Thanks to Brisbane Marketing, I was given the opportunity to explore and grow the very under developed artist within me, by attending Surrealism Up Late – a lively combination of art and entertainment – held Friday evenings from 5.30 – 10pm.

When JA and I rocked up we weren’t really sure what to expect; there was a mixed bag of punters walking through the doors – some dressed to impress and hell bent on heading straight to the bar, others swanning in casually yet making a prompt move for the exhibition rooms.

We decided to kick things off casually with a glass of sparkling wine each ($7) and took up some prime real estate in elegantly mood-lit main lounge/bar area which overlooks the river and the lovely lights of the Kurilpa Bridge.  Catching up on the week’s festivities at work and home, JA and I were feeling less and less inclined to do the tour of the exhibition hall as each glass of bubbles peeled another layer of coherency away….

We soon enough snapped out of our bubble-induced coma however and headed to the exhibition rooms to start our trek through the years of surrealism (the 1920’s) and what could be only interpreted by the uneducated eye (mine, that is) as a period of indulgence in mind altering drugs – refer to previous squishy eyeballs comment.  Whilst the rooms were magnificently decorated and pieces elegantly hung under lights to show them off in all their quirky glory, it just really didn’t float my arty boat.

Several Google searches later however and now a newfound understanding of what the Surrealism period in the world of art represented, I guess it all makes a little more sense and those ‘what the…?!’ pieces have gained a little more respect and admiration.  Perhaps a little less champagne next time may help my cause….!

Towards the conclusion of our exploration into Surrealism, the evening’s scheduled entertainment was getting well and truly into their set and had the crowd in the bar area toe tapping and head nodding; the mood had lifted somewhat and the venue more resembled a classy but relaxed nightclub and so we settled in for another round of bubbles…

Although we hadn’t been too moved by the artwork (nobody’s problem but our own), the Up Late experience had relaxed and impressed us both and really was a rather pleasant thing to partake in on a Friday night in our beautiful city – and definitely worth it for those who have an appreciation for this type of art, or any affiliation with the arts at all really.   Surrealism:  The Poetry of Dreams runs until 2^nd October 2011, with the Up Late sessions occurring every Friday evening from 5.30 to 10pm until 30^th September, tickets will set you back about $20.  For more information see www.visitbrisbane.com.au

• Surrealism Up Late – Gallery of Modern Art, South Brisbane.

The truth is that Morris’ presentation of his characters in Four Lions does not constitute a dark comedy; it is just a bad film. It completely omits the psychological, social and religious background that would be necessary to develop the mindset of a terrorist. I urge anyone, who is inclined to find out, to read Shiv Malik’s article on the issue over at Prospect Magazine, which is well researched and written.

Morris, on the other hand, implies that the making of a terrorist is to be laughed at, which doesn’t make the situation any more tolerable or funny for that matter. It is just dangerous. As much as I love escapism, this is one film that is so disconnected from its characters and their community that it doesn’t just escape the issue but rather misrepresent it.

Morris’ TV background glares throughout the film and its handling of the central issue. It picks up with the assumption that the four main characters have decided to be jihadists and never bothers to explain why. This assumption and treatment may work well for TV productions, but it just doesn’t fly high on the big screen. Two-dimensional characters cannot exhibit the urgency required to sustain a feature-length film, especially one that deals with a tough topic like terrorism. Morris’ characters start and end the same. They do not learn or grow; they do not change for better or worse. They have no real incentive to have become who they are or continue down their path, nor do they exhibit any identity confusion or have any issues in their life that would push them to pursue jihad. All we know is that they are all rather stupid, except for Omar, played by Riz Ahmed.

Omar is the ‘brains’ of the group. He’s the one who edits their ridiculous videos, the abundance of which says more about their narcissism than their dedication to the ideals they are fighting for. The others are less rounded, if you can call Omar a well-rounded character that is, where their main character trait is their naiveté. They come off as simpletons frankly, and the viewer gets to find out nothing more about them. We have no idea about their families, what they do to earn a living, how they have come to be friends with Omar, etc.

The worst script flaw though is related to the 5th recruit, a young Pakistani guy whose first appearance in the film ignites a sense of thoughtful commentary. It is the only moment in the film where Morris says something, but then true to form, he later degrades this one single moment of potential revelation by having him become one of the jihadists.

Despite its focus on unintelligent humour, Four Lions attempts to pull some dramatic strings towards the end and show a hip attitude towards violence a la Tarantino, but what might be construed as a cool approach is actually just annoying. The film really feels like a Western attitude towards the complexity of a suicide bomber. If something’s too hard to figure out or understand, people tend to joke around it in an attempt to diminish its importance and their lack of understanding.

Four Lions really feels like it was written by four British friends at a pub, who have no idea about the Pakistani community, the confusion that 2nd generation immigrants face when growing up and how terrorist organizations feed off of this. It is ignorance at its best, and as Thomas Gray says, ignorance is bliss, but it has no part in good film-making.

Floria Sigismondi is the director of some of the most impressive music videos of the past fifteen years. Her dark, seductive work has accompanied music by the likes of Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Interpol, the White Stripes and even Christina Aguilera; strangely, even if you don’t like the song you can be drawn in by the stunning visuals.

It’s no surprise, then, that she’s now moved into film direction — the only surprise is that it took her this long.

Sigismondi’s debut feature film is The Runaways, which chronicles the rise, and later fall, of the band of the same name. I knew little of the band aside from the fact that it featured Joan Jett and that they had the hit ‘Cherry Bomb’.  I certainly knew nothing of the lead singer Cherie Currie, or the fact that the girls were all barely fifteen when they rapidly shot to fame in their ‘manufactured’ all-girl rock ‘n’ roll fantasy group.

The film stars teen actors Kristin Stewart of Twilight fame (who captures teen Joan Jett amazingly) and Dakota Fanning (I am Sam, Charlotte’s Web) as Cherie Currie.  And, while Stewart does a stand-out job portraying Jett’s f*** you attitude and angsty stoop, it’s Fanning’s portrayal of Currie that really makes the film. What these girls went through at such a young age is truly mind-boggling, and Currie’s downfall, with the help of her drug addiction, is heartbreaking.

