TV News: Dexter/Breaking Bad

Dexter gets the chop but could Breaking Bad live on?

 

One of the worst kept ‘secrets’ in television land is official. Yes, Showtime’s mega successful serial killer drama Dexter is getting the chop and will die out this year with a final 8^th season. No telling just how it’ll all end – how do you send off a serial killer of serial killers? Safe bet it’ll be traditionally bloody though.

Fans may grieve the loss but with a show like Dexter, the longer it runs the harder it is to maintain believability – especially with Dex’s detective sister Debra now well and truly in the know about his ‘dark passenger’.

Hall, who also executive produces the show is ready for Dexter’s journey to end.

“There has to be an end game. Once Deb found out, it felt like we were moving toward a place where the world as Dexter knew it would end,” Hall told Entertainment Weekly recently during filming of the 8^th season.

Returning for a final 12 episodes (airing in the US from June 30) is Dexter’s serial killer squeeze, Australia’s Yvonne Strahovski while new cast members include Sean Patrick Flannery (The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones) as Deb’s boss and veteran actress Charlotte Rampling (The Eye of the Storm) as a serial killer expert.

Here’s the first teaser trailer for the final season.

Meanwhile, another celebrated cable show may just live on. Well, in a spinoff kinda way. With AMC’s Breaking Bad set to bow out stateside with eight eps from August 11 in another likely bloody finale, it seems one character may survive - Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) the ethically challenged lawyer to chemistry teacher cum drug kingpin Walter White (Bryan Cranston).

The character, maker of cheesy TV commercials and a source of much needed comic value could get his own show with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan seriously considering a spinoff with a comic bent.

“Oh yeah, we've talked about it,” Odenkirk revealed to Vulture recently after wrapping up his final scene. “Vince is still really busy with the show so we haven’t talked very in-depth about it, but he clearly thinks it’s a possibility. And I've certainly told him that if there was some way to see more of Saul then I would be happy to do it. It would be fun.”

At the cast wrap party in New Mexico last month, Odenkirk reportedly joked that “a TV show is ultimately judged by its spinoff ... ”

Catch the cast clowning around on location below while shooting the final episodes which Cranston promises to be “a rollercoaster ride to hell.”

Film Feature: Kokoda

HALLOWED GROUND

Amazingly, until 2006, a dramatisation of the Kokoda campaign had never been immortalised on film. That was until a gung-ho band of filmmakers and actors took on one of Australia’s most iconic wartime moments in the most inventive of ways.

When you think of the very Australian essence of mateship, there are few examples that measure up to the loyalty and sacrifice of soldiers at war. Yet, while several Australian war stories have been captured on film, it’s almost unbelievable that a dramatisation of WW2’s Kokoda campaign took more than 60 years to be immortalised on the big screen.

Synonymous with Australia’s identity, the story of Kokoda is grand, hallowed ground. Where some first feature makers may have shied away from such subject matter, not so a gung-ho collective of Australian Film Television and Radio School graduates of 2004 who in just two years brought Kokoda to Australian screens.

“It goes to the heart of the bond of mateship that’s almost impossible to define. That’s why I wanted to make the movie. That has to be the essence of the Kokoda experience.”

 

The challenge says director Alister Grierson - whose spit fire commentary on Kokoda history seems more akin to an academic than a brazenly confident director wearing bulbous fly-eyed sunglasses - was how to capture the essence of Kokoda from such a broad palette of experiences and historical accounts.

“What is the Kokoda story? There’s a thousand ways you could do it. And where does it finish?” Grierson says. “I think if you were Mr Spielberg you’d say ‘Let’s do this sweeping thing, open with 10,000 Japanese soldiers swarming the beaches’. We couldn’t do that. Part of the challenge for us was to find a narrative structure that would point towards the greater epic whole in a metaphorical sense.”

The team settled on a fictionalised story about a band of ten inexperienced Australian soldiers stranded behind enemy lines deep in the jungle of the Kokoda track after a Japanese attack cuts them off from their supply lines and all communications. Over the next three days, the men endure mortal wounds, malaria, dysentery and internal conflict. Surfacing from the jungle fatigued from lack of food and sleep the men bravely battle on regardless to join their fellow soldiers in The Battle of Isurava.



The cast of Kokoda



It was that deep seated sense of loyalty and sacrifice in the soldiers that overpowered their unimaginable hardship that inspired so much passion for the story.

