BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE

Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Lauren Lapkus, Ryan Gaul, Edi Patterson and Jiavani Linayao.
Featuring: Will Ferrel, Matthew McConaughey, Keanu Reeves, Chance the Rapper, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, Jason Schwartzman, John Cho, Brie Larson, David Letterman, Paul Rudd, Chrissy Tiegen, John Legend, Jon Hamm, Hailee Steinfeld, Awkwafina, Tiffany Haddish, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tessa Thompson, Peter Dinklage and Gal Gadot.
Writer/director: Scott Aukerman.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

The centrepiece success story of the Funny or Die comedy site transfers to the bigger small-screen with everybody associated doing as little as possible to make it a success. Which sounds like a bash, but it isn’t; frontman Zach Galifianakis and director Scott Aukerman have got this insult-interview schtick down-pat and, with a by-the-numbers road-trip half-plot as a framework, they deliver the laughs and a little extra for the fans.

Eleven years after it transitioned from a bit-skit on Aukerman’s unrealised comedy pilot The Right Now! Show into a web-sensation (first guest – Michael Cera), Between Two Ferns finds itself ideally suited to the streaming-platform popularity surge. There is not enough substance to the finished feature to suggest it would have made the leap to the bigscreen, as many Saturday Night Live properties did back in the day (most without enough substance either, to be fair). BTF:The Movie is a bread-&-butter Netflix initiative, the kind of fan-service concept reworking that will keep bums on couches.

The ‘Zach Galifianakis’ of Between Two Ferns doesn’t have the breakout Hollywood hit The Hangover to his name; he is a North Carolina local-cable identity somehow capable of pulling the likes of Barack Obama, Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron onto his low-rent chat show. When a plumbing issue nearly kills Matthew McConaughey and all but destroys the studios of FPA-TV, the head of Funny or Die, a coked-up Gordon Gekko-esque version of ‘Will Ferrel’ (Will Ferrel) has had enough. FOD sets new terms; 10 new BTF interviews in 2 weeks and they’ll bankroll Galafaniakis’ dream gig – a late night talker all his own – but if he fails, he’ll be cut loose.

With a team of three in tow – producer/PA with a heart of gold, Carol (the lovely Lauren Lapkus); irritable cameraman, Cam (Ryan Gaul); and, soundie ‘Boom’ (Jiavani Linayao) – they undertake the journey to LA, endeavouring to secure talent along the way. The road-movie tropes soon kick-in; time in the car allows for some character building, with Galifianakis peeling back some personal layers of his alter ego. It is all perfunctory banter, never particularly engaging or insightful, but it does provide time for Aukerman to pace his comedy beats into feature length (just, at 82 minutes).

Most importantly, nothing about the expanded format dilutes the hilarity of the inappropriate interviews. Best of them is David Letterman in full-beard (“Crystal-meth Santa Claus”), Keanu Reeves (“Out of 100, how many words do you know?”) and Benedict Cumberbatch (“Do people think you’re a good actor because of your accent?”).

As expected, the end-credit outtakes represent the funniest sequence in the film, but it also undoes the conceit; both Zach and his guests regularly crack up, revealing the degree of performance actually involved in the tapings. Of course, as with the rest of the film’s unambitious shortcomings and simple rhythms, fans won’t care.

THE BANANA SPLITS MOVIE

Stars: Dani Kind, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Romeo Carere, Steve Lund, Maria Nash, Naledi Majola, Richard White, Sara Canning, Celina Martin, Lia Sachs, Keeno Lee Hector, Kiroshan Naidoo and Lionel Newton.
Writers: Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas
Director: Danishka Esterhazy

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Fifty years after they made the furry, nonsensical, slapsticky debut as part of NBC’s Saturday morning roster, The Banana Splits return…in a splattery horror romp that’s about as far from the spirit of the old TV show as you can get. Not a bad approach, per se; little about the silliness of their dated, pseudo-psychedelic antics holds any sway today, no matter what ironic millenials and ageing Gen-Xers offer up as evidence of The Splits’ enduring appeal. So if a reboot of the property was going to happen it might as well be in this all-or-nothing mutated form. Just that…well, maybe director Danishka Esterhazy and scripters Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas didn’t go hard enough.

