The Box

The Box

By Jonathan Fisher, November 15th, 2009


The Box is a tough slog. This movie is completely nonsensical, and marks another downward turn for director Richard Kelly, whose first movie Donnie Darko combined a strong sense of style, time and place with a narrative that at least made partial sense, even if it bent the rules of phsyics somewhat. His follow-up, Southland Tales, was an ambitious but hopelessly muddled film with big ideas, but very poor execution. Patches of the movie made no sense at all, with characters drifting in and out with little to no context, and the terminally convoluted plot assumed a lot of knowledge on the part of the viewer, with very little exposition to make things easier for us.

Now comes The Box, which suffers from the same excessive indulgence and disrespect for narrative that plagued Southland Tales and even Kelly's director's cut of Donnie Darko. The premise is an intriguing one -- in 1960s American suburbia, a wooden box with an elaborate button atop it arrives at the doorstep of a young married couple, Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden). Shortly after, a facially disfigured, eloquent gentleman named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) visits the couple's home. He informs Norma that the button represents a tantalising quagmire. If the couple chooses to press the button, they will be given one million dollars -- a tempting prospect as the family is weighed down with debt, and Norma requires a costly operation to fix a bodily disfigurement. The cash comes with a condition, though. If they press it, somewhere in the world someone that they don't know will die.

Like an episode of the addictive "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits", The Box begins as a morality play, a parable about the good and bad sides of humanity. We have the capacity for altruism and selflessness, but there is an eternal battle of selfishness waged within us. If we'll be okay, does it matter if someone we don't know won't be?

Unfortunately, after an intriguing opening act, The Box falls apart. Badly. There's a stretch of about 30 minutes revolving around a bizarre sequence in a public library that just doesn't make sense. I tried with all my might to follow the revelations, twists and turns. Every step of the way, Kelly's choices as director worked against me. This is a film that has no sympathy for a hopelessly confused audience. It's a gradual slide, too. Intrigue gives way to mild confusion, which gives way to bafflement, and then ultimately to anger.

How did this movie make it to theatres? Didn't someone realise what a frustrating, incomprehensible piece of garbage they were making? Did no one think that this movie would be the end result, or were they all afraid to proclaim that the emperor was wearing no clothes?

When the final revelation was exposed, and the arbitrary reason for Arlington Steward's existence and actions laid bare, I didn't much care. The entire film is an excuse for what feels like a delusional director trying to reclaim the glory days of the one good idea he's brought into the movie industry. I still love Donnie Darko and I even feel that Richard Kelly could be one or two movies away from a return to form, but The Box isn't worth the celluloid it's printed on.

David Caesar Interviewed

By Jonathan Fisher, November 12th, 2009

Image courtesy of wireimage.com

"You can't be a writer or a film-maker unless you write, or you make films."

If there was one word I'd use to describe David Caesar, it would be understated. As he prepares for the release of his fifth feature, the action-romance-drama Prime Mover, he speaks with a quiet confidence. His demeanour is down-to-earth and affable, and he combines a clearly encyclopedic knowledge of cinema (he cites influences as diverse as Martin Scorsese's 1970s crime films, Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz to the films of Chan Wook-Park, the Korean director of Oldboy and Thirst) with an easygoing charm that is reflected in all of his films. I caught up with David Caesar just as the release of his fifth feature film Prime Mover crept up on Australia, and there was no trace of pretension or pomposity in his voice. Caesar is as confident about his own work as he is about the healthy future of the Australian film industry. With a voice I could hear smiling over the phone and a casual "how are you, mate?", our interview began.

Caesar comes across as a man who is both in the film industry and outside it. He both shapes the industry and observes it, and when we discussed the future of the Australian industry and it's current direction, his answer is informed, literate and logical. A documentary played at the Canberra International Film Festival last week called Into the Shadows, which posed the question: is the Australian film industry becoming irrelevant? I asked Caesar the same thing: "If you'd asked me two years ago, I would have said yes. But if you look at what's happening now, the films that are coming out this year are very different. Whether that be Samson and Delilah, Stone Brothers, my film, Beautiful Kate, Mao's Last Dancer, or Mary and Max. Even Balibo. I thought that was badly marketed actually. I thought it was a great thriller. It was very tense, but it was marketed as a political movie. For me, it was a thriller. Personally, I think that's what we have to do. We have to make films in all genres. We have to make films in all styles. It's okay to make films that are really dark dramas, but that shouldn't be most of the films we make."

"Prime Mover" opens around Australia today.

When asked about his own work, and the aspect of television direction on his CV, Caesar reflects on his own childhood: "I grew up in a country town where there wasn't really a film culture. I grew up watching television. I used to love Monkey, and Doctor Who. Every Saturday night they'd have sword and sandal epics, dubbed Italian films, and Westerns."

