Rad - Watch - DVDs, Movies, TV Shows
WATCH is TwoThousand's guide to movies in Sydney. While we focus on art-house and independent releases, we never shun our secret pop-culture pleasures. WATCH also has its fingers on the pulse of film-festivals and specially programmed events and we give tickets away every week. We have also been known to organise special preview screenings, which we always chicken out of introducing on the microphone before the previews start playing.
The Men Who Stare At Goats
This shaggy comedy is very loosely based on an incredible true story: the US Army's secret elite squad of Jedi-like psychic warriors. It's pretty much an excuse for Oscar-nominated actors to clown about like doofuses. Actually, I've always preferred George Clooney's wild-eyed slapstick (Burn After Reading, O Brother Where Art Thou?) to his suave or serious roles.
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Sporadically lovable, commonly tedious: Python nerds the world over have done a lot to ruin the reputation of the comedy troupe's oeuvre. The constant recitation of bon mots and choruses have done more to keep people away from the films than any charges of blasphemy or consequent bannings.
But, suspending cynicism, think back to the first time you watched The Life of Brian: of the lisping Biggus Dickus; the poignant idiocy of the conflicting Peoples' Front of Judea and the Judean Peoples' Front; the ineffective Simon the Holy Man; the imploring request of "how should we fuck off, my Lord?"; the cameo from George Harrison; and of Stan's womb envy.
Fantastic Mr Fox
I was dubious about Wes Anderson's take on Roald Dahl's darkly gleeful caper about a cheeky fox who steals from three awful farmers. But Anderson's mannered directorial trademarks work well with the stop-motion animation. There are funny sight gags and quotable lines aplenty, including perhaps the best thing anyone's ever said to Jarvis Cocker in years: "That was a bad song.
The French Kissers
France's answer to American Pie - Tarte Française, perhaps? - is adorable, excruciating fun, with a much more edgy indie feel than its trans-Atlantic counterpart. Director Riad Sattouf is a comic-book illustrator whose best-known work is The Secret Life of Youth, and his debut film's original French title was Beautiful Kids.
Speakeasy Cinema
Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan was a saloon keeper, actress and entrepreneur. Having made her silent film debut in The Wildcat, she took advantage of Prohibition in New York by opening a speakeasy called the 300 Club in a basement on 54th Street. She earned $700,000 in ten months in 1926 selling drinks to George Gershwin, Reggie Vanderbilt and Walter Chrysler.
Chauvel Cinemateque
Where can you see gay cowboys, Godard and a disturbed, drum wielding child frolicking together in the sunny springtime of October? The Chauvel of course. Their Cinematheque program continues into October with a deliciously idiosyncratic selection of films from the 60s and 70s to wile the warm Monday nights away.
Valentino: The Last Emperor
I always thought Valentino was his surname, so clearly I had much to learn about Signor Garavani. Luckily, Matt Tyrnauer's very funny documentary paints an intimate portrait of this wizened Oompa-Loompa as he prepares to celebrate 45 years in haute couture. Valentino's lavish 2007 knees-up turns out to have been his swan song - he retired in 2008, leaving his eponymous label in corporate hands.
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