Smarts - Watch - DVDs, Movies, TV Shows
WATCH is ThreeThousand's guide to movies in Melbourne. While we focus on art-house and independent releases, we never shun our secret pop-culture pleasures. WATCH also has its fingers on the pulse of film-festivals and specially programmed events and we give tickets away every week. We have also been known to organise special preview screenings, which we always chicken out of introducing on the microphone before the previews start playing.
The Narrows presents PHASE IV
Graphic design and film have been inextricably linked since the first opening credits rolled. Saul Bass was the man behind some of the most distinctive opening credits of all time, like Psycho, North By Northwest and The Man With The Golden Arm.
When Bass stepped to the director's chair, things got wonderfully weird.
This Filthy World, John Waters interview
American auteur John Waters' early films involved overweight drag queens eating fresh dog poop, and singing anuses. His recent works include Tony Award winning Broadway musicals and Hollywood A-list stars. In John's one-man show, 'This Filthy World', he explains his unbelievable career trajectory in his inimitable, frank, sardonic, style.
Crazy Heart
Crazy Heart feels a little like The Big Lebowski meets The Wrestler. Like Darren Aronofsky's film, it quietly, impressionistically follows a broken-down former star: country singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges). Alcoholic and estranged from his family, he's scraping a living touring dismal dives, ducking out mid-song for a spew.
In the Loop
In the Loop is based on the British political satire The Thick Of It, which has been dubbed the new Yes, Minister. But to paraphrase one character, In The Loop makes Yes, Minister "look like Angela Lansbury". The dialogue crackles with witty one-liners, pop-culture references and copious amounts of furious, creative swearing.
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
I wish I could report that Heath Ledger's final film contains a performance to match his mercurial Joker or gruffly tender Ennis Del Mar. It doesn't. But even an off-form Ledger is still compelling as amnesiac Tony, who's rescued from an apparent suicide by tender-hearted Valentina (Lily Cole), the daughter of itinerant entertainer Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer).
Funny People
Like or loathe Judd Apatow, he's a game-changer. Funny People is only Apatow's third directorial outing, yet Hollywood comedies have embraced - to varying degrees - his signature themes of vulnerable manchildren reinforcing traditional family values through dick jokes and rapid-fire pop-culture references.
Up
It's odd what can make us cry in the movies. The death of Bambi's mum left me unmoved. Yet I always cry - always! - in that scene in Dumbo where his mum's been falsely imprisoned for being a Mad Elephant and she rocks him in her trunk through the bars... excuse me, I need a tissue.
Anyway, Pixar's latest also made me cry.
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