Author: Alex Doenau

Alex Doenau is an Australian film and book critic based in Sydney. His interests include video games, Pokémon, and amiibos as far as the horizon.

My Name is Earl Season 3: Episode 1

“My Name is Inmate 28301-016”

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t expect to talk about My Name is Earl every week. Comedy is always the hardest thing to analyse for me, and while Earl has serial aspects it’s largely episodic.

This episode is worth mentioning because, if you’ve been watching the show, you may recall that Earl confessed to a crime that he didn’t commit so that Joy wouldn’t be sent to prison for life, and was consequently given a two year sentence himself. It’s interesting to see how a series about a community can possibly work when the man who’s supposed to be giving back to that community is in jail. I’m not sure that Earl in prison can be sustained for an entire series, but it certainly looks like it can last for a little while yet.

What really compelled me to write about this episode was Sonny, who provided the sort of meta laughs that this series thrives on. As soon as I saw him, I thought “that’s the guy from the first episode!”. When I rewatched the first series last year, I thought “man, that guy was never in it again!” and, indeed, Earl said to Sonny “We wondered where you went! For a couple of weeks … then, life goes on.” Nothing, of course, will ever compare to the forum joke, but damn! I love that this series rewards you for paying attention.

The only bum steers that Earl has ever taken are dropping the Randy Marriage Visa plot, and possibly the “Earl’s birthday disaster” episode – and even that was heroically saved by Nescobar A-Lop-Lop. I have great faith that it will continue to rock and that, unlike Randy, it will never be a spider ball.

Heroes Season 2: Episode 1

“Four Months Later”

TV! You’re back! Like sweet manna from the Heavens, I have new things to look forward to (and perhaps deride) each week. Heroes has led the vanguard, and I was fully willing to write it off … until a miracle happened.

Ned: Mohinder? Mohinder Suresh? Mohinder Suresh, I thought that was you!
Mohinder: Hi, thanks for watching.
Ned: Hey now, don’t you tell me you don’t remember me ’cause I sure as heckfire remember you.
Mohinder: Not a chance.
Ned: Ned… Ryerson. “Needlenose Ned”? “Ned the Head”? C’mon, buddy. The Company. I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing. Ned Ryerson, I dated your sister Shanti a couple of times until she died of that degenerative disease you were lecturing on? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson, I can turn forks into gold? Well?
Mohinder: Ned Ryerson?
Ned: BING!
Mohinder: Bing.

Yes. Heroes Season 2 is amazing.

Spoilers Ahoy!

Hairspray (1988)

I watched the original Hairspray tonight, having snapped it up on the cheap just the other day (in fact, the movie itself was cheaper than its soundtrack). What was a fairly straightforward movie, rather like the musical but with teeth, slowly degenerated into something approaching insanity. Pia Zadora came on screen, talking about ironing your hair and smoking the reefer, and all bets were off.

This was plainly evidenced by John Waters showing up as soon as they left Zadora’s house (which I assure you was swellegant) and stealing the movie. “Look at the disc!” he implored, and Penny had no choice but to listen. I was so disoriented I almost managed to miss Sonny Bono putting together a bomb and hiding it in Debbie Harry’s hair. There was actual evidence of racial tension featured in the movie, the romance on offer was the traditional “taken for granted instant going steady” variety, and altogether it felt more gritty. It came completely unstuck before the curtain fell (“Tracy! Tracy!!!!”), but was mightily entertaining for all of that.

Waters apparently told Adam Shankman that, in making the musical movie, to make it unlike Waters’ own, or like the stage version. I’m convinced that this was a successful approach to take. Shankman’s musical is more polished, but Waters’ movie is rather more bizarre. Different movies to fit different moods; it’s the new frontier.

Superbad

“McLovin! Whyyyyyy?!”

Sadly, sometimes the greatest film can only be as good as its audience. Superbad is the sort of film whose target audience is a group that I do not normally associate with. At the start of the film I made the conscious decision not to sit in front of some teenagers with their feet on the seats, who had somehow timed their conversation to include, just as I was walking past, one saying to another “you’re a homo” (although, with the state of the modern teenager, you could probably expect something to this degree from them in any given conversation). Unfortunately, I still ended up with the worst audience since the second time I saw Brick. Answering their mobiles during the movie, talking across several rows, coming in and out, complaining loudly that the movie was boring. Listen here, kids! You were the ones who bought tickets to different movies so that you could sneak into this one, so shut up and watch the movie. If I ever have children, I’m going to teach them how to watch movies in a cinema, and coach them in the arts of not being vapid bigots with stupid hair and loud mouths.

As to the movie itself, though: it was everything I dreamed of and more. I’m thoroughly convinced that Seth Rogen cannot write a movie without making it somehow ridiculously homoerotic. Superbad is the sort of movie so charged that an ending with the guys getting the girls is sad because they lose each other in the process. This made the audience distinctly uncomfortable. More than this, the credits end with a procession of drawings of penises done by Seth, including a team of penises raising the flag at Iwo Jima. The teenaged boys in the audience left in audible disgust. Remember, folks: it’s impossible to be morally outraged if you don’t have morals.

Hairspray (2007)

“Good Morning Baltimore!”

Movie watching should not come with caveats. I’m not going to say “Hairspray is great, but it’s a musical: be forewarned!”. Screw that; I love musicals, and Hairspray is a consistently and thoroughly awesome, heartwarming and well executed piece of musical cinema (and it says something for me that I didn’t even think until a week later, after confronting many people who don’t like the idea of the movie, that another caveat would be “John Travolta wears a dress”).

