This week in the Brag:

Brag, issue 341: December 7, 2009

Film review: AVATAR

Avatar.

Film
Avatar
Released December 17, 2009.

Words are being thrown around. Masterpiece. Revolutionary. It’ll change cinema. Technologically, it will. If only one could say the same of the dialogue, characters and plot.

Don’t get me wrong, James Cameron’s Avatar is an astonishing achievement. A visual wonder featuring the most sophisticated special effects of any film, it achieves that rare feat of transporting the audience to a living, breathing world. That world is Pandora, a planet overflowing with exotic animals and stunning rainforested scenery, which bursts off the screen in vibrant, colourful 3D. In Cameron’s hands, 3D is anything but a gimmick, enhancing details here and there without ever announcing itself. It’s an integral part of the experience.

The story essentially retells Dances With Wolves with blue aliens. They are the Na’vi, the natives of Pandora. Ten foot tall humanoids that move with feline grace, their livelihood is under threat from American corporate hordes who wish to ravage the planet in search of the mineral “unobtainium”. One way or another, the Na’vi are to be “relocated”.

The spanner in the works is our hero, Jake Sully (rising Aussie star Sam Worthington), an ex-Marine and paraplegic who controls his able-bodied Na’vi “Avatar” in an attempt to coerce the natives into submission. His allegiances shift when he befriends the lithe female Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, who gives the film’s most affecting performance). Who’d have thought tails could ever be sexy.

When it becomes clear that the invaders, including evil incarnate Colonel Quarich (Stephen Lang), have only their bank balance and testosterone in mind, the scene is set for an epic and unlikely showdown.

Despite its phenomenal visual tapestry that will reward repeat viewings, the story remains a simplistic but effective fable, with obvious allusions to Iraq-war politics and eco-green themes that would make Al Gore proud. It’s energised by frequent bouts of action, some of the most viscerally exciting in years, in which Cameron fully exploits his ability to place the camera wherever he chooses.

Yes, the dialogue in Avatar is sometimes woeful, and the story routine, but it offers what so few movies do: a sense of wonder. And for that it deserves to be seen, in 3D, on the biggest screen possible.

4.5/5
Joshua Blackman

Film Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are.

Film
Where the Wild Things Are
Released December 3.

Where the Wild Things Are remakes Maurice Sendak’s beloved childhood picture book for a modern day single-parent generation: a young boy feeling alienated from his family and unloved, who journeys in his imagination to a place where he is allowed to physically express his emotions, a place where he belongs, a place where he is in control even – king of the Wild Things.

Spike Jonze has nailed the visuals and the spirit of the book; perhaps surprisingly (for a film that deals largely in puppets) it has also nailed the performances. The eight-or-so months spent making the costumes for the Wild Things result in detailed, lived-in concoctions of scales, feather and fur; the CGI facial expressions added in post production are perfectly synced with the pre-recorded voice work performed in ensemble by James Gandolfini, Forest Whittaker et al (which the costumed “performers” shaped their actions and interactions around). As a result, the Wild Things exude real personality, and their relationship with Max is both emotional and physical – none of this green screen business.

Newcomer Max Records is unselfconscious on screen, channelling the anger, frustration and inconsolable hurt of a six year old who just wants to be the centre of a tight family unit; who can’t understand why his mom is hanging out with a strange new man, or why his sister would rather hang out with her mates than play with him. In a moment of rage, Max finds himself transported to where the Wild Things are, where his new friends embody the emotions he finds so hard to repress – anger, apathy, mistrust, resentment, alienation.

Hand held camera work for the action sequences is counterbalanced by some quite stunning wide shots, and Jonze uses evocative landscapes – a forest of trees blackened from bushfires; a gravelly wasteland; desert dunes. The soundtrack is largely comprised of the irrepressible can-do pop of Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and “the kids”, with the occasional interlude by composer Carter Burwell, whose soundtracks for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are so distinctive.