Perky tot Harley (Finlay Woitak-Hissong) may be the only fan of The Banana Splits under 40, but a fan he is and a devoted one at that. When his mom Beth (Dani Kind) scores family tickets to a taping of the show, birthday-boy Harley envisions a life-altering meeting with his hero, Snorky, and the other Splits - Drooper, Fleegle and Bingo. But a new network regime decides to cancel the show; Harley’s birthday outing will be the final episode.

No self-respecting Banana Split will give up their studio gig without a fight, no matter how decrepit and dusty the venue appears (and it often appears more like a silent-era horror-film laboratory than even the most rundown backlot space). With their circuitry rewired (to paraphrase Yaphet Kotto, the Splits are goddamn robots), the four wacky friends up tools, including an oversized, colourful hammer and the iconic ‘Banana Buggy’, and begin the bludgeoning. Standing in the way momentarily are dickish stepfather Mitch (Steve Lund), entitled internet creep Thadd (Kiroshan Naidoo) and pushy stage dad Jonathan (Keeno Lee Hector), whose determined to turn his daughter (Lia Sachs) into the next Sour Grapes Bunch starlet.

The Banana Splits Movie is essentially a silly riff on Michael Chricton’s 1973 theme-park-gone-bad thriller Westworld or, perhaps more accurately, The Simpsons parody episode, ‘Itchy & Scratchy Land’. When the Splits go off-program, their eyes glow red, just as the robot-mouse and robot-cat did in that Season 6 Episode 4 classic. Having shown her skill as a stylish storyteller with the dystopian sci-fier Level 16 (2018), Canadian Esterhazy nails the mood and staging of some solid kills, but isn’t given much to play with in terms of character or narrative by Elinoff and Thomas.

One senses there is a bit more sly commentary to be made about the modern entertainment industry and its regressive reliance on pop-culture brands, or how clinging to the idols of our childhood is not the healthiest of traits. The Banana Splits Movie toys with those themes but doesn’t dive deep. Which is fine, given this is a film about 60s kids-TV characters on a killing spree, a goal it achieves admirably. But it would have been more heartening if the resurrection of The Banana Splits had been in the service of some slightly more resonant establishment cage-rattling, the kind synonymous with the group’s hippy culture origins.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

Stars: Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Julia Butters, Damon Herriman, Austin Butler, Emile Hirsch, Scoot McNairy, Luke Perry, Al Pacino, Nicholas Hammond, Spencer Garrett, Mike Moh, Lena Dunham, Damian Lewis, Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, Zoë Bell and Michael Madsen.
Writer/Director: Quentin Tarantino

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS)

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

When you are a director eight films into a career streak marked by eight cinematic events, your ninth film can be about whatever your heart desires. And Los Angeles in the summer of 1969 - a cool hotbed of hippy counter-culture, groovy tunes, barefooted women, the paradigm-shifting emergence of New Hollywood and a scruffy, psychotic, ticking time bomb of violence called Charles Manson - beats to the obsessive pop-culture pulse of Quentin Tarantino like no film of his ever has.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hitches a ride through the period with three distinctive characters, each of which speak to key strengths in Tarantino’s writing arsenal. Leonardo DiCaprio plays ageing action tough-guy Rick Dalton, once the heroic lead in a hit NBC series, but whose career has reverted to small-screen baddie bit parts; Dalton’s stunt-double and gofer Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, at his most charmingly laconic), whose industry standing is also sliding but who takes the downturn in his manly stride; and, a starlet on the rise named Sharon Tate (a luminous Margot Robbie), who has settled into life as Rick’s neighbour in a home on Cielo Drive with hairdresser Jay Sebrig (Emile Hirsch) and her largely-absent boyfriend, Roman Polanski.

