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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 March 2023

There’s a scene early in this film where our hero is told “not even you can kill everyone.”  It may be factually accurate… but it won’t stop the unkillable John Wick from trying.  In the same vein as the earlier movies, which kicked off as a surprise success story back in 2014, this is the kind of action flick where the dead body count feels higher than the number of words spoken.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  This is a franchise that knows exactly what it wants to be.  It’s not a James Bond spy flick with an intricate story about villainous conspiracies, and it’s not a Marvel superhero movie bringing together popular comic book characters from the past century.  There’s nothing flash about the storylines in the John Wick movies (they make no sense) but they provide great entertainment because of the well-choregraphed action sequences.

Former stuntman Chad Shalelski returns as director (he’s made all the John Wick movies) and once again, he’s crafted distinctive fight sequences which will jolt, shock and energise audiences.  The actors and stunt crew deserve praise but worthy of similar credit are the production design, set decoration, cinematography, and lighting teams.  They make the most of the terrific locations which include a boutique hotel, a pumping nightclub, a long set of stairs, and the famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

There’s creativity shown with the fights themselves.  One highlight occurs in a hotel kitchen where a blind assassin, played by Donnie Yen, slays a group of henchmen using martial arts and a few musical doorbells.  It’s so ridiculous… that it works!  Another great battle occurs in a building where Oscar-nominated cinematographer Dan Laustsen (The Shape of Water) and editor Nathan Orloff (Ghostbusters: Afterlife) go with a single, unedited overhead shot which will have you shaking your head with disbelief.

An action film needs a “bad guy” and the responsibility in John Wick: Chapter 4 falls on the shoulders of Bill Skarsgård (It) who is very good.  From his haircut, to his fancy suits, to his quirky accent, Skarsgård has a character who is cool and unlikeable in equal doses.  In terms of the other cast members, 58-year-old Keanu Reeves continues to defy Father Time with his action heroics, and veteran Ian McShane remains a huge asset with his distinctive voice.  It’s worth noting this is one of the last movies of Lance Reddick who sadly passed away last week at the age of 60.

There is only so long an action movie can hold by attention and despite the many positives, 169 minutes is an unnecessarily long run time.  This could easily have clocked in at two hours and been just as good.  Still, the finale is worth the wait and in my eyes, there’s yet to be a bad film in this solid franchise.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 12 March 2023

He’s played a rock and roll legend (Love Actually), an immortal pirate (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), a World War II German General (Valkyrie), a time travelling father (About Time), and a Minister of Magic (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I).  In a film career which has spanned four decades, it’s not until now that Bill Nighy has finally earned a first Oscar nomination.  He’s up for best actor in a leading role for his superb lead turn in Living.

Given the Academy tends to honour flashy performances where actors undergo physical transformations and/or imitate real-life people (subtlety is rarely rewarded), it’s nice that Nighy has been recognised for this particular role.  Set in London 1953, he plays one of the most boring people you could ever imagine.  Mr Williams is a humourless, conservative Council bureaucrat who goes about each day with monotonous routine.  A young staff member (Wood) has nicknamed him “Mr Zombie” because he’s trudging through life without any sense of joy or spirit.

Movies about rediscovering one’s self are not new.  As Andy Dufresne said in The Shawshank Redemption, “get busy living, or get busy dying.”  With this particular film, the transformational change arises from a trip to the doctor where Mr Williams is told he has terminal cancer and just a few months left to live.  He’s not the kind of person to scream out or shed tears but, even from his muted response (“quite”), you can tell he’s rattled by the diagnosis.

We follow Mr Williams as he takes time away from work and embraces new activities.  These includes lunch at posh restaurants, evening drinking sessions with newfound friends, and even a dose of pub karaoke.  The film is about a lot more though.  We see Mr Williams contemplate his legacy and what small mark he can leave on the world for when he’s gone.  There’s also the question about whether he should tell friends and family about his illness.  In the same circumstances, who would you choose to confide in?

Directed by South African Oliver Hermanus and faithfully adapted from Ikiru, the 1952 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, Living is an affecting motion picture.  It would be easy to overplay the role but Bill Nighy is near-perfect as he extracts just the right dose of sympathy from audiences.  There are distinctive scenes (a new staff member being introduced to Mr Williams’ morning transit routine), unusual details (everyone referred to by their surname, the framing of cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay), and a time-shifting finale which packs a strong emotional punch.

Backed by a beautiful music score from French composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Living is another strong entry in the current award season.  A film to savour and remember.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 20 March 2023

For those who have seen Barry Jenkins’ Academy Award-winning Moonlight, the similarities here will be easy to spot.  Jenkins’ film provided a deep, thought-provoking look at one man’s struggle to understand himself and his sexuality.  It was split into three distinct chapters, each at a different point in time, which showed him as a naïve child, a sexually awakened teenager, and a mature, guarded adult.

Of an Age is from Macedonian-born director Goran Stolevski (You Won’t Be Alone) and is a moving Australian drama about a similar subject matter.  The frenetic opening, set in 1999, introduces us to Kol (Anton), a 17-year-old from Melbourne who is on the verge of graduating high school.  He shares a love of dance with his best friend Ebony (Hook) but as we soon learn, she’s not as reliable and supportive as one should be.  You get a sense that Kol doesn’t have a wide friendship group and so he tolerates Ebony’s antics because there is no alternative.

It’s through an unexpected event that Kol shares a lengthy car ride with Adam (Green), Ebony’s older brother who has just graduated from university and is about to head overseas.  The pair quickly realise they share a love for conversation, music, and literature (well, kind of).  The innocuous banter between them shifts when Adam acknowledges that he’s gay and this leaves Kol, who has repressed his own sexuality for so long, thinking about whether he should open up himself.

