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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 06 September 2017

Author Stephen King is the flavour of the month here in Australia with two adaptations released in cinemas within the space of three weeks.  The Dark Tower struggled at the box-office and didn’t get much love from critics.  Expectations will be higher for It given it’s a novel that has been successfully adapted before.  A two-part series first aired in the United States in November 1990 and I can remember watching it when it found its way into Australian video stories not long after.

The film opens with arguably it’s most shocking scene.  A young boy named Georgie sees his paper boat washed down a drain while playing out on the street during a heavy storm.  When he peers down into the drain, a freaky looking clown is staring straight back at him.  There’s a little bit of small talk but eventually, the clown grabs Georgie’s arm, rips it off, and then pulls him down into the sewer.  A lady looks on from her front porch and sees a mix of blood and rainwater in the middle of the street.

Instead of focusing on the funeral and resulting investigation, the narrative jumps a few months forward to a somewhat happier time.  A group of young kids have finished up school for the year and are planning on a series of adventures over the summer holidays.  It’s a reminiscent of the popular television series Stranger Things given the age of the cast, the supernatural themes and the 1980s setting.  The fact actor Finn Wolfhard appears in both It and Stranger Things only adds to the sense of familiarity.

King’s novel is 1,138 pages in length and while this film excludes a major part of the story (for reasons that you’ll learn at the end), it’s a struggle to develop these characters in the level of detail required.  It’d be better suited for a multi-part television series.

There are seven kids in total that form the “Losers Club” and the screenwriting team struggles in working out how much time to devote to each.  There’s a strong inference that one of them has been sexually abused we rush through these scenes so as to keep the focus on the scary clown.  The weakest characters are a group of one-dimensional bullies who are jerks for no reason in particular.

With the parents and authorities pushed deep into the background (except for a handful of scenes), it falls upon the heroic children to confront the clown, who goes by the name of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) and find out what happened to Georgie.  It’s clear from the outset that something is unusual about the town.  The number of people who disappear is 6 times greater than the national average and there’s a 7pm curfew which is enforced each night. 

The performances delivered by the young actors aren’t particularly convincing.  The dialogue doesn’t flow and their emotions are overcooked.  The screenplay tries to create tension between some of them but these arguments are trivial and end up being resolved far too easily (tying back to my qualms about a rushed premise).

As Pennywise the clown, Bill Skarsgård (Atomic Blonde) is creepy but he’s a few notches below Tim Curry’s sensational performance in the 1990 mini-series.  Curry freaked audiences out with his voice and facial expressions.  Skarsgård has less to say with director Andy Muschietti (Mama) relying more on make-up and visual effects.  It’s not as effective.

I’ll have no trouble sleeping tonight… and that’s actually a shame.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 27 August 2017

We’re two-thirds of the way through 2017 and if you look at the box-office figures from the United States, the two highest grossing films have been Beauty and the Beast ($504m) and Wonder Woman ($405m).  What’s interesting is that both films have women in the leading role.  It reminds me of Cate Blanchett’s famous line at the Oscars when she spoke about female-driven films – “Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people!”  She’s dead right.

Another film to make an impact in the U.S. this year has been Girls Trip.  If you exclude light-hearted action films, it is the highest grossing live action comedy of the year with a take of over $106m.  In a similar vein to the Oscar nominated Hidden Figures, it demonstrates that there is a huge appetite for movies about African American women.  I suspect we’re going to see a lot more of them (rightly so) in future years.

As for the premise, four middle aged ladies get together for a fun, boozy weekend at a music festival in New Orleans.  They’ve all been great friends since high school but given they now have such busy, disparate lives, it’s become harder and harder to catch up.  This is the first time they’ve all got together in 5 years.

Ryan (Hall) is a successful author who has gained notoriety and financial success through her self-help book “You Can Have It All”.  She’s hoping to close a business deal in New Orleans that will culminate with her own television show.  Sasha (Latifah) is at the other end of the financial spectrum.  Despite starting out as a legitimate journalist, she now runs a tacky gossip website and is struggling to pay the bills.

Lisa (Smith) is a single mum who is in desperate need of a holiday.  She works long hours as a nurse and spends the rest of her life caring for her child and stressing over insignificant things.  The last member in the quartet is the most outrageous.  Dina (Haddish) never left her college days behind and is still a party machine.  Her goals for the trip are to drink copious amounts of alcohol and get laid as many times as possible.

The broader screenplay is formulaic.  You can foresee certain events well before they happen.  That isn’t to say you can’t have fun watching this.  Girls Trip is a raunchy, hilarious comedy with some great individual scenes.  There’s a moment where Jada Pinkett Smith finds a unique way to go to the bathroom.  There’s another where Tiffany Haddish finds an unorthodox use for a giant grapefruit.  It’s best to avoid the trailers as they do give too much away.