Plotting is sparse in Tarantino’s ninth. Rick gets a gig as a moustache-twirling villain in a TV western pilot, and feels the pressure to deliver the performance of his newly-defined career; Tate wanders the backlot before settling into a session of her big-break movie, The Wrecking Crew with Dean Martin, giddy with delight when the audience laughs at her pratfalls; and, Cliff, between running errands for Rick and hanging with his lovable pitbull Brandy, chance encounters a free-spirited teen named Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) who takes him to ‘Charlie’s’ creepy commune compound on an old movie lot called Spahn Ranch.

A fair portion of the movie magic that the auteur brings, and he brings a lot, is in the interaction of his characters and the meaningfulness he imbues in each of them. Not since Jules and Vincent bantered between hits in 1994’s Pulp Fiction has Tarantino so perfectly nailed the fragile ‘macho buddy’ friendship dynamic that he captures in Rick and Cliff. Men like these are the heroes of the director’s formative years (speculation suggests they are based in part upon Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham); actors who have experienced the ebb-and-flow of stardom have often found favour with the director (Travolta, of course, but also Robert Forster, David Carradine and Michael Parks, amongst many).

DiCaprio and Pitt (who deserves Oscar attention for his work here) are like a booze-sodden Butch and Sundance; one, tearing himself apart over his waning influence, the other so inured to pain and suffering (Pitt’s strapping torso a diary of past wounds) he’s numbed to what the future holds for his type of Hollywood hanger-on. In one of Tarantino’s great dialogue scenes, a desperate DiCaprio, in full villainous garb awaiting his first scene, shares a heartbreaking meet-cute with seasoned Tinseltown 8 year-old, Trudi (a perfect Julia Butters); it is one of many great bit parts from actors such as Damian Lewis (a spot-on Steve McQueen), Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, Dakota Fanning and Damon Herriman.     

The inspired casting of Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate represents, above any other character from Tarantino’s oeuvre, the kind of warm, genuine human presence that defines his growth and maturity as a storyteller. He understands that her horrific demise, in confluence with the Viet Nam War and the Watergate revelations, sounded the death knell for America as a nation driven by optimism and hope. Robbie is an extraordinary presence as the ill-fated starlet; Pitt and DiCaprio carry the load, but the film soars on the Australian actress’ impact in only a handful of scenes.

America is not denied its destiny-altering moment of late ‘60s ultra-violence; this is a Tarantino movie, after all, and few filmmakers revel in the visceral power of cinematic bloodshed like QT. But the destiny he envisions is different; more importantly, it’s better. Tarantino’s tendency towards historical revisionism (see, 2009’s Inglorious Basterds) and the hint of a fairy tale outcome right there in the title allows for what is the most emotionally resonant third act in all of his films.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is an experiential odyssey, more interested in the mood and vibe of the summer of love and the characters that populate it than any heavy bummer of a narrative. This is where Tarantino likes to live, clearly as a filmmaker, but also one suspects, within himself – the LA of Matt Helm movies, Playboy Mansion pool parties, the Van Nuys Drive-In, neon-lit fast-food hangouts and whiskey sours before noon. His Hollywood is filled with flawed but real heroes, friendships bonded by hardship, and an innocence that is cherished, not lost. His heart is in this film, for the first time afforded as much input as his fan-boy passion and film culture knowledge.

The result is the year’s best American film.

MORGANA

Stars: Morgana Muses, Petra Joy, John Oh, Anna Brownfield, Judith Lucy and Candida Royale.
Directors: Josie Hess and Isabel Pappard

WORLD PREMIERE: Melbourne International Film Festival, Friday August 16 at The Capitol Theatre.

Available from July 9-19 via Perth Revelation Film Festival's online screening event, COUCHED.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

The emergence of a vibrant, creative free spirit from the constraints of societal expectation is captured with genuine affection in Morgana, co-directors Josie Hess and Isabel Peppard’s expansive yet deeply personal account of one woman’s coming-of-middle-age journey. Charting a course from the depths of despair to artistic and emotional fulfilment then back again, this frank, often funny and very moving portrait piece is an engaging crowd-pleaser, particularly for those who adhere to the sex-positive beliefs of their protagonist.

