cinema reviews
DRIVING THAT LAZY MISS DAISY
By John Campbell
MRS BROWN’S BOYS D’MOVIE Do you remember how last week I suggested that Sex Tape might prove to be the worst movie of the year? Well – hold the phone! Another one has come in even lower! The only positive thing that I can think of to say about this excruciatingly awful piece of copper-and-kettle Irish gormlessness is that it more than thoroughly lives up to its cringeworthy trailer.
HERCULES It is only in hindsight that we can understand what a disservice was done to the mighty myths of ancient Greece and Rome by 1960s B-grade sword-and-sandal, low-budget epics. We scoffed at them, not thinking for a minute of the stories’ significance to those who hung on the words of Homer and the oral poets that helped create a cultural identity. This is by no shakes a great movie, but it is hugely enjoyable for the respect with which it treats its subject. Hercules (or Herakles as he was known to the Greeks), son of Zeus, was around for centuries before director Brett Ratner puts him on stage. It is the third century BC and Hercules (Dwayne Johnson), an unashamed mercenary, has been hired by the King of Thrace to defeat a warlord who is laying waste to the land. With his gang, including Ian McShane hamming it up delightfully as a neurotic soothsayer, and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, an archer in a tiny leather skirt with matching midriff top, Hercules whips the Thracian citizenry into shape so as to take on the villains. It’s Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven all over again, only with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour and a deluge of state-of-the-art CGI. There are enough twists in the tale to keep you interested, including that which concerns the fate of Hercules’s family back in pre-Raphaelite Athens. Costumes and makeup are fab and the battle scenes, especially the one with the scary purple blokes, are terrifically violent but mostly bloodless (as in the B-grade days). As the demi-god, Johnson owns the movie, giving a typically casual performance of enormous but charming vanity and suggesting that, if only somebody would trust him with a serious role, he’d prove himself to be a better-than-average actor – a pity all of those muscles get in the way. It’s a rumble, admittedly, but if you like your morality to be black and white, and you get off on chariots and cuirasses, go see it, it’s a beauty.
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The film, I’m told, is a spin-off from a hugely successful television show – I am not familiar with it, which proves, if nothing else, that ignorance can be bliss after all. Brendan O’Carroll plays Agnes Brown, a fruit-and-veg stallholder at a street market in Dublin. I’ve never really understood the appeal of middle-aged men in frocks. Even Edna Everidge – notwithstanding Barry Humphries’s scintillating wit – is beginning to appear embarrassingly anachronistic. Unlike Dame Edna, O’Carroll’s alter ego is a smoking and swearing heroine of the working class. She takes on the Big End of town to campaign against crude Russian investors whose development plans have no place for Agnes and her fellow street vendors. Helping Agnes are her idiot family and the members of a school for blind ninja students – yes, blind ninja students. Benny Hill might have been able to get away with it in a five-minute sketch… but really? Do the distributors who determine what cinemas will screen to their punters take it as a given that we who live outside the major metropolises are complete hayseeds with the intelligence of gnats? And, more to the point, surely there are any number of wannabe writers and directors in Oz who could come up with something as woeful as this. Why do we need to import such crud? I was so mortified by this movie’s boneheaded stupidity, so dispirited by its insulting banality that I could not even muster the will to walk out.
The Pulitzer prize-winning stage production of Driving Miss Daisy enjoyed a celebrated season at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne last year, starring two of the world’s greatest living actors: five-time Tony award and three-time Academy award nominee Angela Lansbury, and two-time Tony award winner and Academy award nominee James Earl Jones, joined by four-time Tony award winner Boyd Gaines. It tells the affecting story of the decades-long relationship between a stubborn Southern matriarch and her compassionate chauffeur. An iconic tale of pride, changing times and the transformative power of friendship, the play has warmed the hearts of millions of theatregoers worldwide. It screens at Palace Byron Bay Cinema at 1pm this Saturday and Sunday, and the presentation includes a Q&A session with Angela Lansbury filmed after a performance at the BFI Southbank, and provides an insight in to Angela’s motivations for doing the play, as well as a look back at her incredible career in film and on the stage. Tickets $18–$20 now available at the Palace box office or online at www.palacecinemas.com.au.
TUESDAY
29 JULY to
WEDNESDAY
6 AUG
PREVIEWS FROM FRI
OPENS 31 JULY
SCANDINAVIAN FILM FESTIVAL (NFT) Tue 29: 6:30 - I AM YOURS (18+) Wed 30: 6:30 - METALHEAD (15+) MONTY PYTHON LIVE (MOSTLY) (CTC) (NFT) Wed 6: 8:00pm SNEAK PREVIEW! 2D THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (M) (NFT) Fri 1: 4:15pm Sat 2, Sun 3: 4:00pm DRIVING MISS DAISY WITH LIVE Q&A (PG) (NFT) Sat 2, Sun 3: 1:00pm LUCY (MA15+) (NFT) Thu 31, Mon 4, Tue 5: 2:45, 4:30, 7:00, 9:00 Fri 1: 12:00, 2:50, 7:00, 9:00 Sat 2, Sun 3: 10:45, 2:45, 7:00, 8:45 Wed 6: 1:30, 3:40, 7:00, 9:10 THE LUNCHBOX (PG) (NFT) Thu 31, Mon 4, Tue 5: 10:00, 2:15, 6:40pm Fri 1: 2:05, 6:45 Sat 2, Sun 3: 12:30, 6:30 Wed 6: 2:30, 5:45pm CALVARY (MA15+) Tue 29: 9:00, 11:10, 2:20, 6:40 Wed 30: 11:15, 4:10, 6:30pm Thu 31, Fri 1, Mon 4, Tue 5: 10:00, 12:10, 2:20, 7:10 Sat 2, Sun 3: 12:05, 2:15, 7:10 Wed 6: 11:50am, 2:00, 6:50pm
WED 6 AUG
MRS. BROWN'S BOYS D'MOVIE (M) (NFT) Tue 29: 9:10am, 1:20, 6:35, 9:00pm Wed 30: 9:00am, 4:05, 6:20, 8:50pm Thu 31, Mon 4, Tue 5: 10:00, 4:50, 9:20pm Fri 1: 10:00am, 4:55, 9:20pm Sat 2, Sun 3: 10:25am, 4:50, 9:20pm Wed 6: 9:40am, 4:45, 9:00pm SEX TAPE (MA15+) Tue 29: 2:30, 4:30, 8:35 Wed 30: 11:25, 1:50, 8:40 Thu 31, Mon 4, Tue 5: 12:15 Fri 1, Sat 2, Sun 3: 10:00am Wed 6: 9:45am 2D DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (M) Tue 29: 11:50, 3:50, 8:50 Wed: 1:25, 3:50, 8:40 Thu 31-Tue 5: 4:30, 9:10pm Wed: 10:45, 4:10 JERSEY BOYS (M) Tue 29: 11:35am Wed 30: 1:25 Thu 31, Mon 4, Tue 5: 12:00 Fri 1: 12:05pm Wed 6: 11:45am THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY (M) Tue 29: 4:35pm Wed 30: 9:00am 22 JUMP STREET (MA15+) Tue 29: 9:30am Wed 30: 9:00am All sessions are correct at the time of publication. Current session times: palacecinemas.com.au
Present this flyer at the box office to receive a $5 ticket to the film of your choice. Conditions: Valid July 24 – July 30 2014. One use only, not valid for Palace Opera and Ballet, film festivals or special events
OPENING 31 JULY
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108-110 Jonson Street, Byron Bay 6680 8555 | www.palacecinemas.com.au
The Byron Shire Echo July 29, 2014 29