s rur­al Victoria. Both Gaita’s par­ents were Romanian immig­rants, and due to the isol­a­tion, or per­haps some inher­ently Balkan mood­i­ness, they both struggled with severe depres­sion. Gaita’s moth­er (Run, Lola, Run’s Franka Potente) was­n’t really into being a moth­er until it was too late and his fath­er (Eric Bana) nev­er gets over the heart­break of her abandonment.

The film is dir­ec­ted by act­or Richard Roxburgh and his respect for his cast means we often linger a little longer on them than is neces­sary and the Victorian State by-law that says every film shot in the hin­ter­land has to look like an oil paint­ing is in full effect.

Printed in Wellington’s Capital Times on Wednesday, 12 September, 2007.

Notes on screen­ing con­di­tions: Hairspray viewed at a Sunday after­noon MoreFM radio pre­view at Readings (free hair­care products – woo­hoo); Ratatouille screened com­mer­cially at a strangely not full ses­sion at the Empire in Island Bay on Friday night; The Invasion and Next were viewed at the earli­est pos­sible com­mer­cial screen­ings at Readings last Thursday beside Dom-Post review­er Graeme Tuckett and Romulus, My Father was at the Penthouse on Monday after­noon and the print was in the poorest con­di­tion of any release print I have seen – looked like a gang of lumin­ous green wasps in the middle of the screen.