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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 27 December 2013

“Atticus says you can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.” These were the words of youngster Jeremy Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s iconic novel To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s also a quote that best sums up the theme of August: Osage County.

Following the death of their father (Shepard), three sisters have returned to their childhood home in Oklahoma for the funeral. It doesn’t take long for the arguments to begin. The person picking most of the fights is their mother, Violet (Streep). I can best describe her as a chain-smoking, pill-addicted, attention-seeking matriarch who loves to complain.

Violet has mastered the art of “pushing someone’s button”. She takes great pleasure from it. When she gets a moment alone with her middle daughter, Ivy (Nicholson), she criticises her hair, her lack of makeup and then says “you look like a lesbian”. When invited to the Florida wedding of her youngest child, Karen (Lewis), her response is short and sweet – “well I don’t really see that happening, do you?”

Based on the Tony Award winning play by Tracy Letts, this film adaptation is to be celebrated for its great performances. You’re unlikely to forget Streep’s vindictive persona and sharp insults any time soon. There’s room for a little sympathy towards her character… but not a lot. Chris Cooper is also terrific as Violet’s brother-in-law. He’s a quiet, unassuming man but he’ll put his foot forward when the time is right. Other cast members I don’t want to overlook are Julia Roberts (who has been picking up some award season attention) and the underrated Margo Martindale (Million Dollar Baby, Dead Man Walking).

The film doesn’t offer a lot in terms of narrative. It’s set over a few hot days in August (hence the title) and is best described as an observational character study with a lot of dialogue. Some of the conversations are immensely entertaining (such as the family meal around the dinner table) but others are a touch tiring, repetitive. They’re not as real or absorbing as what you might see in a Mike Leigh film (the master of observational drama).

I recently saw a television ad for August: Osage County (see here) which had some light, fluffy music and then asked us “to celebrate the holidays” in “the year’s most outrageous comedy”. That’s false advertising. This is a miserable fucking movie… and that’s meant to be a compliment. It’s not Snowtown-dark but it’s still a bleak look at a troubled family who can’t escape each other. Julia Roberts, playing the eldest daughter, sums up their lives best – “Thank God we can’t tell the future. We’d never get out of bed.”

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 December 2013

Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) has only one dream in life – “to have salon-quality hair and read the news”. Unfortunately, the second film begins with a step in the wrong direction. He is sacked by the station manager (Harrison Ford) who describes him as “the worst anchorman I have ever seen.” It’s fair description.

Forced to take a gig as the dolphin show host at SeaWorld (he’s not very good at that either),  Ron is given a fresh lease on life when approached to join the new Global News Network (GNN). Keeping in mind that this film is set in the 1970s, the GNN is trying to become the first 24-hour news network in the United States. They’ve personally selected Ron and his team (don’t ask me why) to host the graveyard shift from 2am to 5am.

So who watches news at that hour? Who is even awake? Desperate to prove himself in the ratings, Ron decides to roll the dice and transform his daily 3 hour news segment into something very different. In his own words – “Why do we have to tell people what they need to hear? Why can’t we just tell them what they want to hear?” His biased, crazy, pro-America show becomes an overnight sensation. Ron Burgundy is back.

I say this too often but this is another film with potential that underachieves. When you think about the way that the “news” has evolved over the past few decades, there’s room for a lot of great jokes. One of the best scenes sees Ron create the first televised car chase. While his ex-wife is interviewing Yasser Arafat on another network, Ron is luring audiences with the helicopter-covered chase and his wildly speculative commentary.

Regrettably, not enough time is spent poking fun at way in which we disguise entertainment as serious news. Instead, the film strives for laughs but offering moments that are both random and bizarre. Most of them don’t work. Steve Carell fakes his death and then turns up unknowingly at his own funeral. David Koechner opens a restaurant that serves bats instead of chicken. Kristen Wiig joins the cast as a socially inept receptionist and her nonsensical interaction with Steve Carell gets tired quickly.

It’s been 9 years since the original Anchorman and while it didn’t reel in as much money as some of Will Ferrell’s other low-brow comedies (such as Talladega Nights, Blades Of Glory, Step Brothers), the film has since developed a cult-like following. There were no plans for a sequel. This film only came about because of an increasing demand from the public.

