MOVIES NOVEMBER 2001 AUSTRALIA 

 

 

1 NOVEMBER

Glitter (M) National. Col Tristar. Mariah Carey, Eric Benét, Kyle Thrash, Chris Tessaro.  This is the story of a young singer, Billie Frank (Carey), who overcomes a turbulent childhood and struggles to find her true family and her true voice. Billie is discovered by Julian Dice, a charismatic, irresistible "bad boy" deejay who soon becomes her partner, producer and lover. With Dice, she begins an exciting but often volatile and precarious journey as she struggles through both her personal and professional life, riding the roller coaster to superstardom.  Somewhat based on the lead's own life, this is a hard hitting enjoyable quasi biographical epic if you've had a lobotomy.  

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (MA): Selected. Roadshow. Drama. John Cameron Mitchell, Michael Pitt, Miriam Shor, Stephen Trask, Theodore Liscinski. A drag queen from East Berlin tours the US with her rock band. Based on a popular play, its not actually going to appeal to all.  Great title though, as individual as the film is. 

One Night At McCools (MA): Selected. UIP. Comedy. Liv Tyler, Michael Douglas, Matt Dillon, John Goodman, Paul Reiser, Andrew Dice Clay.  Bar McCools is the landscape- attempted rape leads to murder, from there seduction. Every man has a different recollection of the beautiful young woman who wreaked havoc on their lives during one heated night.  Quirky comedy that's not for everyone. 

Shackelton's Antarctic Adventure (G) Documentary. IMAX. Narrator- Kevin Spacey. 

The Taste Of Others (M): Selected: Melb. Syd Nov 15. Palace. Anne Alvaro, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Brigitte Catillon, Alain Chabat, Agnès Jaoui. France. *subtitled*  Three men, three women, opposites, possibilities, and tastes. Castella owns a trucking company in Rouen; Bruno is his flute-playing driver, Franck is his temporary bodyguard while he negotiates a contract with Iranians, his wife Béatrice does frou-frou interior decorating and loves her dog. Ok.  That synopsis is the worst sounding movie I've every fucking heard, but these films only play on like one screen anyways so it doesn't matter.  "The Taste of Others" bloody hell I just hope the dog wasn't involved.  
Town and Country (M): National. Roadshow. Comedy. Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Garry Shandling, Andie McDowell, Charton Heston, Josh Hartnett, Jenna Elfman, Nastassja Kinski. New York set ensemble comedy flick, the biggest flop ever after Cutthroat Island. Made for some US$90 million, its been edited, editing and then edited some more. Test audiences just don't like it, and it flopped on its US release. What the hell? How did they spend so much on this? I can't see how they did.. if it was for the overrated, overinflated and overexposed actors I bloody hope not.    

Zoolander (M): National. Roadshow. Comedy. Ben Stiller, Milla Jovovich, Owen Wilson, Matt Levin, Will Ferrell, David Pressman. The fashion industry hires an male supermodel who's on his way out, to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia because he wishes to raise the minimum wage. Most of the word about this flick has been negative so far.. but it is Stiller, and the trailer is actually pretty funny in my opinion.  Directed by Stiller, and no nasty WTC (been digitally removed).

 

  

7 NOVEMBER 

Funny Girl (G): Selected. Sydney only. 7th- 14th.  Hayden Orpheum.  Barbara Streisand, Omar Sharif. Re-release.  

 

 

8 NOVEMBER

One Night The Moon (MA): Selected: Newtown, Syd Opera Quays, Melb Kino, Brisb. Dendy. Musical. Paul Kelly, Kaarin Fairfax, Kelton Pell, David Field, Chris Haywood, Ruby Hunter, Memphis Kelly. Australian musical- only 55 mins. Based on the true story of a young girl who went missing in the Australian outback in 1932.  Are they still looking? 

The Others (M): National. Buena Vista Int. Horror. Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan, Elaine Cassidy. At the end of WWII in a large house in England, a mother comes to realise that the comments of her children and the help about visions of other ghostly occupants is indeed true. Nikkers chance for an Oscar, if the Moulin Rouge team don't push too hard too.  Directed by some cheekily talented 20-something import from Europe. 

Raging Bull (M): Selected. Brisbane. Drama. B&W. 1980 re-release. 129 mins.  Robert De Nero, Cathy Moriary, Joe Pesci. Famously classic Martin Scorsese flick, based on the life of heavyweight boxing champion Jake La Mota.  Watch out for those 25kgs De Nero added for the role!  

