The Simpsons Movie

Everybody loves the Simpsons! Well, they did ten years ago. With episodes getting steadily more slapstick and stupid, the show has been going downhill since about season nine, the adult satire and knowing subtlety drifting away in a tide of obvious sight gags.

Remember when Homer used to say D’oh, and you’d really feel it? Remember when Maggie sucking her dummy didn’t sound like re-used stock footage? Apparently the old writers do, and thank god they’re back on board for the film.

I expected a lot less from the film. It should have been made in the show’s heyday, not in its sad decline, and the fact that it’s passable at all is a relief. But it’s more than that. Apart from a plotline that’s a bit like the time Mr Burns blocked out the sun, The Simpson Movie is a real delight, though it may not deserve all the hype that’s pushed it to the big screen.

Going with the currently-popular global warming debate as its central satire, the Movie is full of all the things that made the Simpsons great. Weird subplots involving a pig, Flanders' parenting, and Alaska all pop into play, without any of the disjointed chaos typical of later episodes. Once again, we care about the family, their neighbours, their friends and enemies. There are laughs to be had, new jokes and situations to explore. Befitting the big screen, the humour is altogether more adult, with gay jokes, nudity, and a truly weird sex scene.

It may not be as funny on DVD, admittedly. The sensation of a packed-out, laughing audience does give the jokes extra gravitas, but to paraphrase Homer, why did you pay to see something you can see for free on TV?

Because it’s damn worth it.

Lucky Miles

Everyone’s been giving it rave reviews. You kind of have to, otherwise you’ll be branded uncool, or too right-wing, or racist.

But Lucky Miles is not that good.

It’s got its moments, and fair play to them because they’re truly memorable and outstanding, but this apparent comedy about boat people pulling together to make a go of it lags from beginning to end.

Made on a nothing budget over seven years by Michael James Rowland and all his ethnically varied friends, it tells the long and drawn-out tale of a bunch of boat people – Iraqis and Cambodians – the fishermen that drive the boat, and the army reservist unit tracking a mismatched group of them across the Western Australian desert.

It’s supposed to be a comedy, but it’s only occasionally funny. The actors are wonderful, wringing every shred of sentiment they can out of what is, essentially, an Aussie buddy movie with blokes that don’t happen to be ocker white boys for a change. Our two refugee blokes, Cambodian Arun (Kenneth Moraleda) and Yousif (Rodney Afif) bring real weight to their roles, and the exploits of reject fisherman Ramelan (Sri Sacdpraseuth) and our gang of Aussie misfits are entertaining while they’re onscreen.

But all the entertainment and emotion is squashed into about ten minutes of the movie. Tops.

The rest is just a bunch of blokes walking across a desert.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

The new Harry Potter movie is good… but not that good.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the latest merchandising juggernaut from Ms JK Rowling: money-making queen of Britain. Coming a year and a half after what was arguably the best film in the series (Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire), it’s got a lot to live up to, and doesn’t quite manage it.

It’s very good, as Potter films go. Certainly David Yates film reaches the usual quota for ‘dark and mature’, which is why the first two films (aka the Christopher Columbus films) never get any fanfare, but it all seems a bit flat and superficial.

Usual story: Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) bad. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) good. Conspiracy. Showdown. But the main problem is that some of the charm of the book seems to have gotten lost along the way. There are some great moments. A classroom fireworks display is wonderful, and Imelda Staunton inhabits her role as sugar-coated-evil Professor Umbridge, not to mention the brilliantly creepy Final Showdown. But the CGI is fake-looking, the characters spend far too much time doing not much of anything, the titular 'Order' is hardly ever in it, and they seem to have picked all the wrong parts of the book to highlight.

It will leave Potter fans unsettled over the disservice done to a great book series, and non-fans scratching their heads, wondering where the narrative went.

Sadly enough, this instalment seems to be without magic.

The Fountain

I didn’t review this one when I saw it on its initial release. Why? I simply didn’t know what I thought of it. I knew I liked it, I knew it intrigued me, but I couldn’t quite articulate it into words. All I knew was that I had to buy the DVD.

Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain is not for those who get frustrated with abstraction and pin their hopes on a linear narrative that lays it all out for you. It’s anything but that, and will probably gain its cult following when people turn to each other and say: “watch this, and explain it to me”.

In essence, it’s three stories linked by Hugh Jackman’s character Tom, taking place in three timelines set over the course of one thousand years. In the past, he’s a conquistador working for the Spanish queen; in the present he’s a surgeon searching for the cure to cancer; in the future he’s a bald new-agey bloke floating up to the stars in a bubble. But all three Toms are searching for the secret of eternal life, to benefit his wife (and occasional queen, cancer patient or ghost) Izzi (Rachel ‘Mrs Aronofsky’ Weisz).

Um. Yeah.

The story twists and turns, doubling back on itself and combining the three vignettes in a way that, while obscure, is also wonderingly beautiful and possesses an innate simplicity. Colour and light combine to give scenes a genuine ambience, and the dialogue and storytelling (especially with present Tom) is emotionally affecting enough to bring a tear to your eye.

At its core it’s about life and death, and the true meaning of eternity. Punctuated with Mexican legends, dying trees, and one very special book, Aronofsky has woven something that seems like a dream. Beautiful, emotional, colourful, yet ultimately bewildering.

Really, it’s no surprise that this tanked at the increasingly dumbed-down, blockbuster-riddled box office, leaving Warner Brothers to give it a pitiful DVD release with no commentary or extras. And while it’s been out for months in the USA, you won’t yet find it in Australian stores, and may not for awhile yet.

But order it. See it. Give it to your friend. Ask them what they think.

And watch your mind explode.

Burke & Wills

My review for Burke and Wills is currently published in FourThousand magazine. Subscribe and check it out!

Transformers

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an impossible, amazing announcement to make. One that will shatter your mind into tiny, disbelieving pieces.

Michael Bay has made a movie that doesn’t suck.

I know, I know. It’s crazy! But after a career replete with MTV-action mediocrity (The Island, Armageddon, Pearl Harbour), Michael Bay has hit on a winner. It’s about robots… robots in disguise.

Based on the successful Hasbro toy franchise, animated series, comic books, animated film… yeah, you get the idea, the Transformers are given a new lease on life in their first big-screen live-action outing.

It’s big dumb fun. That was never in doubt. This is, after all, a Michael Bay film. It’s full of fast-edit fight sequences, syrupy emotional bits, and the usual crap about how ordinary people can find inner strength and save the world blah blah blah

But despite and maybe because of all the chaos and running about, the film triumphs. The machines have been overhauled from their original incarnations, looking bigger, shinier and more streamlined than ever. There’s nothing to fault as far as special effects go: frankly, they’re mindblowing. And the characters they do bother to put emphasis on - Shia LeBeouf’s (Holes, Disturbia) reluctant hero for example - are genuine enough and believably heartfelt, even if minor characters fall by the wayside

The balance is perfect. Michael Bay has managed to imbue real heart into his characters – we do actually care what happens to them, even the robotic ones. There are moments of comedy (wait until you see what the Mountain Dew vending machine does). And the action is spectacular.

But we’re all here to see the machines, aren’t we? There’s a plot, yes. Something about a magic cube and a pair of reading glasses in the Antarctic. But who cares? As the Autobots duke it out with the Decepticons, we’re transported to a world where god is Optimus Prime, the devil is Megatron, and a stereo can be more than meets the eye.

A must-see for all the eighties kids who remember a simpler time, and for a new generation of human children.