ruben guthrie
ruben guthrie first look review – a year of living soberly... in sydney
ruben guthrie (patrick brammall​) has a raging thirst for alcohol - fuelled wild times .
ruben guthrie will premiere at the state theatre at 7. 30 pm on wednesday 3 june 2015 .
perhaps ruben guthrie makes more sense if you watch it while drunk. being sober, i loathed it .
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ruben guthrie first look review – a year of living soberly... in sydney | film | the guardian
deeply unpleasant characters
: robyn nevin, alex dimitriades, jack thompson and patrick brammall in ruben guthrie .
the morning after: performing arts in australia: review: ruben guthrie by brendan cowell. red stitch actors theatre .
‘the nsw government is proud to have supported the production of ruben guthrie through our tourism and major events agency destination nsw and screen nsw .
abbey lee (left) and robyn nevin (right) as girlfriend and mother of ruben guthrie (paddy brammall). photograph: mark rogers
ruben guthrie is the story of one man not only battling the bottle, but the city that won' t let him put it down .
ruben guthrie producer kath shelper said, ‘sydney is such a stunning place to live, work and play. we were incredibly lucky to have the support of both destination nsw and screen nsw to get ruben guthrie off the stage and out into sydney’s streets to share with the world. ’
brendan cowell’s script —based on a somehow - acclaimed stage - play— imagines its titular cad as an anti - hero, but it gives us nothing by which he earns that status. he’s a charismatic drunk working in advertising, so perhaps the model was don draper. but cowell never shows his main character at work; instead, he lazily has other characters tell us ruben guthrie’s a genius, ruben guthrie’s the greatest creative this firm has ever had, ruben guthrie’s won world advertising awards four years running. in fact, ruben guthrie says the latter out loud, himself, several times over. because, y’know, complete cockhole .
with a steady supply of sharp gags, ruben guthrie could easily have been a comic redemption tale - awful man loses woman, finds himself then wins her back .
as a writer and actor, cowell is obviously talented if erratic; as a filmmaker he has a long way to go. ruben guthrie the movie has, essentially, two gears: lengthy montages modelled after ruben' s ads, and even lengthier dialogue scenes presumably carried over from the play, often involving supporting characters tempting ruben to fall off the wagon .
‘ ruben guthrie is a bold story with sydney at its core and it’s fitting that this major australian film will have its world premiere and open this year’s sydney film festival, ’ mr ayres said .
virginia is introduced gazing winsomely at ruben across the floor of a support meeting. a hair’s breadth later, we’re treated to a shot — from behind — of her crotch as she propels herself through water. soon she’s moved in and morphed into an unhinged harridan who’s spending all ruben’s hard - earned money on organic produce. needless to say, ruben guthrie is not a film that aces the bechdel test. even ruben’s mother (robyn nevin) is there to enable him — mom goes from supporting ruben’s teetotalism to actively breaking his sobriety by holding his mouth open and pouring a glass of white down his gullet .
ruben guthrie is brendan cowell’s brutally honest comedy about work, family and excess. this is a special play which taps a deep vein of australian life and asks, is it unaustralian to refuse a drink ?
unless it was set on the harbour bridge, featured a suburban property developer fronting icac or starred the rabbitohs backline, there could hardly be a more sydney film than ruben guthrie to open the sydney film festival .
ruben’s point of view — simultaneously objectifying and self - pitying — is clearly meant to be the point, but tonally ruben guthrie is perched awkwardly between damning expose and redemption story. it ends on a more optimistic note than the play, with ruben off the grog but staring lustfully at a glass of champagne, torn between an instant salve and the unlikely love of a good woman. self - annihilation beckons — or so one can only hope .
guthrie finished with the game with 12 carries for 82 yards, but he had just three carries for 15 yards when the fourth quarter began. that' s when guthrie started grinding the clock - and aubrey' s defense .
life is good for ad man ruben guthrie - he leads a party boy lifestyle, has a model fiancée and lives in a house on the water. he' s at the top of his game, until some drunken skylarking lands ruben at the bottom of his infinity pool, lucky to be alive. his mum hits the panic button, and then his fiancée leaves him, but not before issuing him one final challenge: if ruben can do one year without a drink, she' ll give him another chance... ruben guthrie is the story of one man not only battling the bottle, but the city that won' t let him put it down .
if you think ruben guthrie is a terrible name for a film, well, you wait until you see the actual film. in it, the name is intoned, again and again, and always in full; as if the man who bears it borders on myth. hell, even ruben guthrie (patrick brammall) speaks about himself in the third person. if that makes him sound like a complete cockhole, well, so does every other thing that comes out of his mouth .
pilot point - one of mason guthrie' s main jobs on friday nights is to punish opposing defenses with his running game .
