arts NAKED reviews

MARCH 2010

contents

home

roughCuts

retroQueer

inDepth

ourSay

ourLives

p.s.

+ blog posts

+ subscribe

Subscribe today to receive our monthly independent newsletter directly in your mailbox for free and enjoy a choice collection of reviews, write-ups and the occassional feature from ArtsNaked. To view a sample newsletter, please click here.

+ podcasts

Get artsnaked live reviews on demand. Receive ARTS naked podcasts today!
Click here.

+ roughCuts

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Music and Lyrics

Pursuit of Happyness

Snakes On A Plane

Basic Instinct 2

Last Train to Freo

Tristram Shandy

Dead Man's Chest

X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: The Last Stand

Ice Age: The Meltdown

The Manual of Love

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Live and Become

One Afternoon in the City

+ inDepth

Crank: You Stop You Die

The Devil Wears Prada

Where the Truth Lies

Pirates of the Caribbean

History of Violence

The Da Vinci Code

Combien tu m'aimes?

Twentynine Palms: A Very Complicated Global Dance

American Dreamz

Bombon El Perro

War of the Worlds

Head in the Clouds

Revenge of the Sith

Revenge of the Sith

Revenge of the Sith

House of Flying Daggers

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Stratosphere Girl

Chronicles of Riddick

NEWEST roughCuts

BY RANABERRY
Ironman
Iron Man is the latest instalment of Hollywood?s rediscovery of comic book heroes. With the fans, characterisation and storyboarding already there, it?s not surprising that every ...

BY RANABERRY
Juno
Fox Searchlight's production of its latest film Juno has received much acclaim ever since it was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, which is unfortunate. Don't get me ...

BY THE RELUCTANT JOURNALIST
Ark of Truth
The first in 2 planned direct to DVD movies being released this year based on the Stargate: SG1 series, Stargate: The Ark of Truth concludes the Ori storyline which commenced ...

BY BUDDHA
I Am Legend
There's something about Will Smith movies that I like. It's either the Action or the Acting. I loveeeed Ali. The Acting was amazing -- it's a shame I fell asleep in the first 10 ...

Whole New Thing: Spinning The Flax

Director Amnon Buchbinder's describes the making of Whole New Thing as a challenge 'to spin the flax into gold': a draft script in two weeks, five days of pre-production, fifteen days of shooting amidst three record-breaking winter storms and five weeks of cutting made this sharp and poetic film even more of a marvel. Whole New Thing is a Canadian low budget film and Buchbinder's second feature. Notwithstanding having the mathematical skills of a 6th grader, 13 year old Emerson Thorsen has the cultural intellect of a 35 year old. Having written his first thousand page book 'The Fire of Evermore', and having been home schooled by his hippy parents, Kaya and Rog, Emerson reluctantly goes to school for the first time at the Chezzbrook County Middle School ... more

RECENT roughCuts

BY BUDDHA
Zatoichi
One of Japan?s biggest actors / writers / directors / producers / megalords, Takeshi Kitano, reboots a famous 1970s sword fighting blind masseuse in his 2003 film, Zatoichi. ...

BY RANABERRY
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The fifth instalment of the adventures of Harry Potter quickly proves that the series has successfully traversed the divide from children's movie to adult drama. Not that I would have ...

BY TRAMP
Music and Lyrics
I was dragged kicking and screaming to this film by my wife, constantly muttering 'Chick-flick city'. To my astonishment I enjoyed it very much. I laughed and cried through out the entire ...

BY RANABERRY
The Queen
Stephen Frears, most notably the director of Dangerous Liaisons and High Fidelity, is no slouch when it comes to putting together a great film. However, one cannot help but ask ...

