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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 17 September 2021

Based on a true story from 2013, the film opens with Joe Bell (Wahlberg) and his 15-year-old son, Jadin (Miller), hiking on a remote stretch of road.  He’s not walking to work or to the corner store.  His goal is considerably more ambitious.  Joe is on a mission to trek across the contiguous United States from his west coast home in La Grande, Oregon to his son’s favourite place, New York City, on the east coast.  It’ll take over a year and the entire distance travelled will exceed 6,000 kilometres.

Armed with just a push trolly and a backpack, Joe isn’t doing this because of a simple sense of adventure.  His son has been bullied at high school for being gay and he wants to raise awareness about the issue and to try to prevent it from happening to others.  In each town he visits, Joe talks to news reporters and speaks in front of kids at school auditoriums.  He’s not the best public speaker but his heart is in the right place.

Without giving too much away, Joe Bell is an emotional, thought-provoking piece that has something to say.  The screenplay was developed by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, the Oscar winning duo who adapted Brokeback Mountain for the big screen, and the director is Reinaldo Marcus Green, a New Yorker who has transitioned from Wall Street banker to budding filmmaker.  His only other feature film was the well-received Monsters and Men from 2018 starring John David Washington.

Curiously, the least interesting character in Joe Bell is Joe Bell himself.  I was fine with the performance of Mark Wahlberg (Boogie Nights) and the film isn’t afraid to expose his flaws but he’s very one-note.  The Joe we meet at the start of the movie isn’t too different from the Joe we know at the end of the movie.

There are two characters with much more to offer.  The first is the 15-year-old Jadin who is fleshed out beautifully by rising star Reid Miller.  His background is explored using flashbacks and we’re shown affecting scenes where he comes out to his dad, is viciously tormented by classmates, and meets his first love.  Miller is exceptional (he’s a name to watch going forward) and it’s hard not to be moved by a particularly emotional sequence where, at a vulnerable low point, he calls his best friend and begs for help and support.

 The second character of note is Lola Bell, mother to Jadin and husband to Joe.  Wonderfully played by Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), she becomes the “voice of reason” and the person trying to pull strings and hold the family together when times get tough.  It’s easy to applaud Joe for his visible efforts in raising awareness about bullying but Lola’s unsung work behind the scenes, which takes its toll on her at times, deserves equal recognition.

Reviews were mixed when the film premiered at the 2020 Toronto Film Festival (it even went through a subsequent re-edit) but, in my opinion, Joe Bell is a moving drama that deserved more recognition than its received.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 August 2021

Three months ago, I’d never heard of the America music duo Sparks.  Now, having seen Edgar Wright’s brilliant documentary (The Sparks Brothers) twice on the big screen, I know Ron and Russell Mael as two incredibly gifted artists who have forged a 45-year career in the music industry by staying true to themselves and continually taking chances.

Now, for the first time, they’ve got a screenwriting credit to add to their impressive resume.  Back in 2012, French director Leos Carax used a Sparks song in his warped drama Holy Motors.  Ron and Russell reached out to simply say thanks and, in the process, pitched the idea for an off-beat movie musical they’d been working on for some time.  Annette is the end result and it arrives in Australia with buzz having won the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival last month.

If you’ve seen Holy Motors or other works from Leos Carax, you should know to expected the unexpected.  Annette is a head-scratching mix of reality and fantasy that doesn’t always make sense… but that’s part of its allure.  The opening titles are proof of that.  The film begins with Ron and Russell Mael (playing themselves) performing a song called “So May We Start” as they interact with stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard (playing characters).  It’s reminiscent of the opening to the successful Broadway musical Pippin in that it’s trying to break the fourth wall.

From thereon, I’d describe the movie as a dark, Shakespearean-like fairy tale.  Henry (Driver) is an edgy comedian / performance artist for whom no topic is taboo.  Ann (Cotillard) is a renowned soprano who continually sings in front of large, sold-out crowds.  The pair meet, fall in love, get married and have a daughter.  A standard romance, right?  Oh, did I mention the child takes the form of a wooden marionette puppet?  It’s probably worth noting.

