START OPTIONS EXIT

Stars: Ari Neville, Yoav Lester, Tom McCathie, Hannah Greenwood, Rhys Mitchell, Kristen Condon, Michael Fee, Tottie Goldsmith and Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read.
Writers: Yoav lester, Christopher Mitchell and Ari Neville.
Directors: Yoav Lester and Christopher Hf Mitchell.

Screens on Friday, September 12 as the Opening Night Film of the 2014 Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

Rating: 4/5 

A coarse, compelling, comedic odyssey, Start Options Exit takes the menu page cues of an old video game and crafts an existential riff rich in Gen-Y self-centredness and energised aimlessness. Driven by a frantic narrative brimming with bad decisions, foul language and failed conquests, co-directors Yoav Lester and Christopher Hf Mitchell’s debut feature is a both a work synonymous with the energy of great underground cinema and a slyly intellectual exercise that deserves to play beyond niche festival placements (of which there will be many).

A heightened, fantastical tone is set by the introduction of the lead characters within a pixelated reality; they are the central figures in a side-scrolling platformer being played by two pre-teens, left to their own devices in a suburban basement. In human form, the game figures become Neville (co-scripter Ari Neville) and Yolis (multi-hyphenate Lester), two like-minded mates with pretensions to alpha-male status but who we meet fuelling their false machismo by harassing a video store clerk (Michael Fee) and crudely propositioning a pretty patron.

So begins the pair’s late night meander through an urban landscape of hipsters, booze, drugs and thugs. Between bouts of loud street philosophizing on all that influences their existence (mostly girls, movies and drugs), the pair interact with different denizens of the night, all of whom have their own vivid personalities. Key amongst them is Tom McCathie’s ‘The Vagrant’, his strong spirituality and positive energy proving a potent challenge to the boys’ angry self-righteousness, and Hannah Greenwood as Chloe, Yolis' recent ex.

In addition to the vid-game graphics and VHS library, references that place the action pre-2000 include the lads carnal yearning for Christina Ricci’s ‘Wednesday Addams’ character, singer Tom Petty (the great singer reduced to crude punchline) and the use of Yazoo’s classic Only You to mesmerising effect. Also suggesting a period long since past is the casting of such time-specific identities as Tottie Goldsmith, terrific as a sexed-up matriarchal presence called ‘The Oracle’; late criminal anti-hero Mark ‘Chopper’ Read, as a quick-witted disposal store clerk; and, in the only sniff of stunt-casting, porn star Ron Jeremy as a relationship therapist. 

The production earns its Opening Night status at the 2014 Melbourne Underground Film Festival on several fronts, not least being its portrayal of two misogynistic, manipulative, opportunistic lead characters most would cross the street to avoid. In their world, rape at knifepoint reunites you with your loved one. Death is, literally, a distraction; a moment representing some other reality that passes as soon as the next meagre goal presents itself.

But Lester and Mitchell have a deeper purpose for Neville and Yolis than to merely paint them as some kind of R-rated ‘Bill & Ted’ comedy team. The filmmakers are determined to explore the consequences of lives lived from a purely egocentric perspective, forging an existence devoid of maturity, responsibility and consequence. Admirably, the production does not impose any type of life lesson upon its protagonists; as the title indicates, existence is a beginning, a series of choices and an inevitable finality. In the absence of empathy or compassion, the path from birth to death is a meaningless, nihilistic journey; Start Options Exit also makes it a funny, thrilling, confounding one.

THE GREEN INFERNO

Stars: Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Aaron Burns, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Magda Apanowicz, Daryl Sabara, Ignacia Allamand, Nicholas Martinez, Sky Ferreira and Antonieta Pari.
Writers: Eli Roth and Nicolas Lopez.
Director: Eli Roth.

Rating: 1.5/5

The grand-scale cannibal epic that sly marketeers have been hinting at is nowhere to be found in Eli Roth’s low-rent, low-IQ disappointment, The Green Inferno. Touted as a loving homage to Italian grindhouse hero Ruggerio Deodata’s 1980 cult shocker Cannibal Holocaust, Roth’s limp, one-note adventure plays more like a half-baked piss-take than the work of someone with any knowledge of, let alone respect for, the anthropophagus genre.