I’m sure many will enjoy Anchorman 2 for what it is. I admit to having a few laughs and yes, I did smile during the finale which involves many, many cameos. It’s a weak story though. More needed to be made of Ron Burgundy’s conflict with the GNN owner (played by Australian Josh Lawson) but again, this is pushed aside for lengthy skits revolving around Ron’s casual racism (oh, and a peculiar subplot involving blindness).

While I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2004 original, I’m confident that it’ll be judged more highly than this disappointing sequel.

You can read my interview with director Adam McKay by clicking here.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 December 2013

During the September school holidays, a journalist asked me what I look for in a good animated feature. Two thoughts immediately came to mind. Firstly, the film has to appeal to both kids and adults. It’s been done before (see Shrek) and it can significantly broaden the audience and yes, the box-office. Secondly, the film needs to be original. People want fresh storylines, fresh ideas and fresh concepts. You need to give them something to remember.

It’s this second quality that has been lacking from most animated features over the past few years. Back in the early 1990s, when I was growing up, Disney dominated the market place. It wasn’t a monopoly… but it wasn’t far off it. They’d release one BIG film each summer and no one dared to compete. The fact that animation was a once-a-year event helped keep audiences engaged, invigorated.

Fast forward to the year 2013 and we’re now seeing more than a dozen animated features released here in Australia. The likes of Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony, Paramount, 20^th Century Fox and Studio Ghibli have all crept into Disney’s space. Instead of dazzling us with originality, most of this year’s efforts have stuck to safe, formula-driven, moral-heavy storylines. They’re about “being yourself” and “following your dreams” and “never giving up”. That’s fine… and I realise the animation is always top-notch… but when you get the same stuff again and again, it gets tiring.

Frozen succeeds because of its great story and its catchy musical numbers. Sure, there are messages and morals that you can take away from cinema (such as “fear will be your enemy”) but they’re not the focus. Loosely based on the 19^th Century Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale The Snow Queen, the film follows a young princess named Elsa (Menzel) who has the power to create ice and snow. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to control her powers and so she has locked herself away from the world and has kept her distance from her energetic sister, Anna (Bell).

She can’t hide forever though. The kingdom needs a queen and Elsa must take the throne following the death of her parents. Things go smoothly at the coronation... until Elsa loses her composure and her secret powers are revealed. She flees into the mountains and the kingdom is brought a standstill, now covered in snow. With a small group of new friends, including a talking snowman (voiced by Josh Gad), Anna goes in search of her older sister to remedy the situation. There will be complications.

In his efforts to find actors who were willing to improvise and push the boundaries of each character, producer Peter Del Vecho discovered that those from the theatrical world were the best fit. Just as importantly, they could also sing. Stars Kristen Bell, Idina Melzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad all found stardom on Broadway and they use their own voices to bring the film’s many musical numbers to life. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this many songs in a Disney film. I’m still struggling to get the beautiful “Let It Go” out of my head.

It’s ironic that since the animated feature category was introduced at the Academy Awards in 2001, a Walt Disney Animation Studios production is yet to take home the coveted statuette. That might be about to change thanks to Frozen.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 13 December 2013

It was named the best film of the year by the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle. It was included in the American Film Institute’s annual top 10 list. It led the nominations for the Golden Globe Awards with 7 nods including best picture drama. It was nominated for best ensemble at the always important Screen Actors Guild Awards. It currently has 97% approval on Rotten Tomatoes based on the opinion of more than 60 critics. American Hustle must be an amazing film, right?

Well, actually, no. Every award season, there are always one or two contenders that I don’t connect with (for whatever reason). Recent examples include The Tree Of Life, The Kids Are All Right and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. I should also name Silver Linings Playbook but don’t want to sound like I’m beating up on director David O. Russell too harshly.

American Hustle begins with a lengthy introduction. We are told that the story is set in 1978 and that “some of this actually happened”. Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Adams) are two con artists that have established a successful brokering business in New York City. They promise to help business owners desperate for short term loan funding… in return for a non-negotiable, non-refundable fee paid up front. Do they end up talking to financial institutions and getting the loans? Nope! They simply apologise and tell their clients that they were unsuccessful.

