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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 17 April 2005

When it comes to documentaries on the big screen, you probably can’t call me a critic.  That’s because I give every one a great review!  My top 10 list from last year features 5 awesome docos.  I’m not sure whether I’m biased to the genre or it’s just that it’s a golden era for documentary filmmakers.  I’d like to think it’s the later but I’ll understand if you’re sick of my raves and wish to read no further.

DiG! is a brilliantly put-together documentary which follows two American rock bands trying to breakthrough in the mid 1990s.  Courtney Taylor started The Dandy Warhols and Anton Newcombe founded The Brian Jonestown Massacre.  The two bands were once quite close and hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes footage was recorded on hand-held cameras.  With amazing editing, this random footage has been collated into 105 minutes of infotainment.

The Dandy Warhols found success.  It wasn’t easy at first and their early attempts to crack the American markets were a failure.  The record companies said they’d support them fully but balked as soon as the first album didn’t crack the charts.  Taking their music to Europe, The Dandy Warhols discovered their audience.  Over the next few years, they released a variety of albums (including Welcome To The Monkey House and Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia) and often performed in front of 100,000 screaming fans. 

The Brian Jonestown Massacre found failure.  They had incredible promise but it was never realised.  As talented as Anton was as a song-writer, his eccentric behaviour cost his band any chance at fame.  Anton’s anger and drug problems saw him ruin relationships with managers, record labels and the band members themselves.  In the end, fans came to Massacre concerts just to see if Anton would flip out.

I’m not a musician and in terms of music knowledge, I’d be in the bottom 1% of the country.  I knew a couple of The Dandy Warhols’ songs (one was used in the Sideways trailer) but that’s about it.  Yet my admiration for this film proves that anyone can take pleasure from it.  My favourite angle of the film was its look at the greed of major record labels.  Not only do they lack the courage to support new talent (unless it’s commercial), they try to destroy internet sites such as Napster and Kazaa to stop these same musicians from sharing their artistry in an attempt to find a fan base.

I’ve hinted at it already but DiG! deserves huge raves for its editing.  The fact that there’s hardly a dull moment is a tribute to the editor and director of the film, Ondi Timoner.  It could easily have been longer and I sense there’s some other great behind-the-scenes stuff we didn’t see.  I don’t know if this documentary was always planned but the amount of footage is extraordinary.  It’s as if every major decision or action of both bands was videotaped.

So yep, another documentary and another big rave.  If you don’t want to see it though, it’s your loss.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 07 April 2005

Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn should buy a lottery ticket after this adventure.  They should have died at least 100 times.  They were shot at by virtually every citizen of Mali with a range of ammunition and yet they still live… to make more crap movies.

Dirk (McConaughey) and Al (Zahn) are two explorers looking to find the remains of an American boat which disappeared in the mid 19^th Century.  The clues lead them to the African country of Mali.  By sheer chance, they meet Eva (Cruz), a doctor who is investigating the apparent outbreak of a disease in Nigeria.  Dirk and Al agree to give Eva a lift into Mali so that she can continue her research.

Our two lucky explorers soon give up their quest when they release there are government officials who want Eva killed.  She has stumbled upon a secret with threatens to expose a major health crisis.  Dirk, Al and Eva now find themselves working as a team – struggling to avoid the enemy and looking for any ally they can find on this unknown continent.

Sahara is nonsense.  Every five minutes, there’s a ridiculous plot development.  I know action films aren’t supposed to be realistic but this film takes things way too far.  How do they take a dilapidated airplane and “sail” it across the desert?  How do they blow up their own boat with precise timing by simply using a cigar?  How does a 150-year-old cannon still work?  How do they jump off the back of truck and escape on foot whilst handcuffed to a giant grate?  They deserved to die but of course, that isn’t going to happen.

McConaughey plays the smart hero with Zahn as the goofy sidekick.  Is it just me or does Zahn have the same personality in every film?  With a good screenplay and some good jokes, Zahn is in his element.  He received no such help on the set of Sahara.  I sense that even Zahn knew that the jokes were lame – he delivers them with very little enthusiasm.

At the end of the film’s trailer, the voice-over guy proclaims “directed by Breck Eisner”.  I remember thinking at the time – who is Breck Eisner?  I thought he must be some big action director and that they’ve thrown in his name to lure the audience.  Well here’s a stunner for you – Eisner hasn’t directed anything of note.  He has no reputation whatsoever.

Don’t believe anything you hear about Sahara unless it’s a negative comment.  It cost a ridiculous $130m and if studios are going to continue with such lacklustre, unadventurous material, they deserve to lose a mint.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 14 April 2005

Silvia Broome (Kidman) is an interpreter who works at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  After a standard security evacuation, she returns to an empty auditorium inside the building to big up her bag.  Using the headset in her soundproof booth, she overhears a shocking conversation between two men on the darkened floor below her.  The president of Matabo, Edmond Zuwanie (Cameron), is to be assassinated when he visits the UN later this week.

Sensing that her presence did not go unnoticed, Silvia approaches the Secret Service for protection.  They are suspicious that she waited 24 hours to come forward with the information and officers Tobin Keller (Penn) and Dot Woods (Keener) have been asked to investigate.  Keller believe Silvia’s claim to be a hoax and quickly uncovers a hidden past.  Unfortunately for them, Silvia’s threat must be taken seriously.  As Keller’s boss eloquently phrases it – “I’d rather make the mistake of believing her than the bigger one of not”.

