Cut (M)
Director: Kimble Rendall
Bug rating: Two and a stifled scream out of five

While the on-going presence in Australian politics of Bronwyn Bishop might suggest otherwise, visual horror and being really really scary don't necessarily go hand in hand.
The people behind the Aussie slasher flick Cut should have kept that in mind when they set out to emulate - or was that parody - the never-ending batch of bloodletters from the US.
Then again, perhaps they've succeeded admirably, if all they wanted was a mildly amusing, visually upsetting and not-so-scary flick.
Still, it's a pity that director Kimble Rendall didn't sit down and watch Jaws or Psycho to work out what really frightens people.
Here's a brief example. One of the scariest movies of recent times was Being John Malkovich which this reviewer took in at the Village Twin in Brisbane.
Scary because, just before the movie started, a woman in the seat directly in front jumped a metre high and promptly moved to the other side of the cinema after announcing that a bloody great big hairy huntsman spider the size of a small plate had just run across her lap.
Now I admired her courage. Not for moving, but that she didn't have to go to the toilet to clean herself up, as would have happened if a huntsman had traversed yours chickenly.
I wanted to move too, but my partner told me to stop acting like a scardy cat and other patrons hissed at me to stop whimpering when the lights finally went out.
It can be scary sitting in the dark watching John Malkovich for two hours at the best of times, but even more so when your feet are up on the seat and your arms are tired from keeping your arse a foot in the air, all because of the danger of a really angry arachnid alighting on your person at any moment.
But the incident proved that scary is more often what you don't see than see.
Same with Cut. Heads a'decapitating, throats a'slashing, bodies a'burning are all horrible a'nough, but scary is really the unknown and there's only one scene in Cut - a terrified woman in a tool shed wondering where her stalker has gotten to - where you get the slightest impression that Rendall knows what being scared is all about. Being really, really frightened is watching Kylie Minogue go through her cameo and suspecting she really thinks she can act.
But if Minogue was the only thing wrong about Cut, then we should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.
If Seinfeld was a TV show about nothing, Cut is a film about itself.
In a remarkable piece of type-casting, Molly Ringwald plays the washed-up former teen queen of Hollywood who travels to Australia to finally finish a horror film called Hot-Blooded that's well and truly cursed.
The next hour and a bit is really just a mishmash of bad acting, B grade special effects and a lot of slashing and burning as the celluloid monster from the unfinished movie is let out of the can once again.
This reviewer is not really into slasher films, so who knows?
For some people, Cut may develop into a bit of a cult movie. For this reviewer, the extra letter is found several more places down the alphabet.

- Don Gordon-Brown

Scream 3
Director: Wes Craven
Bug rating: 1/5

Scream 3 is funnier than it is scary. Trouble is it's not all that funny.

- Ben Gordon-Brown

The Talented Mr Ripley (M)
Director: Anthony Minghella
Bug rating: 3/5

It's 3.30pm in the old walled city of ancient Rome and the barricades have been keeping the tourists and locals at bay for a good half hour.
Everything is ready for a final take and, on the top of the Capitoline Hill overlooking the Forum, the other actors have run through the extended scene perfectly. Director Anthony Minghella motions to a goffer who heads off to Matt Damon's trailer to fetch the young Hollywood star.
The goffer returns a few moments later. "He'll be here soon," he tells Minghella. "He's only a thousand points behind his highest GameBoy score ever."
"Fucking Hollywood upstarts," Minghella mutters. "Take a breather everybody." Cinematographer John Seale throws his hands in the air and an official from the Rome Tourism Authority glances nervously at his wristwatch. Oscar winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow elegantly places a cigarette in her mouth and takes forever to light it.
A half-hour later, Damon wanders on set. "Okay Tony, let's do this," he says, flashing that famous lopsided boyish grin.
Minghella directs him to a spot by an ancient stairwell, and the other actors take their places.
"Now Tony, explain things to me again," says Matt. "Am I still playing the young American pretending to be a friend of Tom Ripley or am I now in fact Tom Ripley who I've killed?"
Minghella pauses and frowns. "Now Matty, don't worry about that right now. Gwyneth is going to say a few lines and then I'm going to do a close-up of your face."
"But that's just it. Do you want me to do just the nice squared-off smiley face, or the lopsided face where I pretend to squirt water through a hole in my teeth when I've got to look really, really cute, or the really lopsided face where I pretend to suck air through my teeth like I've got a bit of meat stuck in there so I look as if I'm in dire trouble?"
"Any one will be just fine."
"No, seriously. What stage are we at here?"
Minghella takes a deep breath. "Okay, fair enough. Look. This is the scene where, for the 12th time, you come really, really close to having your cover blown and your murderous spree brought to an end."
"Sounds like the squirting water through a hole in my teeth face to me," Damon says excitedly.
Minghella agrees quickly and shouts: "Places everybody."
Damon starts to head off to his trailer.
"Now where the bloomin' hell are you going now?" Minghella asks pleadingly.
"To get a glass of water."
Minghella sighs and his shoulders droop. "Fucking method actors."

