Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Well done Ewen!!
Congratulations to Ewen Leslie who won Best Actor in a Supporting Role at last night's Helpmann Awards!
The annual Helpmann Awards® recognise distinguished artistic achievement and excellence in the many disciplines of Australia's vibrant live performance sectors.
Ewen won the award for his brilliant performance as Henry V in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of War of the Roses.
Glamorous Gracie
Check out Gracie Otto in this week's Who Magazine! Gorgeous Gracie is one of the few Aussie beauties to feature in Who's annual Glamour issue.
Monday, July 13, 2009
CRITICS NOTEBOOK - Three Blind Mice review
There are three admirable things about "Three Blind Mice": Firstly, the use of language. It's not just that this is an Australian film where the accents are mercifully closer to "Flight of the Conchords" instead of "Kath & Kim." It's the fresh banter, the overlapping arguments, the repetitive light conversation and the way the characters argue. Secondly, the staging. This is an obviously small-budget film, clearly made with little money, on real locations, and filmed wholly at night; but for once, these restrictions enable cleverness and freedom, and don't box the movie in. Thirdly, Matthew Newton – who wrote, directed, and starred – has done something which many big cinematic players can only hope to achieve: "Three Blind Mice" is not about what it's about. Three compelling reasons to see this most excellent film.
Dean (Toby Schmitz), Harry (Mr. Newton) and Sam (Ewen Leslie) are in the Australian navy, and shipping out in the morning for destination unknown. The night before the morning of has been the stuff of cinema even before Gene Kelly tapped his way through "On the Town." "Three Blind Mice" proves no exception, starting immediately with the nasty wounds on Sam's back, and Harry's cheerful insistence that ordering whores for a midnight fling will be the best way to end the evening. The lads then leave their hotel, stopping off in a deli, where Dean and Harry take over a poker game in the back while Sam flirts with waitress Emma (Gracie Otto, who also edited). Sam and Emma sneak off to flirt and then visit Sam's mother (Jacki Weaver) and grandfather(Charles "Bud" Tingwell), while Dean drags Harry to dinner with his girlfriend (Pia Miranda) and her parents (Barry Otto and Heather Mitchell). Of course, nothing goes quite to plan.
Almost everything is likable in this movie. It's not just when Harry comes back to the hotel room, sees it's splattered with blood, and without blinking says, "Waitress was a virgin, was she?" Or when Emma decides to impress Sam by playing a recorder with her nose, or later when she expertly charms his grandfather. It's how two small parts, Sam's mother and a woman he meets in hospital (Tina Bursill), are finely and completely drawn within their first six lines of dialogue. It's how the obvious smallness of the budget was compensated for with that acute ear for normal conversation, a keen sense of the dramatic in the every day, and a burning rage at the injustices people can suffer in their daily lives. It's a movie that knows a few things and has opinions about them too: Whether you've been bullied in a pharmacy or the middle of an ocean, the important thing is how you cope with the injustice. How phone calls are much more compelling when you can only hear one side. Actions have consequences, whether a drunken rant over a karaoke machine, counting cards at poker, or a lie told to cheer up your grandfather. And whether or not you realize it, the friends you choose have a big impact on your life.
The people in "Three Blind Mice" are very Australian, but their concerns are universal. Mr. Newton made the film without upfront government funding, although the print he is taking on a global film festival tour was paid for by Screen Australia. He has yet to secure a single distributor, whether in Australia or anywhere else. "Three Blind Mice" deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. It's so intelligent, so opinionated, and so ripe for discussion that it's difficult to see how it could get left on the shelf. Let's hope that someone takes a chance on this film and lets us all enjoy a night in its company.
By Sarah Manvel
Dean (Toby Schmitz), Harry (Mr. Newton) and Sam (Ewen Leslie) are in the Australian navy, and shipping out in the morning for destination unknown. The night before the morning of has been the stuff of cinema even before Gene Kelly tapped his way through "On the Town." "Three Blind Mice" proves no exception, starting immediately with the nasty wounds on Sam's back, and Harry's cheerful insistence that ordering whores for a midnight fling will be the best way to end the evening. The lads then leave their hotel, stopping off in a deli, where Dean and Harry take over a poker game in the back while Sam flirts with waitress Emma (Gracie Otto, who also edited). Sam and Emma sneak off to flirt and then visit Sam's mother (Jacki Weaver) and grandfather(Charles "Bud" Tingwell), while Dean drags Harry to dinner with his girlfriend (Pia Miranda) and her parents (Barry Otto and Heather Mitchell). Of course, nothing goes quite to plan.
