Issue #two

November/December 2014

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CONTENTS
Frame By Frame
Highlights for the coming month in a handy bite-size serving!

Its In The Mail

Postcard from THE ROOM, Greg Sestero on THE DISASTER ARTIST

Maps To The Stars

Julianne Moore stands in for the countless number of
hopefuls infected with a craving to be in the spotlight

Winter Sleep
As far as imaginable from Hollywood, a Turkish drama
takes up themes of isolation, belonging and personal worth

Nightcrawler
Jake Gyllenhaal explores the motivations and ethics of sensationalist
photo-journalism as a crime reporter in after-dark LA

Men, Women & Children

Jason Reitman takes a look at new media, the ways it enables us
to present ourselves to the world and its effects on life and relationships

The Congress
Ari Folman continues to push the uses of animation to surprisingly
serious ends in a Hollywood story about identity and its ownership

OK!
O
B
A
T
S
IN
W
T
N
O
LIKE ME
With the rise of digital technology the notion of fame has been turned on its head, allowing Everyone
to become Someone. Acting and directing careers are forged off the back of a YouTube clip, a single
tweet has the power to shift public sentiment and a celebrity nipple-slip can sideline world events.
This month in NOVADOSE we zoom-in on The Price Of Fame as no less than five new films consider
our desire for multimedia recognition; either before, during or after it has happened to the
protagonist.
Jake Gyllenhaal gives a career-best performance as a novice cameraman who unearths success
through manipulating content, this years Palme dOr winner focuses on a one-time actor desperately
reliving his past, Robin Wright virtually sells her soul in a bid for career reinvention and David
Cronenberg casts an eye on Hollywoods It Boys, fading stars and wannabes.
By the end of our second issue of NOVADOSE well have you thinking twice about whether to post
that picture on Tumblr but we guarantee youll want to check out these amazing new films as we
approach the blinding glare of Hollywoods awards season.
See you in the VIP section! - KC

E
FRAME BY FRAM

THE DROP (MA15+)

THE DARK HORSE (M)

Opening the New Zealand Film

Festival to great acclaim, THE DARK
HORSE is an irresistibly uplifting
tale based on the life of Genesis
Potini (Cliff Curtis). A burly, lippy
bloke with bipolar disorder, Potini
mentors troubled kids to keep
them out of trouble. Hes also the
last person you picture when you
think of Chess. James Napier
Robertson directs James Rolleston
(Boy) as a Gisborne, New Zealand
youth headed in the wrong
direction before being pointed
toward the black and white board
by Potini. Packing an emotional
punch similar to Billy Elliot, this
smash-hit drama is sure to win
you over and inspire revisiting
those long forgotten boardgames.
Nov 20 MORE

rom the writer who brought us

Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone
and Shutter Island comes THE
DROP, based on Denis Lahanes
short story Animal Rescue.
Adapted by Michael R. Roskam
(Bullhead), Tom Hardy stars with
Noomi Rapace and the late
James Gandolfini, in his last screen
performance. After their bar is
robbed by masked gunmen, Marv
(Gandolfini) and Bob (Hardy) find
themselves embroiled in their
neighbourhoods seedy
underworld. Bob earns some
respite with the unexpected
discovery of an adorable
abandoned puppy and the woman
(Rapace) who unearths his softer
side, if only her volatile ex
(Matthias Schoenaerts) wasnt so
intent in reasserting himself back
into her life. Nov 13 MORE

E
FRAME BY FRAM
MY OLD LADY (M)

n roles tailor-made for them,

Kevin Kline, alongside Maggie
Smith and Kristen Scott Thomas
star in a Paris-set romantic comedy
directed by playwright Israel
Horovitz, making his directorial
debut. Blowhard New Yorker
Matthias (Kline) is all out of
financial options when luck
seemingly smiles upon him in the
form of an inherited Parisian
apartment. Hoping to liquidate
the property and turn his life
around, Matthias soon learns that
antiquated French laws favour an
elderly tenant (Smith) still living
there. Delivering the alwayswatchable Kline two spar-worthy
co-stars, Horovitzs touching tale
will have you fantasizing about
moving to Paris, but probably not
about bunking with Dame Maggie.
Nov 13 MORE