4/5
Dee Jefferson

Theatre Review: Public Bunnies (Op.3 in c# minor)

PACT
Public Bunnies (Op.3 in c# minor)
Season Nov 25 – Dec 12 | Wednesday – Saturday

Public Bunnies is a devised work created by the imPACT ensemble with director Michael Imielski. The performance takes the form of two extended physical theatre sequences, bookending a free-form ramble through a series of interactive installations.

Upon entering the black-box PACT theatre from the street, we took our seats and watched the performers (mostly passed-out) strip one another down to their underwear to a throbbing bass drone (also composed by Imielski). After a long time, the lights dim and the bodies spasm their way to life. Over 25 minutes, they form a writhing mass of bodies, occasionally spitting out and reabsorbing individuals, which oozes around the space and flows over three upright pianos set in the space. These images are roughly mirrored in the final third of the play, concluding with the deconstruction and removal of the piano.

The central section of the play takes the audience outside to explore the ramshackle village constructed from detritus and populated by an array of charming vagrants. The audience was skilfully divided into small groups and engaged in a range of micro-performances and interactive tasks. I had my fortune read, earned a token to see a three-minute peep-show involving a badminton racket, was dressed in ridiculous clothes, blessed by a priest, ordered to hang underwear on a clothesline and given a safety demonstration at a mine.

With several exceptions, the complex etiquette around interactive performance was well negotiated and the short segments were varied and well executed. Over time, the seemingly arbitrary installations began to take shape as individual components of a functioning city (with an economy based on trading underwear), but this was frustratingly incomplete. I was left with the sense that the performers knew exactly how it all fit together, but the audience was never given the opportunity to discover it. Still, this was easily my favourite part of the play: the countless little adventures and tasks made exploring an ongoing pleasure.

While Public Bunnies‘ discrete sections never quite cohered into a unified piece, I was nevertheless captivated by the continual stream of images and ideas across the entire evening.

4/5
David Finnigan

Film Review: Away We Go

Maya Rudolph & John Krasinski in Away We Go.

Film
Away We Go
Released December 10

Director Sam Mendes takes a break from his harder, more biting previous work (Revolutionary Road, American Beauty) in this immensely enjoyable dramedy about a couple looking to find a place to call home.

John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) play Burt and Verona respectively. Burt is bearded, bespectacled, clumsy and spontaneous, but an all around nice guy who loves his girlfriend dearly. She, Verona, is six months pregnant. They live in Colorado near Burt’s parents (an hilarious Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara), who seem more interested in moving to Belgium than their impending granddaughter. Now with little reason to stay, Burt and Verona uproot and flutter between Arizona, Wisconsin and Montreal surveying different lifestyles and possibilities.

The episodes that follow are funny and laced with a wealth of acting talent in small roles. Stand outs are Allison Janney as a loud, obnoxious mother, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as an uptight new ager with an aversion to strollers. While these characters are overblown and the gags sometimes stray into banalities that could form the crux of a lesser film, the central couple are sensible, intelligent and likable people who keep it emotionally grounded.

This whimsy, complete with requisite indie songs that could have been plucked from Juno, charms; but sentimentality takes over as the leads close in on their search for home. However subtle the acting and direction in these scenes – and they are affecting – the closure they offer is unnecessary.

Critical reaction to Away We Go has been mixed, with some claiming the ideal of Burt and Verona makes them smug and condescending, while A.O. Scott describes their quest as a “flight from adulthood, from engagement, from responsibility”. Both, perhaps, are true. If so, I’m happy to indulge Sam Mendes’ fantasy.

4/5
Joshua Blackman

Film Review: Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity.

Film
Paranormal Activity
Opens December 3.

There’s a lot of hype surrounding this micro-budget horror film. Shot for a mere $15,000 it has already recreated the box-office success of The Blair Witch Project (to which it is clearly indebted). The trailer, which barely includes any scenes from the film, depicts terrified audiences huddling in fear. One critic called it the “scariest movie ever made”.

I must have been watching a different film. While offering some effective suspense sequences and an ending with a sort of payoff, most of Activity burns along with no sense of plot or characterisation.

