Poptart

I went to see this film over the weekend.

It has a host of really good Australian and New Zealand actors in it - Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving, Martin Henderson, Noni Hazelhurst, Joel Tobeck.

"32 year-old Tracy Heart (Blanchett) works in a video shop and lives with her hard-working single mum, Janelle (Noni Hazlehurst).

After a turbulent 20's, Tracy is now trying to live the straight life having freed herself from the grip of heroin addiction. She swims, she works and she sleeps in an outer western suburb of Sydney dubbed "Little Saigon".

After fours years of treading water, Tracy has set herself the humble goal of owning her own business in partnership with her current boss, Mingh (Jason Chong) for whom she has managed the video store for the last four years. All she needs is a bank loan of thirty thousand dollars and she will be a co-owner.

But the unexpected return of her ex-boyfriend, Jonny (Dustin Nguyen), the criminal aspirations of her amputee brother, Ray (Martin Henderson) and the emotional draw of troubled family friend and gay ex-footy star, Lionel Dawson (Hugo Weaving) create friction for Tracy. Her dream soon becomes tangled with criminal boss, Bradley "The Jockey" Thompson (Sam Neill) with shattering consequences. As a result, Tracy's bond of trust with her mother is tested and she has to confront her fears to find happiness."

This is a really good film with excellent performances from Blanchett and Weaving (who both won AFI awards for their performances). It's not a film that you go to if you want to be "entertained", it requires you to engage your brain instead of just parking your arse on the theatre seat. The one thing that kept jarring me a bit was Dustin Nguyen's accent. He did seem to have trouble with an Australian accent.

Cate Blanchett is amazing as Tracy, her performance is superb. She has the ability to look very ordinary, very fragile. I tried to think of other actress doing this role, and the majority of the American box office darlings wouldn't be able to. They are either too beautiful to look this "normal" or they just can't act at all *cough Jennifer Garner cough*.

Highly recommend you catch this, if it ever screens at your local theatre.

It looks like it's going to be a good summer with some great movies coming out.

Top of my list to see are:

King Kong
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Brokeback Mountain
Broken Flowers
Good Night and Good Luck
Capote
Mad Hot Ballroom (documentary)
Shopgirl
The Edukators
Murderball (documentary)