PARTICLE FEVER (M)

ure, everybody knows about

the enormous Large Hadron
Collider located beneath the
Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.
But what does it actually do? Fear
not, Mark Levisons illuminating
documentary will not only make
you a much more learned dinner
party guest but also get you
positively buzzing about the Higgs
boson and the origin of all matter!
Seriously! Pitting experimental
physicists against their sworn
enemies the theoretical physicists,
PARTICLE FEVER counts down
toward the first firing of opposing
particle beams as machinery is
carefully put into place, ideas are
floated, careers are forged and,
ultimately, theories destroyed. See,
youre feeling smarter already!
Nov 27 MORE

HUMAN CAPITAL

(M)
ecoming a player amongst
the financial elite of Milan
proves more difficult than
originally expected for a middleclass real estate agent Dino
(Fabrizio Bentivoglio) in Paolo
Virzis slick and stylish drama.
Adapted from Stephen Amidons
American novel but transplanted
to the wealthy region of Brianza
in Italy, two families drawn
together by tragedy are put under
the microscope as passion and
greed overtake respect and
common sense. Winner of 7 David
di Donatello Awards (Italys answer
to Oscar) including Best Director,
Script, Actress, Supporting Actress
and Supporting Actor, Virzi
Virzis
confirms himself as a director
to watch.
Dec 4 MORE

E
FRAME BY FRAM

THE GREEN PRINCE

(M)
n a story that would seem
absurd if it werent true, Nadav
Schirmans documentary covers a
series of events that changed the
course of both a young mans life
and Middle East politics. Based on
the memoir of Mosab Hassan
Yousef, two men from opposite
sides of the Gaza divide detail how
the manipulations of Israeli
Intelligence turned the son of a
highly-influential Hamas leader
into an unequalled informant.
Meticulous in his approach to
converting THE GREEN PRINCE
over to Shin Bets cause, handler
Gonen Ben Yitzhak finds himself
becoming sympathetic to the
young Palestinians bravery as
international agencies forget
the dangers involved in a Son
betraying his Father.
Dec 4 MORE

E
FRAME BY FRAM

FOLLIES BERGERE

(M)
attle breeders Brigitte
(Isabelle Huppert) and Xavier
(Jean-Pierre Darroussin) live a
comfortable, if slightly dull life
in provincial France. Under the
guise of attending a medical
appointment, Brigitte sets off to
Paris in search of excitement.
Wooed by a younger suitor before
a disastrous date, she soon meets a
sophisticated Danish gentlemen

(Michael Nyqvist) who shows

Brigitte how different life can be.
But the dream can only last so long
before Xavier wakes-up to
his wifes deception. A fable about
the choices of everyday life,
writer/director Marc Fitoussis
FOLIES BERGRE is a picture-perfect
romance that reminds us that in
life it is never too late to change.
Dec 11 MORE

POSTCARD FROM
THE ROOM

hen I decided to write THE

DISASTER ARTIST: MY LIFE
INSIDE THE ROOM about my
experience making the worst
movie ever made I wanted to
approach it differently from others
before me. Instead of belaboring
the movie's inarguable triumphs
or failings, I wanted to focus on the
power and perils of what having
an artistic vision - even a
disastrous one - really means.
I strongly believe that lurking
within every bad movie or book is
a heartbreaking collection of
grand ideas and pure intentions.

grand

With THE ROOM I witnessed all

aspects of its creation. I knew that
what loomed behind it was an
incredibly moving and oddly
profound story about loss, struggle
and friendship. I wanted to take
this cinematic catastrophe and
turn it into something in which
comedy and drama, sadness and
happiness, shock and familiarity
all constantly duked it out.
Prior to appearing in Tommy
Wiseaus THE ROOM in 2003, I
actually had no idea that bad
movies had a sub-culture. I
assumed most successful and
beloved films were revered for
entertaining an audience while
also conveying their intended
message. Ive since learned

otherwise. When it comes to

successful bad movies, it's an
Auteur passion project that makes
for the most intriguing, especially
when these films are experienced
in a theatre with a large crowd of
passionate participants. Films that
evoke cheerful chaos in a theatre is
something Ive found not only
intriguing but enjoyable.
I always wondered how countries
other than the United States
would respond to a theatrical
experience of THE ROOM. Would
the audience rituals crossover?
Would they get it? Remarkably the world-over - as the WiseauFilms logo appears, the crowd goes
nuts and the audience interacts
with every scene for 99 minutes. It
took some time but I eventually
understood the appeal of THE
ROOM: it allows an audience to
control the show. Instead of having
to just turn off your phone and pay