There are many great things about this film. It’s not going to make anyone’s top 100 or go down in history, but it’s beautifully shot and is thoroughly enthralling from start to finish. There are other great performances as well — Michael Shannon’s portrayal of the sleazy, eccentric band manage Kim Fowley proves very entertaining, and Cherie’ twin sister Marie is nicely played by Riley Keough.

The Runaways is highly recommended if you want to want to spend two hours in a movie without feeling bored for a second.

Thanks to Hoyts Distribution, we have a double pass to see this great film. The pass is valid at all major cinemas across Australia until the season ends. All you have to do is be the first to email your postal address to joyce@bnehotornot.com! Easy

That’s what I expected from round 2. But, unfortunately, I was way off mark this time.

Firstly, it was waaaaaaaaay too long. Two-and-a-half hours too long, actually. I spent the entire movie cringing. After we are witness to the gay wedding of the century (really, do we NEED to see Liza Minnelli gyrating in a leotard while singing ‘All the single ladies’? Umm, no), the real ‘plot’ (and I use the term loosely) begins to take shape. The (very basic) premise involves the four SATC girls — Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte — making their way to Abu Dhabi for an all-expenses-paid vacation.

And cue the ridiculous amount of thinly veiled racism… now.

I naively thought that the stabs at Muslim culture were going to stop after the early scene when the girls watched on in amusement as a woman in a niqab (full-faced veil) ate french fries. Unfortunately, they didn’t stop there. As my friend pointed out, one could write an entire PhD just about the later karaoke scene, when the camera panned around the room to women of different cultures while these white, ‘liberated’ Western women sang ‘I am woman’. And, yet, it still managed to get worse from that point on. I’ll spare you the details.

I don’t believe the film had a well-thought-out political agenda (at least, it certainly doesn’t look that way). But it did do its darndest to show us how much Muslim women desire to be as liberated as their Western counterparts. Will the SATC girls and their visit to Abu Dhabi improve Middle-Eastern relations in the slightest? I highly doubt it.

The laughs were few, but the cringes were many. The only marginally enjoyable element for me was admiring the decor of Carrie and Big’s New York apartment. The other women in the cinema seemed to enjoy themselves, but they did appear to have had quite a few cosmopolitans before entering.

For me, Sex and the City 2 was no piece of fluff to watch on a Friday night with your girlfriends — it was something I wished I had avoided. I want to forget this ever happened, and try my best to remember the hilarious and extremely clever TV shows.

Until 10am that morning, the other half of Brek had thought we were actually attending a live performance of Pucinni’s La Boheme. Gently, I explained to him that we weren’t actually going to see a live opera, but rather a screening of an opera. Sure, there would be a darkened theatre, an audience, and even an intermission – but there won’t be live performers on stage or an orchestra to applaud. Just a movie screen and surround sound.

Despite these inauspicious beginnings, it didn’t take long for the music and the quality of the performance to take hold and draw us in. The atmosphere, of course, is never going to be quite that same as being there, but on the other hand you get to see the highest calibre of performer in one of the best opera theatres in the world. Let’s face it, in Brisbane, we aren’t going to get this lavish a production, with as many top quality chorus members or as opulent sets and costuming, or if we do, it’s a Boondall or Riverside extravaganza where the opera experience is sorely compromised. And certainly, getting to see an opera for a fraction of the usual price is a great attraction.

The idea is to emulate a live performance of the Royal Opera at the Royal Opera House – Covent Garden. It is filmed at a live production, including audio of the audience applause and scheduled intermission.  The camera does not sit still, panning and zooming to focus your attention on the important parts of the more complex scenes. The close-ups let you see details that otherwise wouldn’t be obvious back in row X of an opera theatre; the beads of sweat on Rodolfo’s brow, although slightly at odds with the freezing winter setting, really helped us to engage with the performance. In some ways, this made it a more intense experience than actually being there, particularly for us, as we are usually too cheap or slow to get decent seats at a real opera.

The music of La Boheme is utterly beautiful, with an amazing spine tingling quality. The highlight of this production, though, was the wonderful performances. Male brek thought the stand out was Teodor Ilincai, as the lead tenor who plays Rodolfo. For me, I was fixated on the 2 sopranos – Inna Dukach was sparkling and gorgeous, everything a Musetta should be; Hibla Gerzmava put all she had into her performance as Mimi and was exhausted at the final curtain.

Would a lesser opera have held us so entranced in this format? Difficult to say. We can say, though, that we saw this opera live at the Lyric Theatre some years back, and have very little memory of it. But we will probably remember this screening.

So in summary, it is a HOT, but only if (a) you like operas, and (b) you’re not expecting the same kind of atmosphere you would have in an opera theatre.

More information, including a trailer, can be found at http://www.palaceoperaandballet.com.au/

• La Boheme, Palace Opera & Ballet Screenings, The Barracks Palace Theatre, 61 Petrie Terrace Brisbane 1300 627 385

[Spoiler alert] Shrek, The Final Chapter essentially picks up where the third entry left. Shrek and Fiona are living ‘happily ever after’ in their swamp, but the film doesn’t lose any time to introduce the dull routine of their lives. Shrek, like any male human who finds himself in a marriage with kids, discovers that ogre males have the same psychology. He feels their world revolves around the kids and that he has no control over his life. He misses the days when he used to roam freely in his swamp scaring the wits off villagers.

A fight with Fiona and a magical contract later, Shrek finds himself in an alternate day when people still fear ogres. The fine print on the contract turns out to be a bit more tricky though as our new villain turns the tables on Shrek. He finds himself on a quest to save not only himself but everyone whom he has ever cared about. It’s a worthwhile premise for the franchise as the story goes back to its roots about true love, but a part of me still wishes that we could have accompanied these colourful characters on an all-new quest one last time.

