Cinema & Streaming

CINEMA Trouble when true-love triangle goes off course

“Dirt Music” (M) TIM Winton wrote a novel, Jack Thorne turned it into a screenplay and Gregor Jordan turned its paper characters into moving, talking images.

And the filmed result looks beautiful, scary and passionate. So what’s it about?

Georgie (Kelly Macdonald – no relation) has alcohol problems. And sexual problems – if resolving emotional issues by bonking more than one partner is a problem.

The fortunate chaps are Jim (David Wenham), the big man in the local rock lobster fishery and Lu (Garrett Hedlund) who fishes unlicensed under cover of darkness. Georgie’s going to have to make a choice.

“Dirt Music” sprinkles a dust of modern music over the film’s triangular romance to divert the tensions arising when Jim learns of Georgie’s fondness for Lu.

The tension escalates when Lu, his small boat immobilised probably by sabotage by we-all-know-who, decides to swim ashore, treads on a sharp object, and has to tough it out alone among coastal rocks not suitable for sustaining human life.

I’d like to heap praise on “Dirt Music” for its dramatic conflict, for its environmental beauty and for its cast of minor characters played by notable Aussie actors. But as the tensions developed, as Georgie’s search for Lu whom we know, but she doesn’t, is on the brink of dying to become an unshakeable collaboration for the greater good.”

That’s demanding stuff. If that were its full complement, “The Leadership” would be much shorter than its 97 minutes. But Antarctica is full of visual statements that, as well as being visually beautiful, have much to do with the future of life on our planet.

That, more than any issues of leadershiprelated analysis, scares the billy-oh out of me. The environmental images need no voiced commentary. They’re beautiful. And terrifying. At Dendy “Lucky Grandma” (M)

Garrett Hedlund as Lu and Kelly Macdonald as Georgie in “Dirt Music”.

from a very sore foot, the drama began to lose credibility.

The filmmakers should have identified and fixed that defect before asking actors to portray the story’s tensions. The film’s dramatic build-up toward denouement is top stuff, unhurried, pointing in a tense direction.

At Dendy, Limelight and Hoyts

“The Leadership” (M) THE focus of this Australian documentary, written and directed by Ili Baré, is a voyage carrying 76 highly educated women led (a term synonymous with the film’s theme) by Fabian Dattner, whose profession is leading.

Here’s her mission statement for the voyage – and the film – in a media statement released on the eve of her departure to board the ship: “In this time we cement deep personal insight, personal strategy, purpose and values, the art of visible leadership with a focus on the skills required. We share the contexts in which women work and we bond

to Antarctica in a pretty little cruise ship WATCH IT! / streaming and stuff WE’RE lucky enough to be living in a golden age of television. So much to watch, so many places to watch it, and so much quality, it’s near dizzying. And if you need evidence, check out the series “Fargo”. SBS On Demand will inevitably be drawing in the viewers as it nabbed the rights to premiere the fourth and newest season of this hit show in Australia.

UNLESS you’ve fled here to escape the political turmoil and danger currently blighting the US, it’s probable that Sasie Sealy’s name hasn’t landed on your list of filmmakers to watch.

After a short film career in TV, Ms Sealy’s move into the big league goes to New York’s Chinatown where, today, diminutive 80-year-old chain-smoking Grandma (Tsai Chin, the first Chinese member of Britain’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) is mourning the passing of the husband by whose side in the shop she has toiled from morn to night.

Grandma expects a large inheritance. But $1750 isn’t going to last, is it? So off in a group of locals to the casino where, betting on the number “8” in a variety of games, she wins a motza. Which she bets again on “8” and promptly loses.

In the coach back to the city, she finds herself sharing the seat with an obnoxious fellow whose dilly-bag is chock full of banknotes. And who conveniently karks it during the journey. Grandma heads home carrying the cash, unbeknownst to her family.

Those events form a comical prelude to the film’s dramatic theme. And we know what happens when Chinese crooks want the money. So Grandma hires a bodyguard Big Pong (Hsiao-Yuan Ha, aka Corey Ha) whose size would scare away the most determined crook until the bullets start flying between gangs.

Billed as a comedy, even when gangwar tensions build, it matters little that improbable happenstance pops up several times to sustain the 88 minutes that “Lucky Grandma” needs to tell its story.

Fabulous ‘Fargo’ sets the quality bar

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At Dendy

This is a powerful move for the platform. The popularity of “Fargo” also sees it in a prime place on Netflix’s catalogue here Down Under, though SBS looks the winner in the race for the latest instalment.

Running since 2014, “Fargo” is an anthology crime series like no other. Each season focuses on a different, offbeat set of characters who find themselves in the most bizarre of crime scenarios.

The first season is heavily based on the 1996 film that shares its name with the show. It scored lead Frances McDormand an Oscar for her performance as Marge Gunderson, a wholesome and humble police woman navigating a strange set up where a down and out car salesman (William H Macy) tries to earn extra cash by secretly hiring two deadbeats to kidnap his wife for ransom.

Fargo season 1 takes the strange plot beats of the film but twists them into a new 10-part episodic series that’s captivating, quirky and poetic. Martin Freeman channels the energy of William H Macy’s performance into a new dud salesman who ends up taking quite the dark new lease on life.

In the second season, we’re thrown back to the ‘70s American mid-west where a couple,

Chris Rock in “Fargo” series four. played by Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, try to cover up the hit and run of the son of a powerful criminal matriarch.

Season 3 gives us one of Ewan McGregor’s finest performances, where he plays twins trying to dig their way out of another of these surreal and stupendous scenarios. So crisp is the editing that sees them talking to one another throughout the story, the viewer can easily forget it’s one man playing both roles.

“Fargo” is hard to pin down in just a few words – “crime drama” doesn’t do it justice. There’s sweeping musical scores backdropping dramatic kidnappings, murders and mayhem, and it’s supported by a dark comedic style that’s black as night.

Each story is contextualised for its time period and offers not only a riveting tale of crime, but one that grasps with philosophy, history, politics, economics and almost everything in between.

The fourth season is sending us to ‘50s Kansas City and will deal with the face-off between two rival gangs fighting for control of the city. However, with “Fargo” there’s always more behind what’s said in a simple plot description.

The series has seen massive success both critically and among viewers, and it’s made the now nearly 25-year-old film (a masterpiece in my humble opinion and streaming on Stan) all the more recognised, too.

NETFLIX may have missed the boat for “Fargo” but it does have a peculiar new documentary that’s making headlines. We’ve already seen one rare unit this year become friendly with tigers, but what about octopi?

“My Octopus Teacher” is a film about the reallife friendship between a diver and an octopus, off the coast of South Africa. After studying the octopus on a day-to-day basis for a few months, eventually the diver earns its trust and the two become closely bonded in a way that, incredibly, seems almost human.

Some reviews have been calling it the best film of the year and it’s earned quite the renown as a major tearjerker.

Two entirely different productions trending this week indeed, but certainly a testament to the quality and variety coming out of the streaming world. Television revolution.

More of Nick Overall on Twitter @nick_overall