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tropic thunder

Review: Iron Man 3, First Position and Identity Thief

By Cinema, Reviews

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Whatever they are pay­ing Robert Downey Jr. to play Iron Man, it is is worth every penny. Iron Man 3, the third instal­ment in his own branch of the Marvel Universe series that also fea­tures Captain America, The Mighty Thor and The Hulk is hurt­ling towards a bil­lion dol­lars of box office rev­en­ues and might just have broken even on the $200m pro­duc­tion costs by the time you read this.

Iron man 3 posterI’m not sure that there is a bet­ter tech­ni­cian in com­mer­cial cinema than Downey. Even when he is poorly – or not even – dir­ec­ted in films like the last Sherlock Holmes or the last Iron Man, he is nev­er less than watch­able, but when he is chal­lenged by a dir­ect­or and the mater­i­al he is up there with the best ever. The name Cary Grant just popped in to my head and I think the com­par­is­on is reasonable.

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Review: Operation 8, Hook, Line & Sinker, Tracker, Source Code, Your Highness and Babies

By Cinema, Reviews

I was expect­ing to come out of Operation 8 fired up but instead I emerged depressed and dis­pir­ited. I knew that New Zealand’s default polit­ic­al set­ting was benign com­pla­cency but I hadn’t real­ised that the full force of a – frankly – barely com­pet­ent police state was being brought to bear on the few of us who were actu­ally agit­at­ing and protest­ing for a more pro­gress­ive society.

Operation 8 is Errol Wright and Abi King-Jones’ unashamedly par­tis­an telling of the 2007 “Urewera 18 17” scan­dal in which dis­par­ate protest groups across New Zealand (with the focus on Tuhoe’s inde­pend­ence move­ment) were viol­ently raided, imprisoned and – now about to be – giv­en a tri­al without a jury. It’s a shock­ing lit­any of state arrog­ance and ineptitude, all the more depress­ing for com­men­cing under a Labour Government.

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Recognition for Downey Jr. and Jenkins

By Cinema
Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus as Sgt. Osiris in Tropic Thunder

Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus as Sgt. Osiris in Tropic Thunder (NY Daily News)

As pre­dicted here back in August, Robert Downey Jr has been nom­in­ated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his fant­ast­ic work in Tropic Thunder. He won’t win it, of coure, for the simple reas­on that act­ors nom­in­ate act­ors but the entire Academy then votes for the win­ner. Actors know how amaz­ing that Tropic Thunder per­form­ance is – the tech­nic­al abil­ity, the con­trol, the detail – but when the entire Academy votes sen­ti­ment will trump everything and Heath Ledger will romp home. But I stand by my opin­ion – Downey Jr’s was the best per­form­ance I saw last year in anything.

I’m also pleased to see Richard Jenkins get a nod for The Visitor. I was lucky enough to inter­view him last year for the Capital Times and he was a delight – mod­est, charm­ing and generous.

2008 comes to an end

By Cinema

Compelled once again by Christmas dead­lines to sum up the year in cinema, I have been think­ing a lot about how some movies stay with you and some don’t, how some movies have got aver­age reviews from me this year but have grown in my affec­tions, and how there are some films you want to see again and some you’re not so bothered about – even when you admire them.

So I’m going to divide my year up in to the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies: Keepers are films I want to own and live with. Films I can expect to watch once a year – or force upon guests when I dis­cov­er they haven’t already been seen. Repeats are films I would­n’t mind see­ing again – rent­ing or bor­row­ing or stum­bling across on tv. Enjoyed are films I enjoyed (obvi­ously) and respec­ted but am in no hurry to watch again.