Providing the film’s only inherent worth is Lorenza Izzo as Justine, a restless freshman sharing a dorm room with her gormless bff, Kaycee (Sky Ferreira). Disgusted by a classroom presentation on female genital mutilation (surely a course requirement, though everyone acts like the images were just sprung on them), Justine is in the frame of mind to be convinced by smitten, schlubby do-gooder Jonah (Aaron Burns) to attend a campus activist group session led by the charismatic douche-bag, Alejandro (Ariel Levy).

A bat of his eyelids later and Justine is bound for South America, part of a naïve but energised group of protesters determined to highlight the region’s deforestation. A dozen nobodies padlocked to trucks and trees to spread the word about the already well-documented practices of indigenous habitat destruction seems a tad pointless, so some techno-babble about uploading the real-time confrontation for the whole world to see is inserted. In what proves to be just one of the film’s shortcomings, The Green Inferno is peopled almost entirely by imbeciles, burdened with execrable dialogue. These twenty-somethings are smart enough to be accepted into college but too dumb to research their logging industry targets before jetting off into the Amazonian jungles. “You mean, they’ll have guns?” says one wide-eyed moron, just before they board a boat to head upstream.

Long overdue action in the form of a well-staged plane crash finally spins the film on the narrative axis the target audience has been waiting for– the bloody deaths of non-essential support players and the insertion of our protagonists into unfriendly jungle. Thankfully, Roth finds some mojo and moves his players swiftly; in a whirlwind sequencing of post-crash carnage and poison darts, Justine and her surviving activists (which now include ‘Spy Kids’ alumni Daryl Sabara and pretty blonde screamer Kirby Bliss Blanton) are soon in the clutches of a red-skinned native tribe and the festivities begin.

Gorehounds will be happy that the film finally gets down to some bloodletting; by the half way mark, tongues, eyes, limbs and torsos have featured. Those new to either cannibal film lore or Roth’s gleeful depiction of acts of dismemberment will squirm, but the tone of The Green Inferno doesn’t allow for any sort of serious investment on the audiences’ part. Just as no character earns our empathy, nor do any of the acts of cannibalism prove truly shocking. It is one of several misjudgements on the productions part that creates such a chasm between it and Deodata’s film; the Italian’s camera cast an almost objective eye over the horrors, while Roth’s all but screams “Wow, look what I’m doing!”

Devolving into pointless padding (Justine’s plunge into the Amazon is entirely unwarranted) and episodic fight-or-flight diversions, The Green Inferno’s most diabolical liability is tone. Is Roth’s work a satire on spoilt rich kids and the privilege they blindly yield? Why are there passages of wacky black comedy in my cannibal movie (the ‘bag of pot’ sequence is plain stupid; it’s ‘overseas’, remember, so we gotta get a diarrhoea joke in there…)? There is meant to be humour in the notion that the traditional tribal practices the protesters are trying to save proves to be their undoing, right? So why is it barely referenced? And does the tribe (whose ‘remote outpost’ looks like a quiet corner of Central Park) exist only to prepare and eat human flesh? Little else seems to be going on for the whole time the captives are there.

Of greater interest than anything in the film would be to consider The Green Inferno as part of Roth’s broader filmography. To date, his films present the ‘uncivilised world’ as a dangerous threat to those who are privileged, collegiate, good time go-getters. His heroes aren’t always the brightest of bulbs, but they are America’s future; so far, they have been threatened by the swampy backwaters of their own homeland (Cabin Fever), the horrors of Eastern Europe (the Hostel films) and, in his latest work, the ‘savages’ of South America. In each case, powerful forces not aligned to the vision of the upwardly mobile represent pure evil (here, personified by the majestically demonic Antonieta Pari as ‘The Elder’); myopic villains driven to exploit those that represent the best the US can and will offer. There is a forceful horror at work in The Green Inferno, but perhaps it is not the flesh-eaters of the rainforest.

KITE

Stars: India Eisley, Samuel L Jackson, Callan McAuliffe, Zane Meas, Carl Beukes, Lionel Newton and Deon Lotz.
Writer: Brian Cox; based upon the film by Yasuomi Umetsu.
Director: Ralph Ziman.

Rating: 2.5/5

Dabbling in the same fetish-feminism and coldly-served revenge fantasies that made Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch such a wildly divisive work, artist and occasional director Ralph Ziman brings an appropriately seedy but miserably downbeat aesthetic to this long-in-development adaptation of Yasuomi Umetsu’s R-rated anime.