There are two key ingredients that are essential in any good crime thriller – (1) interesting clues, and (2) a plausible conclusion which supports the clues.  There is no genre is which the ending is more important.  You can make a fascinatingly intriguing film but ruin it in the final five minutes.

I guess you know where I’m going with this.  The Interpreter is a very enjoyable film to watch and I doubt very much that you will be bored.  You will find yourself reviewing the evidence and formulating an opinion on the motives of Nicole Kidman.  Like any movie thriller though, you have to be careful for red herrings.  It’s humorously ironic that whilst the simplest explanation is often the most likely in reality, this is seldom the case on the big screen.

As pleasurable as it was to watch throughout, the last feeling I can remember was disappointment.  Several plot developments I deemed “too hard to believe” but did hope that it all would make sense in the finale.  This was not the case.  I discussed the merits of the screenplay with a friend for at least 15 minutes after leaving the cinema.  Breaking it down with the benefit of hindsight, we felt there were too many inconsistencies.  For example, the film’s opening shows us how incredibly tight the security is at the UN.  Why then, does security become so slack later on?

As the first film to be shot inside the United Nations’ New York Headquarters, director Sydney Pollack (The Firm, Out Of Africa) makes the most of the location.  It creates an authentic look and serves as a terrific backdrop for the action.  Pollack even used real UN employees as extras in some scenes.  I guess the locale wasn’t an inspiration for either Nicole Kidman or Sean Penn whose stifled performances won’t see them adding any awards to their mantelpiece.

At a time in which every second program on Australian prime-time television is a crime show (Law & Order, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cold Case, Without A Trace), The Interpreter should prove popular at the box-office.  Success aside, it’s a shame that the full show doesn’t live up the promise of its trailer.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 05 April 2005

There’s been a noticeable resurgence in the supernatural horror genre over the past six months.  We’ve seen The Ring 2, The Amityville Horror, Exorcist: The Beginning, The Grudge and The Forgotten.  The filmmakers understand what they need to do and that is to scare the audience.  The problem is that they are all using the same techniques.  How many times have you seen someone open a glass cabinet and then when they close it, there’s something in the background?  Other similarities include the use of rain/lightening, false alarms (particularly early in the film) and sharp, abrupt noises.

When you break it down, the premise of White Noise is pretty flimsy.  Architect Jonathan Rivers (Keaton) has just lost his wife Anna (West).  After being missing for five weeks, her body washed up on a river bank.  Not long after, a stranger (McNeice) visits Jonathan and says that his wife has been communicating him from “the other side”.  He identifies himself as Raymond Price and leaves a business card in case Jonathan should ever change his mind.

Six months later, Jonathan is knocking on Raymond’s door and is introduced to the world of electronic voice phenomena or EVP for short.  When you’re trying to tune your TV or radio station, you often get a crackly noise.  Well, if you pick up on just the right frequency and happen to be looking at just the right time, you can pick something up.  There are stories of tape recorders left in empty rooms only to be played back and have voices revealed.

Raymond has both heard and seen Anna on his television screen and Jonathan soon realises this is no hoax.  The question then becomes one of why Anna is doing this and what is it she has to say?

You’d be easily forgiven if you confused this film with an advertisement for EVP.  It’s got to be a big boost for those people who believe in it.  I haven’t done any research but I’ll admit to being a huge sceptic.  Despite my negativity, the narrative of this film makes me interested and wanting to believe it.  By the end, I was dying with curiosity to see how it would end.

To get back to my opening argument, it’s this different subject material which gives White Noise an edge over other recent supernatural flicks.  There’s a lingering doubt as to how the film will end.  After a nice opening box-office in the United States, this may not be the last time we see the world of EVP on the big screen.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 11 April 2005

It’s an odd title but it’ll make more sense when you realise this film is based on the 1967 classic Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn.  In this 2005 remake, the premise has been reversed.  Instead of a white girl bringing home a black man to meet the folks, it’s the black girl bringing home the white man.

It’s going to be an eventful weekend for the Jones family.  Percy (Mac) and Marilyn (Scott) are celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary and have planned a lavish back-yard ceremony where they can renew their vows.  Percy’s not really a romantic – he’s a tough-nut loan manager who expects the best from everyone.  Writing fresh vows and learning the tango is something he’s looking to avoid.

These problems will take a back seat when his eldest daughter, Theresa (Saldana), arrives home with her new boyfriend, Simon (Kutcher).  Simon may be a successful stockbroker but Percy notices only one quality – he’s white.  For Percy, this cannot stand and he intends to find every flaw he can in Simon to show Theresa that he’s not worthy of her.

Such stories of culture clashes aren’t new.  I remember seeing Bride & Prejudice just a month ago.  What I liked about Guess Who was the simple dialogue and the interaction between the characters.  There are some dynamite scenes between Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher as they each try to out-do each other.  Kutcher is a little over-the-top but Mac is spot on in the delivery of his lines.  It’s the best role I’ve seen him in.

The romantic element is also enjoyable.  The light-hearted scenes shared by Kutcher and Zoe Saldana were great.  They laugh, they don’t argue and they speak without using long-winded romantic metaphors.  It reminded me of the spontaneity in Kutcher’s last romantic comedy, Just Married with Brittany Murphy.  In fact, I’ve liked the last 3 films in which Kutcher has starred if you include The Butterfly Effect.  I guess he (or his agent) know how to pick a good script.  With the exception of… Dude, Where’s My Car?