Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Fast & Furious 7

For F*** Magazine

FAST & FURIOUS 7

Director : James Wan
Cast : Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Elsa Pataky, Lucas Black, Jason Statham, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Kurt Russell
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 137 mins
Opens : 2 April 2015

Big wheels keep on turning, the rubber keeps on burning and Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his crew are rolling, rolling, rolling down the road in the seventh instalment of the Fast and Furious franchise. Dom and his “family”, comprising Brian (Walker), Letty (Rodriguez), Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Gibson) have been pardoned for their crimes in the previous films. Now, they’re sent hurtling back into their dangerous, high-speed existence when the lethal Deckard Shaw (Statham), looking to make the crew pay for almost killing his brother Owen, comes calling. With the assistance of spymaster “Mr. Nobody” (Russell) and Special Agent Hobbs (Johnson) of the Diplomatic Security Service, Dom and co. ride for their lives, this adventure taking them from L.A. to Azerbaijan to Abu Dhabi and back.


            We’ll get straight to the point – the untimely passing of star Paul Walker has cast a dark pall over a franchise built on pure escapism. What should have been yet another fist-pumping, all-out action spectacular is now a bittersweet affair. Director James Wan, taking the baton from Justin Lin, has managed to create a flick where the audience is reassured up front that it’s okay to have fun, it’s okay to just go along for the ride - and yet Brian O’Conner’s exit from the series is handled with as much grace and sincerity as the series can muster. The film displays a level of self-awareness – early on, Brian tells his young son Jack that “cars don’t fly”. Later in the film, they absolutely do fly. Screenwriter Chris Morgan supplies dialogue that is as overripe and clichéd as ever and yet, there is an undeniable charm to it all. Surprisingly, the 137 minute run time passes at a decent clip.



            There’s something that makes this franchise very different from the Transformers movies, even though they are aimed at exactly the same demographic and contain cool automobiles, explosions and leery shots of scantily-clad women. There’s an earnestness here as opposed to the cynicism that pervades the Transformers films. This is movie #7 and yet there’s the sense that all involved are still invested and are determined not to phone it in, embracing the over-the-top stunts with all they’ve got.


Wan must’ve broken out in hives trying to devise vehicular set-pieces that would top those of Fast & Furious 6, which involved a tank and a massive cargo plane. Here, we have cars inserted into a treacherous mountain pass via air drop, a Lykan Hypersport sailing out a skyscraper window and crashing into the adjacent building, and a finale in which our heroes are pursued by a stealth attack helicopter and a souped-up Predator drone. Props go to second unit director and stunt coordinator Jack Gill for putting it all together – those cars were dropped out of a plane for real. Unfortunately, as adrenaline-pumping as these signature sequences still are, there is a conspicuous increase in the reliance on computer-generated imagery, especially for the Etihad Towers jump and the helicopter attack. The scenes in which Paul Walker is digitally doubled also stick out. It’s not enough to pull one out of it completely, but it does lack polish.


For all of screenwriter Morgan’s unsubtlety, he’s done a fine job of distributing the spotlight among the ensemble cast. The moments of pathos are cheesy – Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty is still coping with her amnesia – but all parties involved know that’s not why the audience is present. Even then, the loss experienced by the crew following the deaths of Gisele and Han in #6 is palpable and does lend the proceedings an emotional backbone, however slight. The film serves a great swansong for Walker; he gets to go mano a mano with Tony Jaa in two blistering martial arts showdowns. Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson continue to have amiable chemistry as the constantly bickering Tej and Roman, but Tyrese’s comic asides border on the excessive here.  


Jason Statham is a fittingly intimidating villain, essentially Frank Martin from the Transporter series if he had no moral compunction whatsoever. There’s a nice appearance by Djimon Hounsou as a secondary baddie even though the character doesn’t do much. Dwayne Johnson revels in the exaggerated action hero persona the material presents him with, trucking out one-liners like “you’ve earned yourself a dance with the devil, boy” and “I’m gonna put a hurt on him so hard, he’ll wish his mother kept her legs closed.” Ronda Rousey shows up as a bodyguard to furnish the requisite catfight with Michelle Rodriguez, a role fulfilled by fellow MMA fighter Gina Carano in the previous film. The show is well and truly stolen by Kurt Russell. The 80s action icon has still got it and looks like he’s having a ball. When he slips on the night-vision shades and draws twin pistols to get in on the fun himself, prepare to cheer.

