First published in Filmink Magazine, June 2007.
Monday 22 October 2012
Thursday 4 October 2012
TV Feature: Kramer vs Kramer
Undoubtedly the defining comedy of the 90’s, the gloriously unsentimental Seinfeld tattooed itself on popular culture with phenomenal success. Branded as a show about nothing, it was really about the minutiae of sex, dating, friendship and a myriad other life matters.
TV Feature: The Silence
Two of Australia’s biggest names in cinema – Somersault director Cate Shortland and in-demand actor Richard Roxburgh – team up for the striking TV crime drama The Silence. By James Mitchell.
While you’ll only see it on your television screens, don’t be surprised if The Silence, the new ABC mini-series from Somersault director Cate Shortland has you convinced you’re perched in a cinema.
It’s another in a growing line of television dramas – think Love My Way and Remote Area Nurse - with a depth of character, nuanced script and high production values that rival any quality film.
It’s no surprise then that a top notch team of Australian cinema are attached to the production. Shortland reteamed with Somersault collaborators, the producers Jan Chapman and Anthony Anderson while Richard Roxburgh (Moulin Rouge!), Essie Davis (Girl with a Pearl Earring) and Emily Barclay (In My Father’s Den) lead a talented cast.
The Silence tells the story of Richard Treloar (Roxburgh) a Sydney police detective still reeling from the gruesome death of an informant and now relegated to curating an exhibition of crime scene photos from the 1960’s at a Police and Justice museum.
While it may sound like just another police drama, The Silence is a taut, strikingly atmospheric production that expertly weaves murder mystery, relational drama and film noir into one striking whole.
For Roxburgh, the decision to return to television after compelling performances in 2002’s The Road from Coorain and Blue Murder was heavily influenced by The Silence’s script and talented director.
“I thought it was a really complex script, really quite tense,” he says “It was a script that had obviously had a
lot of work done on it. That’s pretty rare. Also the fact that Cate and Jan were involved in it. I really admired what Cate brought to Somersault.”
Roxburgh’s role, says Shortland was far more challenging than she’d envisaged.
“He brought a real fire to the role,” says Shortland. “He didn’t want the character to be passive and neither did I. Part of the reason it’s called The Silence is because his character doesn’t speak or can’t speak about his feelings.
"It was kind of a struggle. Richard’s incredibly smart and nothing was easy because he wanted to be pushed. He said to me ‘I want to be vulnerable’. He’s not usually vulnerable in his roles.”
In a powerhouse performance which is amongst the actor’s best, Roxburgh believes it was Shortland’s craftiness that contributed to his getting under the skin of the emotionally muted Treloar.
“I had a really strong contract with Cate from the beginning,” says Roxburgh. “She knew where she was allowed to take it, that I was happy to be pushed around a bit. She’s a very psychologically crafty director.
“On a few occasions in the middle of a scene she would either whisper something to me, or to the actor I was working with. She would slightly change the situation and throw a depth charge into the middle of it that surprised either me or the other actor. There were pretty terrific results from that. She’s a very clever director.”
Roxburgh, no stranger to police related characters – he played infamous dirty cop Roger Roberson in Blue Murder and can be seen as a detective alongside Toni Collette in the forthcoming Like Minds – was intrigued by the psychological stress endured by policemen.
“I’d met a couple of police officers for this project,” he says.
"There was one officer in particular who had to leave the force because of trauma and so meeting him and talking to him about what he went through was a revelation in the way that he dealt with it and the way the police force dealt with it.
“You really go through all the phases of grief that you go through when somebody close to you dies, this whole period of uncontrollable depression, rage.”
But Roxburgh says he learnt not to bring the angst of his character home.
“What I find now, and this is quite interesting, is the only time I take angst home with me is when I think the project is crap,” he laughs.
“That is really when I go home with a lot of angst.”
Indeed, the gifted actor has had plenty of call for home-angst appearing in forgettable Hollywood popcorn flicks from Mission Impossible 2 to the vapid Stealth and his most prominent role as Dracula in the horrifically awful Van Helsing. At least on that production he met his now wife, Italian actress Silvia Colloca.
“Everything has a silver lining,” Roxburgh says diplomatically.
