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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 17 February 2025

Pamela Anderson made a name for herself on 1990s television (Baywatch, Home Improvement) but it’s been a tougher run, speaking professionally, in the decades to follow.  She’s kept in the public eye with several film cameos (often playing herself) and celebrity appearances on the likes of Big Brother and Dancing on Ice, but not since the 1996 release of the awful Barb Wire have Australian audiences seen Anderson in a leading role on the big screen.  Until now.

Drawing from a true story, The Last Showgirl is centred on Shelly (Anderson), a 57-year-old who spent almost her entire adult life working as a topless dancer for a Moulin Rouge-style cabaret show in Las Vegas.  The pay isn’t great, and she’s made of lot of personal sacrifices along the way, but Shelly is devoted to her work.  She loves going out on stage every night in lavish costumes to the rapturous applause of excited audiences.  She’s also made genuine friendships and taken some of the younger dancers under her wing as a quasi-mother.

Her world is upended when the show’s producer (Bautista) announces that due to a changing of the times and declining ticket sales, the show will permanently close in two weeks and be replaced by a Cirque du Soleil-like act.  It’s an alarming wake-up call for the now unemployed Shelly who doesn’t know what to do.  Finding another dancing gig at her age is near impossible.  On top of that, she now faces financial woes having put aside no savings or other assets for retirement.

Directed by Gia Coppola (Palo Alto) and written by Kate Gersten (The Good Place), The Last Showgirl is rough around the edges.  I’ve no concerns with the short 89-minute runtime but you get a sense a few subplots were shortened and/or left on the cutting room floor.  As an example, the hot-and-cold relationship between Shelly and her distant daughter (Lourd) needed more depth.  There’s a similarly rushed moment involving Shelly and another showgirl (Shipka) who arrives on her doorstep begging for help.  Why doesn’t this lead to anything?

The Last Showgirl still succeeds though as a character study and it’s easy to see why Pamela Anderson was nominated by her peers for best actress at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.  Audiences will empathise with Shelly and understand (possibly relate) to the emotional rollercoaster she is enduring.  When you devote your entire life to an artistic medium and it’s suddenly taken away from you… yeah, it’s heartbreaking.  At the same time, there’s a naivety to Shelly which has you asking questions about the extent to which her problems are self-inflicted.  Should she have taken a simpler, better-paying job before now?

Bolstered by a fun supporting performance from Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once), this movie is worth your time.  Take a bow, Pamela Anderson.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 February 2025

Cinema is a powerful artistic medium.  We can step into multiple pairs of shoes and see events from differing perspectives.  Letters from Iwo Jima chronicled a famous World War II battle from the side of the Japanese whereas Flags of Our Fathers depicted an American military viewpoint.  World Trade Centre was focused on police officers caught up in the 9/11 terrorist attacks while United 93 recounted experiences of hijacked passengers and air traffic controllers.

The massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics has been covered in a series of affecting films including One Day in September, a 1999 Academy Award winning documentary from Kevin Macdonald, and Munich, a 2005 Steven Spielberg-helmed drama about undercover Jewish agents seeking revenge against Palestinian operatives.  September 5 takes us back to that fateful day but this time, the perspective is solely from a small group of ABC sports journalists couped up inside their tiny studio.

I like the approach as the film serves as a homage to old-school media.  If you think live television is challenging in the current day, wait until you see what they faced in 1972.  There were no handheld cameras, no mobile phones, no Wi-Fi connections, and just a single satellite to be shared amongst all of America’s networks.  I don’t want to give too much away but you’ll be stunned by the lengths the ABC crew went to, with zero preparation, to broadcast the quickly unfolding events with limited technology.  It was the first terrorist attack to ever be shown live on television.

Director Tim Fehlbaum gets creative with storytelling.  An accomplished group of actors bring the script’s pages to life but when it comes to the casting of Jim McKay, who was the on-camera anchor throughout the attack, Fehlbaum uses archival footage.  It adds a layer of authenticity which makes everything around it feel more credible.  While McKay speaks the world, the ABC team scramble behind the scenes in working out what to say and what to show.  Expertise was lacking given their background was sports and not current affairs.

It’s equally relevant today but another of the film’s key themes is truth and journalistic integrity. ABC were the only media outlet covering events as they happened on TV and with that, came a heightened responsibility to be accurate in their reporting.  As the situation became more chaotic, the line separating confirmed facts from speculative hearsay was blurred beyond recognition.  Making fast decisions under immense pressure is fraught with danger.

Nominated at the Producer’s Guild Awards as one of the top 10 movies of the year, and earning an Oscar nod for best adapted screenplay, September 5 is a gritty, interesting, well-made film.  It’s a story worth telling.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 13 February 2025

She’s a two-time Academy Award winning actress (Cold Mountain, Judy) but when it comes to Renée Zellweger’s filmography, the character she’s (arguably) best known for is Bridget Jones.  Adapted from the novels of Helen Fielding, the series began in 2001 and was followed by further instalments in 2004 and 2016.  Bridget’s romantic calamities have been popular with the three movies grossing more than $750 million USD at the global box office.

There’s a plethora of returning characters for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (it’s like an episode of This is Your Life) but the noticeable absentee is her husband, Mr Darcy.  We learn during the introduction that he was killed 4 years ago while on a humanitarian mission in Sudan.  In the aftermath, the now 50-something-year-old Bridget became a stay-at-home mum looking after her two primary school-aged children.  The self-pity is evident.  She refers to herself as “asexual” given a non-existent love life and whines every time it’s suggested she get out of the house and socialise.