As film critics, we hear the “it’s not meant to be Oscar-worthy high art” defence a whole lot. Well, for the Fast and Furious films, especially #5 onwards, it applies. We’re not about to give the cheesy dialogue and sometimes-intrusive visual effects work a free pass, but Wan makes sure it all comes together nicely and delivers what was promised – a really good time for action junkies. In addition, the director shoulders the responsibility of fashioning this loud, brash extravaganza into an emotional send-off for its recently-deceased star. Vin Diesel has been open about how truly distraught Walker’s death left him and we do see some of that laid bare on the screen. We’re not ashamed to say we were left misty-eyed and in that respect, Wan has succeeded. There are no stinger scenes during or after the end credits and while this does seem like a great place to call it a day, Universal is intent on doing at least three more. Better to ride off into the sunset while you’re ahead, but that’s not how studios work, we suppose.


Summary: The spectacle is as bombastic as ever and the laws of physics are as irrelevant as ever; the series continuing to entertain. Fast & Furious 7 also manages to provide some genuine heart amidst all that cheese, bidding a fond farewell to Paul Walker.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 


We are fast. We are furious. We are Groot.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Everly

For F*** Magazine

EVERLY

Director : Joe Lynch
Cast : Salma Hayek, Edith Cepeda, Togo Igawa, Hiroyuki Watanabe, Masashi Fujimoto, Akie Kotabe, Aisha Ayamah
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 93 mins
Opens : 26 March 2015
Rating : R21 (Violence)

Despite being touted as “the most wonderful time of the year”, we all know the holiday season can be unpleasant. Mad rushes at malls, planning parties, spending time with relatives you’re not that fond of and so on. Everly’s (Hayek) Christmas is going a lot worse than normal. She is holed up in an apartment where she has been enslaved as the favourite prostitute of evil Yakuza kingpin Taiko (Watanabe). Everly is attacked by Taiko’s men when he finds out she has been secretly working with the police to bring him down. Over the course of the night, Everly has to endure all manner of assaults while trying to save her mother Edith (Cepeda) and five-year-old daughter Maisey (Ayamah) from the bloodthirsty criminals.  




            With its lone heroine battling an onslaught of thugs in an apartment complex, Everly could be billed as The Raid meets Panic Room, but that would be giving it way too much credit. Director Joe Lynch, who has a background in music videos and low-budget horror flicks, has put together an especially nasty movie that audiences are somehow supposed to find entertaining. It’s brutal and grisly, and there definitely is an audience for that, but it’s also gratuitously exploitative and artless at every turn. For something that’s meant to be a bloody, fast-paced thriller, it’s difficult to sit through and feels much longer than it actually is. There are also numerous plot holes and everyone in this does dumb things – our heroine does dumb things, the villains do dumb things and it’s just a miserable experience on the whole. Sure Everly, invite your mother and young daughter into the Yakuza stronghold. They’ll be safe there! Sure Sadist (Togo Igawa), drip acid on Everly’s bonds! That won’t help her escape at all!


            Salma Hayek is an Oscar nominee, but she also has a taste for down and dirty action flicks – after all, she is an oft-collaborator of Robert Rodríguez. Salma Hayek as a badass woman fending off hordes of gun-wielding mobsters, as well as her fellow prostitutes who are after her because of the price on her head, sounds like a reasonably cool place to start. It’s too bad that Everly flits between being confident and able to handle herself and ducking and screaming. The intent is for her to break free from her status as a helpless victim, but that progression is messy at best. There are plenty of histrionics in the scenes between Everly and her mother, seeming very soap opera-esque in spite of Everly’s insistence to her mother that “this is not a telenovela!” It also seems cheap and wrongheaded to put a young child in jeopardy, placing her in the midst of a wanton bloodbath.


