Geoffrey Wright Movies
With the 2006 MacBeth, controversial Australian director Geoffrey Wright (Romper Stomper, Metal Skin) launches his fourth big screen outing and continues the trend of reinventing Shakespeare by contemporizing the bard's plays. As in other recent efforts (Richard Loncraine's Richard III (1996), Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000)), Wright uses a distinctly postmodern context to extract related themes from the original work. Here, Wright reworks the brutal tragedy Macbeth, retaining its Elizabethan dialogue, but resituating the events within the arena of modern Australian gang violence. His Macbeth (Sam Worthington) is a drug baron and pimp, his Lady Macbeth a Valium-addicted, narcoleptic burnout and manipulator, his Duncan the head of Melbourne's criminal underground. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth murder Duncan in cold blood (framing the servants as responsible), but soon after Macbeth takes the throne, he is undone - and beheaded - by usurper Macduff. Like former adapter Roman Polanski, Wright ups the quotients of bloodletting, sadism, and underlying iciness. He filmed much of the picture with HD photography - thus capturing a broader range of imagery and a much blacker darkness in his nighttime sequences - and lit a pivotal action scene exclusively with red laser gun sights. The result is a thoroughly unique and unprecedented work. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Worthington, Victoria Hill, (more)
- 2000
- R
A serial killer with a difference is on the prowl in a small Virginia town in this darkly comic horror story. Brent Marken (Michael Biehn) is the sheriff of the city of Cherry Falls, a quiet community that suddenly has a big-city problem to contend with when Marken discovers a murderer is on the loose. The killer is targeting teenage girls who attend the local high school -- and his victims are all virgins. This causes no small amount of anxiety for Brent's teenage daughter Jody (Brittany Murphy), who is not as ready for intimacy as her boyfriend Kenny (Gabriel Mann). Brent has personal problems of his own to deal with; his relationship with his wife Marge (Candy Clark) has hit an impasse, and he shares a dark secret with Tom Sisler (Joe Inscoe), the principal of the high school. Cherry Falls marked the American directorial debut for Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright; the cast also includes Jay Mohr, Caroline Perreyclear, and Rick Forrester. Cherry Falls enjoyed its first theatrical engagements in the United Kingdom, several months after it was first slated to open in the United States, thanks in part to the difficulty the producers had with the MPAA in securing an R rating for the picture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Biehn, Brittany Murphy, (more)
The one-upmanship of middle-aged men, bragging to one another that "when I was a kid, I was so poor that..." will never happen to Joe, even though the stories he could tell would put them to shame. In this melodramatic youth story, Joe lives with his demented father in a shanty, and he has been unemployed for a very long time. Eventually he gets a new job and, along with it, a social life of sorts. He would like to make some headway with either of the cute girls at work, but every time he tries, he finds his co-worker Dazey has gotten there ahead of him. Dazey does introduce him to the big teen sport of the region, and the two are soon involved in a keen drag-racing rivalry. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aden Young, Tara Morice, (more)
- 1993
- NC17
- Add Romper Stomper to Queue
This controversial drama (which earned an NC-17 rating in the U.S.) was a major box-office success in its native Australia, and it made an overnight star of its leading man, Russell Crowe. Hando (Crowe) is a member of a gang of racist skinheads who lash out with violence against the growing number of Asian immigrants settling in the country. While Hando and his partner Davey (Daniel Pollock) lead a bunch of brutal, half-bright thugs, they have convinced themselves that what they do is the noble work of saving Australia for Australians (or at least the white Australians who drove the aborigines into the outback). Into this milieu comes Gabe (Jacqueline McKenzie), a troubled young woman who suffers from epilepsy and was raised in a sexually abusive environment. Gabe becomes something of a gang moll, dividing her time (and her sexual favors) between Hando and Davey, generating considerable tension between them. When the gang's favorite bar is purchased by a group of Vietnamese immigrants, Hando and Davey organize an all-out attack, little imagining that the Asians are ready and able to defend themselves. Romper Stomper was released in America in both its original, uncut form, and in an edited version that earned an R rating from the MPAA. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, (more)
- 1989
Mick (Noah Taylor) is just 16, but he would rather hang out with Sally (Gillian Jones), who is 43, rather than his friends. Sally originally hired him to cut her grass. Now they are lovers. Mick gets really dejected when she replaces him with a more age-appropriate lover. When he discovers that the older man has been beating her up, he challenges him, with fatal consequences. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Noah Taylor, Gillian Jones, (more)