“Although I would temper that by saying not everything! Playing a detective concurrently is infinitely better than “playing the undead,” he quips.
The actor and budding director is heavily in the midst of refocusing his attention on passion projects such as his feature directing debut Romulus My Father which begins shooting this month with Eric Bana.
“I hope I don’t fuck that up!” he laughs.
Asked whether he hopes to spend more time behind the camera he replies;
“I’d be asking me that in three months time! What I can say is that I absolutely love it so far.”
So don’t expect Roxburgh to pop up in any dire Hollywood fare any time soon.
“It’s just that I’ve come to a point now where I’ve been there and felt the pain of doing projects that I didn’t believe in,” he reflects.
“Even though those projects might be allowing you enough security to do things that you dearly love, there’s a lot of pain involved in that. It’s a real trade off. I’ve found that a genuine conflict at times.
“Whereas with something like The Silence, I thought ‘No matter what I have to go through when the cameras are rolling, at least I can go home thinking this is a beautiful story’.”
This is an edited extract of a feature first published in Filmink Magazine, May 2006.
Star Interview: Stefan Dennis
After finding international fame on the never ending Aussie soapie Neighbours – which he returned to this year after a lengthy layoff – Stefan Dennis has now put on the producer’s hat with the romantic comedy The Truth About Love.
Filmink’s James Mitchell spoke to this local icon about his new career direction.
Star Interview: Gyton Grantley
Gyton Grantley, exuberant with a touch of the lovable Aussie larrikin in him, pinpoints the moment he decided to be an actor.
“I did puppet shows when I was six in grade one and every single kid loved it. I think that’s when I first liked performing,” he says in his charismatic style.
Tuesday 2 October 2012
Star Interview: Matt Damon - Bourne Again
Seeming slightly daunted as he enters a conference room at the plush Park Hyatt hotel, Damon, 37, looking fit from his training for the film admits to some jetlag but is affable and jovial, seeming far more interested in discussing the process of making the Bourne films rather than the celebrity that surrounds him.
When asked how he got into the mindset of playing the character, his response speaks of a practical approach.
"Oddly enough, I think Doug Liman [director of The Bourne Identity] said to me the first time around, 'I think the character should walk like a boxer'. I said, 'What does that mean?' He said, 'They move in a certain way and it's economic and it's cool and it's to the point and I think that's how you should walk.' So I took private lessons for six months."
This time around, Jason Bourne is closer than ever to piecing together his history and how he became the finely tuned killer he is. Damon himself has been touted as a more realistic action star in comparison to old school icons such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis so FILMINK asks how he feels about the tag.
"I think it's kind of ridiculous in my case so I don't really worry about it sticking," he says. "I'm an action star this week but I don't think anybody will think of me that way next week." When asked what he and his character have in common he jests "The languages, the fighting. I'm an excellent lover!"
It's clear that Damon appreciates the documentary style of Paul Greengrass (United 93) who directed The Bourne Supremacy and this third installment.
"His camera reacts to the action, it never anticipates it and as an actor working within that it's the most liberating feeling because you're only asked to do things the way you feel they should happen," he says. Asked whether he feared anything in the script, Damon replies laughingly, "I never had a script. That's what I feared!"
Adding to the on-screen tension says Damon was the logistics of shooting the main set pieces - which continue the globe-trotting tradition of the franchise - amongst real crowds in Tangier, Waterloo Station in London and a thrilling car chase in New York City.
"All the big set pieces, they were really tough, ambitious, logistical undertakings," he says. "Part of the energy of all those scenes you can see on the actors' faces because we're all tense and there's a lot of pressure and it's expensive and we're trying to get it right. There are sequences in Waterloo where if you saw the raw footage - I'm walking through and somebody walks up and takes a picture - and I'm like 'Not now!' he laughs.
"It felt like an enormous game of chicken. The stakes were higher this time, the budget was greater and because we were going to Waterloo and because we were going to New York City to shoot a car chase we knew that by taking those things on we were increasing the budget and if we came up short then we were failing on a grander scale."