Strange Bedfellows: The Faux-mo Choice

As the top Australian film in 2004 reaping a measly $4.8 million from Australian cinema audiences, Strange Bedfellows presents not only an interesting shift in audience reception to gay themes, it also reveals the typical Australian film goer's retrospective appreciation for tastes in the same vein as the 'Strictly Priscilla's Wedding' genre popular back in the early 90s. Australian cinema audiences don't appear to engage much with Australian productions of the social realist or arthouse vein, relating more to a film like Strange Bedfellows which provides light comedy while delivering a gawky social commentary about same-sex discrimination and relationship equality. Vince (Paul Hogan), who has inherited a hefty tax debt after carelessly signing a ... more

FEATURES inDepth

BY TRAMP
Casino Royale
Interesting cinema. I really enjoyed watching the show, but afterwards reflecting on the film was quite disturbed by it. It is impossible not to be engaged by the fantastic action ...

BY RANABERRY
Crank: You Stop You Die
I saw the trailer for this film and thought is looked like a hyped up version of DOA (starring Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan). 'Super jacked up to the max', is a more accurate ...

BY RANABERRY
The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada is a 'paint by numbers' comedy of self-discovery with some extraordinary performances elevating it to something more than it might have been. Simply having ...

BY THE RELUCTANT JOURNALIST
Poseidon
Anyone remotely into disaster films will remember the definitive ocean liner disaster epic 'The Poseidon Adventure' made in the early '70's with an A-Grade cast list including Gene Hackman, ...

Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert

A gem of the AFC standard, Priscilla is one of the higher budget queer films produced in Australia. The concept of two drag queens and a transsexual ex-Les Girls performer travelling to the centre of Australia for a performance is, in my opinion, the birth of the quirkiness with which Australian film has often been associated. By means of the mishaps that occur along the way, the film parallels their tour with the difficulties of the emotional life journeys that have already strengthened the characters of Tick (Mitzi), Adam (Felicia) and Bernadette. Tick, the prodigal father, agonises over meeting his teenage son estranged from birth. Bernadette bears the loss of her partner Trumpet, and despite being seemingly resigned to be a widow finds companionship in the ... more

Site Meter

DISCLAIMER: This website and the domain name are owned and developed by Arts Naked. All promotional material, reviews, comments and artwork are the copyright of their respective intellectual property holders and Arts Naked makes no claims to these copyrights. Any content re-published from external websites is for educational purposes and is attributed to their original source: their presentation here does not imply nor suggest an affiliation or relationship with Arts Naked. Arts Naked does not warrant nor guarantee that content within this website is accurate, complete, definitive, up to date nor fit for any particular purpose. Arts Naked does not endorse any views expressed or any products or services offered in this website. All material in this website is provided on an 'as is' basis and does not reflect the view of Arts Naked. Arts Naked is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced.

+ wannaSay?

Want to contribute your views and perspectives, represent a community you are a part of, review mass media and/or provide a voice for those denied access to opinion making in Australia? Then please email for more details.

+ ourSay

Whole New Thing: Spinning the Flax

Strange Bedfellows: The Faux-Mo Choice

Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert

Death of a Dream: Captain America

+ latest trailers

An exciting adventure based on the classic Jules Verne novel ?Journey to the Center of the Earth,? Journey to the Center of the Earth stars Brendan Fraser (Crash, The Mummy) as a science professor whose untraditional hypotheses have made him the laughing stock of the academic community. But on an expedition in Iceland, he and his nephew stumble upon a major discovery that launches them on a thrilling journey deep beneath the Earth?s surface, where they travel through never-before-seen worlds and encounter a variety of unusual creatures. Journey to the Center of the Earth is directed by Academy Award-winning visual effects veteran Eric Brevig (Total Recall, Pearl Harbor) from a screenplay by Michael Weiss and Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin. The film is a co-venture between New Line Cinema and Walden Media.

