Love The Beast
D: Eric Bana 2009
A documentary by an Aussie actor who’s a Hollywood star about his love for his first car doesn’t sound all that exciting does it? Unless you are a big Eric Bana fan or a revhead.
I’m essentially neither, having never seen Bana in anything except Chopper and having not owned a car for some years now (and being mechanically inept when I did own one.) That said though this is a great movie. Perhaps because I don’t see Bana as a Hollywood star I can quite happily accept him as a guy with a passion for cars, a guy who just happens to have access to Jay Leno, Jeremy Clarkson and Dr. Phil but also a guy who still gets together with his mates from childhood to play with their cars.
And really that is what this movie is about – passion. Whether its music, splatter movies, Jess Franco’s leading ladies, sports or yes, cars – everyone has a passion, something they love, truly love and will defend, collect, rave on about, watch, play, study… For Eric and his mates, it has always been cars and in Bana’s case his first car an XB Ford Falcon Coupe, bought for him by his father when he was just fifteen years old. As his mate Tony so eloquently puts it, “I’ve never met anyone who’s had a car for so long that’s been a heap of shit and been so in love with it.”
This film is all about that car “The Beast” and Bana’s plans to race it in the 2007 Targa Rally in Tasmania. Eleven years before, a younger and less famous Bana had raced there for the first time but now with the car completely stripped down and rebuilt he wants to do it all again. Along the way we are treated to the story of how he got the car, how his friends helped him to prepare it, we are given a look at the boy, the Melbourne suburbs he grew up in, the 65 T-Bird his father still keeps in the garage, refusing to get rid of it though it hasn’t been driven for ten years. There’s the mateship and bond that exists between Eric and his mates who despite their different lifestyles still get together when the beast calls.
And yes there are those special guest interviews. Leno shows off his aircraft hangar sized garage chock full of cars, Clarkson talks about how cars are more than just objects and Dr. Phil? Well, he is as irritating as ever. Doesn’t matter what the guy talks about, he’s a pain in the ass.
And then there is the race itself. Four days in, Bana crashed the beast into a tree, totalling the car but luckily not harming himself or his navigator Tony. Two days later Bana had to attend a red carpet premiere for a movie back in New York. In a great little scene he mocks the whole Hollywood scene before getting out there and doing what he has to do to promote a movie he only vaguely remembers making. Meanwhile his one true love sits in a garage, broken and bent and waiting for him to come home.
Bana has done a beautiful job with this doco, it could have quite easily just been a “look at me, aren’t I cool? I race cars and I act and I know all the stars” type thing but instead it’s just another guy and his mates, his family right behind him, trying to live a dream, trying to finish a race. The fact he does know a few famous folk helps get the interviews but its not played out as a ‘cool buddy’ thing – in fact Clarkson rags him about his car! This is purely about a bloke’s passions, about family and friends, about what is important to people. To some of us, it is our car, to some it’s owning every Beatles record ever made, for others its following a football team or a movie director, or playing guitar or collecting books – forget about Bana the actor for awhile and think of Eric Bana, revhead kid from the ‘burbs of Melbourne, Eric Bana rally driver, father, son, mate – that’s the guy in this documentary. Do that and you’ll enjoy the ride.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
PUPPETMASTER
D: David Schmoeller 1989
From the house of Charles Band, the Roger Corman lite of the new millennium comes a classic example of late 80s exploitation and madness. With well over 200 movies under his belt either directing, writing or producing, Band knows how to entertain. Sure it’s all low budget, small time television actors and washed out ex-stars, strange stories, cash-ins and exploitation but he does it so well. With Puppetmaster he’s come up with a story that can best be described as just plain nuts but entertaining never the less. Schmoeller, who directed Tourist Trap and Crawlspace amongst others, would seem to be a kindred soul and he’s put together a beautifully looking film using the main set of a 1930s hotel to its full advantage.