“It’s got to go to the heart of the bond of mateship that’s almost impossible to define,” says Grierson. “That’s why I wanted to make the movie. For me, it’s that moment when they go ‘We’re going back’. They didn’t have to. I thought ‘That has to be the essence of the Kokoda experience’.”

 Grierson needed actors who not only shared some of their character’s traits but could step up to the rigors of a tight, grueling 26 day shoot. The resulting cast, formed over just six weeks was a mixture of exciting new talent and established faces led by Jack Finsterer (Strange Fits of Passion) and Travis McMahon (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) and including Tom Budge (Candy), Ewan Leslie (Dead Europe) Angus Sampson (Spirited) and veterans William McInnes (Look Both Ways) and Shane Bourne (MDA).

Film Review: Oblivion

In space no one dares to dream as slick sci-fi gives way to deja vu.

Genre: Science Fiction

Rated: M
Out: Now

What’s it all about? In the desolate wastelands of future earth a drone repairman discovers his very existence is not at all what it seems.

The Verdict: Oblivion looks a treat but nods to every seminal sci-fi flick makes it feel like Groundhog Day in space.

3.0/5.0 from me, David.

Is it too much these days to hope for a truly original sci-fi movie? Perhaps it is if Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster attempt is anything to go by.

In Oblivion, he plays Jack Harper a drone repairman in the final stage of a mission to extract the earth’s remaining resources. He lives as idyllic a life as you can when your planet has been stripped to desolation after years of war with ‘alien’ species the Scavs. He patrols the skies in a chic bubble space craft or on a turbo charged motorbike on land and mixes business with pleasure with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough, Brighton Rock) his co-worker stationed back at his hovering skytower.



Come here often?

But when a stranger drops out of the sky - quite literally - in the form of the mysterious Julia (Olga Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace), everything Jack knows about his existence will be turned on its head as his memories of her in a still-in-tact New York City grow stronger.

"The official site for Oblivion describes it as “original” and “groundbreaking”. Not so; the line between reverence and plagiarism becomes blurry."

 

Oblivion, which borders on soap-opera-in-space, prides itself on its plot twists and turns. I won’t spoil them here except to say they unfortunately amount to moments that are less jaw dropping and more underwhelming of the 'Time-for-Tom-to-save-mankind' kind. One highlight though is a fight scene where Cruise in form fitting white padded leather gets a leg up (and over) on.... let’s just say someone VERY recognisable.

The official site for Oblivion describes it as “original” and “groundbreaking”. Not so. Let’s be pragmatic, probably all films have reference points – ‘Everything old is new’, ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ and all that – but play ‘Spot the sci-fi reference’ and the line between reverence and plagiarism becomes blurry; from 2001: A Space Odyssey (a familiar, omniscient malevolent presence) to Star Wars (a thrilling spacecraft chase through rocky chasms), Alien (“Back off you son of a bitch!” warns Jack) and even Predator.  



Space Chic



It’s confusing sci-fi-by-numbers but what Oblivion does , it does well. Helmed by presumed sci-fi aficionado Joseph Kosinski  (TRON: Legacy) and based on his unpublished graphic novel, the movie excels with a spectacular space-chic look and seamless, stunning action sequences. CGI desolation - which often has that misty, appropriated look - looks better than most aided by filming (in part) in some spectacular Icelandic locales.



Hands off the narration Morgan. It's mine I tell you, all mine.



The cast all do serviceable jobs including Morgan Freeman whose role as a mysterious lair dweller with steam punk glasses amounts to little more than an extended cameo. (At least he doesn’t slip into his well worn shoes as narrator, that's reserved for Mr Cruise).

But it’s Cruise who’s least surprising here. It’s an action heavy, scenery-chewing role that he could do in his sleep, one that hardly stretches him. We’ve seen that before too.

Film Review: Trance

Look into my eyes...... Look into my eyes. And strap yourself in for a mind-bending ride.

 

What’s It All About?

When an art heist goes awry, a London art auctioneer with amnesia and an angry crime lord putting the squeeze on employ a hypnotist to help uncover the missing piece.

The Verdict: It can border on the ludicrous but sit back and suspend belief and Trance is quite the engrossing, sexy mind bender.

3.5/5.0 from me, Margaret

Just how powerful is hypnotism? Very, if you believe this serpentine thriller, the latest from the equally shifty – genre wise at least – director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later).

In the aftermath of a central London art heist, auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy, The Last King of Scotland) finds himself in hospital with a blow to the head. He realises he’s party to the heist just not why and more pressingly, where the missing Goya is.

"You'll either come away wondering what the hell just happened or you'll want to see it again to piece the puzzle together."