‘featuring a stellar australian cast including patrick brammall in the title role and abbey lee, jack thompson and alex dimitriades, ruben guthrie was filmed exclusively in sydney and will showcase this wonderful city including the spectacular vivid sydney festival, to audiences across the world .
ruben' s much younger czech model girlfriend zoya (abbey lee) is the only one who emerges with any dignity intact .
cowell attempts to create empathy for his titular character by comparative cockholeishness: surrounding ruben guthrie (that name again: ruben guthrie !) with even - more - awful people, one - note caricatures saying even - more - offensive things. there’s jeremy sims as repellent boss, brenton thwaites as millennial cliché incarnate, jack thompson as boozehound dad, robyn nevin as neurotic mum, alex dimitriades as screaming queer; all staggering around with drinks in their hands, all enablers daring to distract our hero from his noble quest .
ruben guthrie is the story of a highly successful creative director of a sydney advertising agency and his spectacular fall from grace. originally presented by belvoir street theatre in 2009, the film marks the directorial debut of award - winning playwright, screenwriter and actor brendan cowell .
ruben’s a hotshot creative living in a waterfront mansion with his czech model girlfriend zoya, played by abbey lee, last seen as one of immortan joe’s unfortunate brides in mad max: fury road. as zoya informs us later, she was 16 when ruben “found her” and she moved in, a fact that’s relayed blithely. the film opens during an orgiastic bash at ruben’s pad worthy of jordan belfort, and culminates in ruben jumping off the roof into his pool, where he sinks to the bottom as assorted trendies look on coolly .
minister for trade, tourism and major events stuart ayres has welcomed the announcement that the world premiere of ruben guthrie, the screen adaptation of brendan cowell’s acclaimed stage play, filmed exclusively in sydney with support from the nsw government, will open the 62nd sydney film festival .
‘ vivid sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas, provided the backdrop for one of the film’s scenes and i’m sure opening night audiences at the state theatre will be enthralled by the festival, with ruben guthrie premiering during this year’s vivid sydney .
lee is an australian supermodel - turned - actress who makes her film debut this year in ruben guthrie, brendan cowell’s adaptation of his own play. she’ll also be seen this summer in george miller’s mad max: fury road and next spring in alex proyas’ gods of egypt .
or at least that must have been the idea. ruben guthrie’s transition from stage to screen has tempered him, and some of the play’s more extreme lines — about ruben’s orgies with fifteen - year old soap stars in hotels, among other things — have been excised. but by humanizing ruben (relatively speaking) the film also asks us to sympathize with him, which hardly seemed the point of the more darkly satirical play — not to mention all but impossible, despite the best efforts of patrick brammall, who is convincingly frayed in the title role .
ruben guthrie is on fire. he’s 29, he’s the creative director of a cutting - edge advertising agency, he’s engaged to a czech supermodel and sydney is his oyster. he pours himself a drink to celebrate, a drink to work, a drink to sleep and one spectacular night he drinks so much he thinks he can fly. ruben guthrie is brendan cowell’s brutally honest comedy about spiralling high, crashing hard and being taken to aa by your mum .
by general agreement, the leading light among stage writers of his generation .
- the sun herald
ruben guthrie is on fire. he’s the creative director of a cutting - edge advertising agency, he’s engaged to a czech supermodel and sydney is his oyster. he pours himself a drink to celebrate, a drink to work, a drink to sleep and one spectacular night he drinks so much he thinks he can fly. a brutally honest comedy about work, family and excess, ruben guthrie taps a deep vein and asks – is it unaustralian to refuse a drink? a funny and moving act of revelation about spiralling high, crashing hard and being taken to aa by your mum .
nor does cowell seem in full control of the many scenes in which ruben' s associates treat him with admiration bordering on awe. the suggestion that ruben is a whiz at his job is never borne out by what we see of his ad campaigns; on the available evidence, his success stems partly from his good looks and swagger, partly from the advantages that naturally fall to a straight white boy who comes from money. but none of this stops the other characters from repeating the name
ruben guthrie
over and over, as if it were the key to a magic spell .
there’s plenty of bacchanalian behavior, but ruben’s mostly a spectator to it. it’s a neat jumping - off point for an exploration of liquor as an enabler of intimacy between heterosexual men, and of the kind of leering entitlement of which the new entourage movie is the ne plus ultra. ruben guthrie at least gestures toward a more gimlet - eyed take on the debauched behavior of its protagonists. but the titular character is such a solipsistic misogynist that a couple of hours spent in his company is about as easy to stomach as the gallons of liquor ruben’s pals push toward him pretty much relentlessly .