It’s a smooth operation that comes unstuck when they are busted by an overzealous FBI agent named Richie DiMaso (Cooper). He promises not to press charges if they’ll agree to help him snare some “bigger fish”. DiMaso wants to use their con artist skills to entrap high profile politicians and mobsters. He sees it as his best chance of earning a quick promotion within the FBI.

Their key target is Carmine Polito (Renner) – the popular mayor of Camden, New Jersey who is looking for investors to help rejuvenate the casinos of Atlantic City. Rosenfeld and Prosser come up with the idea of creating a fake Arab sheik with money to splash around. If they can get footage of Polito and other officials accepting bribes in return for development approvals, they’ll have fulfilled their obligations to the FBI and they’ll have stayed out of jail. Ah, but it’s not going to be that easy.

The film’s strongest attributes are the performances from the two female leads – Amy Adams (The Fighter) as the seductive con artist who loves speaking in an English accent, and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) as a jilted wife who becomes a part of everyone’s plans without actually realising it. My thumbs are also up for the set decorators, costume designers and make-up artists who have had fun recreating the late 1970s. Christian Bale and his not-so-convincing toupee had me smiling during the film’s opening scene.

There are a few other genuine laughs (such as Louis CK’s yarn about his brother) but they’re overshadowed by the messy, overly-convoluted screenplay. Despite the heavy use of narration, I still struggled to keep up with each character’s motivations and mindset. It’s designed as a “who’s playing who” movie but there were parts that it felt more like a “what the hell is going on” movie.

The story is also hard to buy into given the erratic nature of its characters. There are moments where they show great knowledge and insight. There are other moments where they act in a rash, silly, illogical manner. It left me asking the question – how could people so dumb pull this off? Was this a sequel to Pain & Gain? I also have concerns about the overly incompetent FBI.

American Hustle isn’t a bad film… but it’s certainly an overrated one.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 21 December 2013

Most won’t be familiar with the name in Australia but Martin Sixsmith was a British journalist who worked for the BBC in the 1980s and then later took on senior roles within the Tony Blair government and the UK public service. He resigned in 2002 after a widely publicised disagreement with a government “spin doctor” and took on a new career as an author and documentarian.

In early 2004, Martin was approached at a party by a woman who sought help unravelling a mystery. Her mother, Philomena Lee, had recently revealed a long held secret. In the summer of 1951, Philomena had been swept off her feet by a young man at a county fair. They had a “good time” and nine months later, she gave birth to a son.

It was a situation that brought much shame to Philomena’s conservative parents. They didn’t want anyone to know their 18-year-old daughter had a child outside of wedlock and so she was immediately banished to a Catholic convent. The nuns were not of the forgiving kind. Philomena was used as slave labour in the laundry and when her son had reached the age of 3, she was forced to give him up for adoption.

For close to half a century, Philomena had wondered what had become of her son. She had tried to get information from the convent but records had strangely disappeared. It was clear they weren’t going to be helpful. He took some convincing but Martin offered his skills as an investigative journalist to assist Philomena. What followed as a fascinating series of discoveries that culminated with Martin publishing a book in 2009 entitled “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee”.

Brought to the screen by Academy Award nominated director Stephen Frears (The Queen, High Fidelity), Philomena is one of this year’s best releases. It’s an emotional tale that exposes a dark chapter within the Catholic Church. Controversy was always going to follow. New York Post critic Kyle Smith described it as “90 minutes of organised hate”.

To describe the movie as such is very narrow minded… at least in my opinion. Yes, it’s highlighting some bad things within the Catholic Church but it goes far beyond that and delves into the idea of forgiveness. At what point does an act become unforgiveable? Martin and Philomena have differing points of view with each trying to convince the other during several key scenes.

Not only is the film an interesting real-life drama, it also works as a buddy comedy thanks to the versatile performances of both Steve Coogan and Judi Dench. There’s fun to be had exploring the generational gap and listening to their varied thoughts on the world. There’s tension, there’s frustration, but there are also moments of connection. Coogan co-wrote the script with friend Jeff Pope and it was nice to see them take the best screenplay prize at the Venice Film Festival back in September.

Taking second place in the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival (behind the much acclaimed 12 Years A Slave), Philomena offers laughs, tears and a few surprises. It’s a crowd pleaser… and a good one at that.