 

  

15 NOVEMBER 

Apocalypse Now Redux (R): Selected. UIP. Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall. Re-release of the classic. Captain Willard (Sheen), whose mission is "Terminate with extreme prejudice", receives orders to seek out a renegade military outpost led by a mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Brando) during the Vietnam war.  "I love the smell of naypalm in the morning" "Dur na blaah naaa poos ga" (Brando).  A stupidly fantastic movie, filled with personalties on the edge.  By all rights it should be a pile of crap, but believe me its not.  The troubles this film had in production cannot be understated. Apparently Copolla shot so much material, that this version is completely different ! 

Baby Boy (M): Selected. Col Tristar. Thriller. Tyrese, Taraji P.Henson, Omar Gooding, Tamara LaSeon Bass, Candy Ann Brown.  New crime thriller from John Singleton, Higher Learning etc. This is the story of Jody (Gibson), an unemployed young black man, who's been living with his mother for several years, even though he's got a child of his own. Romantically, he's having relationships with two women: the mother, Yvette (Henson) of his son, and a new interest.  In a break from stereotype (hopefully) more interesting stories can emerge from the black US culture. Bloody hell, I've turned all PC and pretentious.  And just lost the three visitors we had. Oh well.  

Brother (R): Selected, Newtown, Brisbane, Melbourne. Dendy/ New Vision. Takeshi Kitano, Kuroudo Maki, Omar Epps, Masaya Kato, Ren Osugi. USA/ Japan. *subtitled* Brother is the story of a displaced yakuza gangster (played by Kitano), whose crime family is annihilated in a Tokyo gang war, and who flies to LA in search of his brother. Stranded in an unfamiliar culture, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young hustler (Epps), as they engage a violent struggle to take over the down-town LA drug turf. He ain't heavy... 

Invisible Circus (M): Selected, VIC/ SA/ WA. Nov 29- NSW/ QLD.  Roadshow. Drama. Cameron Diaz, Kathy Baker, Christopher Eccleston.  Little known independent flick, probably not about a circus that's invisible.. more likely its some sort of metaphor.  

Me You Them (M): Selected: Melbourne only. Brazil.  Col Tristar. Regina Casé, Lima Duarte, Stênio Garcia, Luiz Carlos Vanconcelos A true story that comically depicts the relationship between an ordinary woman and her three husbands, who live in the same house in a poor and arid small village of the Brazilian northeast. Three? Hmmm I could make several jokes here but I've been restrained by several court orders, due to the fact they simply weren't funny.  

My Khmer Heart (M): Selected, Syd & Melb. Dendy. Drama. Subtitled. Australia. Documentary: written, directed and co-produced by Walkley award-winning journalist Janine Hosking & co-producer Leonie Lowe. About a woman who decides to look after 60 orphaned Cambodian kids.  

Rock Star (M): National. Roadshow. Music/ Comedy. Mark Walhberg, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Williams, Deborah Leydig. The lead singer of a tribute band becomes the lead of the band he idolises. "We're Cyanide, a loving tribute to poison.".  Chris Cole (Walhberg) loves rock, particularly Steel Dragon, heavy metal legends.  But as Pennsylvania's best SD tribute band he's got some ways to go, despite being quite a decent facsimile he gets dropped from the band.  Bummer- until he gets a call to replace the real Bobby Bears in the real Steel Dragon! So he goes instantly from fan to rock god, and finds its not all he hoped.  

Training Day (MA): National. Advance screenings from 9th Nov.  Released March 2002. Thriller. Roadshow. Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Eva Mendes, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tom Berenger. Top looking thriller in which Washington plays the bad guy for once.  Washington is the veteran cop who shows rookie Hawke how its done, but Hawke isn't so easily corrupted.

Vengo (M): Selected: Sydney/ Melb. Potential. Stars: Antonio Canales, Orestes Villasan Rodriguez, Antonio Perez Dechent.  From France/ Germany/ Japan/ Spain./  Directed by Tony Gatlif.  Concludes Gatlif's trilogy of gypsy films- about Spanish Flamenco. Subtitled.  

 

 

 

22 NOVEMBER

The Deep End (MA): Selected. Fox. Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Johnathan Tucker, Raymond Barry, Josh Lucas. With her husband perpetually away at work, a mother raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop? Why is there so many questions being asked that aren't going to be answered in the movie?

