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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 14 September 2020

The Translators is brought to us by French director Régis Roinsard.  There are many characters but it’s centred on the world of publisher Éric Angstrom (Wilson) who is about to release the final instalment in a best-selling trilogy.  Given the enormous hype (think Harry Potter level of excitement), it’s a book that will make Wilson and his company a VERY large sum of money.

The plan is to release the book simultaneously across the globe in a variety of languages but to do so will require significant work.  Angstrom has assembled a team of nine translators who will take the manuscript and perform the necessary translations over a period of several weeks.  They’re an eclectic group who include young, old, male, female, French and international.

Given the secrecy which surrounds the book, Angstrom has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid leaks.  All of the translators are required to perform their work in an underground bunker where they have no access to phones, the internet or the outside world.  The working conditions sound horrible but they are provided ample living quarters (including a gym and swimming pool) and decent food.  The money isn’t too bad either.

As we learn from the opening scene, Angstrom’s controls have not been effective.  He receives anonymous threats via email that demand a huge ransom or else the book will be released online.  Given that only he and the author have been in possession of the original manuscript, Angstrom is pointing the finger at the nine translators and trying to establish who is responsible and how they did it.

Borrowing from the formulas made famous by Agatha Christie, The Translators is designed as a classic “whodunit”.  Roinsard teases the audience by essentially giving everyone a motive and then it falls upon the audience to pick the mystery before all is revealed.  Unfortunately, despite the early intrigue, I wasn’t convinced by the film’s second half when the curtain is pulled back.  The screenplay is a little too tricky for its own good and hence, it loses credibility.

There’s still fun to be had from watching this.  I liked the setting (much of it taking place in the underground bunker) and the broad cast that includes Italy’s Riccardo Scamarcio (John Wick: Chapter 2), France’s Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), and England’s Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game).  They’re a great group who work well alongside one another.

Every few weeks, we have a film that sounds great on paper but can’t quite deliver on its lofty ambitions.  The Translators is the latest example – a watchable movie that comes with a few flaws.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 26 August 2020

Les Misérables arrives in Australian cinemas with big wraps.  It shared the Jury Prize (effectively third place) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, it won best film at the César Awards (the French Oscars), and it was nominated at the Academy Awards for best international feature (losing to the popular Parasite).

My only qualm is the title itself!  When I first heard about the film, my reaction was “do we really need another version of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables?”  It’s a great story but having seen the live action musical, the 1998 film with Liam Neeson, and the 2012 adaptation starring Hugh Jackman, it felt like a tale that had been told enough.

The good news is that, for the most part, this has absolutely nothing to do Hugo’s famed work.  You don’t need to worry about Jean Valjean being captured or Fantine signing “I Dreamed a Dream.”  This is a very different film.  It’s a contemporary story set in 2018 that delves into current day issues including crime, corruption and multiculturalism.

42-year-old filmmaker Ladj Ly based it on his own experiences growing up in the Montfermeil, a commune to the east of central Paris with a population of roughly 30,000 people.  It’s an area that is home to many African immigrants who suffer due to high unemployment, poor housing conditions, and regular police harassment.  Ly has had a love of filmmaking since a teenager and this, his first feature film, provide him with the opportunity to show the world what his fellow Montfermeil residences endure on an ongoing basis.

There are several groupings of characters who include three police officers, a group of young kids, a performing circus, and a powerful “mayor”.  When a small lion cub is stolen from the circus, it sets in motion the events that lead to the film’s emotional climax.  Audiences will be quick to form opinions of these characters but, to the movie’s credit, those views will change throughout as we get to know them a little better.  When it comes to labelling people as good or bad, the film reminds us that there are many different perspectives from which to make an assessment.

French President Emmanuel Macron saw the film himself in late 2019 and was rocked by its power and authenticity.  He has reportedly been working with government ministers to improve the situation Montfermeil.  That endorsement says more than any review ever could.  It highlights the importance of quality cinema and how it has the ability to instigate change.  See this film.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 08 September 2020

We’ve seen a bunch of old movie franchises reinvigorated in recent years (e.g. Rocky, Terminator, Jumanji) but if you’d asked a few years ago, I would never have predicted another Bill & Ted film.  The last was released way back in 1991 (Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey) and in the three decades since, star Keanu Reeves has grown up and built a reputation as a bankable action hero with series including The Matrix and John Wick.

That said, in a year that would be described by most as “depressing”, it feels like just the right time to be reintroduced to Ted Logan (Reeves) and Bill Preston (Winter).  There’s something here for people of all ages.  Older audiences will get the chance to reminisce and see what became of these beloved characters (even the Grim Reaper is seen again).  Younger audiences will meet them for the first time and, hopefully, they’ll be inspired to find the original movies on a streaming service.

Set in the current day, we learn from the opening scenes that nothing has really changed in the life of Bill and Ted.  They’re now married with kids but their goal is still the same – to keep writing and playing music until they become famous.  You’d have hoped they’d found success by now but sadly, they’ve been “banging their heads against the wall for 25 years” and they remain penniless and unknown.

That may be about to change.  Some funky stuff is going on in the space-time continuum and the world is unravelling.  A woman from the future (Schaal) has travelled back to the year 2020 and entrusted Bill and Ted with an important assignment.  They have 77 minutes to create “the greatest song ever written that will unite the world” and if they should fail, the world will disintegrate.  Suffice to say it’s a heavy burden to carry.

Given they lack creative prowess, their first thought is to cheat.  They use a time machine to travel into the future, meet their older selves, and “steal” their own iconic song.  It won’t be that easy though.  Helping them along the way are their two wives, their two daughters and a handful of musical legends with something valuable to offer.  Hindering them is a killer robot with a quirky personality.