This film could have been messy in the wrong hands but Annette succeeds because of Leos Carax’s gutsy direction.  It’s a hypnotic experience in the way the camera hovers around these characters (often at a distance) from a variety of angles (sometimes looking up, sometimes looking down).  The use of lengthy, unedited shots creates an intensity that is hard to shake.  The emotive music, sung live on set as opposed to later in a recording studio, adds authenticity to key scenes.

I wouldn’t be recommending this film to everyone but if you’re after an experience as much as a movie, Annette delivers.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 12 September 2021

At the start of the year, I didn’t know what a truffle hunter did.  Now, I’ve seen two films which have provided both laughs and insight.  The first was The Truffle Hunters, an excellent documentary about elderly Italian men going to search of one of the rarest, most expensive foods in the world.  The second is Pig, a fictional action drama with Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas) in the lead role. 

The character refers to himself as “Rob” but it’s almost irrelevant given how few people he interacts with.  For over a decade, he’s lived in a small, wooden shack hidden deep within a forest in Oregon.  There’s not much to his daily routine.  He takes his beloved pig, who sleeps by his side of an evening on its own mattress, and scours the area for high-quality truffles.

This funds his reclusive lifestyle but in an unorthodox manner.  A young go-getter, Amir (Wolff), drives to the shack every few days, collects the truffles, and, as part of an exchange, provides Rob with basic groceries including tinned food and batteries.  Amir offers nicer things (such as a mobile phone) but Rob isn’t interested.  He’s content with his simple, lonely, uncommunicative life and, evidenced by the fact he’s done it for so long, doesn’t want to change a thing.

That is until some bad folks rock up one night, bash him over the head, and steal the pig.  Rob’s not the “forgive and forget” kind of guy.  He teams up with a semi-reluctant Amir, returns to civilisation, and goes on a vigilante-style mission through some seedy parts of Portland, Oregon to retrieve his prized pig.  In the process, he must confront people from his past and we learn why he detached from society in the first place.

Credit goes to first-time writer-director Michael Samoski and co-writer Vanessa Block for coming up with such a warped, curious idea.  Part of Samoski’s inspiration was exploring the ways in which a heavy loss, such as the death of a close family member, can change one’s view of the world and therefore, how they choose to live in it.  There’s a fair bit to unpick here and Pig provides a nice balance of intrigue and dramatic action.

Nicolas Cage is very good.  It may not sound like a “Nicolas Cage role” but if you’ve seen some of his recent works (Willy’s Wonderland and Color Out of Space spring to mind) you’ll realise that he’s not afraid of playing strange, nutty characters and working with first-time filmmakers.  He gives a strong, dialogue-light performance as the dishevelled Rob and it’s not a role that other Hollywood big names could take on and be equally convincing.  I also liked Alex Wolff (Hereditary, Old) as his likeable offsider with an interesting backstory of his own.

Clocking it at a tight 92 minutes, Pig is a pleasant surprise.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 August 2021

Reminiscence shows us a future world ravaged by the effects of climate change.  Many have become nocturnal.  It’s so oppressively hot during the day, people stay inside and then venture out at night for work and socialising.  The polar ice caps have melted, sea levels have risen, and low-lying streets of major cities are now flooded.  High rise buildings are still occupied but it’s commonplace to travel by boat instead of car.  Huge dam walls prevent the disaster becoming even greater.

The climate has degenerated but innovation still thrives.  A technology now exists that allows specially trained people to tap into one’s memories and allow them to be replayed.  For example, if you wanted you reflect on the time you first met your best friend, you strap yourself into a giant sensory deprivation tank, fall asleep, and let an expert probe your mind and recreate the memory.  It’s as addictive as any drug with customers doing it regularly to provide a fleeting moment of happiness in an increasingly depressing world.