Even though the Shrek sequels have never been as good as Toy Story 2, if there’s anything they’ve done well, it’s the villains. From Lord Farquaad to Prince Charming and the Fairy Godmother, the Shrek writers have always created screen-worthy bad fellas. The ‘bad’ ensemble adds Rumpelstiltskin with Shrek 4, who originates from a German fairytale. Wonderfully voiced by Walt Dohrn, who is also Head of Story on the film, Rumpelstiltskin is quite a character. From having different wigs for different occasions to fashioning the best evil grin to grace the Shrek films, he dominates the film despite his dwarfish size. Given the initial cliché of middle-age crisis, Rumpelstiltskin represents the creative side of the story. He tricks Shrek into the magical contract and gets the kingdom he has always been waiting for.

The original Shrek became a huge hit because it made fun of the age-old clichés of the animated world and brought a modern day take on fairy tales. From birds exploding by the princess’ song to the reality show treatment of picking a queen for Lord Farquaad, the original grew from its clever restatement of Disney classics.

As new sequels got added to the mix, the writers took off a different direction: the films became about the Shrek universe. The final instalment is a product of that transformation, where the film tries to stand on its own legs without resorting to ridicule of animated classics. It can achieve this to a certain extent as the characters are well-established and loved, but it is also obvious that the writers resorted to some quick and easy gags to fill the laughs.

At the end of the day, the Shrek universe is an off-shoot of the traditional animated world, and its admittance of that fact made the original so good. It’s valiant to see an attempt to create a new, standalone universe, but there isn’t that much new in the mix to support a fourth bloat completely.

Iron Man 2 picks up six months after the end of the first film.  Our hero’s ego has reached behemoth levels where he proclaims him and himself only as the key to world peace.  This peachy view is somewhat scarred as the US government starts to treat him as a potential threat to national safety and a vengeful scientist builds the same technology to bring Iron Man down to earth.  All this while, Tony Stark also needs to deal with the consequences of his mechanical ‘heart.’  It all sounds good on paper, right?  You have the fundamental flaw of the main character challenged by an arch enemy while he is trying to secure his destiny, which ultimately forces him to reconcile his own definition and identity.

Unfortunately, besides the special effects, nothing leaves a lasting impression.  The acting is second rate where obviously Favreau omitted doing multiple takes for some scenes sacrificing his chance to get the best performance out of each actor.  This makes the film feel hurried and unpolished.  The dialogue doesn’t follow well and feels spotty.  Tony Stark’s character is meant to be a bit short when it comes to dialogue, but that doesn’t mean every other character needs to be that way.

At several moments in the film, I just stopped listening as I wasn’t missing much anyways.  But let me get back to the point, as these are minor grievances considering the root cause, which stems from a bad screenplay.

Any film that is based on a comic book already has a certain leeway for taking short cuts in the story, and it’s generally OK. We don’t expect every comic book film to have the depth of Nolan’s Batman, but it’s downright sad to see too many holes in Iron Man 2.  Who is Samuel L. Jackson in the film and what’s with the eye patch?  Why does Petter Potts accept to become CEO of Stark Industries? There are too many holes to mention here…

What’s worse is that the film completely ignores these holes and tries to sandwich scene after scene of what we’ve come to expect from comic book films.  Hero is at the top of his game; gets challanged; loses his initial incentive along with a personal loss or trouble; hero goes down the wrong path; his new enemy reminds him of who he is; he comes back with a pow.  Great.

But the pow never happens in this film.  It has a flat pulse that never seems to pick up and lies dead on the floor.  The events are so uninteresting that even the characters forget about them a few seconds after they happen.  Explosions?  Big whoop.  Let’s kiss.

Do yourself a favor.  Save your money; watch it on a plane where you’re stuck and need time to kill.

The first foray of Tom Ford, uber-fashion designer, into film is an intense and elegiac work about the nature of love, loneliness, repression and the small poignant moments in life. In A Single Man Firth plays an English professor living in Los Angeles who is trying to cope with the death of Jim, his partner of sixteen years. Jim’s family were not going to tell George of the death and did not permit him to attend the funeral, and George’s inability to publicly mourn his terrible broken heart leads him to decide to kill himself.

Based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel of the same name, the story starts from as the morning alarm goes off in his immaculate designer home, which provides no joy or comfort. We then watch as George gets his affairs in order before his planned suicide that evening. He says goodbye to his flighty friend Charley (played to perfection by Julianne Moore with a rich and indolent English accent), withdraws his insurance papers from his safety deposit box, makes an effort to compliment his secretary and housekeeper and lays out instructions as to what he will wear in his coffin.

These activities are all shadowed by a bleached-out shade of grey and his brief encounters with various people over the course of the day, including his intense student Kenny Potter (Nicholas Hoult of Skins fame), the pretty child next door and a Spanish gigolo are the only events that bring colour, literally, to his life.

Tom Ford’s background as a fashion designer particularly suited this film I thought because it is all about the nuances of details. Besides the distinctive use or lack of colour to mark sadness and light, Ford seemed particularly fond of extreme close-ups – of eyes, mouths, hands, cigarette ends. I guess all the little details that become distinct and noteworthy when you know you’re about to die.

[Spoiler alert] Not having read the book I didn’t know how the film would conclude but for some reason I didn’t expect the ending – I guess I was hoping that new love might relieve George from his grief and loneliness. As it was I came out of the cinema hugging RM tightly and being grateful that I was not alone.

“Oh no” I thought as I bit into my choc top and the blood splattered on screen, “It’s going to be two hours of grim prison violence”. Fortunately, Jacques Audiard’s film is more than that – it’s a fascinating study into the ability of an entrepreneurial spirit to find opportunities everywhere, even inside prison walls.

Malik el Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is a 19-year old of North African origin who is chosen by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup), the head honcho of the prison’s reigning Corsican mafia, to kill a another prisoner who is going to testifying against the mob. In fear of retribution, Malik commits the murder, and as a result is rewarded with Luciani’s favour by becoming a lackey for the Corsican gang with special privileges.