These characters are moronic but also hilarious.  The storyline is so silly that you can’t help but laugh.  There’s a lot to like about the cast but the two standouts are Bridget Lundy-Paine (Atypical) and Australian Samara Weaving (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as our heroes’ two daughters.  They mimic the vocabulary and mannerisms of Bill and Ted with precision while also having a sense of originality. 

A few scenes don’t reach their full potential (such as a moment involving Jillian Bell as a marriage counsellor) but on the whole, Bill & Ted Face the Music is good old-fashioned fun.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 26 August 2020

It took several viewings but I ultimately came to the conclusion that Christopher Nolan’s 2014 sci-fi epic, Interstellar, was a flawed masterpiece.  It’s got a quality cast, moves at an energetic pace, and features a career-best film score from composer Hans Zimmer.  Despite all of that, Nolan tried to squash 20 hours’ worth of ideas into 2 and the end result feels rushed, fragmented and, at times, incoherent.  The emotional family stuff didn’t resonate either.

I refer to Interstellar because, on leaving the theatre after a first look at Tenet, the same thoughts were rummaging through my mind.  This is another grand project with big, intriguing concepts but when you bring it together, it just doesn’t flow.  You’ve got characters hastily explaining time-twisting technologies intertwined with elaborate, heavily-edited action pieces.  Having just finished Dark, the excellent 26-episode German time travel series on Netflix, it made me wonder if Nolan’s material was better suited to the longer TV form.

Time travel movies are nothing new but Nolan adds a different spin here by exploring the concept of “inversion”.  Instead of jumping into a time machine and transporting yourself to a particular point in history, inversion allows you to push the rewind button and move backwards through time.  The problem is that it’s hard to do this discreetly.  It’s going to look rather obvious to normal, forward-moving folk when they see a car reversing back at them at 100 km/hr on a freeway.

I think there are a few holes/conveniences with the broader idea (a scientist covers that by saying “don’t try to understand it”) but the crux of the story is centred on a man appropriately named The Protagonist (Washington) who is tasked with “preventing World War III”.  A wealthy Russian crime lord (Branagh) has access to inversion technology and, as you can imagine, it’s incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands.  Who needs nuclear bombs to destroy the world when you can just change time instead?

Nolan has assembled another terrific cast.  John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) is excellent in the lead and I love the professional chemistry between he and his offsider, played by Robert Pattison (Twilight).  Australian Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) is also very good as the villain’s estranged wife.  I wasn’t as convinced by Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet) as the bad guy.  An important ingredient of any top-notch action film is a great villain but the more this film progressed, the more I realised Branagh’s character lacked logic and nuance.

The set action pieces are chaotic but also fun.  You might be scratching your head as you watch two people fight – one moving forward through time and one moving backward through time.  It’s not something I can recall seeing on screen before.  The film score from Oscar winning composer Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther) also deserves a mention for the additional energy in brings to the overall production.

While Tenet earns points for being creative, it can’t avoid succumbing to traditional action clichés.  As an example, there are lengthy, heartfelt conversations between two people while the world implodes around them.  It was also hard to rationalise the strong bond forged between The Protagonist and the Russian’s wife and child given what’s at stake.

It’s bitten off more than it can chew but with the positives balancing out the negatives, Tenet deserves a look.  In this COVID-19 world, it’s nice just to see a blockbuster on the big screen again.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 08 September 2020

COVID-19 has battered the broader film industry but Slim & I is a rare example of a movie that is likely to benefit from the pandemic.  With the lack of big blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, this small Australian documentary is being released in roughly 150 cinemas across the country.  That’s a staggering number for a doco and, given the doom and gloom that has enveloped 2020, it’s the perfect film to put a smile on people’s faces and remind them just how great the world can be.

Most Aussies will be familiar with music legend Slim Dusty.  He recorded over 100 albums, he won 37 Golden Guitars, and he was the inaugural inductee into the Australasian Country Music Roll of Renown.  His first big hit, “A Pub With No Beer”, became an international hit in 1958 and that made him the first Australian to receive a Gold Record.  If you needed further proof of his iconic status, Slim was selected to sing “Waltzing Matilda” in front of over 114,000 people at the Closing Ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney.

Slim & I recognises and celebrates Slim’s achievements but, just as importantly, it shines the spotlight on his partner (both personally and professionally) of more than 50 years, Joy McKean.  I like the line used by producer Chris Brown (The Railway Man) at the film’s Queensland premiere – “she wasn’t the woman behind the man… she was the woman beside the man.”  Slim may have been the “face” of the duo but behind the scenes, it was Joy who wrote the lyrics to some of his best works.

There’s a lot of material to cover inside of two hours and credit goes to director Kriv Stenders (Red Dog) and editor Karryn De Cinque (Girl Asleep) in weaving the interviews and footage together.  With this blessing of Joy McKean and the help of her grandson filmmaker, James Arneman, Stenders had access to a wealth of archival footage that had never been seen before.  A few parts had to be re-enacted (the weaker material in the movie) but for the most part, we’re seeing the real Slim and Joy travel across the country, create great music, and interact with an assortment of people.

The current day interviews with Joy (now 90 years of age) are both heartfelt and hilarious.  She’s still as sharp as a tack and she doesn’t mince her words.  We also hear from the likes of Keith Urban, Paul Kelly, Don Walker, Kasey Chambers, Missy Higgins.  If you need proof about the power of Slim Dusty and the song writing prowess of Joy McKean, you’ll love the story told by Troy Cassar-Daley about his favourite tune – “The Biggest Disappointment.”

Culminating on an uplifting, emotional note, Slim & I is a wonderful tribute to two people who made Australia a better place.