Damon, despite the hefty pay packets he earns for the Bourne films - is an actor who seems to eschew the trappings of Hollywood excess, including the seemingly obligatory entourage. When FILMINK asks what keeps him level headed he jests "I have a team of people that keep me in line. I have a great entourage, a lot of things can be solved by picking a good entourage."
More seriously, Damon says living away from Hollywood with his wife and young daughter in Florida as well as his family's attitude to his occupation keeps his feet on the ground.
"No one in my family is too impressed with my career which helps because no one lets me take myself too seriously," he says. His mother a professor specialising in non-violent conflict resolution brings another level of reflection to the question of violence in the films.
"If 14 year old boys are going to see this movie, they need to see that if there's violence, there's consequences that the character suffers as a result of the decisions that they make which is a good thing to put out in a movie."
First published on Bigpond Movies and filmink.com.au, August 2007.
Star Interview: Howling Hugo Weaving
In his cornucopia of film, television and stage roles Weaving has disappeared seemingly without effort into character, from the likes of the nefarious Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy to the elf lord Elrond in The Lord of The Rings and last year’s brittle crim-on-the-run ‘Kev’ in the Australian indie Last Ride.
Celeb Feature: Natalie Imbruglia
Three days into a whistle-stop promotional tour, the hot topic on everyone's lips has been the singer/actor's personal life, past and present.
A regular fixture on London's social circuit, the Aussie has featured highly on the tabloid radar since her divorce early last year from Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns and her move from Windsor to London's trendy Notting Hill.
A regular fixture on London's social circuit, the Aussie has featured highly on the tabloid radar since her divorce early last year from Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns and her move from Windsor to London's trendy Notting Hill.
Hardly a week goes by without a breathless report of a different beau emerging, whether it's Prince Harry, Jamiroquai's Jay Kay or Imbruglia's good friend, Little Britain's David Walliams.
Imbruglia, 34, once quipped that when it comes to whom she's sleeping with, "it depends on which newspaper you read".
"I'd rather talk about my album. For me, it's a balance between what I'm comfortable discussing and understanding that people want to know about me. I'm a figure in the public eye and that's fair enough.
"If I were to tell every journalist not to ask me personal questions, then all the articles would say, 'She's a diva.' So what are you going to do? I can't control the media. I've made a record I'm really proud of. Let the music speak for itself."
On the face of it, the very personal lyrics on Imbruglia's fourth studio album, Come to Life, might be misconstrued as an edgy, pining elegy to her former relationship with Johns. She's forthright, if a little elusive, when it comes to setting people straight.
"Life and music don't have to parallel as closely as everyone thinks," she says, pointing out that two of the album's most personal songs, including her latest single, 'Want', feature lyrics written by Coldplay's Chris Martin, and another, 'Scars', was written when she was "blissfully happy" prior to her divorce.
(Incidentally, Johns can be heard playing guitar on one track.)
"Sometimes you're writing literally, sometimes you're not, but I'd be lying if I said that this record is literal. A lot of the sentiments parallel things that have happened in my life, but it's not literal in the way you might think. I wouldn't set out to do that - it's not who I am."
During the making of Come to Life, Imbruglia's self-confessed control-freak tendencies were tested when she received a call out of the blue from Martin.
He'd penned songs with her in mind, one of which he's since labelled one of Coldplay's finest, and the singer wasn't about to turn down the advice of one of the world's most successful musicians.
She spent time in the studio with Martin, who obliged her request of a brutally honest appraisal of the album in progress.
"I was scared, but I knew his opinion was invaluable," she says.
As the album title suggests, Imbruglia - feisty, refreshingly frank and enjoying her single status - is revelling in the lighter side of life, having seemingly bounced back from the pain of her split.
With a new record company and a sexier musical direction, she conveys a palpable joie de vivre.
The dark clouds of depression she's openly discussed over the years plague her less these days.
"When you've had real-life experiences that have been genuinely difficult and testing, you don't want to wallow in that," she says
"You know life is precious and short. I want to have as much fun as I can and live for today."
No one could deny Imbruglia is practising what she preaches: in the music video for the single 'Wild About It', the chanteuse frolics with friends at a raucous fancy dress party in a pink tutu and black top hat.
