Matt's Blog

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 06 February 2012

It’s been underway since the start of December but I keep forgetting to blog about the Drawn To Screen program which is currently on at the Gallery Of Modern Art in Brisbane.

For those who haven’t been there before, the Gallery has a nice theatre which is often used to show classic / cult movies.  I remember going there a few years ago to see one of my all time favourite films, The Ice Storm, as part of an Ang Lee retrospective.

The current “Drawn To Screen” program features “over 60 films from around the world that chart the shift from printed page to screen and the way comic genres and themes challenge personal  and cultural expectations.”

If that sounded a little too wordy, let me say this – there are some f***king good films being shown.  I’ve only given out four A+ gradings since 2007 and one of them screened a week ago – Persepolis.  I went along to see it for a second time and it was as wonderful as I remembered it.  Has a finer animated film been made?  I’m not sure.

Tickets to all films are just $9 and you can pick up a 5-film pass for $36.  You won’t get fleeced with candy bar prices either (very refreshing).

The program continues for another month and so I thought I’d quickly mention some of those I’m more familiar with.  If you haven’t seen any of these, here’s a great chance to do so on the big screen.  I’ve included the quick plot overviews from the IMDB…

V For Vendetta (2006) – Saturday, 11 February at 3:30pm

A shadowy freedom fighter known only as "V" uses terrorist tactics to fight against his totalitarian society.

Weird Science (1985) – Sunday, 12 February at 1:00pm

Two nerdish boys attempt to create the perfect woman, but she turns out to be more than that.

X-Men 2 (2003) – Wednesday, 15 February at 8:15pm

The X-Men band together to find a mutant assassin who has made an attempt on the President's life, while the Mutant Academy is attacked by military forces.

Akira (1988) – Friday, 17 February at 8:30pm

A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psionic psychopath that only two kids and a group of psionics can stop.

Fritz The Cat (1972) – Saturday, 18 February at 8:00pm

A hypocritical swinging college student cat raises hell in a satiric vision of various elements on the 1960's.

Oldboy (2003) – Wednesday, 22 February at 9:00pm

After being kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must find his captor in 5 days.

The Dark Knight (2008) – Saturday, 25 February at 9:00pm

Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by a terrorist mastermind known only as the Joker, as he drives each of them to their limits.

Crumb (1994) – Saturday, 3 March at 2:00pm

A cinematic portrait of the controversial comic book writer/artist and his traumatized family.

American Splendor (2003) – Saturday, 3 March at 6:00pm

An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

Ghost World (2001) – Saturday, 3 March at 8:00pm

Enid and Rebecca are social outsiders who, after graduating from high school, play a mean prank on a middle-aged geek.

Hopefully I’ll see you in one of the screenings!

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 January 2012

It’s Christmas time for movie lovers.  Tom Sherak, president of the Academy, and last year’s nominee, Jennifer Lawrence, just announced the nominations for the 2012 Academy Awards.  It’s an event that always generates a huge amount of buzz.

I can’t quite believe this but I picked the 9 nominations for best picture back on 21 November 2011 in my awards season preview.  Here’s a quote from that blog...

“This year’s best picture race has been made murky by a rule change – there will now be between 5 and 10 nominees depending on the support level for the top films.  This makes it hard for me to give a set list in my predictions.  Assuming there could be up to 10, I thought I’d list out my top predictions in order of likelihood…

1. The Descendants, 2. The Artist, 3. War Horse, 4. The Help, 5. Midnight In Paris, 6. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, 7. Moneyball, 8. The Tree Of Life, 9. Hugo, 10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

In turns out the films marked 1 to 9 were the ones nominated.  I can take a little bit of credit but it does highlight the predictable nature of the awards season race.

It’s Hugo who leads the charge with 11 nominations in total.  The Artist is nipping at its heels with 10 nominations.  They’d appear to be the two most popular films amongst Academy voters as the next best are Moneyball and War Horse with 6 nominations each.

Australians nominated this year (from what I can gather) are editor Kirk Baxter for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (he won last year for The Social Network), producer Grant Hill for The Tree Of Life and sound mixer Andy Nelson for War Horse.  We had 3 acting nominees last year but sadly none in 2012.

Let’s cut to the chase and get into the major categories… 

Best Picture

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
 

This year’s best picture nominations were always going to be interesting since we didn’t know how many nominees there would be.  It would be between 5 and 10 depending on the number of films to get at least 5% of the first place votes.

We have 9 nominations in all this year.  Major films to have missed the cut included Bridesmaids, Drive, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Ides Of March and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

I was certainly surprised by the inclusion of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close given it’s had a lukewarm reception from critics.  The film only earned one other nomination – Max Von Sydow for supporting actor.  The film must have a few die-hard fans.

