Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #107: Jackie (2016).

After John F. Kennedy's fatal trip to Dallas in 1963, US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman) became saluted worldwide for her composure following his assassination. But privately, it was quite another story. After leaving the White House a week later, she agrees to do an interview at her temporary lodgings in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts with a journalist (Billy Crudup) who seeks as delicately as possible to discern just how that tragic November day felt for her and how she handled planning the funeral and consoling her children, Caroline and John Jr., along with her tenure as First Lady leading up to that. Throughout the interview, Mrs. Kennedy asserts her authority over which aspects of it will be either on or off the record.

After his 2012 gem No was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Pablo Larrain seamlessly makes the jump to English-language filmmaking with this riveting portrait of such an iconic figure. Larrain and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim, both of whom weren't even born until the 1970s, collectively nonetheless manage to evoke the mood and aesthetics of 1963 like they'd lived through that era, and when the film explores how the President's and First Lady's roles work inside the White House, the Chilean Larrain demonstrates a sharp understanding of this most American of American landmarks. Oppenheim's screenplay also wisely invokes the lingo of the time and hints at the tradition of etiquette and property First Ladies still have to uphold; at one point Jackie reprimands Robert Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) for swearing. Also at their disposal and benefit are Madeline Fontaine's costumes and Mica Levi's score, both deservedly Oscar-nominated, and Stephane Fontaine's nicely relaxed photography.

But undoubtedly the heart and soul of Jackie is the indomitable Natalie Portman. Herself Oscar-nominated in 2017, Portman spent months preparing for the part, watching footage of White House tours the real Jackie hosted, reading over twenty biographies and studying a recording of the actual interview whose depiction here is used as a framing device (Crudup's journalist was based on Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), and you can tell. She gets everything right, from Jackie's husky vocal cadences to her fashionista swagger to her shattered and shell-shocked private breakdowns. When she gradually removes her make-up and bloodied clothes, Portman reveals how she's also struggling to remove the memory of what she and her nation have just had to endure. The only weakness among her co-stars, too, is the usually reliable Sarsgaard, lazy and uneven as RFK.

Period pieces, especially when they focus on somebody who's been covered to death, can seem thoroughly dull and derivative. Jackie, however, is beautiful and moving because it consciously takes a fresh narrative and visual approach and slowly peels the layers back without feeling contrived. Deeply impressive.

Requiem for rental stores.

This week, the last remaining DVD/Blu-Ray rental store in my city of Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, a Video Ezy outlet, announced it will close this month. That was hardly surprising as the industry's been dying a slow death for years, but as an insatiable consumer it's naturally still lamentable for me. I suppose now I'll soon have no alternative but to this point I've never downloaded films, and I've only downloaded episodes of TV shows on "catch-up" websites after I've missed their broadcasts. Admittedly I'm too impatient to wait for them load, usually, and I've heard stories of viruses and whatnot coming from download sides. Plus, the artists themselves usually don't profit from consumers downloading media (even if certain people only in entertainment for the cash don't either).

But probably the prime reason why I've resisted downloading media for so long is that I just have always preferred the tangibility of having hard copies. I think that's due to my Asperger's preference for being able to truly feel things physically; with a DVD et cetera, you can open it up, flick through the sleeve or booklets, hold the disc in one hand, run your fingers around its edge and so on. Furthermore, having a big collection of hard copies and keeping them together just makes your place really look and feel more inhabited, especially to visitors. More inhabited means more homely; I just don't think you can achieve that with digital copies of movies or shows. Then again, they do consume far less space.

Another pro rental stores offer (or offered) would be the chance to actually go out, socially, and that way grab something to watch, with people to help you and mingle with. With so much addiction to social media and smartphones et cetera now (helpful though both of those phenomena can be), we can't get fully out of the habit of making direct, genuine face-to-face interaction.

But regardless, I digress. All good things, as they say, must come to an end, and the demise of rental stores obviously doesn't mean that of art or physical copies of it. I mean, God knows we can still thankfully buy them. It's just the end of an era, and that's always quite poignant. But I'm sure I'll be able to scoff some gems permanently at their closing-down sale, and while it lasted, it was a pleasure each time. Video Ezy Rockhampton, thank you and vale.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #106: Captain Fantastic (2016).

Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen in his 2016 Oscar-nominated performance) lives with his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) in the Washington wilderness where, disillusioned with contemporary capitalist society, they have raised their six children: Bodevan (George MacKay), Kieylr (Samantha Isler), Vespyr (Annalise Basso), Rellian (Australia's own Nicholas Hamilton), Zaja (Shree Crooks) and Nai (Charlie Shotwell). Ben particularly insists on raising and educating them on a diet of survivalism, philosophy, no technology and leftist politics, including observing Noam Chomsky's birthday as a holiday instead of Christmas. After the bipolar Leslie takes her own life, Ben calls her father Jack (Frank Langella), who threatens to have him arrested if they attend the funeral which defies Leslie's wishes for cremation anyway. Ben initially complies with this but then reneges, leading his brood on a bus road trip into life outside the wilderness. En route, the kids learn a lot about life amidst civilisation as we know it, and Ben is forced to re-evaluate just whether his approach to parenting has benefited them in the long term or not.

Writer-director Matt Ross has here hit upon a most unorthodox premise for a dramedy and infuses it with enough sincerity and wisdom so as to not make it feel like it's trying to be transgressive; instead the result is delightfully infectious and resonant. Ross is clearly familiar with the anarchic content invoked throughout here and shares Ben's enthusiasm for it, but not so much that he's oblivious to the hazards inherent in how it's often embraced. With this insight, he gradually succeeds in exploring the character arcs thoroughly but never becomes didactic. Also helping him here are Stephane Fontaine's evocative cinematography and Alex Somers' nicely New Age score (and the soundtrack also features a surprising and beautiful cover of a certain Guns N' Roses classic).

