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MOVIE
Super 8
Kyle Chandler, Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning
Director JJ Abrams
Review Ray Chan


Joel Courtney leads a cast of talented kid actors as Joe Lamb, the middle-school-aged son of Jack (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff’s deputy who struggles with the demands of single parenthood after his wife dies in a steel mill accident.
    Joe copes by escaping into a world of models and monster magazines, and fills his free hours making a zombie film with his movie-mad pal Charles (Riley Griffiths).
    Filming surreptitiously at an abandoned train station one night, they witness a train derailment that ushers in a series of mysterious happenings that might be explained by events they unwittingly captured on the Super 8 camera.
    The scene is presented brilliantly as the sound of screeching metal fills the air while cars tumble aimlessly across the tracks.
    It’s the first of many sequences which show the influence of the movie's producer Steven Spielberg on J.J. Abrams, who readily admits that this new offering is a homage to the man who has become the most successful director in Hollywood history.
    Abrams shows he has been a keen student of Spielberg’s techniques, adopting style and substance from Jaws to E.T. to Close Encounters, with parts of The Goonies thrown in for good measure.
    Saying more about what happens after the train incident would spoil Super 8’s carefully cultivated aura of mystery, but suffice it to say that what follows won’t be too surprising to those who have seen the aforementioned films that lend this their DNA.
    That makes the picture both welcomingly and frustratingly familiar, and more the latter as it goes along.
   But A for effort. Super 8 constructs a believably complicated small-town world, fills it with the right period details and shoots it beautifully, testing the residents’ sense of order and willingness to stand up to authority to cope with a chaotic element that could destroy them.
    Borrowed the pleasures may be, but who better to imitate if the object is to flatter?

THE MAIM MAN

MOVIE
Machete
Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro
Director Robert Rodriguez
Review Ray Chan

IN his collaboration with Quentin Tarantino on the two-in-one thriller Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez introduced a mock trailer for a fake movie called Machete, starring craggy-faced, veteran character actor Danny Trejo as an intimidating Mexican day labourer.
    Now, in tribute to violent, low-budget 70s exploitation pictures, that ‘coming attraction’ has become a testosterone-fuelled reality.
    The minimalist plot behind this action film – with so many over-the-top sequences that it could really be labelled a comedy – revolves around main (and maim) man Machete (Trejo), a badass ex-Mexican Federale who is seeking revenge against the vicious drug lord who killed his wife and daughter.
    Within the opening minutes, he’s chopped the heads and arms off a dozen gangsters guarding the kingpin Torrez (Steven Seagal), but comes off worse for wear.
    Left for dead, Machete recuperates and flees over-the-border to Texas, where he’s coerced under threat of deportation to accept a job to kill conservative, intolerant Texas Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), who denounces illegal immigrants as parasites, and enjoys driving with sadistic, rifle-wielding Von (Don Johnson), shooting unarmed Mexicans they find sneaking into the country.
    But it’s a set-up and when he’s identified as the would-be perpetrator of the failed assassination, Machete’s only allies are his brother and less-than-pious priest Padre Benito (Cheech Marin), and Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), the proprietor of a taco truck and leader of the underground resistance called ‘the Network’.
    Then there’s scantily clad Sartana (Jessica Alba), a luscious Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, and slutty April (Lindsay Lohan), the entitled, drugged-up daughter of McLaughlin’s associate Booth. Mix them all together and you get a cocktail of murder and mayhem.
    Rodriguez and his co-director Ethan Maniquis may be only junior-grade Tarantinos, but they assemble enough ludicrous, offensive, politically incorrect genre conventions – like bigoted hombres, naughty nurses, double-entendred dialogue and slightly-clad bodacious babes – to score the film as one of this year’s most surprising must-sees.
    And they’re already planning two sequels – this time, the trailers are real. Sí, por favour.

