ENTERTAINMENT BONUS ITALIAN FILMS! While Palace Byron Bay Cinema’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival continues this Thursday with A Boss in the Kitchen screening at 6.30pm, followed by Sacro GRA at 8.30pm, and on Friday – Blame it on Freud at 6.30pm and I Can Quit Whenever I Want at 9pm. With a storyline reminiscent of Breaking Bad and Oceans 11, I Can Quit Whenever I Want won the Best Comedy award at the 2014 Italian Golden Globes and has become a cult hit in Italy, with its exhilarating tale of a group of unemployed undergraduates who turn to producing and trafficking synthetic drugs. More laughs are guaranteed in Italian box office
hit Blame in on Freud: psychologist Francesco is a single dad whose adult daughters depend on him to counsel them in the ways of men. Don’t miss this little trip to Italy, courtesy of your local Palace!
BEASTLY STORY FOR THE KIDS
Step into the enchanted world of Disney’s Beauty And The Beast JR. This classic story tells of Belle, a smart and beautiful young woman in a provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a young prince trapped under the spell of an enchantress. If the Beast can learn to love and be loved, the curse will end and he will be transformed to his former self. But time is running out. If the
Beast does not learn his lesson soon, he and his household will be doomed for all eternity. Dancing flatware, menacing wolves, and singing furniture fill the stage with thrills in this beloved fairytale about very different people finding strength in one another and learning how to love. Sunday at the Byron Theatre at 2pm and 6.30pm. Tix available at the door. Adults $20 children $12 FAMILY(2A+2C) $60
TAKE IT AS A WARNING Interested parties are interested to join for a discussion presented by Byron Forums titled Global Warning: Future Visions from the Brink
of Apocalypse – Australia’s War without End. Peace activist Graeme Dunstan is the invited speaker. Food from 6pm. Discussion from 7pm.
GRADUATING ART Southern Cross University’s annual visual arts graduating student exhibition, Transit 2014, opens Friday at 5.30pm in the Visual Arts V-Block at the Lismore campus. View works by up-andcoming luminaries such as Jasper Hills, a young artist who used social media to exhibit his work and now not only has 4,200 followers, but has managed to sell a number of his works! Exhibition continues until 31 October.
By John Campbell
DRACULA UNTOLD
THE JUDGE
At a princely wedding banquet in medieval Transylvania, a gang of odious Ottoman delegates arrives unannounced to decree that they will conscript 1,000 young men from the vicinity to take part in the assault on Vienna.
Hollywood loves small-town America. Its character has changed over the years and its inhabitants are no longer squeaky clean – Atticus Finch now gets high – but for all the wisecracks with which city sophisticates lambast it, it is still clung to as the place where the nation’s core values remain stubbornly alive and well. Judge Palmer (Robert Duvall) has held court at Hicksville, Indiana, for forty-two years. Prodigal son Hank (Robert Downey Jr) is a slick Chicago defence lawyer.
The dilettante in me recalled that it was through this historic siege that the humble croissant was introduced into Europe. That’s the sort of movie this is – it’s very easy to be waylaid by other thoughts. Essentially a cartoon with real people in Madame Tussaud costumes doing an approximation of acting (Sarah Gadon as Mirena, the ivory-complexioned beauty in the long white gown, is embarrassingly awful), it tells the story of how Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans) was transformed, against his will, into that horny old blood-sucker, Count Dracula. Apart from Mirena’s secret covenant with the witches, presumably a fall-back enabling Vlad’s fate to be blamed on women, Gary Shore’s mindless entertainment ticks all the boxes in recycling the tropes of the genre – the terror of sunlight, retractable fangs and wooden stakes, the cross to ward off evil, and a duel fought on a floor of silver coins. I would not have appreciated this last innovation had I not learnt from NZ’s uproarious Things We Do In The Shadows that vampires cannot abide silver and that they sizzle up when touched by the metal (cinema is a great educator, is it not?). In fact, the dialogue throughout is spoken in a melodramatic Black Forest Cake accent that suggests all of the participants had been to the same speech coach as Taiga Waititi and his satin-draped Kiwi mates. The swarms of bats are terrific and the concluding scene with Dracula cruising a modern-day metropolis as Charles Dance drums his Nosferatu-like fingernails on a glass-top cafe table augurs well for fans of the undead. As juvenile tosh, it is what it is – no more, no less – and I left without giving it a second thought, preoccupied instead by the idea of getting some croissants in for tomorrow’s breakfast.