It’s the strength of the characters that provides the film with its biggest asset.  These are four very different women but they all have great personalities and they all have a chance to shine throughout the film.  Their conversations are filthy but that was part of the attraction for director Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man, Soul Men).  He sees these joyful characters as more representative of the African American community than what is often depicted on screen and television.

We saw a similar collective of party-loving women in the Scarlett Johansson-led Rough Night a few months ago.  That film had its moments but Girls Trip takes it up a few notches.  It provides more laughs, more surprises and more entertainment.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 September 2017

They’re two passions of mine but it’s not often that golf is depicted through the medium of cinema.  Caddyshack, Tin Cup and Happy Gilmore are part of very small collective of successful golf movies.  Tommy’s Honour is the latest entrant in that group and tells the story of Young Tom Morris (Lowden), a Scottish lad who won four Open Championships in the 19^th century and helped shape the game of golf as we know it today.

As a broad genre, sporting movies are always a challenge for the screenwriter.  If you go with a work of fiction, there’s a high risk that audiences won’t consider it credible.  If you go with an event that actually happened, how can you possibly create a level of intensity that matches the original?  I was at Torrey Pines for the 2008 U.S. Open when Tiger Woods holed a 12 foot putt on the 18^th green to force a play-off.  As amazing as it was, there’s no point making it into a movie.  You’re better off watching a replay on YouTube where you can see the real Tiger and listen to the real commentators.

Tommy’s Honour has a slight advantage in that regard because we’re travelling back to the 1860s and delving into a period of golf history that isn’t well known or well documented.  Only a small number of photos exist of Young Tom Morris and there’s certainly no video footage.  Kevin Cook, a former senior editor at Sports Illustrated magazine, published an award winning book on Morris’ exploits in 2007.  It’s that work which has been adapted for the screen by Cook and his wife, Pamela Marin.

You could argue that Cook and Marin make a good screenwriting duo.  He is a golf tragic who spent countless hours researching the subject matter.  He delved through the archives in Scottish libraries and interviewed historians who had passed information down from generation to generation.  Marin is less passionate about the game and so tackled the story from a different angle.  Rather than focus on Morris’ achievements on the course, she was keen to understand his relationship with his father, his family and his wife (Lovibond).

The film wants to reach as broad an audience as possible but it’s evident that golfers will take the most away from this.  Young Tom Morris was an excitable character that helped promote the game across Scotland.  He’d won his fourth Open Championship by the age of 21 and was arguably the first individual to be financially successful from the game of golf.  He and his counterparts were paid significant sums of money to participate in exhibition matches across the country.

An interesting point of note about the film is that it’s directed by Jason Connery, the son of Oscar winner Sean Connery.  Jason grew up playing golf with his father and hence the interest in the subject matter.  To transport us back into the 19^th Century, he’s found some great locations across picturesque Scotland and has fun showing us “old school” golf clubs and attire.  The special effects are a little too obvious in places (such as the flight of the golf ball) but this can be excused given the film’s tight budget.

Tommy’s Honour is another worthy credit on the resume of rising British star Jack Lowden (Dunkirk).  He’s created a likeable, charismatic character who wants to change the world whilst staying true to his values.  Lowden admits to being a terrible golfer but spent many hours with a coach to look as convincing as possible on screen.  Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, War Horse) is equally good as Morris’ more “traditional” father and it’s also nice to see a cameo from Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) who plays the stuffy Captain of the St Andrews Links.

The dialogue is a bit stiff in places but Tommy’s Honour is must see viewing for fans of golf, Scotland, or both.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 August 2017

Why go to the effort of creating fiction when you can use a true story as crazy as this?  Brought to the screen by writer Gary Spinelli and director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), American Made is based on the life of Barry Seal.  His tale is a reminiscent of George Jung, the drug dealing kingpin whose misadventures were chronicled in Ted Demme’s Blow (released back in 2001).

We’re introduced to Barry (Cruise) while he’s sitting in the cockpit of a jumbo jet.  The year is 1978 and he’s the youngest pilot to have ever been employed by the airline TWA.  You could make an argument that he suffers from an attention deficit disorder.  His mind is continually wandering and he has an obsession with keeping busy.

After a long haul flight, Barry is pulled aside in a hotel bar by CIA agent Monty Schafer (Gleeson).  He knows that Barry has been sneaking in boxes of illegal Cuban cigars aboard his flights but he’s not there to make any arrest.  Rather, he wants to recruit him.  It’s important to note this was at the height of the Cold War when the Soviets were doing their best to spread communism in South America.  Monty wanted Barry to fly across Colombia in a twin propeller plane, under the guise that he runs his own small airline, and take reconnaissance photos which could be used by the CIA.