The villains are all Japanese and portrayed as stereotypically vicious. It’s just another example of that action movie trope – fall back on a foreign organised crime group as the baddies. It seems screenwriter Yale Hannon tries to compensate for this with a mild-mannered character nicknamed “Dead Man” (Kotabe) who is only doing the vile things he does out of fear of his boss and who spouts truisms like “a sanctuary sometimes exists in the eye of the storm.” It just feels so blatantly like a band-aid and is actually just another stereotype. An extended torture scene featuring the afore-mentioned Sadist is just nasty and silly rather than being genuinely frightening. Hiroyuki Watanabe does make for a chilling kingpin, but he only shows up at the tail end of the film and is saddled with contrived one-liners such as “you have only gotten so far because I have allowed you to” and “frankly, death by my sword is an honour you do not deserve.”



            It’s gruesome, dumb and almost nauseating, but we’re sure there’ll be connoisseurs of shlock out there who’ll just love Everly. It’s actually insulting to think how engineered this is to cater to the slobbering genre fanboy, and that the result is just as repulsive as it is. At the very least, Salma Hayek is better suited to the material than Kate Hudson, who was originally attached to the part, is.  

Summary: Everly is overly gory, overly dumb, overly trashy and overly tasteless.

RATING: 1.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Kidnapping Freddy Heineken (a.k.a. Kidnapping Mr. Heineken)

For F*** Magazine

KIDNAPPING FREDDY HEINEKEN (A.K.A. KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN)


Director : Daniel Alfredson
Cast : Anthony Hopkins, Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Jemima West
Genre : Crime/Thriller
Run Time : 95 mins
Opens : 19 March 2015
Rating : NC16 - Coarse Language


            It’s human nature to be drawn to the glittery promise of get-rich-quick schemes. Even though we know deep down that all those sidebar ads on any given website have nary a grain of truth to them, we can’t help but entertain the thought that it just might be possible to make all that money so easily. In the 80s, those ads on the internet didn’t exist yet, so a group of Dutch friends, having fallen on hard times, devise a novel way to make a quick buck – kidnapping. Their target is none other than Freddy Heineken (Hopkins), chairman and CEO of Heineken International breweries. Willem Holleeder (Worthington), Cor van Hout (Sturgess), Jan Boellard (Kwanten), Frans Meijer (Mark van Eeuwen) and Martin Erkamps (Thomas Cocquerel) demand a staggering ransom of 35 million Dutch guilders for the safe return of Heineken. The case captures Europe’s attention, the public at large unaware that these “master criminals” are really just a few regular guys.

            Kidnapping Freddy Heineken is based on investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries’ account of true events. There was a 2011 Dutch film called De Heineken Ontvoering, but it was made without de Vries’ involvement and is considered to be a largely fictionalised version of the incident. With its closely-knit band of friends pulling off an ambitious caper, the theme of “honour among thieves” and an old-school filmmaking approach behind it all, Kidnapping Freddy Heineken reminded this reviewer of Ben Affleck’s crime drama The Town. Just like in that film, our gang of protagonists needs to hit that sweet spot of being “just likeable enough”, such that we can root for them even as they engage in morally reprehensible activities, having understood their motivation. Director Daniel Alfredson only partially achieves that here. While there are several moments of nail-biting intensity, the film never really takes hold. What should be a fast-paced caper instead feels plodding and by-the-numbers, the film coming off as much longer than it actually is.


            Sam Worthington, Jim Sturgess, Ryan Kwanten, Mark van Eeuwen and Thomas Cocquerel all project a degree of working class appeal, crucial to making the audience shout “down with the rich dudes, power to the plucky little guys!” However, they never seem like a cohesive team, and this is due in no small part to the fact that their accents are all over the place. They’re playing real people – real Dutch people. Worthington, Kwanten and Cocquerel are Australian, Sturgess is English and only van Eeuwen is actually Dutch. It really pulls one out of it, especially since it’s clear that director Alfredson is striving for a believable street-level grittiness. There’s also the old plot device of the pregnant wife back home, played by Jemima West, worrying about what her husband is up to. Even if this did really happen, the film’s treatment of it is a mostly unsuccessful attempt at generating pathos.


