INTERSTELLAR

Christopher Nolan's films are so good because he takes fantastical themes, or outlandish summer blockbuster material if you prefer,  and makes it believable. He introduces reality, or the perception of reality, to the unreal. Plausibility is the key.

So who better to make a ‘hard sci fi’ epic than Christopher Nolan? Interstellar feels almost like a  spiritual companion to 2001 A Space Odyssey, if less daring (but then what is?). With a film like this - clocking in at nearly 3 hours long, pondering man's place in the Universe, the survival of the species and the exploration of space - it cannot fail to be informed by the classics of the genre. That doesn't mean it's derivative, it's just cut from the same cloth. The three hours fly by. It is immersive, gripping film making.

If you can go into this with as little knowledge of the plot as possible, the experience will be all the better for it. I provide scant plot details here simply as a taster.

In the near future, Earth is on its last legs. A decimated population existing on a planet reduced to a dust bowl. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a widower, living on his farm with his two kids and father-in-law (John Lithgow). An ex-engineer and pilot by trade, farming has now becoming more valuable to an ailing humanity than anything else.

Cooper and his daughter, Murph, encounter the remnants of NASA, led by Professor Brand (Michael Caine), and Cooper learns that within a generation there will be nothing able to grow. The Earth is doomed, but a plan has been hatched to get out into the stars, and explore the possibilities of other planets for sustaining life. As the only pilot to have flown outside of a simulator, Cooper must make the choice whether to lead this mission or remain home with his children. To try to save humanity or stay behind and wilt with its crops.

McConaughey is excellent, amongst a 'stellar' cast that also includes Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain and Topher Grace. Interstellar absorbs you as you sink into this tale of exploration and bravery. It had me hooked from the word go. I loved the concept, the characters, the tech (especially the monolithic robots TARS and CASE) and above all the journey.

If there are a couple of minor faults, then I would have preferred there to have been no 'villain'. It would have been nice for this film to have been simply about humanity versus the Universe rather than having that personified by a character in part of the movie. Nonetheless it makes for some truly exciting spectacle that is otherwise hard to find fault with.

The second is a couple of nagging plot points, that are perhaps not so much plot holes, as they are lost to the whirlwind of exposition. But that really is minor quibbling.

The science and the technology could be bunk for all I know - uneducated layman that I am - and certainly I have read more than one review that has been overly concerned with nit picking the science. You could do that of course but it would be to overlook the fundamental thing about it - it's science fiction. The point of Interstellar, as with Nolan's other movies, is that it feels real. It's not a documentary, and it is not 2001 A Space Odyssey, but it is an intelligent and engaging science fiction movie, and there aren't enough of those about these days.

IMBD: Interstellar

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being rebooted by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes - we all thought that was a great idea didn't we? What with all the wild success they had in remaking The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and so on.  Then some early concept design of the Turtles got released and we dared to hope it might not be all that bad.  'Hope' being the key word in that last sentence. There is a phrase that the young people are wont to use, that goes 'haters gonna hate'; and boy do the haters have a lot of ammo to go through with this stinkeroo of a picture (be warned, there lie moderate spoilers ahead).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a mess of a film. All logic is discarded at a very early stage and it's so full of plot holes a part of your mind wonders if this isn't some elaborate avant garde experiment to challenge our preceptions of coherence. The plot, flimsy as it is, has April O'Neil (Megan Fox) and the Turtles battling the mega-maniacal Foot Clan as they attempt to take over New York. Ruled by the iron fist of The Shredder, alongside William Fichtner's evil industrialist, Eric Sacks, they aim to infect New York with a deadly poison dispelled from atop a communications aerial, for which they can then market the antidote and get rich.   If this all sounds a little familiar then that's because if you substitute a woman with four turtles for friends, for a kid with miraculous superpowers, then you've got almost the exact same plot to Mark Webb's dismal Spiderman reboot.  With a tiny smattering of Transformers 3 thrown in for good measure. This means that not only is this film stupid, but it's lazy too. If you're going to rip off a better film (and by acknowledging that The Amazing Spider-Man is indeed a much better film, this should give you an indication of the depths at which TMNT lurks), you could at least rip off one with a half way decent plot instead of wrenching something straight out of the Hollywood-generic-macguffin-generator.

The meagre plus points on offer here run only as far as seeing character actor  William Fichtner in a main villian role, although he has far less to work with than many of his previous lackey / bad guy stooge parts. Also Will Arnett (Gob from Arrested Development) comes through with reputation largely intact as Vernon, the comic relief sidekick.  Otherwise it's 120 joy-free minutes.  It's full of wretched one-in-a-million coincidences that drive the plot as a substitution for any sensible writing -  the Turtles turn out to be April's beloved childhood pets whom she saved from a fire but then for some reason decided to chuck into the sewer! And rest of it is just flat out dumb. The Shredder is part robot and about half way through they seem to forget that there's actually supposed to be a person inside, so the Turtles spend the entire movie fighting what looks like a samurai transformer. The plot holes are ludicrous - if the bad guys need the Turtles' blood to make an antidote, why do they want to take all of it and kill them? Why not keep them alive to make more antidote and thus more money? And the dialogue is dreadful - "We're Ninjas, we're mutants and we're teenagers" - all in the service of teeing up crap one liners.