ruben guthrie is not as simple as that, reluctant to suggest a sip of the sweet stuff is necessarily a ticket to doom and gloom. an initially archetypal trajectory (boy loses girl; boy goes on mission to get her back) becomes something curlier and less conventional, with lashings of abrasive dialogue that recall its stage origins (“you’re going to die in the fucking snow chewing on your own hips! ”, guthrie shrieks when zoya leaves him) .
the film has fun with the idea that ruben' s work on ad campaigns for lexus, royal randwick and vivid gets them splashy mentions on screen .
ruben guthrie, the booze - guzzling protagonist of writer - director brendan cowell’s impressive sydney - set feature debut – the opening film of the 2015 sydney film festival – gets off comparatively lightly. the award - winning ad man’s wakeup call is a broken arm inflicted by jumping off the roof of his waterfront mansion .
brendan cowell' s play ruben guthrie, about a hotshot sydney adman trying to go sober, was praised by intelligent reviewers when it opened a few years ago. watching this adaptation directed by cowell himself, it' s easy to see why: the dialogue has an energy and bite rare in australian cinema .
agency boss (jeremy sims), who flatters him with names like bradman, black caviar and kubrick, also figures ruben needs to drink to be creative .
when ruben goes to visit his dad peter, peter is informed by the server harry. harry is played by jack thompson' s real life son billy .
quarterback j. p. price threw a strike to guthrie in the middle of the end zone to give the bearcats a 14 - 7 lead going into the break .
ruben guthrie is on fire. he’s 29, he’s the creative director of a cutting - edge advertising agency, he’s engaged to a czech supermodel and sydney is his oyster. he pours himself a drink to celebrate, a drink to work, a drink to sleep and one spectacular night he drinks so much he thinks he can fly .
ruben guthrie is the tantalising new comedy from internationally celebrated playwright and actor brendan cowell presented by ironbark. he lines up the shots for us in a heady cocktail of fizzy humour and touching revelation. it' s a sparkling play about spiralling high, crashing hard and going to aa with your mum... . read more > >
the latest incident in guthrie’s long history of irresponsible acts proves too much for his much younger fiancee, zoya (abbey lee, impressive). a glamorous czech model who’s been with guthrie since she was a starstruck teenager, zoya announces she’s leaving him and will be returning home to live with her mother in prague after a photo shoot in brazil. most viewers will think zoya’s making the right move, but at the same time will probably agree with her that beneath all that selfish recklessness there’s still a glimmer of something lovable about ruben guthrie. the result is an ultimatum whereby she’ll return in a year and offer him a second chance, provided he hasn’t touched a drop of abooze .
guthrie' s 10 - yard touchdown reception from j. p. price with 25 seconds left in the first half gave the bearcats a 14 - 7 lead going into halftime .
this is where cowell’s screenplay, a polished piece of work adapted from a play he wrote and premiered at belvoir st theatre in 2008, finds its most interesting groove. in ruben guthrie, it’s clear why the protagonist has stopped drinking; less clear is why the key players around him – mum, dad, best friend, boss – would prefer he not remain sober .
an entertaining coming - of - age dramedy about a man - boy pushing 40, “ruben guthrie” centers on a boozy sydney advertising hotshot who swears to stay off the sauce for a year to win back his fed - up fiancee. adapting his highly successful stage play, writer - helmer brendan cowell neatly balances comic elements with sharp observations of how friendships between aussie males [ … ]
the bearcats (3 - 5, 1 - 2) still had work to do after guthrie' s long run, which officially went for 41 yards, but the penalty was almost crucial .
reacting to the pressure of friends and family gives guthrie a more domestic - feeling authenticity than someone like don birnam in the lost weekend, who freaked out at imaginary creepy crawlies running down the walls .
it helps that cowell has learned the playwright' s trick of balancing perspectives and letting unsympathetic characters mount plausible arguments. virginia (harriet dyer), the reformed addict who moves in with ruben, proves to be a piece of work, but there are moments when she speaks the truth, and the same can be said for damian (alex dimitriades​), ruben' s bitchily camp best mate .
cowell wastes no time showing the hedonistic excesses of ruben guthrie (patrick brammall). the opening scene has him screaming “let’s get smashed! ” to a horde of hot - bodied party animals at his funky house in one of sydney’s ultra - expensive seaside suburbs. from there he clambers on the roof and, just for the hell of it, plunges into his pool, avoiding death by a matter of inches .
