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New bunny boiler: Amanda Seyfried
A wife grows paranoid and suspicious of her husband. To test her doubts, she hires a prostitute to seduce him. Enter Chloe: a wide-eyed, doll-faced high class hooker played by Amanda Seyfried.
Underpinned by themes of desperation and deception, Chloe is strongly reminiscent of erotic thrillers such as Fatal Attraction and Single White Female. It is in fact a remake of a 2004 French film called Nathalie... A little overcooked, director Atom Egoyan is unafraid to indulge in the stuff of melodrama and obsession-fuelled madness.
Julianne Moore typifies this psychosis in the role of the distrusting wife of David. Desperate to make him fall in love with her once again, we witness her intimate need to feel desired. Meantime, David, played by Liam Neeson, is a busy college professor, and a flirt. He misses his flight back home and talks regularly to dedicated students over the Internet. The seeds of doubt are firmly planted in the mind of the wife, and ours too.
It’s a far from wise decision to hire Chloe, but the inner torment is too strong to bear and the temptation too great. Predictably, David becomes besotted with the porcelain skinned Chloe; and from the way he films her, so too did Egoyan. But there is a cunning, almost unfair trickery to the cinematography of the film, which adds to its apparently unexpected twist.
Moore and Neeson both give solid performances but they’re not in top form. More than anything, they serve as clichéd personalities that invite the potent presence of Amanda Seyfried. A far cry from Jennifer’s Body or Mean Girls, Seyfried is a commanding loose cannon – quietly unhinged and unnervingly formidable.
The film however dissipates into a rushed and inadequately explained third act. There’s explicit lesbian material, an intervening son, and even a few overt Hitchcock shout-outs – none of which seem to add up or make that much sense. Nonetheless, Chloe is impressive, as a tale of deceit and in the way it stirs, and plays, with memories of the original bunny boiler.
3.5 STARS
September 13th 2010 12:22
An aliens' spaceship is sent to hover indefinitely over Joburg
As if South Africa doesn’t already have enough of its own problems to deal with, the country is now also burdened with having to accommodate destitute aliens, or at least that’s what Neill Blomkamp would have us believe in his extraordinary sci-fi directorial debut District 9.
Twenty years ago, aliens first appeared on Earth. They didn’t attack humans, nor did they have any intentions for planetary conquest. Rather, they were refugees from their home planet. And so, after the world’s nations argued over what to do with them, they were sent to the township wastelands of Johannesburg, known as District 9. This daringly politically incorrect imagined history is quite a hurdle to overcome for the viewer’s imagination, but what begins as an absurd scenario quickly unravels into an engrossing, wholly believable tale.
When the South Africans grow sick of having to coexist with the odd species, private corporation MNU is assigned the job of evicting the aliens from District 9. In the process, the film’s unlikeable protagonist, Wikus (Sharlto Copley), is contaminated with an alien virus, which mutates his human DNA. This recycled plot device owes much to the 1986 gross-out The Fly, and it works terrifically well, managing to really get under the skin of squirmish audiences.
Producer Peter Jackson shepherded Blomkamp’s tremendous debut, and his influences show. The special effects and stunts are startlingly real, and the aliens are not cheaply made. To some, the aliens might become somewhat allegorical, either for South Africa’s apartheid past or for its current refugee problem. In any case, the xenophobic message of the film cannot be divorced from its setting. This is science fiction like no other.
4.5 STARS
Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck put on their film noir faces
There’s a strong and immediate temptation to point out the shocking violence in Michael Winterbottom’s latest offering, The Killer Inside Me. It features some sickeningly protracted scenes of bloody brutality that had grown men sitting beside me in the cinema squirming with queasiness.
