War of the Words.

Film: Carnage
Year: 2011
Director: Roman Polanski
Written by: Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski, based on the play "God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza.
Starring: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly.
Running time: 76 min.

Words. Sometimes we underestimate how brilliant they are. Sure, you can build a story with words written down on a page, but a story built around words that are spoken is way more exciting. Carnage is a perfect example of that. Instead of the script saying that someone is going to pull out a gun to create a bit of tension, the actors get to throw insulting words at each other. Okay, so words can't kill you, but I've always thought that cinematic words create more tension than having another gun pop up. Guns are so old-school. They don't mean that much in the movies any more, apart from an easy road out for a character or a pointless accessory used to up the badassery points. Words can mean anything you want them to. Especially if you have all the right words in all the right places.

Carnage takes place almost entirely in the apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (played by Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly respectively). The story is relatively simple: they invite fellow parents Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) into their home to sort out a dispute between their children. In the first few minutes, the matter is seemingly resolved, and the Cowan's go to leave the apartment with the matter behind them. However, they're reeled back into the apartment due to a range of various circumstances, before having a drink and letting all of their inhibitions go, starting a verbal war.

A Trip Back to 1997 - Thoughts on Seeing Titanic on the Big Screen

As most of you should know, I'm a pretty big fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. My obsession started with him when I was 13 years old, and saw What's Eating Gilbert Grape for the first time. His performance in that is something fantastic - at age 19, he plays a young boy who is mentally retarded, and makes his brother's (Johnny Depp) life quite difficult with his hyperactive actions. I cried foul when I found out that he didn't win an Oscar for that performance. Until I saw Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. How the hell did both of them miss out on an Oscar that year?

But I guess mine and Leo's story begins back at the beginning of 2007, when I was 11 years old. Titanic was on TV, and my mother had recorded it so she could watch it again later. Usually, I didn't watch movies with her, but I managed to catch the tail end of it, basically from where one of the lifeboats is going through all of the dead bodies. For some reason, I was ready to declare this movie as my favourite movie of all-time, and Leo and Kate were suddenly my favourite actors. Alas, it was another two and a half years before I saw the movie in it's entirety. While I had grown up a little since 2007 and wasn't ready to throw myself into calling something my 'favourite movie' after five minutes of it, Titanic was still a bloody good, if a little long, piece of cinematic history.

"Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anyone."

Film: Contagion
Year: 2011
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, John Hawkes, Bryan Cranston, Elliott Gould, Sanaa Lathan, Anna Jacoby-Heron.
Running time: 106 min.

Contagion is exactly what I like to see as a film. When I go to the cinemas, there's a huge part of me that just wants to be entertained. Because, after all, that's the main purpose of films: to entertain the audience. But one thing that I like more than entertainment in films is to feel like I'm part of an experience. Like the world outside that cinema doesn't matter anymore. I am taken in by this film, drawn into the atmosphere it has created, only to be snapped out of it when the credits start rolling, and even then I take a bit of my experience away from me. Probably the only time that I've felt part of an experience with a 2011 film was when I saw Midnight in Paris. While it was not realistic in anyway, just the nostalgia and enchantment made me happy to be right with Owen Wilson meeting famous people from a bygone era. Even though Midnight in Paris is still my favourite film of the year, Contagion blew that cinematic experience out of the water. With this film, I was instantly drawn into the world of fear, paranoia and total destruction, and felt like I too could be running for my life. Now I'm constantly aware of when my hands are touching my face, or touching anything. I'm literally going to buy a box of hand sanitizer. Film-makers may be throwing lots and lots of money into making their movies into 3D so people can feel part of an 'experience', but that's only an artificial experience. Contagion, however, uses old-fashioned story-telling to show something that is perfectly realistic. And it is a great experience, indeed.

5 Reasons Why I Love Kate Winslet

This post is part of this month's edition of the LAMB Acting School 101!

It's been a wee while since I've done one of these...I think the last one I did was on Rebecca Hall and that post has continued to be really popular thanks to the fact that if you Google 'Rebecca Hall' the post is on the first page of results. Anyway, why not bring this back for a week since this month's actor on the LAMB is the wonderful Kate Winslet whom we all know and love a lot. I mean, how is Kate Winslet not awesome?

So without further ado, here are five reasons why I absolutely love Kate Winslet.

1. She was my first favourite actress.

Well, if you could call it that. Admittedly, this is a pretty stupid story. A long long time ago Titanic was playing on TV and my mother taped it so she could watch it the next day. While she was watching it I was out riding my horse or something and I only caught the last half-an-hour or so. From that half-and-hour I was like "this is my favourite movie!", "Leonardo DiCaprio is my favourite actor!", "Kate Winslet is my favourite actress!" Lame, I know, but I was only 11 years old. Still, I do love her to this day, and even when I finally saw Titanic from start right through to the finish in 2009 she was still one of my favourite actresses. So yeah, I guess I get a little sentimental about Kate Winslet sometimes.

2. 2008 - The year of The Reader and Revolutionary Road.

By 2008, Kate Winslet with her five Oscar nominations was deemed 'overdue' for an Oscar. Which was fair enough, because she had done so many bloody brilliant performances that despite her young age she deserved an Oscar more than anyone else. But which performance could they possibly pick out of Hanna Schmitz in The Reader or April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road? I always thought that her Oscar campaign in this year was a little bizarre. First, she wins a couple of Golden Globes for Best Actress (Revolutionary Road) and Best Supporting Actress (The Reader). For the SAG award, she won Best Supporting Actress again for The Reader, but lost Best Actress to Meryl Streep. Then she bet herself to a BAFTA for The Reader, which was this time placed in Best Actress. But even after quite a few nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category, for the Oscars her performance in The Reader was bumped up to Best Actress status, and she won that overdue Oscar that she actually really deserved for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Now, I'm on of those people who really believe that her better performance was actually in Revolutionary Road rather than The Reader. Sure, The Reader had her playing her character at various stages of her life, being a Nazi war-criminal and being illiterate...all Oscar favourites, as far as one can be concerned. But she was just so much better in Revolutionary Road. Okay, I just find it sad that her work went largely unnoticed by the Academy in favour of The Reader, which just wasn't as good as Revolutionary Road.