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Hank goes home to attend the funeral of his mother and is called upon to stay when the judge is faced with a murder charge after running down in his Cadillac a released crim with whom he has history. The screenplay, by Nick Schenck (Gran Torino) and Bill Dubuque, is a watertight setup of weights and counterbalances, light and shade, and an ingenuousness that never falters into hollow cliche. A slow-burn intrigue that evolves into a highly charged courtroom drama, the great strength of David Dobkin’s film lies in the adversarial pairing of the two leads. Downey Jr is at first a bit too flip, and you fear that he will just regurgitate the smart-arsed Tony Stark of Ironman, while, likewise, Duvall initially appears to be simply doing his cantankerous codger thing. But, seasoned actors that they are, they bring out the best in each other as Hank comes to understand his dad’s old-school reverence for justice at the same time as the ailing judge begins to appreciate the lawyerly achievements of his estranged middle son. An outstanding support cast – Vincent D’Onofrio and Jeremy Strong as Hank’s brothers, Vera Farmiga as the girl who never left town, and Billy Bob Thornton on auto as the prosecuting attorney – and a beautiful sense of nostalgia created by Super 8 footage of the family when Mom was alive, all help to underline the basic truths that we neglect at our peril. Mainstream cinema can often serve to reinforce those truths – as it does here. A smart movie with a ton of heart.
TUESDAY
14 OCT to
WEDNESDAY
22 OCT
MOVIE CLUB PRICES Adult $12.00 / Golden $8.50
Don’t miss out! OPENS THURSDAY
OPENS THURSDAY
LAVAZZA ITALIAN FILM FEST 2014 (All No Free Tix) Tue 14: 6:30pm Zoran, My Nephew the Idiot (18+) Tue 14: 8:45pm - The Wonders (M) CLOSING NIGHT RECEPTION WED 15! 6.15pm for pre-film drinks & live music Then film screening at 7:00pm: Marriage Italian Style (M) PERONI BEST OF THE FEST: Thu 16: 6:30 - A Boss in the Kitchen (15+) Thu 16: 8:30pm - Sacro GRA (15+) Fri 17: 6:30pm - Blame it on Freud (15+) Fri 17: 9:00pm - I Can Quit Whenever I Want (18+) A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES (MA15+) (No Free Tix) Thu 16, Fri 17: 1:55, 4:20, 9:00 Sat 18-Mon 20, Wed 22: 1:40, 4:05, 9:10 Tue 21: 1:55, 4:20, 9:10 BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP (MA15+) (No Free Tix) Thu 16, Fri 17: 11:50, 1:20, 9:40pm Sat 18-Mon 20, Wed 22: 10:50, 1:25, 6:30 Tue 21: 10:40, 1:25, 9:40pm THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY (PG) Tue 14-Wed 15: 10:10am Enjoy our licensed bar
Lavazza Espresso Coffee
EXTRA SESSIONS!
GONE GIRL (MA15+) (No Free Tix) Tue 14: 10:30, 3:35, 6:50pm Wed 15: 9:50, 3:30, 6:10pm Thu 16, Fri 17: 12:40, 3:35, 6:45pm Sat 18-Mon 20, Wed 22: 12:55, 3:50, 6:45, 8:30pm Tue 21: 12:40, 3:35, 6:45, 9:00pm THE JUDGE (M) (No Free Tix) Tue 14: 12:45, 3:50, 6:40pm Wed 15: 12:40, 3:20, 6:15pm Thu 16, Fri 17: 10:30, 3:20, 6:10pm Sat 18-Mon 20, Wed 22: 10:50, 3:25, 6:15 Tue 21: 11:00, 3:25, 6:15pm THE MAZE RUNNER (M) Tue 14: 10:55, 1:20, 9:30pm Wed 15: 10:30, 12:55, 9:10pm Thu 16, Fri 17: 10:20am Sat 18-Mon 20, Wed 22: 11:00, 9:40pm Tue 21: 11:00am THE EQUALIZER (MA15+) (No Free Tix) Tue 14: 1:25, 4:10, 9:40pm Wed 15: 12:45, 3:25, 9:05pm All sessions are correct at the time of publication. Current session times at: palacecinemas.com.au
Gift cards are the perfect gift
Group Bookings available
108-110 Jonson Street, Byron Bay 6680 8555 | www.palacecinemas.com.au
The Byron Shire Echo October 14, 2014 25