While the Duplass Brothers were shooting their last feature film The Puffy Chair, a crew member raised the question ?what?s the scariest thing you can think of?? Someone immediately said ?a guy with a bag on his head staring into your window.? Some agreed, but some thought it was downright ridiculous and, if anything, funny (but definitely not scary). Thus, BAGHEAD was born, an attempt to take the absurdly low-concept idea of a ?guy with a bag on his head? and make a funny, truthful, endearing film that, maybe, just maybe, was a little bit scary, too.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS, to be fully produced in 3-D, is the latest installment to the hit ICE AGE franchise, which has grossed more than $1.2 billion around the world. ICE AGE 3 will be directed by Oscar-nominated Carlos Saldanha, who directed ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN and co-directed ICE AGE. The film is being produced by Academy Award-winning Blue Sky Studios, the creative force behind all the ICE AGE films and the upcoming DR. SUESS? HORTON HEARS A WHO.

The freewheeling passion of youth and the unpredictable perils of fate are both the subject and the breathtaking form of Joachim Trier?s lean and kinetic journey through friendship, love, madness and creativity: REPRISE. Trier viscerally captures the way life takes off at rocket-speed in the beginning of adulthood ? and the what-ifs and why-nots that both drive and haunt us as the unbridled hopes of youth come to a screeching halt. The fast-moving story kicks off just as Phillip (ANDERS DANIELSON LIE) and Erik (ESPEN KLOUMAN-HOINER) stand at the mailbox, two cocky, grinning rebels full of 20 year-old verve and dreams, their whole lives hanging in the balance at this singular moment. Each is about to ship off his first novel to publishers, each is hoping to become a wildly influential "cult author," each has visions of a new life of non-stop intensity, brilliance, romance and nightclubbing. Fast-forward six months. These reveries have crashed, hard, into reality. Phillip, whose novel garnered instant acclaim and turned him into a mini-celebrity, has had a terrifying breakdown and is just about to be released from a psychiatric hospital. Erik, who never sold his novel, is still pecking away, determined to follow in the footsteps of his undying hero, a reclusive but idolized writing genius, no matter what it takes. REPRISE explores not just what happens to Phillip and Erik as they pick up the pieces but what might have happened to them, what they imagine could happen, what they fear will possibly happen and what they can?t see actually happening. Nimbly moving both backwards and forwards in time ? via a dazzling mix of flashbacks, rapid-fire editing, philosophical voiceovers and comical flights of fancy ? the film traces how Erik and Phillip arrived at this precipice where exuberant youth runs into the harsh light of day ? and witnesses the emotionally gripping aftermath.

It?s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana?but change is in the air. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against ?crimes? like noisy portable radios, graffiti and public drunkenness. Set against this backdrop, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends his last summer before college selling dope throughout New York City, trading it with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) for therapy, while crushing on his step daughter (Olivia Thirlby). Famke Janssen, Mary Kate Olsen,and Method Man round out the cast in this edgy, bittersweet, and funny coming of age story.

What do you do when you?re born with a hunch in your back? In the land of Malaria, you become an Igor. Directed by award-winning animation verteran Tony Leondis (Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Lilo & Stitch 2) and from Max Howard, producer involved in such films as The Little Mermaid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Aladdin and The Lion King, comes Igor. This playful and irreverent comedy brings a new twist to the classic monster genre. Igor is the story of a made scientist?s hunchback lab assistant who dreams of becoming an evil scientist and winning first place at the annual Evil Science Fair. Starring Steve Buscemi (Charlotte?s Web), John Cleese (Shrek 2, Shrek 3) and John Cusack (High Fidelity, Grace is Gone), Igor is sure to re-invent the mad scientist genre for a new generation.

Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. lead an ensemble cast in ?Tropic Thunder,? an action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys

In You Don?t Mess With the Zohan, a comedy from screenwriters Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog), and Judd Apatow (Knocked Up), Sandler stars as Zohan, an Israeli commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream: becoming a hairstylist in New York. Dennis Dugan directs.