guthrie (played by patrick brammall) has the self - awareness to realise that liquor has got him licked, so signs up for aa, goes cold turkey and periodically calls his tetchy love interest in the hope she will start talking to him again. birnam’s lost weekend is a year of sobriety for guthrie, whose urge for drink takes a back seat in storytelling relevance to the urge of others to encourage him to return to the bottle .
brammall seems to be channelling cowell at times but makes ruben a brazen, larger - than - life, funny character. but one who is so self - absorbed that it is difficult to feel much empathy during emotional moments .
so after the penalty gave pilot point the ball at the aubrey 20 - yard line with 52 seconds left, junior kicker ruben martinez played the role he' s played a few times in the playoffs - hero, at least temporarily .
those were both really huge ,
guthrie said .
they had taken the momentum from us both times. it was big. the whole team needed those. that first pick [ in the end zone ] was really huge .
ruben guthrie is on top of the world. he' s the creative director of a cutting - edge advertising agency, he' s engaged to a czech supermodel and the city of sydney is his oyster. he pours himself a drink to celebrate, a drink to work, a drink to sleep and one spectacular night he drinks so much he thinks he can fly. after his night of debauchery his fiancée leaves him, vowing only to return if he can go a year without drinking .
in the wash - up, zoya tells him she’s going back to prague. ruben’s reaction is typically charming: “you’re going to die in the fucking snow chewing on your own hips! ” but ruben’s as fragile as his ego is large, and when zoya – mystifyingly – tells him to come find her after a year off the drink, he’s desperate to acquiesce. and so begins a year of sobriety, in which the australian drinking culture comes in for its most unforgiving close - up since
from his middle linebacker position, guthrie picked off two james wurster passes, one in the pilot point end zone with aubrey driving to tie the game and another with under four minutes to play. both interceptions came after pilot point penalties extended aubrey drives .
while the backdrops are spectacular - ruben has an aa meeting at tamarama surf club, his boozy father (jack thompson) runs a hatted waterside restaurant and he goes kayaking on middle harbour - there are signs of the film' s theatre origins in the number of talky scenes .
alex dimitriades struts on to the scene as guthrie’s gay and decadently behaved best pal; it’s another beautifully timed comedic performance from the actor, playing the polar opposite of the bogan javelin - throwing lug he mined for an equal amount of laughs in 2014’s screwy time travel romp the infinite man .
price finished the night with 71 rushing yards, including a 22 - yard touchdown run in the first quarter to get the bearcats on the scoreboard first. he also threw for 130 yards on an efficient 14 - of - 22 passing with no interceptions and the one touchdown toss to guthrie .
as cowell’s directorial debut, ruben guthrie doesn’t show much filmmaking promise, either. its tone is wildly uneven, its pace scattershot. there’s bad dream sequences, over - determined musical cues, and so many montages. at its nadir, when our anti - hero falls back off the wagon, cowell moves from montage to montage: first happily depicting a wild booze - up with blasts of brassy horns, then switching, the second go - round, to slow - motion shots set to a piano - ballad; just to let you know that alcohol is bad and stuff .
belvoir associate artist wayne blair directed toby schmitz as ruben in the downstairs theatre in 2008. the show sold out before it even opened. the following year brendan, toby and wayne – three of australia’s finest young theatre artists – joined forces once again to create a shining new production for belvoir in the upstairs theatre .
arrogant, self - absorbed and superior, ruben goes to his first aa meeting and starts the 12 steps to getting his life back on track, which gets more complicated when his over - the - top gay best friend (alex dimitriades) lands on his doorstep ready to party after failing to make it in new york .
receiving: a - collin scribner 3 - 36, james reeves 1 - 2, skyler craig 1 - 5, kristian wiseman 2 - 14, albert silva 1 - 16. pp - austin balderas 7 - 73, mason guthrie 1 - 10, willie davis 1 - 5, jacob lock 2 - 14, ricky campbell 1 - 6, conner camacho 2 - 22 .
the film' s main weakness is the complacency underlying its satire, a quality that may have been less visible on stage. given the literalism of film, it' s hard for cowell to avoid celebrating his hero' s expensive lifestyle: ruben' s waterfront mansion with its exposed concrete surfaces may symbolise his empty existence, but it' s also a plainly desirable piece of real estate .
