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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 December 2015

Time has a way of making past generations look very foolish.  Women were once burned at the stake in Europe after being found guilty of “witchcraft”.  Africans were once shipped to the United States and made to work as slaves on plantations.  Jews were once persecuted and sent to gas chambers by the German Government.  I often wonder how our current generation will be viewed with the benefit of hindsight.

Set in London 1912, Suffragette is centred on a group of British women pushing for the right to vote in national elections.  They had been denied the opportunity to elect their country’s leaders since the passing of key legislation in the 1830s.

The film’s early sequences highlight the “culture” that was engrained at the time.  A woman’s role was to find a husband, have children, and maintain a home.  Those that worked found themselves in factory or domestic service jobs that offered long hours and low pay.  There’s a scene where a Member of Parliament laments that “if we allow women to vote, it will be the loss of social structure.”  It sounds like an outlandish statement but it was a view shared by many.

The drive for women’s voting rights encompassed several decades but screenwriter Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Shame) has focused her attention on a specific point along the timeline – the period just prior to World War I where the protests were becoming more violent and the issue was reaching a tipping point.  Director Sarah Gavron believes it to be an important piece of history that isn’t taught it schools and is quickly being forgotten.

Morgan and Gavron have created a number of fictional characters that offer differing perspectives on the protests.  The central figure is Maud Watts (Mulligan), a married woman with a young child.  She’s reluctant to get involved but her passion and confidence grows after being introduced to other protestors including Edith (Carter), Violet (Duff), Alice (Garai), and union leader Emmeline Pankhurst (Streep).

It’s a little hard to buy into Maud’s transformation from unwilling nobody to a highly-regarded heavyweight but the film does a great job illustrating her emotional pain throughout the process.  She spends time in prison, is ostracised by her husband, and loses custody of her child.  It’s a big price to pay and there are several moments where she questions her own judgement.

The film’s other thought-provoking theme is the way it explores the methods adopted by the protestors.  Realising that peaceful marches were not making an impact, several of the women took more radical action by cutting telephone wires and bombing letter boxes.  Some saw it as a chance to increase media attention about their plight.  Others were worried that these destructive actions might push supporters away.  As one of the film’s best characters, Brendan Gleeson (The Guard) plays a police officer torn between upholding the law while also being sympathetic to the views of the protestors.

Suffragette highlights how much the world has changed for the better over the past century.  However, it also highlights there is still much room for improvement.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 20 November 2015

People still look back at the 2008 global financial crisis and ask the question – how the hell did it happen?  The world’s major economies are still feeling the effects today.  Banks were providing home loans to customers who were clearly going to struggle to meet the repayment terms.  These loans were then packaged, given top marks by ratings agencies, and sold to investors.

What’s amazing is that this went on for so long.  Greed is a powerful motivator.  Bank executives were getting huge bonuses.  Stock traders were earning big commissions.  Ratings agencies and regulators were applauded as the markets continued to climb.  Those that spoke out against these questionable practices were ridiculed and given little media attention.  A toxic culture had been created and almost everyone was “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

This analogy applies equally to professional cycling.  For many years, Lance Armstrong was the poster child of the Tour de France.  His story was a marketer’s dream.  He overcame testicular cancer in the late 1990s and then became one of the greatest cyclers of all time with 7 consecutive Tour victories.  There were some who questioned his prowess but most believed Armstrong to be an honest, reputable athlete.

History has since proven otherwise.  A report released in 2012 by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency stated that Armstrong’s team “ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”  It brought huge shame to the sport and Armstrong was stripped of his titles.  Just like the global financial crisis, the public were asking the question – how the hell did it happen?

Director Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomenia) offers his thoughts in The Program.  Frears admits he’s not a cycling fan and he never intended this to be a sporting film.  It’s a drama about a crime being perpetrated in front of everyone’s eyes for more than a decade.  Many knew that Armstrong was cheating but no one wanted to blow the whistle.  It seems everyone had a vested interest.  The sport was growing and huge sponsorship revenue was being generated.  Armstrong was an American “hero” who even had his own charity for cancer survivors.

The film is told from two perspectives.  The first, and most prominent, is that of Armstrong (Foster) himself.  We see his competitive psyche and learn how he duped the drug testing organisations for so long.  It was frighteningly simple.  Actor Ben Foster has admitted that he took performance enhancing drugs, through a supervised program, in preparation for the role.  He wanted to understand the effects it had on him both physically and mentally to help with his portrayal of Armstrong.