ideas
attention, the audience becomes
the star. Sometimes an audience
can feel weirdly competitive;
who can come up with the
funniest reaction? Just as often,
as the audience joins together in
unison, they can create something
magical and give life to an all-new
ROOM ritual.
During my book tour for THE
DISASTER ARTIST I was fortunate
enough to travel to some amazing
places. One of my favorite
experiences was getting to meet a
drunken crowd in Dublin, Ireland.
Stories that baffled the Irish
included Tommy always ordering a
glass of scalding hot water in
restaurants, that he wears two
belts and that my mom once
warned Tommy with No sex!
before he and I set off on a road
trip from San Francisco to Los
Angeles in 1998!
Hearing fans do their wild
Tommy/Johnny impressions,
their raucous laughter at how
this cinematic catastrophe
came to be and understanding
their appreciation of this strange
film has made the tumultuous
journey from THE ROOMs
haphazard-production to an
eventual book tour detailing the
experience well worth it.

Contributor: GREG SESTERO

The Disaster Artist

Greg Sestero, Tom Bissell
Simon and Schuster 2013,
Hard cover, 288pp

THE ROOM (M)

Screens late,
last Friday of the month
at Cinema Nova
MORE

pure intentions

S
FIFTEEN SECOND
NIGHTCRAWLER
NT
AND THE MOME

ames L. Brooks landmark satire

Broadcast News deftly
foreshadowed the beginnings of
a fundamental value shift between
the media and its relationship to
its subject matter in other
words, news as performance over
news as reality. Famously mad
as hell and not going to take it
anymore, Peter Finchs Howard
Beale in Network operated within
a context of broader socio-political
angst, but the picture as a whole
went a long way toward its
resounding success for the same

reason audiences within its story

flocked to watch Beales regular,
zealous rants: it was premised on
the idea that everybody loves
watching a train wreck.
Movies that hold up a mirror
to our own patterns of news
consumption are not novel, and
the best films that do so attain
their resonance by locating
themselves at the intersection of
the prescient and the satirical;
the serious and the seriously
deranged.
In the spirit of these forebears

comes the slickly produced and

emphatically committed
NIGHTCRAWLER, from debut
director Dan Gilroy (whose familial
connections tie him to top-tier
Hollywood fare like Michael
Clayton and the Bourne series).
The story of a self-help fanatic
(Jake Gyllenhaal) carving himself a
niche business filming the gory,
shocking acts and accidents
occurring throughout nocturnal
Los Angeles in time for the
morning news, NIGHTCRAWLER is
bound to become as inseparable

from its lead performance as the

early Robert de Niro was from his
criminally underrated The King of
Comedy. The similarities scarcely
end there, though. Gilroy presents
Gyllenhaals Lou Bloom as
effectually a Rupert Pupkin for the
modern age in his pursuit not of
fame in any explicit sense, but
the idea that here is the one man
who has made an impact in
whatever form on the fading
attention spans of the many.
De Niros Pupkin went to
hilarious extremes to achieve his
fifteen minutes of fame, before
Scorsese and screenwriter
Zimmermann ingeniously used
those minutes in the spotlight
themselves to drive home their
comic commentary. Gyllenhaals
Lou Blooms drive is more
relentless and even more ruthless
in his search for even less:
sometimes merely seconds of
footage the required curation
and inherent design of which, as a
self-convinced fast learner, he
quickly understands. If what
Bloom and director Gilroy capture
is a moment in any
interpretation, it is a profoundly

