Author: Mark Goodyear

Day to day every person you see has a story you will likely never hear. It is one of the only facts that unites everyone in the world; we each have a past, a present and a future. Hearing those stories and forcing out the expression of an individual’s soul by placing them in an inescapable situation is a concept utilised by many filmmakers. The idea that connections can spark out of nothing is appealing in its absurdity and often its sincere and heartfelt emotional base. Michael Berry’s Stuck is one such film in this vein, but with a twist, it’s a musical. 

Stuck sees 6 individuals each from a different walk of life aptly stuck on a train together. When the time comes, each of them expresses their own stories through musical numbers that flesh out and form bonds between each of them. Insight is the core of this film, they all lack it in every conversation they try to start up, but they quickly come to learn and gain new perspective. 

Stuck is a flawed film, one that never gets over the boundary it sets itself by isolating the characters on a train. There is a sense of predictability throughout, and Berry never overcomes that. This set up always seems to end the same way when it is in the drama genre, all these characters, most of whom have nothing in common, somehow manage to come out of their situation as friends or acquaintances despite being at each other’s throats moments earlier. Stuck is guilty of this and much more, and yet, as the credits rolled, there was a small sense of emotional satisfaction from what I had just seen.

A lot of what Stuck has to say is unsubstantial, particularly anytime it delves into political discourse. No resolutions come from their arguments because the only problem-solving in this movie comes in song form, and this becomes tedious after it happens repeatedly. The basic rundown of each scenario is that one person will say something needlessly offensive to another person, and not long after, that person will break into a song explaining their circumstances. Most of the songs fail to articulate any form of advanced thinking that justifies having the discussion, it is all very basic takes other films are have discussed in better ways. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed any of the songs either, none of them are bad, but it lacked a truly memorable song which leaves it far and away from the recent critically acclaimed musicals that will replay in your head for days. 

However, there is one glimpse of brilliance in Stuck. The character Sue (Amy Madigan) is a mother who has recently lost her son to cancer. When this revelation occurs, it is impossible not to feel incredibly sad for this woman. The editing during the song she sings about losing him is tragically sad. What this film manages to say about loss outshines every other topic they attempted to discuss. This sequence is when Berry fully realises what Stuck is all about, you can never know someone’s circumstances just by looking at them, and sometimes those circumstances had nothing to do with your own decisions. If every other inter-character argument had garnered this level of poignancy Stuck could have been a truly memorable experience. Instead, it leaves us wanting by making its façade all too easy to see through. 

The performances are all strong enough to get by. The flow hampers any of them from really getting going though. In reality, these people likely would have sat in silence on their phones while stuck on the train, and it is impossible not to cringe when the characters randomly strike up conversations no one would ever want to have. Giancarlo Esposito is a standout none the less, he certainly generates the most passion and drive for the film, and that is an asset that was desperately needed. Outside of that, there is a lack of chemistry between the performers because everything moves too fast. 

Stuck is an admirable attempt to shine new light on ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ but it misses the mark. There are sparks of intrigue and even insight to be found but on the whole Stuck fails to forge convincing relationships and as such struggles to be convincing in what it is trying to say.

Colonialism has been the cause of a level of suffering that is indescribable. Through its spread, the depths of human cruelty shone darker than ever. However, in that darkness, there was still light, the purity of human kindness. It came in the form of the few brave enough to stand in solidarity with those they were told to hate. Those that in the hell on earth they found themselves in, felt that they could connect to something so foreign to them. The Nightingale is an intense and impactful depiction of how the light that shines in the dark is everything we should aim to be today.

Set in Tasmania, Australia during the attempted genocide of the Aboriginal people in 1825, Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale follows Clare (Aisling Franciosi) and Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), two damaged souls brought together by the cruelty of British soldiers. Clare is an Irish convict not being allowed out of her servitude, who goes through immense pain at the start of the film and hires Billy, an aboriginal tracker, to help her hunt the men responsible. Those men being Hawkins (Sam Claflin), Jago (Harry Greenwood) and Ruse (Damon Herriman), a trio of British military travelling north through almost entirely undeveloped Tasmanian woodlands.

