The Hunter

I visited the Dendy cinemas in Newtown for the first time on Monday and was pleasantly surprised.
The cinemas are small and intimate, they have a good sound and it breaths a fresh air of artistic cinema.

For anyone who actually reads my blogs/reviews, I was fired from Hoyts not long ago which explains my absence from the movies. But I am back and watching, so check it, here is a review for  The Hunter which I got along to a couple of days ago.

Martin(Willem Dafoe), an industrial mercenary for some creepy bio tech company is sent to the Tasmanian wilderness with the mission to locate and collect samples from the elusive/mythical, last standing Tasmanian Tiger.
The Tiger has the ability to immobilise its prey with a special chemical it has built into its genetic make up.We don't here much about it or what the bio tech company wants from it, just that its valuable and that many people have lost their lives searching for it.

Martin lands in Tasmania to a hostile crowd of tree loggers who are in a legal battle with the Greenys about logging the Tasmanian landscape. Instantly he is mistaken for 'a Greeny and hassled about his intentions in the area.
He meets with the local hot shot Jack(Sam Neill) and is housed with the widow Lucy(Frances O'Connor) and her family. Personal connections to the family start to emerge and Martins morals are put to the test, both about his job and about the family he is staying with.

The film moves slowly, which seems to be the intention. Director Daniel Nettheim builds solid characters in both Martin and Lucy, along with her children Sass and Bike(Morgana Davis and Finn Woodlock).
Lucy is despondent and still suffering the sudden loss of her husband. Nearly a year ago he went in search for the Tasmanian Tiger and mysteriously went missing while away.

This film will appeal to the Dave and Margret crowd. It is full of nuances about moral right and wrongs, and challenges ones righteousness about certain topics blah blah blah.
Narratively it was weak, I  would have preferred much more insight into the lives of certain characters and wanted to here more about Martins job, and past.

There is one scene near the start of the film( and easily the best in my opinion), where Martin first arrives to the house where he will be residing and is greeted by both Sass and Bike. Bike literally doesn't say a word the whole movie but Sass is quite talkative. Sass explains that her daddy used to love The Boss-Bruce Springsteen.
She plays a Springsteen song as Lucy wakes from her depressive slumber, she hears the music and sees a man outside playing with the kids. She is very despondent and slow, but utterly believes that this man playing with her kids is her husband finely returning home.
Its a very touching scene and tells us a lot about both Martin and Lucy....

The shots of the Tasmanian wilderness are amazing, and it was good to see a director who has predominately worked in television, create such a cinematic film.
Performance of the actors are good all round.

I still found it boring though

Two and a half from me....

One Day

The film One Day follows the lives of Dex(Jim Sturgess) and Emma(Anne Hathaway) from the night of their graduation from Edinburgh University. From that uneventful evening of the 15th of July, 1988, till the present day, the film shifts through the years of their friendship.
  Each year from that fateful evening on the 15th of July, the film,-in montage style- drops back in on the two. They have become best friends, and apart from having completely different dreams and ambitions, they seem to keep in contact well.
 
 Jim finds work as a television presenter on a trash TV program called Get Your Rocks Off, while Emma is reluctantly slaving away at a Tex Mex restaurant in London, trying desperately to make it as a writer.
Jim is living the semi famous lifestyle, partying and banging hot chicks, he is drinking a lot and doing drugs, which only fuels his arrogant and self assured manner.
Not to say that is he is a complete wanker, he has a charm about him and means well, he just has a hard time showing it.

Poor Emma adores him, but cant wait forever while he is off being famous for making a fool out of himself. She settles for second best, and dates Ian; a clumsy wannabee stand up comedian who isn't funny at all, they even move in together and make an attempt at making a life together. Ian is a nice guy, and kind of charming, but Anne Hathaway is way to god dam pretty in this film to settle for second best.

This film is adapted from a novel of the same name by author David Nicholls, who did the screenplay as well. For the first half of the film, it feels like the characters lack any real chemistry and emotion, which could be because of the continual jumping from year to year style of story telling.
  As I watched, I began to worry whether  there was going to be any real emotion and bonding between the two, leaving the story bland and boring (as I haven't read the book). But rest assure, the third act of this film brings it all home, connecting subtle moments throughout, to connect beautifully a story of two opposites who are destined to be together.