The blood-soaked, soft-core original drew conservative ire and censorship board wrath for its depiction of schoolgirl skin-flick anti-heroine, Sawa. In Brian Cox’s script, the random fornication so prevalent in the cartoon is gone, replaced by a greater focus on Sawa’s troubled psyche and fitful recollection of her past (the skimpy costuming, of course, remains). Fuelled by an addiction to the street drug Amp and hell bent upon avenging the slaying of her crusader cop dad, she delves deep into the sordid world of child prostitution where she ekes out and exterminates any evildoer that crosses her.

Live-action reimagining of the original’s key visual cues and memorable moments will register with the fan base. Relevance is attempted by positing the action in a post-GFC dystopia, riddled with the kind of social decay that budget restraints demand is conveyed by lots of peeling paint and smoke machines. The expansion of the plot from 50 minutes to a laborious 90 yields no discernible thematic gain; additional elements such as parkour street gang rivalries and Sawa’s softening when faced with an orphaned teen bolster the running time but not audience involvement.

Ziman’s flesh-and-blood embodiment of Sawa is American actress India Eisley, registering strongly when called upon to humanize the cold-blooded assassin but unable to cut it when the going gets physical; best amongst the cast is Australian Callan McAuliffe as Sawa’s street-urchin guardian, Oburi. Prime villainy is provided in the form of ‘The Emir’, played in a brief, charismatic turn by local character actor Zane Meas, and his OTT pommie offsider, Vic (some ol’ school scenery-chewing by Carl Beukes); all other bad guy parts are of the ‘arms folded and wait to die horribly’ variety. Gorehounds will find some glee in an opening sequence that features an exploding head seen through a gaping hole in one baddie’s hand and a henchman’s death by dum-dum dildo.

The property fell into Ziman’s hands when Snakes on a Plane director David R Ellis passed away unexpectedly during pre-production. Cast as the Sawa’s protector and loner cop Karl, a clearly disinterested Samuel L Jackson was locked in and hung around when the shoot went ahead, but there is a tangible sense that not everybody was particularly enthused about continuing. Shot in South Africa, the narrative occasionally recalls Luc Besson’s Leon and Tarantino’s Kill Bill double feature, but ultimately feels more akin to such weekly rental VHS staples as Avenging Angel and I Spit on Your Grave than anything worthwhile in its own right.

HOUSEBOUND

Stars: Morgana O’Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru, Cameron Rhodes, Millen Baird, Ross Harper and Wallis Chapman.
Writer/Director: Gerard Johnstone

Screens as the Opening Night film of the 2014 Sydney Underground Film Festival on Thursday, September 4.

Rating: 4/5

That moment of indescribable horror when you realise that your only option in life is to move back in with your parents proves a grand premise for Gerard Johnstone’s debut outing, Housebound. Exhibiting a bold visual style and a natural flair for funny, character-driven dialogue, the New Zealander has delivered a giggly, gory romp that both honours and enhances his native film industry’s love of the macabre. In tandem with Taiki Waititi’s vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows, 2014 has proven to be a banner year for the New Zealand sector and its grasp of what constitutes marketable, fresh content (take note, Screen Australia).  

Miserably failing as a petty criminal, angry young woman Kylie (a terrific Morgana O’Reilly) is ‘sentenced’ to eight months in an ankle bracelet under the care of her upright and old-fashioned mum, Miriam (comic great Rima Te Wiata). The dark and dusty family home, its countryside setting ensuring Kylie has nowhere to run, seems cursed by unexplainable phenomena stemming from its past as a refuge for wayward teens. When things start to go bump in the night, Kylie reluctantly teams with self-proclaimed ‘ghostbuster’ Amos (Glen-Paul Waru) to unravel decades of small-town secrets and lies.

Years as one of the creative forces on the hit Kiwi sitcom The Jaquie Brown Diaries has served Johnstone’s comedy timing well; he establishes key characters with a swift, confident series of broad brush strokes that are funny and insightful. Less assured is the film’s central second act, when an extended sequence between Amos and a creepy neighbour provides little pay-off and Rima Te Wiata’s comic presence as Miriam disappears for far too long.

