Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #135: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).

In this third part of his Mexico Trilogy after El Mariachi (1992) and Desperado (1995), Mexican modern-day outlaw El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is recruited by the CIA's Sheldon Sands (Johnny Depp) to kill Mexican drug lord Armando Barillo (Willem Dafoe), who is plotting a coup d'etat against the Mexican President (Pedro Armendariz, Jr.). Simultaneously, El Mariachi takes a quest of revenge against Emiliano Marquez (Gerardo Vigil), a corrupt general who murdered his wife Carolina (Salma Hayek) and their daughter years earlier. Thrown into the mix are several other Rodriqguez regulars like Danny Trejo and Ruben Blades as characters whose connections to El Mariachi, Barillo and Marquez eventually and secretively come to the fore.

Now, I haven't actually seen this movie's two predecessors but despite that I had no trouble following it and even less trouble having fun with it. If you've seen Sin City (2005), The Faculty (1998) or even his Spy Kids trilogy (2001-2003), you'd know Rodriquez is an unashamedly maverick filmmaker with a very slam-bang aesthetic and narrative approach. He has made some missteps, namely the Spy Kids sequels, but here we have him at his ferociously rollicking best. Alongside writing and directing, Rodriguez shot, edited and even scored this one as he often does, and the gleeful energy and consistent attention to detail he subsequently invests into it should wrap a persistent grin on every action or Western fan's face, as it does on mine.

Here you'll also find some genuinely witty, nuanced dialogue like "Are you a Mexi-CAN, or a Mexi-CAN'T?" Rodriguez as well invokes well-chosen locations and imagery to offer, underneath all the blood-soaked action, raunchiness and swearing, an honest but affectionate image of contemporary Mexico. And then there's an unforgettably slick scene involving a guitar case and a staircase. Once Upon a Time in Mexico is convoluted, relentless, dynamic and all around just a literally explosively good time.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #134: Before the Flood (2016).

Leonardo DiCaprio, one-time King of the World and Best Actor Oscar winner, has also been a high-profile environmental activist for over a decade now. He teamed with Fisher Stevens, director of the Oscar-winning 2009 anti-dolphin-hunting documentary The Cove, to make this 2016 doco for National Geographic about climate change and despite my concern about that issue, the results here for me are very mixed.

DiCaprio and Stevens have proven their sincerity in caring for the natural world, but I think they quite gravely miscalculated in how they approached this documentary. The key problem I had was DiCaprio's appearing on screen here. I consider him a tremendous actor and I understand if they felt his appearing on camera would make the film more marketable but I simply found the degree of his presence on screen here, particularly with all his famous movie roles, very distracting from the content. Subsequently it ultimately became for me more of a promotion of his own activism. I think had he just produced it, the film would've had a far stronger emotional and intellectual impact, and it would've still had his name attached for marketing. It doesn't help that Fisher insists on invoking so many too-familiar visual and audio tropes, like TV weather reports and downbeat piano music. That eventually had me yawning.

Overall, its heart is absolutely in the right place but its brains are not. I say stick to An Inconvenient Truth or the works of Michael Moore instead.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #133: Sando (2018-).

Victoria "Sando" Sandringham (Sacha Horler) has had a poor recent history - albeit through entirely her own fault. She was the "Package Deal Queen" of discount furniture retail, until it was revealed on her daughter Susie's (Krew Boylan) wedding day that Sando had fallen pregnant to her would-be son-in-law Kevin (Firass Dirani) and then most of her family disowned her. When the story broke publicly, her company went bankrupt and she never recovered. Now ten years later, Sando has to return to Susie's house (for a very temporary stays, as Susie thinks) and get her career back on the rails with her family's help. The only one of them who still loves her, however, is her illegitimate son Eric (Dylan Hesp), who's a try-hard, aspiring stand-up comic with a Star Wars fetish.