With a childhood like that, it's no wonder that Caesar's movies are imbued with a manic amalgamation of genres, and are clearly influenced by so many impressive, yet disparate, sources.

Like so many avid TV-watchers (myself included), Caesar is of the opinion that television is becoming more cinematic, with shows like Dexter and The Sopranos leading the way. "One of the favourite things I've done in the last few years in watch all five series of The Wire. I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was better than most films I've seen."

Regarding whether this movement in television is affecting the way Australians are making movies and TV shows, Caesar has this to say: "We're so tied into the American culture. We always have been and we always will be. We're kind of an outpost. There is a model here, where people are trying to replicate the "HBO" way of doing things. I wrote and directed a series for "Showtime" called Dangerous, and I loved it. It (the line between cinema and television) is getting blurry, there's no clear cut line as far as I'm concerned."

Inevitably our conversation turned to the revolution in social media and the internet that the world has seen in the last ten years. The world is a very different place for a young film-maker than it was even when David Caesar was starting out. "I think it's both (easier and harder) for young film-makers today. There used to be a path -- there were film festivals and cinema releases, and it was pretty straight forward. But difficult too, as you had to get past the gate-keepers to get into that world. Today, people are forever coming up with new ways of getting their stuff out there, be it promoting yourself on Twitter or putting up your short films on YouTube. There's a lot of options, which is a really good thing, but by the same token, there are so many outlets out there that getting noticed is harder."

As you can tell, Caesar is very in touch with the movements in the industry that he works in. This is more than just a job for him, this is the way he expresses himself. No one could ever accuse Caesar of being in it just for the money, or the acclaim -- he just has too much passion for what he does. He has passion for our industry here, too, but appreciates the limitations brought about by our comparatively small market .

"We have set up a great industry here over the last 30 years in terms of developing people. You can go get your Dad's camera, make a seven minute film and submit it to Tropfest. If it's good, it'll be noticed, and if it's really good, it will win. There are so many ways to get into the industry now, and once you're in there are so many projects and competetitions. There are so many ways that people can develop their careers. 80% of money in the industry goes towards first-time film-makers. And once you're a fully-fledged film-maker, there is a very small amount of money for an ever-growing pool for people to keep making movies. That's the problem we have here, we keep developing people into really talented film-makers, and then, unless your first film really sets the world on fire, that's really it. 80-90% of people who get to make a film, don't get to make another one. I do think that is wrong."

Prime Mover looks to be another passion project for Caesar. A romantic story set against the backdrop of the trucking industry, Prime Mover promises to be another Caesar film with a difference. "I make films that are essentially character films. Most of my energy as a writer goes towards making the characters interesting. I try to keep the story straight and simple, but I try to create characters with a lot of heart, characters that have goals, things that they want to do. So I hope people that come to see Prime Mover will see a film that's got a lot of heart, with a great dynamic. It's a love story, really, set in a really exotic and interesting world, the trucking industry that people haven't really seen before. I like mixing genres, I like putting comedy along with a bit of action, with a bit of musical, with some straight drama, fantasy, realism. I like combining that all with a love story. It's not your mainstream fare, really."

This sense of his own strengths has served Caesar well throughout his career. He knows what he's good at, and sticks to it. From the period crime drama Dirty Deeds to the macabre character study Mullet, and now the fantastical romance/adventure/comedy Prime Mover, Caesar's is a voice that is unique, honest and heartfelt. Those are rare and valuable qualities in a film-maker, and his is a voice that deserves to be heard.

Podcast 11

Hi all,

Rollie and I recorded a short-ish podcast yesterday for your listening pleasure. It's available for download here, or via streaming below.

In other news, I interviewed David Caesar, director of such flicks as Dirty Deeds (a personal favourite of mine) and Mullett. The interview and my write-up will be online in the next few days. In it, David discusses the direction of Australian cinema, his own influences, and the impact that the internet and social media is having on young film-makers today.

In the meantime, enjoy the 'cast.

Episode 11: Two Serious Men (11/11/09)

In which our American hero returns, and the guys don't joke around as much, reviewing "This is It", "A Serious Man" and "Capitalism: A Love Story".

Podcast 10

Hi all,

Podcast 10 is up and available for download here, and as usual you can stream it below.

Episode Ten -- S**t Happens -- 7/11/09

In which our heroes talk Coen Brothers, cry while watching “The Princess Bride”, wish Delta Goodrem ill, discuss finishing a movie with dead actors, and support the plight of a bear on ice skates.

Who knew inside such a fun loving ice-skating bear beat the heart of a stone cold killer.