While in prison the illiterate Malik not only learns to read French but secretly teaches himself Corsican to learn about the workings of the prison mafia. When Luciani arranges periods of leave for Malik so that he can conduct various criminal missions and meetings, Malik takes the opportunity to do some work on the side by setting up a drugs business with his friend on the outside.

While pretty much all of the characters are unsavoury criminals, in Malik Audiard has given us an anti-hero who I found myself admiring for his ambition, mental toughness and street-smart intelligence. That, combined with the realistic performances and intriguing relationships between the main characters, makes The Prophet a compelling film.

The Prophet (Un prophete)

Hillcoat dissects these questions in several layers and reveals that we are as human as the choices we make. His revelation is even more noteworthy considering the film mostly relies on focused acting and beautiful yet solemn cinematography.

The characters in the film do not have names. They’re simply cast as Man, Boy, and Woman, as names don’t really matter in post-apocalyptic tales. Everyone is the same, just flesh and blood. In this particular tale, the Man and Boy try to fend for themselves in the resulting cold and ash. Their main purpose is to make it south to a warmer climate, but they have no idea what awaits them there or what they would do next once and if they arrive. With this purpose in mind, the Man and Boy scavenge for food and avoid the cannibals on their way south.

Yes, that’s right. In The Road the majority of the human population turns cannibalistic in the absence of food. These herds hunt together like animals but still seem to have a certain air of modernity and civilisation about them. They live in houses and still eat from plates. Moreover, they have access to whatever technology that’s left behind. The Man and Boy, on the other hand, are dirty and live in the wild with nothing but a pistol with two bullets and a rusty shopping cart. They eat insects and whatever else they can find. They’re physically portrayed as animals, but it’s this conflicting depiction that grabs the viewer’s attention. The co-existence of civilisation and cannibalism really challenges our current understanding of what it means to be civilised and raises the question: do we have to be civilised to be human?

To answer that, we need to examine how we define ourselves. Humans have traditionally defined themselves and civilisation for that matter in relation to their superiority over animals, which includes technology, and their success at resisting animal instincts. It’s this relative definition that gives us a proud sense of who we are, but the danger lies herein. Relative definitions are not stable especially when the surrounding environment changes, and technology may be used for good or evil. What becomes acceptable may change if the relative point changes. It’s really in these moments when people find who they really are. They may break under the pressure or they may still be proud and do whatever’s humane and dignified. This central choice frames The Road, which deserves to be seen.

Despite being a little slow at times, The Road is blessed with great acting from Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. The father-and-son pair garner instant sympathy and we take on their journey seriously. Thanks to Hillcoat’s realistic approach and the non-existence of unnecessary visuals, their plight is made real, landing sci-fi material safely in the drama space.

Up in the Air

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a corporate downsizing gun-for-hire who flies around the country firing employees for bosses who are too cowardly to do the dirty work themselves. He’s a smooth operator, full of pretend concern and oft-repeated platitudes but with just the right amount of emotional distance to move in, do his job, and move out. He loves his work, mainly because it allows him stay on the road with no responsibilities and no emotional ties, with all of his life’s necessities neatly packed in his carry-on luggage. (There’s a funny scene where he talks about how to pick the fastest line when going through x-ray security – so true!).

His life is about to be turned upside down though when his boss hires Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a keen and perky young graduate who suggests that business costs could be reduced if the terminations are done via video-conference. With his lifestyle threatened, Bingham takes Natalie ‘on tour’ to show her what it’s really like to fire someone.

In another strand of the story, one night in yet another random hotel bar he meets Alex  (Vera Farmiga), a sexy and intelligent business woman who also seems to enjoy living life as a constant traveller and shares his fascination with collecting frequent flyer miles and loyalty cards. They have a brief affair and then begin to meet up in various cities. Slowly Ryan realises that she has gotten under his skin and that maybe hisitinerant lifestyle has its drawbacks.

Suave bachelor George Clooney is the perfect actor for the character of Bingham. Our gossip-mag knowledge of the poster boy for commitment phobia means that Clooney can convince us that someone wouldn’t be able to see the advantages in marriage or having a home and loves living a transient lifestyle. He has great chemistry with VeraFarmiga and Anna Kendrick and the writing from Jason Reitman (director of Juno and writer of Thank You For Smoking) is sharp and witty.

It’s not all beer and skittles though. Notice that the timeframes in the movie (such as at the conference the characters crash) are dated 2010 even though the movie was made in 2009, a device which keeps the film’s themes contemporary. While you’re laughing, Up in the Air also highlights that real people suffer when they lose their jobs.  Some of the footage you see are interviews with people who’ve been terminated. So their pain, disappointment, anger and humiliation are real, and it’s sobering to be reminded that for many people losing their job is the worse thing that’s ever happened to them.

Up in the Air is sophisticated, humorous and relevant and I really enjoyed it. I’m predicting it’ll win some major awards.

I have some double passes to see Up in the Air – if you’d like to go, please send an email to jetsettingjoyce@gmail.com with your postal address to go into the draw. Good luck!

I am a little confused with It’s Complicated, Nancy Meyers’ latest film. It’s blessed with great acting from Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, but the overall feeling is fake and almost irritating.

Meyers has been very successful writing about the suburban American family, specifically focusing on the middle-aged participants, each film presenting a different dimension of their lives from marrying off kids to dealing with divorce. Since Father of the Bride (1991), she has perfected her scripts, finally culminating with the wonderful Something’s Gotta Give (2003), which is her best film if you ask me. Following that trend and hinging on her own experiences, It’s Complicated deals with falling in love once again after divorce, maybe even with the ex-husband. Even though the theme is worthwhile to explore, the execution feels unreal with characters that seem to have popped out of a toothpaste commercial – disingenuous and constantly smiling.

After a nostalgic night on the eve of their son’s graduation, the divorced-for-a-decade Jane (Streep) and Jake (Baldwin) end up in the same bed. Jane is unsettled to be the “other woman” while Jake seems all too happy to be “back home.” Their affair uncovers unsettled questions in their relationship, which is complicated by another suitor for Jane, who is played by Steve Martin. The trio do their best with the material given, which results in a few good laughs, but unfortunately their acting can’t change the fate of the film.