All shortcomings are forgiven when the frantic third act kicks into gear, with every energetic blast of increasingly off-kilter exposition scaling giddy heights in gleeful terror and icky comedy. The nerve-shredding creepiness of the first act is largely jettisoned by the film’s denouement, which utilises some well-timed tech wizardry to transport the audiences into every nook and cranny of the grand mansion. The frantic final moments also serve to cover up some gaping holes in logic and realism (the interior of the home starts to take on Tardis-like qualities, for example), but Johnstone has earned so much audience goodwill that such concerns barely register.

Comparisons to countryman Peter Jackson’s early works Bad Taste and Braindead are inevitable, given the high-energy inventiveness and consummate technical skill displayed by the first-timers. But Johnstone’s film is a far more polished undertaking, which also benefits from not relying upon the kind of one-joke local flavour that proved the undoing of Jonathan King’s Black Sheep. More accurate comparisons include such off-shore efforts as Steve Miner’s 1986 cult item House (the artwork for Housebound’s one-sheet echoes that film’s poster font), Tony Williams 1982 gothic-horror Ozploitation favourite, Next of Kin, and Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family films.

WETLANDS

Stars: Carla Juri, Christopher Letkowski, Marlen Kruse, Meret Becker, Axel Milberg and Edgar Selge.
Writers: Claus Falkenberg, David Wnendt and Sabine Pochhammer; based on the novel by Charlotte Roche.
Director: David Wnendt

Rating: 4/5

John Hughes meets John Waters in David Wnendt’s sick, stylish adaptation of Charlotte Roche’s corporeal coming-of-age novel, Wetlands. From the star-making central turn by Carla Juri to its stomach-turning portrayal of all that our bodies have to offer, this dizzying, delightful and thoroughly disgusting romp amps up the novel’s rebellious angst and paints those YA years as ones of ‘personal discovery’, in every sense of the term.

Wetlands is not the first film to explore those first sticky fumblings of teenage sexuality, but few have set the stage with a CGI-animated sequence that takes the audience inside a mystical world created by wiping one’s bare nether regions on a public toilet seat. It is an act that stems from defiance, of course; Helen (Juri) is a child of divorce, raised by an unstable mother (Meret Becker) with germaphobic leanings and a distracted father (Axel Milberg) of retarded emotional development.

Helen is hitting her strides as a late teen sexual being and loving every minute of it. She explores herself with all types of fruit and vegetables (ginger is a definite no); randomly indulges in oral sex with strangers, both giving and receiving; enjoys an ambiguously flirty relationship with her bff, Corinna (Marlen Kruse); and, finds fascination in the fluids and feelings that passion produces.

Things go horribly wrong for both Helen and the audience when she nicks her rectum while shaving, resulting in an anal fissure that puts her in hospital. This allows her time to dream of bringing her parents back together, enjoy a blossoming romance with a young nurse (Christoph Letkowski) and ponder a moment from her childhood that she has blocked out over time.

Having explored the heightened, hormone-filled existence of young women from a racially-charged social perspective in 2011’s Combat Girls, Wnendt undertakes a more personal but no less confronting journey in Wetlands. The casting of his extraordinary lead actor aside, the director’s most important contribution is the tone he achieves; lightly comical yet tinged deeply affecting humanism, he is able to portray some truly grotesque acts yet filters them through the playful, inquisitive focus of his protagonist. The boundaries will be pushed too far for some (the ‘pizza’ sequence; the near-fatal lengths to which Helen goes to stay in hospital), but the bravado and sweetness that Carla Juri brings to the role infuses the entire film; evoking the charisma and vulnerability of Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts in their heyday, she is an A-list star of the future.

Ultimately a winning mix of the traditional ‘teen tribulations’ pic and the edgy, fearless mindset of underground cinema (one wag at the screening attended by SCREEN-SPACE called it, “Sixteen Candles meets Trainspotting”), Wnendt’s Wetland is an altogether more buoyant romp than Roche’s book ever was. Key elements of the bestseller have been pared back on-screen (the complexities of Helen’s relationship with the African man who shaves her; the symbolism of her obsession with avocado seeds), allowing the film to construct both a very real central figure and a vivid cinematic heroine for her generation.