Almost everything is likable in this movie. It's not just when Harry comes back to the hotel room, sees it's splattered with blood, and without blinking says, "Waitress was a virgin, was she?" Or when Emma decides to impress Sam by playing a recorder with her nose, or later when she expertly charms his grandfather. It's how two small parts, Sam's mother and a woman he meets in hospital (Tina Bursill), are finely and completely drawn within their first six lines of dialogue. It's how the obvious smallness of the budget was compensated for with that acute ear for normal conversation, a keen sense of the dramatic in the every day, and a burning rage at the injustices people can suffer in their daily lives. It's a movie that knows a few things and has opinions about them too: Whether you've been bullied in a pharmacy or the middle of an ocean, the important thing is how you cope with the injustice. How phone calls are much more compelling when you can only hear one side. Actions have consequences, whether a drunken rant over a karaoke machine, counting cards at poker, or a lie told to cheer up your grandfather. And whether or not you realize it, the friends you choose have a big impact on your life.
The people in "Three Blind Mice" are very Australian, but their concerns are universal. Mr. Newton made the film without upfront government funding, although the print he is taking on a global film festival tour was paid for by Screen Australia. He has yet to secure a single distributor, whether in Australia or anywhere else. "Three Blind Mice" deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. It's so intelligent, so opinionated, and so ripe for discussion that it's difficult to see how it could get left on the shelf. Let's hope that someone takes a chance on this film and lets us all enjoy a night in its company.
By Sarah Manvel
THE GUARDIAN (UK) Three Blind Mice article
'I made a film that I want people to argue about'
It was inevitable that Australian actor-writer-director Matthew Newton would end up in showbusiness. As the son of Australian television royalty Bert and Patti Newton, Matt is a household name in Australia, but still relatively unknown outside his home country.
That's set to change if he keeps making films of the calibre of Three Blind Mice, which is screening at the London film festival this month.
Three Blind Mice – which won a jury commendation at this year's Sydney film festival, and was shown at Toronto last month – is a fast-paced comedy-drama about three naval officers on shore leave in Sydney, the night before they are due to ship out for Iraq.
It's a clever, well-made film with smart, realistic dialogue that belies the fact that its only Newton's second film as a writer/director. It was independently funded – although Screen Australia paid for the print - and was made with a cast and crew made up of Newton's friends and recent graduates of the Sydney Film School. It was even edited by Newton's girlfriend, Gracie Otto (sister of actor Miranda), who also has a small role in the film.
"It's a gamble, but what you get out of it is a film you're happy with and a film you want to see," he says.
The idea for Three Blind Mice, with three vastly differently personalities out for a night of revelry, was one that Newton had been mulling over for a while.
"I was thinking about having that truncated period of time before you are going to go and do something phenomenal - like fight in a war, a huge life-changing experience - and what you would want to do to fill those last hours, or what you'd HAVE to do," he says.
"So I was thinking about that, but not in terms of a film – just as one of the weird things that I think about. I was doing an acting job at the time, so I put it to the back of my mind. And then one night I went to the computer and wrote it really quickly. It came out in three days, and that was what we shot."
I'm sitting chatting to Newton over a coffee at his London hotel. As he speaks, his passion for film – and for this project in particular – sparkles in his eyes.
He's very critical of a lot of the mass-produced cinema we see today, and was adamant that he wanted to do something different.
"I tried to write it so the dialogue is very natural, and every scene has multiple points of view," he says.
"I didn't want to make a hero-driven film, I wanted to make it multi-narrative in the sense that every character has their point of view and I wanted every character to treat the film like they're the lead. I really wanted everyone to bring their own opinion and personality."
"And I guess I also wanted to show what young men should be doing with their evenings as opposed to going and getting killed or having to kill someone else – making mistakes, getting in trouble, meeting girls, playing cards, trying to figure out what it is to be a man."