MEATHEAD MASTERPIECE

MOVIE
The Expendables
Sylvester Stallone and his mighty men
Director Sylvester Stallone
Review Ray Chan

CLEARLY, Sly knows his audience and what they have come to expect of him.
    Never mind his odd dalliances here and there into other roles, he knows he is most clearly identified with the tough guy personas he portrayed in the likes of Rambo, Rocky, Cobra and Demolition Man.
    So with The Expendables, Stallone is back doing what he does best – kicking ass and keeping us entertained.
    You could imagine what went through his mind when he conceived the idea – grab every action man in Hollywood and put them together in one mega-adventure.
    By and large, he succeeded, with the exception of a couple of big name stars who wanted more money.
    Stallone would probably be the first to admit The Expendables is not a great film, nor even a great action movie, at least not by today's big-budget slam-bang standards.
    But it’s a damn lot of fun: a great slice of classic meat-and-potatoes musclebound '80s action which proves that, on a modest budget, gripping set pieces and sharp action spectacles can be created without lashings of CGI and flashy editing.
    With a cast featuring the likes of Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke and of course Sly himself, this is undoubtedly the guiltiest of guilty pleasures, as we follow a group of elite mercenaries deployed to the Gulf of Aden to save hostages on a vessel from Somali pirates.
    There’s hardly any storyline, but The Expendables should more than please any hardcore action nut looking for a good old-fashioned, star-studded brawl.

KICKING UP A STORM

MOVIE
Kick-Ass
Aaron Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nicholas Cage
Director Matthew Vaughn, Jeff Vadlow
Review Ray Chan

Average American teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) and his friends, Marty (Clark Duke) and Todd (Evan Peters), read comic books and talk about girls.
    Then the lightbulb comes on in his mind: why have people never tried to re-create themselves as super-heroes?
    The movie is an account of Dave’s efforts at becoming a costumed crimefighter, and it’s a bawdy, hilarious action comedy brimming with outrageously vulgar jokes.
    Lacking funds and most of the skills, Dave settles for a home-made outfit and a name apparently devised to create fear in the minds of evildoers: Kick-Ass.
    At first vigilantism proves harder than Dave expected, but eventually the ‘hero’ becomes a sensation, with video of his mildly impressive exploits burning up YouTube.
    The girl he’s in love with, Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), is among those smitten with the masked avenger, but of course – ala Lois Lane – she doesn’t know it’s him. She’s only interested in Dave as a friend, and only because she thinks he’s gay.
    As Kick-Ass goes about helping people who have brought their plights to his attention through his MySpace page, he encounters a couple of amateur heroes who are taking the business a lot more seriously than he is: a 12-year-old assassin called Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage).
    Like the Batman, they have vast financial resources and a personal vendetta fuelling their missions; but unlike the caped crusader, they have no compunction about killing people if necessary.
    Through them, Kick-Ass gets involved in a caper surrounding millionaire crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and his son, Chris, who as it turns out is also a schoolmate of Dave’s.
    The movie is based on a concept created by comic book writer Mark Millar, who has an astonishing number of other titles being considered for theatrical adaptation.
    To his credit, director Matthew Vaughn makes no attempt to soften the violent, rowdy humour of the funny book for the big screen, nor to sidestep the fact that one of the most lethal and foul-mouthed characters is a pre-teen girl.
    He invites Johnson, Moretz, and Cage to let loose and enjoy themselves in their roles, and this they do, especially Cage, who in real life is himself an avid comic book collector.
    The result is a film that does not lack for big laughs and ends up as a raucous crowd-pleaser, one that indeed kicks sufficient ass.