The Nightingale is very much two distinct experiences at the same time and the first is rage. This is a bleak film; it tears you down unforgivingly to get its point across. There is very little sunlight in the world Kent places us in. Instead, we are subject to constant grey skies or the terror that awaits us in nightfall. The Nightingale is not a horror film in the traditional sense, but throughout there is plenty of graphic violence. So much so that it is as if Kent herself is yelling at the camera urging us to recognise that this really happened. When night does fall, apparitions haunt Clare’s dreams, forcing her to confront the demons the world thrust upon her. In these moments, there is no light, it is an angry and cold condemnation; a reminder to never forget, or drift back to, the terrible actions of the past.

The second experience is that of hope. Clare and Billy grow closer as they travel together. Their shared persecution unites them in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. Seeing something so unlikely blossom in the harshest of realities is what makes The Nightingale a piece of tragic beauty. There is something so raw and powerful about seeing Clare do something as simple as standing up and lying down closer to Billy. In this period, that is an impossible image, and yet Kent has managed to make it viscerally real and captivating. The way the film contrasts itself with these two experiences makes The Nightingale essential viewing for Australian moviegoers especially. If not for a timely reminder of the tragic past of our nation, then for an authoritative lesson in empathy.

Filling this world with its characters was never going to be an easy task. The vast majority of them are vile men, lurking in the most unlikely of places, ready to deliver more torment to the leading pair. The most important of these comes from an unexpected source, Hunger Games alum Sam Claflin. As Hawkins, Claflin is deranged, he snaps at the click of a finger and is ruled only by anger.

It is an exceptional performance, one firmly based in Kent’s vicious reality. Franciosi is also spectacular. She is a force of nature from beginning to end. Every time Kent returns to the close-up motif of Clare’s face the image is just that little bit more cracked. The emotional strain of playing such a character would have been monumental, but she has undertaken it with apparent dedication and respect for the vision and is well-deserving of praise.

I was fortunate enough to get to hear Jennifer Kent, Baykali Ganambarr and producer Kristina Ceyton talk about the film after seeing it. It was there that I found out that this was Ganambarr’s first acting role. I was instantly taken aback. To think that a film of this nature would place so much into the hands of someone so inexperienced, and then to think that the man could pull it off so well that I assumed he had plenty of prior work behind him. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the finest acting debuts of all time, certainly for an Australian. It takes so much courage to dedicate yourself to representing the struggle of your people to hundreds of thousands of people.

Ganambarr doesn’t just do that; he exemplifies their connection to the land and the creatures that inhabit it, all the while keeping alight the flame of a culture that colonialism tried so hard to eliminate. I say without a shadow of a doubt that he will be an AACTA (The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards) nominee, and at this stage, he’s a clear winner.

The Nightingale sits and gnaws at you, it begs you to listen to its plea, it horrifies you, and it reminds you that if we all approach life with a hint of empathy, we can all be better people and live in a better world. Jennifer Kent has made a movie that needs to be seen and respected, even if we don’t want to look.

Friendships that survive the test of time are always intriguing to see on the silver screen. Particular forms of drama can only be generated appropriately between characters who have known each other for a long time, and that is what is worth watching when done well. Even more so when said friends are reuniting in a picturesque Australian holiday destination. That is what Rebecca Ward’s “Palm Beach” pitches to us. 

Set in Sydney’s beach of the same name Palm Beach sees old bandmates Billy (Richard E. Grant) and Leo (Sam Neill) flown over to visit their old band manager Frank (Bryan Brown) and his wife Charlotte (Greta Scacchi) for his birthday. Their wives Eva (Heather Mitchell) and Bridget (Jacqueline McKenzie) round out the 6-person group with a lifetime’s worth of friendship.  

Having lost their lead singer years earlier the band never managed to take off and was left with only one minor hit. Over the years, their failure to become famous artists and an ancient love triangle of sorts leads to drama fizzing below the surface of their affluent well to do lives. 

Palm Beach on paper shouldn’t be as fun as it turns out to be. Relating to these characters in this setting is no easy task. None of them has a job that most individuals could relate to, and despite a slight undertone of financial woes for some characters, they all come across as people who never want for anything. Once they move on from the sunshine intro into the emotion that drives the film, it is hard to believe them.

There are small plot points meant to drive the fact that these characters have faced issues recently, for instance, two characters have faced cancer battles, but the film mentions this briefly and quickly moves on as if trying to cover its tracks and nothing more.

