MOVIE REVIEW | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “Possibly the most interesting movie in the Star Wars canon.”

“Make ten men feel like a hundred.”

I’m a child of the 80s. The original Star Wars trilogy are three of the first movies I remember knowing and loving as a kid. I saw and hated the prequels, just like anyone of my generation should. And joined the same people in loving and praising the franchise’s return to form with The Force Awakens. Yet, for all of that, and despite the mostly good to great reviews for the series’ latest entry, I didn’t rush to immediately see that latest entry. But while  I might have been a bad Star Wars nerd by so late to the party, but now that I’ve seen it,  I’m eagerly jumping on the bandwagon and adding to the praise for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

As in all Start Wars stories, the central story is a young upstart, separated from their family, who is the key to saving the Galaxy.  This time it’s Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones). Years ago, her father (Mads Mikkelsen as Galen) was the key architect of the Death Star. Realising the devastation his invention will cause, he has chosen imprisonment at the hands of the Empire’s Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). Before giving himself up, Galen managed to hide the young Jyn, who would go on to be raised as a badass by rebellion soldier Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).

MOVIE REVIEW | ***TOM WEEK*** Quigley Downunder (1990)

In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “It’s the kind of movie that I only know it was attempting to be drama because the dialogue and characters tell me that.  It says a lot, but doesn’t actually do a great deal.”

“This ain’t Dodge City. And you ain’t Bill Hickok.”

American TV and movies have never got Australia right.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single American actor do a half decent Australian accent, and the clichés their views of us are built on are beyond dated.  Even The Simpsons, possibly the greatest TV comedy of all time, couldn’t help resorting to the cheapest, easiest, most played out jokes when they set an episode here.  And it was that terrible track record that had me kind of intrigued with the idea of Quigley Downunder.   A dodgy 90s movie, starring Tom Selleck as a cowboy who travels to colonial Australia just seemed like too much of an inevitable train wreck to miss.

Answering an ad looking for the world’s greatest sharpshooter, all American cowboy Matthew Quigley (Selleck) hops a ship, and three months later he’s in Fremantle on Australia’s west coast.  Putting his nice guy credentials on show, Quigley gets into a brawl, saving Crazy Cora (Laure San Giacomo) from some local lowlifes.  Local lowlifes who it turns out also work for Quigley’s new boss.  So now Quigley is aboard their carriage, with Crazy Cora, for several days journeying across the outback to finally meet his new employer.

MOVIE REVIEW | Mississippi Grind (2015)

“Do you know how to get a sweet, little, old lady to yell go fuck yourself?”

In recent years, Ben Mendelsohn has become one of the most consistently great actors in movies. It’s not only his performances that make him so reliable, it’s also his ability to choose great material. Watching a Ben Mendelsohn movie means I’ll get to see him be amazing, it also means I’ll be seeing a really cool, interesting story. So when you have the Mendelsohn factor, and add it to a gritty, 70s look, I knew I had to see Mississippi Grind.

Down on his luck gambler Gerry (Mendelsohn) loses with what is obviously just the latest in a long run of bad hands. But also at the table is Curtis (Ryan Reynolds). The two hit it off and have a big night of drinking before heading to the dog track the next day. Curtis has a big win and is ready to walk away, but Gerry convinces him to stay and they lose it all. With his bookie about break his thumbs for an outstanding debt, Gerry needs cash, or to get out of town quick. Curtis supplies both.

***2015 RECAP*** MOVIE REVIEW | Slow West (2015)

“That kid was a wonder. He saw things differently. To him, we were in a land of hope and good will.”

When it comes to Westerns, there are two major categories.  You have you’re action packed, gun slinging actioners.  They can be classic and cheesy like Red River, or violent and dark like The Wild Bunch.  Then there’s the other category of Western, the contemplative mood piece.  A style of Western pretty much perfected in movies like High Noon and The Unforgiven.  If you were to tell me that in 2015, there’d be a really great contemplative mood piece western written and directed by Scottish musician, starring an Irishman, filmed in New Zealand, I’d call you a crazy son of a bitch.  But now that I’ve seen Slow West, I feel like I have to apologise to you for that hypothetical slur

The late nineteenth century, Jay Cavendish (Kodi Mist-McPhee) leaves Scotland and travels to America in search of his lost love, Rose (Caren Pistorius).  Fleeing Scotland after her father (Rory McCann) killed Jay’s uncle, the Lord Cavendish (Alex Macqueen), Rose and her father have now become fugitives in their new home, with a $2,000 bounty on their heads.  A bounty that has become the latest pursuit of bounty hunter, Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender).

MOVIE REVIEW | Slow West (2015)

“That kid was a wonder. He saw things differently. To him, we were in a land of hope and good will.”

When it comes to Westerns, there are two major categories.  You have you’re action packed, gun slinging actioners.  They can be classic and cheesy like Red River, or violent and dark like The Wild Bunch.  Then there’s the other category of Western, the contemplative mood piece.  A style of Western pretty much perfected in movies like High Noon and The Unforgiven.  If you were to tell me that in 2015, there’d be a really great contemplative mood piece western written and directed by Scottish musician, starring an Irishman, filmed in New Zealand, I’d call you a crazy son of a bitch.  But now that I’ve seen Slow West, I feel like I have to apologise to you for that hypothetical slur

The late nineteenth century, Jay Cavendish (Kodi Mist-McPhee) leaves Scotland and travels to America in search of his lost love, Rose (Caren Pistorius).  Fleeing Scotland after her father (Rory McCann) killed Jay’s uncle, the Lord Cavendish (Alex Macqueen), Rose and her father have now become fugitives in their new home, with a $2,000 bounty on their heads.  A bounty that has become the latest pursuit of bounty hunter, Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender).