For the three main characters, though – Dean (Toby Schmitz), Sam (Ewen Leslie) and Harry (Newton) - it's not a normal night out. They are about to ship out to a war zone, and they are fully aware of where they are going and what could happen to them. Although it's not, strictly speaking, an anti-war film, Newton did intend the spectre of war to hang over proceedings.
"The argument of whether we should or we shouldn't be fighting is irrelevant: we are," he says of the current conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere.
"It's not irrelevant to everyday politics, but I don't want to make a film about that. We are going there, and there are young men and women who are being sent over to fight, and I guess what I wanted to do was to show the human face of that. So that anyone who sees the film strips past the uniform and looks at that face.
"I made a film that I want people to argue about, and have opinions on. It's impossible to make a good film that's trying to please everyone. It's like trying to pick up a person in a nightclub, trying to be everything they want you to be. You know when someone's playing you. I hate people trying to manipulate me and I certainly hate trying to manipulate other people. I didn't want to make a film that tried to manipulate anybody."
Newton is proud to be classified as an independent filmmaker, and critical of a lot of films now that call themselves independent but aren't. His love of film came from sitting and watching classic movies on television with his father, Bert – an Australian television legend comparable to Bruce Forsyth in the UK or Dick Clark in the US.
"I didn't understand a lot of it when I was really young, but by the time I was 10 or 11 I was starting to have my own opinions on it."
"So I went, 'Well, I want to do that, I want to make those films'. And then when I started working [as an actor] I realised that the person who has the most fun and most responsibility is the director – they get to do everything. It was something I always knew I wanted to do."
Coming from a family of performers, Newton says he had no exposure to directing – so in his early days as an actor, while sitting around on film and TV sets, he watched directors to learn the craft. "That was my education. I'd just watch what was going on, and bother people."
Newton has managed to assemble a cast of old and young Australian talent – talent like Pia Miranda (who he worked with on the coming-of-age drama Looking For Alibrandi), Barry Otto, Marcus Graham, Jacki Weaver and Charles Tingwell.
Did his family background have any influence on getting the great cast, or has it helped in his career?
"I'm the wrong person to ask, I don't know why that would. I'm not being coy, I have no understanding of it, I'm the one person who's not part of the conversation – I'm never in the room when those things are being talked about."
And what's next for Newton? He's heading back to Australia to begin work on a new TV series, but film-making is now in his blood.
"I want to keep making films – the best drug for me on set was collaborating with people, and helping them do something they didn't think they could do. It's a very heady feeling. Making films is what I want to do. I've been spoiled, because I've made this film the way that I want to make it."
Gracie Otto is the sister, not the daughter, of Miranda Otto.
17 October 2008 The Guardian (UK)
It was inevitable that Australian actor-writer-director Matthew Newton would end up in showbusiness. As the son of Australian television royalty Bert and Patti Newton, Matt is a household name in Australia, but still relatively unknown outside his home country.
That's set to change if he keeps making films of the calibre of Three Blind Mice, which is screening at the London film festival this month.
Three Blind Mice – which won a jury commendation at this year's Sydney film festival, and was shown at Toronto last month – is a fast-paced comedy-drama about three naval officers on shore leave in Sydney, the night before they are due to ship out for Iraq.
It's a clever, well-made film with smart, realistic dialogue that belies the fact that its only Newton's second film as a writer/director. It was independently funded – although Screen Australia paid for the print - and was made with a cast and crew made up of Newton's friends and recent graduates of the Sydney Film School. It was even edited by Newton's girlfriend, Gracie Otto (sister of actor Miranda), who also has a small role in the film.
"It's a gamble, but what you get out of it is a film you're happy with and a film you want to see," he says.
The idea for Three Blind Mice, with three vastly differently personalities out for a night of revelry, was one that Newton had been mulling over for a while.
"I was thinking about having that truncated period of time before you are going to go and do something phenomenal - like fight in a war, a huge life-changing experience - and what you would want to do to fill those last hours, or what you'd HAVE to do," he says.
"So I was thinking about that, but not in terms of a film – just as one of the weird things that I think about. I was doing an acting job at the time, so I put it to the back of my mind. And then one night I went to the computer and wrote it really quickly. It came out in three days, and that was what we shot."