Stolevski goes with a two-chapter approach in Of an Age.  Approximately 75% of the runtime follows the teenage Kol and lead actor Elias Anton (Barracuda) does a terrific job illustrating his character’s insecurities and inner torment.  Whether Kol is by himself (waiting in Ebony’s bedroom) or surrounded by others (a birthday party he’s semi-reluctant to attend), you can tell Kol isn’t comfortable in his own skin.  Thom Green (Camp) deserves similar praise for his performance as Adam.

The film’s finale takes up forward to the year 2010 where Kol and Adam, who haven’t seen each other in a decade, bump into one another at a baggage carousel at Melbourne Airport.  They’re now at very different points in their lives and they catch up while sharing a taxi to the city.  Just as we saw with Moonlight, this epilogue reminds us of how we change as we grow older… and how we hold onto specific memories of the past and look back at them through rose-tinted glasses.

Offering humour, romance and sorrow, Of an Age is one of the best Aussie movies we’ll get the chance to see this year.  Authentic characters and great conversations pitted against the backdrop of suburban, multicultural Melbourne.  That’s a winner in my book.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 06 March 2023

The Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby, rose to fame in the 1990s with a string of memorable movies which pushed limits in terms of toilet humour and gross-out scenes – Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There’s Something About Mary.  They’ll always be known for their work in the comedic genre but their style, tone, and project selection has evolved over time.  Peter won two Academy Awards for his work on biographical drama Green Book (best picture, best original screenplay) while Bobby recently directed 14 episodes of the well-received television drama Loudermilk.

Champions is Bobby’s latest creation (Peter wasn’t involved this time around) and while there are splashes of the gross-out humour we’ve grown to enjoy (political incorrectness, vomit), this is a more mellow, sentimental film.  It’s based on a 2018 Spanish comedy-drama which itself was based on a true story.  Working with first-time screenwriter Mark Rizzo, the goal is to make us laugh while also feeling better about the world around us.

Woody Harrelson, collaborating with Farrelly for the second-time after Kingpin, stars as Marcus Markovich, an assistant coach for the Iowa Stallions basketball team.  He knows the game as well as anyone but he struggles to build a connection with players because of his “I’m always right” mentality and inability to listen to other opinions.  Things go fully off the rails when he’s sacked for slapping the head coach during a game, and then later arrested for being three times over the blood alcohol limit while driving.

Narrowly avoiding an 18-month prison sentence, Marcus is assigned 90 days of community service coaching a team of 10 youngsters with intellectual disabilities.  There’s an added layer of authenticity given the actors we see on screen have the same disabilities off screen.  Hundreds auditioned from across the United States and Canada and, for the lucky few selected, most are making their acting debuts.  They have distinctive, infectious personalities which will help keep audiences invested in their fate.

The other reason to see this film is for the terrific performance of Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).  She plays Marcus’s on-again, off-again love interest and earns laughs because of her brutal, no-nonsense persona.  She instantly sees through Marcus’s bullshit but, despite her intelligence and quick-wit, she does have a vulnerable side which is hard to fully supress.  The scenes Olson and Harrelson share, with an emphasis on their initial introduction, are a major selling point.

Performances aside, it’s a fairly standard, predictable screenplay which doesn’t take many chances.  You can expect to see the team improving as they try to qualify for the championship final in Winnipeg, and you will also observe Marcus as he loses his ignorant, self-centred nature and shows more interest in those around him.  It’s a feel-good movie above all else.  Champions might be low on surprises…  but it’s still an easy film to like.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 15 March 2023

In case you missed it, X was an above-average horror-thriller set the 1970s and about a group of young adults who had rented a guest house on a Texas farm to shoot a pornographic movie.  It was made in New Zealand on a low budget and performed admirably at the box-office with over $500,000 here in Australia and over $11 million USD in the horror-loving United States.  If you stayed until the very end of the closing credits, you’d have seen the trailer for Pearl, a prequel which was shot at the same time (a great way to save money).

It’s been a peculiarly long wait for our audiences to see this prequel.  While X was released in the United States and Australia at the same time (the second half of March 2022), Pearl opened in the States back in September 2022, fresh off its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.  It’s taken six months to find a slot here with the film now receiving a limited release in the quieter aftermath of awards season.

It’s a tricky film to describe succinctly.  In the original movie, star Mia Goth played two different characters – a young woman trying to get rich in the porn industry and, thanks to the benefit of make-up, a super creepy octogenarian who wasn’t afraid to murder a person or two.  Pearl is set six decades prior to X with Goth now playing the 20-something-year-old version of the old woman.  Have I lost you yet?  Don’t sweat it.  This background material is interesting but it’s not essential knowledge.  With minimal overlap in terms of narrative, there’s no need to have seen one before the other.

X won me over with its blend of entertaining comedy and violent horror, but Pearl is a very different beast.  For starters, it’s centred on one person as opposed to a wider group.  This makes it more of a character study than a conversation-driven piece.  Further, it makes audiences feel uncomfortable in a dissimilar way.  There’s still splashes of bloody gore but it creates its “horror” through social awkwardness.  From her strained smile, to her unusual voice, to her lack of a “filter”, Pearl is an odd one.  It's hard to work out if you should feel sympathetic (she had a tough upbringing) or scared (she says some messed-up things).

I don’t think the script is as strong this time around.  There’s not a lot going on and the supporting players are flimsy.  Still, it’s a film to be seen because of Mia Goth’s memorable performance.  Director Ti West and cinematographer Eliot Rockett assist Goth with their use of close-ups and long takes.  There’s a particularly jarring scene late in the movie where Pearl confides in her sister-in-law while casually sitting at the kitchen table.

Love it or hate it (I can understand the divisiveness), Pearl is a film you’ll remember.