That’s where it starts… but it’s certainly not where it ends.  Barry befriends the likes of Pablo Escobar and it is not long before he’s smuggling huge drug shipments into the United States.  The CIA learns of this but doesn’t seem to care.  In fact, they encourage the sale of drugs and arms because it’s putting money into the hands of powerful cartels that will hopefully overthrow the communist governments of these countries – a goal in America’s best interests.

It’s a role suited to Tom Cruise who portrays the lead character as a likeable larrikin who lacks intelligence but makes up for it with charm and personality.  He’s bumbling his way between events but it’s hard not to laugh at his antics.  There are a couple of great scenes where he tries to hide ridiculous sums of cash but has run out of decent hiding places.  He resides in a small town of about 3,000 people but it’s not long before every major bank is opening up a branch on the main street.  They know Barry by reputation and are keen to assist with his wealth protection.

There are other characters in the mix but we don’t get to know them in acute detail.  Sarah Wright plays Barry’s wife and she blindly goes along with his activities without thinking of the ramifications.  Domhnall Gleeson plays the overeager CIA agent who doesn’t seem to be accountable to anyone despite the risky nature of his work.  There are also cameos from the likes of Jesse Plemons as the town’s naive sheriff and Jayma Mays as the state’s aggressive Attorney General.

After an intriguing set-up, things get a little repetitive during the second act as Barry’s accumulates his wealth.  You know his illegal lifestyle can’t last and you’ll be anxious to see how it all pans out.  Spinelli’s screenplay provides a curious finale that introduces darker elements while still maintaining the film’s light, humorous tone.  I’m not 100% convinced by the approach but the story alone makes this worthwhile viewing.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 29 August 2017

Most filmgoers aren’t fussed about awards.  They don’t care which foreign language film won the Palm D’or at the Cannes Festival or which American film campaigned strongly to win the most Golden Globe Awards.  All of that said, one prize that may be of interest to Australian audiences is the audience award at the Sydney Film Festival.  This honour isn’t decided by a handful of critics who watch 300 movies a year.  This is assessed by the thousands of people who attend each year as a ticket buying member of the public.

The 2017 award was bestowed upon Ali’s Wedding, an Australian romantic comedy that is being fuelled by great word of mouth.  As crazy as the story sounds, it is based on actual events.  Born in 1983, Osamah Sami had a tough upbringing in war-torn Iran.  His family immigrated to Australia in the mid-1990s and that too came with its challenges.  All of this is chronicled in his memoir, Good Muslim Boy, which won the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award in 2016.

It’s too hard to encapsulate all of Osamah Sami’s life into a two-hour film and so the focus is placed on a few key events.  Not only did Sami co-write the screenplay, he also stars in the leading role (with the character’s name changed to Ali).  It’s reminiscent of what we saw Kumail Nanjiani do earlier this month with The Big Sick.  Both are playing a slightly alternate version of their real selves on screen.

The film doesn’t delve into Ali’s life in Iran.  It’s spread across a few weeks where his character has just finished high school and is studying to sit the medical school entrance exam at the University of Melbourne.  His father (Hany) is a high-profile, much-loved cleric and that only adds to the pressure on Ali’s shoulders.  Everyone in the tight-knit Muslim community assumes he is destined for great things and will pass comfortably.

Ali knows he hasn’t studied hard enough and that’s confirmed when the results arrive in the mail.  He scored just 65% - well below the required cut-off.  Adding to his sense of failure is the fact that two acquaintances blitzed the exam.  Moe (Khalafalla), the son of his father’s rival, scored 96%.  Dianne (Sawires), a girl he’s had a crush on for some time, scored even better with 98%.

So what does Ali do?  He makes a rash, spur-of-the-moment decision and tells everyone that he too scored 96%.  One lie becomes two… which becomes three.  It’s not long before Ali has gone down a path of deception for which there is no easy road back.  It threatens to destroy his family’s reputation and his chance at winning the heart of the strong-willed Dianne.

It might sound rather heavy but Sami has followed in the footsteps of Australian filmmakers such as P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding) and Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) in finding humour within this dysfunctional family.  It ties back to the mantra that sometimes all you can do about a bad situation is laugh.  The comedic tone has clearly connected with audiences given the buzz from the Sydney Film Festival.

The film takes a few unnecessary detours that disrupt its flow.  As an example, there’s a short sequence where Ali and his friends travel to the United States for a special event.  It provides an amusing/concerning anecdote but perhaps it belongs in a separate film.  It feels rushed and out of place within the screenplay.

It’s a minor weakness of what is a very entertaining film.  It explores the blend of Middle Eastern and Australian culture within this country but also tells an amusing, family-driven tale that most will appreciate and celebrate, regardless of their background.  Go the Bombers!