Then there's her recent participation in Jack Osbourne's reality TV series, Celebrity Adrenaline Junkie, where she whetted a daredevil appetite by free-diving in Hawaii and mountain climbing for 11 hours (including during an electrical snow storm) in Canada. It's a "crazy" move she says she'd never have dared make a few years ago, prior to her divorce.
"There's a fearlessness that's come out of what I've been through," she says. "It's like you're not scared of anything."You've had some really horrible things happen to you and you're like, 'You know what? I wanna go on an adventure. I want to try different things.' You take yourself out of your comfort zone and stop wrapping yourself in cotton wool.
"I have a better understanding of who I am and it's freed me - I'm not as rigid with planning things. A sense of playfulness and fun has come into my personality that wasn't there as much before. I'm more carefree."
Today, Imbruglia is certainly a different person to the insecure woman I met for the first time in late 2007. At the time, she was set to dive back into acting with her first starring role.
In the film Closed for Winter, she plays Elise, a young, emotionally closed woman struggling to deal with the disappearance of her sister two decades earlier.
But it seems two years playing fetching builder Beth Brennan on Neighbours and a supporting role opposite funny man Rowan Atkinson in 2003's spy spoof Johnny English weren't enough to repel her nerves.
"I started having panic attacks, thinking, do I really believe I can do this? I must be mad," she says.
It also didn't help that, being a small production on a limited budget, the shoot allowed for only a few takes per scene.
"It was terrifying," says Imbruglia. "Rarely did I feel confident, but how many actors are confident? It doesn't really come with the territory."
Imbruglia's fears proved unfounded, as her performance prompted largely positive reviews, marking the next step in her stigma-defying journey from soapie star to singer/songwriter to 'serious actor'. "The intention is that I'll be good," she says of her return to acting. "I'm not doing it on the whim of wanting to be a moviestar."
Not that any of her success has come about on the back of a whim. One of four daughters, the one-time face of L'Oreal has fond memories of growing up in the sun and sand of the beachside suburb of Berkley Vale on the NSW Central Coast.
Rebellious streak
She kept her parents - dad Elliot, an Italian immigrant, and her Australian mum, Maxine, a teacher and principal - busy from the age of three, when she began dancing lessons most days of the week.
Her rebellious streak would later stand in stark contrast to her thirst to perform. Bring up the subject of singing at shopping centres and Imbruglia grimaces. "Oh my God. Any opportunity - any talent quest, singing carols at shopping centres - you name it, I've done it," she admits.
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| Picture: Craig Greenhill. Source: The Sunday Telegraph. |
As a teenager, Imbruglia longed for a fast-track to adulthood, which ultimately led to expulsion from her Catholic high school.
"It was on a religion excursion. I got really drunk on the nuns' wine. My mum was so angry," she recalls.
"She taught at a Catholic school, so this was the worst thing her daughter could have ever done. I wanted to be a grown-up. I didn't like being told what to do.
"I wasn't trying to cause chaos, but I always tried to get my own way."
That's exactly what happened when, against her mother's wishes, at the age of 14, Imbruglia caught a train to Sydney to secure an agent.
At 16, she landed her big break on Neighbours in 1992, for a two-week guest stint that was then extended for two years.
Soon after, she moved to London to pursue a music career and the city has been her adopted home ever since.
Unmatched success
The success of her debut album, Left of the Middle, and her first single, 'Torn', 12 years ago (the album sold six million copies worldwide and garnered Imbruglia three Grammy nominations) set a stratospheric precedent unmatched by her subsequent albums, White Lillies Island (2001) and Counting Down the Days (2005).
While the second and third offerings entered the charts, they stayed only briefly and did little to add to her status as a serious musician. Still, her combined album and single sales of 10 million are hardly to be sniffed at.
On the horizon is a possible tour of Australia next year ("I like the adrenalin rush of touring") and a continued focus on acting and charity work, which she sees as a positive way to make use of her fame.
"It's definitely an upside and a responsibility," says the singer, who travelled to Geneva in July as the spokesperson for the United Nations Population Fund Campaign to End Fistula, making an impassioned plea to international politicians to help end the debilitating condition affecting millions of women worldwide.
"It's the proudest thing I've ever done in my life," she says.