This blisteringly funny Aussie family comedy that debuted last year is also a mercilessly brazen satire of Australian suburbia and business culture. Creators Phil Lloyd (who also plays Sando's cowed ex-husband Don) and Charlie Garber have hit on a very timely concept whose protagonist does feel like a disgraced, female Gerry Harvey (co-founder of real-life Australian furniture retail chain Harvey Norman), and the show could serve as a cautionary tale for such people. Indeed, it could arguably even reflect high-profile Australian business collapses like those of ABC Learning or HIH Insurance. Lloyd, Garber and their fellow writers also maintain the laughs with consistently sharp dialogue and relatable character dynamics and themes.

But undoubtedly, the main source of entertainment here is the dynamite cast. Horler (a last-minute replacement for Genevieve Morris, who had to withdraw due to an injury; she's thanked in every episode's credits) is so ideal because she so sincerely conveys that really perverse charm and persistence you expect in a salesperson or retail CEO, and also does make us believe Sando is a woman who does want the best for her family also; she just never thinks through how she interacts with them. Boylan portrays Susie's perennial anger towards her mother and Kevin (and borderline hatred for most of the others) with relish, Lloyd (who previously played Tim Matheson in the series At Home with Julia about Julia Gillard) is effective as the empty husk Don, and YouTube comedian Hesp, although therefore hardly challenged in his role, makes Eric into a very relatable dweeb. Sando, for me, suffice it to say, was the highlight of 2018 in television.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #132: Backbeat (1994).

Before the Beatles conquered the world like no other band before or since, the Fab Four were the Quarrymen and they were really five. Original bass guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe, John Lennon's best friend at school, played with them at the Cavern Club in Liverpool but his first love was visual art. He had tensions with Paul McCartney but before they could cost him dearly, he died of a brain haemorrhage in 1962, aged just 21. The 1994 movie Backbeat beautifully explores his relationship with fellow artist Astrid Kircherr in Liverpool and Hamburg, and the role he played in the biggest group in music history.

Right from the first frames, Backbeat is naturally crammed with rock and roll and its English predecessor skiffle (you'll hear songs from Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Eddie Cochran and Little Richard among others), and debut director Iain Softley's affection for those genres and the era from whence they came permeates every scene infectiously. He co-wrote the screenplay with Stephen Ward and their treatment of their heroes, however, is far from sugarcoated. Softley and Ward aren't afraid to show them warts-and-all; they're obscene, hard-living and frequently volatile with each other in true rock fashion. Also absent here are the common knowing biopic references (i.e. a teenage Lennon in 2009's Nowhere Boy walking past a house named Strawberry Field) which are amusing only to a point. Softley's visualisation feels authentically grimy yet vibrant because it conveys the sense of escape which contemporary music offered postwar English youth, and he approaches the performance scenes with sincere vigour. Most importantly, though, Softley and his cast all approach these characters with real patience and objectivity; even Paul McCartney himself, despite criticising the film overall, called Stephen Dorff's portrayal of Sutcliffe "astonishing." (However, Pete Best, Julian Lennon, Sutcliffe's sister Pauline and the real Kircherr have all praised it.) Now, I wouldn't praise it quite that highly, but Dorff is nonetheless convincing. Ian Hart and Sheryl provide worthwhile support respectively as John and Astrid.

Stuart Sutcliffe may have been cruelly denied unprecedented fame and fortune, but not immortality. Backbeat has helped to give him that, and it does him and his place in the Beatles's history absolute justice.

Israel's posts and their Folau.

Australia's Nation Rugby League has seen many off-field scandals in recent years, but none before have been anything like that which New South Wales Waratah Israel Folau has created this week. A staunchly devout Christian, Folau has had his rugby contract officially torn up over this Instagram post:

The game's governing body, Rugby Australia, upon reaching their decision posted this in response:

Flawless reply, I think. Now, I want to be very clear that I do respect Folau's beliefs even if I don't share them (and no pun intended there, given this is about social media activity), but his manner of expressing them online has changed, to my disappointment. For example, before Australia's 2017 marriage equality plebiscite he Tweeted this:

To my mind, although I disagreed with that stance and still do, that was considerately and maturely expressed. This latest post was just the opposite and today, a Tweet from journalist and comedian Adam Spencer involving Folau has gone viral. Seeing why isn't hard: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1116122986833014786?fbclid=IwAR3G-_-BGSUyl0EnHfpKl6xZ1ol1bjVCjZvmVIIRMtfM0GpcdnSwD5Q5SFA.