rushing: a - albert silva 18 - 89, skyler craig 3 - 7, dexter loza 1 - 2, charlie radford 8 - 65, kristian wiseman 2 - 4, james wurster 4 - 16, skyler starling 1 - 1. pp - j. p. price 15 - 71, mason guthrie 12 - 82, austin trinklein 1 - (- 2), corbin sitzes 1 - 9 .
ruben bolling, pen name of ken fisher, is the author of the weekly comic strip “tom the dancing bug, ” distributed by andrews mcmeel syndication to many newspapers across north america it also appears on: boingboing. net, one of the most linked - to websites in the world; dailykos. com, the u. s. ’s largest progressive blog; and gocomics. com, the largest comic strip website .
film is a different ballgame, so telling a story about a struggling alcoholic who decides to keep enormous amounts of grog in his designer home at arms length – but periodically smashes glasses and bottles, as if rebelling against their very existence – borders on narrative implausibility. but theatre rules apply: we see the face of guthrie’s girlfriend and are reminded of her importance in the story; we see the bar and understand the ongoing temptation .
ruben bolling was the finalist for the 2016 herblock award. he was the 2014 winner of the society of illustrators best cartoon award in its art annual. in 2011, bolling won the sigma delta chi award from the society of professional journalists, for editorial cartooning. “tom the dancing bug” has been twice - nominated for the harvey award for best comic strip or panel, and has won the association of alternative newsweeklies award for best cartoon five times .
the presence in guthrie’s home of a wall - sized picture of his fiancée and a bar stuffed to the hilt with a disneyland - for - alcoholics array of bottles feel like leftovers from the stage production. in theatre, minimal sets take on longer - lasting, tone - setting significance. if a stage is lined with bottles, for example, and the play is about a person quitting alcohol, a director can trade off the friction between the physical backdrop and the dramatic objective .
definition of what this means .
photos (c) bruce guthrie
is fine for attribution. feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don' t have permission to sell the photos themselves. a free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners .
cowell tends to frame these exchanges in oppressive close - up, so that performances which might have seemed overscaled under any circumstances register as gross caricature. perhaps this is intentional, since the script paints almost all the characters as deeply unpleasant, including ruben himself as well as his parents (robyn nevin​ and jack thompson); his much younger girlfriend zoya (abbey lee), a czech model who soon walks out on him, is the only one who emerges with any dignity intact .
sara duke' s family, warren bernard, john kelly, mike rhode and his wife, martha kennedy and her husband, michael cavna, warren bernard, eric shansby, dan perkins (tom tomorrow) clarence and lisa page, tom toles, john lewis, eleanor clift, joe sutliff and ruben bolling, vincent schilling, marty two bulls sr. , matt wuerker, mike jenkins, jeffrey ballou (president of the national press club), john kelly, and dana maier .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
movies and tv shows are certified fresh with a steady tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide - release movies, 40 for limited - release movies, 20 for tv shows), including 5 reviews from top critics .
cowell makes his feature film début as writer / director / producer, bringing it to the screen with patrick brammall in terrific, tormented form as our titular' hero' .
it might be a case of something essential getting lost in the translation, but first - time director brendan cowell' s adaptation of his play about an alcoholic advertising man on the road to redemption is a well - intentioned mess .
as a writer and actor, cowell is obviously talented if erratic; as a filmmaker he has a long way to go .
it' s an entertaining trip, but one that' s also thought provoking and appropriately sobering .
sails breezily along with terrific dialogue, great performances and an extremely relatable story. it' s excellent contemporary entertainment, the kind of character and situation - based comedy the french do so well but australian cinema, not so much .
, one of cinema’s earliest serious depictions of alcoholism, ray milland plays don birnam, an off - the - wagon writer embarking on an epic five - day bender. he sheds all kinds of moral scruples and ends up like a character in an edgar allen poe story – in hospital screaming in terror at hallucinations caused by delirium tremens .
or rather, it’s a wake - up call for his czech model fiancée zoya (abbey lee – currently on screens as one of immortan joe’s brides in mad max: fury road) who decides that enough is enough. she tells him to sober up for a year, then check back in .
there’s a cynicism here that can only come from a thoughtful place, because none of these characters are presented as evil temptors nor products of a society incapable of thinking thoughtfully or critically of others .
director robert zemeckis’ 2012 drama flight, featuring denzel washington as one of the most convincing alcoholics to have ever stumbled on to the screen, has a terrific scene in a hotel room with a bar fridge that takes the protagonist’s temptation and cranks the dial to 11. there’s to be a big legal hearing the next day and the tension is almost unbearable: if he reaches for the bottle it’s all over red rover .