I'm sitting chatting to Newton over a coffee at his London hotel. As he speaks, his passion for film – and for this project in particular – sparkles in his eyes.
He's very critical of a lot of the mass-produced cinema we see today, and was adamant that he wanted to do something different.
"I tried to write it so the dialogue is very natural, and every scene has multiple points of view," he says.
"I didn't want to make a hero-driven film, I wanted to make it multi-narrative in the sense that every character has their point of view and I wanted every character to treat the film like they're the lead. I really wanted everyone to bring their own opinion and personality."
"And I guess I also wanted to show what young men should be doing with their evenings as opposed to going and getting killed or having to kill someone else – making mistakes, getting in trouble, meeting girls, playing cards, trying to figure out what it is to be a man."
For the three main characters, though – Dean (Toby Schmitz), Sam (Ewen Leslie) and Harry (Newton) - it's not a normal night out. They are about to ship out to a war zone, and they are fully aware of where they are going and what could happen to them. Although it's not, strictly speaking, an anti-war film, Newton did intend the spectre of war to hang over proceedings.
"The argument of whether we should or we shouldn't be fighting is irrelevant: we are," he says of the current conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere.
"It's not irrelevant to everyday politics, but I don't want to make a film about that. We are going there, and there are young men and women who are being sent over to fight, and I guess what I wanted to do was to show the human face of that. So that anyone who sees the film strips past the uniform and looks at that face.
"I made a film that I want people to argue about, and have opinions on. It's impossible to make a good film that's trying to please everyone. It's like trying to pick up a person in a nightclub, trying to be everything they want you to be. You know when someone's playing you. I hate people trying to manipulate me and I certainly hate trying to manipulate other people. I didn't want to make a film that tried to manipulate anybody."
Newton is proud to be classified as an independent filmmaker, and critical of a lot of films now that call themselves independent but aren't. His love of film came from sitting and watching classic movies on television with his father, Bert – an Australian television legend comparable to Bruce Forsyth in the UK or Dick Clark in the US.
"I didn't understand a lot of it when I was really young, but by the time I was 10 or 11 I was starting to have my own opinions on it."
"So I went, 'Well, I want to do that, I want to make those films'. And then when I started working [as an actor] I realised that the person who has the most fun and most responsibility is the director – they get to do everything. It was something I always knew I wanted to do."
Coming from a family of performers, Newton says he had no exposure to directing – so in his early days as an actor, while sitting around on film and TV sets, he watched directors to learn the craft. "That was my education. I'd just watch what was going on, and bother people."
Newton has managed to assemble a cast of old and young Australian talent – talent like Pia Miranda (who he worked with on the coming-of-age drama Looking For Alibrandi), Barry Otto, Marcus Graham, Jacki Weaver and Charles Tingwell.
Did his family background have any influence on getting the great cast, or has it helped in his career?
"I'm the wrong person to ask, I don't know why that would. I'm not being coy, I have no understanding of it, I'm the one person who's not part of the conversation – I'm never in the room when those things are being talked about."
And what's next for Newton? He's heading back to Australia to begin work on a new TV series, but film-making is now in his blood.
"I want to keep making films – the best drug for me on set was collaborating with people, and helping them do something they didn't think they could do. It's a very heady feeling. Making films is what I want to do. I've been spoiled, because I've made this film the way that I want to make it."
Gracie Otto is the sister, not the daughter, of Miranda Otto.
17 October 2008 The Guardian (UK)
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Of mice and men in topical documentaries
WHEN Matthew Newton's Three Blind Mice was chosen for the first competition at the Sydney Film Festival, it seemed like a left-field choice.
Even in the industry, hardly anybody knew the well-known Australian actor from Looking For Alibrandi and Stupid Stupid Man had written, directed and starred in the film.
But when Three Blind Mice screened last night, having been finished the day before, it proved to be a real surprise packet - an impressive freewheeling drama with a topical edge about three Australian naval officers on their last night in Sydney before heading back to Iraq.
Newton plays Harry, a fast-talker out for a wild night, Toby Schmitz is the more conservative Dean, who is meeting his fiancee and her parents for dinner, and Ewen Leslie is troubled Sam, who is planning to jump ship.
Their adventures around the city, including a poker game and a run-in with a pimp, reveal tensions centring on brutal bullying on board their ship.
