Past Programs
Family Audience - 2008
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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
11/09/2008
Jet Li is an ancient Emperor, resurrected into the 1940s and hell-bent on world domination. Standing in his way are the O'Conells: husband and wife adventurers played by Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello, their son (Luke Ford) and a white witch (Michelle Yeoh). The film's a series of spectacular set pieces taking us from a noirish neon Shanghai to the Himalayas and the Great Wall -- combining action with a healthy vein of tongue-in-cheek humour. Not groundbreaking, but good fun.
Mamma Mia
10/07/2008
Even though I knew Meryl Streep was the star of Mamma Mia, I was still afraid I was in for a puppy love melodrama -- with precociously talented musical theatre kids belting out the Abba back catalogue with all the overkill of an American Idol contestant. After all, the premise centres on Meryl's character's daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried, who is probably talented enough to win American Idol). Sophie's getting married and wants her dad to walk her down the aisle but the problem is she's never met him, doesn't know who he is and her mum won't tell her. For a 20-year-old bride to be, it's like, so unfair.
But, happily, this film isn't really about her. When Sophie finds her mum's diary, in which she reads about three old flames, all of whom might be her father, she invites them to the wedding without telling anyone. They turn up, and mum goes nuts. A Pandora's box of emotions springs open. Abba's effervescent chartbusters provide the soundtrack.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out I'm a big fan of Abba; their records were the backdrop to my childhood in the 70s. I'd also like to say up front there are faults in this film. It's often clunky; with so many tunes to pack in to a story, the placement of some songs is a little arbitrary -- and when they are unleashed, the singing slips and slides in quality, something I'll talk about more in a moment. The film's setting -- Meryl runs a small, dilapidated hotel on a remote Greek island -- feels like exotic wallpaper, and the plot swims all over the place chronologically. When Meryl's character reminisces about her loves from 20 years ago, the film references everything from flower power to punk. But if you think too hard about all of this, you'll be missing the point.
Mamma Mia transcends these faults. It takes us into a slipstream of strong, simple emotions that carry us along with great force.
Phillyda Lloyd directed this on stage, and here in her first screen outing she and her crew get a number of things right. The excellent production design stands out from the beginning; an island paradise of bright summer colours: saturated reds and blues, berry tans and white washed walls. There's good use of slow motion to stretch time, to linger on moments in choreographed set pieces that feel sublime. And there's the singing...the actors here do it themselves and they don't do it perfectly, but Streep in particular packs such emotion into her voice, it's better than perfect. This is the opposite of a film like Hairspray, with its precise, note-perfect musicality. Mamma Mia in contrast is like the most exhilarating karaoke. This couldn't have worked unless everyone was having fun, and here, they are.
I want to tell you more about Streep, the way she cavorts, skips, writhes, laughs and cries through this film. There's a frank intimacy between her and the lens that disarms and seduces. This is a middle-aged woman rediscovering long-buried emotions, heady feelings from her youth. In some scenes she's like a starlet in a Busby Berkley musical, only she's fiftysomething, and she's wearing dungarees. Alongside her are two mad, up for it mates, Tanya and Rosie (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters respectively). In some scenes they reminded me of the Sex and the City girls, but here there's more raunch, camp, sensuality and fun. Meanwhile the blokes (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård) acquit themselves well, even though they're the worst of the singers and dancers. Somehow, that works in their favour.
Mamma Mia will attract the baby boomers, and their children, in their droves. But it's not empty nostalgia, its portrayal of love and friendship is more positive than that. To coin a cliché, it celebrates being young at heart.
It doesn't shock and awe us with ideals of human beauty, it invites us in with imperfection we recognise, and rewards us with a transcendence we dream of. Joy and passion drip from every sun-drenched, sparkling frame. Simply put, it's a fantasy of how we wish life could be.
Meet Dave
10/07/2008
A sci-fi comedy starring Eddie Murphy as an alien space ship commander on a mission to recover a sacred orb that's fallen to earth. He belongs to a very small race of aliens and the space ship - 'Dave' - is in fact a human size reproduction of himself.