The second perspective is that of an Irish sports journalist, David Walsh (O’Dowd), who also provided the source material for the screenplay.  Walsh had suspicions about Armstrong after his first Tour de France win in 1999 and spent years digging for information.  He didn’t “look the other way” like his counterparts.  There’s a great line in the film when Walsh proclaims that he “has no interest going up a mountain to watch chemists compete.”  When he first went public with his allegations in 2004, Walsh was ostracised by many within the sport.

Given the difficulty in trying to recreate the expansive Tour de France, Frears has used actual footage during several scenes.  You’ll hear the commentators praise Armstrong’s victories and think about how much has changed with the benefit of hindsight.  The more interesting stuff involves Walsh.  This is a guy who knew the truth but couldn’t convince others.  There’s an absorbing subplot where Walsh befriends the head of an insurance firm (Hoffman) who had his own complicated concerns about Armstrong’s accomplishments.

While many of us would hope that the events depicted in The Program are an isolated incident in the sporting world, the recent FIFA scandal highlighted that money and power often lead to corruption.  Don’t ignore it.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 November 2015

Released back in September 2012, Hotel Transylvania opened in top spot on the box-office chart in the United States, it grossed more than $350m at the international box-office, and it earned a nomination for best animated feature at the Golden Globes (it missed out on an Oscar nom).  An inevitable sequel was ordered and it has now been delivered thanks to director Genndy Tartakovsky.

In the original film, Count Dracula (Sandler) was the overbearing father who tried to prevent his vampire daughter from falling in love with a human.  It took a while but he learned the error of his ways.  Hotel Transylvania 2 takes us a few years into the future where Mavis (Gomez) and Johnny (Samberg) are now married with a young son, Dennis.

So what kind of offspring do you get when a human mates with a vampire?  That’s ultimately the crux of this sequel.  Dracula is hoping his grandson is a vampire.  He wants to take Dennis under his wing and show him how to fly.  Mavis and Johnny aren’t too fussed.  They love their son regardless of how he turns out.

With Dennis nearing his 5^th birthday, Dracula is starting to sweat.  His grandson is yet to “grow his fangs” and has given no indication that he’s actually a vampire.  His friends offer reassurance and suggest that Dennis is just a late bloomer but Dracula isn’t sure.  He convinces his daughter to take a well-earned holiday in California and while she’s gone, he puts Dennis through a series of tests to prove that he’s a vampire worthy to follow in his footsteps.  Suffice to say that it doesn’t go as planned.

Having already made more money than the original, Hotel Transylvania 2 shows that there’s plenty of life in these dead characters.  It has an expansive cast of voices who have all returned for this sequel – Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon and Fran Drescher.  A new addition is the legendary Mel Brooks who appears late in the film as Dracula’s cantankerous father.

There’s a charm to these characters and it’s easy to see why kids are attracted to the story.  It’s set in a fun, non-threatening place where humans and monsters switch between their respective worlds.  Molly visits a regular convenience store in California and tries a slushy for the first time.  It’s a cute moment.  On the flip side, Johnny’s parents visit Hotel Transylvania and try their best to fit in amongst a variety of monsters.

It’s a notch below its predecessor but with school holidays about to kick off in Australia, this will be the obvious choice for young kids in the lead up to Christmas. 

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 November 2015

If you haven’t seen the earlier films in this franchise, take your money and buy a ticket to something else.  There’s no “previously on the Hunger Games” introduction to help get you up to speed.  You’ll be struggling to understand each character’s history and motivations.

For everyone else, there’s not much I can say that would prevent you from seeing this final instalment.  The first two films were great.  They offered plenty of action and explored an intriguing concept.  The third flick meandered along but set the stage for what would hopefully be a big conclusion.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 isn’t offering much in terms of new storylines.  Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) is still a reluctant hero in a war being raged between the slaves in the poor districts and the domineering bureaucrats in the wealthy capital.  Many of her family and friends have been killed and she has but one thought in mind – putting an arrow through the heart of the evil President Snow (Sutherland).

As much as she’d like to, Katniss can’t do this alone.  The Capital is heavily fortified with Snow using his expansive army as protection.  She turns to a few familiar faces to help get the job done.  They include her two love interests, Peeta (Hutcherson) and Gale (Hemsworth), as well as a group of well-trained soldiers with valuable intelligence.