No Country for Old Men posterThe “keep­ers” won’t come as any great sur­prise: The Coen’s No Country for Old Men and PT Anderson’s There Will Be Blood were both stone-cold American mas­ter­pieces. NCFOM just about shades it as film of the year but only because I haven’t yet watched TWBB a second time. Vincent Ward’s Rain of the Children was the best New Zealand film for a very long time, an emo­tion­al epic. Apollo doco In the Shadow of the Moon moved and inspired me and I want to give it a chance to con­tin­ue to do so by keep­ing it in my house. Finally, two supremely sat­is­fy­ing music films: I could listen to Todd Haynes’ Dylan biop­ic I’m Not There. again and again, and watch­ing it was was much fun­ni­er than I expec­ted. Not mind­ing the music of U2, I did­n’t have a big hump to get over watch­ing their 3D con­cert movie, but what a blast it was! Immersive and involving, it was the first truly great digit­al 3D exper­i­ence. For the time being you can­’t recre­ate the 3D exper­i­ence at home so I hold out for a giant cinema screen of my own to watch it on.

Next lay­er down are the films I would­n’t mind watch­ing again, either because I sus­pect there are hid­den pleas­ures to be revealed or because a second view­ing will con­firm or deny sus­pec­ted great­ness. Gritty Romanian mas­ter­piece 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days has stayed with me since I saw it in March. Be Kind Rewind was rich enough (and good-hearted enough) to deserve anoth­er look. Martin McDonagh’s bizarre hit­man fantasy In Bruges rocked along at such a decent clip I need to see it again to make sure I did­n’t miss any of it’s eccent­ric pleas­ures. I liked and respec­ted the Coen’s oth­er 2008 entry Burn After Reading more than every oth­er crit­ic so a second view­ing would be use­ful, if only to con­firm that I appre­ci­ated it bet­ter than every­one else did… Or not.

Tropic Thunder posterIf I could just clip the Robert Downey Jr. bits from Tropic Thunder it would be a keep­er, instead I look for­ward to see­ing it again over Christmas. The same goes for the entire first act of WALL•E which I could watch over and over again. Sadly the film lost some of that magic when it got in to space (though it remains a stun­ning achieve­ment all the same).

Into the “Enjoy” cat­egory: Of the doc­u­ment­ar­ies released to cinemas this year, three stood out. The affec­tion­ate por­trait of Auckland theatre-maker Warwick Broadhead, Rubbings From a Live Man, was mov­ing and its strange­ness was per­fectly appro­pri­ate. Up the Yangtze showed us a China we could­n’t see via the Olympics jug­ger­naut and Young at Heart is still play­ing and should­n’t be missed.

The Edge of Heaven posterI made plenty of suc­cess­ful vis­its to the art­house this year. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was awe­some; The Edge of Heaven quietly enthralling; Irina Palm was sur­pris­ing. My review says I liked After the Wedding but I hardly remem­ber a thing about it. Also get­ting the art­house tick from me: The Counterfeiters, The Band’s Visit, the delight­ful hymn to tol­er­ance Grow Your Own and the glossy romance The Painted Veil.

Worthy indies that gave me faith in the future of US cinema included Ben Affleck’s Boston-thriller Gone Baby Gone; Ryan Gosling in love with a sex toy (Lars and the Real Girl); twee little Juno; nasty (in a good way) Choke; heart­warm­ing The Visitor and Frozen River (which was the best of the lot).

Space Chimps posterMainstream Hollywood was­n’t a com­plete waste of space this year (although the ghastly cyn­ic­al rom-coms 27 Dresses and Made of Honour would have you believe oth­er­wise). Ghost Town was the best romantic com­edy of the year; The Dark Knight and Iron Man were enter­tain­ing enough; I got car­ried away by Mamma Mia and the showstop­ping per­form­ance by Meryl Streep; Taken was ener­get­ic Euro-pulp; Horton Hears a Who! and Madagascar 2 held up the kid-friendly end of the deal (plus a shout-out for the under-appreciated Space Chimps) and, of course, Babylon A.D. (just kid­ding, but I did enjoy it’s campy insanity).

Printed in Wellington’s Capital Times on Wednesday 31 December, 2008.

Note that I delib­er­ately avoid choos­ing Festival-only films as dir­ect­ing people towards films they can­’t eas­ily see is just cruel.

