Ray Lawrence or Baz Luhrmann? by TheTechy Chick

Australian directors are often not well recognised in the global cinema scene but two directors that do have prominence are Ray Lawrence and Baz Luhrmann. Both directors have substantially differing approaches towards their approach to film making. Analysing both their filmographies spurs open the classic debate over whether authentic narrative or wow factor are more important when it comes to the production of film. It also prompts the question of whether an Australian film necessarily needs to reflect the national Australian identity.

Ray Lawrence’s cinematic style is focused on the telling of realistic narrative surrounding the difficult nature of human interaction in real life situations. He often films with one camera shots with natural lighting and all of his films are adapted from novels. Baz Luhrmann’s style in stark contrast is strongly associated with flamboyance and exuberance; he uses bright, distinctive colours, dramatic lighting and fast paced editing. While both directors have received wide critical and box office success some critics argue that Australian films should be focused in depicting narratives directly associated with Australian life. Others however argue that this simply limits a film’s potential for creativity and its ability to relate to international audiences. Baz Luhrmann’s films have been nominated for considerably more international awards and also received higher box office earnings from international audiences so this argument does have grounds.

Moulin Rouge 

However, there are still those both within the production industry and cinema audiences that argue that if a film’s setting, narrative and cast do not directly correspond to Australia then is it really an Australian film? Take Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, whilst one of the main stars was Nicole Kidman it also stared Scottish actor Ewan McGregor, some of the film was shot in Sydney but it was also shot in locations such as Madrid, it was set in Paris and used mainly an American soundtrack. Certain critics have therefore argued that this film does not enrich Australian audiences as it is not focused in exploring key issues within the national Australian community. Ray Lawrence’s film Jindabyne for example explores the tensions between European and native Aboriginal culture through the tragedy of a young aboriginal girl who is found murdered. However does all Australian film have to tell stories that directly correspond to the nation, can they not also convey universal narratives as well? Is it not equally important that the Australian film industry receive as much attention and publicity as it can, given it has to compete against the influx of American films? Moulin Rouge did after all receive several international award nominations ad grossed $179,213,434. Jindabyne on the other hand, whilst it received some international attention it was not at the level of Moulin Rouge and only grossed $5,302,912 in comparison. 

Jindabyne

The film Australia brings forth another element for discussion. Although this was one of Baz Luhrmann’s films that was both set and filmed in Australia the story was lacking in any connection to real Australian people. Although the screenplay was written by Stuart Beattie who is Australian born, living in the USA has influenced the perspective he wrote from, as the story seemed approached from an American perception of Australia rather than one by a national. Many of the characters were formed on traditional stereotypes and although the film attempted to convey national historical events this portrayal was largely inaccurate and at times largely exaggerated. Baz Luhrmann’s earlier film Strictly Ballroom however, which was not focused in trying to convey a purely Australian narrative was a far better expression of Australian life. Whilst the narrative was universal, surrounding the dramas of a ballroom dancing competition, the film still maintained an Australian flavour despite this, through its complex characterization. Ray Lawrence likewise takes this approach in his film Lantana, using a more universal story exploring the relationships and connections between strangers in comparison with Jindabyne. This is perhaps why Lantana received substantially more international attention compared with Jindabyne.

Clearly both strong narrative and production value contribute to quality film. Whilst it is important that   issues relating to Australia are explored through both literature and film, there seems no reason why all Australian cinema should specifically achieve this, especially so if the portrayal of universal themes creates greater international attention towards Australian writers and producers and the industry in general.  

5 Comedies I Recommend! by The Comedy Chick

Hi, I’m Christina, you’re comedy chick!

Every loves a good laugh every now and then, and these five comedies are definitely ones to get those sides splitting!

The Hangover

We all remember those forgotten, ‘unforgettable’ nights that we really wish hadn’t happened. Well the three protagonists are certainly the biggest victims of this! Waking up with missing teeth, finding a baby in your home, and walking into your bathroom half asleep to find a tiger staring at you, and you don’t even remember how any of this happened; definitely the worst thing that could happen to you, but watching it happen to someone else? Well, it’s pretty hilarious! I couldn’t help but laugh, as every time I thought the situations couldn’t get any worse, as they tried to follow their own footseps of the night before, they did! Talk about an eventful night!

 

The Ugly Truth

Apart from the film being a big hit due to the fact it stars Gerard Butler, focusing on the comedy aspects, the script is fantastic.  Mike Chadway, portrayed by Gerard Butler has to be one of the rudest, most heartless, and sexist characters I have ever seen,  but even from a female prospective, it’s  that shocking, and even thought I hate to admit it, some of his points are actually true, that it makes it so funny. If you’re a fan of comedy with a bit off romance thrown in then this is definitely one for you. With conflict, cringey lines and non-stop humour, you couldn’t go wrong.

Superbad

We all know at least one person who has at least considered getting a fake ID to buy alcohol underage. Teenagers are able to buy the ID providing their own picture, name and any other details they like. Well in this case Fogall comes up with the name ‘Mclovin’, a 25 year old Hawaiian organ doner. Seth and Evan are not in the slightest impressed, and Seth comments that he looks like a ‘future paedophile’, and Evan refers to him as thinking he’s famous singer Seal due to the choice of one name. They fear that  they’ve made impossible promises to buy alcohol for their crushes.