"Mention Mr Tumnus and you're toast."

The heist orchestrator, crime king pin Franck (Vincent Cassel, Irreversible) and his band of henchmen want to know its whereabouts – yesterday – and readily apply some fingernail twitching torture to Simon to get him talking. But when Franck realises Simon really is suffering amnesia it’s time for a visit to high street hypnotist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson, Seven Pounds) to uncover the truth.

And what a truth it is or should that be ‘What is the truth?’. Like mind-bending movies that have come before it (Memento, Shutter Island) you become unsure quite what’s a manifestation of the mind and where a character sits on the good-to-bad meter.




"Ok, Ok one question about Tumnus"

 

That’s the draw and distraction of the screenplay written by Joe Ahern (who wrote the 2001 telemovie the film is based on) and John Hodge (Trainspotting). It constantly plays with your expectations, flashing forward and back, showing shards of the story to keep you guessing. I wondered every now and then if it was trying to be a little too clever, wearing it’s manipulation a little too much on it’s sleeve.



Vincent realised he'd been framed

And you do need to suspend belief with a lot of the story’s potency relying on just how tangible a power you believe hypnotherapy to be and how fractured a person’s memory and personality can become.

Still, it’s all done with gritty determination and style with the film’s look resembling some kind of shiny, fervently primary coloured dream.

There’s sharp performances too from the three leads; McAvoy is charismatic and disturbing, Dawson evokes an intriguingly atypical yet sexy femme fatale and Cassel is suitably mercurial. Boyle meanwhile continues to prove his diversity (he shot Trance in the lead up to his celebrated masterminding of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony).

Ultimately, Trance engages for the most part. You'll either come away wondering what the hell just happened or you'll want to see it again to piece the puzzle together. Or both.



Has Robert Redford sold out?

Having created one of the world’s leading indie film festivals in The Sundance Film Festival, Hollywood heavyweight veteran Robert Redford has come full circle joining the cash-cow that is the Marvel films. So has Big Red sold out?

Doing press rounds for his latest film, the political thriller The Company You Keep in which he directs and stars, Redford confirmed he was joining the cast of the Captain America sequel The Winter Soldier, (due to hit screens next April) playing the old school crime fighter's (Chris Evans) boss and the head of the string-pulling organisation begind The Avenger's universe S.H.I.E.L.D.

It seems a quaint move by the 76 year old who while not eschewing big Hollywood fare (Spy Game with Brad Pitt, Indecent Proposal) hasn’t exactly embraced it either, not on this scale anyways.

On his decision to join the ranks of Disney’s Marvel Studios - whose The Avengers became the third biggest film of all time last year behind Avatar and Titanic raking in a global haul of $US1.5 billion – Redford told Spinoff Online;

 “I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do something just to be different. Something bold, different. And that felt like a good thing to do. That was it, nothing more to it than that. Well, it’s bold in terms of expectations, I guess.”

"Joining the Marvel behemoth would seem a quaint move from the man who created one of the world's leading indie film fests in Sundance."

Furthermore he talked of his admiration for the Marvel films in an L.A Times Q&A session;

“I think these films are really powerful. I think they’re great. This is the kind of film I would have loved to see as a kid… I like the idea of stepping into new territory. I’m excited by it.”

Redford thought long and hard about joining Marvel.
Did he deserve another Rolex? Yes he did.

But this is the man who famously borrowed his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid namesake to create one of the world’s leading indie film festivals, a man who has never shied away from starring in and directing films that aren’t exactly safe territory in Hollywood (All the President’s Men, A River Runs Through It).

So has Redford sold out by agreeing to star in a Marvel film? He doesn’t think he has.

“There's no money in those films," he jests.

You can catch Robert Redford in his heyday tonight in The Great Gatsby on ABC2 at 9.30pm (AEST). The Company You Keep opens April 18.

Film Review: The Host (0.5/5.0)

The Lowdown: This inane adaptation of the lesser known creation from Stephenie Meyer has at least one thing in common with her Twilight vampires - It too sucks.

Beware the cache of a name, even a monumentally money spinning one such as Stephenie Meyer, creator of the Twilight saga. When the filmmakers landed the screen rights to her lesser known creation The Host they must have been salivating; here was a property with a presumably immeasurable built-in teen audience positively gagging for more Meyer material on screen.

Maybe, but how disappointed even the most die hard of Twihards will be with this indisputably silly clunker which makes the Twilight series look like a bona fide masterpiece.