great works, in the way space,

architecture and infrastructure
are shot to communicate a
place and a setting that is
fundamentally influential on
its players. As night falls and
Bloom flourishes under the
buzz and glow of Los Angeles
radio towers and neon signage,
so too does the Gilroys
uncomfortable comedy. Like The
King of Comedy, the apparent
reality of Blooms drive is almost
too uncomfortable to accept. Still,
with a career-best Gyllenhaal at
its centre, few will be able to deny
the tenacious entertainment
value and psychological intrigue
bleak one, disturbing in its ability of NIGHTCRAWLER, which hardly
to enthrall us and simultaneously plays as if guided by the hand of
a first-timer. On the contrary, its
catch us out in our complicity to
as emphatic a reminder as any
the cause.
In an age where the digital image of how train wrecks liberated the
television image from whatever
has all but ousted the photoit used to be to whatever you
celluloid, its a small wonder that
might consider it now.
Robert Elswits 35mm
Nov 27 (MA15+) MORE
cinematography is even being
Contributor: JANSEN AUI
presented to us in 2014. But
coupled with Gilroys vision,
Elswits Nightcrawler lensing is not
simply traditional in an aesthetic
sense: he fully embodies it in the
visual tradition of Antonionis

NITION
G
O
C
E
R
F
O
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C
N
E
THE ABS
NER
PALME dOR WIN
WINTER SLEEP

hen WINTER SLEEP won the

Palme dOr at the Cannes
Film Festival earlier this year, it
ruined a perfectly good joke.
This drama by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
(Once Upon a Time in Anatolia)
about human nature is really in no
danger of being mistaken for a
comedy, but there is a big and
deliberate joke at its heart, and not
one that is immediately apparent.
WINTER SLEEP follows Aydin
(Haluk Bilginer), a man who runs
a beautiful but remote hotel near
a small Turkish village. Aydin is
something of a local celebrity: he
is a former actor of some note,
he writes a column for the local
newspaper, and as a wealthy
hotelier and property owner, he

is something of a pillar in the

community.
The problem, however, is that
nobody likes him. Neither the
villagers who are facing eviction
from his property or his own wife
regard him with any affection, and
only show the bare minimum of
respect. He is an Ebenezer Scrooge
figure, but his good intentions
make him a more dangerous
figure than Dickens most famous
creation: armed with the mistaken
belief that he is fundamentally a
good man, he does not experience
the internal transformation that
turned Scrooge into a good,
beloved person. Aydin is cursed
with self-deception.
He clings to the vestiges of his
fame, a false and intangible
currency. A framed photograph
proudly showcases the time that
Omar Sharif shot a film in the

region. Aydin pours hours into his

regular newspaper column, but its
one that few read. He dreams of
writing a book about the history of
Turkish theatre; the concept of
writing a book is one that fills him
with pride, and some are dazzled
by the ambitious idea, but few
express a genuine interest in the
subject matter. Adding author to
a resum that includes actor,
landlord, columnist and
hotelier seems to be the real
goal. In a region where few can
hope to achieve anything beyond
feeding and clothing their family,
Aydins lofty ambitions drift from
impressive to misguided as we
learn more about the reality of the
world around him.
Aydin discusses high ideals: the
concept of good and evil, the
practicalities of civic responsibility,
but it is all talk. His sister accuses
him of self-deception, of feigning
values both religious and

otherwise for his newspaper

column, values he feels will make
him popular. He believes himself
to be a genuine person, and
becomes irritated by repeated
visits from an Imam who is eager
to please. People are so often most
disgusted by their own traits when
they see them reflected in others,
and so Aydins dislike of the imam
is ultimately a dislike of himself.
This is not a conclusion he ever
arrives at.
The film is filled with allusions to
Shakespeare and Checkov, but is
perhaps easier to view through the
lens of religion. Turkey is an
overwhelmingly Muslim country,
but it is the words of Jesus Let
he who is without sin cast the first
stone that come to mind when
the films inciting incident occurs:
a stone cast at a vehicle containing
Aydin shatters the window, setting
the events of the film in motion.
Aydin wrings his hands at the

failure of those around him to live

up to higher standards, but as the
film progresses it becomes clear
that it is he who is the least
sincere, the least moral, the least
genuine. His shadow of
achievements looms large, but it is
a misleading shadow, one cast by a
shell of a man. There is no
substance there, and the stone was
truly cast at the right person.
Aydin confirms this, threatening
to travel to Istanbul and stay there.
He is too big for this town, his
attitude suggests, and it is time
he went back there. Minor
inconveniences prevent him from
leaving, and he uses these
circumstances as an excuse to stay.
He is a big fish in a little pond, and
this is a role he relishes. This
revelation comes too late, and he
visibly deflates as it washes over
him.
WINTER SLEEP runs at an epic 196
minutes, daring us to dismiss it. Its

