THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
Dir. Robert Wise Perf. Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal. Twentieth Century Fox 1951 Film
Dir. Scott Derrickson Perf. Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Twentieth Century Fox 2008 Film
Out of everything they might’ve given us, the aliens from The Day the Earth Stood Still decide to bestow the revelation that we’ve put ourselves on the way to destruction.
We know that!
MAD MAX 2
Dir. George Miller Perf. Mel Gibson and Bruce Spence. Kennedy Miller Entertainment 1981 Film
Tim reminds you of The Humungus from Mad Max 2. Of a barbarian born in the last days who hurtles through life in a dune buggy wearing a mixture of bondage gear and sports padding. Of a man who has hooked a public address system up to his dune buggy so he can proclaim himself to the people of the refinery. Continue reading
SEVEN SAMURAI
Dir. Akira Kurosawa Perf. Toshirô Mifune and Takashi Shimura. Toho Company, 1954 Film
If Sebastian taught me anything, he taught me to dial the first two digits of the emergency number first – before you got yourself into trouble. Convulsing from electric shock, you might still manage to fumble the last digit (so that paramedics could come and resuscitate you), but you’d never manage all three.
Sebastian got his start wiring together surveillance devices for mistrustful husbands under Colin Mitchell at Talking Electronics. When ASIO shut Talking Electronics down in 1992, Sebastian started a private company in the city called Teragen International, doing God only knows what. Their only discernable business amounted to a dialup internet service with too few modems called Aardvark Internet. But Teragen worked day and night, propelled to a frenetic pace by ephedrine tea they imported under a loophole in the Australian import restrictions. After working for days at a stretch, they’d retire to electrocute themselves with homemade electroshock weapons. Continue reading
IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
Dir. Terry Gilliam. Prod. William Vince. Perf. Charles McKeown, Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Jude Law, Verne Troyer, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp, and Tom Waits. E1 Entertainment, 2009. Film.
Watching the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus feels like hearing somebody recount their dream. Both bore you for the same reason: because anything can happen at any moment, there exists no suspense. We feel no anxiety when thugs chase the hero, since at any moment the sky may spit asunder and disgorge platoons of patchwork pharaohs or motorcycle-riding crayfish to rescue him. The ground beneath the pursuers’ feet may turn to treacle. The wind may blow in an opaline mist of bumblebees in frockcoats that halts everybody in their tracks. Even as they herd him to the edge of a precipice, we know that a flying teacup may appear to whisk him out of their reach. Continue reading
I revere Vincent Gallo’s film Buffalo 66 as a work of genius. From the outset, the film seizes our attention through its humour and stunning photography. Buffalo looks like Orwell’s bright cold day in April when the clocks struck thirteen. Gallo’s flurrying delivery leaves us in hysterics.
At first, we despise his protagonist. After heckling her away from the
payphone, Billy mooches phone change from the tap dancer and then sneers at her in return.