In the end we're left with a risible mess that desperately wants a shot at the Marvel brass ring, but lacks the intelligence to recognise what makes those movies such fun. The best TMNT movie thus far remains the 2007 cartoon. Watch that instead.

IMDB: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

IT FOLLOWS

David Robert Mitchell's sophomore feature It Follows is that very rare bird indeed: an original NEW horror movie. It follows (see what I did there?) Jay (Maika Monroe), who having had sex with her new boyfriend for the first time discovers she has been passed on a sort of curse, whereby she has become the target of a creature that will follow her relentlessly, intent on killing her. The creature only walks and can disguise itself in the form of any person.  Channeling classic sci fi Bodysnatchers / Thing suburban paranoia, via an STD allegory (for those of you too highbrow to get down with genre horror) and a clear tip of the hat to Halloween. The creature (if indeed it IS a creature) is left perfectly ambiguous. Its remorseless pursuit and edge-of-the-frame lurking come straight out of Michael Myers's book of moves.
But if all this makes it sound derivative, then rest assured it most certainly is not. Rather, It Follows crafts the sum of its parts into a genuinely creepy and effective horror film. Unsettling because of what it DOESN'T tell you, and a concept raw enough to give you the heebee jeebees. With a cracking synth score to further grind those nerve endings. Recommended.

IMDB: It Follows

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (M.I.F.F.) 2014

Once again the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is upon us, and frankly it’s my favourite thing about living in Melbourne. Here are the films I’m going to see over the two and a half weeks. Time and apathy and procrastination permitting, I’ll review them here too.

Breadcrumb Trail
Slint documentary. There's a billion band documentaries doing the rounds these days. Will this be interesting enough?

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story Of Cannon Films
Documentary on Cannon films by the people that made Not Quite Hollywood. Looks like it could be excellent.

Starred Up
UK prison movie, starring the ubiquitous Ben Mendelsohn, who in fairness, is ALWAYS good value.

We Are The Best
Lucas Moodysson's 80s set movie about three girls in Stockholm forming a punk band. Looks like this may be a return to form. I like Lucas Moodysson one hell of a lot when he is making movies that make you feel good instead of pictures that depress the living crap out of you.

Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
Rinko Kikuchi (from Pacific Rim) travels to Minnesota, convinced the buried money from the Coen Bothers movie Fargo, is real. This looks like it could be amazing!

Jodorowsky’s Dune
Documentary about the failed, unmade Alejandro Jodorowsky Dune movie. The book was a total game changer for me and I am still utterly obsessed with the work of total genius that is Dune. I cannot wait to see this.

Life After Beth
Potentially interesting horror comedy about a man who's girlfriend returns from the grave, conveniently forgetting she had just broken up with him.

It Follows
Intriguingly premised French horror flick that sounds like it's taking some inspiration from Carpenter's The Thing amongst others, as well as the established teenagers-have-sex-and-get-killed horror trope. Let's see if this lives up to it's interesting reviews, or descends into generic territory.

Creep
Horror film about a photographer who answers a Craigslist advert, and then things take a turn for the worse. Most of the write ups for this have been brief due to the avoidance of spoilers, so I'm picking this solely on the reliability of Mark Duplass, who is great.

Phase IV
1974 sci-fi flick directed by Saul Bass, about hyper-intelligent ants waging war on humanity. With original 'psychedelic' ending!

PLANET OF THE APES

Planet of the Apes
A group of astronauts awakes from cryogenic sleep to discover they have crash landed on a barren and primitive world. They soon discover that apes are the dominant species and that mankind is little more than a collection of brute animals. This classic that kicked everything all off still holds up marvellously, but what is there to say that has not been said before? Fantastic ape effects, masses of quotable dialogue, Charlton Heston at the height of his powers, and THAT ending. They call these things ‘classic’ for good reason you know.

IMDB: Planet of the Apes


Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Second time around, Brent, an astronaut on a search for the missing Taylor (Charlton Heston), crash lands on the Planet of the Apes in much the same way as the team from the first movie did. He befriends Nova (Heston’s squeeze from the first flick), Cornelius and Zira and they head off into the Forbidden Zone in search of Taylor; only to encounter a mutant horde of superhumans, disfigured and bestowed with mind control which they use in the pursuit of the worship of their God – a gold plated atom bomb! The law of diminishing returns applies to a small degree, but they still don’t make bonkers sci-fi like this anymore, and its misanthropic dénouement continues the highly entertaining franchise theme of bowing out on a total bummer, man.  It’s a wild ride.