Having grown up in the harsh climes of Coober Pedy, Morgana Muses bought into the ‘suburban ideal’ of her mother’s longings and was soon constructing her own middle-class façade. Having married well and embraced motherhood, she soon found herself sadly unfulfilled in a union devoid of warmth; the dissolution of her marriage and subsequent disconnection from friends and family led to thoughts of self-harm. These moments are thoughtfully reconstructed through a ‘little boxes’ motif, in which Morgana is captured peering longingly through the windows of a grey suburban landscape.

The turning point came as Morgana’s life force was at its lowest ebb; a ‘last hurrah’ sexual experience awakened in her a hunger to explore the boundaries of what she always believed were acceptable sexual practices. With her old life fading fast, Morgana Muses reinvents herself as a feminist porn actress-filmmaker, her debut film Duty-Bound becoming an award-winning global hit that takes her from suburban Melbourne to the BDSM mecca, Berlin.

Via her friendship, co-director Hess (who features at key moments in her own doco) is afforded rare access into Morgana’s highs and lows over a period of several years; the 70-minute feature began life as a short, morphing into a frank and confronting study of mental health and its impact upon the creative process. Hess and Peppard, one of the local industry’s most respected animators and horror sector artists, are clearly advocates for the practice of ethical pornography and strong feminist ideals, but these themes, while central, never overshadow the universal humanity at the core of Morgana’s narrative.

Most importantly, the woman herself proves a complex, fearless frontwoman for her own story. Muses bares all, yet it is her physical openness which ultimately proves the least shocking of her revelations; the self-reflection and psychological torment she is willing to expose for the documentarian’s lens is first-person storytelling at its bravest. Audience empathy is so engaged that, by the time the ‘cherry-on-top’ moment happens deep in the third act, the intimacy required to fully accept every inch of Morgana Muses is comfortably in place. So sex positive and emotionally resonant is her factual film journey, everything about the body and soul baring of Morgana Muses feels convincingly empowering and wonderfully real.

Morgana Documentary - 'First Look' Teaser #2 from House of Gary on Vimeo.

FROM SHOCK TO AWE

Featuring: Matt Kahl, Mike Cooley, Aimee Stahl and Brooke Cooley.
Directors: Luc Côté.
Content Producer: Janine Sagert.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

The heartbreaking journey through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that many veterans undertake upon their return from combat zones rarely ends on the kind of high note that director Luc Côté offers in From Shock to Awe. As detailed in this alternative-treatment advocacy documentary, more US ex-servicemen and women have died by their own hands back home than on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Returning to feature-length factual filmmaking for the first time since 2010’s Four Days Inside Guatanamo, Côté’s latest offers both insight and answers into a different aspect of military life. The struggle to live with PTSD, to deal with horrific memories and the unfamiliarity of a life that was once familiar, has torn apart generations of soldiers. The production presents this hardship through two struggling heroes - Matt Kahl, an Afghanistan vet having served in the 101^st Airborne from 2007-2011; and, MP Mike Cooley (pictured, top), deployed once to Afghanistan and twice to Iraq.

The first act punches hard in its depiction of the wide-reaching impact of PTSD. These are broken men, their families and communities alien to them. Côté uses both real-time and archive footage to show the shells of their former selves that Kahl and Cooley have become. The ability of respective wives Aimee Kahl and Brooke Cooley (herself a returned veteran with trauma issues) to deal with the psychological disintegration of their husbands for nearing breaking point.