***

It's 7am a week later in the Piazza di Spagna and the barricades have been keeping the tourists and locals at bay for a good half hour.
Everything is ready for a final take on the Spanish Steps and Aussie actor Kate Blanchett has just run perfectly through an extended scene she'll be sharing with Damon. Director Minghella motions to a goffer who heads off to Matt Damon's trailer to fetch the young Hollywood star.
"Now Tones, explain things to me again," says Matt. "Am I still playing the young American pretending to be a friend of Tom Ripley or am I now in fact Tom Ripley?"
Minghella pauses and frowns. "Now Matt, don't worry about that right now. Kate is going to say a few lines and then I'm going to do a close-up of your face."
"But that's just it. Do you want me to wear the glasses with actual glass in the frames, or the pair with just the frames?"
"Either will be just fine."
"No, seriously. What stage are we at here?"
Minghella takes a deep breath. "Okay, fair enough. Look. This is the scene where for the 23rd time, you come really, really close to having your cover blown and your murderous spree brought to an end."
"Sounds like the frames with the actual glass in them," Damon says excitedly. "I'll be right back."
Minghella sighs and his shoulders droop. "Fucking upstart actors."

***

It's 2pm four months later in Naples, inside the city's famed Teatro San Carlo, the stunningly beautiful and historic opera house. It's a crucial scene in which Damon escorts Kate Blanchett to the Opera and his cover as Ripley comes very, very close to being exposed for the 43rd time.
"A fair bit of water actually squirted out yesterday," a worried Damon tells the director.
"Don't worry about it. We'll erase any water squirts on the computer during post production."
"Fair enough. But just to be on the safe side, I think today I'll do my really lopsided grin where I pretend to suck air through my teeth like I've got a bit of meat stuck in there so I look like I'm in dire trouble."
"Whatever you like. Places everywhere.
"Now where the fuck are you off to now?"
Damon stops and turns around. "To the canteen to get a piece of red meat of course."
Minghella sighs and his shoulders droop. "Fucking method actors."

***

It's 11pm six months later in a Rome sound stage.
"So just how long does this movie go for?" asks Damon as he chews on a piece of prime rib and fills his mouth with water in readiness for a really crucial scene with Philip Baker Hall where his cover as Ripley comes very, very close to being exposed for the 102nd time.
"I'm not quite sure yet," Minghella responds truthfully. " Probably about a day shorter than most tourists spend in Italy."
Damon sucks on his teeth and then blows a fine mist of water laden with meaty bits into the air. "It's not going to be as boring as The English Patient is it?"
"Impossible," says Minghella. "Surely?"
Damon, squirting and sucking: "So how does it end?"
Minghella sighs and his shoulders droop.
"There is no ending."