Editor's note: I misspoke when talking about David Caesar, saying that Prime Mover is his first feature film after a long stretch of directing television. What I meant to say was that it is his first feature film in several years, since Dirty Deeds in 2002.

Seeing stars

Hi all,

Since there are only about eight weeks left in the year (and I'll be overseas for four of them and won't be reviewing much during that time), I thought I'd post a round-up of the 2009 films I've given four stars to. Just look at how many Australian movies are in there!

The Wrestler: "Rourke's performance in the The Wrestler got past all my defenses, and I wound up caring for this flawed, steroid-injecting professional wrestler much more than I thought I would."

Doubt: "John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, an adaptation of his own stage play, is brilliantly ambiguous."

Revolutionary Road: "The final scenes of Revolutionary Road serve as a warning, I feel. To understand a relationship between yourself and another person, it is vital to first understand your own hopes and dreams, the things about life you can change, those you cannot, and to have the wisdom to tell the difference. "

The Combination: "The Combination regularly reaches a level of power that surprised me, and it explores such delicate subject matter without ever resorting to didactism or self-righteousness."

Watchmen: "Watchmen is a masterpiece. It joins The Dark Knight (which it could not differ more from in style and tone), and Iron Man in resurging the 'comic book' movie, imbuing it with real ideas and sophistication in a way that we have never seen before."

Entre Les Murs (The Class): "The Class is one of the best exponents of ensemble acting that I have seen in a long time."

Mary and Max: "Mary and Max is magical. No other way to describe it."

Synecdoche, New York: "(Synecdoche, New York) is a difficult review to write, because it was not really created for discussion -- more for experiencing."

Samson and Delilah: "It may not be palatable subject matter for those of us who prefer to see Australia as 'the lucky country', and while it is not a wholly uplifting experience, Samson and Delilah is a powerful masterpiece."

Last Ride: "(Glendyn Ivin's) debut is deeply powerful, fascinating and, in the end, quite heartbreaking."

Inglourious Basterds: "A cinematic funhouse... my favourite movie of the year so far."

Up: "Once more, Pixar has proven that they are in touch with how people, young and old, like to watch movies."

The Hurt Locker: "One of the most riveting, spellbinding and best films of the year."

**

Wish me luck in whittling these down to a list of just ten of the year's best. And we've only just gotten into good movie season!

Jonathan

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

By Jonathan Fisher, November 5th, 2009


The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a typically unique Terry Gilliam film, bizarre and imaginative in some ways, stilted and frustrating in others. This movie will be remembered as the film Heath Ledger was filming when he died, which resulted in Gilliam clamouring to find a way to end his movie with just a three-quarter performance from Ledger. The end result is a muddled but enjoyable film that actually has a lot to offer on the subject of the tricks every film-maker employs to create the illusion of cinema.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus follows the exploits of a travelling theatre company led by the titular character (played by Christopher Plummer), his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), his vertically-challenged assistant Percy (Verne Troyer) and Anton (Andrew Garfield), another assistant who is hopelessly in love with Valentina. As we see in the first scene, the 'imaginarium' is a mirror that, when entered, manifests whatever its occupant's imagination can conjure. There's something of a catch. Due to some sort of deal Doctor Parnassus made with his nemesis Mr. Nick (Tom Wait in his glorious "Satan" mode), the imaginarium always ends with the same climax -- a choice for the occupant to give into temptation (and damnation) by siding with Mr. Nick, or to return to the real world with Doctor Parnassus, after experiencing life-changing revelations.

The troupe eventually come across Tony (Heath Ledger), who is hanging by his neck from a bridge when they find him. After rescuing him, Tony claims he has amnesia, and soon joins the troupe. He proves to be adept at charming women (and their wallets). There's something perpetually mysterious about Tony, and we get the sense we can never really trust him.

Terry Gilliam has always primary been a director obsessed with visuals, and Parnassus is no different. He's a little less certain telling a human story, and as such the stretches of the film that exist outside the imaginarium are a little less riveting and interesting than the sequences in the imaginarium. Parnassus is Gilliam's celebration of imagination, its liberating qualities, and the importance of it in building our identity, both collectively and individually. The scenes inside the imaginarium are spell-bindingly beautiful, and I questioned what a Gilliam version of Alice in Wonderland would have looked like. With Tim Burton's adaptation of that Lewis Carroll story on the way, we may never know.

The talking point of the film for most will of course be Ledger and his sadly incomplete performance. The method Gilliam ultimately chose to use in completing his film was to bring in Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to film the remainder of Ledger's scenes. The way that Gilliam explains this away is quite clever -- Tony's appearance changes every time he enters the imaginarium. I'm not sure if Gilliam lucked out (as much as any director can luck out when a star dies half-way through filming), but it seems that all of Tony's relevant scenes outside the imaginarium were filmed prior to Ledger's death. The transition between actors isn't quite seamless (Jude Law is probably the actor that comes closest to matching the feel of Ledger's interpretation of Tony), and is a tad distracting, but the visuals surrounding them in the imaginarium are so exciting that I moved on from the stuff that didn't work.

