film: ‘bright star’

oh my.

every now and then a film comes along that is just so exquisite, it’s beyond belief. it’s like an intricate piece of origami, put together with precise, delicate movements.

jane campion has been making these films all her career — the piano, the portrait of a lady — but for mine this is the best she’s ever made.

the cast is brilliant. abbie cornish and ben whishaw play fanny brawne and john keats.

i thought i hadn’t seen much of cornish, but then i look at her list of films and realise that i have — she was in somersault, elizabeth: the golden age, and stop-loss, all of which i’ve seen — but from now on i’ll be looking for her specifically. her performance in this is simply stellar. i don’t often shed a tear over period pieces but cornish got me … twice. brilliant.

whishaw has also largely eluded me although i did see a couple of episodes of his mini-series criminal justice the last time i was in england. as keats he’s terrific … almost transparent he’s so frail and … well, poetic, frankly.

the supporting cast are lovely too. particularly fond of young thomas sangster who plays the quiet, protective younger brother perfectly. you may remember him as liam neeson’s son in love, actually not to mention the original nanny mcphee.

look, it’s all beautiful. there isn’t a misplaced word, deed or movement. this goes alongside emma thompson’s sense and sensibility as my favourite period piece.

in a word: GORGEOUS.

Loch Lochy

film: ‘the road’

oh, i have been waiting for this for a looooooooong time.

i think i might have mentioned before my love of all things dystopian. well, the road by cormac mccarthy, is the ultimate for me. a beautiful, haunting, word-perfect book.

the film (directed by queenslander peter ‘the proposition‘ hillcoat) … is very, very good. VERY, very good. not perfect, but pretty damn close. the look is spot on. the sounds, the clouds, the cold, the grey … spot on.

anyone who watched the proposition knows hillcoat has an eye for landscape and how to put grim reality in context. both of these films are awesome to behold.

despite the wide landscapes of the road, there’s a claustrophobic feel to it. the weight of the clouds, the cold forcing everything living in on itself to stay warm, the lack of color. it’s all a … burden. and that, too, is spot on.

viggo mortensen … jesus, he’s good. there’s something about that man’s face that just says everything and nothing. and this character might as well have been written for him. determined, desperate to hang on.

the kid playing the kid, kodi smit-mcphee is a dead ringer for charlize theron, who played his mother, and you might suspect that was the reason he was cast until you discover that the little bugger can act. invisibly. which is to say, damn, the little bugger can act.

my only gripe with the film is the colour. yes, bleed the colour. but hillcoat has pulled a bit of a schindler’s list, putting the colour back in to the things that represent hope, a la, spielberg’s little girl in the red dress.

now, in theory, that’s great. god knows, i’ve done it. my problem is — and who knows, maybe it’s my eyes, or my screen — it seemed inconsistent to me. the colour seemed to bleed outside the lines sometimes. it was distracting. i was looking for the splashes of colour, and meanwhile the story is moving on without me.

an annoyance … but i got over it.

i don’t think fans of cormac mccarthy’s book should be disappointed with the film. unlike peter jackson’s adaptation of the lovely bones, the road comes as close to reproducing the book as it’s possible to get in a couple of hours.

in a word: UNMISSABLE.

film: ‘it’s complicated’

as ever, it’s a pleasure to watch a trio of old pros bouncing wisecracks and timing off each other like a well-oiled machine.

having said that, apart from the rather dubious honour of seeing alex baldwin in all his hairy glory, i’m not sure there’s anything in this that hasn’t been done before.

it’s no surprise i found myself thinking ‘didn’t meryl streep just do all this with jack nicholson’ and then remembering, well, actually, no that was diane keaton in something’s gotta give. no surprise because nancy meyers wrote and directed them both.

no surprises at all, in fact. not one. not a skerrick. meyers hits every beat just when you expect them to be hit and streep, baldwin and steve martin deliver, just like keaton and nicholson did.

in fact, isn’t it about time for a remake of bob and carol and ted and alice, using this crowd? or maybe same time next year?

i dunno. i guess you get what you expect with it’s complicated. and apparently, a lot of people like what they get. me, i’m kinda bored with it.

mea culpa.

in a word: SLICK.

the dish

film: ‘the boys are back’

now here’s a film where my expectations were rock-bottom and i ended up pleasantly surprised.

i like clive owen and will watch anything he’s in, but i had been avoiding the boys are back because of the mixed reviews, the schmaltzy trailer and my basic feeling that i actually don’t give a flying fat rat’s red ringhole that the boys are back.

i overcame my urge to slap every man in the film silly — clive owen’s character for being a childish arse, and the kids for being … well, childish arses, basically. it took a while but i overcame it.

the women in the film are portrayed in what seems at first blush to be a fair manner — the concerned grandmother, the hopeful potential girlfriend, the slightly prickly ex-wife — but because we are shown things from clive’s point of view all the time, every one of them comes off badly as a result.

*pause for thought*

so, why did i like this film, again? because it’s well-written, well-acted and well-directed –scott hicks of shine fame.

and — apart from the fact that the concept of a tennis reporter being able to fool his editor into thinking he’s actually at the Australian Open when he’s covering it from his tv and laptop in the adelaide hills is LUDICROUS — it felt authentic all the way.

in a word: FORGETTABLE … pleasant, but forgettable.

boston.com’s oil spill photographs

Boston.com has put together a collection of superb pictures from the Gulf of Mexico, showing the ongoing fallout from the BP oil spill. Take a look here.

hey BP … fuck you

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. what a complete clusterfuck this is.

Tooma Reservoir, Snowy Mountains

taken in january 09, a week before the victorian bushfires.

finley bowls club

Taken on my 8-day trek to Melbourne and back last year. it was the week before the killer victorian fires. temps over 40C pretty much all the way. and this little patch of green.