The setup is thus: a couple, Kate (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), move into a San Diego home and are restless about the presence of malevolent spirits in their upstairs bedroom. Micah setups up a camera to monitor them in their sleep. It’s not long before strange noises are heard, lights switch themselves on and off and doors sway on their own accord. They are visited by a psychic who suggests it may be a demon. Perhaps they should consult a “demonologist”, he tells them. Conveniently out of town, Kate and Micah instead are left to deal with the deteriorating situation alone.

The hand-held camera is modestly effective, and uncredited writer/director Oren Peli cleverly uses sound and its absence to heighten the suspense. The lack of production values is consistent with the idea that the footage is real and found after the fact by the San Diego police, but the film’s sparseness is also its weakness. There’s nothing here that engages on any level above the most primal. While that may be true of many horror films, at least they do so with some sense of narrative and style.

Paranormal Activity may be refreshingly devoid of gore, but it’s so simplistic it’s also devoid of most anything else.

2/5
Joshua Blackman

Interview: Weezer

Get Radical
By Jaymz Clements

Rivers Cuomo is laughing. Hearing him laugh is strange. This is the man who took the hopes and dreams of a generation of teens, gave them a voice and seemingly made them real. Then he disappeared. The sonofabitch.

Overcome by the following he had inspired with his band’s debut (The Blue Album) and the pressures of being a figure held on an emotional pedestal, he retreated from the limelight and went back to school. Weezer released their definitive album (1996’s Pinkerton). Then went on hiatus to escape again. No one knew if Rivers Cuomo would ever return to Weezer. The sonofabitch.

Then he reappeared; energised and with a new attitude of embracing his inner rock star. It was the opposite of all he’d ever stood for; he’d taken Weezer from the bedroom into stadiums and that generation of Weezer fans either embraced it, or felt that their deep-held love for Weezer had somehow been spurned. And he’s laughing? The sonofabitch.

The past eight years, since Weezer re-emerged with their Green Album and stadium-rock persona, have seen strange up and downs with Weezer’s output. Raditude sees Cuomo and the band trying something new. Collaboration.

After reconnecting with their fans so successfully with their Hootenanny Tour in the USA last year (encouraging fans to bring instruments, with the band writing and performing with the audience) – and the democratic song-writing approach taken on last year’s Red Album having dubious results, the band opted for some fresh faces. As Cuomo explains quietly, “This album picks up and develops the spirit of what we were exploring last year – it was a real creative adventure every day.”

“That was so much fun, I just continued that when I was writing songs for Raditude,” he grins. “I set myself up with some really tough collaborative challenges, and that’s how we ended up with Raditude,” he concludes.

Considering how personal and authoritatively-Cuomo Weezer’s output has been, it seems an odd way to go about things. But mixing it up gave Cuomo a sufficient dose of confidence to push the idea of Weezer and Raditude. As he explains, “My favourite song might be ‘Can’t Stop Partying’ – that I wrote with Jermaine Dupri who’s an r’n’b and hip hop guy. It was interesting and fun to take his ideas and give them some of the energy of Weezer’s rock music and the emotion and darkness I gravitate towards in music,” he chuckles knowingly.

“We mashed it all together and came up with ‘Can’t Stop Partying’; to top it all off we got Lil Wayne to a rap on the song – it was wonderful. I’m a huge fan of his, but when you bring someone else in and they’re going to do their thing, there’s always an amount of trepidation that they’re not going to totally get what you’re trying to do, or what the song’s about, or they’re going to make it over-simplistic. But he totally understood the combination of the party vibe and the dark undertone in that song. That sort of stuff helped me figure out how we should do this record.”

It’s worth noting that, alongside ‘Can’t Stop Partying’, across Raditude Cuomo is still delving into the world of sunny love and darker heartbreak, on top of his usual sly culture-skewering critiques (see: ‘El Scorcho’, ‘Pork & Beans’, ‘Beverly Hills’, ‘Island In The Sun’ or ‘We Are All On Drugs’). Here we have tales of being bummed about driving to work, hanging out in the mall, creepy pop-father figures, awkward teenage courtship and partying on the weekend. It’s a feature that makes Weezer… well, Weezer, and Cuomo is well aware of the idea he’s not stepping too far from familiar territory.