The Hurricane (M)
Director: Norman Jewison
Bug rating: 2.5/5

To that little old lady with the umbrella, I'm truly, ruly sorry.
I've just seen The Hurricane and I seek forgiveness for all those rotten, shitty things I used to say about you.
You may know this woman. She dominated my Sunday lunchtime TV viewing in a galaxy far far away – or the 60s to be precise.
This poor old thing filled the screen on my parents' 21 inch AWA black and white television, waving her umbrella angrily at whatever injustice was unfolding on Channel 9's World Championship Wrestling.
Perhaps in hindsight she was a plant; my father certainly was.
He would plant himself in front of the teev just before lunchtime and no amount of sarcasm from this prematurely cynical quarter could convince him that Referee Bob McMaster's attention really hadn't been diverted so that Brute Bernard, Killer Kowalski and Skull Murphy could gang up on the ever-gallant, Speedo-bulging Mario Milano.
What went down in that ring was gospel. And to suggest otherwise was a heresy only slightly less damning than to suggest Ralphie Veladeros's last-gasp win for the Los Angeles Thunderbirds in the roller derby later that night was also a set up.
No. The little old lady and my father believed what they saw. And now, unwittingly, I'm guilty of the same thing with The Hurricane.
I now empathise with that shrivelled up old thing that I used to pity so much. The old lady, I mean. Not my father. Okay, perhaps both.
Now I realise I'[m no different to them, because veteran director Norman Jewison's sanitised version of the wrongful jailing on two murder raps of gifted black boxer Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter sucked me right in. And not an umbrella in sight.
By the time Rod Steiger's Judge Sarokin quashes Carter's conviction and releases him after almost two decades of imprisonment, the emotions are uplifted beyond what you thought you cared for Carter's fate and the tireless work of a group of Canadians who never lost faith in his innocence.
But then after the screening came the newspaper stories on where The Hurricane waivers from the truth.
Some of the minor stuff can be forgiven for simplicity's sake and cinematic licence. The sizable group of Canadians involved in his real life support group has been boiled down to a manageable handful of stereotypes. After all, it's a proven fact that your average cinema goer has a very short attention sp
See. But at the screenplay's core is the biggest fib of all; the one that king hits any pretence The Hurricane might have had as a Oscar contender for pick flick. Perhaps it's what also cost Denzel Washington the best actor gong.
And it centres on racist cop Della Pesca, played with brooding menace by Dan "The Dick" Hedaya.
In Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon's screenplay, Della Pesca sends an adolescent Carter up the reform school river for the crime of accidentally stabbing a pedophile who tries to take one of his young mates' temperature with the old flesh-coloured thermometer.
Years later, and with a world title in Carter's grasp, who stitches him up for a couple of bar-room killings? Correctamondo! Our friend Della Pesca.
And whose handwriting is it that Carter recognises on a doctored time entry on a crucial piece of evidence that would have proved beyond doubt he could not have been anywhere near the scene of the crime when the shooting occurred? C'mon, have a guess! Yep, our dear nigger-hating detective Della Pesca.
It's all good dramatic stuff to get us on side and sympathise with Carter's plight and boo the racist ratbag Della Pesca. There's only one small problem: Della Pesca it seems never, ever, existed.
It does beg some questions. Most cinema patrons love a courtroom drama, so why didn't Jewison trust us to sift through the real evidence produced to the higher court? It can't have been any more boring than dedicating most of the movie to the slow process of his supporters coming on side.
Why did Jewison ignore Carter's real-life criminal career? Are audiences that fickle that they won't root for Carter unless he's portrayed as one of the nicest, most fiercely determined and dignified people that ever drew breath this side of the Mississippi?
And the biggest question of all.
If you've got to stray that far from the truth when you're supposedly filming a real-life story, perhaps Carter wasn't so innocent after all?

- Don Gordon-Brown

Man on the Moon
Director: Milos Forman
Bug rating: 4 out of 5.