As thought provoking as the backdrop is, it’s not the focus of Reminiscence.  Rather, this is a more conventional film (unfortunately) that is part mystery, part romance.  Hugh Jackson plays Nick, a memory reader with a struggling business and a single frustrated employee (Newton).  I’d be annoyed if a new customer came into my office after closing time without an appointment… but that’s not what happens when Mae (Ferguson) walks in looking for a short, standard treatment.  It’s love at first sight for Nick and the pair soon become inseparable.

That is until Mae goes missing.  Nick is tormented by her disappearance and spends every waking hour trying to work out where she’s gone.  It reaches the point where he sits in his own tank and relives his memories of Mae with hope that he’ll find a key clue.  The pieces of the puzzle start fitting together but it sends Nick down a dangerous road filled with dangerous people.

I like the reflective questions Reminiscence asks of audiences.  What if this technology did exist?  Would you want to go back and relive happy moments from your past?  Or does it create a world where we detach from reality, stop looking forward, and risk creating no new memories?  Could authorities and villainous folk have the opportunity to see “recordings” of these memories and use them against us?

Writer-director Lisa Joy (Westworld) can’t quite bring everything together into something meaningful and emotional.  We see so little of Nick and Mae together.  This makes it tough to understand why he’s willing to risk his life for someone he hardly knows.  Scenes involving gangsters and goons are run-of-the-mill and the same can be said of weak subplots involving police detectives fishing for information, and a wealthy family looking for happiness.

There’s decent banter between Thandiwe Newton (my pick of the cast) and Hugh Jackman but Reminiscence doesn’t make the most of its great ideas.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 04 September 2021

Having a fractured, uneasy relationship with your father is not uncommon… but this latest Marvel release takes it to a bizarre and heightened level.  When we first meet him, Shaun (Liu) comes across as a run-of-the-mill Asian American living in San Francisco.  By day, he’s working hard as a hotel valet (a curious decision given his college education) and by night, he’s frequenting karaoke bars with his best friend, Katy (Awkwafina).

He doesn’t mention his upbringing and there’s a good reason for that.  His father, Xu Wenwu (Leung), is thousands of years old and has villainously accumulated wealth and power over that time.  The device that provides his immortality and incredible strength is a series of ten rings that he wears like bracelets around his arms.  Shaun was trained by his father and became a Kung Fu warrior but, upon reaching the age of 14 and gaining a stronger sense of morality, he fled to San Francisco and started a simpler, more honest life.

To borrow one of my favourite sayings – “we may be through with the past… but the past ain’t through with us.”  Goons hired/trained by Wenwu come after Shaun and steal a green pendant left to him by his late mother.  It is believed the pendant will guide the way to a hidden kingdom that will allow the ten-ring wearing Wenwu to gather even more power.  It falls upon Shaun, his estranged sister (Zhang) and the confused Katy to stop Wenwu and save the world.

Much has been made of the fact that while this is the 25^th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s the first with an Asian director, an Asian leading actor, and a predominantly Asian cast.  It shouldn’t have taken this long but it’s nice to see Marvel Studios catching up with the times.  There’s an Australian connection also.  Most of the shoot took place at Fox Studios in Sydney with production halted for several months when COVID-19 lockdowns came into effect in March 2020.

There are two terrific action scenes to open the film – one on a runaway bus weaving through the hilly streets of San Francisco, and the other on the scaffolding of a skyscraper in Macau.  They provide a shot of adrenalin while also highlighting the skills and personalities of these fun, interesting characters.  Simu Liu captures the right mix of strength and reluctance as Shaun (who comes to be known as Shang-Chi), Awkwafina utilises her comedic talents in delivering great one-liners, and Meng’er Zhang is superb as the sister with a “chip on her shoulder” and with a point to prove.

42-year-old director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, Just Mercy) deserves praise in bringing this cool world to life (the maze forest is awesome) and choreographing the aforementioned battle sequences.  Further, the film doesn’t get too bogged down with action (well, except towards the end) and that provides time for meaningful character development and an exploration of family dynamics.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is one of the better superhero flicks we’ve seen in recent years.