Two laughs for The Other Guys
Dan Slevin
At the movies with Dan Slevin
My big beef with most eco-documentaries is the lack of hope. Whether it’s Rob Stewart (Sharkwater), Franny Armstrong (The Age of Stupid) or even Leonardo DiCaprio (The 11th Hour) most of these films go to a lot of trouble to tell you what’s wrong with the planet but leave us feeling helpless and depressed.
That’s why I like Kathleen Gallagher’s work so much. Her film last year, Earth Whisperers/Papatunauku told ten stories of people who were making a difference, inspiring change and showing us that there are solutions as well as problems. This year she has repeated the tonic, focusing on our waterways and our relationship with the sea: Water Whisperers/Tangaroa.
In this beautifully photographed film another ten stories of environmental redemption are told: from the Poor Knights Marine Reserve to the Hurunui and Rakaia Rivers, and including the wonderful Mike O’Donnell describing how a toxic Coromandel waterway was rescued from arsenic and effluent poisoning by sensible planting and community commitment.
I don’t often urge you to see anything from this pulpit but I do recommend you see Water Whisperers during its brief stay in theatres. We’ll all be better off if you do.
From the same maison du parody stable as Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans, Vampires Suck honours its Twilight inspiration by going at an epically slow pace, with plenty of long gaps between anything interesting. The only notable performance is by Jenn Proske who imitates Kristen Stewart’s simpering and twitching perfectly (and like Stewart, plays that one note right the way through).
I counted precisely three laughs-out-loud during the 80 minutes of Vampires Suck which makes one laugh for $5.60 (or $3.63 on Cheap Tuesday). Only you can decide if that’s value for money.
Amazingly, three laughs was actually one more than I managed during Will Ferrell’s The Other Guys. We’ve been hearing all week about how hard it is for Hollywood to greenlight The Hobbit. Well, it can’t be that difficult if back-of-an-envelope indulgences like The Other Guys can get approved. This film reunites Will Ferrell with director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers) and their relationship now appears to be so effortless that they don’t even bother writing a script.
Ferrell is a desk jockey detective in a Manhattan police squad. He’s supposedly a forensic accountant which explains his lack of street nouse but doesn’t explain why he isn’t in a specialised unit. His partner is Mark Wahlberg, disgraced after shooting a baseball star I hadn’t heard of.
When the careers of the department’s two rock star detectives (Dwayne “THe Rock” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) come to an untimely end (WARNING: if you buy a ticket on the basis of the trailer you should know that both those guys are gone after 10 minutes) Ferrell and Wahlberg have to make the step up and solve a mysterious and complicated crime involving British billionaire Steve Coogan.
Finally, Peaceful Times is an ironic title for a family memoir (I’m guessing that it’s based on reality) about growing up as East German refugees in a West Germany determined to treat them as provincial bumpkins. So obscure that it doesn’t even have an English language IMDb entry, Peaceful Times tries to balance a comic tone with some dark psychological notes and doesn’t really succeed at either.
My big beef with most eco-documentaries is the lack of hope. Whether it’s Rob Stewart (Sharkwater), Franny Armstrong (The Age of Stupid) or even Leonardo DiCaprio (The 11th Hour) most of these films go to a lot of trouble to tell you what’s wrong with the planet but leave us feeling helpless and depressed.
That’s why I like Kathleen Gallagher’s work so much. Her film last year, Earth Whisperers/Papatunauku told ten stories of people who were making a difference, inspiring change and showing us that there are solutions as well as problems. This year she has repeated the tonic, focusing on our waterways and our relationship with the sea: Water Whisperers/Tangaroa.
In this beautifully photographed film another ten stories of environmental redemption are told: from the Poor Knights Marine Reserve to the Hurunui and Rakaia Rivers, and including the wonderful Mike O’Donnell describing how a toxic Coromandel waterway was rescued from arsenic and effluent poisoning by sensible planting and community commitment.
I don’t often urge you to see anything from this pulpit but I do recommend you see Water Whisperers during its brief stay in theatres. We’ll all be better off if you do.
From the same maison du parody stable as Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans, Vampires Suck honours its Twilight inspiration by going at an epically slow pace, with plenty of long gaps between anything interesting. The only notable performance is by Jenn Proske who imitates Kristen Stewart’s simpering and twitching perfectly (and like Stewart, plays that one note right the way through).
I counted precisely three laughs-out-loud during the 80 minutes of Vampires Suck which makes one laugh for $5.60 (or $3.63 on Cheap Tuesday). Only you can decide if that’s value for money.
Amazingly, three laughs was actually one more than I managed during Will Ferrell’s The Other Guys. We’ve been hearing all week about how hard it is for Hollywood to greenlight The Hobbit. Well, it can’t be that difficult if back-of-an-envelope indulgences like The Other Guys can get approved. This film reunites Will Ferrell with director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers) and their relationship now appears to be so effortless that they don’t even bother writing a script.
Ferrell is a desk jockey detective in a Manhattan police squad. He’s supposedly a forensic accountant which explains his lack of street nouse but doesn’t explain why he isn’t in a specialised unit. His partner is Mark Wahlberg, disgraced after shooting a baseball star I hadn’t heard of.
When the careers of the department’s two rock star detectives (Dwayne “THe Rock” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) come to an untimely end (WARNING: if you buy a ticket on the basis of the trailer you should know that both those guys are gone after 10 minutes) Ferrell and Wahlberg have to make the step up and solve a mysterious and complicated crime involving British billionaire Steve Coogan.
Finally, Peaceful Times is an ironic title for a family memoir (I’m guessing that it’s based on reality) about growing up as East German refugees in a West Germany determined to treat them as provincial bumpkins. So obscure that it doesn’t even have an English language IMDb entry, Peaceful Times tries to balance a comic tone with some dark psychological notes and doesn’t really succeed at either.
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