cowell observes the prevalence of alcohol in australian society but doesn’t seem to be saying it is bad per se, or even that responsibility is the key; the message is more about how, at different points in different lives, moderation may not be a realistic option .
patrick brammall begins the film shaking champagne bottles, popping corks and lapping up liver and sinus damage, but the slick ad man aura evens out into a more broadly accessible character, less jordan belfort, more bloke next door (albeit in a bigger and fancier house, and prone to nasty outbursts). it is a fine performance that finds an endearing middle ground between impressionable chump and spoiled brat .
here, zoya mocks australia for being a land of alcoholics. perhaps this is so, but for a country littered with beer bellies and winos, conspicuously few of our feature films have revolved around thoughtfully written multifaceted principal characters who are alcoholics – usually the heavy drinkers are relegated to the ranting goofballs or sad schleps on the side .
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one of the purest expressions of sydney hedonism yet brought to the screen, this is a bumpy but watchable movie, with patrick brammall​ from offspring bringing the right kind of superficial charm to the lead – though it' s a mystery why cowell didn' t just cast himself, since brammall has virtually the same blokey good looks, she' ll - be - right drawl and little - boy pout .
this unpleasantness is not in itself a flaw. on the contrary, cowell' s willingness to acknowledge the nastier side of human nature gives the film a substance missing from an outwardly similar recent australian comedy, the asinine any questions for ben ?
jake wilson was born in london and grew up in melbourne. he got his start reviewing movies for various websites and has been writing for the age since 2006 .
actor brendan cowell makes his debut as writer - director with a black comedy about going teetotal starring patrick brammall, alex dimitriades and abbey lee .
the dark side of aussie drinking culture is examined in helmer brendan cowell' s entertaining adaptation of his hit play .
patrick brammall, alex dimitriades, abbey lee, harriet dyer, jeremy sims, aaron bertram, brenton thwaites, robyn nevin, jack thompson .
sydney’s stunning natural beauty, chintzy glamour and illicit substance - fueled urban underbelly are memorably captured by d. p. simon harding. visuals are at once a tourist advertisement and a cautionary commentary on the most brash, exciting and superficial australian city. production design by robert cousins gets the vibe of hipster lifestyles and cringingly “groovy” creative industry work spaces just right. all other technical contributions are on the money .
reviewed at sydney film festival (opener), june 3, 2015. running time: 94 min .
production: (australia) a madman entertainment release of a scarlett pictures production in association with screen nsw. (international sales: arclight films, sydney .) produced by kath shelper. executive producers, jonathan duncan, paul wiegard, nick batzias, david gross, brendan cowell, andrea denholm, laura waters .
crew: directed, written by brendan cowell, based on the stage play by cowell. camera (color, hd), simon harding; editor, peter crombie; music, sarah blasko; music supervisor, kim green; production designer, robert cousins; art director, tim webb; costume designer, xanthe heubel; sound (dolby digital), robert sullivan; visual effects, soren dyne; stunt coordinator, dean gould; line producer, belinda mravicic; assistant director, scott lovelock; casting, kirsty mcgregor .
with: patrick brammall, alex dimitriades, abbey lee, harriet dyer, jeremy sims, aaron bertram, brenton thwaites, robyn nevin, jack thompson .
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our complete cockhole is set on a journey towards self - discovery, when he hits a drunken - low and his cut - out - caricature czech - supermodel fiancée (played with a terrible accent by abbey lee) walks out on him. if he can stay sober for a year, she’ll see about coming back. it’s at this point, you realise that cowell expects you to care whether this complete cockhole —a born - into - privilege, ultra - wealthy, ultra - white, private - school - educated, egotistical, entitled, judgmental, self - centred, macho male— can get his life together, and get the girl .
making films about rich cockholes is one thing entirely; but nothing here scans as social commentary, satire, or incisive writing. just because the film’s named after him, the audience is expected to care whether a man who gets whatever he wants gets whatever he wants. at times, this seems accidentally audacious, but, mostly, it plays as utterly clueless .
with a soundtrack blasting hot indie jams (vampire weekend! son lux! war on drugs! twin shadow! haim! holy fuck is that robin pecknold singing joanna newsom? !) and all your favourite teen - movie clichés in tow (house parties! prom! road - trips! a literature teacher reading from a classic novel whose themes reflect the story! that classic scene overlooking the shitty town you’re desperate to leave behind !), paper towns is the latest film to be adapted from john green’s burgeoning ya empire .
