FILMS ... with Tim Milfull
127 Hours (MA15+)
Director: Danny Boyle
Stars: James Franco
Rating: 5/5 93-minutes, now screening
Calling Aron Ralston an adrenaline junkie doesn’t quite do the term justice. The way director Danny Boyle paints this American adventurer left me thinking Ralston is more of an adrenaline junkie’s adrenaline junkie.
This human dynamo rushes through life looking for a thrill, and in the first few minutes of 127 Hours, we are left with no doubt about Ralston’s lust for life. Amid split screens showing clamouring masses of humanity, we watch Ralston (James Franco) packing for a trip into the wilderness, and all the while imagining that every time his wandering hand reaches through the recesses of a high cupboard in his kitchen, there’s a good reason that Boyle is focussing on Ralston’s pocketknife—it might have been very useful later... By mid-morning, the young man is mountain-biking along on the red dirt of the very isolated in Utah, and headed for a favourite canyon. After a brief, but spectacular interlude with two female hikers, Ralston tears away on his own, all the while filming and photographing his adventure. When a loose rock underfoot gives way, Ralston tumbles into a crevasse and finds himself pinned by his right hand between the wall and a very heavy boulder. And so, after priming his stopwatch, Ralston begins a countdown to a point of no return, when water and food will run out, and rescue can never come. In case you didn’t know, Aron Ralston actually endured this ordeal a few years ago, and paid an impressive physical price for his love of adventure. Franco’s portrayal of the climber is mesmerising, and his impression of Ralston’s methodical approach to dealing with his predicament had me transfixed, and more than impressed—this is pragmatism and self-responsibility incarnate. This might just be Danny Boyle’s best film yet, and he’s already made a number of excellent films.
Doing a job on global business
Inside Job (PG)
Director: Charles Ferguson
Rating: 4/5
108-minutes, now screening
Charles Ferguson is a very angry man with a story to tell, and he does so with a surprising level of calm. The director has travelled around the world making one of the first documentaries about the global financial crisis of 2008, with the intention of raising the same sort outrage among audiences as he feels about such an incredible waste of money, a waste that should never have happened.
Inside Job runs with one tagline that calls this the film that cost $20,000,000,000,000 to make, and as we watch a long line of talking heads explain exactly what started mostly in the United States, and then dragged down most of the rest of the world, one can’t help but sympathise with Ferguson.
Inside Job begins by examining the decline of Iceland’s economy, once one of the safest and admired economies in the Western world. We quickly come to appreciate that the central villains in Iceland and the rest of this story are bankers and insurance agencies.
Yes, if you’ve even remotely followed the news over the last few years, you’ll be well aware that the bloody banks screwed us on more than one level, but Ferguson and his fearsome researchers have meticulously documented the way in which they did it, and what a callous and irresponsible crew they are.
The amounts of money wasted and the methods these (mostly men) managed to con entire nations out of their savings simply are extraordinary. While the doco makers aren’t able to speak to some of the key bogeymen, they do manage to find several unwitting goons ready to step up and try to explain exactly what happened, and why their actions were justified.
Australia may have escaped relatively unscathed from the GFC, but this film shows the kind of symptoms and actions we should be wary of—if you aren’t ready to pick up the pitchforks and flaming pikes at the end of this film, chances are that you’re a derivatives-obsessed economist.
THE BINGE
TV satires hit their marks
Review with Myles Barlow (MA15+) now available through Roadshow
Tactical Response Unit (M) now available through Roadshow
The Lodger (PG) now available through Madman
The Man Who Knew Too Much (PG) now available through Madman
The 39 Steps (G) now available through Madman
Roadshow Entertainment recently released two excellent television satires in Review with Myles Barlow and Tactical Response Unit.
The first is a mock review show, where the eponymous Myles Barlow reviews life itself, responding to the letters of readers by reviewing their concerns, whether they be the notions of loss and fear, forming a cult, or anything at all, in fact.
This dark, tongue-in-cheek, series features an impressive line-up of cameos, from Myles’s arch-enemy David Stratton, to B-listers, Barry Crocker and Deiter Brummer.
Each review concludes with a laboured metaphor featuring agonising alliteration, mangled malapropos, and strained similes. I’ll lay off the spoilers, but I’ve been following Myles for a while now, and while he seems to be able to tweet from gaol, Season 3 may not be far off.
Tactical Response Unit is the latest outing by John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, and summarises another year of their appearances on The 7.30 Report.
My favourite this time around is Clarke as a climate-change denier spouting his nonsense as the screen fills with water.
Madman Entertainment continues with their excellent Directors Suite series by releasing some of the magnificent early work of Alfred Hitchcock while he was still working in the UK. The Lodger (1927) follows the adventures of a young man who is suspected of being a serial killer in foggy London. Peter Lorre stars as The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), a film that was remade by Hitchcock in 1956 to win an Oscars and three nominations. And The 39 Steps stars Robert Donat in the definitive version of the story about mistaken identity.