The production follows the men to a wooded retreat, where they endeavor to purge their psyches of despair by injesting the psychoactive brew Ayahuasca. A banned substance in the US, it combines the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with plants containing the compound DMT (dimethyltriptamine) to produce a powerful visionary and healing experience. (Pictured, below; Matt and Aimee Kahl)

Scenes of the men under the influence of Ayahuasca are truly revelatory, their emotional and spiritual healing unfolding in real time for Côté’s lens (and, no, there are no Yellow Submarine-style sequences to overstate the experience). Even more remarkable is the footage of the men several months after the Ayahuasca session. They are transformed, their healing allowing for human connection, ambition and clarity of emotion.

Of course, the treatment makes them criminals. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refuses to legalize psychotropic drugs for treatment of PTSD in any form. From Shock to Awe allows the recuperative experiences of the men do the hard selling of the film’s message, but the message is clear – soldiers are dying at home and non-traditional treatment can ease the nation’s pain, but bureaucratic governance remains immoveable.

The newfound positivity in the lives of the two men in the wake of the Ayahuasca treatment (and, for Brooke Cooley, therapy under the influence of the similarly-blacklisted MDMA drug) wraps up their story in what could be the feel good film denouement of the year. But the sadness that now haunts them is that so many of their combat brothers and sisters (many of them federal employees and subject to workplace drug testing) live burdened with PTSD, while a treatment exists that could ease their suffering.

YOU DON'T NOMI

Featuring (voice only): Jeffery Conway, Joshua Grannell, April Kidwell, Haley Mlotek, Adam Neyman and David Schmader.
Archive Footage: Elizabeth Berkely (pictured, below), Joe Eszterhaus, Paul Verhoeven, Gina Gershon and Kyle MacLachlan.
Director: Jeffery McHale

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Artful, incisive documentary analysis into the legacy left by cinematic classics has emerged as genre unto itself in recent years. Rodney Asher deep-dove into the conspiratorial mythology of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with Room 237 (2012), and Alexandre O. Phillippe took a scalpel to the most famous shower in film history with his Hitchcock autopsy, 78/52 (2017).

That Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls finds itself in the company of such milestone movies may surprise some but, by the end of Jeffery McHale’s You Don’t Nomi, it somehow seems appropriate.

McHale comes at the much-maligned 1995 melodrama from angles both academic and humanistic. He initially contends that understanding the most critically reviled film of Verhoeven’s career can only be fully realised if one studies his run of critically adored works. The very motifs evident in his anti-establishment Dutch classics (Diary of a Hooker, 1971; Turkish Delight, 1973; Katie Tippel, 1975; Soldier of Orange, 1977; Spetters, 1980) and the Hollywood blockbusters that made him so bankable (Robocop, 1987; Total Recall, 1990; Basic Instinct, 1992) – elements like sexualised violence, drama pitched high and richly conjured mise-en-scene - were used against him to condemn Showgirls, his second collaboration with iconoclast scriptwriter Joe Ezsterhaus. (Pictured, below; Berkeley and Verhoeven, on-set)

In a cute stylistic touch, McHale uses scenes from Verhoeven’s own The 4^th Man (1983), featuring Jeroen Krabbé, to help explore the director’s modus operandi, in scenes that any self-respecting film buff will adore. The analysis extends to the Dutchman’s post-Showgirls films (Starship Troopers, 1997; Hollow Man, 2000; Black Book, 2006; Elle, 2016), as well as EPK and BTS footage that paints a picture of the director as both a moviemaking genius with a very 'European' love of the human form and a pre-#MeToo eccentric obsessed with the sensational.

Despite some of the most scathing reviews in modern film history (‘Trashdance’ was one of the kinder headlines of the day), Showgirls has slowly resurrected itself as a retro-screening must-see. You Don’t Nomi affords the cult followers a voice to vouch for its worth, most notable in a narrative detour that recounts how an actress recreating the lead role of ‘Nomi Malone’ on stage brought her post-assault PTSD into manageable focus.