Wetlands will screen as the Closing Night film at the 2014 Sydney Underground Film Festival. Full details at the event website here.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS

Featuring: Michael Dudikoff, Lucinda Dickey, Richard Chamberlain, Catherine Mary Stewart, Cassandra Petersen, Robert Forster, Bo Derek, Alex Winter, Sybil Danning, Tobe Hooper, Adolfo Quinones (aka, Shabba-Doo), Sam Firstenberg and Gary Goddard.
Writer/director: Mark Hartley.

Screening at Melbourne International Film Festival on Saturday August 2 and Tuesday August 12. 

Rating: 4/5

Having chronicled Australia’s unhinged exploitation era in 2008’s Not Quite Hollywood and exposed the madness that was The Philippines film sector with 2010’s Machete Maidens Unleashed!, documentarian Mark Hartley now casts his highly-informed fanboy eye over Israeli-born cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and their renegade 80s operation, Cannon Films, for his latest, long-in-gestation work, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films.

Hartley’s films play like wildly enthusiastic thesis submissions from the ultimate student of exploitation cinema. Suitably, the Australian director’s latest reveals a rich vein of excess and chutzpah that paints a picture of old-school operators steeped in shameless B-movie showmanship. More importantly, he also captures two individuals whose love for the cinema of old Hollywood fuelled their ruthless business acumen and boisterous egotism (perhaps explaining the presence of alpha-male moneymen James Packer and Brett Ratner, both on board as producers).

Golan and Globus emerged from an Israeli production community with a great deal of commercial credibility; their 1978 lowbrow teen romp, Lemon Popsicle, had become a domestic blockbuster and the pair became flush with cash. The more senior Golan had stars in his eyes and set about acquiring floundering outfit The Cannon Group, with an eye towards conquering the US marketplace and taking the world by storm.

Hartley’s parade of willing actors, executives and colleagues represents a major coup for the production (the likely contributing factor for the very long period between its inception and MIFF 2014 premiere). Each recall the heady days of Cannon Films ascendency, reminiscing with a mix of face-palming disbelief and warm-hearted sentiment, accompanied by a myriad of clips. Generation X-ers who spent weekends paying overpriced rental rates to watch Cannon ‘stars’ such as Lucinda Dickey, Michael Dudikoff and Catherine Mary Stewart will inevitably feel the glow of sentimental warmth upon seeing their aging heroes; serious film buffs will warm more to the likes of Franco Zeffirelli and Barbet Schroeder, who contributed some of Cannon’s more credentialed works (1986’s Otello and 1987’s Barfly, respectively).

Befitting a glimpse inside the ruthless world of B-movie maneuverings, there is some snark dished out to celebs who refused to be involved (in particular, a brash, young starlet named Sharon Stone) and on those who good-naturedly appeared on camera (Death Wish series director, the late Michael Winner, who acknowledges his occasionally prickly take on creative control). Largely anti-hagiographic, Hartley also rakes his subjects over the coals; in one hilarious montage, they are labelled all manner of insulting terms (both Golan and Globus refused to appear in the film, instead authorising their own bio doco, The Go-Go Boys).   

The film often focuses on Menahem Golan’s superb up-selling of dubious elements (the sad rehashing of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish franchise; the infamous Superman IV debacle; the pointless insertion of T&A) and the subsequent box-office fortunes. This approach largely sidelines the role that the VHS boom played in the company’s bottom line. Presumably, the global impact of the home video craze is a subject best saved for its own doco, but Hartley’s decision to focus on anecdotal making-of memories and “What was I thinking?” mock-remorse robs his film of some important contextual information.

Nevertheless, Electric Boogaloo (after Cannon’s famously misguided 1984 break-dancing sequel, although for no discernible reason) is an undeniably fun, insider look at the business of show. Mark Hartley’s factual films are a passionate collector’s take on the obsessive drive to be creative; whether it be low-budget Oz-ploitation practitioners, the insane fearlessness of Pinoy production methods or the battering-ram ambition of two Israeli showmen, the Australian director understands their motivation and affords them the respect and affection they deserve…and then some.  

(Note: The version reviewed was awaiting some final post-production elements. Due consideration has been given to its incomplete status).

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro and Laura Haddock; featuring the voices of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper.
Writers: James Gunn and Nicole Perlman; based on the comic book by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.
Director: James Gunn. 