As well as writing a witty script, Newton has impressively directed a cast full of other well-known actors, including Pia Miranda, Alex Dimitriades, Marcus Graham, Barry Otto, Bud Tingwell and Jacki Weaver.
The festival competition had earlier warmed up with the impressive British drama Hunger, about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, emerging on Saturday as early favourite to win the $60,000 prize.
The British video-artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen dramatises the tense conflict between prison officers and IRA inmates at the Maze prison, near Belfast, in the 1980s.
Hunger is made in an almost experimental style - with minimal dialogue except for an intense 20-minute debate between Sands, played by Michael Fassbender, and a sceptical priest about the morality of the hunger strike.
It is a brilliantly effective drama that raises questions about the treatment of prisoners during more recent conflicts.
Also in competition on the weekend was the New Zealand director Vincent Ward's documentary Rain Of The Children, which investigates the life of an elderly Maori woman, Puhi, who was the subject of his first film in 1981.
June 9, 2008
Garry Maddox for Sydney Morning Herald
Even in the industry, hardly anybody knew the well-known Australian actor from Looking For Alibrandi and Stupid Stupid Man had written, directed and starred in the film.
But when Three Blind Mice screened last night, having been finished the day before, it proved to be a real surprise packet - an impressive freewheeling drama with a topical edge about three Australian naval officers on their last night in Sydney before heading back to Iraq.
Newton plays Harry, a fast-talker out for a wild night, Toby Schmitz is the more conservative Dean, who is meeting his fiancee and her parents for dinner, and Ewen Leslie is troubled Sam, who is planning to jump ship.
Their adventures around the city, including a poker game and a run-in with a pimp, reveal tensions centring on brutal bullying on board their ship.
As well as writing a witty script, Newton has impressively directed a cast full of other well-known actors, including Pia Miranda, Alex Dimitriades, Marcus Graham, Barry Otto, Bud Tingwell and Jacki Weaver.
The festival competition had earlier warmed up with the impressive British drama Hunger, about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, emerging on Saturday as early favourite to win the $60,000 prize.
The British video-artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen dramatises the tense conflict between prison officers and IRA inmates at the Maze prison, near Belfast, in the 1980s.
Hunger is made in an almost experimental style - with minimal dialogue except for an intense 20-minute debate between Sands, played by Michael Fassbender, and a sceptical priest about the morality of the hunger strike.
It is a brilliantly effective drama that raises questions about the treatment of prisoners during more recent conflicts.
Also in competition on the weekend was the New Zealand director Vincent Ward's documentary Rain Of The Children, which investigates the life of an elderly Maori woman, Puhi, who was the subject of his first film in 1981.
June 9, 2008
Garry Maddox for Sydney Morning Herald
INSIDE FILM: Mice to hit US cinemas, TV & festival
Matthew Newton’s acclaimed film Three Blind Mice will screen at the South By Southwest film festival in March, as part of a deal which also includes a cable TV premiere on the Independent Film Channel.
And in news separate to the IFC deal, the film has also scored a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles at about the same time.
As part of a deal announced at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Three Blind Mice will premiere simultaneously at South By Southwest (commonly abbreviated to SXSW) and on the IFC Festival Direct video on demand platform.
Newton’s film was one of five films selected in the deal, which was negotiated by his sales agent, Michael Favelle of Odin's Eye Entertainment, with IFC's Jeff Deutchman. Odin's Eye holds both Australian and international sales rights for the film.
The SXSW Film Conference and Festival, which competes with Sundance, is being held 13-21 March in Austin, Texas, in conjunction with its big music festival.
The festival slot is the latest in a series for Three Blind Mice, which last year won praise at the Toronto Film Festival, was highly commended by the jury at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival, and won best screenplay at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.
The film also picked up the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the London Film Festival in November, before screening at AFI Fest in Hollywood later that month.
Three Blind Mice was written and directed by actor Matthew Newton and produced by Ben Davis of Dirty Rat Films.Australian theatrical distribution has yet to be announced.
21/01/2009
Simon de Bruyn for Inside Film Magazine
And in news separate to the IFC deal, the film has also scored a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles at about the same time.