This highlights the biggest flaw in the entire endeavour, the script. Everything becomes a bit soapy as it goes along and draws many similarities to the Australian soap opera “Home and Away” which isn’t a compliment. As each resolution to the inter-character conflicts plays on screen, it feels like they are only resolving the issues because they had to, not because any of the characters found new insight. Also, there are a couple of scenes where the humour is entirely low brow and unfunny. This excellent cast could have benefited from something to dig their teeth into, but the script doesn’t provide that. 

In saying that, the cast is everything in Palm Beach. They are the creators of everything good in this movie and were they even slightly less entertaining this would have been a catastrophic misfire. However, they have undying chemistry that ties them all together and makes them convincing old friends. Whenever the story begins to lose its way, any combination of these talented performers does something to spark it back to life. It is particularly entertaining watching Richard E. Grant as the snarky Billy in this film.

He’s had better roles but is on such a run of form at the moment that he shines in amongst his fellow stars. Sam Neill and Bryan Brown are also standouts, their emotional repression is a key plot point, and they both manage to get is across with a pitch that doesn’t spoil the fun. 

The trio of women are just as good, although they find themselves with the worse of the writing to play out. Their issues are resigned to being offshoots of their husbands’ problems, which makes the emotional depth far shallower than it could have been. Eva and Bridget fall victim to this, both of their arcs rely solely on their husbands waking up to themselves and seeing they are losing something great. Regardless, they are talented enough to generate just as much charming fun as the rest of the cast.

Palm Beach is far from perfect. The script is flawed and has a knack for being overly dramatic. However, the brilliant ensemble always manages to draw you back in whenever a plot point is just a bit too much. All in all, this is another solid Australian film for 2019.

Silver Stars On Red Velvet: Review.

Offensive, pathetic, ridiculous, misogynistic, morally repugnant trash. That is how I would describe RJ Cusyk’s fourth and hopefully final feature “Silver Stars on Red Velvet”. When watching it, I couldn’t believe that it was real; it was like I was in a bad dream where not being able to wake up was a running joke. This mess of a film is about the impossible to like Alexander De Toth (Max Caudell), a photographer pretending to date porn star Madelyne Jones (Laura Sharlotte) to make his ex-girlfriend jealous.

Together they witness what appears to be a hit and run that results in a death, but soon come to realise they’re dealing with a serial killer murdering adult film actresses. From there, we meet a perverted detective, whom the characters frequently decide to contact directly rather than calling 911, and they film pornography, I don’t know why, but they do, multiple times. Because that is clearly the smartest course of action when dealing with a serial killer targeting sex workers, right?

There is nothing remotely likeable about this film, a feat I thought was impossible. No matter how much I try, I cannot think of one nice thing to say. So, with that in mind, I’ll start with the script. Silver Stars on Red Velvet has such an idiotic script the fact that a human being made a movie out of it is amazing. From its outrageously cruel depiction of the adult film industry to its moronic characters, who never seem to care about what’s happening, this script is one of the worst I have ever seen brought to life. Every character is unlikeable because of how poorly they are written.

The two leads care more about sex than the killer killing people they know, Detective Castillo (Joseph Calverase) has far more interest in the pornographic models than investigating the murders, and there are simply no words to describe Dick Stilettos (Michael Lakota Dillon), a pornographic film director who verbally abuses everyone who works for him. The only thing I will say about him is that he has no place in any film ever made or made in future, he’s a disgrace. 

The acting isn’t any better. These characters are all too aware of the camera in front of them. This film has an estimated budget of USD 6000, which is about as low as it goes, and it still can’t use that as an excuse for how bad the performances are. Caudell and Sharlotte make one of the least believable pairs I have ever seen, and Dillon flubs lines while the movie plays on as if nothing happened. Also, there is at least one moment where the wrong actress dubs a character’s lines, how does that even happen? I would love to write that these performers were humorous in their failure, but when all the jokes are so crude and so poorly delivered, it is impossible to see the humour. 