Our story starts in 1939 at the Bodega Bay Hotel where a strange old man is making puppets, evil looking little buggers that he then brings to life. Seems the old man is the last in a long line of alchemists who know the secrets of the after life as passed down from the Egyptians. Of course we don’t find that out until later in the film so for now we just know he’s a clever bugger. When two men in trenchcoats with German accents show up though we also know the old guy hasn’t got much longer to live. Unperturbed he hides the puppets, bites the bullet before the trenchcoats can even be opened and we then segue to ‘now’ where Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti) , looking remarkably like Peter Gabriel circa Sledgehammer only gone to seed, is having bad dreams about leeches and guns. It turns out that Paul’s character Alex is part of a small group of psychics who have been brought together by a man named Gallagher (Jimmie Skaggs) to do something though they aren’t quite sure what. When the group consisting of Alex who dreams of future events, a white witch Dana (Irene Miracle – Inferno’s Rose Elliot) who has a dead dog as a companion, a couple of scientists, Frank (Matt Roe) who doesn’t do much except look like a pimp and Carlissa (the very hot Kathryn O’Reilly) who can tell who’s been shagging in this bed, bathtub, elevator etc just by touch (nice work if you can get it) gather at the Bodega Bay they discover that Gallagher is dead, having bit the bullet himself. From there it’s a magical mystery tour as the story slowly unfolds, puppets pop up everywhere and people start dying. The puppets are awesome too. There’s a pinhead with human size hands, a puppet with a drill on his head, a Klaus Kinski lookalike with a hook on one hand and a knife on the other and a seductress who spews leeches! I kid you not!! While Alex dreams strange dreams about Gallagher and his wife Megan (Robin Frates) who owns the Bodega Bay, the puppets knock off the others one by one. Gruesome, bizarre and in the case of the leeches just plain disgusting, this is a film you wouldn’t want to watch while on psychedelic drugs. Unfortunately for all involved, it seems Gallagher has discovered the secret of eternal life but wants to eliminate his quartet of psychic companions before they can stop him. Unfortunately for Gallagher he upsets the puppets who then turn on their master and in a gory, twisted finale, give him a real seeing to. Luckily for us, Le Mat doesn’t have to do too much because, lets be honest, a bloated, gone to seed Peter Gabriel lookalike is not what you would call hero material.
From the house of Charles Band, the Roger Corman lite of the new millennium comes a classic example of late 80s exploitation and madness. With well over 200 movies under his belt either directing, writing or producing, Band knows how to entertain. Sure it’s all low budget, small time television actors and washed out ex-stars, strange stories, cash-ins and exploitation but he does it so well. With Puppetmaster he’s come up with a story that can best be described as just plain nuts but entertaining never the less. Schmoeller, who directed Tourist Trap and Crawlspace amongst others, would seem to be a kindred soul and he’s put together a beautifully looking film using the main set of a 1930s hotel to its full advantage.
Our story starts in 1939 at the Bodega Bay Hotel where a strange old man is making puppets, evil looking little buggers that he then brings to life. Seems the old man is the last in a long line of alchemists who know the secrets of the after life as passed down from the Egyptians. Of course we don’t find that out until later in the film so for now we just know he’s a clever bugger. When two men in trenchcoats with German accents show up though we also know the old guy hasn’t got much longer to live. Unperturbed he hides the puppets, bites the bullet before the trenchcoats can even be opened and we then segue to ‘now’ where Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti) , looking remarkably like Peter Gabriel circa Sledgehammer only gone to seed, is having bad dreams about leeches and guns. It turns out that Paul’s character Alex is part of a small group of psychics who have been brought together by a man named Gallagher (Jimmie Skaggs) to do something though they aren’t quite sure what. When the group consisting of Alex who dreams of future events, a white witch Dana (Irene Miracle – Inferno’s Rose Elliot) who has a dead dog as a companion, a couple of scientists, Frank (Matt Roe) who doesn’t do much except look like a pimp and Carlissa (the very hot Kathryn O’Reilly) who can tell who’s been shagging in this bed, bathtub, elevator etc just by touch (nice work if you can get it) gather at the Bodega Bay they discover that Gallagher is dead, having bit the bullet himself. From there it’s a magical mystery tour as the story slowly unfolds, puppets pop up everywhere and people start dying. The puppets are awesome too. There’s a pinhead with human size hands, a puppet with a drill on his head, a Klaus Kinski lookalike with a hook on one hand and a knife on the other and a seductress who spews leeches! I kid you not!! While Alex dreams strange dreams about Gallagher and his wife Megan (Robin Frates) who owns the Bodega Bay, the puppets knock off the others one by one. Gruesome, bizarre and in the case of the leeches just plain disgusting, this is a film you wouldn’t want to watch while on psychedelic drugs. Unfortunately for all involved, it seems Gallagher has discovered the secret of eternal life but wants to eliminate his quartet of psychic companions before they can stop him. Unfortunately for Gallagher he upsets the puppets who then turn on their master and in a gory, twisted finale, give him a real seeing to. Luckily for us, Le Mat doesn’t have to do too much because, lets be honest, a bloated, gone to seed Peter Gabriel lookalike is not what you would call hero material.
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