"When considering seeing this indisputably silly clunker it’s best to take heed of one of The Host's many silly lines; 'This is not a good idea.' ”

In The Host, an alien race known as the Souls is colonising the galaxy as prolifically as Starbucks, the earth their latest acquisition. They slip their glowing insect-like souls into humans, erasing their memories and controlling them one by one for a purpose that’s murky apart from, well, control.

Confused much?

That is until they meet their match in teenager Melanie (Saoirse Ronan, Atonement). She’s not about to be usurped without a fight - her body may have been overtaken by the flaky and confused soul known as Wanderer but Melanie's very discordant teen voice can always be cringingly heard calling the shots. 

She leads Wanderer, soon to be known as Wanda, to a hidden resistance of humans in the desert including her Uncle Jeb (William Hurt), Aunt Maggie, (Frances Fisher, Titanic) boyfriend Jared (Max Irons, Red Riding Hood), future love interest Ian (Jake Abel, I Am Number Four) and little brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) with misguided blonde baddie and procurer of human hosts, Seeker (Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds) on their trail.



Ronan realised she needed her head read for accepting the role



Yes, the whole scenario is as confused as it is preposterous. Ronan, an accomplished young actress tries her best in her dual role but can only do so much; Kruger, Irons (son of Jeremy) and Abel are soulless and wooden; Hurt, presumably involved purely for the pay packet, struggles to hide his disdain for the cruddy material.



Hurt 'Chose to Take the Money and Run'

Director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) – normally a skilled go-to sci-fi helmer – must shoulder the bulk of the blame here. Sure he’s got the sci-fi sheen down pat but that in no way makes up for his stinker of a screenplay. The handling of Melanie/Wanderer/Wanda’s internal conflict – like some unbearable after school special in inane role playing - is lazy and ridiculous to the point of guffawing from the audience. And the cheesy love scenes are just as derision-inducing.

 

So all in all, when considering seeing The Host it’s best to take heed of one of the film’s many silly lines; “This is not a good idea.”

Film: 0.5/5.0 stars

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, William Hurt, Frances Fisher, Diane Kruger, Max Irons.

Director: Andrew Niccol.

Written By: Andrew Niccol, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer.

Rated: M.

Genre: Teen Sci-fi/Romance

Year: 2013

Run Time: 95 minutes.

Out: Now.

Gig Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (5.0/5.0)

The Lowdown: The Boss and his E Street Band have still got it delivering a mammoth, rousing performance that’s worth every dollar. And then some. 5.0/5.0

“Are you tired yet?” bellowed The Boss to his enraptured audience close to the end of a three hour plus performance that positively pulsated with energy. They weren’t and it seems, neither was he save for a well earned drenching and some intermittent staggering. But then that may have been his signature tight jeans.

At 63, Bruce Springsteen has lost none of his vigour for performing in this Wrecking Ball Tour (his first tour of Australia in a decade) - a man half his age would struggle to keep up. By the end of the night he’d crowd surfed (singing all the while), mounted a piano and wrapped his legs around his microphone stand in what looked like a cross between a yoga position and some kind of pole dancing stance. It’s clear age has not wearied The Boss.

"The atmosphere was like one massive block party where all ages were invited. Springsteen and his E Street Band were clearly having a ball and the audience loved them for it."

Gyrating and fist pumping as he belted out over 25 songs new and old, Springsteen’s smoky voice and socially conscious lyrics were as powerful as ever. He barely had a chance to catch his breath over the three hours – no costume changes here and no fancy pyrotechnics or bells and whistles - just pure, joyous, unadulterated rock ‘n’ roll.

The passion and enthusiasm of Springsteen and his E Street band was infectious. Even if you weren’t a fan, you couldn’t help but get swept up in this consummate showmanship. Of the 18 strong band - most of which danced in unison alongside Springsteen at one stage - special mention goes to the spectacular performances of saxophonist Jake Clemens who fills the legendary shoes of his late uncle Clarence (“Nobody blows like Jake” said one cheeky sign in the audience), vocalist Cindy Mizelle and guest band member Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello whose cracking guitar solo on The Ghost of Tom Joad almost set the stage alight.

The Boss with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello

Springsteen proved a more than generous performer with a playful affection for his audience and his enduring everyman touch (jutting his guitar out for eager fans to strum, taking audience requests and pressing the flesh with the floor crowd a number of times).

The atmosphere was like one massive block party where all ages were invited. Springsteen and his E Street Band were clearly having a ball and the audience loved them for it.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play Allphones Arena, Sydney - March 22; Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne - March 24, 26, 27; Hanging Rock, Woodend - March 30, 31. For more info click here. 