For one, the children in the film are extremely annoying. They neither understand their mother’s sexual revival nor act like how children act in real life. They are the picture-perfect children with no issues of their own and a constant smile; they’re practically angels! Secondly, everything in the film is so pristine, from the houses to the interior decor, that something quite doesn’t feel right. Everything feels too Hollywood, which means the film can only happen in Meyers’ happy place. These shortcomings might seem minor, but considering that they make up the framework in which the three leads are placed, they detract from the film much more than you would think.

Overall, the acting from Streep and Baldwin is enjoyable and funny at times, but you can’t get watch It’s Complicated and not feel some contempt too. I may not have explained it too well, but it is hard to explain. I guess it is complicated.

Here’s Yalin’s previous review of The Men Who Stare At Goats (which is coming to Australia in March).

This quirky comedy revolves around Bob Wilton, an emasculated reporter from small-town America, who is thrown into Iraq with an American army jedi (that’s what the film calls them) looking for a target whose destination isn’t known. The storyline is an obvious symbolism for the reporter’s life. Not only does he feel like he is going nowhere in life, but to add insult to injury, his wife leaves him for his manager, an older man with a prosthetic arm. In order to regain control of his life, his unknown destiny and of course his masculinity, he goes after the only goal he can come up with; to impress his wife and get her back. Hence he makes his way to Kuwait to become a war reporter as that’s what he thinks will prove he’s not frail or weak. His plan fails miserably as it has no effect on the wife, but the force calls for him, pun intended. A chance encounter with a jedi takes him into Iraq where he learns to respect the ways of the jedi in the American army, which results in his personal salvation.

The film follows a linear pattern of Wilton’s adventures in Iraq with flashbacks to reveal the history of the jedi and the New Earth Army. The unconventional army is built upon hippie agenda where love and tolerance is expected to win over war and violence. As such, the training involves unorthodox measures and exercises. It’s these scenes that really make the viewer think over and over again: how much of this is real? The army’s history not only provides a backdrop for the characters that we are following, but also ties in nicely to the overall story at the end. It also acts as a springboard for the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, which is hard to achieve for a film that deals with staring contests against goats.

Goats aside, the acting is superb and the writing polished. George Clooney does an incredible job as Lyn Cassady, the most talented jedi ever to train in the New Earth Army. His performance sits on the boundary of real and joking, where the character can really only exist. Impeccable writing complements the acting with some very witty voice-overs from Ewan McGregor. Kevin Spacey’s antagonist is a worthy adversary in our capitalist world.

For a film that’s so quirky, The Men Who Stare at Goats achieves a level of realism that most dramas can’t, and as such, deserves to be seen.

I’m not sure what attracted Jackson to this material. If he got attached to the project so he could project his version of purgatory and heaven, I must say I wasn’t impressed. I have seen many fields of corn and Sound-of-Music-esque mountain ranges depicted as heaven before many times. His rendition also sometimes takes away from the drama that’s unfolding. The story is quite powerful and emotional, but the special effects take over, which distances the viewer slightly.

Getting past its shortcomings though, The Lovely Bones features a superb ensemble cast. Stanley Tucci deserves his Oscar nomination as one of the most realistic and dreadful villains I have seen. Susan Sarandon is a breath of comedy in this dark tale and much appreciated indeed. Rachel Weisz also performs admirably as the mother who needs to cope with her loss while trying to keep her marriage together.

Finally, I must give credit to Jackson as a master at building tension. He has several scenes in the film that are so well directed, shot and edited, that I was at the edge of my seat. I must reveal that none of these scenes included any heaven shots though.

Poor John Lennon. Nowhere Boy is an engaging biopic directed by conceptual artist Sam Taylor-Wood about the turbulent teenage years of the Beatles’ life in post-war Liverpool. From age five he’s brought up by his strict and stern Aunt Mimi and kindly Uncle George and then he discovers that after all these years his mother Julia has lived within walking distance from his house. Fun and flighty Julia teaches him to play the banjo and Lennon discovers his musical talent, picking out chords in his bedroom.

For Lennon fans none of the storyline will come as a surprise but for me some of the events came as a shock, and it was an eye-opening to find out more about Lennon’s early life and to reflect on how it may have influenced his personality, his attitude towards life and his music. While of course Lennon is the key protaganist in the film, there’s an interesting emotional tug-of-war also happening in the foreground between his aunt and his mother.

The cast plays their famous roles perfectly, with Aaron Johnson as the intense, cheeky and cocksure young Lennon, Kristin Scott Thomas as his disapproving Aunt Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as highly-strung Julia. The only false note in the movie was when Lennon was first introduced to the other future members of the Beatles, and it couldn’t be helped really. But it did seem a little ridiculous to hear dialogue like ‘Hi, I’m John Lennon’ ‘This is Paul McCartney’ ‘Hey, meet George Harrison’.

Nowhere Boy is a joyful and simultaneously moving story of the formative years of a great talent. Go and see it.

Finally, some interesting gossip; after the movie’s premiere at the London Film Festival, Sam-Taylor Wood (aged 42) and Aaron Johnson (aged 19) announced their engagement. According to the Telegraph, despite the 23-year age gap, they insist their friends and family have been ”really supportive” of their relationship.

• Nowhere Boy, Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton 3053 +61 3 9347 5331

Who would have thought that a documentary about Beethoven would be so popular? We tried to get tickets to sold-out sessions of In Search of Beethoven twice before we finally managed to get seats.

First things first – I am a great admirer of Beethoven. I love his passionate wildness, the musical innovations he developed and the conventions he disregarded, the beauty and complexity of his melodies and the fact that he overcame a handicap to become one of the pillars of classical music (along with Haydn and Mozart).  So I was pretty much converted to In Search of Beethoven even before the film started rolling. I would have been happy if it’d just been two hours of Beethoven’s music and a blue screen.

