Category: REVIEWS

Zombie Bro follows young girl Francene, Franc for short. Her and her family are a typical family living in Australia. Her father, who is tough on her and who Frank fears hates her is a cop. Her mother, who always takes her father’s side in an argument is a nurse. And finally there’s her brother Teddie, who seems to get all of her parent’s affection and she is jealous of.

Oh, and Teddie’s a zombie!

After seeing Teddie attack others it’s up to Franc to tell her delusional parents that Teddie has killed and will kill again, and that they are most likely next on the menu. In the meantime, Franc learns how to defend herself, make friends and even comes to meet and know her hero – her father.

This year I have seen a number of big films. Avengers, Godzilla, Captain Marvel, Hellboy, Pet Semetary and the like. All big and technically impressive and structurally sound and soulless. Just soulless.

Not without entertaining moments or aspects to them, but you can feel the corporate hands and the chill of money in the air. So I feel that when I see a film like Zombie Bro – small, simple and full of passion, letting me know that this was a film someone needed to make – I find it nice. It reminds me why I love film.

Zombie Bro has a very ‘let’s meet up after work and get filming’ feel to it. I mean that as a compliment. I felt the same way with New Zealand black comedies, Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows and, to a greater extent, Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste. It impresses you with how much can be done on such a small budget. The Zombie make-up in this isn’t great, looking like Halloween face-paint than anything.

This may also be because Teddie is a child and they didn’t want to use more than that just in case. We are restricted to only a few locations, with the house taking the chunk of the film. The kills scenes are also very lacking, and even a little clumsy at times, especially the attack on the kid in the gym.

What works about the film is the performances and humour. Everybody, even the kids, are able to sell this ridiculous concept. They are given quirky dialogue and silly scenarios – again, the brother is a zombie and nobody is any the wiser to it – but they play it with a straight face and the right amount of seriousness and self-awareness that it has the comedy hit home where it needs to. The moment that got me the most was when homework was given out by the teacher to write a poem on anything they’d like, saying “this could be on cows, or trees, or on the Mexican drug cartels”. The script is littered with examples like that.

But at the centre of it all, Zombie Bro has a good heart. It cares about the story that it’s telling and the bonding of the daughter and father is very sweet. Take out this zombie plot and you are left with a quirky little drama about a daughter who thinks her dad hates her and a dad who can’t find any common ground with his child. It all comes together very effectively.

The passion for the film shows itself with every frame and it’s definitely something I will remember. It’s a nice little reminder that not everything has to be big. I wouldn’t call it the best film that I have seen all year, but it’s easily one of the sweetest and most sincere. 

After a tragedy in his personal life, an African teacher flees his violent country for France, where he falls in love with a local woman who works as a florist.

A Season in France is a quietly devastating feature written and directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, following on from his 2016 documentary Hissein Habré, une tragédie tchadienne.

The grim reality of this story is that it plays out globally every day. The people that have been displaced by war are simply trying to piece together a life. It’s a quiet life that most people are seeking. A safe space that will offer enough stability in which to process their traumas. The landscape in which A Season in France takes place is as regular and mundane as it comes. As Abbas (Eriq Ebouaney) and Carole (Sandrine Bonnaire) share a cigarette break at their market job the frame contains smashed glass, bins, boxes, and a dirty shop awning. This is not the romantic France of Hollywood, this is normal, everyday, working France.

Abbas’s children Asma and Yacine are pitched perfectly – riding the waves of emotion brought on by fear, uncertainty and boredom, yet ultimately more stable than their father, who is overwhelmed by grief and suffering the symptoms of PTSD.

The family is not able to find a permanent home in France, so they begin to explore ideas. Conflicting feelings are stirred as the family unfolds a world map. The place names plucked out have an exciting sound to the children. Their ideas of what life would look like are hopeful, despite the hardships they have faced. To them the world is full of possibilities. Their father, meanwhile, retreats into himself. No doubt overwhelmed by the thought of the many barriers that face them; reluctant to make promises that he cannot keep.

A Season in France is unflinching and truthful. The cruel way in which developed nations treat the dispossessed is all too familiar, both today and throughout history. Abbas references the Europe of 1938 and puts it in such simple, human terms: “It’s not nice feeling undesirable”. A more hopeful account of asylum seekers is found in the Karim Aïnouz documentary Central Airport THF (2018), but both are, ultimately, about heartbreak.

Spider-Man: Far From Home – The BRWC Review.