almost comical length makes it

feel like a film that Aydin himself
would produce. Much in the way
that Spike Jonze and Charlie
Kaufmans Adaptation is
deliberately constructed to
suggest we are watching a story
that has been written by the
characters we are watching,
WINTER SLEEP seems to chastise
Aydin in its length.
Winning the Palme dOr ruined
the joke, and did so in the best way
possible. In creating a work that
mocks the very notion of fame and
accolades, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
created something of such
stunning beauty and depth, it won
the highest accolade in the film
world. And maybe thats an even
better joke.
November 13 (M) MORE
Contributor: LEE ZACHARIAH is the host of The
Bazura Project on ABC TV, podcast Hell Is For
Hyphenates and Cinema Nova Bars trivia night.
He knows movies.
Disclaimer: Lee is the partner of Kate McCurdy,
marketing manager at Sharmill Films, the
distributor of WINTER SLEEP.

EMA OF
IN
C
IC
IT
S
A
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TH
BERG
DAVID CRONENE

ong Live the New Flesh

so goes the famous line of
dialogue from David Cronenbergs
1983 body horror opus Videodrome.
Looking at Cronenbergs
filmography, one could use this
phrase to encapsulate the
Canadian filmmakers entire
career. The concept of skin
shedding, transformation and
deterioration feed into his
preoccupation with the body and
the various different parasites that
can attack it.
The last work that Cronenberg
crafted which could be considered
a full blown work of horror was his
1986 version of The Fly which,
along with Videodrome, represents
the high water mark of body
horror cinema. Each film deals

with the physical effects of a

parasite entering the body.
Standing alongside these two is
arguably his best film and
certainly his bloodiest The Brood
(1979), where a womans anger at
her husband physically manifests
into a pack of albino children with
a thirst for brutality. At the time
The Brood was developed,
Cronenberg was deep in a battle
for custody of his daughter from
his first marriage. Its this use of
the invading parasite as an
eloquent metaphor for personal
turmoil and disorder, which would
stick for the bulk of his future
projects.
Prior to this release, the main
concern of Cronenbergs cinema
was viruses that became

characters within their own right.

Shivers (1975) (which was filmed
under the title Orgy of the Blood
Parasites and released in some
countries as The Parasite Murders)
tracks the life of a deadly STD
which has aphrodisiac qualities
guaranteeing its transmission and
survival. Following this, Rabid
(1977) focuses on a woman, played
by notable porn actress Marilyn
Chambers, who emerges from
surgery to find shes harbouring a
bloodthirsty phallus growing in
her armpit.
Between these two pictures and
the release of The Brood,
Cronenberg would direct an
anomaly in his filmic oeuvre, 1979s
Fast Company which profiles the
life story of race car champion

Lonnie Johnson. Whilst the film

contains no horror to speak of, it
showcases two other distinct
elements of Cronenbergs
tendencies, love of machinery and
the critique of corporations.
Moving into the 1980s, the era
that introduced the generic slasher
film into the horror genre,
Cronenbergs works in this period
are distinguished by his preference
towards the abject fascination of
the clinical. Next to Videodrome
and The Fly, Dead Ringers (1988),
stands as the film that brought the
director into the public
consciousness identical twin
gynaecologists (both played by
Jeremy Irons) take full advantage
of the fact that nobody can tell
them apart, until their relationship

begins to deteriorate over a

love triangle.
Cronenbergs approach to
biological anomalies and outrage
is one of calm, clinical
beguilement. Additionally Dead
Ringers represented an important
step because all the horrors
contained within the narrative
are largely psychological. So where
did all the gory goo go?
Rather than be thwarted from
this shift away from pure visceral
horror, Cronenbergs nastier side
was refined into a more focused
stream of violence. This violence
in his recent works erupts in small
bursts of concentrated excess.
Maps to the Stars, Cronenbergs
new work, arrives as a venomous
human satire chronicling a
journey into the heart of
a Hollywood family chasing
celebrity, one another and the
relentless ghosts of their pasts.
Maps to the Stars examines the
ferocious tenacity of disease just
as much as Shivers or The Fly does,
however the manicured visage
of Hollywood is now the body
through which a parasitic cancer
moves, taking aim at the feeble
immune system of the prideful
and greedy pariahs that inhabit
the Hollywood hills. To the keen

