Author: Kate Larkindale

Review: ‘Birdman’

Posted by | Jan 15, 2015 |

If, like me, you’ve begun to lose hope that Hollywood is capable of making original, intelligent and innovative films, Birdman will restore your faith. It’s a black comedy that examines the nature of celebrity and the way fame can overshadow even the greatest artistic achievement. It never takes the expected path – it’s also the best film I’ve seen in a very long time. Michael Keaton, in a self-referential turn, plays Riggan, the former action star of a superhero film franchise called Birdman. He’s desperate for a comeback, but unwilling to sign on for the long-awaited Birdman 4. He’s on Broadway instead, days away from opening his own adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. We meet Riggan in his dressing room as he takes a moment to meditate before attacking another rehearsal. This would seem natural enough – but Riggan is meditating three feet from the floor. A poster of Birdman graces his dressing room wall, showing us that Riggan knows he’ll always be Birdman. In fact, Birdman’s voice echoes in his head at inopportune moments, like the devil sitting on his shoulder. When the play’s other male lead is spectacularly knocked out just before previews begin, one of the female leads convinces her superstar boyfriend, Mike Shiner, to step into the role – with everyone very aware of the box office boost his name will bring. But his first rehearsal...

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Review: The Water Diviner

Posted by | Dec 26, 2014 |

Russell Crowe’s directorial debut arrives in timely fashion to jump on the centenary of WWI commemorations, and just ahead of the anniversary of the Gallipoli conflict. By taking on such emotive local subject matter, Crowe has ensured his film will get an audience, even if it is a painfully inept attempt at making an involving film. Connor is an outback farmer with a gift (or perhaps it’s just luck) for finding water on his arid property. His three sons went to war, and none of them came home, something that weighs heavily on Connor, and even more heavily on his wife. After his wife drowns herself as a way to escape her grief, Connor resolves to go to Gallipoli to find the bodies of his sons and bring them home. When he arrives in Turkey, a street urchin grabs his bag and flees, forcing Connor to follow him to the guesthouse run by the child’s mother. Crowe takes a room and is soon getting himself involved in the lives of the mother and son, who are here because her husband went missing in Gallipoli fighting for the Turks. A ton of red tape makes getting to Gallipoli harder than Connor expected, but he’s a scrappy, tenacious Aussie, and won’t take no for an answer. It doesn’t take long for him to win over the brass and be allowed to...

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Review: ‘The Good Lie’

Posted by | Nov 21, 2014 |

This based-on-actual-events film tells the story of Sudan’s ‘lost boys’, a group of survivors from Sudan’s bloody civil war who managed to escape to America and build new lives. The film opens in a Sudanese village where children play games while adults prepare meals, hunt and gather food. The sound of a helicopter overhead presages doom, and within minutes the entire village is slaughtered – apart from three children who hide in a tree while the soldiers lay waste to their home. Mamere, Theo and Abital leave their ruined village and walk hundreds of miles across treacherous, war-torn terrain –  joining other children making a similar pilgrimage. Where they are going, they’re unsure. They just know there must be a safe place for them somewhere. They find that place at a Kenyan refugee camp, where they remain for thirteen years. Then they find themselves picked for a programme that will send them to the USA to find work. Their arrival in America is not smooth. As soon as they land, red tape separates Abital from her brothers and the two boys she has come to call family. She is sent to Boston while the boys end up in Kansas City. It’s there the boys meet Carrie, a counselor tasked with finding them work and settling them into their new country. Not an easy job when these boys have never...

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Review: ‘Gone Girl’

Posted by | Oct 4, 2014 |

Adapting a much-read and admired novel to the big screen is always a risk, but here it’s a risk that pays off. This is a taut and entirely engrossing film that left me wishing I could’ve seen it without knowing the twists from having recently read the novel. The film opens on the day of Nick and Amy Dunne’s 5th wedding anniversary. Through a series of flashbacks, based on Amy’s journal entries, we see how this couple came together and the stresses their marriage has weathered over its five-year span. Having met and lived blissfully in NYC, the couple are now residing in a small Minnesotan town after they both lost their writing jobs in the Big Apple. The same day the couple are supposed to be celebrating their anniversary, Amy disappears. Nick claims to have no clue as to what may have happened to Amy, but the detective in charge of the case doesn’t take long in finding fault with his story and shedding questions on the state of his marriage and the couple’s finances. As the case against him mounts, public opinion begins to play an important role. Nick’s easy-going attitude and seeming unconcern over his missing wife put him into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. He is soon the target of hate-mongering talk-show hosts across the nation. Through all the speculation about Nick’s innocence or guilt,...

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Review: ‘Jersey Boys’

Posted by | Jul 10, 2014 |

As an actor, Clint Eastwood is always worth watching. But it’s as a director I feel he has really shown his depth. Jersey Boys is a big screen adaptation of a hit Broadway musical, but it never feels like a stage show on the big screen. The film opens in a run-down New Jersey neighbourhood where Tommy DeVita is building a career in crime as an errand boy for local Mafioso, Gyp. On the side he moonlights in a band that plays dingy clubs and school dances. His friend, young Frankie Casteluccio, joins him occasionally on stage and on jobs for Gyp. As criminals, they are painfully inept and, along with Tommy’s brother Nicky, soon abandon crime in favour of music with Frankie, renamed Frankie Valli, singing the lead vocals in his angelic falsetto. They become popular in the neighbourhood, but nowhere else. It’s not until an eager young Joe Pesci (yes, that Joe Pesci) suggests they team up with clean-cut songwriter Bob Gaudio that they start to see success. But as we all know, success comes at a price, and soon Tommy is in over his head with the loan sharks, Frankie is estranged from his family, Bob is dissatisfied with his cut of the royalties and Nicky’s just fed up with sharing hotel rooms with his slovenly brother. The film takes its time in telling the story of the guys rise to...

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