The same can be said of The Tree Of Life that also caught a few off guard with a best picture nomination.  It was completely snubbed at the British Academy Awards which were announced last week.

The Artist is the clear frontrunner and it’d be hard to see it losing.

Best Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
 

Some great stuff here.  Leonardo DiCaprio (J Edgar) and Michael Fassbender (Shame) were the major casualties.  Taking their spots were Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Demián Bichir (A Better Life).  It’s wonderful to see Oldman get his first ever nomination!  It’s well overdue and I asked him about awards recognition in my interview last week (see here).  Bichir is a Mexican actor who I know most from starring in the television series Weeds.  It’s always nice seeing small films recognised and I can’t wait to see A Better Life down the track.

Clooney should win here but don’t count out either Dujardin and Pitt.

Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
 

Unfortunately for fans of Tilda Swinton, she missed out this year for her chilling performance in We Need To Talk About Kevin.  I guess the Academy didn’t like the film.  A shame.  Also missing out was the wonderful Charlize Theron in Young Adult.  The good news is that both have won Oscars before.

So who’s going to win here?  It’s a coin flip between Davis and Streep.  I hope Davis gets the nod.  It’s interesting though that The Help picked up just 4 nominations – 3 acting and 1 for best picture.  Many thought it would perform stronger.

Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
 

This category was ripe for a few surprises and the lack of a nomination for Albert Brooks (Drive) is disappointing.  Most thought he’d earn his first nod but I guess the Academy didn’t think too much of Drive.  It received just one nomination amongst the categories.  I’m thrilled to see Jonah Hill get his first nomination – he’s great in Moneyball.  As proof that you’re never too old in Hollywood, two 82 year old actors have been nominated in this category – Christopher Plummer (Beginners) and Max Von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close).  It’s the second nomination for them both.

Plummer can’t lose this category as far as I’m concerned.

Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
 

It’s great to see the Academy recognising comedy with the nomination of Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids.  Co-star Kristen Wiig is also nominated in the original screenplay category.  It was sad to see Shaileen Woodley (The Descendants) miss a nomination here because her performance was excellent.  It’s a tough field though and I guess someone had to miss out.

Spencer looks like she has the goods here but Bejo and Chastain will keep her honest.

Best Director
Michel Hanazavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
 

With more than 5 nominees now for best picture, this category has become the pseudo “top 5” since director and picture often align.  I dare say that only 3 of these guys will be appearing the ceremony however.  Allen was last nominated in this category in 1994 (Bullets Over Broadway) and has never once turned up at the ceremony when nominated.  The same applies to the reclusive Terrence Malick who scored a somewhat unexpected nomination for The Tree Of Life.

This looks like being a two horse race between legend Martin Scorsese and relative newcomer Michel Hanazavicius.  You’d have to lean towards Hanazavicius but I’d hate to be putting money on it.

Best Original Screenplay
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Margin Call
Midnight in Paris
A Separation
 

I was saddened to see 50/50 miss out in this category given my love for the film at the Toronto Film Festival.  I’m very keen to see Margin Call given I work in the financial industry and have a keen interest in the subject matter.  A Separation solidifies its reputation as the year’s best foreign language film with a screenplay nomination.

Woody Allen last won an Oscar in 1987 but I think that streak is about to be broken.  Midnight In Paris should have enough in its bag to defeat the silence of The Artist.

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Descendants
Hugo
The Ides of March
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Another solid crop of films.  It’s interesting that only 5 of the 9 best picture nominees earned a screenplay nomination.  And here I was thinking the script was the most important quality of a movie?

This is fairly wide open given Alexander Payne (The Descendants) has won here before.  Aaron Sorkin (along with co-writers Steve Zaillian and Stan Chervin) will be going for back-to-back wins with Moneyball (following his success last year with The Social Network).  I think Moneyball will take this out.

Best Foreign Language Film
Bullhead (Belgium)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)
 

Upsets are frequent in this category but you’d be a brave person to bet against A Separation.

Best Animated Feature
A Cat In Paris

Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

 

This has to be the strangest of all the categories.  Who the f*** are Chico & Rita?  What is A Cat In Paris?  If only you could have seen my reaction when they announced them as nominees.  They got in at the expense of big-budget productions such as Arthur Christmas, Cars 2 and Rio.  The big surprise though is the lack of a nomination for The Adventures Of Tin Tin.  How did this happen?  The film won the Golden Globe and the Producers Guild but doesn’t even get an Oscar nomination?  Very strange indeed.

Well that’s it from me.  It’s time for bed and then I’ll be up early in the morning to discuss all the nominations on Brisbane’s highest rated breakfast show on 612ABC!  Sweet dreams.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 21 January 2012

It’s not often I laugh openly in a movie but there are some very funny scenes in the latest Australian comedy, A Few Best Men.  I had a chat with director Stephan Elliott (Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert) and we spoke about the film.

