Cinema

CINEMA Queensland: perfect one day, eaten the next!

“Black Water: Abyss” (MA) IN 2007, Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich co-wrote and co-directed “Black Water”, in which a crocodile stalks a group of young adults from down south on a fishing trip on a North Queensland river.

It had slight successes in the awards game. It never came here.

In 2020, Andrew Traucki directed “Black Water: Abyss”, from a screenplay by John Ridley and Sarah Smith. It’s about a crocodile that stalks four young adults from down south who travel to North Queensland for a bushwalk.

“Black Water: Abyss” begins with two young Japanese bushwalkers in North Queensland arguing about which direction is the right direction. They separate. She panics. She follows him. Bye bye.

A couple of days later, the four youngsters join up with a local and head north in a rented 4WD. The local bloke reckons he knows about an underground cave system.

Before long, the quintet is exploring an underground river that comes out into a large cavern. What happens next is not hard to guess.

And it doesn’t take long for members of the group, one by one, to fall victim to a crocodile.

In North Queensland and PNG, I’ve seen quite a few real crocodiles, in the wild, at a farm. They’re best when served in a curry.

Traucki’s film doesn’t need great acting and doesn’t get it. Advance publicity has the gift camera to make a film, without a script, without a crew. He takes to consulting the jacket about what he should do next.

He and Denise travel about France’s Pyrénnées-Atlantiques looking for stuff to film. In the process, he finds that a blade from a motel’s ceiling fan makes a fine tool for severing human heads. Whose heads? Many people are dying to be in his movie.

This simple and somewhat terrifying raison d’être takes over Quentin Dupieux’s film and might make any fair-minded filmgoer wonder when Georges’ escalating body count is going to bump into retribution.

And why sequences that should make us shudder should, almost against our wills, also make us at least smile if not giggle on the way to a brief sequence involving a character we met earlier and of whom we thought we had “Black Water: Abyss”... It’s about a crocodile that stalks four young adults from down south who travel to North Queensland for a bushwalk. coupled the word “horror” with it. Horror of awards, as it rightly merits, but no wins. has numerous derivative words, none of On the day he gets out of prison, Georges which can be truthfully applied to it. Its (Jean Dujardin) declares that he never again best ingredient is the aerial shots of North wants to wear a jacket. Queensland and its rain forests. That changes when he sees and buys a At Dendy deerskin jacket made in American woodsman style and gets a small video camera as a gift. He meets barmaid and would-be film “Deerskin” (MA) editor Denise (Adèle Haenel) who may not be the sharpest pencil in anybody’s box but IS it a thriller? A psychological drama? A never mind, she has the gear and doesn’t ask black comedy? A story of obsession? A embarrassing questions. fantasy escape from every restraint that Georges becomes obsessed with using human morality can devise?

Writer/director Quentin Dupieux’s brief (77 minutes) film is all of these and a little more. Since its release last year, it has

collected nominations to a short collection seen the last. Roll closing credits. At Dendy

“We’ll End Up Together” (M)

IN 2011, I gave 3½ stars to “Little White Lies” (for which the original French title was “Petits mouchoirs” – “Little hankies”) the prequel to this, Guillaume Canet’s new movie.

I doubt that my failure to remember it diminished the joy I took from meeting its

WATCH IT! / streaming and stuff By Nick OVERALL TELEVISION’S most prestigious awards, the Emmys, were once upon a time duked-out between cable networks eager to put as many wins as possible on the cover of their next DVD box-set before it made its way into the bargain bin of JB Hi-Fi.

Now, like almost all competition in the industry, it’s a heated battle between streaming networks. The trophies get a digital display cabinet next to the descriptions, which give you the premise of TV Who came out in front? You can probably guess.

people again in “We’ll End Up Together”.

Restaurateur Max (François Cluzet) is not happy. He’s getting his house on France’s Atlantic coast ready for the agent to start showing it to prospective buyers.

At the nearby town, a small coterie is gathering. They are mostly chums from “Little White Lies”. And they are coming to surprise Max to celebrate his 60th birthday in three days’ time. Which is the last thing he wants.

It takes a while to sort out all the characters but the experience is good fun. As their presence becomes established, we sense currents of unease. After not seeing each other for more than a decade, their lives have moved in new directions. It’s going to take hard work from Canet’s screenplay to sort them out. Resentments are begging for resolution in forgiveness. Children ageing from a babe in arms to late adolescents are a distraction.

The film belongs to François Cluzet as Max, re-discovering friendships but, more importantly, his own value. It’s a great performance in a happy-ender made more credible by the close shaves traversed before arriving there.

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The Emmy elbowing makes a start

shows as you’re looking for something to watch.

The nominations for 2020 were just released. At Palace Electric

Netflix sped into first place with a whopping 160 total nods across all categories. That seems like a ridiculously large amount at first glance but makes more sense when you realise just how many Emmy awards there are.

In the nitty gritty there’s everything from Outstanding Voiceover to Outstanding Commercial. Those minor awards aren’t broadcast to the general public and just as well because these things go on long enough as it is.

I’d say Netflix’s win here very much comes down to its eagerness to pump out as many original shows as possible thanks to its massive budget as the leading streaming platform in the world, something I discussed in this column a few weeks back. Bet on every horse in the field and one is sure to come off.

That’s not to say there isn’t well-deserving Regina King as Sister Night in HBO’s “Watchmen”... 26 Emmy nominations.

quality on the platform.

Where normally we’re used to seeing Jason Bateman in comedies such as “Arrested Development” and “Horrible Bosses”, he’s secured a Best Actor hat-tip for his leading role in the captivating series “Ozark”.

Here he’s a financial adviser turned money launderer for a drug cartel in exchange for his family’s safety. He’s joined by Laura Linney as his wife and partner in crime who’s also nominated for her performance among the show’s total of 18 including Best Drama.

Other notable mentions from the platform include its streaming phenomenon “Stranger Things” doing well as it usually does. And our previously written-up, crazy friend Joe Exotic would be happy to see “Tiger King” pick up six nominations including Outstanding Documentary.

It’s no surprise that HBO, the platform that funds the biggest of blockbusters such as “Game of Thrones”, produced another of these gargantuan series that ended up with more nominations than any other show this year.

“Watchmen” is the winner here with 26 nominations including Best Limited Series. Based on the DC Comics of the same name, it’s another in the superhero team-up genre, but a dark spin that sees the “heroes” come to be treated as criminals by the general public. This and other HBO series are available in Australia through the new Foxtel Binge.

Amazon Prime has also done well with its 1950s period piece “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” grabbing 20 nominations, the most for any comedy series this year. It’s about a seemingly ordinary family woman who discovers she has a biting knack for stand-up comedy and follows her journey from small time cafes to the New York stage.

It’s fascinating how clearly the trends of the nominations follow those of the streaming world – how the networks spend, produce and cement their presence in the market. Disney Plus has made a good first Emmys impression, too, with its Star Wars hit “The Mandalorian” getting 15 total nominations.

New platforms are picking up steam in the race as they develop, however Netflix remains firmly in the lead.

Comedian Ricky Gervais summed it up at the Golden Globes last year: “This whole program should be me just coming out and saying, well done Netflix, you win everything. Goodnight.”

Perhaps this might not be the case for a whole lot longer though, this year’s nominations are proof of that.

The ceremony will be held on September 21 and, of course, it’ll be digitally streamed. Who would have thought?