Next screening "Animal Kingdom"

Thursday 7th April 2011

6.30pm pre-screening drinks and nibbles

7.00pm film screens

Animal Kingdom

****.5 stars Australian film

Celebrating the recent Oscars and the nomination of Australian film industry stalwart,  Jacki Weaver, Reels at Wehl, is screening 'Animal Kingdom'.

ANIMAL KINGDOM is a powerful psychological crime drama that tells the story of a tense battle between a dangerous criminal family and the police.

Armed robber Pope Cody (BEN MENDELSOHN) is in hiding, on the run from a gang of renegade detectives who want him dead. His business partner and best friend, Barry 'Baz' Brown (JOEL EDGERTON), wants out of the game, recognising that their days of old-school banditry are all but over. Pope's younger brother, the speed-addicted and volatile Craig Cody (SULLIVAN STAPLETON), is making a fortune in the illicit substances trade - the true cash cow of the modern criminal fraternity - whilst the youngest Cody brother, Darren (LUKE FORD), naively navigates his way through this criminal world - the only world his family has ever known.

Awards

World Cinema Jury prize at Sundance

Oscar nomination best actress

Reviews

****.5 stars. The revelation here is JACKI WEAVER, always a fine actor but seldom revealing the depths of character she does here. All the performances are superb, down to the small parts. ABC's David & Margaret  'At the Movies'

Most countries do not define themselves by their criminals, but most countries were not established as dumping grounds for the poor and criminal classes either. The hatreds go back a long way. In a sense, there's a direct line between the shootout at Glenrowan in 1880 – when the Kelly gang and the cops attempted to settle things their own way – and the events of Animal Kingdom, an extraordinarily tense, menacing film set in a Melbourne crime family in the recent past.

Animal Kingdom is cinema, not television. The difference is subtle but significant. There is more unsaid, more told by the camera rather than dialogue and more time to develop ideas in the script.

No one will accuse this film of romanticising criminals but nor does it allow us to see them simply as beasts.

The title carries a second inference: we all live in the same jungle. The Age

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/animal-kingdom-20100604-xipy.html

Classification: MA
Duration: 113 mins
Genre: Drama
Director: David Michod
Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton, James Frecheville
Producer: Liz Watts
Screenplay: David Michod
Distributor: Madman
Language: English
Country: Australia

Trailer http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2899467.htm

Next screening "Departures"

Thursday 24 February 2011

6.30pm pre-screening drinks & nibbles  |  7.00pm film screens

"Departures" is a story of love, of discovery, of revelation and of the transcending human spirit, "Departures" will linger in your heart and mind long after viewing.

Academy Award® Winner for Best Foreign Language Film of the year, "Departures" is a delightful and sensitive journey into the heartland of Japan and an astonishingly beautiful look at a sacred part of Japan's cultural heritage.

A premiere symphony orchestra in Tokyo disbands, leaving Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) suddenly unemployed.  Suffering from an innate sense that he is a mediocre musician, he faces up to the fact that not everyone who has devoted their life to music can become a top artist. With wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) in tow, he moves back to his home town in the northeastern prefecture of Yamagata.  They move into the crumbling remains of his mother’s house, which doubled as the local pub. 

Spotting a Help Wanted ad featuring the word “departures,” he is excited about the prospect of trying a new career in the travel industry.  He arrives for the interview, curiously eyeing the coffins lining the back wall of the office.  The company owner, Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), hires him on the spot, with only a cursory glance at his resume. Daigo finally ventures to ask what is involved, exactly, and is stunned to learn what he has gotten himself into: the ceremonial “encoffination” of corpses prior to cremation.  Sasaki urges him to take the job, proffering large amounts of cash.  He’s getting older, and needs someone to carry on the tradition.

In desperate straits, Daigo overcomes his initial trepidation and begins to travel around Hirano with Sasaki. Sasaki is comically matter-of-fact but firm in his directives and the contention that they are providing an important service to their community.   Some cases are markedly traditional, featuring beatific family members in time-honored transition.  Others highlight family dramas fraught with inevitable collisions, eased into unexpected conclusion.  True to Sasaki’s expectations, Daigo develops a deep respect for life in all its variations, and a profound empathy for people trying to make peace with the finality of death.

Too embarrassed to tell his wife about his conversation-stopping profession and admit that he has fallen in love with the townsfolk, Daigo vainly tries to keep his new life secret. As their relationship hangs in the balance, the big question is how he’s going to react to surprising news she brings, as an encoffineer, as a husband, as a son and as a human being.   It is Daigo’s turn to deal with life and death among the people who are dearest to him.

Trailer and more information

http://www.departures-themovie.com/

Rated M

Japanese language English subtitles

I am Love (lo sono l'amore)

Special Valentine's Day screening, Monday 14th February 2011

6.30pm pre-screening champagne & chocolates to celebrate Valentine's Day

7.00pm film screens

A film festival favourite, winning numerous international awards "I am Love" is a film not to be missed on the big screen.

“A cinematic tour de force.” New York Times

****1/2  Margaret Pomeranz ****  David Stratton, ABC's At the Movies

I Am Love tells the story of the wealthy Recchi family, whose lives are undergoing sweeping changes. Eduardo Sr., the family patriarch, has decided to name a successor to the reins of his massive industrial company, and in so doing, surprises everyone by splitting power between his son Tancredi and grandson Edo. However, Edo dreams of opening a restaurant with his friend Antonio, a talented chef. At the heart of Tancredi’s family is his wife, Emma (Tilda Swinton), a Russian immigrant who has adopted the culture of Milan. An adoring and attentive mother, Emma’s existence is shocked to the core when she falls deeply in love with Antonio and pursues a passionate love affair that will change his family forever.