To say that the twenty-third instalment in the long-running Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man: Far From Home had some pretty big shoes to fill after the masterpiece that was Avengers: Endgame would be a massive understatement. Many fans all around the world were worried that Far From Home would be too similar to 2017’s Homecoming in that it would feel too small in scale and inconsequential to the overarching story that is the MCU.

While a large portion of the movies in this franchise do feel absolutely necessary, there are a few times in which an entry feels kind of unnecessary except for a few scenes that tease things to come in future instalments down the road. Although I definitely enjoyed Homecoming, it did feel ultimately forgettable in the long run and didn’t feel like it had a big role to play. Far From Home is the exact opposite.

Ever since his impressive debut in the 2016 smash hit Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland has won the hearts of many around the world as Peter Parker / Spider-Man and it is not hard to see why. He has all the wit and charm that the beloved character is known for in the comics, plus he is extremely sympathetic. One of the most essential elements to the character is that he is always getting beaten down in life. Not a lot of things go right for him, but when things start to improve, we as an audience feel joyed ourselves. In Far From Home, Holland delivers an incredible performance and has a much more emotionally driven role than you may have thought. He is still dealing with the devastating events caused by Thanos and it is evident throughout the film that the mad titan’s actions have caused hardships that will take a long time to be erased on Earth and this is the case even for the superheroes.

The humour here is also terrific, and is one of the funniest MCU pictures in years. I love witty humour and comedy that makes you think, and a lot of the jokes here are exactly like that. There were dozens of scenes that left me laughing consistently and with a big smile on my face.

Speaking of smiles, this latest adventure is a whole whack of fun. In terms of an action standpoint, this is by far the most exciting Spider-Man film we have ever seen to date. Some of the action set pieces here are absolutely mesmerising and Marvel continues to reinvent the superhero genre with each passing movie.

Much like Homecoming, there are also plenty of twists and turns the plot takes that are genuinely surprising and it is hard to see them coming. You would think that by watching so many movies we would know what these twists are, but director Jon Watts is able to brilliantly pull the carpet from under your feet and does so effortlessly.

Michael Giacchino, who previously composed the score for the aforementioned Homecoming, provides an amazing score this time around as well. During a few sequences towards the final few moments of the picture, his score makes the scenes extremely emotional and gripping.

Far From Home does feel remarkably long however, clocking in at a lengthy one hundred and twenty nine minutes. The running time could have been cut down by about twenty minutes or so and the film would have flowed a bit better.

Additionally, for the most part the editing by Dan Lebental and Leigh Folsom-Boyd is exceptional, but there are two scenes in the first act that did feel incredibly jarring and felt completely out of place.

But those looking for an absolutely exhilarating and tension-filled extravaganza with lots of real human emotion, breathtaking action scenes, a good Spider-Man film, or just a good film, are in luck. Far From Home is easily the second best film the character has had to date.

Romantic Comedy: Review

In her new documentary, filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey breaks down the many complications and tropes in cinema’s most formulaic genre: the romantic comedy. The film is purely visual; a feature-length montage of clips from around 160 films, tracking the long history of the rom-com, from the classics of the ‘30s and ‘40s such as His Girl Friday and It Happened One Night, to later standouts like When Harry Met Sally, and modern pictures such as (500) Days of Summer and Crazy, Stupid, Love that take a more self-aware stance to the genre. 

Romantic Comedy is essentially one big video essay, that will likely appeal to viewers of YouTube channels such as Every Frame A Painting, Now You See It and Lessons From The Screenplay, all of which tackle film form in one way or another, but what makes Sankey’s essay stand out is her personal slant. Sankey is simply detailing how the genre has affected her over the years, as is every other contributor who narrates along with her, in a structure that does away with the idea of talking heads in favour of putting the subject out there for its audience to see. 

It’s clear that Sankey has specifically picked a variety of contributors from various backgrounds, with different races, genders and sexualities, so as to fully determine the impact these films have on every type of viewer, but not being able to physically see them sadly defeats the object. The various narrators all blend into one in an admittedly natural way, but the clear aim of offering the audience a wide array of differing perspectives gets lost.

This is not to say the structure Sankey has opted for doesn’t have its upsides. It’s certainly effective in grabbing the viewer’s attention and forcing them to re-evaluate their own memories of these films, be it in a positive or negative way (Sankey invites you to do both). 

