arts&entertainment
Jasmin thrives on colour and vibrancy
Big, dumb grins for Captain Fun cinema
Cameron Williams
“Captain America: The First Avenger” (M) STEVE Rogers (Chris Evans) wants to join the army during World War II, but is deemed unfit for service. His chance comes after volunteering for a government project to test a super-soldier serum. Soon after, Captain America is born and Rogers must take down the scientific wing of the German army, HYDRA, led by the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). Grounding the character outside of the comics is hard because Captain America is a walking piece of propaganda. Director Joe Johnston balances the emotions and explosions and delivers action in big,
thrilling doses. Every role is perfectly cast; Evans brings heart and courage to Rogers. Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stan and Dominic Cooper shine in smaller roles, and Hayley Atwell brings strength and beauty to the romantic-interest role. Weaving is a menacing villain, but that’s easy to do when playing a Nazi. His character is heavily underdeveloped and it’s disappointing for a great actor. “Captain America: The First Avenger” will put a big, dumb grin on your face, it’s so much fun. Make sure you sit through the credits for a first look at “The Avengers”.
“The Beaver” (M) WALTER (Mel Gibson) is depressed. His wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) tries to connect with him, while his teenage son Porter (Anton Yelchin) wants nothing to do with him. One day Walter discovers a beaver hand-puppet that becomes his sole way of communicating with the world. “The Beaver” is a strange film that tries hard to be different but fails. The film is flawed by the concept, and director Jodie Foster tries to make this family drama as twisted as possible, but nothing works. Gibson tries to put personality into the character of the beaver, but he’s just annoying.
The beaver is meant to act as a voice for a deeply troubled man, but nothing it says contains anything useful or insightful. It’s not a case of Gibson’s personal life damaging the film, it’s just poorly written. The problem is the script, no actor could have pulled it off – not even the love-child of Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando. “The Beaver” tries to be quirky but it’s a weak attempt at replicating the success of “American Beauty”, which handled the same issues better. The film fails to acknowledge the true nature of depression and the joy of rediscovering happiness.
Canberra dancer Jasmin Durham. Photo by Alastair Bett
By Helen Musa JASMIN Durham’s been dancing since she was three years old, when she joined the Lisa Clark School of Ballet. It wasn’t until she was 13 that she realised she wanted to become a professional dancer when, in 2006, she saw The Dancers Company performing in Canberra. The MacKillop College schoolgirl was entranced by the applause given to local dancers who had gone on to the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne, and she wanted more of the same. “The audience was so enthusiastic,” she says. So she started working really hard at her dance and, at age 16, she won a place at the ballet school. Soon we’ll see Durham performing the seductive “Street Dancer” role in the ballet version of “Don Quixote”, brought here by 31 performers in the same Dancers Company. Meantime, in the first part of the season, she’s playing the Dryad Queen. Both are completely different parts, both involve very demanding technique and both are top, professional roles, she told me. “These are roles done by principals, after this I won’t be able to do them for another 10 years.” For the past 15 years, Durham has
been obsessed with technique. No longer. “I’ve learnt so much about professional dancing from this tour,” she says, adding that now performance is of the essence and she’s performing 23 shows to audiences in the ACT, NSW, Tasmania and Victoria under a completely different kind of pressure. To her, “there’s no better way”. So, heading for graduation, how will she make sure she gets noticed? Well, this year she is in a class of six girls all training intensively. The result will be a place in the Australian Ballet School or a rigorous round of auditions in Europe or the US. “Whatever will be, will be,” Durham says. Durham is thrilled to be performing in “Don Quixote”, which she describes as “very colourful and vibrant”. She loves the energy and the variety in the ballet, originally adapted from a novel based on Cervantes’ famous work. And who knows? She may find herself leading another young aspirant to the ballet school. While here, they’ll be doing master classes for young Canberra dancers and showing them the way. “Don Quixote”, Canberra Theatre, August 16-17. Bookings 6257 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
An unlovely play of inconsequence WHAT an unlovely, inconsequential play this is. Staged over a spattered representation of the Milky Way (that suggests how small we are in the universe), over three acts, two married couples are placed in different permutations to act out the “what if” of human existence. Reza, (admittedly writing originally in French, so something might be lost in translation) undermines the normal conventions in comedy of manners as her characters attack each other too overtly. No subtlety here; the components are fixed – a laddered stocking, an astrophysics paper, a mistake in the dinner date, an
offstage child, and so on. Fry’s cast struggles with the rearrangements and the mood swings, but not very convincingly. At only one point, where when Ines (Debbie Newboult) makes an impassioned plea for recognition as an individual, did I see even a tinge of genuine emotion.
Much of this is the fault of the script. Act One gives us more background on the characters than the subsequent acts do, but why should it if it is a case of variations on themes? In the end, the experiment seemed false and just a little bit cynical.
Theatre
“Life x 3” By Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton, directed by Garry Fry, for Canberra Repertory, Theatre 3 until August 20. Reviewed by Helen Musa
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (M) “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a prequel to “Planet of the Apes” – a B-grade science fiction film from 1968 that evolved into a cinema classic. The sequels failed to be memorable wallowing in low-budget hell that has a budget in the millions, but more in common with the sequels. Will (James Franco) is a scientist working to cure Alzheimer’s disease, who is testing his drug on apes. The story takes a turn when the subjects show signs of intelligence. The apes are created using CGI from Weta Digital. It’s an outstanding achievement. They are believable and emotionally engaging.
When tackling the ethical implications of medical research and animal cruelty the film shines. The ideas are fleshed out nicely and will make you cancel your next trip to the zoo. However, things fall apart in the final act. Director Rupert Wyatt tries to inject doses of action, but plays it too safe. After so much hype, it’s a dud finale that barely scrapes by in the closing moments. Reviewer Cameron Williams has a movie website at popcornjunkie.wordpress.com Regular film reviewer Dougal Macdonald is on leave CityNews August 11-18 23