You can download a 2 minute extract from the interview by clicking here.

Matt:  It’s been almost 20 years since Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert but it’s a film that’s only grown in stature since it was first released.  Did you have any idea that it was going to be so popular when you made it?

Stephan:  No.  The real fun of Priscilla was that we got out there and we made it up as we went along.  I went into it with zero expectations.  I said to myself “this is going straight to DVD, no one is going to care so we may as well have a good time”.  No one saw it coming.

We have a stage show now that has just opened in Italy and it’s about to open in Brazil.  I’ve only just woken up to the idea that this thing is going to outlive me which is kind of scary.

Matt:  So you’ve been involved over the past few years with the development of the musical?

Stephan:  Yeah.  I’ve been writing the show again and again.  It’s really hard.  I wrote that script 25 years ago and now here I am still writing it.

Matt:  We should talk about A Few Best Men.  We’ve seen plenty of movies where weddings go wrong but I don’t think I’ve seen too many that are this crazy and this outlandish.  When you picked up Dean Craig’s script for the first time, what was it that stood out?

Stephan:  Since Priscilla, it seems the only thing I’ve ever been offered have been wedding movies.  I’ve always turned them down because my career started as a wedding videographer.  At about 14 years old, I started doing video weddings and I did about 3,000 weddings over a 7 year period.  Let’s just say I have a lot of wedding rage.  I have seen the worst behaviour from every member of the family in every possible religion.  It started to drive me mad.

Dan’s script was the first one that arrived that was looking more at the dark side and I decided to go for it.  A lot of me is in that script.  There are lines and scenes that actually happened to me when I was recording weddings.

Matt:  Wow.  So you’re obviously very experienced with this subject matter?

Stephan:  I’m the expert.  Trust me.  There’s nothing I don’t know about bad behaviour at weddings.

Matt:  Was it an easy film to get off the ground and get finance for?

Stephan:  It was actually pretty easy.  I’ve been offshore for a long time and a lot of people have been begging me to come home and make a film again.

I just had a moment during a showing of Priscilla the musical where a drag queen in the front row refused to take her wig off and a fight broke out with the guy sitting behind her in the theatre.  That was in London and at that point, I said it’s time to go home.

I came home, the script was on the desk, I have big opinions on weddings and I said “let’s go for it”.  We did it in record time – inside of a year.  Most scripts usually take about 10 years to get off the ground.

Matt:  I always love seeing actors in roles that we’re not quite accustomed to.  Olivia Newton John is swearing, snorting cocaine, hanging off chandeliers.  Was it an easy sell to Olivia?

Stephan:  It was a tough one.  I’ve been friends with Olivia for a couple of years and have been trying to get her involved in projects for a while.  She’s one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous human beings on earth… but get two glasses of red wine into her, and there’s a naughty Australia school girl in there.  She never lets it out.

I was sitting there one day and watching her cackling away at something filthy and I said to her “we’ve got to let this person out”.  She then got remarried, moved out of Los Angeles, met this fantastic guy and her whole life changed.  It was then I said that it’s time to do a big change.  Stick your head out and take a chance.

Matt:  Well I’m glad you got her on board.

Stephan:  Yeah.  There’s a final shot in the film where she ends up swinging off a chandelier.  That was the last day of shooting.  I said to her “how do you feel about it?”  She said she couldn’t do it so we got a stunt double in… but at the last minute she changed her mind and agreed to do it.  Bless her cotton socks, she’s 63 years old and she was 3 feet off the floor swinging off a chandelier.  At that moment, I was totally in love with her.

Matt:  What about Xavier Samuel?  He’s one of Australia’s brightest prospects and becoming very marketable.

Stephan:  Xavier is going big places very fast.  At the time, he was being offered one $300m movie after another.  The one thing he’d never been offered though was comedy.  He’s not a natural comedian but he was surrounded by comedians and had the task of playing the “normal guy” in the film.

I think there were a lot of pissed off agents in the world who then realised they weren’t going to get their commission from the $300m movie.  He took a gamble and I think he did a spectacular job.  It was very hard for him.  We had 5 stand up comedians in that crew.  Once they go, Rebel Wilson goes, Jonathan Biggins goes, there’s no stopping them.

Some days I realised that the set was losing control.  All I could do was point the camera and get them to stand back.  You’ve got to give points to Xavier and Olivia for holding their own.

Matt:  I was going to ask what it was like on the set.  The audience was laughing hysterically at the preview I attended.  What was it like for you guys?  How do you keep a straight face when shooting some of these scenes?