3. Her break-through was in a New Zealand movie. 

Back in 1994, before Kate turned 20, she starred with Melanie Lynskey in a small Peter Jackson film called Heavenly Creatures. The film was about one of New Zealand's most notorious murder cases: a pair of teenage girls decide to murder one of their mother's so they can go away and live together. They try to cover it up, but police see through their lies and they end up getting separated forever. The movie doesn't focus that much on the murder itself, but rather the friendship between the two girls and the imaginary world they had created for themselves. Kate plays Juliet Hulme, the English Rose that Melanie Lynskey's character falls in love with, and she does this role terrifyingly well, especially considering that this was her first feature film. And you know, Peter Jackson directed this film, and look where he is now. This film just did good things for everyone involved. And it was made in New Zealand!

4. She's an absolute darling.

Just watch her winning an Oscar. What a darling.
But really, Kate is such a great role model. She just looks so real, unlike some of the other actresses around, and she acts quite natural. She's impossible not to love. As me and my friend would say, "I would definitely turn lesbian for Kate Winslet."

5. She looks awesome no matter what the hair colour.

I still contest that her performance as Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is her best. Well, it's certainly my favourite, as I, like many film-lovers, love this film to death. If only I could track down the DVD to buy because I really want to watch it again. But still, Kate is amazing. Even with the multiple hair colours that don't suit that many people (not even Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), she still looked amazing. She's a flawless lady, Kate, and that's why I love her.

So, what do you love about Kate Winslet?

Classic - Heavenly Creatures

This might be a bit presumptuous of me, but I'm sure when people hear the words "New Zealand film industry", they instantly think of Peter Jackson. And that's okay. The boy has done well for himself, by starting off with cheap gorefests to moving on to the biggest task in the world: making an epic trilogy of adaptions known as Lord of the Rings. Which pretty much everyone has seen. So yeah, it's cool if y'all think of orcs and elves when I say "New Zealand film industry". But you must remember that Sir Peter Jackson has done some films that aren't filled with orcs and elves...the gorefests, the snorefest (The Lovely Bones) and Heavenly Creatures. This was the film that put him on the map for the first time. It was also the film that put Kate Winslet on the map. Yes, Lord of the Rings may have all of it's technical achievements and such, but Heavenly Creatures introduced us to the greatness of two of the biggest people working in film today. And it also gives us a shocking insight into one of the most horrific crimes in New Zealand's history.

The horrific crime in question is one that was in the hands of 15 year old best friends Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, played by Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet respectively. What did these seemingly innocent young girls do? They murdered Pauline's mother. Why? Because that was the only way they felt they could stay together. Instead of focusing on the notorious court case that followed their horrendous crime, this movie focuses on their friendship and the period of time leading up to the big murder. These were girls who had an obsessive friendship, who couldn't bear to be apart and who lived a life in fantasy, also believing that their many stories would be made into huge Hollywood epics. All of this was tracked in Pauline's diary, which became a crucial piece of evidence in the case. Also, it provides most of the narration for the film: none of the diary entries which are spoken of in the film are edited down. Just so this is even more realistic.

I'm ashamed to say that before I watched this film, I had no idea about this murder. Even though I know it's a true story, I really couldn't believe it. Maybe that's because I love my mother so much. Anyway, the one thing I did believe was the way screen-writers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh managed to build up this world of teen angst that was constantly battling with a fantasyland worlds away from reality, while remaining faithful to the material. It's clear that they didn't want Pauline and Juliet to be seen as psychopathic monsters, which I believe they weren't. They were, however, two teenagers who were a little bit misunderstood, but they were so compelled by their own little world that it was difficult for anyone to even begin to understand them. This film also deals with a raft of other 'teenage problems', such as (obviously) hating your parents, sex (now this seems to pop up in every damn teen movie) and that ever-present need to break away from everything. Considering what happens in the end, you expect this to be a cold-blooded movie that never seems to pull away from a huge state of depression. But that only truly comes through in the final act. The first acts are filled with mysterious whimsy and evil parents. It's an interesting mix, but it works.

For a New Zealand film, this is a bloody good one. As I've probably said before, I really dislike the acting that comes out of this country because of our damn accents, but the performances in this film are all brilliant. But you've really got to hand it to Lynskey and Winslet as this was their first feature film, and they did so well. Lynskey had no previous acting experience, so taking the role of Pauline was a huge ask. But she filled the character up with a lot of that adolescent angst (sometimes too much, but I guess the character was a bit of a moper) and genuine frustration with the world. Winslet seemed to get a lot of acclaim back in the day when this was first released. Her performance was good, even though I found her character diabolically annoying at the start. You can definitely see that she was onto something great with that feature debut...and just look at her now.

This is exactly the type of film that I want Peter Jackson to direct more. Sure, he's good with Lord of the Rings and everything, but he does have a good knack for directing 'coming of age' films, with a killer twist. This is a chilling film that New Zealand should be proud of...if they can be.

THE VERDICT: Heavenly Creatures provides a good insight into both a chilling murder and the minds of two slightly misunderstood teenagers, rather than repeating a piece of horrific New Zealand history. And yes, Peter Jackson directed it.

What I hoped for:

What I got: