Palm Beach (2019)

It’s what they’ve dreamed of for themselves is not what they’ve turned out to be. Frank (Bryan Brown) is flying in his lifelong friends for his big birthday at his beautiful home overlooking the bay at Palm Beach, north of Sydney. Now retired from his tee-shirt business which made him very wealthy, he and his wife Charlotte (Greta Scacchi), feckless son Dan (Charlie Vickers) and medical student daughter Ella (Matilda Brown), are hosting the remaining members of The Pacific Sideburns, the band he managed in the Seventies who made the cover of Rolling Stone back in 1977 when they had their one big hit song. Now Leo (Sam Neill) is a journalist based in New Zealand, married to teacher Bridget (Jacqueline MacKenzie) and stepfather to her teenage daughter Caitlyn (Frances Berry). Billy (Richard E. Grant) is an ad man married to actress Eva (Heather Mitchell) who thinks at 60 she’s too young to be cast as Nicole Kidman’s mother. Holly (Claire van der Boom) is the daughter of their late lead singer Roxy and she arrives with her lover, an older man called Doug (Aaron Jeffery) in tow. Tensions erupt over money, career, cars and homes and then there’s a secret which has been niggling at someone’s conscience … The Pacific Sideburns go down as the voice of adult incontinence. Directed by that lovely actress Rachel Ward (who is of course married to leading man Brown), who co-wrote the screenplay with Joanna Murray-Smith, in her second theatrical outing behind the camera, this is a kind of Big Chill for a different generation and at a different stage of their lives. Fans of Australian cinema will be thrilled with the cast (which also includes blow-ins Grant and Scacchi), with Neill and Brown co-starring for the fifth time. This time out they’re in a production about rites of passage among friends (and frenemies) which isn’t afraid to be tough on its characters, none of whom is without baggage or post-60 year old issues. There are all kinds of relatable tensions over ageing, health and money with the added frisson of questionable DNA. The issue of whether Dan might be fathered by Leo becomes the main plank of the narrative particularly since Frank and Dan are permanently at daggers drawn. But Billy – who has made an ad for adult diapers in France using the band’s big hit – is envious of Frank’s money and taunts him about the chimneys on a neighbouring property blocking the view so often that Frank does something about it, leading to the film’s comic high point:  retirement is not for chickens, as his anti-depressants prove. Bonding over building a pizza oven is no picnic. It’s pretty hard to bond with the Gestapo, growls Sam Neill. The women have their own problems but try to get them out of their system with some therapeutic white wine-assisted yoga by the pool and tough conversations with their terminally self-obsessed men. The father-son relationship between Frank and Dan results in a terrible accident and it finally brings them all to their senses in a well managed conclusion to the comedy drama. This family affair also involves Brown and Ward’s real-life daughter as Frank’s daughter; while the film within a film is Ward’s 2001 short, The Big House. The songs are by the band The Teskey Brothers in a soundtrack peppered with great tunes. An extremely winning production with fantastic performances and smart writing, this is an amazing showcase for New South Wales in a location familiar to viewers of TV’s Home and Away. Very easy watching indeed. I’m on my way ASAP, especially if I can stay in that magnificent beach house. I call it uninvited clarity

 

That Darn Cat! (1965)

Do I look like Eliot Ness? Siamese pretty boy Darn Cat aka DC returns to the suburban home he shares with sisters Patti (Hayley Mills) and Ingrid aka Inkie Randall (Dorothy Provine) with a partly-inscribed watch replacing his collar after he follows bank robbers Iggy (Frank Gorshin) and Dan (Neville Brand) to their hideout where they’re hiding their kidnap victim Margaret Miller (Grayson Hall). Patti sees the news story and thinks the watch belongs to the woman and reports the case to the FBI who detail Agent Zeke Kelso (Dean Jones) to the case.  He has a really tough job tailing DC on his nighttime excursions trying to track down the robbers … D.C.’s a cat! He can’t help his instincts. He’s a hunter, just like you are. Only he’s not stupid enough to stand out in the pouring rain all day! Long and funny slapstick cat actioner with Mills utterly charming and Jones perfectly cast as the agent charged with following the titular feline. There are good jokes about surf movies, TV weather and nosy neighbours, with Elsa Lanchester a particular irritant. Roddy McDowall is a hoot as Gregory, the woefully misguided mama’s boy who serves as a brief romantic interest for Ingrid, mainly because he can drive her to work every day. Provine has a marvellous moment looking to camera in one of their scenes. Adapted by Bill Walsh and The Gordons, from their 1963 novel Undercover Cat, this has enough satirical elements to win over a wide audience. Bobby Darin sings the title song, composed by the Sherman brothers. You might recognise one of the two versatile Seal Point Siamese cats who play DC as the co-star of The Incredible Journey. Directed by Robert Stevenson. Sir, a mouse is no more permitted in here, than a man without a car