Trailers and extra information: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBrWVvn9xA

http://www.iamlovemovie.com/

Italian with English subtitles

Rated M15+

 

Next screening "Le Concert"

"Le Concert (The Concert")

Thursday 13 January 2011

6.30pm pre-screening drinks & nibbles

7.00pm film screens

Opening at #1 at the French cinema box-office, The Concert is pure entertainment - a warm-hearted, joyous story filled with great wit and humanity. The stirring finale set against Tchaikovsky's Concerto is simply magnificent. You'll walk out of this film feeling great.

A celebrated conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra, was fired 20 years ago for hiring Jewish musicians but reforms his orchestra to play in Paris ...

During the Brezhnev era, Andrei Filipov was a prodigy - the greatest conductor in the Soviet Union and he directed the famous Bolshoi Orchestra. But after refusing to expel his Jewish musicians, including his best friend Sacha, he was fired at the height of his glory. Thirty years later, he is still working at the Bolshoi, but... as a cleaner.When Andrei intercepts a fax from the Theatre du Chatelet inviting the Bolshoi Orchestra to Paris, he comes up with a crazy idea: he'll gather up his old musician friends (now working rag-tag jobs), head to Paris and pretend to be the famed orchestra to play Tchaikovsky's "Violin Concerto." The long-awaited dream to deliver one final performance!



Thursday 13 January 6.30pm



"An intelligent, perfectly mixed blend of comedy and drama that is emotionally satisfying on every level: the music, top-notch performances from a stellar cast and a sharp, incisive script."

Rated M

119 minutes

Language – French

Country of Origin – France/Russia

 

Christmas party and screening "Soul Kitchen"

Reels Members and Guests' Christmas Party

Thursday 2nd December 2010
6.30pm Christmas drinks and special nibbles
7.30pm "Soul Kitchen"

Join us for the Reels @ Wehl Christmas party, where Christmas cheer will abound with champagne, wine and special nibbles. A cheerful, feelgood film about food, love and family will screen afterwards.

Soul Kitchen

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans… (John Lennon)

Soul Kitchen is about family and friends, about love, trust and loyalty and about the struggle to protect a place called home in an increasingly unpredictable world.

**** Margaret ****1/2 David

WINNER SPECIAL JURY PRIZE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2009

WINNER GOLDEN GNOME AUDIENCE AWARD, GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA 2010

WINNER C.I.C.A.E. PRIZE HAMBURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2009

Synopsis

Young restaurant owner Zinos is down on his luck. His girlfriend Nadine has moved to Shanghai, his Soul Kitchen customers are boycutting the new gourmet chef, and he’s having back trouble! Things start looking up when the hip crowd embraces his revamped culinary concept, but that doesn’t mend Zinos’s broken heart. He decides to fly to China for Nadine, leaving the restaurant in the hands of his unreliable ex-con brother Illias. Both decisions turn out disasterous: Illias gambles away the restaurant to a shady real estate agent and Nadine has found a new lover! But brothers Zinos and Illias might still have one last chance to get Soul Kitchen back if they can stop arguing and work together as a team.

"Soul Kitchen is cheerful, wild, colourful … thoroughly enjoyable" David Stratton, At the Movies

"Feelgood comedy" The Age

 Trailer

http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2875039.htm

Read the full story on the making of Soul Kitchen

http://www.sharmillfilms.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/SOULKITCHEN_PR.pdf

Country of Origin: Germany
Language: German w/English subtitles
Duration: 99 minutes
Rating: MA
Director: Fatih Akin
Featuring: Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu, Birol Unel

Next screening "Van Dieman's Land"

Thursday 18 November 2010

The true story of Australia's most notorious convict, Alexander Pearce

Hunger is a strange silence

**** David Stratton, ABC's At the Movies

The true story of Australia's most notorious convict, Alexander Pearce and his infamous escape into the beautiful yet brutal Tasmanian wilderness.

A point of no return for convicts banished from their homeland, Van Diemen's Land was a feared and dreaded penal settlement at the end of the earth. The entrance to its remote station of secondary punishment, Macquarie Harbour, was named 'Hell’s Gates' by its prisoners as a reference to the gates of hell in Dante's 'Inferno' - "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" - was plastered at the Harbour's mouth as a warning to all souls sent there.

In 1822, eight convicts escaped Macquarie Harbour in a fateful bid for freedom. This band of Irish, English and Scottish thieves were immediately hurled into chaos as their plan failed and they were thrust into the heart of a harsh and foreboding landscape. With little food or equipment, in a place these immigrants knew little about, they battled a merciless enemy - the unforgiving, barren land - a land where God wields an axe.

Official site

“http://www.vandiemensland-themovie.com/flashsite/

Review & Trailer

http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2671830.htm



Rated MA  |  Runtime 104 minutes  |  Language English

Next screening "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Thursday 21st October 2010  |  6.30pm
A mystery wrapped in a riddle, stamped with a tattoo. 

* * * *  ABC's At the Movies

In 2009 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was the most successful film in Europe, despite not having a UK or Ireland release. The impetus was the success of Stieg Larsson’s posthumous Millennium Trilogy – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – which have become a publishing phenomenon, shifting approximately 30 million copies worldwide with little sign of the sales abating.


Synopsis

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and the tattooed and troubled but resourceful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) to investigate. When the pair link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vanger’s are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

Everyone has secrets in the "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a mind-bending and mesmerizing thriller that takes its time unlocking one mystery only to uncover another, all to chilling and immensely satisfying effect. 

BETSY SHARKEY, Film Critic

Rated MA15+
Running Time - 152 mins  |  Language Swedish  |  Country Sweden



Trailer
http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2844452.htm