As part of a deal announced at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Three Blind Mice will premiere simultaneously at South By Southwest (commonly abbreviated to SXSW) and on the IFC Festival Direct video on demand platform.
Newton’s film was one of five films selected in the deal, which was negotiated by his sales agent, Michael Favelle of Odin's Eye Entertainment, with IFC's Jeff Deutchman. Odin's Eye holds both Australian and international sales rights for the film.
The SXSW Film Conference and Festival, which competes with Sundance, is being held 13-21 March in Austin, Texas, in conjunction with its big music festival.
The festival slot is the latest in a series for Three Blind Mice, which last year won praise at the Toronto Film Festival, was highly commended by the jury at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival, and won best screenplay at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.
The film also picked up the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the London Film Festival in November, before screening at AFI Fest in Hollywood later that month.
Three Blind Mice was written and directed by actor Matthew Newton and produced by Ben Davis of Dirty Rat Films.Australian theatrical distribution has yet to be announced.
21/01/2009
Simon de Bruyn for Inside Film Magazine
INSIDE FILM: Titan View Nabs Three Blind Mice
After months in the distribution wilderness, Matthew Newton's acclaimed feature Three Blind Mice has finally been picked up for local distribution, with Titan View scoring Australian and New Zealand rights.
Newton's second film as writer/director premiered in competition at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival, where it received a special mention by the Gillian Armstrong led jury.
Last year the film screened at a range of international festivals and picked up several awards, including the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the London Film Festival. The film also screened in the discovery section at the Toronto International Film Festival.
This month the film will screen at the South By Southwest film festival as well as have its cable TV premiere on the Independent Film Channel, in a deal stiched up its sales agent, Michael Favelle of Odin's Eye Entertainment.
Titan View is part of a new wave of boutique distributors, including Jump Street Films and Australian Film Syndicate, quickly making inroads into the local distribution spac. Previous films distributed by Titan View include The Jammed in 2007 and Men's Group in 2008.
Titan View aims to release Three Blind Mice in Australian cinemas in the first half of this year.
04/03/2009
By Simon de Bruyn for Inside Film Magazine
Newton's second film as writer/director premiered in competition at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival, where it received a special mention by the Gillian Armstrong led jury.
Last year the film screened at a range of international festivals and picked up several awards, including the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the London Film Festival. The film also screened in the discovery section at the Toronto International Film Festival.
This month the film will screen at the South By Southwest film festival as well as have its cable TV premiere on the Independent Film Channel, in a deal stiched up its sales agent, Michael Favelle of Odin's Eye Entertainment.
Titan View is part of a new wave of boutique distributors, including Jump Street Films and Australian Film Syndicate, quickly making inroads into the local distribution spac. Previous films distributed by Titan View include The Jammed in 2007 and Men's Group in 2008.
Titan View aims to release Three Blind Mice in Australian cinemas in the first half of this year.
04/03/2009
By Simon de Bruyn for Inside Film Magazine
THREE BLIND MICE: Catch this Aussie film before it disappears from On-Demand By James van Maanen.
We haven't seen many Australian films hit the U.S. market of late (unless you count that bloated Baz Luhrmann schlock-fest starring the two "men," Kid and Jack), so discovering Matthew Newton's little gem THREE BLIND MICE was quite a surprise. Just hearing those zingy Aussie accents was a pleasure (though I admit it took my ears some getting used to before they began to understand all the clever dialog: Thank god for the go-back button). The whole movie, in fact, is a non-stop pleasure.
The 32-year-old Newton -- shown at left, who wrote, directed and co-stars in the film -- comes from a Aussie show-biz family and has a heavy-duty resume in legit theatre, so for all we know he's been prepping for this current outing most of his life. His background has paid off handsomely, for his film is consistently alive, enormously intelligent and gripping without ever being pushy.
I apologize for not watching the "screener" earlier so that I could give you more time to catch the film before it ends its On-Demand run this Thursday (June 18). But Three Blind Mice is so good -- modest, smart and beautifully conceived and executed -- that I urge you to see it. It tells a more-or-less 24-hour tale of three young Australian naval officers (shown below) on a one-day leave before they ship back to the Middle East. They kid, argue and cajole; visit a diner where they flirt, play cards and then meet for dinner with one's fiancee and family. We learn bits and pieces of the back-story only gradually, with the exposition neatly buried into everyday dialog that gives us clues to characters and events.