Stephan:  You don’t really.  It was hard being the teacher.  At the end of the day, I’m still a director and have to bring a film in on time and on budget.  One or two days, the giggles set in and I think my record was about 37 takes when Kris just got the giggles and the extras started laughing.  When I saw the cameraman with the wobbles while laughing hysterically, I started to scream at everyone and told them to grow up.  It only made it 100 times worse.

But what a joy.  It was David Niven who once said that if you have too much fun on a set, the film won’t work.  I can honestly say that’s rubbish.  The last time I had this much fun was with Priscilla.

Matt:  Everyone has a different sense of humour and from what I've seen on Twitter, there have been some very different reactions to the film.  Some have loved it but others think it’s really rude and crass.  What sort of reactions have you been receiving at previews so far?

Stephan:  It’s a genre that took off a few years ago with Wedding Crashers – they’re wedding movies for boys.  For many years, wedding movies were just for girls and then someone came up with the opposite.  With that, comes a lot of crass humour.  I went into this knowing that the very serious critics were going to crucify me and I had no problem with that.  The film is what it is.

The big stunner for me was when David and Margaret reviewed it before Christmas and both gave it 4 stars.  Didn’t see that one coming!

Matt:  It’s so hard trying to sell Australian films in this country as we’re always up against the big budget U.S. films with their marketing campaigns.  What can we tell people to make sure we get their bums on seats?

Stephan:  It’s cyclic.  I remember when I was first doing Priscilla, we were at the end of a period where we were doing lots of costume dramas and dark, “kitchen sink” dramas.  Baz Luhrmann, P.J. Hogan and myself did Strictly Ballroom, Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla without even knowing each other.  We retaliated and did the opposite – fun, bold, interesting comedies.  They all worked.

I think we’re right in the middle of the “kitchen sink” dramas again and it’s time to turn it around.

Matt:  Well I think it’s a terrific film.  It’s one of the best comedies I’ve seen in the past 12 months.  I hope it’s great at the box-office too.  Stephan, thanks for speaking with me this morning.

Stephan:  Brilliant.  Thank you so much.

You can read my review of the film by clicking here.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 16 January 2012

Golden Globes Wrap

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to know that there were few surprises at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards.

I’m sorry but this always puzzles me.  Given the Hollywood Foreign Press consists of just 90 or so members, how are their choices so easy to predict?  Surely it would only take a few members to think differently from the wider consensus to cause an upset.  Or is their real goal not to honour who they think is best, but rather to position themselves as being the forecaster of the Academy Awards?

Here’s a quick list of the major winners:

Best Picture, Drama – The Descendants

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy – The Artist

Best Actor, Drama – George Clooney (The Descendants)

Best Actress, Drama – Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy – Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy – Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Best Director – Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Best Screenplay – Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris)

Best Foreign Language Film – A Separation
Best Animated Film – The Adventures Of Tin Tin

The only “upset” would appear to have been Martin Scorese’s best director win for Hugo.  Some had predicted it but the majority had sided with The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius.

In terms of my own bets, I’d wagered $200 on Brad Pitt for Moneyball (at $5) and $200 on Viola Davis for The Help (at $3.25).  Both were defeated and I finished with a loss of $400.  I’m not too disappointed given I got good odds but I was confident that Davis would rain on the parade of Meryl Streep.  The Oscar race is still wide open in that category if you ask me.

The Artist has done itself no harm and is now on track to win the Academy Award for best picture.  Then again, we said this last year about The Social Network and it’s momentum was stopped once the Guild Awards were announced (and The King’s Speech made it’s charge).  We’ll see.

Ricky Gervais was a little disappointing as host.  He wasn’t as provocative as last year and he didn’t appear on stage all that often (aside from the opening monologue).  A few good quotes though…

“Congratulations to all the nominees and all the winners... I hope you enjoy the goody bags and the champagne and the gold. I hope that took your mind off the recession for a little while.”

“It’s going well, isn’t it? You’re so much better than last year’s audience. They had a right stick up their a***.”

“I mustn’t mention Mel Gibson this year. Not his private life, his politics, his recent films and especially not Jodie Foster’s beaver. I haven’t seen it myself. I’ve spoke to a lot of guys here - they haven’t seen it either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not any good.”

“Tonight you get Britain’s biggest comedian hosting the world’s second biggest award show on America’s third biggest network. Sorry? Fourth? It’s fourth.”

Golden Globes Competition

A big thanks to the 76 people who entered my Pick The Golden Globes competition.

It was a tight contest with no one getting a perfect score.  We had 6 entrants finish on a score of 5 out of 6.  They were Sam Dagan, Jimmy Orsag, Solo Fogg, Isabelle Laskari, Paul Nelson and Barry Rutherford.

It therefore came down the tie-breaker question – the age of the person who presented the award for best picture, drama.  Sam Dagan was spot on with his guess of 69 as that’s the current age of Harrison Ford.  Well done to Sam and I’ll talk to him soon about prizes.