ABORIGINAL AND ORIGINAL

MOVIE
Bran Nue Dae
Rocky McKenzie, Geoffrey Rush
Director Rachel Perkins
Review Ray Chan


When it comes to Australian musicals – and that means those actually set in the country, and not the several international movies directed by Aussies – you can probably count the memorable ones on one hand. Priscilla, Shane Warne, The Boy From Oz …. and now I’m glad to say you can safely add Bran Nue Day to the list.
   This lovable, exuberant film does not pretend to be anything but a celebration of indigenous life, as typified in the lyrics of its standout musical number, when the characters sing "there's nothing I would rather be, than to be an Aborigine" … although there is a slight nod at social commentary with the caveat "and watch you take my precious land away".
    It’s a far cry from many movies with Aboriginal themes, such as Rabbit-Proof Fence or The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, which tended to be more serious and depressing in their portrayal of racial mistreatment and exploitation.
    But thanks to the energy of the music and dance sequences, the vibrance and verve of the cinematography, and the ebullience of the multi-racial cast, the audience takes away a sense of conviviality more than any sort of bleak history lesson.
    Bran Nue Dae is set in 1969 in the mixed-culture pearling town of Broome in Western Australia.
    The handsome but hesitant Willie (played by Broome-born actor Rocky McKenzie) is besotted by aspiring singer Rosie (Australian Idol star Jessica Mauboy), but finds his efforts thwarted by the more outgoing Lester (Dan Sultan), who fronts the local band.
    Meanwhile, Willie's mother, determined to see her son become a Catholic priest, dispatches him to a seminary school in Perth run by a stern German, Father Benedictus (hammed up hilariously by Geoffrey Rush), but a homesick Willie duly absconds and hits the trail back to Broome, catching a ride in the Kombi van of two young hippie tourists.
    Along the way, they meet a homeless Aborigine under a bridge (Ernie Dingo), who claims to be the boy's uncle and comes along for the ride.
    Various adventures ensue, some of them involving a sexually frustrated roadhouse owner (Magda Szubanski in a nice cameo) and members of the Chooky Dancers, punctuated by invariably lively song-and-dance numbers.
    There’s a high-energy spontaneity and goofiness here that blends with honest emotions and sound comedic moments.
    You never know when a song is going to break loose, and that’s part of the charm of this film, which boasts an eclectic soundtrack of country-rock, bluesy jazz, and some touching and traditional ballads, exemplifying the randomness and casualness of the script.
    The musical on which the movie is based was written by another of Broome’s heroes, Jimmy Chi – a playwright of Asian/Aboriginal descent – and was originally scripted as a stage play, filled with frolic and farce.
    Director Rachel Perkins has successfully transferred this spirit to the screen, with the movie culminating in an unexpected twist and musical reprise that cannot help but send the viewer away feeling good and floating on air.

LOVING THE ALIENS

MOVIE
District 9
Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope
Director Neill Blomkamp
Review Ray Chan

It may be regarded as just a South African sci-fi B-movie, but make no mistake, District 9 punches well above its weight, even as it takes its inspiration from major-league precedents.
    Writer-director Neill Blomkamp turns the stock idea of alien incursions on its head, in which visitors from another world, instead of launching hostile attacks, are stranded and have to be relieved from their stricken craft and assimilated and domiciled on Earth.
   By human standards, they an unsightly race of crustacean-type bipeds – their derogatory nickname is "prawns" – forcing them to be herded away into a refugee camp known as District 9, where they are treated as lower class citizens.
    Over the years, the stranded aliens breed among themselves, leading to a mass concentration of the beings within what has turned into a slum township.
    The turning point of the movie occurs when the authorities contract a private company, MNU, to evict the aliens from the bug bivouac and relocate them to a concentration camp.
    In charge of this operation is a despotic field worker, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who fails to take precautions during the evacuation, gets infected with DNA from the aliens, and eventually becomes one himself.
    Once the conversion is complete, Wikus is unrecognisable to his peers, and forced to live his life in the same decrepit fashion he forced thousands of aliens to endure.
    The historical allegory of District 9 can’t be ignored and sticks out like a sore thumb. Nobody actually mentions the word "apartheid", but the resonances abound.
    Caught between the armies that break into their houses and an underworld of Nigerian gangsters who exploit them, the aliens face a system of oppression that inevitably calls to mind the cruelties of the South African police state.
    What transpires then takes the plot into the realm of nightmare: a hush-hush genetic experimentation program from which MNU will adapt the aliens' more powerful weaponry to their own use.
    Wikus’ tale is particularly tragic. Initially a nerdy bureaucrat playing up to the TV cameras as though he were the star of his own docudrama, he only got the job because his father-in-law heads MNU.
    Wikus's infection takes him through terror, despair and, finally, to resistance, as he joins forces with an alien scientist whose long-term plan has been to get back to the mothership.
    What's surprising is the way Copley's performance as Wikus grows on the viewer; the thoroughly unlikeable office twit is turned by his ordeal into a creature of pathos, managing this even while mutating into an oversized arthropod.