“Yeah,” he figures, “from Weezer’s first album I was really focused on writing classic pop rock type songs – some other bands were trying to be really shocking or really, like, overly original and from day one I wanted to write in the vein of classic pop-rock; like the Beatles or the Beach Boys. And I’ve maintained my love for that.”

“So, still with Raditude a lot of the themes are very classic and universal. The first single,” he continues, “’If You Want Me To’ – it’s got that very nostalgic classic feel to it, like a ‘50s song or a Motown song and, um,” he pauses, searching for words, “it’s obviously a boy-girl song… but at the same time it’s got that Weezer-twist to it….” He lucks onto his point, adding, “You can’t imagine any other band coming up with that song besides Weezer, really. The twists are in the details.

Crucially, that twist has seemingly come from Cuomo – long-time L.A. resident – and his love of metal (before Weezer, Cuomo actually toted long hair and played in bands in the L.A. hair metal scene). “I think that’s exactly correct,” he says excitedly, “and hardly any journalists ever comment on that, but, the truth is, I’m really just a heavy metal musician… that’s how I learnt the instrument and the craft, by playing heavy metal songs. So, I’m a heavy metal musician that one day decided ‘oh, I’m going to get into songwriting, and I really like ‘60s pop, so let’s see what happens when I try to write classic pop songs but play them, basically, like metal’. And that’s how Weezer were formed,” he chuckles quietly. “And I think that’s what separates us from a lot of other indie-pop or indie rock bands – it does have this sort of toughness to it, or a hardness to the guitar sound: that punch,” he emphasises.

With hopes of a long awaited Australian tour still dashed (“We sure hope to get over there, but there’s no plans at the moment; It’s too far! It’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just the sad fact that Australia is so far away!”) Raditude still sees Weezer – and Cuomo – trying to create the ideal balance between the stadium and the arena.

Being universal, yet personal is a tough challenge. Yet, how would Cuomo like Weezer to be looked back on? “Um… I just see Weezer as a kickass pop-rock band that sing songs that anyone can get into; whether you’re a little kid or a grandparent – we love to get together with our fans and play loud singalong-type songs.”

Who: Weezer
What: Raditude is out now through Universal.

Interview: Patrick Wolf

Patrick Wolf
By Leigh Salter

There’s a mega-star, albeit one kept in check, inside Patrick Wolf. Even as he riffles through charity shop racks looking for interesting clothing to tailor to his unique tastes, he’s also hunting for a cape to match his crown. Yet his ambition to please himself musically has thankfully outweighed his ambition to be an award winning pop icon. The singer/composer acknowledges that holding back on the darker elements in his work would probably forge an easier path for him, but he simply doesn’t know how to sugar coat his – let’s say – peripheral fascinations.

Tonight Patrick, at home in London, protected from the freezing winter just outside the window, curls up in his bed with the phone he has rarely been off all day. He softly vocalizes his comfortable state in a voice that is all self-reassurance. All he has to do before sleep is answer a few questions.
“It’s almost midnight now, and although I’ve been up since four this morning, I feel like I can do this. You will be kind, won’t you?” His thick London accent is offset by the dreaded sniffles foretelling of a cold. I respond by telling Wolf, he needs to rest and shouldn’t be doing promo at this hour. (Laughs)

“Well it’s just one of those things I know I have to do, and to be honest I usually don’t mind doing interviews.” He continues, “I’ve learned to have a bit of fun with them but, occasionally it can get a little demoralizing when I have to answer questions about my hair or how tall I am. I do actually have other things to talk about rather than the colour of my hair, or what I had for breakfast.” Patrick then confesses, “I mean I do play along if an interview is going that way, but I don’t even talk about those sorts of things with my friends, so it feels very strange.”