I Am Heath Ledger (2017)

He felt life deeper than anyone I ever met. The first time I saw Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You I was stunned. A star was born, in his first film. He had started out without training in his native Australia, enjoyed what a friend terms ‘a sentimental education’ in his first serious relationship, with actress Lisa Zane when they co-starred in the TV series Roar, and bounded into an audition in Hollywood and got it first time out. He signed with an agent, Stephen Alexander, himself a newcomer to the industry and together they created his career. Acting is thinking about the world about you and the person you are. He was conscious of his lack of professional training and never went anywhere without a camera, shooting footage of himself prepping for roles and this documentary directed by Adrian Buitenhuis and Derik Murray demonstrates the extent to which Ledger taught himself and built characters, paying attention to how he looked, moved, spoke, interacted, responded. The film is replete with that personal footage and boasts a narration excerpted from interviews Ledger did. He couldn’t turn down the opportunity to star opposite his icon Mel Gibson on The Patriot but suffered a crisis of confidence: Mel taught him to come in and out of character. His face was plastered over billboards to publicise A Knight’s Tale, a rollicking mediaeval lark that sent itself up anachronistically and he couldn’t handle the publicity machine’s requirements. He wanted fame but then when he got it, he didn’t want it. By the time Brokeback Mountain came around, he was ready. The film changed his life. Director Ang Lee wasn’t sure he could do the role but he said Ledger’s mouth was like a clenched fist, people had the impression that he barely spoke when in fact he had the most lines in the film – he just delivered them in a way that made you think he hadn’t said a word. He met Michelle Williams on set and they became parents to baby daughter Matilda, whom he adored. His appetite for life was astonishing:  he had energy like nobody else, sensing his time on earth was limited. His favourite place was Burning Man. He brought his friends from Perth there and to his home in California. He was an enthusiast particularly for Nick Drake with whom he felt a kinship, along with other musicians who died young, like Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain. He phoned and emailed at all hours of day and night; he turned up on people’s doorsteps for breakfast at five thirty and six AM;  he shot photos constantly and made music videos and surprised people with his ability to use cameras, to choreograph, to direct:  He had command of his vision. He was an artist first and foremost. He formed a company and intended directing features:  his first project was supposed to be The Queen’s Gambit –  he was so good at chess he was just a few points away from being a Grand Master. When he was offered the role of Joker in The Dark Knight he was fully confident. He had mastered the art of screen acting. He owned the part and he knew it. It would win him the Academy Award and many others, but they were posthumous. There are interviews with his friends, family, co-workers and those with musician Ben Harper and Naomi Watts are especially perceptive and emotional. Their hurt at his loss is palpable. His end was desperate:  he was working with Terry Gilliam on The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus with his sister alongside him in London as his assistant. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in terrible conditions – he was exhausted from the damp and cold, being held upside down from a bridge with water being poured on him didn’t help. He said his sleeping meds weren’t working and he couldn’t stop his mind racing, as dialogue coach Gerry Grennell recalls. He returned to an apartment in New York and the guy who spent his life communicating with people night and day suddenly wasn’t answering the phone. He was found dead 22nd January 2008.  He was just twenty-eight years old. This is a tender and thoughtful account of a brilliant and uniquely gifted young man and his death was a tragic loss to cinema. What he achieved as a major screen actor in a decade is unforgettable. Life is so short and it seems like a blink of an eye since I sent a text message to people during The Dark Knight, YOU HAVE TO SEE HEATH LEDGER!!! Written by Hart Snider. He always said, I have a lot to do. I don’t feel I have a lot of time

I Am Paul Walker (2018)