RM on the other hand is a classical music novice, so really this film review should be coming from his more objective perspective. His conclusion – it was very educational, very interesting but very long. The documentary runs for over two hours and contains over 60 live performances interspersed with expert commentary from musicians, conductors, musicologists and Beethoven academics.

In Search of Beethoven is not necessarily a film just for classical music fans, but you do need to want to learn about Beethoven to sit through the deep analysis of Beethoven’s personality and his works. For my part, I think his history is fascinating and the music is gorgeous, so it’s well worth the time.

Before you all gasp at my audacity in giving a NOT to Heath Ledger’s final work, let me preface my review by saying that visually, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is very imaginative and enjoyable.  All the actors, including Heath, looked like they were having a lot of fun making this fantastical roller-coaster of a film. If you don’t need a coherent plot or believable protagonists, this film is for you.

Meanwhile, I’ve been staring at the computer screen for the last twenty minutes trying to decipher the storyline but the best I can come up with is this: travelling sideshow, deal with the devil, immortality, imaginary journeys, midget, beautiful daughter, race to gain five souls.

I give up.

Moving onto other aspects. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is one long Willy Wonka experience – you never know what surprising exploits are waiting just coming around the corner in this candy-coloured world . However, after a while this is no longer exciting, just kind of pointlessly random and then frustrating. I’m also unsure whether some of the deeper themes of the movie – death, loss, pre-destiny and regrets – are really explored well in the movie, so in the end the whole experience just seems like a visually lavish set piece but disappointingly empty.

I think RM’s conclusion sums it up the best: you can admire the ambition, but not the execution.

With its reputation of graphic violence, initially I wasn’t too keen to see it but RM pointed out that if you were going to criticise it then at least you should see the film to make an informed decision.

Well, having sat through 105 minutes of darkness and horror, my informed decision is that this is not a good film. I could almost forgive the scenes of torture and mutilation (look away now) – bashing a penis with a heavy object so that it ejaculated blood, cutting off a clitoris with a pair of scissors and tunnelling a screw through a leg. It’s the kind of violence that invades your memory and makes you feel miserable and dirty, long after the credits roll. It’s just that those graphic scenes overwhelmed the film so much that there was no sense of emotional authenticity in the relationship between the two grieving characters or Gainsbourg’s descent into madness. In addition, the dialogue was fragmented, the plot was implausible and at several points during the film, the audience actually laughed at the ridiculousness of it (cue fake-looking CGI fox snarling ‘Chaos reigns’). It probably didn’t help that the night before I’d seen The Loved Ones, which also featured a sadistic female using power tools and heavy objects as instruments of torture, but in a completely camp manner.

As RM said afterwards, it’s evident that the film is not a work of a sound mind (von Trier was hospitalised for chronic depression before the film). It’s also clear that von Trier holds extremely misogynistic views, as he pretty much casts Gainsbourg as the antichrist and blames the death of her child on her fickle femaleness.

There’s been lots of press about this film, but I think this Times review sums it all up pretty well.  The four differing reviews in the Independent are also worth reading.

I dithered a bit about whether to give The Time Traveler’s Wife a HOT or NOT. It was a moderately pleasant experience and I didn’t feel like I’d wasted 2 hours of my life, but would I encourage my friends to see it? Probably not – basically because it could have been so much better.

For those who haven’t read Audrey Niffenegger’s betselling book, the story revolves around Henry (Eric Bana), a Chicago librarian who suffers from a rare genetic disorder that makes him travel through time whenever he is under extreme stress. He first meets his wife Clare (Rachel McAdams) when she’s 8 years old, and then again during various intervals of her life.  The story is about their predestined love affair, told mainly through the eyes of the patient Clare, who has to put up with her husband disappearing at inopportune moments.

There are two main aspects that make The Time Traveler’s Wife fail. Firstly, Eric Bana is as stiff and robotic as a cardboard cutout so I was never really convinced by any of Henry’s emotions, including the most important – his adoration for his wife.  Secondly, the arc of the couple’s relationship is rather mundane if you leave out the time-travel part (they meet, they get married, they have a kid, they go through some ups and downs), so the film requires the audience to suspend disbelief  in order be pulled in by the plot”s emotional trajectory. To be honest, I simply didn’t care that much about the characters and the ending left me completely dry-eyed.

The most commendable aspect of the movie was the acting of Rachel McAdams. The poor woman had to act around the Eric Bana totem pole and she gave a heartfelt performance, with her limpid eyes and sweet smile conveying a whole gamut of emotions, from complete joy to shock to distress.

Welcome to the first BNE: HOT OR NOT giveaway! I have a couple of double passes for the new film The Boys are Back which are valid for all major cinemas during the film’s theatrical season, even with ‘No Free Tickets’ listing.

I reviewed the film recently and gave it a NOT, but that’s not to say that you’ll feel the same way. My movie date buddy, various mainstream press reviewers and the Toronto Film Festival all loved it. Why not judge for yourself – I’d really like to hear whether you agree or disagree with my views.

If you’d like to go, just pop me an email at jetsettingjoyce@gmail.com with your name and mailing address and the winner will be drawn randomly. Good luck!

Clive Owen plays Joe Warr, a sportswriter who finds himself a single father of a six-year old boy and a teenager from a previous marriage. It’s a typical fish-out-of-water story as this ramshackle family raise themselves without any rules or feminine influence and with the reckless philosophy of ‘just say yes’.

The film held all the promise of an engaging story about the conflict, sadness and joys of family life, but it just didn’t grab me. I was trying to work out why and my conclusion was that I felt that the storyline and the characters lacked truth. I didn’t believe that Joe would feel quasi-sexual tension with pretty single mum Laura and sexy barmaid Mia, mere months after his wife’s death. I didn’t believe that any semi-responsible parent would ask an almost complete stranger to take care of his kids. I didn’t believe that the teenage Harry would choose to move thousands of kilometres away from his friends and upbringing in England in order to live in the South Australian bush. And the scenes where Joe’s dead wife comes back in visions to talk to Joe? Puh-lease.