The Last Castle (M): Selected. UIP. Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Burton, George Scott.  A wrongfully Court Martialled general rallies together 1200 inmates to rise against the system that put him away.  Top thriller action, top notch cast and top if I stop writing top.  

Riding in Cars With Boys (M): National. Columbia Tristar.  Drama.  Drew Barrymore, Steve Zahn, Sara Gilbert. Driving around with - you guessed it - boys. A single mother dreams of becoming a writer. Based on a true story.  Apparently the depicts teen pregnancy as something that's not exactly worth aspiring to, this is Barrymore's first dramatic role since... ET? 

Shadow Magic (PG): Limited. Col Tristar. Jared Harris, Yu Xia, Yufei Xing, Peiqi Liu, Liping Lu *subtitled*. China. Its Shadow. Its Magic. Based on a true story, exploring the introduction of cinema to imperialist Peking.  

What's The Worst That Could Happen? (M): National. Fox. Comedy. Danny De Vito, Martin Lawrence, John Leguizamo, Glenne Headly, William Fichtner. The worst that could happen is that this apparent miss-fire will tank like it did in the U.S.? Yes!  One or two hits and MGM is still finding it hard to find its feet again.  Looks to be just another unoriginal and not really funny comedy.  What's the matter with you people? Pie in the face! Fall over! Thief Kevin Caffery attempts to rob from the home of rich businessman Max Fairbanks. But Fairbanks catches him and steals his cherished ring that his girlfriend gave him. Caffery is then bent on revenge and getting his ring back with the help of his partners.

 

 

29 NOVEMBER 

The Claim (M): Selected, Sydney/ Melbourne/ Brisbane/ Newtown. Dendy. Canandian/ UK.  Wes Bentley, Milla Jovovich, Sara Polley. Directed by Michael Winterbottom. A prospector sells his wife and daughter to another gold miner for the rights to a gold mine. Twenty years later, the prospector (Peter Mullan) is a wealthy man who owns much of the old west town named Kingdom Come. But changes are brewing and his past is coming back to haunt him. A surveyor (Wes Bentley) and his crew scouts the town as a location for a new railroad line and a young woman (Milla Jovovich) suddenly appears in the town and is evidently the man's daughter.

Crazy/Beautiful (M): National. Buena Vista Int. Drama. Kirsten Dunst, Jay Hernandez, Bruce Davison, Herman Osorio, Miguel Castro. A guy from the wrong side of tracks falls for a girl from pretentionville. She's Crazy! She's Beautiful! She's Kirsten Dunst in hopefully a move away from those pathetic teen flicks she's always in. Also, hopefully some of the cut sex scenes will appear on my computer screen before long (purely in the interests of furthering the dramatic possibilities of the film).  

Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone (PG): National. Roadshow. Fantasy. Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliffe, Robbie Coltrane, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith. The adaptation of Rowling's uber successful children's book. Will the sequel go into production even before this one is released?  Will anyone still be interested in Harry Potter, or will Bob The Builder have his own big-screen movie by then? Known as Sorcerers Stone in the US.

The Princess And The Warrior (M): Selected, Syd/ Melb. Columbia. Drama. Franka Potente, Benno Furmann, Joachim Król  Director: Tom Tykwer  *Subtitled*. Germany. Young nurse Sissi lives a secluded life, seemingly entirely devoted to her patients at Birkenhof asylum. Her first encounter with ex-soldier and drifter Bodo has a lasting impact. He causes an accident that results in her lying under a truck, unable to breathe. While he provides life-saving first aid, mesmerized Sissi begins to wonder whether he may be the man of her dreams. But when she tracks him down weeks later her affection is rejected, as Bodo is stuck somewhere between a traumatic past and a criminal future. From the director of Run Lola Run.

The Score (MA): National. Roadshow. Ed Norton, Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Angela Basset, Gary Farmer, Jamie Harrold.  An ensemble three generational cast. A professional criminal teams up with a talented young thief to pull off a job that will mean he won't have to work again. But who will double cross who? Hopefully behind the scenes cast and crew clashes won't translate into a mess of a movie.  Directed by Miss Piggy, I mean Frank Oz.  Edward Norton re-wrote the script, like he did on about every other film he's ever worked on (and a great deal few of films he's just visited, and its rumoured once he re-wrote a film he was watching.)  

There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (M): Selected: Syd/ Melb.  Sharmil Films. Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone, Gina McKee. UK.