He was always known as The Vagrant. The horrific death of actor Paul Walker in a car crash in November 2013 shocked the world. How could this action movie star renowned for his own very careful piloting of vehicles have occurred? A friend was driving the Porsche Carrera and both were burned alive in a car park after crashing into a tree. A really good driver. Conscientious at all times. He was in the middle of filming Fast and Furious 7 at the time. This painful documentary departs from that story until the final sequence and is concerned with interviewing many people in Walker’s life, starting with his tightknit working class Mormon family, drawing on his background in Tujunga, California, and the fierce loyalty to his many friends whom he employed to keep himself sane in the wake of success. A picture emerges of a surfer dude whose mom had taken him to auditions as a young child and who impressed people like Michael Landon with his abilities. He didn’t want to continue acting as an adult and indulged his pleasures for a time. That guy made the best of every single moment. He grew up tall – six three – and liked a gnarly fun lifestyle and his surprise casting in Pleasantville led to an introduction to filmmaker Rob Cohen whose first film with him was not entirely a success but would lead to The Fast and the Furious franchise that made Walker a movie star. Uncomfortable with publicity, he had to deal with an unplanned pregnancy and worked hard to support his girlfriend’s desire to escape to Hawaii with their baby daughter Meadow in order to further her education. His fascination with marine conservation was all-consuming and his happiest times were spent tagging whales yet he had a certain legacy to deal with that informed his approach to life – his maternal grandfather was a WW2 veteran who set a landspeed record using a road car at Bonneville in the Fifties;  his paternal grandfather Paul Walker II was a famous boxer; and his own father (Paul Walker III) was a tough guy who served as a marine in Vietnam and was a crack shot. The picture of masculinity that emerges is powerful and deep-rooted. He liked to do exciting things. He wanted to stop making films but he felt overwhelming financial responsibility to his family members and those friends of his who were part of his entourage on each Fast production: kindness superseded his desire to escape to his off-grid home. Everyone would come to him with their problems, as one of the guys observes. Nobody has a bad word about this astonishingly handsome, nice, thoughtful action man who suffered such a brutal ending. Touching? That barely covers it. Directed by Adrian Buitenhuis using a huge variety of home movies, archive, newsreel and personal interviews but the horror of Walker’s senseless death overshadows the film in a way these words and pictures cannot overcome. Success to me is balance in life

 

Captain Marvel (2019)

You call me ‘young lady’ again, I’ll shove my foot up somewhere it’s not supposed to be. Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers or Vers (Brie Larson) is an extraterrestrial Kree warrior who finds herself caught in the middle of an intergalactic battle between her people and the Skrulls. After crashing an experimental aircraft, Air Force pilot Carol Danvers was discovered by the Kree and trained as a member of the elite Starforce Military under the command of her mentor Yon-Rogg. Back on Earth in 1995, she keeps having recurring memories of another life as U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers. With help from S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) Captain Marvel tries to uncover the secrets of her past while harnessing her special superpowers to end the war with the evil Skrulls… We have no idea what other intergalactic threats are out there. And our one woman security force had a prior commitment on the other side of the universe. S.H.I.E.L.D. alone can’t protect us. We need to find more. The first twenty minutes are wildly confusing – flashbacks? dreams? reality? WTF? Etc. Then when Vers hits 1995 we’re back in familiar earthbound territory – Blockbuster Video, slow bandwidth, familiar clothes, Laser Tag references, and aliens arriving to sort stuff out under cover of human identities. And a killer soundtrack of songs by mostly girl bands(Garbage, Elastica, TLC et al). So far, so expected. Digital de-ageing assists the older crew including Annette Bening (she’s not just Dr Wendy Lawson! she’s Supreme Intelligence, natch) but the colourless Brie Larson (well, she is named after a cheese) doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the otherwise tolerable female-oriented end of the action adventure. There is however a rather marvellous ginger cat called Goose happily reminding us of both Alien and Top Gun. Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. I have nothing to prove to you

Dick Dale 4th May 1937 – 16th March 2019

Surf guitar maestro Dick Dale has died. Here he is rocking out in Muscle Beach Party!

And in A Swingin’ Affair he gives us the enduring Misirlou. RIP.

Jan-Michael Vincent 15th July 1944 – 10th February 2019

I woke up this morning with a pain in my chest and now I have an ache in my heart because one of my very earliest heart throbs has died. Jan-Michael Vincent first impressed me when he was The World’s Fastest Athlete for Disney and Link Simmons in The Banana Splits and late one night on TV I saw The Mechanic: him learning to be a hitman with Charles Bronson – you can see my point. I think I was 9 when I caught that one. Later still I discovered him in Big Wednesday which is, you know, the best film ever. And again, a wonderfully atmospheric early 70s romantic mystery, Sandcastles.  And when I could actually see him on the big screen proper at the cinema he appeared alongside my other favourite guy, Burt Reynolds, in the fantastic Hooper (Vincent had been in an episode of Reynolds’ show Dan August). He did action roles, good ol’ boys and romantic heroes. He even did a couple of Cheech and Chong movies. But to the whole wide world he is really best known for Airwolf, which made him one of TV’s highest paid actors in the 80s in the role of Stringfellow Hawke. He got a Golden Globe nomination for The Winds of War, the massively successful TV adaptation of Herman Wouk’s novel which brought our favourite conflict into the comfort of our living rooms. He had a charming smile and he didn’t so much walk as swagger:  you couldn’t take your eyes off him in a scene. Prestige projects had long tapered off by the 90s and he even appeared in some ‘erotic’ dramas with the likes of Shannon Tweed but in 1996 Vincent Gallo recognised his cult value and cast him in Buffalo ’66.  He endured several illnesses and one led to the amputation of his lower right leg,.  He officially retired in 2009, the glory days long behind him. His death has just emerged today. May he rest in peace. He was loved – so very much. Keep surfing, Matt. Dying is for faggots