Its a film about taking chances, making the most of friendships and not giving up. The acting was great, except for Dex's mum who was played by Patricia Clarkson,who sucked big time.
I loved the European feel to this movie, it made me want to get on a push bike in a nice suit and go pick up chicks, sort of how Alfie did (but on a moped).
Anyone out there with a penis will fall in love with Anne Hathaway as much as I did, especially towards the end of the film when she's more grown up. Anyone out there with a youknowwhat, will find themselves loving to hate Jim Sturgess as he matures throughout into a man who wears the mistakes he made on his face,(literally).

The years pass in linear fashion, which is great because the last thing you needed in this film was to get lost or confused. The film really makes you think, not that its challenging to watch, it just hits notes perfectly, especially towards the end, and if you weren't tough like me you could very well end up a little glassy eyed.
Director, Lone Scherfig, dose a bang-up job of tying all the emotional ends together, it wouldn't have been easy, considering the time line and the emotional vortex of friends who know they love each other.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, that was One Day. Pretty good, Pretty good.

I'm giving it 3 and a half.....

The Help

It's the 1960's in Jackson, Mississippi. White folks are very white, and black folks are very black. The big fat line that separated the two is as thick as ever as we watch another film about the civil rights movement in America.
That being said; director Tate Taylor has pleasantly taken a troubled, delicate, and-in the movie business anyway-over used period of time, and added a much more commercial and flavoursome appeal to a story written by Kathryn Stockett. Not that commercial, or flavoursome is necessarily good, but it seems to work for this film.

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, played by Emma Stone, returns home from college to find work. Before she dose so, it is evident she has different views on how "maids", and black people in general should be treated in the community. After establishing a low end job at the local rag newspaper, a once-a-week column assisting housewives on how to do their job, she consuls with local maid, Abilene (Viola Davis), who is currently employed by the local bully, Hilly Holbrook(Bryce Dallas Howard).
Things move quickly, and instead of focusing on the column, Skeeter decides she will write true accounts,  and feelings that "the help" have for their employers. Hesitant at first, Abilene shares insight to what its like to be a black maid in the sixties. Though interesting, honest and insightful, she cant rely on Abilene alone to provide enough to fill the novel she has planned. She needs other maids to join her and divulge information that will open the eyes of all Americans to the atrocious stamp that has so clearly defined the inferior.

After Abilene's best friend, Minny(played by the brilliant Octavia Spencer) gets fired for using the inside bathroom during a storm that killed 8 people in Jackson, she too, decides to join Skeeter and Abilene. She hilariously recounts stories of torment and revenge, focusing on one shitty story in particular.
If Abilene is the weathered, over worked black women of the time, than Minny is the one that makes that funny. She explodes on to the screen and is the best part about the movie, other than Jessica Chastain's boobies.

The film is a bit jumpy at times, like its desperately trying to locate a definitive protagonist. It goes a bit to long for my liking, although I welcome this as opposed to cutting short a film adapted from a novel. The colours were great, along with the cool 60s get-ups and music.
Emma Stone seems like she is still finding her way, she has had LOTS of work lately and this is a roll unlike any I have seen her in. She was over shadowed by the more experienced Octavia and Viola, but being a film about black people and their rights, who knows, maby that was the intention.

Annnnnnyway. Here is my first review, I hope someone out there finds it helpful. Its a bit late, but better late then never.
I'm giving it 3 out of 5

Introduction

I'm not very good at this....but here goes.

My name is Sam and I work at the cinemas. Besides a bad wage and being about 5 years older then my fellow work mates, its not a bad racket. I work on the bar and get to see free movies, which is the reason I created this web page, or blog, or whatever its called.

Thats right, I'm not exactly the blogging type. I'm by no means a writer, and couldn't spell to save a life. This aside, I have decided to post some reviews of the movies I get to see. I don't watch every movie that comes through, so don't expect to see many, if any, reviews of 3D movies, or trash like Transformers 4 or Twilight.

The idea and reason behind all of this is to help would-be movie goers to pick a half decent movie to spend your hard earned $18 on. The price of movie tickets is close to ridiculous these days. But despite this, the Australian box office has had it's most profitable year in a decade, So obviously people are still watching movies.

Anyway...here goes...I hope at least a couple of people benefit from what I have to say. I have pretty good movie taste and am honest about what I think. I am not a well known movie critic so production companies don't pay me to write affable reviews; making me more trustworthy then about 50% of the ones out there.

Enjoy.

Have a look, comment if have something to say, and keep watching movies