Rating: 4/5 

It never soars to the wildly subversive comic-book craziness that he conjured in 2010’s cult gem Super, but director James Gunn’s vividly idiosyncratic spin on Marvel’s renegade misfits, Guardians of the Galaxy, certainly represents a bracingly fizzy cinematic blast to the increasingly formulaic 'summer superhero' format.

Given the entire budgets of his past efforts amount to a week of craft services on a tentpole franchise starter of this scale, Gunn doesn’t forego his trademark eccentricity and engagingly off-kilter grasp of character to over-indulge his expanded canvas. Instead, he backs his established strengths while also revealing an artist's eye for colour and scale, ensuring his first mega-budgeted work is a beautiful looking film. The space-scapes and interplanetary worlds he creates and the menagerie of alien types that people them are truly wondrous at times.

In sublime creative synch with fellow scripter Nicole Perlman, Gunn bravely kicks off his blockbuster debut with a surprisingly downbeat prologue, introducing our hero, Peter Quill, as a boy experiencing the death of his cancer-riddled mother in the early 1980s. As he runs crying into the foggy night, an alien spacecraft nabs him, setting in motion a life spent drifting amongst the stars, forging a meagre living as a collector of tradable junk.

This adult Quill, aka self-proclaimed ‘Starlord’, is played with raffish charm by Chris Pratt, perfectly embodying the archetypal ‘reluctant hero’. Caring for very little except the mix-tape of classic rock tunes his mother made for him (in what is surely the best use of ‘classic rock’ oldies since The Big Chill), Quill is suddenly thrust into importance when he finds an elaborate orb that contains an ‘Infinity Stone’, an all-powerful energy source that can lay waste entire planets and that every villainous dictator in the galaxy wants.

Gunn’s first act deftly establishes the galactic landscape and the character conflict, although there were some mutterings at the screening attended by Screen-Space that this early section was too convoluted, the political evil-doings that define the conflict dragged down the first half. Not so for this reviewer, as the detail pays off in character empathy and tangible tension as the film progresses.

The Guardians coalesce organically, their individual agendas and dark personalities entirely believable. It is to script’s credit that such empathy is found in this ragtag bunch of losers, given they include an entirely CGI-crafted giant tree/biped hybrid called Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel); a fiery-tempered Raccoon-like experiment gone wrong named Rocket (Bradley Cooper, in a great voice-over performance); Drax, a mountain of man-muscle out for vengeance (MMA legend Dave Bautista); and, the green-skinned warrior-woman Gamora (the supremely physical and superbly photogenic Zoe Saldana). Their nemesis are just as richly observed, key amongst them Michael Rooker’s Yondu (one of the original Guardians in the early print editions, though no such reference is made here), Lee Pace’s Ronan the Accuser and Karen Gillan’s Nebula, whose lithe figure and striking blue skin tone is set to dominate the cosplay universe in the years ahead.  

Lumbering this jaunty, funny, irreverent work with the Marvel label should ensure a solid opening weekend, but truth be told the film’s weakest elements are those that bind it to the template the comic giant demands of its adaptations. Gunn works wonders with a thrilling effects-heavy finale, but the carnage too closely resembles the final frames of The Avengers, Captain America: Winter Soldier and some parts of the Thor movies; it is one of the few moments in Gunn’s otherwise wonderfully original vision when audiences may utter, “Yeah, seen that before.” The studio’s demands that franchise starters have sequel-ready plot devices also dictate that characters are established here (amongst them, Benicio Del Toro’s The Collector and Josh Brolin’s barely glimpsed Thanos) to clearly serve and only fully develop in later instalments.

The counter to such claims is that those concessions are a small price to pay to allow James Gunn and his creative team access to Guardians of the Galaxy lore. It seems an ideal melding of filmmaker and material, with low-budget genre graduate Gunn (watch for a cameo by mentor and Troma Studios founder, Lloyd Kaufman) bringing all his cool-kid confidence, pop-culture savvy and fan-boy enthusiasm to his debut in the big league.  

ROAD TO PALOMA

Stars: Jason Momoa, Robert Homer Mollohan, Wes Studi, Lisa Bonet, Sarah Shahi, Michael Raymond-James, Chris Browning, Timothy V Murphy and Steve Reevis.
Writers: Jason Momoa, Robert Homer Mollohand and Jonathan Hirschbein.
Director: Jason Momoa.