it gives us nat wolff as the uptight geek who stays on the straight - and - narrow out of adolescent fear, dutifully working towards that imagined future —30, a doctor, wife - and - two - kids— that will bring him the happiness high - school doesn’t. what does such an uptight white male need to shake him out of the doldrums? why, it’s cara delevingne’s manic pixie dream girl, set to blow through his world in a best - night - of - his - life storm of impulsive whimsy and wa - hey! craziness, only to vanish the next day .
from that very - generic set - up, the story —written for screen by scott neustadter and michael h. weber, who also adapted the fault in our stars, not to mention tim tharp’s the spectacular now — moves from an unconvincing mystery into a far - more - interesting portrait of runamok fantasy and romantic projection. at times, there’s even echoes of the virgin suicides in the way the unknowable, vanished girl is made myth by the absence of facts and the presence of male hormones, her blank canvas leading to gathering obsession .
ultimately, wolff learns his lesson (“what a treacherous thing to believe a person is more than a person, ” he intones, with attendant teenage dramatics), and comes - of - age; he and his nerdlinger pals (austin abrams, justice smith) losing their innocence, sobriety, and virginity, as they prepare to grow up and go their separate ways. it’s run - of - the - mill teen - movie stuff puffed up with a genuine sense of romance and wonder, though lacking any of the subversive qualities that mark the true classics of the genre .
has a fine idea for a film: the sleuth in winter, where the greatest (fictional) detective that ever was, sherlock holmes, finds himself in his 90s, battling with senility; his once magnificent mind now marked by lapses in memory. holmes is played, with gravity, tragedy, and gentle humour by ian mckellan. the actor is reunited with director bill condon (returning to historical character drama after his still - strange stint with the twilight saga finales), with whom he made gods & monsters, another portrait of a great man railing against the indignity of his dying days .
french director david oelhoffen mounts far from men, effectively, as a war - time western. shooting in morocco, his camera situates mortensen and kateb as tiny figures in a vast landscape of red dirt and looming mountains. though buffeted by the elements (including a memorable rainstorm sequence), what they’re really caught in are the winds of change. the duo —one french, one algerian— head cross - country through the crossfire between occupiers and rebels, their status as hostages or allies flip - flopping depending on who points a gun at them .
finds zhang yimou reunited with his old muse gong li, and recapturing the filmmaking form that, in the early - ’90s, marked him as the standout director from china’s fifth generation. his 18th film is a tragic romance loaded with symbolism. it begins amongst the drab, industrial greys of the cultural revolution; where chen daoming has escaped from the labour camp he was sent to for being ‘over - educated’, and, on - the - lam, seeks to return home to ex - wife gong. but his daughter, a ballet prodigy (zhang huiwen), has been raised, in his absence, by communist ideology, and is ready to rat out this ‘enemy of the party’ if he shows his face .
after a fabulously - mounted, deftly edited showdown between husband, wife, daughter, and police at a train station, zhang jumps three years forward. the cultural revolution has suddenly ended, and chen is out of prison, again, this time as a free man. but when he comes face - to - face with the wife he hasn’t seen for 20 years, she is now —with dramatic convenience and symbolic richness— suffering from psychogenic amnesia, and can’t reconcile the man before her with the husband of her memory. zhang uses this to turn the film into a weighty parable: her amnesia china ’s cultural amnesia, this drama embodying the way state - sanctioned horrors are repressed, but never quite forgotten .
screened as a world premiere, brendan cowell' s comic drama starts with an advertising golden boy - his fourth consecutive best ad win in france was for vivid sydney no less - screaming
let' s get smashed
as he celebrates with a party full of women in bikinis at his waterside mansion .
but when he gets injured throwing himself off the roof into the pool at the party, his czech model girlfriend (the excellent abbey lee) heads for the airport and says he can only come for her if he stays off the booze for a year .
but adapting his own play, cowell heads into more complex and substantial territory with a study of how alcohol is at the centre of every family, friend and work relationship, a medium for celebrating and commiserating, in what his ex describes as an alcoholic country .
