It’s rather bizarre not to see a Beatles track sneak into “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby”, an interesting film that looks into a deteriorating relationship from the perspective of both parties involved. This feature debut from Ned Benson is actually two films shown back to back subtitled Her and Him respectively. While the order of the presentation may vary depending on which screening you attend, the one at the Melbourne International Film Festival kicked it off with Her followed by Him. In addition to the ambitious storytelling, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is anchored by solid performances from the leads Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy. In addition, the supporting characters ranging from Bill Hader’s comedic touch to Isabelle Huppert’s fun portrayal of Eleanor’s chain-smoking wine guzzling mum surely helps this film move along its lengthy runtime. Continue reading
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Doctor Who: Listen Review
Steven Moffat has two tricks that he really likes to use when writing episodes. The first is creating and/or solving problems through wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey time paradoxes. I’ve lost count of the number of times that we’ve seen that. The second is trying to scare little children of everyday things. We’ve done statues, shadows and this week, we’re supposed to be scared of being alone in the dark.
Moffat decided to hybrid timey-wimey with everyday horror in Listen. In many ways, it’s a spiritual successor to Blink, the first time we met the Weeping Angels. Maybe it was a bit too familiar, though.
MIFF2014: Boyhood
Despite not being a perfect movie, Boyhood delivers one of the most interesting cinematic experiences of the year. Filmed over twelve years, it beautifully highlights the growing pains of childhood but it is also a harrowing reminder how quickly time passes by. Continue reading
Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood Review
What happens when legends meet? I don’t mean two famous people but more what happens when two mythical creatures meet. Sure, we’ve had enough cross-over movies, TV shows and comics that cross-overs have worn out their welcome but there’s still the special moment every now and then.
But what happens when two mythical creatures who aren’t all that mythical get in a battle of egos? That’s the question that is being asked and answered by this weekend’s episode of Doctor Who. The Doctor, a myth throughout space and time, comes face to face with Robin Hood, a myth of Earth. They’re very real and very spectacular.
Doctor Who: Into the Dalek Review
Since Steven Moffat has taken over as executive producer of Doctor Who, the Daleks have been used sparingly. There have only really been two Dalek episodes, 2010’s Victory of the Daleks and 2012’s Asylum of the Daleks (which was more a Clara episode than a Dalek episode). This is in stark contrast to the Russell T. Davies era (which I have more than this issue with) which had eight Dalek episodes in four seasons and generally made them look like chumps in all but one of those stories.
For the second episode of the Capaldi era, we’ve already got ourselves a Dalek episode. There’s no better way to throw a Doctor head first into the chaos of the universe than pitting him against his arch-nemesis.
Doctor Who: Deep Breath Review
While I was writing the review for this week’s episode of Doctor Who, I realized that I was behind in posting my Doctor Who reviews over on The Lowdown. I promised Doctor Who reviews over here this season so you’re getting all three episode reviews this week. Today is the season premiere, Deep Breath. On Thursday is the Into The Dalek review. Usual Friday service begins with the third episode review for Robot of Sherwood.
Given the recent explosion in popularity that Doctor Who has seen on this side of the pond, it seems as though that Deep Breath might be the greatest test of the revived Doctor Who. Sure, this is the fourth incarnation of the series but it with Doctor Who becoming more and more popular during Matt Smith’s tenure at the controls of the TARDIS, this will be many fans’ first regeneration.
While Deep Breath won’t go down as the greatest Doctor Who adventure ever, it certainly worked well at showing that the show is changing pace and themes with the new man in the blue box.
MIFF2014: Life After Beth
If you thought there wasn’t much left to chew on for zombie movies, well you might be wrong there. Life After Beth is a smart zombie comedy that retains its central message while it keeps the laughter rolling throughout. The directorial debut of “I Heart Huckabees” co-writer Jeff Baena reminds us all the fact that while we enjoy a good zom-rom-com flick, the mash-up of the three genres is an awfully bizarre monster of its own. Continue reading
MIFF2014: 112 Weddings
The concept for 112 Weddings is so good that I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done many times before by others out there. After spending two decades sidelining as a wedding videographer to fund his career as a filmmaker, Doug Block has revisited some of the couples he has filmed in the past to see what has become of them since their wedding day. The end result is an interesting time capsule full of love stories and a life lesson wrapped into one. Despite lacking any in-depth insights, the film is shamelessly entertaining and it has successfully invoked tears and laughter from everyone in the audience. 112 Weddings is a bittersweet portrait of modern marriage and life after the ‘happily ever after’ moment on their wedding day, but the prevailing tone is more sweet than bitter. Continue reading
MIFF2014: Web Junkie
With so many good films at the Melbourne International Film Festival, there is bound to be a film that would fail to ‘click’ with me. There is so much potential for this film to milk this topic of internet addiction but all it provides is a very small glimpse into a boot camp in China and the angry teens locked up inside without any insight into the social problem as a whole. Continue reading
MIFF2014: Happy Christmas + Post-Film Q&A
Happy Christmas is Joe Swanberg’s most satisfying film to date. It is definitely a worthy follow-up to last year’s equally enjoyable Drinking Buddies. This film is a nice little portrait of a middle class family set during the Christmas holidays in the city of Chicago. Despite a somewhat slow start, the film beautifully highlights the angst we commonly experience in adulthood and looks into the struggle between maintaining a creative life while being a parent to a toddler. Well in this case, perhaps two toddlers. Continue reading
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