But my main lingering thought about this is how, with or without his faith, Folau is a black man and thus could encounter racism at any moment, but still feels free to spout all this homophobia. Hatred and bigotry have many forms, but the essence of them all- the feelings and emotions they inspire - are identical. This isn't even the second time Folau has ruffled feathers with his religious social media posts, either, so you'd think he would've learnt his lesson. Or maybe he just prioritises his faith higher than his game and if so, I don't understand why he keeps at the latter.

Some thoughts as Australia returns to the polls - especially regarding Peter Dutton.

Australia's 2019 federal election has been called this week for 19 May. It will be the third of four FEs with a prime minister contesting their first election from that office (Scott Morrison follows Malcolm Turnbull and Julia Gillard), and that reinforces just how many leadership changes we've had this decade. Both the afore-mentioned federal elections, in 2016 and 2010 respectively, resulted in hung parliaments and I do not want a repeat of that, but frankly I think that will happen. But I digress. Since yesterday my point of preoccupation with this election has been just one man, who I'm ashamed to say is from my otherwise awesome state of Queensland: so-called "Liberal" Member for Dickson and Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton.

Yesterday, Dickhead - sorry Dutton - suggested in a Tweet that his Labor rival in Dickson, Ali France, who has an amputated leg, was using her disability as an excuse for not living in their electorate. (Ms. France has been inhabiting the neighbouring electorate and claims to have been looking for a more disability-friendly house in Dickson.) If anything that is just an explanation. Besides, the seat of Dickson is in Brisbane and Dutton resides in a mansion on the Gold Coast, which Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek has nailed him to the wall by emphasizing. I already hated Dutton because of his record on other social issues but as an Australian with a neurological disability, this abhorrent accusation truly made that hatred personal. Today he has added insult to injury with a laughably insincere apology on Twitter, and not even a video Tweet.

Ali France.

This is a man who boycotted the 2008 parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations, has overseen countless human rights violations in offshore detention centres, voted against marriage equality, supports Australia retaining its English head of state and has now made this reprehensible claim. Whichever party wins on 18 May, I currently hope Dutton is the first MP to lose their seat - and that the door smacks him on the arse on the way out.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #131: Better Man (2013).

In 2002, 22-year-old Vietnamese Australian Van Tuong Nguyen, in a last-ditch effort to pay his twin brother Khoa's debts off, took a job as a drug courier which landed him on death row in Singapore after he was caught smuggling half a kilogram of heroin there. Three years later, he was hanged.

The 2013 Australian TV mini-series Better Man superbly traces his tragic story, from his experiences growing up with Khoa and their single mother Kim whose husband had left her while pregnant to his eventual fate and presents a semi-fictional but very authentic coverage of what may have happened in between. Writer-director Khoa Do does a commendably objective, compassionate and unflinching job of recreating Nguyen's story, but his instincts proved most successful in the remarkable casting. In the hugely challenging lead role, Remy Hii is just breathtaking: as we see Van from massive highs to the deepest lows, Hii is vibrant, cherubic, dangerously angry, relatably desparate and finally heartbreaking. Hii deservedly won a Logie Award for his work. As Nguyen's real-life lawyers Lex Lasry and Julian McMahon, Bryan Brown and David Wenham bring a grounding gravitas to the piece,  Do's mother Hien Nguyen fits her role like a glove and Jordan Rodrigues convincingly brings the character here with the most important and obvious arc to life.

Better Man was a controversial project for Australia's Special Broadcasting Service because it was made against the Nguyen family's wishes and the real Lasry called it an "untruthful soap opera." I also knew clearly how it would end because the case was headline national news for about a month when I was in Year 12. But nonetheless, it had me genuinely gripped from the first episode until the end of the fourth and final one, and still does. I should mention, however, that during the final episode SBS aired a warning just before the final scene, which was definitely warranted. Better Man, for me, was television's crowning achievement in 2013 and is one of its highlights of this whole decade.