Adapted from Jim Thompson’s 1952 classic of the same title, The Killer Inside Me is a disturbing and studied look at the psyche of serial killer Lou Ford. A trusty policeman in an early 50s small town in Texas, Lou (Casey Affleck) reveals complex psychological workings that remain incomprehensible even by the time the credits roll. Affleck certainly gives a solid performance. We’re forcibly aligned with him from the outset of the film to its final moments; he’s in every scene. It’s an uncommon device, one where we as the audience are afforded the opportunity to develop both an unwanted fascination for and also an intense disgust with his vile character. Yet he remains largely inaccessible. We see what he does, but never fully understand why.
It doesn't help either that, in every case, the violence is visited upon a woman. Lou’s love interests, Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson, come with us for the ride. Neither are particularly impressive. With the exception of Sin City, Alba’s usually declined prostitute roles, so when asked why she signed onto this project, she responded with a vague "I-don’t-really-know". Well, I don’t know either. Playing what is essentially a punching bag for Lou doesn’t do her any favours. Hudson is used in a similarly shocking fashion.
In the end, we are left wondering whether the violence is excessive, gratuitous or whether it is a justified way of telling the story. In addition, Winterbottom’s unpolished reimagining of the book means that the small town noir feel to the film is somehow lacking too. Although The Killer Inside Me brings to light some of the book’s qualities, it does not really enhance the reading experience and we are left with a hollow portrait of a superficially charming killer who executes his victims in horrific and detailed ways.
3 STARS
"A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules. Which is why I have to steal it."
After first seeing The Matrix back in 1999, director Darren Aronofsky left asking “What kind of science fiction movie can people make now?” It was as if the sci-fi genre had reached its creative limitations, as though every one of its darkest, previously unexplored corners had been blown up with the daring suggestion that we might be living in a computer simulation. To quote Aronofsky again, “suddenly Philip K. Dick’s ideas no longer seemed that fresh.” And indeed, Aronofsky was not alone in expressing such concerns
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R-Patz and Stewart frolic amongst the flowers
The marketing juggernaut for Eclipse takes great pains to remind viewers that in this episode of The Twilight Saga “one girl must discover her destiny”. That girl is Isabella Swan, and she’s been treading a well-worn romantic path now for an unnecessarily long time, implicating vampire Edward Cullen and werewolf Jacob Black in her constantly messy and unclever love triangle
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Tilda Swinton seated as the matriarch of the Recchi family
There is no denying the tremendous beauty of Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love. From the stunning Art Deco home of Tilda Swinton as matriarch to the beautiful outfits she is dressed in, the film’s rich visual style seems close to perfection
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Official 'Scream 4' teaser
Poor Neve Campbell. Who’d a thought that she survived to the very end of Wes Craven’s Scream franchise only to be thrust into an entire new trilogy come 2011. That’s right. Get ready to scream (sorry, couldn't resist). Bob Weinstein, head founder of Dimension Films, has not only confirmed a fourth instalment in the iconic slasher series, but has dropped some heavy hints that, if successful, a fifth and sixth Scream will follow
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The Rizzo's introduce themselves as cinema's new offbeat family
In the tradition of Little Miss Sunshine, comes Raymond De Felitta’s latest indie offering City Island. In this offbeat comedy, Andy Garcia leads a generally endearing cast as the father of yet another dysfunctional American family
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Is Avatar the best movie ever made or cinema's greatest gimmick?
James Cameron’s Avatar has today been released on DVD and BLU-RAY in Australia. The sci-fi/fantasy epic has reportedly made in excess of 2 billion dollars worldwide. And it’s no doubt that the 3D spectacular’s success will continue with the move from box office to home video
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Charlize Theron as Sylvia, a woman too afraid to look into the past
Back in 2000, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu struck it big time with his directorial debut Amores Perros, which in English roughly translates to Love’s a Bitch. This was the first instalment in what Inarritu now calls his Death Trilogy, completed with 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). All three films were met with critical acclaim and all three were written by Guillermo Arriaga
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Comment by Akito Hirata
on The Killer Inside Me
I'm based in Aus, and saw it at a preview screening. It comes out nationally on August 26th. Hope that helps!