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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 08 October 2012

I’ve been under the weather over the past couple of days and I don’t have the energy to write up too much in this week’s Film Pie blog.

I thought I would mention that I’ll be making an appearance at some Westfield shopping centres in Brisbane over the next couple of weekends to talk about movies coming out between now and Christmas.  The focus is on Mental, Argo, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Skyfall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Les Miserables.

I was at Westfield Carindale last week and you can check out a photo of me in action above.

I was also lucky enough to be given a tour of the new Event Carindale cinemas.  They’ve been created as more of an upmarket venue in the Event chain with just 8 cinemas in total – 3 V-Max cinemas, 2 regular cinemas and 3 Gold Class cinemas.  You can therefore expect these cinemas to focus on the big blockbusters.  If you’re looking for more variety, you’ll need to go to Event Garden City (16 screens) which isn’t too far away.

The Gold Class cinemas won’t be open until mid November but will feature a huge bar area that will be ideal for functions and entertaining.  I was glad to see that the entrance to the Gold Class cinemas will be from the rear which will help prevent the distraction of staff coming in and out of the theatre when delivering food/drinks.

Anyway, if you want to pop along and say hi (or perhaps heckle me), I’ll be appearing at Westfield Chermside (just outside the cinemas) at 2:30pm on Sunday, October 14 and then at Westfield Garden City (near the food court) at 1:00pm on Saturday, October 20.

Over and out!

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 27 September 2012

Mental, the new film from director PJ Hogan, is in Australian cinemas from October 4.  It’s a crazy black comedy that seems to be dividing audiences at preview screenings so far.  You can check out my review of the film by clicking here.  I was fortunate to speak with the Emmy Award winning star, Toni Collette.  Here’s what she had to say…

You can download the full audio extract by clicking here.

Matt:  I think about some of your great roles – The Sixth Sense, About A Boy and Little Miss Sunshine.  How quickly did your life change post Muriel’s Wedding?

Toni:  It was pretty quick.  I love acting and I still love doing it.  I love getting early and I never complain about getting up and going to work.  It’s something that really gets me going.

When I was doing Muriel’s Wedding, I had no idea about how it might be received.  I didn’t even contemplate the fact that there might be an audience and so when it became a massive hit, not only in Australia, I remember walking down the street in New York when I was doing press and these guys came up to me going “oh my god, it’s Muriel!”  It left me thinking “woah, what is going on?”

Matt:  With any Aussie actor who makes good, there’s always the lure of Hollywood but you’ve still found time to appear in many Australian films such as Mary & Max, The Black Balloon and Japanese Story which is a personal favourite of mine.  Is shooting in Australia something you take into consideration when choosing roles?

Toni:  To be honest, I’d work in Australia all the time if I could but the industry is somewhat limited.  It’s much smaller than Bollywood and Hollywood.  It’s not that I want to work in America but as I said, I like working and that’s where there is a lot of work.  Having said that, now that I have kids, I am eager to spend more time in Australia.

Matt:  You’ve finally paired up again with PJ Hogan but it’s been almost two decades since Muriel’s Wedding.  Were there plans to get together sooner?

Toni:  Back when we were shooting Muriel’s Wedding, PJ had talked about this film Mental that he wanted to make and he’d given me a basic idea about this woman who had come into his life as an “unqualified nanny” to him.  Over the years, he’s been telling me that he’s been working on a script and eventually he asked me to read it.

I loved the script for what it is but I’m so flattered that PJ wanted me to be a part of telling this personal story.  They’re autobiographical films for him.

Matt:  We all know the adage about not working with children or animals but here you’ve got 5 young girls you’re working alongside and a dog thrown in for good measure.  The girls are fantastic and it looks like you’re having so much fun on set.  Was it that easy?

Toni:  I loved all of them.  They were so different from each other and got along really well.  I had a lot of scenes with them and man, did they make me laugh!  They grew so much as actors.

People talk about not working with kids and not working with first time directors but when someone is new to something, they’re just so open about it.  I really appreciate that and it creates an atmosphere where there can be some natural, spontaneous moments.  I’m so proud of them in the movie because they all did such a brilliant job.