Review: Tropic Thunder, Baby Mama and Paris

By Cinema, Reviews

Tropic Thunder posterYou can for­get all talk of an Oscar for Heath Ledger’s Joker. If any­one is going to win an Academy Award for wear­ing some dodgy make-up in a noisy block­buster no one is get­ting in the way of Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder. Totally believ­able, every second, as Kirk Lazarus, the Australian meth­od act­or (and multi-Oscar win­ner him­self) who under­goes a rad­ic­al skin re-pigmentation in order to por­tray tough-as-nails African-American Sgt. Osiris in the eponym­ous Vietnam epic, Downey Jr’s per­form­ance is a thing of won­der: A mas­ter­piece of tech­nique, tim­ing, self-belief and dare I say it, soul. I’m still chuck­ling days later.

Lazarus is one of a hand­ful of pampered Hollywood stars on loc­a­tion to recre­ate the last great untold Vietnam story – the suicide-mission res­cue of “Four Leaf” Tayback dur­ing the legendary “Wet” Offensive of ’69. Under pres­sure from the stu­dio to get back on sched­ule (and from hand­less “Four “Leaf” him­self, Nick Nolte, to toughen the pencil-kneck panty-waists up a bit) dir­ect­or Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) goes ver­ité. With the help of hid­den cam­er­as, spe­cial effects and some heav­ily armed South East Asian drug lords, Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Alpa Chino (rel­at­ive new­comer Brandon T. Jackson) find them­selves up to their eye­balls in real­ity. Comedy real­ity, which is the best kind. One of my favour­ite films of the year so far, and I haven’t even men­tioned Tom Cruise’s dancing.

Baby Mama posterCompared to the fero­cious energy of Tropic Thunder, Tina Fey’s Baby Mama seems like a com­edy from a dif­fer­ent era. Fey plays über-clucky Kate Holbrook – suc­cess­ful middle-manager in Steve Martin’s organ­ic pro­duce com­pany. Desperate for pro­geny (yet strangely single), her T shaped tubes make her a poor bet for IVF and the wait­ing list for adop­tion is years long. Surrogacy is her only solu­tion and she barely bats an eye­lid at the $100k price tag (she must share John McCain’s account­ant). Despite the amount of money chan­ging hands it is the sur­rog­ate that inter­views the, what’s the word, sur­rog­atee and she suc­cess­fully passes the aura test posed by white trash “host” Amy Poehler (Blades of Glory).

The lively Poehler kick-starts every scene she is in while better-known stars like Martin, Greg Kinnear and Sigourney Weaver phone in their per­form­ances. Meanwhile Fey (“30 Rock”) is like­able enough, although the char­ac­ter seems to be in a world of her own most of the time, and Romany Malco from The Love Guru plays the token black char­ac­ter – a ser­vant. Baby Mama is fun­ni­er, the more pregnancy-specific it gets. When it goes gen­er­ic (speech-impediments, Martin’s new age schtick) it misses even the biggest tar­gets by miles.

Paris movie posterParis is both the sub­ject and the object of Cédric Klapisch’s ensemble drama about a cross-section of mod­ern Parisian soci­ety. Romain Duris and Juliette Binoche are sib­lings, single, on the cusp of 40 and ali­en­ated from their par­ents. Duris is told his heart con­di­tion may fin­ish him off soon­er rather than later and mopes around the apart­ment, feel­ing sorry for him­self while Binoche (like women every­where) puts her own life on hold to care for him and her three chil­dren. Meanwhile, hang­dog aca­dem­ic Fabrice Luchini (Intimate Strangers) has a crush on his beau­ti­ful stu­dent Mélanie Laurent, his archi­tect broth­er is about to become a fath­er but can­’t stop cry­ing. At street level, the mar­ket stall­hold­ers are also look­ing for love in the big city but have a more dir­ect way of going about find­ing it.

I’ve made it seem a lot more con­trived than it actu­ally plays out. The dir­ec­tion is subtle and the per­form­ances are involving. It does suf­fer from the usu­al French cine­mat­ic philo­sophy, that work­ing class exper­i­ence is some­how more real than the self-absorbed bour­geois middle classes, but actu­ally argues its case pretty well.

Printed in Wellington’s Capital Times on Wednesday 28 August, 2008.