Of course, the star of You Don’t Nomi, just as she was the star of Showgirls, is ‘Nomi Malone’ herself, Elizabeth Berkeley. The teen sitcom star whose ego/career/life soared then plummeted in the wake of her casting has become an enigmatic presence in the town that shredded her young life. The actress’ appearances since the film (presented here as archive footage) suggest she is reconciled to her fate as a Hollywood pariah. If Jeffery McHale’s film doesn’t quite realign the reputation of Verhoeven’s misunderstood mega-flop, it certainly paints a picture of a film that is a true auteur’s vision, enlivened by an actress’ devotion and worthy of its audience’s adoration.

REBORN

Stars: Kayleigh Gilbert, Barbara Crampton, Michael Pare, Chaz Bono, Rae Dawn Chong, Alexa Maris, Bob Bancroft and Monte Markham.
Writer: Michael Mahin
Director: Julian Richards

Screening at the Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival, October 12-13, in Cary, North Carolina.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

Julian Richard’s solidly nasty supernatural thriller might be too easily cast aside as VHS-era throwback piece, given its roster of iconic ‘80s leads and a plot that admittedly would not have been out of place amongst the weekly rentals at any Blockbuster. While it can certainly be enjoyed on those terms, there is more on offer in Michael Mahin’s layered script and Richards’ polished direction.

The opening shot – a dimly lit hospital on a dark, stormy night, circa 2000 - sets the macabre tone. In a basement morgue (a basement with windows apparently, given the flashes of lightning), Kenny the morgue attendant (Chaz Bono) photographs nude, scalped cadavers. A lightning strike on the building jolts back to life a stillborn baby, and Kenny raises her to believe they are siblings.

Leap forward to present-day LA, that baby is now Tess (Kayleigh Gilbert; pictured, top), a teen fed up with a life spent surviving Kenny’s abuse; having recently discovered she possesses electrokinesis and all its homicidal potential, she sets about reconnecting with the mother she never knew she had, at any cost. Said mother is struggling 50-something actress Lena O’Neill (horror royalty, Barbara Crampton), who has borne the psychological scar of choosing not to bear the physical scar of a caesarean birth – a vain decision she believed cost her a newborn.

Thanks to the miracle of speedy B-plot beats (the pic is a just-right 78 minutes), Tess reconnects with Lena, but exists on a short fuse. If anything gets in her way, be it Rae Dawn Chong as Tess’ agent Dory, or Alexa Maris as brash starlet Gia Fontaine, the inevitable is almost always unpleasant. Taking an interest in Tess is LAPD detective Marc Fox (Michael Pare, doing solid work in an all-too-rare co-lead role), exhibiting a nice chemistry with Crampton. (Pictured, below; Barbara Crampton, left, with co-star Rae Dawn Chong)

There are some undeniable influences at work in the strongest moments of Reborn; reanimated by lightning, the existential yearning that drove Frankenstein’s Monster is at the core of Tess’ journey, while teen angst unleashed by instinctive vengeance will seem very familiar to fans of Stephen King’s Carrie (one character’s death is a clear homage to Betty Buckley’s demise in Brian de Palma’s adaptation).

Thematically, however, this is a more complex piece than its genre roots might suggest. As Lena, Crampton does great work exploring the vanity-shredding plight of ageing in Hollywood while also humanising the long-term grief associated with stillbirth. In only her second film, Gilbert plays the bad girl well, instilling in her the sadness and desperation of a lost and lonely little girl in the body of an abused teen.

Julian Richards does ‘meta’ pretty well (see his 2003 cult film, The Last Horror Movie), so the nods to film lore are not unexpected; he even nails a running gag about director Peter Bogdanovich that pays off wonderfully. But he also displays a particularly strong affinity for character-driven storytelling, which elevates Reborn above others of its kind.

SHARKWATER EXTINCTION

With: Rob Stewart, Regi Domingo, Madison Stewart and William Flores.
Writer/Director: Rob Stewart

Screening at 2019 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL on Saturday July 20 at 8.45pm.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

In the wake of activist filmmaker Rob Stewart’s 2006 film Sharkwater, affective and discernible change to the global trade in shark fin meat and industrial fishing practices was implemented; it became one of the most high-profile and impactful advocacy documentaries of the decade. That a sequel is even necessary a mere 13 years later is shameful, testament that capitalistic greed can resurrect itself with as much determination to survive as the great predators of the ocean. And given it also chronicles Stewart’s heartbreaking ascent to martyrdom makes Sharkwater Extinction a profound film-going experience.