She’s become more reclusive in nature but the world around Bridget is the same as it’s always been.  Whether it be family, friends or colleagues, everyone is offering advice on how Bridget should live her life.  The conversation almost always turns to men and sex.  It’s reached the point where a close friend has signed her up to Tinder (without telling her) and, when she rocks up a work with a beaming smile one day, co-workers are asking whether she recently got laid.  It’s a bit weird (not sure I could get away with it in my own workplace) but it’s just how things work in Bridget’s comical, soap opera-like ecosphere.

With Bridget now a single widow, the stage is set for the three-person screenwriting team to introduce a group of potential suitors.  Hugh Grant (Heretic) reprises his role as the womanising Daniel Cleaver and while there are times when he’s as slimy as ever, there’s now a softer side shining through.  Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) is a science teacher at the children’s school with differing views when it comes to religion and the afterlife.  Leading the candidates is Leo Woodall (One Day) as a 29-year-old biochemistry student with a chiselled body but the significant age gap creates mental hurdles.

Several subplots get no time to breathe (Colin Firth’s odd bedtime cameo, Hugh Grant’s estranged son, Isla Fisher as the next-door neighbour) and while it’s a bit all-over-the-place at times, there’s enough humour and charm to make Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy a success.  Yeah, her life is one exaggerated misadventure after the other (e.g. buying condoms, undermining the babysitter) but Zellweger makes her a likeable person regardless.  There’s also a “heart” to Bridget Jones which becomes more evident in the film’s second half.

Released in Australian cinemas the day before Valentine’s Day, director Michael Morris (Better Call Saul) has delivered an entertaining film to fit with the occasion and audience’s expectations.

You can watch/read my chat with director Michael Morris by clicking here.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 February 2025

Filmmakers often use their own experiences as part of the “creative process” and that applies to Presence, as unusual as it sounds.  Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) had a home in Los Angeles where a few mysterious things took place.  This included a house sitter seeing someone walk from the bathroom to the bedroom despite being alone.  After a quick internet search, Soderbergh learned a woman had died in the master bedroom several years earlier under suspicious circumstances.

Movies about ghosts and the supernatural aren’t new but, working with screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park), Soderbergh finds a fresh angle with Presence.  For starters, this tale is told entirely from the perspective of the ghost!  A family of four have moved into a two-story residence and the spirit follows them from room-to-room.  It’s voyeuristic with its approach – it’s never seen but it watches the daily conversations and interactions between mum, dad, son and daughter.  We never leave the house.

Soderbergh creates further points of difference with his direction.  He himself held the lightweight Sony camera as it smoothly hovered above/around the characters.  Each individual scene was shot with no edits and so just a single camera was required.  It helps explain why the film could be made on a budget of just $2 million USD.  It brings back memories of what Soderbergh did with Unsane, a 2018 release shot entirely on an iPhone 7 with an even smaller budget.

A narrative is required and it’s similarly interesting.  While the family members squabble over differing views on the world, the daughter (Liang) senses a “presence” in the home.  She can’t see it but a growing number of unexplained events, like a door being opened, have her asking questions.  The rest of the household soon buys into her views (they see stuff too) and a spiritual medium is brought in for advice.

With a running time of just 85 minutes, Presence is stylish and intriguing.  It’s also the kind of movie you can watch and appreciate a second time, with a completely different mindset, knowing how it will end.  The cast is headlined by Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels) and Chris Sullivan (This is Us).  They’re great but it’s the two youngers, Callina Liang and Eddy Maday, who get the “meatier” part of the screenplay and impress most.

If keen on a quality supernatural thriller, add Presence to your viewing list.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 13 February 2025

I can’t help but think of the famous proclamation – “the king is dead, long live the king!”  Whilst the Chris Evans’ version of Captain America didn’t technically die in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, he’s reached the age of retirement and so it’s time to hand the title to someone else.  That person is Sam Wilson.  Played by Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker), he’s the former U.S. Air Force guy introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The film opens with another returning character, however.  Thaddeus Ross appeared in several movies as a not-always-friendly ex-army guy who has transitioned into politics.  He was previously played by Oscar winner William Hurt but following his death in 2022, the role was recast with another big name – 82-year-old Harrison Ford.  Ross has always been an influential guy, but he’s now climbed to the top of the mountain and is the newly elected President of the United States.

The MCU has been low on ideas in recent years and while Captain America: Brave New World is far from perfect… it’s a step in the right direction and the kind of superhero movie I endorse.  It doesn’t go overboard with CGI-heavy action but rather, it’s more of a drama-thriller where story, for the most part, takes precedence over battles.  It’s delving into themes such as abuse of power, broken promises, strategic alliances, and forgiveness.  I’m trying not to give too much away!

At a high level, a new mineral has been discovered on Earth’s latest island (you’ll remember it from previous movies).  President Ross is trying to negotiate a treaty between France, Japan and India so the mineral’s potential can be shared without resorting to underhanded tactics.  That’s proving difficult.  It’s not so much because of their poor negotiation skills but rather, there’s a mysterious, villainous group trying to thwart their efforts and upend the world order.

The splashes of comedy don’t always hit the mark, but I generally enjoyed the narrative and conversations.  The interplay between Anthony Mackie and Danny Ramirez, who plays Captain America’s latest sidekick, is good fun.  Harrison Ford makes for a convincing President and the supporting players, headlined by Shira Hass and Giancarlo Esposito, make every scene a winner with their memorable characters – in terms of both look and personality.

Captain America: Brave New World is an engaging instalment.