Film Shapes

Let me begin this by saying I saw the first Toy Story some years after release (maybe around 2008) and I really didn't like it. Couldn't see what all the fuss was about. So when my kids (and wife) proposed seeing number 4 at the cinema, I was reluctant to say the least. Add to this the necessity of seeing ALL the films in the series before the new one because, well, I want to bring them up correctly, and the task bubbled with dread. But, imagine my surprise when I actually enjoyed Toy Story 2 , wasn't too annoyed with Toy Story 3 and, yes, quite liked Toy Story 4 . This was the first film for the kids at the cinema and there's something to be said for watching kids watching films, especially when they're experiencing a completely new environment. The interest dropped off slightly during the talky exposition points in the film but for the action scenes, they were buzzing. For me, this was probably the first 'kids' film I've seen on the big screen...

Black '47 is a revenge western set in Ireland during the Great Famine of 1845-1849. I saw this at the Luna Leederville as part of the Revelation Film Festival a week or so ago. There was even an intro from an actual Irishman, Dr. Enda Murray, who curates the Irish Film Festival. The story follows a young Irish fella who returns home after fighting with the British Army in various exotic climes. He lands bang in the middle of the famine to find most of his family gone, primarily at the hands of the Brits he was fighting for. Needless to say, this shits him a touch. Though this guy, Feeney, played by the Aussie lad from Animal Kingdom , James Frecheville, is nominally the protagonist, it's his supposed nemesis, Hannah, played brilliantly by Hugo Weaving, who is the real star of the film. It's a clever angle that the villainous Englishman, who murders an Irish rebel at the start, can turn out to be the pseudo-protagonist by the end. A hint may have been that the firs...

I caught a screening of Bong Joon-ho's Palme d'Or winner, Parasite at the Innaloo Event Cinemas on Saturday night. This is a dark satire on class distinctions in modern day Korea, and more broadly, the world. It's weird, funny and shockingly brutal at times. The premise concerns a down-at-heel family of four living in a poor neighbourhood of Seoul, who suddenly get a break when a friend of the son passes a tutoring job onto him. Slowly, the whole family manoeuvre their way into this rich household and much of the bite comes from the way the two sets of families interact. Things take a pretty sharp deviation about halfway through the film, which raises the tension, as well as providing motivation for the themes of class and bigotry to come to the fore. The Bong man is responsible for Snowpiercer and Okja , among other films, but from what I've seen, this is his best work. He gets some great performances from the likes of Jo Yeo-jeong as Yeon-kyo, the wealthy, eas...