The writing is exceptionally savvy. Note this comparison of being in the military to being in high school: "When you haven't done your French homework, everything falls apart because that's all you know. Well, it's the same out there, 'cause that's all you know. When they smile at you: It's roses!" (There's even a brilliant precis on the life of an aging hooker -- handled in just 60 seconds.) Newton has made certain that his performers reflect a complete understanding of character and motivation; not only the leads but every cast member, small role to large, does a bang-up job.
The cast is pretty much a Who's Who of Australian cinema, and each member does him/herself proud. All three leads -- Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz and Mr. Newton -- are new to me, but many cast members ring memory bells, from "Bud" Tingwell to Jackie Weaver (both splendid), and even some of the younger actors seem familiar: Gracie Otto, (below) lively and charming, doubles as film editor and is the younger sister of Miranda and daughter of Barry (who also appears in the film and is shown above, second from right).
The film is wise and not particularly nice about the military and military service, yet, by the finale, our heroes have grown a bit and nothing seems as black-and-white as we (or they) might have imagined. More than anything else, it's the absolute and utterly truthful sense of life unfurling before your eyes and ears that the movie captures so expertly. Although this is basically a comedy -- maybe a dramedy -- there are still moments that rivet so intensely that you find yourself holding your breath for fear of what might happen. It's that real. And if I hear a funnier line this year than "The waitress was a virgin, was she?" (coupled to an ace visual, of course), I'll be very surprised.
By James Van Maanen, Trust Movies Blog. June 15th 2009. http://trustmovies.blogspot.com/2009/06/three-blind-mice-catch-this-aussie-film.html
The 32-year-old Newton -- shown at left, who wrote, directed and co-stars in the film -- comes from a Aussie show-biz family and has a heavy-duty resume in legit theatre, so for all we know he's been prepping for this current outing most of his life. His background has paid off handsomely, for his film is consistently alive, enormously intelligent and gripping without ever being pushy.
I apologize for not watching the "screener" earlier so that I could give you more time to catch the film before it ends its On-Demand run this Thursday (June 18). But Three Blind Mice is so good -- modest, smart and beautifully conceived and executed -- that I urge you to see it. It tells a more-or-less 24-hour tale of three young Australian naval officers (shown below) on a one-day leave before they ship back to the Middle East. They kid, argue and cajole; visit a diner where they flirt, play cards and then meet for dinner with one's fiancee and family. We learn bits and pieces of the back-story only gradually, with the exposition neatly buried into everyday dialog that gives us clues to characters and events.
The writing is exceptionally savvy. Note this comparison of being in the military to being in high school: "When you haven't done your French homework, everything falls apart because that's all you know. Well, it's the same out there, 'cause that's all you know. When they smile at you: It's roses!" (There's even a brilliant precis on the life of an aging hooker -- handled in just 60 seconds.) Newton has made certain that his performers reflect a complete understanding of character and motivation; not only the leads but every cast member, small role to large, does a bang-up job.
The cast is pretty much a Who's Who of Australian cinema, and each member does him/herself proud. All three leads -- Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz and Mr. Newton -- are new to me, but many cast members ring memory bells, from "Bud" Tingwell to Jackie Weaver (both splendid), and even some of the younger actors seem familiar: Gracie Otto, (below) lively and charming, doubles as film editor and is the younger sister of Miranda and daughter of Barry (who also appears in the film and is shown above, second from right).
The film is wise and not particularly nice about the military and military service, yet, by the finale, our heroes have grown a bit and nothing seems as black-and-white as we (or they) might have imagined. More than anything else, it's the absolute and utterly truthful sense of life unfurling before your eyes and ears that the movie captures so expertly. Although this is basically a comedy -- maybe a dramedy -- there are still moments that rivet so intensely that you find yourself holding your breath for fear of what might happen. It's that real. And if I hear a funnier line this year than "The waitress was a virgin, was she?" (coupled to an ace visual, of course), I'll be very surprised.
By James Van Maanen, Trust Movies Blog. June 15th 2009. http://trustmovies.blogspot.com/2009/06/three-blind-mice-catch-this-aussie-film.html
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