Dave finds the orb in the possession of a boy in New York (Austyn Myers) and befriends his mother, Gina, played by Elizabeth Banks, who can't quite put her finger on that far away look in his eyes. What develops is a strange love triangle as the captain, who controls Dave with a crew of hundreds like it's the Starship Enterprise, divides his attentions between the earthwoman and his second in command Janessa (Gabrielle Union). Meanwhile, crew discipline is suffering from the insidious effects of Earth food, fun and drink - and a hardocre group are planning a mutiny. A very rickety premise that might work well for children, but not for adults or older teens.
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
05/06/2008
The Pevensie four -- English siblings from the Blitz Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) -- find themselves back in the magical kingdom of Narnia in this second instalment of the CS Lewis saga. But things have changed. Hundreds of years have past and the place has fallen into ruin, overrun by the evil Telmarines.
Soon they're aware of what they must do to renew their old stomping ground: help the young Prince Caspian to overthrow his evil uncle, the Telmarine King Miraz. And they can only do it if they round up an army of all their old allies and friends; talking badgers, minatours, magical trees...oh and then there's the talking lion Alsan. If only they could find him.
New Zealand director Andrew Adamson made the first two Shrek movies before he embarked on the Chronicles of Narnia, and he's made the transition to live action very well. He blends CGI effects with real actors nicely and the art direction, if nothing really groundbreaking, conjures craggy castles, dungeons and mystical forests as well as any other movie in the genre. The children are the main problem -- a little wooden, even worse than Harry and Co, but the adults make up for them, notably Sergio Castellito as Mazir the Horrible.
You either like school kids waving swords and talking to special magic friends, or you don't. For fans of the genre, it's good news. This film hits the right notes.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
22/05/2008
Nim's Island
10/04/2008
This is a children's adventure story starring Abigal Breslin as a very confident young girl who lives on a South Pacific island with her scientist dad, and a lizard, a pelican and a sea lion for company.
They're not Robinson Crusoeing it -- they have internet and email. But when Dad goes off sailing for a few days to try to capture a rare bit of microscopic marine life, he's caught in a tropical monsoon, his yacht is demasted, and he's in trouble. Back on the island, Nim manages to get an email out to a swashbucking writer of adventure yarns, Alex Rover, who has been emailing her dad with questions about volcanoes.
But Alex is actually Alexandra (Jodie Foster) and she's a completely neurotic, agoraphobic writer too scared to step out her front door. Somehow she has to get to Nim. It's an interesting thing about Jodie Foster: so many of the projects this highly intelligent, former child star has taken on as an actor or producer are about overcoming fears.
Just think: The Silence of the Lambs, The Panic Room. This film has the same message. It's a good message for kids, I just wish the film had been directed without being so heavy handed.
Still, it's more interesting entertainment than most of the computer generated, monster-infested fare out there right now for children.
Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger
20/03/2008
A coming-of-age black comedy set in Adelaide about a 13-year-old Jewish nerd (Danielle Catanzariti) who experiences life beyond her exclusive private school cocoon when she befriends a rebel from a state school (Keisha Castle-Hughes) with a motorbike-riding mum (Toni Collette). This is in the mould of the sharpest American films about teens, like Rushmore or Heathers, but falls short. Esther's up-tight family -- replete with tense, stuffy meals, a brittle mother and a family shrink -- plays more like a cliche of middle class dysfunction than insightful satire. Even on a surface level the camera and art direction are overwhelmingly dull, taking away from Catanzariti's solid central performance. There's more verve in the title than the whole film.
Meet Dave
10/03/2008
A sci-fi comedy starring Eddie Murphy as an alien space ship commander on a mission to recover a sacred orb that's fallen to earth. He belongs to a very small race of aliens and the space ship, 'Dave', is in fact a life size reproduction of himself.
When Dave finds the orb in the possession of a boy in New York (Austyn Myers), he becomes friends with the mother (Elizabeth Banks) who can't quite put her finger on that far away look. Meanwhile, Dave's experiences of life on Earth have a disruptive effect on crew discipline, and a group of hardliners plan a coup to restore order. A very rickety premise that might work for children, but isn't funny enough for adults.