I don't usually write for anything other than the New Yorker.
But I'll do you philistines a favour because in the ordinary course of your very ordinary lives, you would otherwise never get to hear the sort of privileged information I'm about to impart.
I'm willing to step down a notch or two to unlighten the ignorant masses. Please try to keep up.
Man on the Moon recounts the tale of the life of one of my artistic contemporaries, Andy Kaufman.
Many would say I was the greatest influence on his art, but that is not for me to say. I am merely an instrument of wisdom trying to serve those who are intellectually and culturally less privileged than I.
Kaufman's comedy may be a little difficult for people such as you to understand. Particularly those of you reading this in Brisbane, which although it has a charming little artistic scene on the weekends is nothing compared to the great artistic centres of the world. It's basically a city devoid of any artistic sensibilities.
Andy Kaufman was a prankster. He used stand-up comedy for his pranks. He would come out on stage pretending to be a stand-up comedian. Just as con artists are like actors playing a part, Andy Kaufman would pretend to be various characters. These would be designed to break the rules of social situations, and therefore be shocking to people, but when the story was told of these pranks people would be amused, as would those "hip" to what he was doing.
Are you following me so far, you little ignoramuses in Brisbane? Some of his characters would be:
. the foreign man - the foreign man would come out on stage and tell a series of jokes that everyone except he would think were terrible
.the hard luck case - a guy would walk out on stage and instead of telling jokes would proceed to depress the audience with tales of woe about his wife leaving him, then would hit the audience for some money;
.a Vegas style lounge singer called Tony Clifton who would come out on stage and make tasteless remarks and sing tasteless old standards to the audience.
And basically that's what the film is about. Very funny stuff in the hands of Jim Carrey, but I doubt you idiots would have the mental wherewithal to appreciate a film like this. Why don't you stick to some of the other Hollywood fare with the nice happy endings? Now run along; I'm busy. I'm David Kincaid.

- David Kincaid

The Beach (M)
Director: Danny Boyle
Bug rating: 2.5/5

Yes, it's Rambo meets the Blue Lagoon as Leondardo DiCaprio abandons the good ship Titanic only to be washed ashore on an island paradise.
Leon - or is that Len - plays Rick, a back-packing yank going through early-life crisis in Thailand.
He wants a life-reaffirming/threatening adventure, man, and a Scottish lunatic (Robert Carlyle) uses sub-titles to give him a mud map to paradise/nirvana/utopia/Thailand island national park clearly abandoned forever by the authorities.
Rick and a couple of struggling actors swim to the island, meet up with a group of hippy/dropout/dole bludging/dope smoking/beautiful people who have truly found the meaningless of life.
But that alone wouldn't be a movie, would it? Just Byron Bay for a few days after the dole cheques are picked up.
No, sinister forces are at work here, and by that we mean director Danny Boyle of Trainspotting fame, trying to recreate a past glory.
Boyle's out to lance the tranquility of Rick's heaven-on-earth, courtesy of a few gory shark attacks, a rocking sound track and an evil band of commercial drug farmers who, having tolerated the interlopers until they spotted DiCaprio bare-chested, decide utopia's used-by date has passed.
It's about this time that Rick, Boyle and everyone else involved in the project lose the plot.
Rick goes animal crackers in the bush, and Boyle resorts to an extended computer video game sequence; not so much to show that his hero has lost his marbles, but a vainly transparent effort to retain the interest of young movie-goers who, realising they aren't going to see Kate Winslett's ta tas, have started to drift away from the noisy hocus-pocus being played up on the big screen.
Rick dons a Rambo-style bandanna, and runs around playing imaginary war games with the drug warlords. This is where DiCaprio is in his element: no other young actor today can do that grimace and teeth-clenching thing that so clearly shouts to the world: this is how Mickey Rooney would have looked impersonating Jimmy Cagney impersonating Humphrey Bogart.
And DiCaprio pulls it off effortlessly, despite being much, much shorter than Rooney ever was.
The drug lords kill a quartet of fresh-faced Yank kids who also turn up on the island. Unperturbed that this might signal the end of their drug capers - a possibility that would surely be bleedingly obvious to less paranoid minds not altered by the killer sex drug – this clutch of B grade Thai actors order everybody off the island.
The beautiful people leave the island and the stunned audience leaves the cinema.
The adventure might be over, but at least the former group still has a healthy tan and an extra $12 in their pocket.

- Don Gordon-Brown