It would seem by his response that Wolf encounters a lot of people in the media who don’t know what to make of him. Perhaps like the bunyip of legend he appears differently to all who see him? Some will see his boy-band good looks and stop at that. Others will take an interest in his exotic wardrobe, while a few might even work at finding a box to place him in based on the “boy lost and confused: approach with caution” lyrics often found in his work.

Despite some wide-of-the-mark categorizing, Patrick sees himself as very much an open book. “I am probably honest to a fault.” He elaborates, “But then it depends how you ask the question, and who’s asking. Right now I’m very tired and so that is affecting what you’re getting from me, but if I was out on my bicycle zipping around, I would give a very different impression I’m sure.” He laughs, “I know for a lot of artists, there is a wall between themselves and the press but for me it’s like an extension of my work as an artist, as someone who wants to express something hopefully worthwhile. I’m nothing if not honest.”

Wolf’s fourth album The Bachelor was released earlier this year on his own newly launched label, Bloody Chamber Music. Following 2007’s one-off major label release Magic Position, Patrick reflects on his brush with the “big-time”; “They (Universal) didn’t know how to market me at all. I think they would have been happier if I was a straight up pop artist.” The partnership failed the first test, and both Wolf and Universal ‘agreed on a separation’. “It feels like I’ve done the dress rehearsal and now I’m ready for my big show.” He is talking about the unglamorous times spent scratching around desperately to fund his first two independent albums – then being offered major label support, only to turn his back on them in favour of running his own label.

“I’ve always believed in independence for musicians and I’ve been in talks with many different types of record labels where nobody knew what to do with me, so now I’m back to the relative safety of my own independent set up. Best for all concerned I think”

It was his major debut that gained him attention in Australia, and The Bachelor has continued that success enough to warrant a full-scale tour. His shows are famously elaborate orgies of colour and costume. Patrick enigmatically explains what to expect, or rather what he envisions; “I would really like to do the shows as I see them deep in my heart, you know, with a huge band, amazing lighting and revolving platforms, trapdoors and people flying on ropes and everything that I see in my imagination, but really the shows are still going on a journey and they’re not at that stage yet… they’re just happily evolving.” He ads; “All I can tell you is we’re a very close family, the band and crew who I tour with, and we always try and make the shows fun and interesting and really make the most of whatever we have.”

As Patrick talks of evolving his live show, the subject of his childhood interest in the Theremin has him mentally redesigning the stage; “I like the idea of having dancers using the movement of their bodies to create the sounds as they dance around the instrument. Only I don’t know yet how I could possibly amplify or record that in concert.”

His visions coming to fruition are the blood and bones of Wolf’s work, no matter how confronting. Take the video to Bachelor single, ‘Vulture’ for example. An erotic one-man performance inspired by the Nazi-era German bondage & discipline films, which has sadly been misplaced along side Madonna’s watered down ‘liberation-and-leather’ ‘Justify My Love’ outing.

“Well I think my video was quite the opposite of what Madonna was doing.” He explains, “Everybody thought I was trying to be sort of sexy or provocative but in fact I was really addressing this male awkwardness in expressing sexuality. When I put that out, I was really interested in how people would define what it was I was saying.” Not disappointed then, Patrick instead is curious what, if any, bench marks his video might set; “Who knows, it might start a whole wave of boy-bands in bondage gear clips.” He laughs, adding “I just realised, this interview is starting to sound like In Bed With Madonna.”

On his website, you can view candid clips of Patrick at his home working on songs. The footage reveals his flat to be – as your mum might say – “a bomb sight”. “Oh I’m definitely a hoarder.” He says proudly, “It takes me ages just to move house so I’ve often though it’d be fun to hire a TV crew to film me moving just for comedy value.” He laughs, “It’s like Mary Poppins’ handbag, where she opens a compartment and out pops a harpsichord and in another one there’s a statue.” He continues, “I really like the idea of living in a museum like Michael Jackson’s house. He was one of us, a hoarder; and although he probably didn’t need 20 foot bronze statues of himself, I can definitely understand how he ended up living like that.”