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nicolas winding refn ‘s female - led horror film the neon demon has found a new star in abbey lee, who’ll join previously cast lead elle fanning. that’s the pretty good news. the really great news is that with her comes a host of new details about the mysterious project. to sum up, this film sounds bonkers in a good way .
deadline got the scoop on lee’s casting, and they also got to reveal some verrrry interesting details about her character sarah. since it’s unclear how exactly these plot points fit into the movie, it’s also unclear if they’re big spoilers or just minor details. consider yourself warned .
in neon demon, she plays a cool ringleader that other girls want to follow. envious, emotionally unstable and a tad delusional, she shows her true maniacal colors in the end. after first creeping jesse out by sucking the blood out of her wound, she ends up killing and later eating jesse to absorb her virginal youth and beauty .
fanning will be playing “an aspiring model who is caught in a world of beauty and demise. ” her character’s name was not given, and we don’t know if she’s jesse .
refn scripted neon demon with mary laws. he’s been rather vague about the plot so far, but here’s what he had to say about it last year :
one morning i woke and realized i was both surrounded and dominated by women. strangely, a sudden urge was planted in me to make a horror film about vicious beauty. after making drive and falling madly in love with the electricity of los angeles, i knew i had to return to tell the story of the neon demon. this movie is a manifestation of the strong ties between us and will lead to many more adventures .
now we have a much better idea of what exactly he means by “vicious beauty. ”
refn is coming off of the indie drama only god forgives, which reunited him with drive star ryan gosling. the neon demon shoots this spring in los angeles. no release date has been set .
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with jurassic world: fallen kingdom now in cinemas, we take a look at how imdb users rated the first four films of the franchise. plus, browse exclusive lego® jurassic world playsets, presented by lego .
jermaine fowler and omari hardwick of sorry to bother you take us back in time to the worst jobs of their careers .
check out our guide to family entertainment, see what imdb editors are watching, and more .
audiences took a good hard look at sydney with this hilarious and moving act of revelation about spiralling high, crashing hard and being taken to aa by your mum .
harry joy, an ad agency exec, dies from a heart attack in his backyard while having dinner with his family .
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while novels have been a longstanding staple of screen material, this year sees an unprecedented number of stage plays translated to film by some of the most established names in theatre .
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written by brendan cowell directed by peter blackburn scenic designer john iacovelli costume designer kate bergh sound designer cricket s. myers lighting designer jared a. sayeg assistant director jackie diamond stage manager rebecca eisenberg assistant stage manager quinn pickering production photography suzanne strong poster photography adrian wlodarczyk publicist lucy pollak cast shane connor, nick hardcastle, david ross paterson, vivienne powell, nathan sapsford, olivia simone, sasha yegorova understudies damian sommerlad & maria volk
with a sterling cast of seasoned performers, director peter blackburn has crafted a very entertaining evening of theatre, with crisp action and powerful emotions and no little amount humor .
( l - r) sasha yegorova, shane connor, vivienne powell, nathan sapsford, david ross paterson and olivia simone .
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this is the one about the alcoholic - but it' s less predictable or painfully emotional and far more entertaining than such a description promises .
as such, it fits nicely into silo theatre' s line - up of comic dramas about young urban scenesters for young urban audiences. and happily, for the most part, australian playwright brendan cowell takes the advice of his own characters: if you want to be a writer, you can' t afford to be earnest. [
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buy tickets $ 17. 50 preview $ 34. 99 general admission $ 50 opening night gala including post show reception june 7 $ 50 to see both shows. to reserve ticket / s you must call (323) 960 - 4443
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guide, hearing and other working dogs are welcome but please advise at time of booking if bringing one to time and leisure studio .
take the opportunity to tread the boards of the studio theatre when you visit our bar, tucked away at the back of the stage .
5 min walk from wimbledon rail, tube (district line & tramlink station). turn left onto the broadway. south wimbledon tube station (northern line) 10min walk
telephone booking: 0844 871 7646 calls cost 7p per minute, plus your phone company' s access charge .
atg continues to make the safety and security of its customers and staff a priority. as such, please bear in mind that we may undertake bag checks, so recommend you leave extra time to avoid queues, and refrain from bringing suitcases rucksacks and large bags into the theatre. many thanks for your cooperation .
the ambassador theatre group limited. registered address: 2nd floor, alexander house, church path, woking, gu21 6ej. company number: 2671052
finalist: marty two bulls sr. , a freelance cartoonist who has drawn for the indian country today media network .
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ruben guthrie is a 2015 australian romantic drama film starring patrick brammall as the title character , with alex dimitriades and abbey lee kershaw in supporting roles . the film was written and directed by brendan cowell , based on his play of the same name . 
ruben guthrie is a 2015 australian romantic drama film starring patrick brammall as the title character, with alex dimitriades and abbey lee kershaw in supporting roles. the film was written and directed by brendan cowell, based on his play of the same name.
ruben guthrie is a 2015 australian romantic drama film starring patrick brammall as the title character, with alex dimitriades and abbey lee kershaw in supporting roles. the film was written and directed by brendan cowell, based on his play of the same name.