July 25 - August 10 | Laneway’s Guide | Reviews
Reviews
Acolytes
Melbourne International Film Festival
August 1 and August 2, 2008
All comparisons aside, the film does exactly what you would hope a thriller would do - it frightens…
Read the full review here.
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Rock n Roll Nerd
Melbourne International Film Festival
July 27, July 30 and August 8, 2008
His face is made-up. His voice primed. Eyes lined. Hair: wild and flailing. The shirt, unbuttoned. But unbuttoned perfectly…
Read the full review here.
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My Winnipeg
Melbourne International Film Festival
July 27 and August 8, 2008
It’s weird, darkly funny, and intensely personal. Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg is a curious beast; a twisted cacophony of documentary, narrative and travelogue…
Read the full review here.
Ladies and gentlemen, MIFF is back. Now 57 years young, it has long been the staple for those willing to watch film with an open mind. This year, there are hundreds of films and a myriad of events packed into 17 culturally rewarding days.
Emerging from warm cinemas, rubbing their eyes - heads full of marvelous thoughts - are Melbourne’s film devotees; impassioned, adventurous, and seeking respite from Hollywood’s over-zealous blockbuster summer fare.
As always, MIFF’s program is eclectic. Some films are good, some are bad, and some are ugly. So what do you do?
You read on - because Laneway has pored through the MIFF’s comprehensive guide to give you the heads up on what to see, so you don’t have to.
So here it is - Laneway’s guide to the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Laneway’s MIFF Preview 2008
Who woulda thunk it? Australian film in the 70s and 80s was prolific, explosive, and innovative. MIFF pays tribute to bygone Australian cinema is in its Focus on Ozploitation program - a festival highlight and a must for fans of homegrown cinema.
While films such as My Brilliant Career (1979), The Getting of Wisdom (1978) and Breaker Morant (1980) were building our reputation for serious, considered cinema, a scurrilous collection of dirty, pornographic and violent shlock-horror genre films were making waves overseas in US exploitation houses - inspiring soon-to-be-great filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino with their ludicrous plots and outrageous barbarity.
This year, MIFF is giving movie-goers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see these films on the big screen, where you too can be repulsed and delighted by cinema that never deserved to be forgotten.
Particular highlights include Roadgames (1981, left), the late Richard Franklin’s classic road-slasher film, starring a young Jamie-Lee Curtis screaming her way through a serial killer attack on wheels.
If you’re after pure vulgarity, check out Turkey Shoot (1982), or, if you’re in the mood for some comedy, the classic Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974) should quench your thirst.
If you’re lucky enough to procure opening night tickets, of course, you’ll be privy to an exciting new documentary - Not Quite Hollywood - that explores the aforementioned movement that, until now, remained consigned to oblivion. You can view the trailer here. For those of us without tickets, expect an upcoming theatrical release.
MIFF’s selection of Aussie-made flicks this year is impressive, as the Homegrown program continues to delight. Lionel looks to be an inspired documentary that details the life and times of a prominent Aboriginal boxer-cum-musician-cum-politician Lionel Rose. Acolytes looks genuinely scary and brilliant, Men’s Group daring and innovative, and Salvation an exercise in thought-provoking mid-life philosophy.
Matthew Newton - son of Bert and Thank God You’re Here alumni - directs and stars in three blind mice - a ‘boys will be boys’ portrait of three Navy officers struggling to organise their lives one night prior to shipping off to Iraq.
A lovely addition to the 2008 program is the MIFF Premiere Fund, an inaugural body though which genuinely talented filmmakers and their passion projects can find funding. We recommend watching the entire program if you have the chance, but if forced to choose, assign priority to comedian Tim Minchin’s Rock n Roll Nerd (right), a documentary charting the journey of his soaring career, and Whatever Happened to Brenda Hean, a film investigating the mysterious disappearance of the eponymous activist during Tasmania’s hydro-electricity scheme.
Internationally, this year’s festival borrows heavily from Cannes, including a program entitled Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 40th Anniversary, which assembles breakout films that were lauded 40 years ago. A geek highlight includes George Lucas’ debut film THX 1138 (1971), a low-budget sci-fi starring Robert Duvall.
Both a tribute and admonishment of his moribund hometown is Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg; an hilarious, black and white rendering of the Canadian burg that intrigues with paradoxical mournings of a town frozen in time.
For lovers of Asian cinema, the Edward Yang Tribute is a rare chance to see his films pre-Yi-Yi, as Neighbourhood Watch tracks the recent cinema developments throughout Indonesia, China, Japan and South East Asia. Ashes of Time Redux, recut from celebrated director Wong Kar Wai’s 1994 original, is a highlight.
Don’t miss your chance to check out Next Gen, an exciting program showcasing youth-skewed cinema that includes the popular UK comedy Son of Rambow. Altered States, a collection of diverse US films, comprises the feel-good Michelle Williams-led Wendy and Lucy, Alex Holdridge’s In Search of a Midnight Kiss and the well-received The Wackness (left), Jonathan Levine’s drug addled homage to adolescence and its peculiarities in 1994 New York.
Be sure to check out the award-winning The Death of Mister Lazarecu, part of Romanian Wave, a collection of films exploding from the country in recent years that cater to the misanthropic.
We can’t recommend enough that you see any of the shorts programs - in an industry where funding opportunities are few and far between, these fiercely independent productions are a litmus test for talent, upcoming or fulfilled. This year, Australian shorts constitute a friendly majority, while our trans-Tasman friends contribute with quality content. There a handful of International shorts, too, several of which premiered at Cannes.
Horror fans, indulge yourself in the George A. Romero Retrospective, which ranges from his breakout Night of the Living Dead to 2007’s Diary of the Dead, the fifth in the series. He’s the International Headline guest, too.
And, if all this film watching tires you out, you can relax, recline and discuss at Coopers Festival Lounge, where you can down a beer and listen to some of our most talented musicians and composers strut their stuff.
So there it is! Just a sample of this year’s jam-packed schedule, and the stuff that appeals to us.
The city just feels better when we open our gates to the world’s finest cinema; we encourage anyone and everyone to get out and see what the earth’s most popular art-form is doing, and can do - while it plays in our backyard.