However, the slightly misjudged narration is sadly not the only issue with this puzzling documentary. Sankey offers many examples in Romantic Comedy that, for anybody who has seen the films she is discussing, have clearly been taken out of context to assert her point. It’s all very well cherry-picking a scene to demonstrate that a character presents as possessive or psychopathic, for example, but that loses meaning when the film that scene is taken from is actually a satirical look at exactly that. It’s unfair and inaccurate to criticize a film for being problematic, when the whole point of that film was to demonstrate precisely how problematic rom-coms really are. Case studies such as this give the film a very manipulative feel. 

The film’s primary failing is that it just feels completely irrelevant and outdated. The great many issues present in romantic comedies have been talked about in great detail, to the point where the only films that find success these days are the ones that satirize them, such as Ruby Sparks and Isn’t It Romantic?, or ones that are a little more diverse and/or progressive, such as Crazy Rich Asians, The Big Sick and Love, Simon. The old-fashioned idea of a ‘rom-com’ isn’t really a thing anymore.

Perhaps Romantic Comedy would have made more of an impact twenty years ago, but in 2019 it just seems to be stating the obvious for much of its run-time. It’s hard to think of a single point Sankey makes that one could call ‘groundbreaking’.

In spite of these fundamental flaws, it should be noted that there is still plenty to like about the film. Sankey’s script is very well-articulated, researched, witty and often humorous. It’s her personal stance that gives the documentary its edge, precisely because it is clearly coming from someone with a clear love for the genre, despite its failings. 

This is perhaps the most pleasant surprise about Romantic Comedy. This is anything but an attack on the popular genre, but rather a celebration of it, addressing why they still appeal to all of us, what they actually do right and what they can improve on in the future. Above all else, the film is productive. Sankey proudly states how much she adores the films, in spite of her now matured mind telling her otherwise. She’s happy with the history being the way it is, but she wants them to do better in the future; to become less problematic and more inclusive.

This isn’t a film that could’ve possibly been made by anyone who didn’t have a clear passion for the subject, and that’s undoubtedly the charm of it. Sankey’s love of the rom-com is ever-present, and it’s precisely that that makes her worth listening to. 

If anything, Sankey is optimistic about the future, describing I Love You, Man as a film that uses the rom-com formula to tell the story of a platonic relationship, and citing films such as How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Saving Face as films that aim to be more inclusive, but simply need to find their audience. 

Romantic Comedy is a problematic documentary that feels in many ways irrelevant, perhaps best viewed simply by film students for educational purposes, but it’s still an entertaining and nostalgic look back into a genre that we all engage with, brought to us by a filmmaker who clearly cares very deeply about her subject matter. 

Amin: Review

By Halli Burton.

French director Philippe Faucon’s Amin presents a vivid insight into the mundane lives of African immigrants in France, a stark contrast to the clean romantic streets of central Paris, home to the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and the beloved Notre Dome that moviegoers are accustomed to. 

The film centres around its titular character Amin (Moustapha Mbengue), a Senegalese construction worker living in France so that he can earn precious euros to provide for his wife Aïcha (Mareme N’Diaye) and their three children ‘back home’ and build a dream house. 

Amin works in Paris, but lives in a workers’ hostel in Saint-Denis, an almost segregated northern Parisian suburb, made up mostly of African migrants. His life in France and the lives of his fellow immigrant friends are dull, monotonous and lonely.

Unsurprisingly, and rather disappointingly, Amin starts a relationship with Gabrielle (Emmanuelle Devos), the white divorced owner of the house that Amin is renovating. Her seduction – for want of a better word – of Amin is both unromantic and mechanical. There’s no flirting nor courtship and it’s difficult to grasp what they get from each other, even the sex is unconvincing!

The film’s most striking feature is how flits effortlessly between France and Senegal: the former being cold, grey and unwelcoming while the latter is poor yet vibrant and sunny. Amin’s bright children miss him and desperately want to join him France, while devoted Aïcha battles against Amin’s mother and domineering brother. Aïcha also torments herself with the idea that Amin doesn’t visit often because he is being distracted by something other than work. 

Back in France, Amin’s friends face personal struggles of their own, in particular Abdelaziz who is torn between his family in Algeria and his French children in Paris. Elsewhere, Amin’s side-piece Gabrielle is fighting her own demons, namely a bitter ex-husband and a moody teen who makes it clear how she feels about her mother’s indiscretions.

The film’s theme is obvious: migrant life is tough and unfair, and the French government isn’t helping much either. What’s more tragic however, is Amin’s uninspiring narrative.