Planet According to the Movies: Awesome, Weird and Wonderful Flicks FromFour Corners of the Globe

216 Pages·2016·1.44 MB·English

by  Marc Fennell

Marc Fennell has another name. It’s That Movie Guy. Each week two million
triple j listeners are subjected to Marc’s pithy — some might say bitchy —
reviews on the ABC’s national youth broadcaster, making him Australia’s Most
Listened-to Film Critic™. An achievement he celebrated by buying himself a
choc-top and watching Armageddon for the 12th glorious time. Marc is also the
face of film for SBS. He introduces movies from around the world each night
and hosts events like Tropfest. Marc’s first publishing effort, That Movie Book,
sold sufficiently well in a contracting print market to justify a second book —
and so here we are.
In his spare time Marc is also an award-winning journalist. He’s the host of
Radio National’s technology program Download This Show and anchor of SBS’s
current affairs program The Feed. In a career spanning the BBC, Network Ten,
Foxtel and basically every part of the ABC this side of Playschool, Marc has
interviewed all sorts: from Julian Assange to Will Smith.
If none of this is ringing a bell you might also remember Marc as the curly
haired 19-year-old who presented on SBS’s 2004 post-Pomeranzian reboot of
The Movie Show. He was also a presenter and producer for all three seasons of
ABC1’s ground-breaking Hungry Beast under executive producer/criminal
mastermind Andrew Denton.
Marc is currently ranked 3rd in the world in the sport of referring to himself
in the third person but looks forward to taking out frontrunners Kanye West and
Kevin Rudd in the coming months.
Praise for That Movie Book by Marc Fennell ‘Witty, irreverent and fun . . .’
Good Reading ‘Gold!’
Cleo
‘A film companion with a difference’
Daily News