The film’s humour mainly comes from the idea of the most innocent teenage boys committing crimes, and trying to act like ‘gangsters’; especially ‘Mclovin’ who spends a night drinking and smoking with two police men.

The conversations between best friends Seth and Evan are shocking, and usually taboo subjects, but it’s so shocking and disgusting that it’s actually hilarious! The banter between Seth and Fogall also set me off with a few giggles.

Even though the situations are taken to the extreme, because they are so relatable from our high school years, it makes it that bit funnier. I’ve watched this film thousands of times and it never gets old, and I admit, Seth Rogan’s laugh makes it that bit more special!

 The 40 Year Old Virgin

Yep, you could have guessed, comedy genius Steve Carrel had to be on this list somewhere, and the 40 year old virgin is definitely the one! The film consists of countless jokes that never get old. In fact, my experience is that the more it’s watched, the funnier it gets, as you notice even more funny things.

Although we might not like to admit it often, the majority of us love to let our inner child out now and again, and Andy, the ’40 year old virgin’ definitely doesn’t mind admitting it. Spending his time dancing and singing around the house and collecting some of his favourite collectable figures; well maybe we wouldn’t want to go to that extreme, but being able to relate to this, and watching someone else do it, well I couldn’t help but laugh.

The comedy through the film doesn’t come from the fact that he’s a 40 year old virgin; it comes from his immaturity,  lack of luck, and some of the most random, funny lines!

 

American Pie

We all know the high school stereotypes, and have probably even been classed in a certain social group because of the way we look, our intelligence, or our personality. .

In my opinion, the original was already too funny to beat, and unfortunately it the sequels without the original cast couldn’t live up to the comedy hit. What’s an American Pie without Jim and Stiffler?

If you’re unfamiliar to American Pie, it focuses on 5 main characters. In the first movie, four best friends make a pact to lose their virginity before graduation as they don’t want to go to college virgins, unlike 5^th character Steven Stiffler who has no problem with this, and is well known for being a player. The film then follows them as they face many challenges to complete their mission. We can relate to the teenage problems; the awkward conversations with your parents, trying to live up to the current high school expectations, high school crushes and peer pressure. Teenage virgin Jim’s innocence gets him into more trouble, as every time he tries to experiment because of a suggestion or remark by one of his friends, he always gets caught in the action. Whether it’s on the internet, or by his father, we do feel sorry for Jim, but it’s too funny not to laugh! 

I love how it shows the boys side of the story rather than the traditional tale of how it’s the girls that are pressurised virgins. In reality, we might not laugh, but this comedy sure knows how to do it’s job! Funnily enough I never looked at a warm apple pie in the same way again!

If you’re as much as an American Pie fan as I am, I’m sure you will be excited about the American Pie Reunion coming to cinemas soon. Subscribe to the blog to see the review I will be writing on it within the first few days of release!

Check out the trailer!

So that's my recommendations, what comedies would you recommend?

Disturbing Behaviour by The Horror Queen

Hi guys!
My name is Rachael, and I'm your resident Horror Chick. Here's a compliation for you of some of the most disturbing films I have watched and loved. Why not try your hand, in here you may find a hidden gem that could stick with you for life.



Switchblade Romance
A one-time watch here, but one that will burrow beneath your flesh and stay there for days. ‘Switchblade Romance’ is a French slasher flick that proves to be both hideously violent and extremely unsettling. Two college friends travel to the countryside to visit family like respectable young ladies, but are forced to fight a gruelling battle to escape the clutches of a ruthless and mysterious killer. The pace is brutally fast from the outset – this film sets up its characters and situation in just 20 minutes. Although ‘Switchblade Romance’ vividly depicts scenes of torture, developed around one friend’s desperation to save the other, its goriness doesn’t detract from its overall poignancy. It is a tale of survival against all the odds, and possesses an acute sense of reality at its heart, and with a real tense, ominous score the ensuing gorefest is all the more hard-hitting.

‘Switchblade Romance’ is a modern stalk ‘n’ slash film with real suspense and a few aces up its sleeve, and definitely brings something new to the horror genre. The violence in this movie is, at times, extremely hard to stomach (for example, when the killer axes someone in the chest, then has to pull, crunch and grind her bones around in order to work his weapon free) but shapes the finished piece into an unforgettably visceral, harrowing experience.

Just one look at the still beneath this heading will show you just how blood-splattered this film is. An exploration of sadism, masochism and the inner workings of Japan’s criminal underbelly, ‘Ichi the Killer’ (or ‘Koroshiya 1’ as you will sometimes see it packaged) is a deliriously inventive piece of ultra-violent, ultra-debauched cinema from one of the world’s leading cult horror directors, Takeshi Miike. Any of his films could have made this list, but I decided on ‘Ichi’ because it has considerable depth and intelligence without letting you drift in and out of its plot for the first half of the film (think ‘Audition’). ‘Ichi’ is absurd and funny without compromising any of its nightmarishly visceral sadistic atmosphere.