The Canadian-born filmmaker takes a travelogue approach to exposing the perpetrators of illegal and/or immoral commercial shark culls. His return to Costa Rica exposes the 180° shift in the protection policies implemented a decade ago, revealing that 10,000s of Hammerhead Sharks are slaughtered in the species’ primary breeding grounds every year; in Cape Verde, West Africa, he accesses the industrial freezing vessels containing tonnes of rare Blue Shark carcasses; and, just off the wealthy real estate of Los Angeles’ coastline, he captures the dying breaths of sharks caught in outlawed longnet fishing traps.

Stewart is an understated screen presence, allowing his facts, figures and fearless footage to drill home the brutality of an industry bent on wiping out the very resource that sustains it. With fellow ocean conservation warriors by his side (including Australia’s ‘shark girl’, Madison Stewart, no relation), Stewart comes at the illicit industry from all angles. When not in the water, he is having fast food, pet meat and even cosmetics analysed to reveal shark meat levels; with the aid of the scientific community, he reveals the massive amount of pollutants and toxins that shark meat retains.

While the sequel certainly drills home a similar agenda to Sharkwater, Extinction unfolds in a manner that tonally feels like a traditional ‘ticking clock’ narrative. This perfectly suits the ‘countdown to oblivion’ theme, but also serves to slowly shift the focus of the film to the fate of Stewart himself; by the time the caption ‘The Last Dive’ appears on screen, the audience’s emotional involvement in both the plight of shark and the penultimate moments of their closest land ally are inexorably linked. Extinction opens with Stewart recollecting that first moment when death at sea first confronted him ("The number of times I've almost died, then ended up being okay," he says), and how it imbued in him the "Don't give up" ethos that drove him to fight for right.

Although Rob Stewart is credited as director, Sharkwater Extinction is most definitely not some self-aggrandizing farewell; friends and colleagues who had journeyed with him for much of his crusade completed the film in his absence. The final scenes serve as exactly the passionate call-to-action that the man himself was so skilful at crafting. Footage of him being at one with the creatures and seascapes he lived and fought for are as a profoundly inspiring as anything he had ever shot for the cause of shark conservation. They capture and honour a spirit that will live on in others.

THE CAT RESCUERS

With: Latonya ‘Sassee’ Walker, Claire Corey, Stuart Siet and Tara Green.
Directors: Rob Fruchtman and Steven Lawrence.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

There is a bitter irony at work in The Cat Rescuers that makes it more than just a ‘cat person’s perfect night-in movie. This profile of four New Yorkers who give their time, money and emotion to caring for a small fraction of the street cats of The Big Apple is certainly for animal lovers of every kind, but it also highlights a world in which people who feel a compassionate bond for and behave with empathy and dedication towards another species are the exception. And that’s a bit sad.

Over 500,000 strays live wild in NYC, most unsterilized, resulting in litter after litter of kittens that exponentially add to the problem, if they survive at all. Building sites, backyards, alleyways and sewers become their domain, predominantly abandoned pets left by owners whose situations have changed. The Cat Rescuers does not sugar coat the life of the big city feral, with scenes depicting the bloody aftermath of tomcat territoriality and the baby-making destiny of female felines.

The Cat Rescuers themselves offer a diverse cross-section of New York types. Single-mum Latonya ‘Sassee’ Walker is well-known in her suburb for her boisterous and beautiful personality, which plays well with the cats she rescues and cares for; Claire Corey is a married thirty-something, investing effort and emotion to save and rehouse her charges; Stuart Siet is a middle-aged FDNY techie, whose cat-rescuing duties start at 3am; and, Tara Green is a single woman for whom cat rescue has helped reconcile and refocus a troubled past.