The Tribes of Palos Verdes (2017)

I can’t believe we moved to a town where women wear green tennis dresses on purpose. When the Mason family moves to idyllic Palos Verdes, California, heart surgeon father, Phil (Justin Kirk) loves it but stay at home mom Sandy (Jennifer Garner) feels out of place among the fake tans and tennis skirts. Teenage daughter Medina (Maika Monroe), is a loner and outcast at school, while her charismatic twin brother Jim (Cody Fern) is effortlessly popular. When Medina and Jim take up surfing, they must prove their right to share the waves with the tough Bayboys gang that monopolises their stretch of beach but when their father announces that he’s going to shack up with his lover, their realtor Ava (Alicia Silverstone) and her son Adrian (Noah Silver), the family is left reeling without him …  They don’t own the waves. Adapted by Karen Croner from Joy Nicholson’s 1997 novel, this is a movie that wears its heart on its very gorgeous sleeve. It’s jarringly true about relationships, rivalries and the difficulties of growing up in a family centred on a depressive narcissistic mother (hands up if this is familiar…) whose fragile ecosystem falls apart when her husband’s philandering finally results in an irreparable schism. Her overdependence on Jim leads to tragedy. Australian actor Fern is tremendous as the outwardly social guy: he is overwhelmed by anxiety and vulnerability, stunningly exposed when Medina falls for Adrian. Monroe and Garner are tender and pensive, unhinged and dangerous, respectively, in this revelatory film about how people affect each other and lives fall apart without anyone caring about the impact of their selfishness. Moving? Hell yeah. But the satirical undertow strengthens the narrative with its depiction of the social setting, Medina’s voiceover and the upwardly mobile tropes hinting at the inevitable outcome. Star spotters will be interested to know that surf dude Chad is played by Mel Gibson’s son Milo; while another Aussie, Thomas Cocquerel plays his mate Mildew –  anyone looking for a new Bond? Look no further than this cast! Directed by Brendan Malloy and Emmett Malloy and beautifully shot by Giles Dunning. Everybody doesn’t get to go bonkers

Adrift (2018)

Come sail with me. In 1983 Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley) and her new boyfriend Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin) couldn’t anticipate that they would be sailing directly into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history. They have met on Tahiti and he is hired to deliver a yacht to San Diego, her hometown, which she had no desire to see any time soon.  In the aftermath of the late season storm, with the boat pitch poled, Tami awakens to find Richard badly injured and the Hazana in ruins. Everything is broken, smashed and scattered, the cabin half-full of water, the masts broken clear off and the sails waterlogged and floating useless nearby;  the navigation system, and the emergency position-indicating radio device, were broken. With no hope of rescue, Tami must now find the strength and determination to save herself and the only man she has ever loved who is lying on the aft deck, ribs broken, leg shattered, guiding her in calculating their position using a sextant and working out the latitude on the ship’s maps. All the time she is trying to avoid the storm that is tagging them to try and make it to Hawaii despite having drifted north in a potential search area of 1,500 miles – and that’s only if anyone has noticed their disappearance…  Since this is adapted from Oldham’s book Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss and Survival at Sea we know she survived this appalling experience:  this shows us how, more or less. It’s written by David Branson Smith,  Aaron Kandell and Jordan Kandell and their interpretation may be faithful to the account and what Oldham did to survive although it’s somewhat creative in what actually occurred during the 41-day long ordeal. It starts with a shocking scene following the storm and then cuts back and forth from the aftermath to the couple’s meeting on the Pacific island where they fall in love and eventually (and reluctantly on Oldham’s part) take the job to deliver the yacht on behalf of a London couple who know Richard. He is a decade older than Tami and a failed naval cadet who is living his dream sailing the world alone – until he meets her and proposes marriage. Director Baltasar Kormákur’s handling of the alternating scenes is expert – there’s a good balance between the evolving romance and the disastrous trip as we learn how this woman who Richard describes as ‘wild’ uses her every wile to make it. Woodley is happily convincing as the daredevil 23-year old reluctantly caught up in a terrible dilemma due to her relationship .We’ve been here before (to some extent) with Robert Redford in All is Lost but there is a twist which will either make you throw your popcorn at the screen or sigh with relief that you haven’t had to go through this entirely scarifying experience yourself. And it doesn’t overstay its welcome, always a joy. What’s it like sailing out there on your own?

Bruce Brown 1st December 1937 – 10th December 2017

If there’s an ocean, maybe there’s surf. Father of the surf documentary Bruce Brown has died aged 80. Surfing’s the source, man. Amen.