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Reviews, previews and chuckling and snorting...

I'm a Sydney-based film reviewer that loves to review local screenings and film festivals. Want me to cover your event? Email me at cibbuano ~AT~ orble ~DOT~ com.


Latest Iron Man 2 trailer released

March 17th 2010 01:51
by Matt Shea
Iron Man 2 new trailer released

It’s mid-March and the seasons are changing. In the film world, the Academy Awards have finally been and gone and it’s time to look ahead to the big releases of what will be the northern summer. One of the first will be Iron Man 2 in late April-early May – almost exactly two years after the original – and it’s shaping up to be much of the same, only bigger, brasher and more outrageous. Always keen to keep the fires of anticipation burning in our bellies, Paramount Pictures Australia last week released a new trailer for Iron Man 2 and it’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement. True, we may have chosen to ignore the fact that Scarlet Johansson apparently has a supporting role, but Mickey Rourke is looking better and better as Whiplash, and Sam Rockwell and Samuel L. Jackson will be appearing as a (a very young) Justin Hammer and Nick Fury, respectively. It’s easy to be cynical about this sort of thing, particularly when the first film was a touch flabby and a reel too long, but for now Iron Man 2 certainly has our attention.


Iron Man 2 - Trailer E
Uploaded by Paramount_Australia. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

*This image is from Box Office Es
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The Rebound

March 16th 2010 02:53
by Matt Shea
The Rebound film Catherine Zeta-Jones

Ten years into the new millennium and finding a decent romantic comedy is proving tougher than ever. It’s like wandering through an unmapped minefield, but instead of explosive devices you’re confronted with the rote of this jaundiced genre: flimsy characters (boom!), punkarse kids (boom!), contrived setups (boom! boom!), watered-down jeopardy (kablamo!).

The Rebound is not going to change your perceptions. This is a film with good intentions and (thankfully) a couple of charming leads, but so thin on character and plot you’d be better off studying the discarded husks of your undercooked popcorn.

Catherine Zeta-Jones plays efficient, super-hygienic 40-year-old suburban mother Sandy who one day realises her husband, Frank (Sam Robards), has having an extramarital affair. Moving to Manhattan with her two kids, Frank Jr. (twins Andrew and Jake Cherry) and Sadie (Kelly Gould) in tow, the devastated Sandy finds herself an apartment and a job fact checking for a sports network.

Under her apartment is a coffee shop and there she meets Aram (Justin Bartha), a down in the dumps 25-year-old recently burned by his Green Card-seeking French ex. Both Sandy and Aram are of course ripe for rebound romance, and an innocuous babysitting gig is soon transitioning into something much more serious and (apparently) complicated.

It’s cookie-cutter stuff and hardly classy comedy: the film is stuffed full of ham-fisted scatological humour (supposedly all the more pointed because of Sandy’s hygiene phobia), vomit jokes, and frequently drifts beyond putrid and into the offensive. The children are, of course, demanding brats and prime candidates for being stuffed down Sandy’s garbage chute.

Writer-director-producer Bart Freundlich has struggled to find his tone with The Rebound. He seems stuck between the crappy humour and a more thoughtful exploration of rebound relationships, age differences and the importance of second chances. He can’t bring himself to build jeopardy into the story, a whole raft of hurdles to Sandy and Aram’s relationship being pushed aside as they simply pedal through the motions, the end result being that when these characters reach the emotional climax of the film you simply couldn’t care less.



The performers end up doing all the work here, and it’s puzzling to think how Freundlich landed such a quality cast. Zeta-Jones is an actress you simply don’t see enough of and she makes the most of the often-preposterous scenes handed to her. She’s almost matched by Bartha, the young player using all his easy charm to make Aram a likeable character. There’s some excellent support too, with Art Garfunkel and Joanna Gleason showing up as Aram’s endearingly meddlesome parents.

Ultimately, however, the players are wasted on The Rebound, their quality an insubstantial substitute for a film with actual depth. This is bound to do a bit of easy business with suckers for slack-bladdered rom coms, but unless this is the only film playing at the only cinema in your recently quarantined small town, you’d be best advised to give it a miss.


I say: Another inferior romantic comedy. Rent When Harry Met Sally instead.

See it for: An excellent cast lifts this above the lowest rung, making it bearable to sit through.


*This image is from SBS Films
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Green Zone

March 10th 2010 06:17
by Matt Shea
Matt Damon in Green Zone

There’s an awkward moment late in the running time of Green Zone when a penny drops


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Local Hero

March 8th 2010 08:47
by Matt Shea
Local Hero film

Over the past 25 years it’s been difficult to find a critic who hasn’t been kind to Local Hero. Littered with quirk and charm, and featuring one of the most well-known motion picture scores in modern history, it’s easy to give the film a free ticket


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A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

March 4th 2010 05:36
by Matt Shea
Lucio Fulci's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

In between the cute comedies of his early career and the latter-day Zombie gore fests that would ensure his infamy, Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci engaged himself in a clutch of giallo erotic thrillers


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The 10 Conditions of Love

March 1st 2010 12:05
by Matt Shea
10 Conditions of Love review

It’s difficult to think of a more controversial recent film than The 10 Conditions of Love. The work generated a storm of debate at the last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, becoming a major headache for festival organisers


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Absolute Beginners

February 26th 2010 06:14
by Matt Shea
Absolute Beginners David Bowie

Panned by critics of the time, 1986’s infamous musical, Absolute Beginners, went on to be regarded as one of the great failures of the decade, criticised for simply being a glitzy, overlong pop promo


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Shutter Island

February 24th 2010 04:39
by Matt Shea
Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island

It’s difficult to know what Martin Scorsese is up to these days. Once the toast of New Hollywood, Scorsese was responsible for a series of blistering films based around vivid characters


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The Boys in the Band

February 23rd 2010 07:43
by Matt Shea
The Boys in the Band

In the time following its release in 1970, the feature film adaptation of The Boys in the Band became something of a critical and social football. Originally praised for a faithful but dark reproduction of gay life, the film soon came to be seen as a relic of a time when self-loathing and guilt were the acknowledged norms for a homosexual person and was eventually buried by the Stonewall riots of 1969 and a movement within the homosexual community towards gay pride


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