Rating: 3/5

Putting the reworked Conan flop behind him and eagerly expanding on his muscle-defined personality in Game of Thrones, Hawaiian he-man Jason Momoa, his visage recalling at times that of a mid-career Steven Seagal, carries just about all his broad shoulders can muster in the dusty desert melodrama, Road to Paloma.

As noble renegade/wanted man Robert Wolf, Momoa cuts a mythic figure against the desert landscape, perpetually drenched in that ‘magic hour’ glow that cinematographers like feature debutant Brian Andrew Mendoza adore. DOP is about the only role Momoa doesn’t take credit for in this low-budget but slickly-produced B-movie, which represents the actor’s feature directing debut as well as first-up producer and screenwriter credits.

Wolf is on the run having beaten a man to death who raped his mother (he’s the hero, remember.) Life as a fugitive seems to suit the bike ridin’, tough-but-tender Mojave tribe decendent, who slips in and out of bars, stripjoints, diners and family get-togethers with ease. He frequents the home of his policeman father Numay (Wes Studi) on occasion. A chance meeting with troublemaking muso Cash (co-writer Robert Homer Holloman) sets in motion an open road friendship that is a bit hard to swallow at times. Why is Wolf pairing off with this unpredictably violent loser while trying to maintain a low profile?

Having taken a few sexy moments to bed real-life spouse Lisa Bonet’s hippy chick and to act as rescuer of a rape victim, Wolf makes tracks to the home of his sister Eva (Sarah Shahi, pleasingly natural) to collect his mom’s ashes and make for the sacred mountain grounds. All this while, unhinged federal agent Williams (a seething Timothy V Murphy, clearly the movie’s true villain) and local lawman Schaeffer (Chris Browning, offering some nice character-based comedy just when the production needs it) are closing the net on our unsuspecting anti-hero.

As calmly cool and immensely likable as Momoa plays Wolf, there’s an underlying thematic current that favours vigilantism and revels in the ‘blood, booze and bikes’ alpha-male mentality. Road to Paloma is a sort of ‘reverse Easy Rider’, the film in which counter-culture dropouts biked the countryside in the face of conservatism; here, the good guy is the all-American leather-clad biker, rightfully dishing out his own form of justice in defiance of the liberal laws of the land.

Which may be over-reading what is ultimately a muscle-flexing but rather meandering road movie in search of a purpose; some mutterings about the unfair nature of the current legal system don’t really amount to much. But director Momoa progresses through the episodic plot with confident skill, although he may have had a few words with his leading man about easing back on the Rock-like charm (Wolf is murderer on the run, after all).

For a vanity project designed to broaden the industry’s perception of this TV season’s favourite hunk, Road to Paloma makes for a watchable, workmanlike, intermittently convincing and compelling western-noir potboiler.

GIRL RISING

Featuring the voices of: Cate Blanchett, Priyanka Chopra, Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway, Selma Hayek, Alicia Keys, Chloe Grace Moretz, Freida Pinto, Meryl Streep, Kerry Washington and Liam Neeson.
Writers: Marie Arana (Peru), Doreen Baingana (Uganda), Edwige Dantical (Haiti), Mona Eltahawy (Egypt), Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone), Zarghuna Kargar (Afghanistan), Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia), Sooni Taraporevala (India), Manjushree Thapa (Nepal) and Loung Ung (Cambodia).
Director: Richard Robbins.

Rating: 5/5

Advocacy documentaries tread a troublesome path for many. The causes and calls to action they represent are always worthy and very few doubt the dedicated passion needed to bring ‘the message’ to the masses. But they can also slip into preachy tirades; their cinematic form is consumed by the filmmaker’s intent, and audience belief in the cause is muted by a heavy-handed film experience.

Director Richard Robbins, whose keen eye for factual film narrative earned him DGA and Oscar nominations for 2007’s Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, tackles the shameful practice of gender-based abuse and intolerance in his artful, achingly moving work, Girl Rising. Specifically, this highly literate yet effortlessly engaging film examines social practices across vast cultures that deny education and freedom of speech to young women.

