arts reviews situation to situation; people drop in and out of the narrative, occasionally providing some necessary nugget of information or insight but more often just adding a chunk of texture. It’s kind of a mess. I loved it.
INHERENT VICE
INHERENT VICE Film
In cinemas 12 Mar
★★★★ ½ Inherent Vice is a movie under the influence. It’s high on the aesthetic of 1970s cinema, the source material of Thomas Pynchon’s novel and writerdirector Paul Thomas Anderson’s affectionate but clear-eyed take on the story’s woozy, stoned California milieu and colourful gallery of characters. The plot meanders from place to place,
It’s the hippie lifestyle of the late ‘60s, personified by private eye Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello ( Joaquin Phoenix), who’s drawn into a complex conspiracy when old flame Shasta (Katherine Waterston) turns up on his doorstep spinning a tale about a plot being hatched against her wealthy new lover. Doc’s moral compass and deductive faculties are rendered a tad fuzzy by the dope smoke he inhales almost as regularly as oxygen but they’re still operational and he delves into a mystery involving drug-dealers, neo-Nazis, missing persons, medical malpractice and a malevolent something-orother called ‘The Golden Fang’. My advice? Don’t try too hard to make head or tail of what’s going on; just go with Anderson’s flow and enjoy what happens as it happens. Guy Davis
THAT SUGAR FILM Film
In selected cinemas from 17 Mar
★★★ ½ Somewhat ironically, Australian actor and filmmaker Damon Gameau uses the cinematic equivalent of a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down in his new documentary That Sugar Film, which explores the hidden and insidious effects fructose and refined sugars have on the everyday diet. Diligently providing a wealth of information and expert commentary about the history of the dreaded white powder (not to mention its other covert incarnations) and its effects while shrewdly sidestepping a dry or didactic approach, Gameau presents his pitch in a lively, entertaining fashion that has candy-coloured visuals and the kick of a sugar rush.
There’s plenty of substance accompanying the style, however, with Gameau taking the Super Size Me tactic of making himself the guinea pig by ingesting sugar for 60 days (in the ‘healthy’ form of fruit juice, muesli bars and low-fat yoghurt) after swearing off the stuff for years. Alarmingly, even this relatively brief period under sugar’s sway has a detrimental effect on Gameau physically and psychologically. It’s enough to make you drop your chop-top. Guy Davis
THAT SUGAR FILM
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THE MUSIC • 11TH MARCH 2015 • 23