Matt:  Lily Sullivan is such a find as Coral.  I can’t believe she had no prior acting experience at all.

Toni:  Yeah, nothing at all.  I was at her audition and PJ really wanted her – he has such a great eye for casting.  To be honest, I was like “oh PJ, I really don’t know”.  We had two weeks of rehearsals and it kind of correlates with the story itself in that she became braver and she became more confident in herself and it was such a beautiful thing to be a part of.

Matt:  There’s some terrific humour in this film which is much darker than what we’ve seen in the past from PJ Hogan.  Is that always the way it was meant to play out from the first draft of the script?

Toni:  Yeah.  I think he’s really good at telling those stories.  He has such an original perspective and he’s obviously had some “extremities” in his life.  I think both Muriel’s Wedding and Mental are similarly dark and hilarious.  But yeah, that was always in the script.

It’s those types of films, those that you can’t categorise in a specific genre, are the ones that I tend to gravitate towards.  He does it so well and he writes female characters like no one else.

Matt:  The film touches on a theme that I believe strongly in and your character sums it up best when you say “there’s no such thing as normal, just different shades of mental”.  It reminded me a little of The United States of Tara and I’m guessing the subject matter was a big attraction to you with this film?

Toni:  I am often asked what it is that I’m drawn to in a movie and I try to figure out if there’s a specific theme that I keep coming back to.  Even if it’s not completely obvious, it is exactly that.  It’s the fact that there’s no such thing as normal.  I think even in Little Miss Sunshine, the tagline at the bottom of the poster is “everyone pretends to be normal” and I now realise that every film that I do is about appreciating individuality and seeing the special qualities in everyone.  We’re not just living in this homogenised, whitewash, boring world where everyone wears the same uniform.

Both Tara and Mental deal with mental illness but the characters I play are incredibly different and the context and the story are also different.

Matt:  It’s nice to see a film shot here in Queensland.  How was it shooting amongst the hustle and bustle of the Gold Coast?

Toni:  I loved it!  It’s the perfect backdrop for the story.  It’s a gorgeous, idyllic, Australian suburban type of lifestyle turned on its head.

Matt:  I must finish up by asking what have you got in the works?  What are we going to see you in next?

Toni:  I just finished shooting a film called Hitchcock and I worked with Anthony Hopkins again who I did my first film with when I was 17.  He plays Hitchcock and I play his long-time assistant, Peggy Robertson.  Helen Mirren plays his wife, Alma, and it’s about his relationship with all the women in his life during the making of Psycho.  I think that’s coming out at the end of the year.

I’m about to go to Massachusetts in America and make a film called The Way Back which has been written by the guys who adapted The Descendants.  They’re the two guys who went on stage and took the piss out of Angelina Jolie so I think I’m going to be in for a good time there.  I’m also working with Steve Carrel again which should be great fun.

I’ve got a couple more movies after that so it’s going to be a busy year but it’s also going to be a fun year.

Matt:  Well I better let you get to it and I hope Mental is a big hit at the box-office.  Thanks for talking with us this morning.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 24 September 2012

Looper is in Australian cinemas from this Thursday and I think it’s one of the more interesting, more believable time travel movies that I’ve seen.  You can check out my full review by clicking here.

It got me thinking about my all-time favourite time travel flicks.  It’s a theme that’s been covered often but you only have to watch movies like Hot Tub Time Machine, The Lake House, Timeline or A Sound Of Thunder (the worst film I've ever reviewed - see here) to see how bad they can be.

Having scanned the web for inspiration and searched through my old reviews, here are my 5 favourite time travel movies…

Back To The Future (1985)

I was born in 1977 and so I can’t be sure when I saw Back To The Future for the first time.  All I know is that it was fun and I loved it.  If I’d have seen it for the first time today and looked at it through a critic’s eyes, perhaps I wouldn’t feel the same way.  But things are different when you’re a kid.  You’re a lot easier to please.  You don’t judge movies based on those that have come before (mainly because you haven’t seen any).