For a film which is basically about a study in humanity, I think The Boys are Back failed. No doubt the critics will disagree with me – the film received an 8-minute standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival. My movie date buddy Lena also loved it, tearing up for most of the film. So which way do you fall – HOT or NOT?

At first I thought it might just be the romantic Italian setting and reminisces of my focaccia-hunting trip to Genova earlier this year.  On reflection, I think it’s because the protagonists in Genova are actually the two girls, 10 year old Mary and 16 year old Kelly, whereas their father (Colin Firth) is actually a bit of a blank page in so far as his reactions to his wife’s death. You never see him cry, or dream, or rage – he just comforts his daughters as best that he can and tries to help them adapt to Italian life, living in the crowded alleys of the old quarter and taking trips to the nearby beaches.

Perla Haney-Jardine gives a convincing and heart-wrenching performance as the younger daughter. Mary is the most interesting character, because in effect she caused her mother’s car accident and feels intense guilt. She has constant nightmares and her screaming sobs for her mother are distressing to watch. Although I had dissed the hallucinations in The Boys are Back, I did believe that a 10 year old girl would yearn for her dead mother so much that she would follow visions of her mother over a mountain or across a freeway.

Beautiful Kelly (Willa Holland) is on the cusp of adulthood when her foundations are ripped away. After the trauma of her mother’s death, she has to rediscover her own boundaries and values, and ends up keeping up with a fast crowd, stealing away to be with the drug-smoking teenagers she meets on the beach.  She chooses to forget her memories as best as she can, and when she rides behind her Italian boyfriend on his vespa she shuts her eyes and blanks her mind, engulfed by the sounds of whooshing traffic and the sea.

The city of Genova provides not just the backdrop but is a symbol of the family’s mourning process. At first they are constantly lost in the winding streets of the old town, feeling their away around the dark shadows and suddenly rearing up to unexpected dead ends. Their sense of dislocation and confusion is not only physical; it is emotional. By the end of the film, the girls are heading back to school, nervously anticipating a fresh start and the beginning of new friendships and lessons.

Genova is a beautiful and understated film from Michael Winterbottom about loss, grief and love. All the performances are convincing and the city provides the perfect metaphor for the characters’ process of rebuilding a life after tragedy.

The story starts with Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), two orphaned brothers who first discover the satisfaction of conning others as young kids. Shunted to yet another foster home in a small town and as revenge for being cast as ‘outsiders’, they construct a way to swindle the neighbourhood’s children out of their pocket money with an elaborate story about a hermit in a cave. For a moment even Bloom believes the tale, and you realise that he’s not a natural liar, unlike his wily brother.

Cycle forward to the brothers as adults and they’ve become international con artists, accompanied by their silent, kooky Japanese sidekick Bang Bang. They’re about to embark on their final con  – to deceive a beautiful and eccentric heiress of her fortune (Rachel Weisz). However, the ‘perfect con’ takes many twists and turns and things are never quite as they seem.

The Brothers Bloom is saved from becoming mindless dross thanks to the engaging performances. Every one seemed like they were having a ball in the madcap story and I thought that Rachel Weisz was particularly adorable as she fell in (inevitable) love with Bloom. The Brothers Bloom is the perfect Friday night film for taking away your work-day cares.

PS If you look carefully you’ll see that Stephen writes down all of his con ideas in a Moleskine, my favourite notebooks and diaries! If you’re also a fan of Moleskine, I recommend you buy them online from Book Depository UK - free worldwide shipping and half to a third off the RRP in Australia

Thanks to an errant alarm clock and coding-induced insomnia, I found myself dozing during key moments of the film, leaving me in a fog of confusion for most of it. That’s not to say that the film was sleep inducing, as everybody else in the cinema (mostly young guys and kids) seemed riveted by the story. And with RM filling in the gaps for me afterwards, it sounded like it had been pretty good.

[Spoiler alert] Sam Bell is a living alone on the moon, working for Lunar Industries and mining gas as an energy resource for Earth. He’s nearing the end of his contract and is looking forward to seeing his family after three lonely years, with only GERTY, a talking computer, for company.

One day, Sam leaves the base to fix one of the mining machines. As he drives the rover, he becomes distracted by a vision and crashes. The next thing he knows, he’s in the infirmary and GERTY tells him that he’s been unconscious for a few days and is not ready to be moved. Suspicious, Sam deceives GERTY into letting him out of base and finds the injured Sam in the rover. WHAT??

Slowly the truth unravels….both of the Sams are clones. Lunar Industries have illegally cloned the original Sam, presumably to provide a steady supply of free labour.  Each of the clones only has a life of about three years before they start disintegrating – the hardwiring in their mind starts fraying, leading to hallucinations and visions, and physically they start becoming more and more sick.

The two Sams devise a plan – one of them will escape to Earth and denounce Lunar Industries for its illegal activities and the deteriorating Sam will be placed back in the crashed rover where he will be found by the rescue team. They also awaken a new clone to cover the fact that one of the Sams has escaped to Earth.

As you can see, the storyline is imaginative and intricate and really deserves full attention, not the brief waking moments of a half-dozy blogger. Moon draws many parallels from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with its atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia. The role of GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) is a direct reference to HAL, so at first you believe that the computer has sinister motives. The computerised expressions it projects on its screen – smiley face, frown face – certainly add to your suspicions that it has been programmed to act in the interests of Lunar Industries and not Sam. However, as the story unfolds GERTY appears to be a friend rather than foe and it’s almost human in its interactions with Sam, twisting your expectations around. Finally, Sam Rockwell does a brilliant job playing what is effectively a one-man show in front of a blue screen – his reactions towards himself (and himself and himself) plus an inanimate computer are completely believable.

Julie & Julia is a warm-hearted story of two women living in different times and different places, connected together by their love of food and the sense of purpose that their cooking brings to their lives. Julia Child’s story is based on the memoirs of the legendary American chef My Life in France while Julie Powell’s story is based on her book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen (later Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously).