In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. We reward speed, size and above all else: winning - at sport, at business and at war. Metaphorically we are a nation on steroids. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs? From the producers of Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 comes a new film that unflinchingly explores our win-at-all-cost culture through the lens of a personal journey. Blending comedy and pathos, BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER* is a collision of pop culture, animated sequences and first-person narrative, with a diverse cast including US Congressmen, professional athletes, medical experts and everyday gym rats. At its heart, this is the story of director Christopher Bell and his two brothers, who grew up idolizing muscular giants like Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and who went on to become members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream. When you discover that your heroes have all broken the rules, do you follow the rules, or do you follow your heroes?

A romantic action-adventure set in northern Australia prior to World War II, AUSTRALIA centers on an English aristocrat who inherits a ranch the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle driver to drive 2000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country?s most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

On May 22, Indiana Jones is back in a new globe-trotting adventure, ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.? Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as Indy, ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? features an outstanding cast, including Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Oscar winner Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBeouf. Frank Marshall is the film?s producer. George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy are the executive producers. The screenplay is by David Koepp from a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson.

Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios? big screen adaptation of Marvel?s legendary Super Hero Iron Man will launch into theaters on May 2, 2008. Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr. stars as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the story of a billionaire industrialist and genius inventor who is kidnapped and forced to build a devastating weapon. Instead, using his intelligence and ingenuity, Tony builds a high-tech suit of armor and escapes captivity. When he uncovers a nefarious plot with global implications, he dons his powerful armor and vows to protect the world as Iron Man. The film also stars Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow and Oscar nominees Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges and will be directed by Jon Favreau.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK kicks off an all-new, explosive and action-packed epic of one of the most popular Super Heroes of all time. In the film, scientist Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) desperately hunts for a cure to the gamma radiation that poisoned his cells and unleashes the unbridled force of rage within him: The Hulk. Living in the shadows--cut off from a life he knew and the woman he loves, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler)--Banner struggles to avoid the obsessive pursuit of his nemesis, General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt), and the military machinery that seeks to capture him and brutally exploit his power. As all three grapple with the secrets that led to The Hulk?s creation, they are confronted with a monstrous new adversary known as The Abomination, whose destructive strength exceeds even The Hulk?s own. And on June 13, 2008, one scientist must make an agonizing final choice: accept a peaceful life as Bruce Banner or find heroism in the creature he holds inside--THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

Worldwide media sensation JENNA JAMESON and Nightmare on Elm Street?s ROBERT ENGLUND star in ZOMBIE STRIPPERS. When a secret government agency lets out a deadly chemo virus causing the reanimation of the dead, the first place to get hit is Rhino?s, a hot underground strip club. As one of the strippers gets the virus, she turns into a supernatural, flesh-eating zombie stripper, making her the hit of the club. Do the rest of the girls fight the temptation to be like the star stripper, even if there is no turning back? Also featuring ROXY SAINT (of the Goth band Roxy Saint and the Blackouts) and Ultimate Fighting Champion TITO ORTIZ, ZOMBIE STRIPPERS is a sexy, bloody, hilarious good time!

Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (DENNIS QUAID) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant ? but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he?s as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His teenaged daughter (ELLEN PAGE) is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad?s misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne?er- do-well brother (THOMAS HADEN CHURCH) has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can?t seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he?s an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time as he accidentally encounters his former student Janet (SARAH JESSICA PARKER), the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking, consequences for himself and everyone around him.

A runaway audience smash at the Sundance Film Festival, SON OF RAMBOW is a hilariously fresh and visually inventive take on friendship, family, film heroes and the death-defying adventures of growing up in the video age. It all begins in 1980s Britain, when young Will Proudfoot, raised in isolation among The Brethren, a puritanical religious sect in which music and TV are strictly forbidden, encounters something beyond his wildest fantasies: a pirated copy of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD. His virgin viewing of the iconic thriller blows his mind ? and rapidly expanding imagination ? wide open. Now, Will sets out to join forces with the seemingly diabolical school bully, Lee Carter, to make their own action epic, devising wildly creative, on-the-fly stunts, not to mention equally elaborate schemes for creating a movie of total commitment and non-stop thrills while hiding out from The Brethren. But when school popularity finally descends on Will and Lee in the form of, oui, the super-cool French exchange student, Didier Revol, their remarkable new friendship and precious film are pushed, quite literally, to the breaking point ?