There’s some interesting stuff here.  What happens if you kill a villainous dictator?  Does the world instantly become a better place?  Or do you just create more turmoil as its citizens fight for power and leadership?  It’s reminiscent of the toppling of Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, in 2003.  The film also debates the rules of war.  Is it worth sacrificing civilian casualties in pursuit of a greater good?  Should you be allowed to “fight dirty” if there is no other alternative?

These questions are asked but the screenplay is unwilling to provide meaningful answers.  Characters go from good guys to bad guys without ever really getting to the heart of their transformation.  Were they misguided fools or was there something more sinister at play?  I’m not sure.  The film has also suffered from the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.  His character is missing during several key moments and script re-writes have done little to compensate.

The action sequences are also a letdown.  There are several interesting set-ups (such as a moment involving mutated humans in an underground tunnel) but these scenes have been edited in a haphazard manner.  It’s hard to see who’s fighting who and it lessens the suspense.  The biggest surprise is the unusual climax.  Without given too much away, the film skips an important chunk and then wastes time with a drawn out, melodramatic finale.  Did we really need that final minute for example?

I remember struggling with Suzanne Collins' final book.  It didn’t have the same sense of urgency and excitement.  My thoughts on this movie are essentially the same.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 November 2015

Most would be familiar with the novel Moby Dick, written by American author Herman Melville in 1851.  It’s the tale of a man who seeks revenge against a giant white whale that destroyed his ship.  The book was not a commercial success during his lifetime.  It wasn’t until the early 20^th Century that literary critics started appreciating its style and themes.

In the Heart of the Sea is not a cinematic adaptation of Moby Dick.  That’s been done numerous times before.  Instead, director Ron Howard has taken a different angle and is showing us how the book came to be written.  Melville’s work wasn’t a complete work of fiction.  It was inspired by a true story that took place several decades earlier.

The film begins in the year 1850 with Melville (Whishaw) travelling to a small island off the coast of Massachusetts.  He has arranged a meeting with Thomas Nickerson (Gleeson), the only living survivor from a large ship that had sank 30 years earlier.  Many believed the ship had simply run aground but Melville had heard rumours that the subsequent inquiry was “less than truthful.”  He was hoping that Nickerson would reveal what actually took place.

It’s at this point where the narrative slips back to the year 1820 and introduces us to the crew of the Essex, a whaling ship about to embark on a lengthy voyage.  Its two leaders are from different backgrounds and they don’t see eye-to-eye.  Captain George Pollard (Walker) is relatively inexperienced and only appears to have landed the job because of his father’s wealth and connections.  First Mate Owen Chase (Hemsworth) comes from a poor upbringing but has worked hard for many years and is now highly regarded by his fellow crew.

If you’ve seen the film’s trailers and advertisements, you may think this is an action film about a ship that gets attacked by a giant whale.  That does occur but it only makes up a small part of the movie.  It’s ultimately a story about survival.  After the main ship sinks, the seamen find themselves stuck in tiny whale boats in a part of the ocean “as far from men as we could possibly go.”  With little food and water, their only hope is to rely on the winds to guide them towards land.

Ron Howard is a director who likes to work out of his comfort zone.  His expansive resume includes films from almost every genre – Splash, Cocoon, Parenthood, Far & Away, Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code and Rush.  In the Heart of the Sea presented its own challenges given it was shot mostly on water.  Some scenes were shot in a studio tank whilst more expansive ocean scenes were shot off the Canary Islands.

There’s an odd pacing to the film that’s difficult to shrug off.  For example, there’s a moment where the boats are attacked for a second time by the giant white whale but it’s all over in a flash with minimal tension.  At first, I thought it was a dream sequence given the quick cut away to the next segment.

The action sequences on the ship also feel like they’ve been overthought.  Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire) has attached cameras to objects such as the mast and whale to create a bunch of GoPro style shots.  They look out of place though when you mix them together with the hand held stuff.  The fast-paced editing adds to the confusing nature of some scenes.  It’s tough to work out what the actors are doing and why they’re doing it.

Based on the nonfiction book from author Nathaniel Philbrick which won a National Book Award in 2000, In the Heart of the Sea wants to be a gripping adventure but it just couldn’t pull me in.