viewer, Cronenbergs focus hasnt

altered noticeably from his early
work, although his films of the
1990s which consisted of a series of
literary adaptations (Naked Lunch,
Crash), and his duo of thrillers
starring Viggo Mortensen (A
History of Violence, Eastern
Promises) do present different
kinds of infiltrators with the latter
addressing the searing underbelly
of violence existing within
everyday society. Maps to the Stars
continues this theme of scratching
away at the surface until the
veneer of normalcy is eroded,
leaving only the raw tissue of
Cronenbergs fractured characters
and narratives.
Like a resilient parasite,
Cronenbergs cinema has endured
over the years because it is
profound and progressive but also
because each film contorts into a
fresh manifestation of the
previous one. Each work addresses
the filmmakers core themes and
values that we as organic matter
are all biologically locked into
understanding. Each film implants
itself into our psyche as readily as
a virus adapting to a new host.
Long Live the New Flesh indeed.
Nov 20 (MA15+) MORE
Contributor: ZAK HEPBURN

FILM
HOLLYWOOD ON

ilmmakers rarely hesitate to turn the camera on themselves, but who can blame
them? Here are some of our favourite flicks that shed some light on what goes on
behind the studio gates.
THE PLAYER (1992)
Robert Altman directs Tim Robbins in a
satirical noir of a studio executive
blackmailed by a sinister screenwriter.
Featuring more cameos than Last Action
Hero, its a must-see for the final moments
where all of our worst fears about who
really calls the shots in Hollywood are
confirmed.

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS (1994)

Director George Huang worked as the
assistant to Lethal Weapon producer Joel
Silver before writing and directing this
black comedy about the assistant (Frank
Whaley) to a psychotic producer (an
electrifying Kevin Spacey) kidnapping and
torturing his boss following a career of
harassment and deceit. Therapy much?

SINGIN IN THE RAIN (1952)

Gene Kelly stars as a silent movie star
caught on the cusp of the transition to
sound. Saddled with a co-star whose
voice will send an audience running,
he concocts a plan to replace her voice
with that of an unknown starlet.
Considered one of the all-time classics,
its a must-see for any movie buff.

ADAPTATION (2002)
Somehow inspired by the non-fiction book
The Orchid Thief, oddball writer Charlie
Kaufman wrote himself and his pretend
twin brother into a screenplay of
attempting to adapt the true story of a
Florida everglades botanist. Starring
Nicholas Cage as both Kaufman and his
twin, Spike Jonzes comedy co-stars Meryl
Streep and Chris Cooper, who won an
Oscar for his role.

AN ALAN SMITHEE FILM:

Burn Hollywood Burn (1997)
Intended as a satire on the industry that
rejected his much maligned Showgirls,
screenwriter Joe Eszterhas wrote a
mockumentary about making the biggest
movie of all time, Trio. Everything
backfired when the films real director
(Arthur Hiller) demanded his name be
taken off the disastrous finished product,
causing An Alan Smithee Film to be
credited to the pseudonym Alan Smithee.

ED WOOD (1994)
Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton
reteamed for this love-letter to one of the
worst directors of all time, Edward D.
Wood Jr. Responsible for camp disasters
Glen Or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer
Space, Burtons black and white comedy
featured an all-star cast including Martin
Landau, who won an Oscar for his
heartbreaking portrayal of faded horror
movie star Bela Lugosi.

GANDOLFINI IS DYNAMITE IN
HIS FINAL SCREEN ROLE
PETER TRAVERS, ROLLING STONE

MATT SULLIVAN,
IN TOUCH

JOE NEUMAIER,
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A MASTERFUL THRILLER
WITH A KNOCKOUT CAST AND A KILLER TWIST
MARK DINNING, EMPIRE

TOM HARDY

Strong violence
and coarse
llanguage
anguage

NOOMI RAPACE

JAMES GANDOLFINI

NOW AT CINEMA NOVA

COPYRIGHT 2014 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

CONNECTING
NNECTION
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H
T

irtually, every single one of us

is now connected. Many
people tweet, text, Facebook and
Instagram throughout mealtimes,
meetings, dates and, worst of all,
movies as they share their
experience. But is web culture
actually bringing us closer
together or driving us further
apart? Jason Reitman, the
director behind Juno, Up In The Air
and Young Adult, asks this very
question in his bold and
incredibly topical MEN, WOMEN &
CHILDREN, based on the novel by
Chad Kultgen.