ROCKING ALL OVER FREO

This review was published in Farm Weekly on Mar 19, 2008

By RAY CHAN

IT was singalong time at Fremantle last weekend .. the port town literally reverberated in unison to Ray Davies as he brought out his Kinks masterpiece Lola, while Don McLean got everyone to chime in on his classic American Pie.
    The two musicians were part of a stellar line-up which graced this year's West Coast Blues and Roots Festival, which also boasted artists of the calibre of Buddy Guy, Patti Griffin, Sinead O'Connor, Jools Holland and Eskimo Joe.
   But the undoubted star of the two-day event was John Fogerty, and it was on his songs that the audience participations were at their most robust.
    It's been two years since Fogerty last played in Perth, and time has not wearied the man who once fronted the legendary Creedence Clearwater Revival.
    Dressed in trademark checks, he was a bundle of energy from the start, pouncing on the stage to the rip-roaring Travelin' Band, a CCR favourite from the band's heyday.
    The frenetic nature of the show was even more admirable given that the performer is not only in his 60s, but had flown in fresh from the US after playing there barely two days before, giving him precious little time to rehearse or recover from jet lag.
    Yet you wouldn't know it. Fogerty's voice is, if anything, stronger, sweeter, yet softer, one minute rocking out a CCR standard like Bad Moon Rising, and the next settling into the mellower tones of a ballad like the poignant Broken Down Cowboy.
    Fogerty's repertoire was laced with many well-known, happy pieces that had the crowd bellowing deliriously .. Looking Out My Back Door, Midnight Special, Have You Ever Seen The Rain, Down On The Corner ... hit after hit after hit sprang forth, as Fogerty tapped into his rich vein of material.
    One of his newer songs, Don't You Wish It Was True, had such a positive message that listeners who were unfamiliar with it were quick to join in with the chorus after just a few verses.
    Recently ranked number 40 of the top 100 guitarists of all time by a music magazine, Fogerty had ample opportunity to display his skills, notably on the raucous Keep On Chooglin', a showstopper back even in the CCR days.
    Renowned for his perfectionism, Fogerty cannot be unhappy with his own travelling band, which consists of five superb musicians: Kenny Aronoff, acclaimed as one of the best drummers in the world, Hunter Perrin, a guitarist with the looks of a slimmed-down Jack Black, Billy Burnette, son of rock pioneer Dorsey Burnette, Matt Nolan, an accomplished guitarist and keyboards player, and bass guitarist David Santos.
    They did not miss a beat, even when a technical glitch threatened to disrupt the proceedings; the band just carried on as if nothing had gone astray.
    Indeed, Perth fans were given a rare treat as attempts were made to fix the problem; Fogerty and band duly went into a rocking, impromptu rendition of Blue Suede Shoes, a song unlikely to be repeated on the rest of his Australian tour ... unless another equipment failure occurs.
    Fogerty has well and truly stepped out of the shadows of Creedence, and his fans will no doubt relish his next visit here as he looks like making Perth a regular stop on his worldwide tours.
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