IMDB: Beneath the Planet of the Apes


Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Starts off very lightly as three ‘Apenaughts’ travel back in time to 1970s Los Angeles and comedy ensues as cultures clash and they adapt to the 20th century lifestyle. Then about three quarters of the way through it suddenly goes a bit dark. And by ‘a bit dark’ I mean completely off its rocker dark. If Takashi Miike made a Planet of the Apes movie it would have to be this one. In the same way that Audition starts off all pleasant and nice and then suddenly right angles its plot and heads off relentlessly into the forbidding darkness never to return, so too does Escape From the Planet of the Apes.  For the sake of full disclosure, there are a few big plot holes to ponder on, but it changes tack so brutally from the lighthearted to the beserk, I can’t help but love it and its remorselessly bleak conclusion. This one is an absolute cracker and a total ‘must see’.

IMDB: Escape from the Planet of the Apes


Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Earth’s cats and dogs have all been killed off by a mystery plague from outer space and so the many varieties of ape have taken their place, not only as pets but as servants in mankind’s Orwellian 1991 society. Caesar, the intelligent time paradox progeny of Cornelius and Zira, becomes the catalyst for the ape revolution. The quality finally starts to dip with this entry in the series, as the mythos of the Ape uprising is brought to the screen. However it is still a watchable 90 minutes and worth your time alone for the assured, suave charm of Ricardo Montalban, as Ceasar’s friend and father figure Armando. It is also notable for being the source of the sample at the beginning of Crossed Out’s Vacuum. A question which had bugged me for years.

IMDB: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes


Battle for the Planet of the Apes
By now the series is struggling somewhat, and Battle… is by far the weakest link the in the original set of films, dealing with the conflict between Caesar’s apes and the mutant subterranean humans. It is of interest only the context of giving closure to the original series and for featuring an appearance from Assault on Precinct 13’s Austin Stoker. It’s going to be nobody’s favourite and is a long, long way from the masterful original and its loopy sequels.  It’s most definitely unessential, but if you’ve had the inclination to watch all the others thus far (and quite frankly, why WOULDN’T you?) it provides a certain element of tidiness to the story arc.

IMDB: Battle for the Planet of the Apes


Planet of the Apes (remake)
Upon its release the critics were not kind to Tim Burton’s confused Planet of the apes reboot, and time has been even less kind to this jumbled mess of a blockbuster. A plot that makes little sense, and THAT inexplicable ending make this the worst of the Apes movies by quite a considerable margin. Before Paul Giamatti started to get decent jobs to show off his acting chops, he had to slum it in nonsense like this. It’s so bad in fact, that I would almost say Mark Wahlberg is slumming it too, were it not for the fact he was in Ted (a movie so appalling on just about every conceivable level it makes this Apes reboot look like the Seventh Seal). Add to this the fact Apes is overlong and punctuated by some pretty cruddy acting, there is virtually nothing at all to recommend about this movie. Avoid at all costs. You cannot get that two hours of your life back.

IMDB: Planet of the Apes


Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The modern day re-entry to the series, rebooting the origin of Caesar and the intelligent ape uprising. James Franco plays scientist Will Rodman who is working for a cure against Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases. After an incident that causes Will’s experiments to be shut down, he saves the young, intelligent Ceasar from euthanasia and takes him home. Ceasar lives with Will and his ailing father (the always excellent John Lithgow), as Will continues his experiments through his determination to cure his father’s illness.  This is really a rather great new entry to the Apes canon, despite the fact it basically re-writes things from the end of ‘Escape’ and ‘Conquest’ onwards. Events are teed up rather nicely for further Ape-ventures, and Rise features some great effects and excellent set-pieces. The Golden Gate Bridge battle is a particular highlight. Going into this without much in the way of high expectations, it turned out to be very enjoyable a great surprise all round.

IMDB: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

HER

I went into this movie knowing little to nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised by Spike Jonze’s comedic, existential sc-fi romance drama (!). Never one to shy away from the offbeat or the weird, courtesy of his track record of collaborations with Charlie Kauffman, this was written and directed by Jonze and sees heartbroken writer Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) falling in love with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), the self aware operating system for his computer.

Set in the near future, categorised by some believable but futuristic tech, and society’s sartorial preference for very high waisted trousers, HER delivers some profundity, amusement and just the right amount of pretension (lightly flavoured, rather than over seasoned) to make for a really interesting and different take on a conventional romance picture.

As a piece of cinema it LOOKS fantastic. Subtle effects illustrating the scope of the future cities or the modern day technology of the time.  The performances are key to this working also. Joaquin Phoenix is reliably great. Scarlett Johansson is perhaps a little too recognisable, but since her entire part in this is as a disembodied voice, it’s also a great performance. Smaller parts are filled out with actors of quality – from Amy Adams through to Olivia Wilde to Chris Pratt (Andy from Parks & Recreation).

There are times where the movie dallies with the absurd, and there was some uncomfortable laughter from certain corners of the cinema, but if you can get on board with this and buy it as a concept, the reward is thoroughly enjoyable.

IMDB: Her