But undoubtedly the crown jewel here is Viggo Mortensen. In maybe his best performance ever (which I think should've won him the Oscar and yes, I've seen (and hated) Manchester by the Sea), Mortensen puts his very earthy, spiritual quality to impeccable use as he brings Ben from a devotedly nomadic and anarchic paterfamilias to one who comes to discover, from his distant relatives and more so from his kids, just why and how he and they need to move on. That said, Mortensen and Ross still don't let the story completely lose its rabble-rousing initial nature. (And as a devoted long-term The Lord of the Rings fan, Viggo will still always be King Aragorn to me.) Captain Fantastic is, well, fantastic.

Justice Brett and President Donny.

In the same week that saw former America's Dad Bill Cosby's fall from grace culminate in a prison term for sexual assault, Donald Trump has nominated Republican judge Brett Kavanaugh (above) for a position in the Supreme Court. That was obviously great news for Kavanaugh. Until...

  

...three women, Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick (clockwise from above left) stepped forward with allegations that he and some of his peers sexually assaulted them in high school and as students at Yale in the 1980s. Now some might say (whatever their political leanings) these ladies' timing in surfacing with these allegations is suspicious and opportunistic, but to me that reinforces a deep social misunderstanding of why such allegations often take so long to emerge. I won't muse on whether or not I think Kavanaugh is guilty because I'm trying to make this objective (and university hazing rituals et cetera existed long before his time anyway), but just as with the Cosby cases among others, it emphasises just how much of a victim (as much as I hate that word)-sharing culture we've become, especially for women. That's not just hateful but really plain cynical, and enough is enough.

Furthermore, Kavanaugh ironically also helped to draft the 1998 Starr Report which led to the Clinton impeachment, and now of course he's embroiled in an internationally-covered sex scandal of his own. And giving him his Supreme Court nomination was President Trump, who before his election in 2016 also faced numerous accusations of sexual misconduct. Need I say more?

In any case, young aspiring politicians and legal eagles from all sides should watch this scandal closely, and use it as a cautionary tale: be careful what you do on campus, because it may not permanently stay there.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #105: Bright Star (2009).

In 1818 London, the romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) inhabits one half of a cottage with his rakish friend and patron Charles Brown (Paul Schneider). In the other half lives Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) with her widowed mother (Kerry Fox) and two younger siblings (Thomas Sangster and Edie Martin). Brown consider the flamboyant Fanny a distraction to Keats and his work, with her feisty willingness to speak her mind. But upon their first meeting it's love at first sight, which just keeps mounting until illness interferes tragically.

Bright Star couldn't possibly be further away from my usual cinematic taste (indeed when I went to see this I was expecting to be bored shitless but was pleasantly surprised), but just as with her Oscar-winning 1993 masterpiece The Piano, writer-director Jane Campion miraculously took me on a powerful journey with this most unashamed of period romantic dramas. Based on the actual love letters between Brawne and Keats and his celebrated poetry, Campion very sincerely and empathetically traces their romance from their introduction until its inevitably star-crossed conclusion which she handles delicately enough. At her command also is her The Piano collaborator Janet Patterson's period design which feels utterly authentic and evocative throughout, and Greig Fraser's nicely calm cinematography.

And as you'd expect from somebody who'd previously directed two Oscar-winning performances from the same movie, Campion helps her actors all outdo themselves here. Whishaw (who, ironically, in reality is now openly gay) shows strong balance and convincing passion as Keats, and Schneider is effective in his semi-comic relief part. But undoubtedly the prime reason to watch Bright Star is Abbie Cornish, who faced the hardest challenge here with her key emotional scenes but ultimately made it look like such a cinch. She will break your heart and leave you speechless.

This Bright Star is exactly that. No less.

Berry bad news for Australian fruit farmers.

For nearly a week now as you might know, Australia has been in the midst of a very peculiar scandal. No, a dingo hasn't taken a baby again. And no, a teenager hasn't emerged again from her boyfriend's cupboard after being missing for several years. Rather, nationwide we have seen some person or most likely group inserting sewing needles into numerous brands of our commercially-sold strawberries. I'm actually (carefully) eating some for lunch as I compose this post. I'm sorry to say it started in my state, Queensland, last weekend, and now as I said it's gone around the country. (Personally, my suspicion is on blueberry farmers being the culprits.)

But as I'm tryphanophobic (afraid of needles), that's where my jokes end here. Now, I'm not condoning the actions of those responsible at all, but they clearly made the smartest possible choice of fruit for their plan. Strawberries are small, soft and squishy and therefore absolutely anybody could poke something sharp through them for a bit of "fun." Apples for example, on the other hand, are big, solid and have an unmissable core; there's no way you'd get a needle through one of them, and they only grow in the coldest parts of Australia anyway.

When I bought my latest punnet this week at Woolworths, they'd actually had to erect a notice above the berries ensuring customers they were safe to buy and advising us nonetheless to cut them up before eating them (which I just did, by the way). Six brands are known to have been affected: Berry Licious, Berry Obsession, Donnybrook, Love Berry, Delightful Strawberries and Oasis. It's since even reportedly spread today to needles being found in mangoes (which I hate, but no, I had no responsibility there). I'm sure this crisis has already started to hurt Australia's fruit farmers, who were already coping with widespread drought.

So let's everybody do what we can to stick by them. Society has never survived without farmers, so it is the least we can do, and it reflects the great Australian tradition of mateship. If you can eat them, stock up on the strawberries you can find. Besides, they're incredibly yummy and (sans needles) as healthy as hell.