DEDICATION
Let there be no doubts: all of the good bits in this book
were actually written by my brilliant wife, Madeleine Genner.
Much like how all of the good bits of my life are because of you.
To Max, yes, Daddy can come play now.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Introduction
1. Iceland is not real but actually a mythical land of aliens, elves and
the Japanese
2. New Zealand: land of many horrific (non-sheep) monsters
3. Great Britain: in need of a monarch better than Prince Charles
4. Indonesia did it better
5. The odd world of international dubbing
6. And they all died happily ever after: messed up filmic fairytales
7. The heroic bloodshed of Hong Kong
8. International Deathmatch: Sword fight
9. Japan: humans vs. terrifying stuffed animals (whoever wins, we
also win)
10. The hunt for the foulest mouth in Scotland
11. Vancouver: the mysterious case of the disappearing Canadian city
12. Australia: land of the world’s hardest accent
13. Errol Flynn
14. Cardinal sin: a beginner’s guide to Vatican City
15. The unhandleable truth of Guantanamo Bay
16. International Deathmatch: African dictators
17. The nations least accurately captured by Disney
18. Vagueistan: fake countries most in need of existing
19. Italy: for a few lira more — spaghetti westerns
20. Kim Jong-Il’s (actual) favourite movies
21. How Germany invented horror movies, vampire movies and sci-fi
movies. All of the things, basically.
22. International Deathmatch: The zombocalypse
23. Afghanistan: the world’s battlefield
24. The scene of the Argentine crime
25. Isabel Sarli: Argentina’s sex queen
26. Greatest ever Bollywood action stars (ranked by their hair)
27. International Deathmatch: Spy-off
28. Royston Tan: Singapore’s most dangerous filmmaker
29. The many troubles of Ireland
30. The united preachers of America
31. Ancient Egpyt: the myth, the moronic and the most inaccurate
32. Soviet film
33. Vietnam: the war that never ends
34. International Deathmatch: Fictitious space programs
35. Israel vs. Palestine: the movie(s)
36. Strange taste: which nation has the most surprising movie
delicacies?
37. Stuck in the middle of the ocean with you
38. Antarctica: bye bye ice caps, we’ll miss you
Acknowledgements
Also by Marc Fennell
Index of films
Index of directors
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
Our planet is a stunning cornucopia of food, natural beauty, breathtaking man-
made wonders and other things you can Instagram. It’s also an equally stunning
cornucopia of jetlag, crotch sweat, inaccurate maps, self-destructing shoes,
tastebud-repellent airline food, things that don’t fit in overhead storage, and
things that for some reason traveller’s insurance never seems to cover.
Travel is actually terrible. Here’s my advice: let’s not and say we did. Better
still, allow movies to do your travelling for you. Put your feet up, close the
blinds (natural sunlight, ugh) and pour yourself a tall glass of Pina Colada
Singapore Sling Long Island Ice Tea Kava Plum Wine Happy Funtime Juice.
You, my friend, are about to experience the entire globe through the utterly
infallible eyes of cinema.
Inside this extremely pleasing book you’ll find entertaining and compelling
movies from all around the planet, and you’ll get a sense of how different
cultures and countries have influenced filmmaking throughout history. Did you
know that post-World War I Germany inadvertently created the horror movie or
that Iceland is not real but actually a mythical land of aliens, elves and the
Japanese?
Each chapter examines what movies have to say about a particular nation.
For example, Vietnam has been overwhelmingly defined by the Vietnam War
while Scotland seems to be mostly famous for its people’s prolific artisanal
swearing. There’s also chapters dedicated to countries that have gifted us with
entire film genres like Hong Kong’s Heroic Bloodshed action movies or Italian
spaghetti westerns. Some chapters are serious while others involve movies with
6-foot men in styrofoam calamari suits. Discover movies you never realised
existed and the stories you never knew behind the movies you love.
Interspersed throughout are ‘International Death-matches’ where different
nations are pitted against each other to see, say, which nation has the best
swordsmen? (ahem, Japan) or which country produces the best spies?
(categorically: The Philippines. Why? You’ll just have to read it to find out), or
which movie monarch would make a better king than Prince Charles?
There is one thing I’d like you to note: this is the sort of book you agree to
write, sign the contract, cash the advance and then — and only then — does it
occur to you, ‘Wait, isn’t this a little bit racist?’
The answer is no.
It is extremely racist.
Yes, we’re basically taking select nations of the earth and then reducing
them down to a handful of thematic threads that run through generally decent
films. Some threads are thin. Some are so thick they’re almost straws to clutch
at. All of the movies, however, are worth talking about, and definitely worth
watching.
Just remember that each of the nations featured here is as rich, varied,
complex and banal as your beloved home country. And please recognise that
while cinema sometimes does do a very good impression of reality, it most
certainly is not that.
Disclaimer over. Please now enjoy a deeply imperfect, subjective, porous
and yes, a little bit racist, guide to Planet Earth as curated by me: an author who
spends his advance first and asks questions later.
ICELAND IS NOT REAL BUT
ACTUALLY A MYTHICAL LAND OF
ALIENS, ELVES AND THE
JAPANESE
Science, Bjork and maps would have you believe that Iceland is a real place. But
it’s not. It’s a country so ancient, so raw, so unforgiving, so magical, so
unearthly that it clearly exists as a parallel dimension gateway accessible only by
making a pact with Satan or Harvey Weinstein.
In truth, Iceland is one of the youngest countries on earth (only 16 to 18
million years old). In geothermal terms it’s still in the most tortuous stage of
puberty. Hence the unexpected boners of stone rising from the depths of an
indigo sea, the awkward grinding intercourse of glacier on volcanic rock, the
cracked lava fields of geological menstruation. Yes, I have really pushed the
metaphor to the limits.
Actor Gerard Butler once said of Iceland, ‘There is something very primal
just in the geology and look of the place and something inexplicable that affects
me when I stand there. There is stuff that you never see anywhere else.’ Mind
you, this comes from an interview with The News of the World so he could’ve
just been leaving a voicemail for his travel agent.
For a land frequently covered in pristine snow, Icelandic native film culture
is often blackly hilarious. Noi the Albino is a standout — here a bored teenager
stuck on an isolated fjord quasi-concocts a half-arsed plan to rob his one-horse
town’s only bank. And for sheer poetic beauty (and a really good backdrop to
your next acid trip) the concert film Heima (or Home) sees the band Sigur Rós
playing their brand of cinematic emotional rock in small-town locations around
the country. It’s breathtaking.