Meryl Streep does a star turn as the overblown, trumpet-voiced Julia Childs, the doyenne of American TV chefs who taught housewives without servants how to ‘Master the Art of French Cooking’. Her story in itself is quite inspirational – she married an American diplomat at old-maid age and fell into cooking (and studying at Le Cordon Bleu) after finding herself at a loose end in Paris, where her husband was stationed in the 50s. By chance she met her future collaborators and for the next eight years they worked over the cookbook that would change the way in which Americans ate, shopped and viewed food. Her obviously sensual delight in food, cooking, people and her husband made me want to be her friend.

In contrast Julie Powell (Amy Adams) was a relatively bland character who found fame through the personal revelations in her 2002 blog The Julie/Julia Project, which described her mission to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s classic tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days. Julie could be me, or really any of us – she works in a cubicle job, is sometimes moody and unreasonable, has meltdowns over cooking disasters and is proud of her cooking achievements. If you read her blog, she’s actually much wittier and cutting than she’s portrayed in the film.

The best thing about the movie is that it’s a visual feast of French deliciousness – there’s so much melting butter, pastry and poultry that you can practically smell the kitchen aromas emanating from Julia’s famous made-to-measure kitchen and Julie’s pokey Queens walk-up. In these parallel worlds, everything has a soft silkiness to it, like a perfect crème caramel, and nothing ever goes so really badly wrong (even an overcooked boeuf bourguignon) that can’t be saved by a creamy lobster mornay or a chocolate cake. Le Creuset cookware really should have received a supporting role in the credits.

Of course there’s a happy ending – Julie doesn’t just disappear into the blogosphere, never to be heard of again. She gets an agent. And a book deal. And a movie! Maybe it’s time to start dreaming about Julie, Julia and Joyce?

That’s until you realise that the story is based on the memoirs of Sunday Times journalist Lynn Barber. And that lends the whole story a level of poignancy. You know that things are going to end badly between the schoolgirl and her seducer, but they actually seem to have genuine affection, even love, for each other and in a way they are a good match because they are both lost souls seeking to live extraordinary lives.

Sweet Audrey Hepburn lookalike Carey Mulligan portrays Jenny as a girl with a warm intelligence yet a fragile heart. Jenny’s not just a flibbertigibbet whose head is turned by the first sign of male attention, but a girl unsure of why she’s working so hard to follow a path which has been set by her conservative parents and the expectations of her teachers.  David opens her eyes to a bright whirlwind world of fancy restaurants, art auctions and romantic Paris. Why shouldn’t life be fun all the time?

I found the character of David (Peter Sarsgaard) the most interesting. It would have been too easy to characterise him as a sleazy old man preying on a young mind. But I never found him to be creepy – despite his later-revealed adultery and his cowardly behaviour, I don’t think he ever treated Jenny as a plaything to be discarded callously. He relished Jenny’s wide-eyed appreciation of the world he was showing her, and I could understand how easy it would be to fall in love with the prospect of being part of someone’s life-changing experiences.

An Education is a sophisticated take on the Lolita story, set on the cusp of the Swinging Sixties in London and with a script of full of sparkling dialogue from author Nick Hornby. The film won the Audience Choice award and the Cinematography award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Read Lynn Barber’s fascinating account of the true story of An Education here.

The rich, lush film brings to the screen the rags-to-riches autobiography of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin (who now lives in Melbourne). It switches back and forth in time and location, between his childhood poverty in Shandong Province, his rigorous training at the Beijing Academy of Arts and his first steps onto Western soil and exposure to American ways as a guest student of the Houston Ballet. Basically, the premise of the film is a classic adventure story. It’s about the journey of a person who starts off in one place, emotionally and physically, and ends up somewhere else. It’s a story of great contrast, between poverty and wealth, East and West, discipline and adulation.

There are various storylines about his initial awkwardness towards Western culture, his love affair with an American ballerina and his decision to defect to the US despite possible repercussions for his family. Within those storylines director Bruce Beresford has weaved dance excerpts choreographed by Graeme Murphy. I loved the dancing. The dances emphasised and expressed the emotions of the protagonists at a particular point in time and the excerpts never felt like a contrived intermission in the story. It was more like a shorthand way to telling the story, especially as the scenes always showed the reactions of the audience. The only thing I didn’t like were the slow-mo effects, as that did feel like an obvious device to heighten emotional effect.

The film follows Valentino and his business partner and companion of almost fifty years, Giancarlo Giammetti, into the inner sanctum of Valentino’s workshops, offices and palatial homes. We see Valentino sketching beautiful gowns, assessing intricate embroidery and dismissing sets as ‘a desert just waiting for the lion and the rifle to come next’ and ideas for his anniversary celebrations as ‘like a circus’. Meanwhile, the very patient Giammetti  juggles Valentino’s head-tossing artistic temperament and with the thankless headaches and politics of running the large business – he says himself that he keeps the good things for Valentino and the problems for himself. When he’s publicly acknowledged for his contribution in Valentino’s Legion d’Honneur speech (apparently Valentino rarely demonstrates appreciation for what others do for him) Giammetti is obviously moved. Their old-married-couple bickering are the funniest parts of the film – they argue about where they met, they argue about the sand dunes in a catwalk show, they argue about whether Valentino is too tanned.

The film is also an exploration of the lost genteel world of haute couture and the new world of fashion as a cut throat business. While flawless beauty is appearing on the catwalk, we become aware of machinations in the boardroom with rumours of ownership changes, Valentino being ousted and power play moves.

The film’s finale is also the curtain drawing on Valentino’s forty-five year career. Returning to Rome, he produces one last haute couture show to coincide with a spectacular retrospective exhibition and grand party at the Colosseum filled with his friends and celebrities. As Valentino accepted his standing ovation, I thought this was the most poignant, most human moment in the film about a fabulous, vainglorious world that I’ll never be part of.  As the tears welled up in his eyes, I wondered what it felt like for a man to see his life’s work on display, adored by others, and to retire from a business that bares his name but was no longer his own.