Hurtling down the track, careening around, over and through the competition, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a natural behind the wheel. Born to race cars, Speed is aggressive, instinctive and, most of all, fearless. His only real competition is the memory of the brother he idolized-the legendary Rex Racer, whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill. Speed is loyal to the family racing business, led by his father, Pops Racer (John Goodman), the designer of Speed?s thundering Mach 5. When Speed turns down a lucrative and tempting offer from Royalton Industries, he not only infuriates the company?s maniacal owner (Roger Allam) but uncovers a terrible secret-some of the biggest races are being fixed by a handful of ruthless moguls who manipulate the top drivers to boost profits. If Speed won?t drive for Royalton, Royalton will see to it that the Mach 5 never crosses another finish line. The only way for Speed to save his family?s business and the sport he loves is to beat Royalton at his own game. With the support of his family and his loyal girlfriend, Trixie (Christina Ricci), Speed teams with his one-time rival-the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox)-to win the race that had taken his brother?s life: the death-defying, cross-country rally known as The Crucible.

From the beloved best-selling series of books comes ?The Spiderwick Chronicles,? a fantasy adventure for the child in all of us. Peculiar things start to happen the moment the Grace family (Jared, his twin brother Simon, sister Mallory and their mom) leave New York and move into the secluded old house owned by their great, great uncle Arthur Spiderwick. Unable to explain the strange disappearances and accidents that seem to be happening on a daily basis, the family blames Jared. When he, Simon and Mallory investigate what?s really going on, they uncover the fantastic truth of the Spiderwick estate and of the creatures that inhabit it.

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America?s image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few ?bad apples?? We set out to examine the context of these photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? We talked directly to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs. Who are these people? What were they thinking? Over two years of investigation, we amassed a million and a half words of interview transcript, thousands of pages of unredacted reports, and hundreds of photographs. The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup. An expose, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a coverup because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything, that there was no need to look further. In recent news reports, we have learned about the destruction of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation tapes. A coverup. It has been front page news. But the coverup at Abu Ghraib involved thousands of prisoners and hundreds of soldiers. We are still learning about the extent of it. Many journalists have asked about ?the smoking gun? of Abu Ghraib. It is the wrong question. As Philip Gourevitch has commented, Abu Ghraib is the smoking gun. The underlying question that we still have not resolved, four years after the scandal: how could American values become so compromised that Abu Ghraib?and the subsequent coverup?could happen?

From director J.J. Abrams (?Mission: Impossible III,? ?Lost? and ?Alias?) and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (?TRANSFORMERS,? ?MI: III?) comes a new vision of the greatest space adventure of all time, ?Star Trek,? featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no man has gone before.

Decorated Iraq war hero Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) makes a celebrated return to his small Texas hometown following his tour of duty. He tries to resume the life he left behind with the help and support of his family and his best friend, Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum), who served with him in Iraq. Along with their other war buddies, Brandon and Steve try to make peace with civilian life. Then, against Brandon?s will, the Army orders him back to duty in Iraq, which upends his world. The conflict tests everything he believes in: the bond of family, the loyalty of friendship, the limits of love and the value of honor.

Lock the doors. Assume you?re safe. The horrifying events that took place in the Hoyt family?s vacation home at 1801 Clark Road on February 11, 2005, are still not entirely known. Writer/director Bryan Bertino explores our most universal fears in The Strangers, a terrifying suspense thriller about a couple whose remote getaway becomes a place of terror when masked strangers invade. The confrontation forces Kristen and James to go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.

+ gallery

The Set

GUESTS online:

198693 Page Views
(Since 1 Sept 2004)