The Tagline of the film on IMDB reads: “A Film so Offensive 23 Actors Refused to Be a Part of It”, sounds an awful lot like bragging to me. Cusyk seems to think he made something profoundly edgy and proudly extends his foot over the line of what is generally acceptable. Yet, the finished product is so far from edgy it’s not funny. Instead, Silver Stars on Red Velvet is no more or less than a cinematic crime worthy only of being forgotten.

On his end of the camera, Cusyk is about as inventive as a hamburger phone. The grainy camera effect adds nothing, and some shots and cuts place actors in the entirely wrong positions as if they missed their cues. I understand that time constraints would have played a significant role in all of this, but I can’t bring myself to grant it any modicum of forgiveness. The movie plays like he was trying to force his way to a movie as hilariously bad as “The Room”, completely ignoring the ignorant charm that makes The Room so loveable.

I don’t have much to say on it, but I can’t write this review without mentioning the sound work, it’s terrible. To quickly sum it up I’ll say, the music mixed into certain sequences is so loud it drowns out the actors, and at various points throughout dialogue is dubbed so awfully it is out of sync with their lips. Also, the music feels as if it’s from an entirely different movie; it shares no relationship with the context of this film and fails even almost to match the tone. 

Finally, I have thought of something nice to say. There is a certain contentment that comes from wasting 70 minutes on Silver Stars on Red Velvet. I think it’s because I am so sure I have seen the worst film of 2019. Heck, by comparison, I am more than ready for a double feature of Hellboy into The Hustle. Needless to say, despite my newfound contentment, don’t see this movie, even if it’s free, don’t see this movie. Not that anyone would ever screen it anyways.

Mystify: Michael Hutchence Review.

The untimely and tragic death of INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence in 1997 scarred Australia and the world. Here was a man, who only a decade earlier, had been the frontman of one of the biggest bands in the world, all over the news for taking his own life.

That very year his existence had become dark thanks to the backdrop of a vile custody dispute with Bob Geldof who was aiming to take his daughter away from him. Richard Lowenstein’s “Mystify: Michael Hutchence” deals with this devastation and so much more in its retelling of the life of Australia’s engrossing enigma. 

The most important aspect of this documentary is that it is very much about Hutchence and not totally about INXS, which is the inverse of Australian mini-series “Never Tear Us Apart”. Mainly from the perspective of the women who surrounded him, we follow Hutchence through the critical phases of his life.

From his rise to being the charismatic artist he was known for to the traumatic brain injury he sustained in 1992, all the way to his death, Mystify paints a heartfelt and affectionate portrait of Hutchence that will likely never be topped. 

Throughout all the right voices are heard. Every serious girlfriend he had tells of his kindness and love. Hutchence was a good man, yet the film still knows precisely when to condemn him. For his foolishness and his anger, the film admonishes him, not in any harsh manner, more through the personalities speaking pointing out, in their own words, that he usually didn’t and shouldn’t have behaved that way.

His breaking of Kylie Minogue’s heart in 1991 and his violent refusal to not go to the doctors after being assaulted in 1992 stand out as some of his lowest moments before the events of 1997. He also had a tumultuous relationship with his brother Rhett who fell into heroin addiction, a decline that began when Michael knowingly fled with his mother to America in 1976 during their parents’ divorce. Presenting both sides of Hutchence’s chaotic life was imperative, and since Michael isn’t here to tell it himself, the film does the best it can and exceeds even that.

All these moments are mere dots on the vast expanse that was Michael’s 37 years of life. The amount of emotion the film has as a whole is so intense that I was tearing up within minutes of the beginning. There was no escaping the harrowing ending everyone knew was coming, but the in-depth look at the path there inspires empathy, frustration, joy and a sense of deep sadness. There are moments where it feels as if Hutchence is stirring us with his vocals on stage as if still with us.

It is a testament to both the filmmakers and the man himself how captivating Michael still is. The most significant achievement of this magnificent documentary is that it gives us these magical moments with him once again, as fleeting as they are. 

Mystify pays homage to its title with how it manages to mystify you with its brilliance. By the end, Michael has come and gone again without missing a beat and as charismatic as ever. All the answers provided don’t make him any less of an endearing personality; they only serve to immortalise him further. This documentary exists because the world misses Michael Hutchence, and it’s as simple as that. Knowing that the many people who still grieve him will have this to watch for a few more moments of his magic is heart-warming and makes this one of my most recommended films of the year.