technological advancement.
Perhaps these criticisms come
down to the film ringing all too
true. The films tagline find out
how little you know about the
people you know speaks to our
modern culture; were all tied to
devices that house everything messages to others, photos
(intimate or otherwise) and our
internet search history. We now
exist in a second space where, in
place of verbal conversations once
had about sex, love and desire, we
now have anonymous message
boards, Google, hook-up apps and

~
Reitmans pessimistic view of
the internet and social
media in MEN, WOMEN &
CHILDREN has been painted
by some overseas critics as
one-sided in an apparent
failure to consider the
positives associated with

websites that promote infidelity to

married men and women.
It has also become commonplace
to draft our communication with
each other typing and deleting
sentences micromanaging every
aspect of our online presence to
such an extent its become
courageous and brave to approach
an acquaintance to have a face-toface conversation.

Reitman reinforces this through

balletic sequences set in space that
express equally the smallness of
our world in the galaxy and also
the distance that weve created
between each other.

The most intriguing aspect of

Reitmans film is the examination
of the impact the Internet has
had across generations. The
depiction of tween Tumblr
culture - a network never dealt
with in cinema at length before is frightening in its degree of
accuracy. In this sense, the film
raises important and current
issues as to the safety of children
on the Internet.

This is taken to extremes in the

film by one paranoid mother,
Patricia (Jennifer Garner).
Ritualistically tracing her
daughters every keystroke, she is
deplorable and, at the same time,
her trepidation is completely
validated.
Interesting too is a perspective
on the internets effect on
teenagers who learn about
intimacy through porn sites as
well as the growing hyper
sexualisation of young women
online as fans and followers have
become the new global currency.
Aspirations have changed as young
people become more fame-hungry,
growing up in a world where

individuals can build million dollar

empires simply based on public
recognition for virtually doing
nothing. Real ambition has been
lost, replaced by a desire to simply
be famous.
While Reitman takes a clear
position on these issues in his
anthropological examination of
people and the screens that
surround them, the film forces a
deeper reflection on the way
technology affects our individual
lives. Are you really present? Are
you really connecting? Reitman
encourages us to log off and see.
November 27 (MA15+) MORE
Contributor: BRONTE PAYNE

LYWOOD
L
O
H
IN
G
N
U
O
Y
FOREVER

uring an early scene in

director Ari Folmans (Waltz
with Bashir) satirical new film, a
Hollywood Agent (Harvey Keitel)
frustratingly explains to the
fictionalized version of actress
Robin Wright all about the
erroneous micromanagement
Hollywood has forced upon her in
the past. This outburst is prompted
after Robin reluctantly agrees to a
proposal laid out by a Miramount
Studios producer (Danny Huston)
who has asked Robin for a digital
likeness of herself one the studio
can use for any of their future
films. In exchange, Robin receives a
hefty sum of money but must
agree to never act again.
From there, THE CONGRESS starts
to take form. Robin signs on the
dotted line, gives the studio a
digital representation of her
likeness and eventually ends up in
a surreal animated fantasy land
where her perception of dream
and reality becomes increasingly
altered.
Intellectual property and
Hollywood management are
just two of the many concerns
Folmans genre-hopping satire
takes aim at. Emerging from these

two concerns in particular is

THE CONGRESS suggestion
that The Actor no longer exists
in Hollywood. Folman questions
this through the films animated
sequences in which Robin faces
something of an existential crisis;
does she continue living in the
fantasy realm or face the reality
of whats to come? And if an
alternate universe made up of
digitally manipulated or animated
characters were to exist, what
would that look like?
Perhaps it would look something
like the world established in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit; a
hypothetical though possible
conclusion to what fictional film
studio Miramount would have
envisioned when it thought to
create a ToonTown-esque empire
based on computer-generated
and animated actors.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the
1988 Robert Zemeckis feature,
established a world where
animated films were brought to
screens the same way live-action
features are. The cartoon
characters, or toons as theyre
referred to in the film, live
cooperatively with humans in a

fictionalised vision of the 1940s.