Who: Patrick Wolf
What: The Bachelor is out now through Speak N Spell – keep an eye out also for companion album, The Conqueror soon to be released.
When: December 9 /11, 2009
Where: The Metro / Meredith Music Festival

Henrik Schwarz & 5 years of Future Classic.

Henrik Schwarz was once a graphic designer making music casually around his work – so casually, in fact, that he only ever worked in the studio on Sundays.

Over the past decade though, things have changed markedly for the German producer. After such a gradual beginning – “I was doing music as a hobby for 15 years before I released a record,” Schwarz admits – he is now among the most vaunted European electronic producers, with an eclectic yet distinct sound that combines funk, soul hip hop and more exotic global elements with a house and techno sensibility.

“The first records I was trying to get were hip hop and rap records from artists like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. These records were really hard to get in Europe at that time,” he recalls. “From there I wanted to find what the samples were so I went into jazz and funk and soul records and started DJing that kind of music. A bit later I heard Jeff Mills playing and that opened the whole electronic world for me. From that point I was totally into Detroit techno and that’s also when I really started DJing myself.”

Mills’ audacious method of DJing was to have a profound influence on Schwarz, who was immediately taken by the seminal Detroit producer’s fluid approach to a genre that is ostensibly so regimented. “The way Mills played was totally improvised from my point of view,” Schwarz affirms. “He’d throw these records on the turntable and play them for 45-seconds and then play the next one – he was improvising these patterns in a way. That was for me very much a jazz attitude.”

Schwarz’s eclectic and exuberant approach to dance music was first collected on his acclaimed DJ Kicks compilation – widely recognized as one of the best mixes of the series – which pitted staples from D’Angelo and Marvin Gaye alongside cuts from Arthur Russell and Drexiya. It was one of those rare, immediately recognisable mixes that captured the public’s imagination and united people of vastly different sonic persuasions.

For his part though, Schwarz has never been bound by the constraints of genre. “From my point of view I think it’s all just dance music, that’s how I put it together, it’s just another form,” he says. “What comes from Detroit can be Motown or it can be Underground Resistance; each has a similar affect, and touches my heart in a similar way.”

For the full article, pick up this week’s Brag…

Who: Henrik Schwarz
When: December 11 / 13
Where: Future Classics’ 5th Birthday, The Civic / Meredith

Film Review: The Informant (December 3)

Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!

Film
The Informant!
Opens December 3.

The versatile Steven Soderbergh’s latest film is a dark comedy that feels like a cross between Catch Me If You Can and Burn After Reading. It’s set in the early 90s but you can never really be sure. Some details, like the brick-sized mobile phones and green text on antiquated computers, fit; others, from the retro jazzy score to the idyllic white-picket fence suburbia, suggest anything from the 50s to the 70s.

The protagonist is equally difficult to define. Portrayed convincingly by a moustache-totin’, heavy-set Matt Damon, he is Mark Whitacre, an executive for the agriculture company, Archer Daniels Midland. Outwardly an talkative idealist, his thoughts are rendered in a stream-of-consciousness voiceover in which he discusses such important questions as whether or not a polar bear considers its black nose a hindrance to its camouflage. After learning of a price-fixing conspiracy within ADM, and prompted by his wife, he becomes a whistleblower for the FBI and a makeshift undercover agent.

Not trained for the task, he nonetheless blithely manages to clandestinely record meetings and gather enough evidence to convict. Despite planning to expose his co-workers as frauds and swindlers, he naively believes he will still have a place at the company when the guilty are exposed.

Whitacre is an enigma to the other characters, the audience, and ultimately himself. His journey from the early scenes, which zip by in a blur of 1940s-esque dialogue, to the latter which examine the consequences of the investigation and Whitacre’s ever-evolving version of events, is both funny and engaging.

Drowned in a warm lather of yellows and oranges and accompanied by a prominent and bouncy score by Marvin Hamlisch, the film is beautifully constructed. Damon could very well garner Oscar consideration, and again proves that he’s both a superstar and a talented actor.

3.5/5
Joshua Blackman