About Ledger's performance: it's a good one. A tinge of sadness overcame me watching him on screen. As Tony, he is charismatic, witty and impenetrable. Ledger was in his prime, his seemingly endless pool of talent growing. It is difficult to accept that just weeks, or perhaps days, after some of these scenes, his life force was taken from him. A title card at the end of the film informs us that it was brought to us by "Heath Ledger and friends". The movie's real show-stealer, though, is Tom Waits as Mr. Nick. This is a role the actor was born to play. With his gravelly voice, almost mechanical mannerisms and evil charisma, Mr. Nick is a thrilling villain.

Despite having all the right elements, Parnassus never completely flies. The film sets up way too many stories in its first half an hour, and then spends the rest of its time trying to juggle them. But Parnassus is more about the tricks involved in making an illusion than the illusion itself. The inclusion of the three actors taking on Ledger's incomplete is a perfect example of that. Ledger, of course, was playing his character assuming that he would be in all of Tony's scenes, but the way that Gilliam shoots and edits his scenes and the subsequent scenes involving Depp, Law and Farrell fools us into thinking that that was his plan, all along. Every single movie is a miracle when you consider the perils you face when picking up a camera and wanting to tell a story. Parnassus is a Virgin Mary of a movie. After everything that it went through, it still manages to make some semblance of sense, and also makes us feel something. For that, if nothing else, it deserves and should find an eager audience.

Whatever Works

Whatever Works

By Jonathan Fisher, November 5, 2009


Whatever Works epitomises just about all the things that I don’t like about recent Woody Allen comedies. The fluidity and grace of his dialogue in movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan seems to be long gone, replaced by terminally caricatured neuroses and pretentious pop-philosophy. I’m an enormous fan of Larry David. Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm are among the funniest and most observant of all comedies. He stars in Whatever Works in a role clearly written for Woody Allen circa 1975, and his presence constantly jars. The rambling monologues, the distinctly Allen one-liners, and the irritating life philosophies just sound wrong coming out of David’s mouth.

Larry David does not come across as a pretentious person, and that is just the problem with Whatever Works. David plays Boris Yellnikoff, a neurotic New Yorker (is there any other kind in Allen’s comedies?) who offers his life philosophies to anyone who will listen. He walks with a limp that he acquired years earlier when, after a domestic argument with his girlfriend, he jumped out of his apartment window. As his luck would have it, he hit the tarp covering the building’s entrance. Boris’ claim to fame is that once, he was ‘almost’ nominated for a Nobel Prize for physics. Yeah, and I was almost nominated for a Pulitzer. It’s just that no one read my entry.

Boris is egotistical and, despite his self-deprecation, massively arrogant. He spends his time wandering around talking about how much of a genius he is, offering nuggets of profound wisdom such as ‘do whatever works to make you happy’. I’m about forty years younger than Boris, and even I’ve worked that one out.

One evening, a young woman named Melody St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) begs Boris for some food outside his house. She’s recently moved to New York from the South, and has found herself homeless in the Big Apple. Boris hesitantly takes her in, but takes a shine to her when he discovers that she thinks he’s as awesome as.. well, as awesome as he does. They begin a relationship, and the age-old convention in Allen movies that a neurotic old crank winds up with a gorgeous young woman who idolises him is fulfilled.

The film spins around, focusing on the various conflicts within Boris and Melody’s relationship that impede their true happiness. Once again, as in most Allen comedies, the formula is this: relationship won’t work because of man’s neuroses. Repeat for ninety minutes. I might be accused of reducing many of Allen’s greatest works to a couple of sentences, but movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan had poetry and style about them. Here, Allen is riffing on jokes and characters we’ve been watching for thirty years.

Eventually Melody’s parents make their way to New York to find that their daughter has taken up with Boris. After their initial surprise and disgust that their pride and joy has taken up with such a train wreck of a man, they learn to accept that their daughter is just doing… whatever works to make her happy. Get it?

Larry David is great in Curb Your Enthusiasm, but he’s almost unwatchably bad in Whatever Works. Every line, inflection and hand gesture is self-conscious and distracting. I’m one of the biggest Woody Allen fans around, but I feel, as many others also do, that one of the great tragedies of cinema has been the last fifteen or twenty years of his career. One of the most observant, delicate, and funny of all film-makers has devolved into an overly narcissistic and conceited directors around. He’s proved in the last few years with films like Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona that he can still make a good movie. Whatever Works is not one of them.