And within the world of Roger
Rabbit, this movie business
appears to operate entirely on
the success of Roger Rabbit
and his animated cohorts. The
stars of Hollywoods Golden Age
are conspicuously absent from
the film, replaced instead by an
altered history where animated
stars are the talk of Tinseltown.
The actor is no longer present.
Of course, Who Framed Roger
Rabbit neednt be taken so
seriously. Unlike the cynical bite of
THE CONGRESS, Zemeckis feature
isnt worried about embellishing
the film with thematic nuance
its intended as a family feature,
after all. And yet despite this,
similarities between the films
can still be drawn.
While both films operate on
a different level and are worlds
apart, the most obvious point
of comparison between them is
their ability to merge live-action
and animation together to create
an aesthetic unique to their
indvidual realities.
Additionally, the idea that
cartoon characters - or in the
case of THE CONGRESS, its digitally
generated actors - cant
theoretically die is also expressed

in both (Roger Rabbit presents this

in the most literal sense). Folman
however probes further into this
idea on a more thematic level;
Miramounts free use of Robins
digital likeness allows them to
create an eternally youthful avatar.
And just as THE CONGRESS is
a satirical stab at Hollywood,
Who Framed Roger Rabbit also
takes satirical aim at classic film
noir and detective stories.
When Hollywood decides
to turn the mirror onto itself, the
results are often quite eclectic
in terms of execution and vision.
Whether its in the form of a
serious multi-genre satire like
THE CONGRESS or an effects-laden
family film like Who Framed Roger
Rabbit, one thing does remain
constant across the board
Hollywood is seen as bizarre and
captivatingly surreal. Many other
films touching on Hollywood, fame
and stardom (Mulholland Drive
and Sunset Boulevard come to
mind) seem to agree with this
sentiment. If they and THE
CONGRESS are anything to go by,
theres certainly no other business
quite like show business.
December 4 (M) MORE
Contributor: HIEU CHAU

Beer and Cider

Meals, Tapas
Tea, Coffee
Fine Wine

Premiere
screenings
Monstrous
shorts

Licensed for
you to enjoy
your drink
with the film

FRIDAY
THE 13TH
Movie marathon

Filmmaker
Q&As
Monster
cocktails
Bigger and
bolder than
ever before!

A FEAST OF DEPRAVITY

NOVEMBER 20 - 30
Got something to say about movies?
NOVADOSE is seeking contributors.
Send a brief example of your own writing and we
may contact you to contribute original pieces for
future editions.

Located off the cinema foyer

overlooking Lygon Street

Licensed from 12 noon, condtions apply

Want to advertise in NOVADOSE?

A limited number of opportunities are available
for upcoming editions
Contact: rebecca@cinemanova.com.au
Promotional images are reproduced in the spirit of publicity. Grateful
acknowledgement is made to the respective filmmakers, actors and studios.
2014 Cinema Nova cinemanova.com.au

World culture, at home, in Carlton

Art On Screen
Rembrant

The Metropolitan Opera

Carmen

National Theatre Live:

Frankenstein

Meet the man behind the

masterpieces. In a major new show
hosted by Londons National Gallery
and Amsterdams Rijksmuseum,
audiences are given exclusive
access
to
both
galleries,
documenting the behind-thescenes preparation of this landmark
exhibition. Focusing on the final
years of Rembrandts life, enjoy key
works with fresh perspective via
expert insight from both curators
and art historians.

Richard
Eyres
mesmerizing
production of Bizets steamy
melodrama returns with mezzosoprano Anita Rachvelishvili singing
her signature role of the ill-fated
gypsy temptress. With Pablo HerasCasado conducting the irresistible
score, Aleksandrs Antonenko
features as Carmens desperate
lover Don Jos. Dont miss this
From December 20 MORE
classic opera experience, captured
live in high definition.

After its rapturous reception in

2011, FRANKENSTEIN returns for
another encore season.
Directed by Academy Award winner
Danny Boyle, and winner of the 2012
Olivier Award for Best Actor for
both Benedict Cumberbatch and From December 6 MORE
Johnny Lee Miller, performers who
alternate between Creature and
Creator at separate screenings in
this thrilling and deeply disturbing
take on Mary Shelleys classic
gothic horror.
From November 29 MORE

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