There’s no one set of things that I look for in movies, and this allows me to see a variety of films like Black Book, Ratatouille, Shortbus and C.R.A.Z.Y. and to be able to say of each of them that they are precisely why I watch movies. Hairspray, too, is why I watch movies.

Popcorn Taxi: December Boys

“Adopt me, damnit.”

To bankroll a movie, particularly in Australia, one needs stars. That’s how you end up with something like Irresistible, starring Susan Sarandon, and Jindabyne, starring Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney. Of course, you also need promotion and distribution, which is why Jindabyne was the only one of those two that anyone had ever heard of.

December Boys has received a star: Daniel Radcliffe. He warrants a sort of blitz all of his own, so let’s see if December Boys has legs. To my mind it’s an enjoyable film, but not an easy sell. Australian cinema is weird like that.

Trailers: The Disparate Mob

Oh dear. I appear to have grown weary of “dopey showgirls in gooey gowns” and come out the other side. After months of the same trailers attacking me from all sides, I’ve been struck by a few new works that prove that the art of trailer sculpting.

First up is Juno, which I admittedly did not see in the cinema:

Until I realised the secret sentimentality of Thank You For Smoking which detracted only slightly from its total … “rockitude”, I was quite in love with Jason Reitman’s work. Juno looks like another one of those films that fit into the incredibly malleable list of “movies made for Alex”. It looks like the right sort of melanchomedy that I eat right up – and, of course, I love Michael Cera. And … well, pretty much the whole cast. Jennifer Garner ain’t quite Jennifer Connelly, but hey! She can have my love anyway.

Anticipation: high.

The next trailer up is something that I was a bit more dubious on, Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium:

Yeah, I saw this trailer and I could only really think “what?”. It was seen before Hairspray, and Ajay turned to me and said “Let’s go see Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium!” I was forced to reply “I think we already did.”
I’m assuming that this is a movie about a fellow lacking imagination (Jason Bateman – keep on working, friend!), who rediscovers the spirit of wonder through Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman and a magical toy store. If you watch the trailer very carefully, you can pinpoint Jason Bateman rediscovering the spirit of wonder!

So I don’t really know what to make of Magorium, save to say that I find no greater joy than in Natalie Portman in this mode, and that the reason Dustin Hoffman is looking as he did in Stranger than Fiction is because this is written by Zach Helm, who also wrote that fine film. So I’m going on talent, “Magic” (you know), and the fact that, yeah, Jason Bateman rediscovering the spirit of wonder warms my heart.

Also, in relation to Hollywood’s newfound passion for converting children’s fantasy novels into movies, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising is being made into The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. I had assumed it was some newfangled kid’s franchise, but my mother assures me that it’s from 1974. Apparently it’s been rewritten beyond recognition, so that’s a moot point, but I don’t think I can really fit in another “American kid surrounded by British actors” movie.
Will they never end?

Iron Man: Ticket to Trailer Town

I would complain that Robert Downey Jr. plays all of his roles in exactly the same fashion, but he does it so damned well. I’d say he was the best thing about Zodiac, but everyone in that movie played their parts well, they just couldn’t make them interesting.

Keeping in mind Downey Jr.’s quality (quite different to Faramir’s quality), I am pleased to see that the first Iron Man trailer is online. If you listen very carefully, it’s impossible to miss … that song.

I like the idea of Iron Man’s origin story: that, rather than creating a super weapon for a terrorist cell, he turns himself into a super weapon and beats up the terrorist cell. Now I understand that Iron Man has, in recent comics, turned into a kind of one man hero registry, ready to round up everyone and tell them what for. The film series (and, who knows, it might be a Hulk level disaster, although I think it takes a lot of effort to make a movie that incoherent) is not yet at that point. We don’t even see Samuel L. Jackson storming onto the scene as Nick Fury. But I’m excited, and I have virtually no knowledge of this franchise at all.

Strangely enough, it’s almost impossible to tell that this is a Marvel movie. Obviously they’ve got the title at the beginning, but it doesn’t have any of the “importance” of Spider-Man or the “high budget masquerading as low budget fake whimsy” of Fantastic Four behind it.

I’m quite looking forward to Iron Man now, and it gets extra bonus points for being directed by Jon Favreau, who was smote down by the mighty fists of karma wielded by Jason Lee. There’s hope for this world yet, my friends.

Smell the Glove Fear the Boot!

So you may recall Shamus’ gambit DM of the Rings. Well, Shamus is now owned by the denizens of the internet, and has followed it with a legitimately drawn comic, Chainmail Bikini.

The last year has left Shamus open to the darkest criticisms known to man, finding internet popularity, and already they’re trying to tear strips off of him. What we’ve got so far is writing comparable to DM of the Rings, which is not surprising because it’s been confirmed that they’re the same characters in the D&D group, drawings, and different fonts used for each character. While this makes sense to differentiate the characters from each other in the fantasy segments, I think that legibility may be a bit of a problem for Josh and Marcus.

Otherwise, I salute Shamus for having the ability to get a distinctive voice out there. As someone presently struggling to find my own voice, Beyonce style (if you don’t … if you won’t … listeeeeeeen), it’s something that I definitely admire. Some day, perhaps you’ll even want to read Batrock.net, gentle readers!

The Bourne Ultimatum

“CIA, mate.”

The other lesson that we can learn from the cinema is that any given US governmental body has a couple of corrupt bastards in it who bend the innocents to their whims. Naturally, only one man can right this wrong!

Paul Greengrass’s The Bourne Ultimatum never lets up. With no downtime, the ending sneaks up on you and bites your face off. Despite its lack of cinematic structure for comfort, this is still an exciting film. I’ve never held much stock in Matt Damon, but he’s more accomplished than I’ve given him credit for.