Courtesy of Setlist.fm

Celeb Flashback: Susie Porter

There’s a certain guarantee that comes with almost every character on the resume of earthy actrine Susie Porter – strength by the bucket load and a vulnerability to match.

Whether portraying the sexually liberated, (Better Than Sex, Feeling Sexy), the manicured ball breaker (Two Hands, Little Fish), the resolute but flawed (Mullet, Remote Area Nurse) or the downright dowdy (Teesh and Trude), thirty-something Porter has garnered a reputation for delivering gutsy performances with a large helping of sass.

It’s not that she ravenously pursues these strong female roles says Porter but more that her own inner strength resonates with those that cast her.

“I always seem to be cast as strong women. I don’t know whether that’s because of typecasting or what,” says Porter.

“I suppose within that strength, the vulnerability is the important thing to focus on. I’m also quite grounded as a person so people get that there’s this strength in me rather than someone whose energy is very flighty. It’s Susie Porter’s energy, I suppose that’s what I’m known for. There are a lot of other sides to me as well. I can be flighty and neurotic at the best of times.”

In The Caterpillar Wish, a story of secrets and second chances, Porter adds another sinewy, vulnerable woman to her oeuvre.

As Susan, she’s a pig-headed single mum who has long given up on true love, keeping men at arms length through casual affairs much to the quiet chagrin of teenage daughter Emily (Victoria Thaine) who pines to know the identity of her father (a ‘tourist’ who breezed into their seaside town years earlier) and dwarfs her mother in maturity.

“I loved the relationship between the mother and daughter,” says Porter who occasionally punctuates her responses with a maternal ‘sweetie’ or ‘darl’.

“It was kind of reversed, so instead of the matriarch and the kid it almost seemed like the kid was the matriarch. I liked the idea of a relationship where the mother seemed more immature than the child.”

“I can never really understand why people say ‘You’re not the normal leading lady’. What is that? A back handed compliment? My ego can interpret those questions as ‘Ok, so I’m ugly…’.”

 

Porter’s reputation for bravery in her role choices has come not only from her gritty performances but from what she’s been prepared to do for her roles; whether it’s frank nudity and simulated sex in Better Than Sex, a lesbian tryst in The Monkey’s Mask, or appearing topless as a barmaid in The Caterpillar Wish (not to mention uttering the sexual advance “Part me beef curtains” in the spectacular misfire Welcome To Woop Woop).

Despite perceptions of gung ho bravery, Porter says these kinds of scenes affect her as much as the next person.

“They do bother me if I’m totally frank,” she hesitates.

“I’ll try and worm out of them at the 11^th hour to be honest with you. It’s not that I regret doing any of these scenes….. I’m not really strong enough to deal with it. People have this view of this strong Newcastle girl but nothing in life is what it seems - ever.

"I mean most people can’t even bare hearing their own voice on a tape recorder, let alone seeing themselves naked, simulating sex on [a screen] 40 foot high. It’s very confronting. It would have to be a pretty bloody good project for me to do that again.”

I love the smell of milkshakes in the morning.....

With a distinctly Australian charm, freckled complexion and a figure once compared to that of a Rembrandt, the actress is hardly your conventional leading lady. It’s an observation Porter seems perplexed and gently rankled by.

“I can never really understand why people say ‘You’re not the normal leading lady’,” she ponders.

“What is that? A back handed compliment? My ego can interpret those questions as ‘Ok, so I’m ugly…’.”

In truth, Porter is far too pragmatic to spend too long worrying about such matters.

“Maybe people do want to watch beautiful people all the time as a way of escapism, I really don’t know. The main thing I can do as an actor is to be as truthful and as honest [as I can] and have people respond to it.”

Acting says Porter, “ain't that hard. It ain’t that hard really to morph into another character and be completely different.”

Since childhood growing up in the coastal steel town of Newcastle, north of Sydney, the actress always knew her vocation.

“I was always a bit of a performer,” she laughs. “I was pretty gregarious. I was a confident kid but I was never precocious. I hope I wasn’t, I don’t think I was!”

As she reflects on her career so far and on the eve of an “adventure” to scope work opportunities in L.A, FILMINK asks this talented actress what her next desired role will be.

“I’d like to do projects that are really focused on story more than anything else and have the opportunity to play characters that I never play,” says Porter.

“ ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ Put me in a habit. Will someone do that one day? I would like to play a nun. I’d like to play an obsessive, religious freak.”

First published in Filmink Magazine, June 2006.