This film not only pushes at the boundaries of cinematic violence and depravity, it tears them to shreds with its nail-biting torture scenes, leaving even the most strong-stomached of us with our hands over our mouths. An interrogation scene shows boiling fat poured over a man suspended by his skin on meat hooks slicing their way slowly through the flesh on his back. But that doesn’t hold a candle to the psychotic violence that Ichi himself is capable of, he even splits one of his victims in two!

So, if you’re looking for dark humour, sadistic onscreen cruelty and some major shock tactics, ‘Ichi the Killer’ is most definitely one to watch.

Another unique factor about ‘Se7en’ is that it succeeds in keeping an audience several steps behind its story, and there is none of the predictability and blandness so often associated with horror/thrillers nowadays. Instead, ‘Se7en’ is well crafted, ingeniously misleading at times with some of the most subtle and disturbing imagery I have ever seen on film. It is undoubtedly one of the best films of the 90s, with perhaps ‘Silence of the Lambs’ as its only true competitor when it comes to creating an original, inventive psych-horror plot. ‘Se7en’ is a must-see that will string you up and drag you along the dirt road with it – and you won’t even think to complain.



Requiem for a Dream
Okay, so this isn’t a horror film, or a thriller, or even a suspense drama. But who cares? ‘Requiem’ goes to the top of this list for the simple fact that it is the single most disturbing film I have ever seen (and that includes ‘Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom’!). This movie does not offer viewers the conventional system of horror, no. Rather, with its raw, unadulterated humanity, it horrifies by penetrating deep into our emotional and psychological cores – by stripping that humanity away from its central characters bit by bit until they are left bereft of hope, empathy and life. This is the most realistic onscreen depiction of the terrifying, spiralling descent into inner-city drug addiction I have ever witnessed. There are scenes that disgust; shooting up into a gangrenous vein, arm amputations, scenes of a sexual nature involving a shocking double-headed sex toy, but director Darren Aronofsky has so much more to torment us with than that.

The most heart-wrenching, gut-churning aspect of the entire film is the story of the protagonist’s mother, Sara Goldfarb. In the loneliness of her waning years, she falls victim to the false promise of glamour that television throws out to the world, receives an invitation to appear on her favourite TV show and so desperately tries to improve her diet in order to fit into a red dress she hasn’t worn in years. She becomes addicted to diet pills, and throughout the course of the film we draw back to her, her all-encompassing loneliness and desperate desire to be admired, loved and useful again. Ellen Burstyn’s performance of this character is absolutely stellar and it brings this film down to a humble level where its poignant message transcends its cliché anti-drug purpose.
               
As a viewer, you have no choice but to share a certain sort of desperation to see Sara recover, to see her escape the clutches of desolation that addiction brings. And she’s not even the main character! No film I have ever seen has connected audience to character as thoroughly and successfully as ‘Requiem’. Of all the horrifying events portrayed in this movie, it is the exploration of the total dilapidation of the soul that can come hand in hand with old age that is the most harrowing, most troublesome, and will never allow you to forge what you have seen onscreen.
 

Se7en
David Fincher’s 1995 suspense drama masterpiece may not be a conventional choice for a list like this; it’s not a horror film as such (though some of the prosthetics and make-up artists might have you believing otherwise), but the mechanics of this psychological onslaught will have you recoiling in your seat. Even the opening scenes fill you with a taut thread of tension, with Fincher’s depiction of the desolate, almost derelict streets. Unlike the vast majority of more recent Hollywood offerings, ‘Se7en’ does not stray from its focus – two detectives desperately searching for a killer who, inspired by the seven deadly sins of Dante Alighieri’s ‘The Divine Comedy’, turns the everyday sins of his victims against them. This film is incredibly striking and unique, constantly drawing an audience in to become captivated and thoroughly entertained by the plot unfolding around them – a perfect vessel for the shocking, uncompromising vision of its director.



Halloween by The Make up Wizz Chick

Halloween – Restored DVD version

Directed by: John Carpenter

Written by: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J.Soles and Nancy Loomis

Before I give my opinion of the movie, I want to explain the intentions behind watching it, for this might be the reason why I didn’t find it as fantastic as the credit it had been given. Halloween came highly recommended. I wanted to watch a movie that would make my legs tingle with fear as I cowardly hid behind a cushion (not a hard feat for me – a girl who watched Silence of the Lambs with every sharp kitchen utensil I could find placed next to me in order of practicality and brutality – I rather favoured the bread knife). I wanted gore, a visual display of crimson and bone – slightly disturbing, I admit, but I harbour an interest in makeup and recreating realistic scenes which enraptured an audience so much no one paused to think it was created with hours of intricate talent.

Halloween was advised by a few people, all repeating what seemed to become a tantra “an original horror movie”. This was accompanied with wide eyes and apparently needed no further explanation. Ignorantly I thought of The Shinning – a fantastically intriguing, gripping and twitching horror which had my knuckles stark white gripping the spatula.