Directed by Robert Zemeckis (who later went on to win an Oscar for directing Forrest Gump), the film saw Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd travel back to the year 1955 and almost cause a world changing event.

I didn’t realise until recently how successful Back To The Future was at the box-office.  It made $210m in the United States alone back in 1985 (that’s a LOT of money when you consider the effects of inflation).  To also put it into context, only two other films that year made more than $100m.  It’s currently ranked 53^rd on the all-time greatest film list on the Internet Movie Database which shows that it's as popular today as it was 27 years ago.

Groundhog Day (1993)

I love Bill Murray.  Pure and simple.  His dry sense of humour wins me over every time.  Whenever Groundhog Day appears on television, I can’t help but stop what I’m doing and watch.  It just lures you in.

Directed by Harold Ramis (Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation), the movie followed a weatherman (Bill Murray) who keeps living the same day over and over.  Ramis extracts so much humour and originality from the idea and I was surprised to learn that it won the British Academy Award in 1994 for best original screenplay – beating out The Piano, In The Line Of Fire and Sleepless In Seattle.  It reaffirms my belief that the British have great taste when it comes to comedy.  Then again, it’s hard to see how anyone could not like this film.

Pleasantville (1998)

Pleasantville received a rare A+ grading from myself and featured in my top list for 1999 (alongside some great films include Being John Malkovich, Gods And Monsters and Election).  It didn’t set the box-office alight and I know there are many people who wouldn’t have had the chance to see it.

It’s a rich, intelligent film about two kids (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) who find themselves transported into a black and white 1950s sitcom.  The 1990s mentality that they bring to this world will cause complete chaos, for better or worse.  It marked the directorial debut of Gary Ross – who followed it up with Seabiscuit and last year’s The Hunger Games.

The film says so much about how the world has changed over the past few decades and is a must see movie.

Frequency (2000)

Some films sneak up on you unexpectedly.  Frequency was one such example.  I knew nothing about it prior to its small cinema release in Australia in August 2000.

A firefighter from the year 1969 (Dennis Quaid) is talking to a police offer from the year 1999 (Jim Caviezel) though an old ham radio.  It takes them a little while to realise that they are father and son.  Once they come to grips with this bizarre event, they work together to help prevent a murder from taking place.

Directed by Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Fallen), Frequency is a stunning film that stirs emotions and past memories without the commercialism and tackiness that Hollywood so often provides.

Donnie Darko (2001)

Donnie is talking to a motivational speaker in front of his class at school when he utters one of my all-time favourite lines – “You're right, actually. I am pretty... I'm pretty troubled and I'm pretty confused, but I... And I'm afraid. Really, really afraid. Really afraid. But I-I think you're the f***ing Antichrist.”  You have to see the movie to fully understand it… but I remember bursting into laugher when I first saw that scene.

As I said in my review, great movies are usually those in which the plot cannot be simplified in a single sentence. Not only does that rule apply to Donnie Darko, I believe it to be a physical impossibility to fully explain the film.  It follows a troubled high school teenager who takes medication to battle depression and has imaginary friends.

The time travel aspects don’t become clearer until late in the movie but there are some terrific scenes shared between star Jake Gyllenhaal and school teachers Noah Wyle and Drew Barrymore.  The film made my top 10 list in 2002 and given its cult status, it has a permanent place inside the top 250 film list on the Internet Movie Database.  There are few lovers of cinema who wouldn’t have seen this mind-blowing movie.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 September 2012

Based on the mix of positive and negative comments that I’ve received so far, it seems to be a divisive film.  Having since it three times though, I can definitely say that I’m a supporter.

It was great to have PJ Hogan in Brisbane and he was extremely open during the 45 minute post-film Q&A session.  I couldn’t believe so much of the film was inspired by his own life and his family’s experience with mental illness.  I was also shocked to learn that Muriel’s Wedding was funded by the French!

I was able to get a few photos of the night’s festivities which you can check out below.
 

PJ Hogan, Lily Sullivan & Matt Toomey before the Q&A.

Enjoying dinner at the Stamford Plaza following the Q&A.