Precisely balancing their narrative between a spayed-and-neutered advocacy agenda and a portrait of unique human beings, directors Rob Fruchtman and Steven Lawrence are afforded all-access status into the lives of their real-world protagonists. Their film frontloads scenes one expects from a documentary called The Cat Rescuers, yet a slow-burn shift in focus reveals the rescued become the rescuers in a very profound way.

The Cat Rescuers is verite documentary making in its purest and most effectively engaging form. The hope is that the film may inspire action and change; local governments need to budget for and enforce neutering campaigns, while volunteer groups and organisations like Animal Care Centres of NYC must be allocated increased funding. 

As much as it is a cat’s tale, The Cat Rescuers is also a moving study in good humanity (see also Jesse Alk’s canine counterpoint doco, Pariah Dog); a heartfelt ode to those who share the world with respect and love for all creatures, great and small.

Learn more about the efforts of The Cat Rescuers at the film's official website.

NEVER BUY A PET. Adopt from one of the following organisations in your country: R.S.P.C.A. Australia; R.S.P.C.A. United Kingdom; A.S.P.C.A. United States; S.P.C.A. New Zealand; Tierheim Germany; Société Protectrice Animaux France; Italy Animal Rescue; Adopt A Pet, South Africa.

GHOST LIGHT

Stars: Cary Elwes, Shannyn Sossamon, Danielle Campbell, Carol Kane, Roger Bart, Tom Riley, Scott Adsit, Caroline Portu and Steve Tom.
Writers: John Stimpson and Geoffery Taylor.
Director: John Stimpson

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

The curse of The Scottish Play gets a big screen treatment that one senses William Shakespeare's 16th century fans would have appreciated in the enjoyably dark-hearted romp, Ghost Light. In equal measure a love letter to The Bard, a satirical skewering of theatrical tropes and a cracking Twilight Zone episode, director John Stimpson and co-writer Geoffery Taylor display a clear affection for the stock troupe dynamics of their ensemble cast, but it is when the madness takes hold and the daggers appear that something delightfully wicked this way comes.

Fitting his entire troupe on a bus bound for a barnyard theatre in Massachusetts, increasing jaded director Henry (the wonderful Roger Bart) finds himself more often a caretaker of egos and eccentricities, having overseen his cast and meagre crew for 50 semi-pro stagings of Macbeth. With AD Archie (Scott Adsit) by his side, Henry must contend with the over-emoting tendencies of leading man Alex (Cary Elwes); the increasingly bitter ambitions of snooty Brit import Thomas (Tom Riley); and, Alex’s wife, Thomas’ lover and the production’s Lady Macbeth, Liz (Shannyn Sossamon).

When Thomas defies the legendary superstition of live theatre and brazenly yells the play’s name on stage in a petulant fit, mishaps and mischief begin to befall the production. Some are delightfully daffy; a blow to Alex’s forehead somehow restores his talent (Elwes renders a masterful version of the “Is this a dagger…” monologue), ensuring Thomas’ transition to leading man won’t happen on this staging. Others, infinitely more sinister; Thomas begins seeing apparitions in his quarters, while Liz, true to her stage character, can’t cleanse her hands of her husband’s blood.

While the framework for his narrative is pure Bard, Stimpson enjoys taking aim at such live theatre clichés as stock company pretension, bedroom farce romps, ‘manor house’ mysteries and, of course, good ol’ fashioned ghost stories. A support cast that includes established pros Carol Kane and Steve Tom and relative newbies Caroline Portu and Danielle Campbell play their parts to perfection, injecting what may have been one-note side players with heart and humour.

As Ghost Light careens with an understated glee to its full embrace of The Curse’s supernatural elements, the balancing act that Stimpson achieves with his sure directorial hand becomes more evident. Finding plenteous joys in Shakespeare’s most bloody of tragedies while respecting the source material is no small feat; those that look upon this picture will reflect without regret, ‘What’s done, is done.’