As our time draws to a close, it's clear what's not on the horizon, however, is a move back to her homeland. "Maybe when I retire," she quips. "That could be a while."
Originally published in Sunday Magazine (The Sunday Telegraph/Sunday Herald Sun) and thetelegraph.com.au,October 2009.
Film Review: Shutter Island
Metaphorically, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s fourth collaboration, Shutter Island, like the Denis Lehane novel it’s based on could come with a health warning: enough twists and turns to give you motion sickness.
It’s in that sea-sick state in 1954 that we meet DiCaprio as World War 2 veteran, now US Marshall Teddy Daniels, as he and new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) travel by ferry to the Massachusetts island housing a facility for the criminally insane.
News Feature: Balibo - The Politics of Murder
On a stark wall in Balibo, west of the East Timorese capital of Dili, a lone handprint is etched in blood. It’s a powerful motif employed by the makers of the impressively bold Australian feature Balibo and serves as a potent reminder of a 34 year old cover up, and the dawn of one of the darkest periods in a nation’s history. By Jim Mitchell.
On October 16, 1975, five Australian journalists, forever labeled the Balibo Five – Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart of Channel 7, and Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters of Channel 9 – were murdered in cold blood by Indonesian militia after filming that country’s invasion of East Timor. They were claimed to have been killed while caught in a cross fire.
Film Review: Meet The Parents - Little Fockers
Early in the latest entry of this cash-cow franchise, Robert De Niro defibrillates himself with a lie detector machine. It’s soon clear that unlike his retired spymaster character, Jack Byrnes, no amount of voltage (that of the mostly talented megastar variety) can revitalise the series in this limp effort.
Don’t be deceived by the title. Sure, the cutesy, smart-aleck Focker offspring play their part but Little Fockers as ever, revolves around the cat and mouse games played by Jack and his hapless son-in-law Greg (aka Gaylord Focker, Ben Stiller).
Press Junket: Blades of Glory
For a casual passer by, the sight of two male, heterosexual Hollywood actors serenading each other to the tune of Aerosmith’s I Don't Want To Miss A Thing would be bemusing to say the least.
But for Jon Heder and Will Arnett it’s all part of the shenanigans of the promotional trail for their new film, the Ben Stiller produced comedy Blades of Glory, which takes aim at a sport ripe for lampooning, that of world champion pairs figure skating.
Film (Creature) Feature: Crocs & Shocks
After redefining the horror genre in Australia with the smash hit Wolf Creek, writer/director Greg McLean heads into new, but equally bloody waters with the killer crocodile flick Rogue and takes actors Radha Mitchell and Michael Vartan along for the ride. By Jim Mitchell.
Few Australian creatures represent humankind’s uneasy interaction with nature, as ferociously as the crocodile. Enmeshed in our cultural psyche, it’s surprising that these brutal and relentless creatures haven’t torn their way through more Australian films.
News Feature: Screen plays part in laying ghosts to rest
Hollywood has stayed true to Gillian Slovo's novel about grief and forgiveness, writes James Mitchell.
To face the men who murdered your mother and then watch them walk free is an experience many would prefer to bury. For the author Gillian Slovo, it provoked an exploration of the intimate bond between enemies.On The Red Carpet: Cameron Diaz
The Shrek juggernaut hits Sydney as Hollywood leading lady Cameron Diaz and DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg walk the ‘green’ carpet for the Australian premiere of Shrek The Third at The State Theatre.
Amid controlled hysteria from fans shouting her name, flashing cameras and a large media throng vying for her attention, Diaz was jovial and polite. Still, she wasn’t about to broach the topic of her private life so scrutinised in tabloid media around the world, most recently her break up with her Shrek The Third co-star Justin Timberlake, preferring to focus on spruiking the film.
DVD Feature: Cowboys and Aliens
A western with a twist, we take a closer look at the unique genre blend of Cowboys & Aliens.
In a dusty, wild west town in the late 19th century, a mysterious gunslinger (Daniel Craig) looks set for a bloody showdown with a ruthless cattle baron (Harrison Ford). Sounds like your typical western…… except for the alien spaceship snatching townsfolk. An unorthodox alliance follows as sworn enemies - cowboys and Indians - battle their extraterrestrial foe.
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