The film recounts the true stories of nine girls, whose journeys differ in detail but who have all experienced oppression and denial of formal learning. In a bold move that expanded the scope and greatness of the project, Robbins sourced female writers from each of the territories and asked them to represent the girl’s story in words rich in their understanding of the native culture.

Underlining Robbins’ ambitious vision was the securing of A-list stars from six different countries (among them Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Prianka Chopra and Chloe Grace Moretz) to narrate each episode. The richness and compassionate readings quickly negate any concern that their involvement is ‘stunt casting’; the emotion is plainly evident in several of the recitals. Additionally, Liam Neeson provides bridging dialogue for scenes that present startling facts (beautifully handled by young women bearing large cards and choreographed lovingly) about the impact upon communities when girls are denied the right to learn and contribute.

Girl Rising is not an exercise in ‘man-bashing’, as some may fear. Where the role of men culturally dictate the subjugation of girls, it is presented as fact, but more often the film identifies the great benefits strong men can play in helping their society break free from out-dated, often brutal traditions.

There is an understated evenness and precise clarity employed Robbins and the production’s ‘guest directors’ Ramaa Mosely (Afghanistan), Chris Wilcha (Nepal) and Jenny Lee and Gareth Smith (Sierra Leone). Their film celebrates the strength, intellect and spiritual beauty of women, convincing its audience with the gentlest but firmest of hands how significant a resource for positive change exists yet is too often denied our world.

‘Advocacy Cinema’ has found a new, strong standard-bearer in Girl Rising; one hopes it drives the forceful change needed in our global community as powerfully as it represents a creative shift in the genre. 

For further information on the Girl Rising movement, visit the official website.

WILLOW CREEK

Stars: Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson, Peter Jason and Tom Yamarone.
Writer/director: Bobcat Goldthwait 

Rating: 3.5/5

Having displayed a stylish eye and intellectual voice with his fierce filmic tirades on America’s ugly obsession with fame, parental dysfunction and sexual peccadillos, Bobcat Goldthwait has earned the right to get a little bit silly with his latest film, the Bigfoot-hunting/found-footage romp Willow Creek.

But even in steering away from issue-based social satires to giggly genre thriller, Goldthwait exhibits a technical skill and ease with relationship politics that belies the material. The ex-Police Academy funnyman has emerged as one of the most unique and interesting contemporary independent filmmakers, thanks to his skill with such edgy material as God Bless America (2011), World’s Greatest Dad (2009) and Sleeping Dogs Lie (2006). One senses that Goldthwait penned the Willow Creek script not so much to indulge in genre elements (which he handles with a pro’s touch) but more to explore the emotional intimacy between the leads, which ultimately result in bracingly effective scares.

Those leads are the wonderful Alexie Gilmore as the sharply observant, lovely every-girl archetype, Kelly and Bryce Johnson as Jim, a wound-up boy-man all giddy over his first serious foray into Sasquatch forest. Determined to revisit the site at Bluff Creek in northern California where Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin captured ‘that’ footage of an alleged bigfoot on October 20, 1967, Jim has dragged Kelly along to share in the experience, despite being fully aware of her utter disbelief regarding all things mythical in the woods. Goldthwait captures their fun, friendly banter and sweet, sexy chemistry (plus a hint of big-city arrogance) with a deft touch; both actors (longtime collaborators with the director) are entirely engaging and endearing.

After the obligatory scenes found in this type of wilderness thriller (eccentric locals, including a memorable hillbilly singer/songwriter, warn them away; tough-guy woodsman threatens them), Jim and Kelly find themselves deep in thick terrain and growing increasingly ill at ease with their surroundings. The slow-burn storytelling will frustrate gorehounds after blood and guts action but Goldthwait rewards his audience with a gripping 19-minute, single-take night time sequence that is gleefully nerve-shredding. The pair stumbles through another day, disoriented and frightened, until another night descends…

Goldthwait has yet to have a directing career backslide, so Willow Creek does not represent the energising found-footage jolt that The Bay did for Barry Levinson or sxtape did for Bernard Rose. But the film does confirm that in the hands of a skilful filmmaker, the much-maligned genre still has a great deal to offer. Comparisons are unavoidable to the grand-pappy of backwoods handheld mayhem, The Blair Witch Project, but Goldthwait brings enough inventive freshness and convincing terror to the format for Willow Creek to stand on its own two (big)feet.