MOVIE REVIEW | Killing Them Softly (2012)

“They cry. They plead. They beg. They piss themselves. They call for their mothers. It gets embarrassing.”

Why are movies about bad guys doing bad things so appealing to audiences?  It can’t really be escapism if were watching these people who we’d never want to be, committing acts we’d never want to commit.  And with a lot of them, we know going in there’s not gonna be some idealised ending where the bad guys pay for their sins and the good guys win the day.  Buggers me what it is about these movies, but I do know that I love them.  Including the undeservedly overlooked at the time, and kind of forgotten already, Killing Them Softly.

A few years ago, Markie (Ray Liotta) organised the hold up of his own illegal card game.  He was the prime suspect, but managed to throw everyone off the scent.  Recently, he spilled the beans, but enough time had passed that he got a pass.  Which makes him an obvious patsy and fall guy if anyone else decides to rob his card game. Which is exactly what happens when Johnny (Vincent Curatola) hires low level scumbags Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) to do just that.

MOVIE REVIEW | Black Sea (2014)

“I lost my family because of this job.”

If, out of the blue, you were to ask me opinion of Jude Law, I probably wouldn’t have much to say.  As an actor, he’s not someone I willingly seek out, or someone I actively avoid.  If you asked me how many Jude Law movies I’d seen in my life, I’d probably remember two or three.  But a search of the Bored and Dangerous archives shows that I have written about no less than eight Jude Law movies in the last year or so.  Thinking about that, I realise that I don’t not remember him because he’s not good.  I don’t remember Jude Law because he’s pretty great at disappearing into a role and making me remember the character, not the actor.  So now that I have come to the realisation that I’m a fan of his work, I had to track down his latest, Black Sea.

Fired from his job as a submarine pilot for a marine salvage company, Robinson (Law) is drinking with fellow sackees Kurston (Daniel Ryan) and Blackie (Konstantin Khabensky).  Kurston has heard the story of a sunken U-boat off the coast of (European, not American) Georgia, full of Russian gold.  Kurston knows a man who might be able to finance a salvage mission, while Blackie knows a man who can sell them their own sub to go after the gold.

MOVIE REVIEW | Animal Kingdom (2010)

“You know what the bush is about? It’s about massive trees that have been standing there for thousands of years… And bugs that’ll be dead before the minute’s out. It’s big trees and pissy little bugs. And everything knows its place in the scheme of things.”

As far as feature film debuts go, you could a lot worse than writer / director David Michod. When I wrote about The Rover, his second movie, I had to set it in context with his freshman effort, Animal Kingdom. I said, “To be an Australian whose debut movie gets Oscar attention is all but unheard of.” While I’d seen Animal Kingdom when it first came out and while I really liked it, I never felt compelled to see it again. But when I was recently on a plane and saw it on the in the in-flight entertainment, and having also just seen and loved The Rover a few weeks prior, I had to revisit Animal Kingdom.

Josh “J” (James Frecheville) is sitting on the couch next to his dead mother, watching Deal or No Deal.   When the paramedics arrive, we learn she’s died of a heroin overdose. Alone, J resorts to calling his estranged grandmother (Jacki Weaver in her Oscar nominated role as Janine ”Smurf” Cody). Soon, J is brought into her fold, along with his several bank robbing uncles. There’s Joel Edgerton as the cool headed Barry, Sullivan Stapleton as the cocaine fuelled loose cannon Craig, Luke Ford as the fresh faced, Darren, and Ben Mendelsohn as the sociopathic Andrew, AKA “Pope”.

MOVIE REVIEW | Starred Up (2013)

“I’m just saying. Say this therapy goes well and it changes my life and I rehabilitate. And then you lay it on for the next geezer and it works for him, and the next. And everything’s sweet yeah? Crime rates starts to come down, police got less people to nick, courts got less people to convict. Pretty soon you’re out of a job.”

Movie escapism doesn’t have to be about crazy sci-fi, or magical fantasy, or even wish fulfillment of luxuries generally unavailable to us in the real world. Sometimes, movie escapism is about experiencing the absolute worst of what could actually happen to us, in the real world, if things took a turn for the worst. Like, what if you grew up with a violent criminal for a father who had been in jail since your were a kid? What if you were forced to grow up on the same violent streets that turned him that way, and the only way to survive was to retaliate with even more violence? What if that was the only world you knew, and jail times wasn’t just a possibility, but an inevitability? That is the world of Starred Up.

To be “starred up” means that despite being a minor, your crimes on the outside, and behavior in the inside, have been so bad, you’re getting moved up from juvenile detention to the big leagues of adult prison. Which is exactly what happens to Eric Love (Jack O’Connell). Once in gen pop, he’s immediately under the protection of his prisoner father, Ben Mendelsohn as Neville Love. Neville might not be the leader of the prisoners, but he’s certainly someone not to be messed with, and has obviously earned the respect and/or fear of everyone there, criminal and guard alike.