            The ace up Kidnapping Freddy Heineken’s sleeve is Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is a still as towering a presence as ever and completely commands the screen whenever he’s on it. Throughout his ordeal, Hopkins’ take on the beer baron seems more amused than anything else, displaying an unfazed façade to his kidnappers and refusing to be intimidated by them. The scene in which he calmly requests a bathrobe, slippers, a shaving kit, other amenities and even a change in the music being played is Hopkins at his coolest. This is by no means a big movie and Hopkins could’ve easily phoned it in, but he relishes the chance to play the wily Heineken, toying with his captors instead of cowering in fear from them.

            As a lo-fi true crime thriller, Kidnapping Freddy Heineken is halfway decent, but it suffers from a flagging pace and crucial lack of urgency as well as feeling somewhat miscast. One thing the film definitely gets right is Anthony Hopkins, and it is he who keeps the film watchable.

Summary: Swap out your “nice Chianti” for a bottle of Heineken – Anthony Hopkins enlivens this mostly sturdy but dull true crime thriller.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars


Jedd Jong 

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Run All Night

For F*** Magazine

RUN ALL NIGHT

Director : Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast : Liam Neeson, Joel Kinnaman, Ed Harris, Vincent D'Onofrio, Boyd Holbrook, Genesis Rodriguez, Common, Bruce McGill, Holt McCallany
Genre : Action/Crime
Run Time : 114 mins
Opens : 12 March 2015
Rating : NC16 (Violence and Coarse Language)

Liam Neeson goes from training the Dark Knight to running all night in this crime thriller. Neeson plays Jimmy Conlon, an aging hitman who used to work for crime boss Shawn Maguire (Harris). Shawn has supposedly reformed, and refuses to do business with drug dealers who are brought to him by his son Danny (Holbrook). It just so happens that Jimmy’s son Mike (Kinnaman), a limousine driver, is hired by Danny and witnesses a deal go horribly awry. Jimmy ends up killing Danny to save Mike, which leads to Shawn ordering that both father and son be killed in retaliation. Mike resents his father for the strain that being a hitman put on their relationship, but the duo have to stick together if they want to survive this long, brutal night.  




            Run All Night marks the third collaboration between Liam Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra, who also helmed Unknown and Non-Stop. Neeson claims that this will be his last action-centric leading role in a while. As cool as the actor always is, he is very much in danger of being a caricature of himself, if the Taken memes still all over the internet are anything to go by. Unfortunately, even though it’s meant to be more dramatic and character-driven than the Taken movies, Run All Night is still a let-down. Collet-Serra intends for it to be a gritty 70s-style crime flick, set in a grimy, misty New York City during the Christmas season over 16 hours. However, the scene transitions are Google Maps-style CGI camera moves, swooping out of one street, up over the city, and right into another. This comes off as nothing more than a jarring stylistic flourish, supposedly to disguise how surprisingly boring the film ends up being.


            The story is a predictable one – an ex-hitman must wade back into the muddy waters of his former life when things get personal. That logline can also be used to describe last year’s John Wick. Where that movie was surprisingly inventive, original and stylish, Run All Night is, well, a more run of the mill affair. The two relationships at its core are the personal connection between an enforcer and his old boss/long-time friend and between said enforcer and his estranged son. Brad Ingelsby’s screenplay strains to make this more than your typical father-son action movie team-up – the relationship isn’t amusingly dysfunctional, it’s downright toxic. And yet, it’s just not sufficiently compelling, some moments unintentionally funny rather than dark and dramatic. During the first half of the film, when Jimmy and Shawn wistfully reminisce about their youth, it’s meant to set up this deep bond that will inevitably be shattered over the course of the film, but it feels more like filler than anything else.


                Liam Neeson grimaces, wields a gun and talks tough through gritted teeth - daring, uncharted territory for the actor. We all love Liam Neeson but especially coming on the heels of the dismal Taken 3, it’s very easy to see why audiences are getting tired of this character type. Joel Kinnaman is good here as a clean-cut family man who wants nothing to do with the dangerous, seedy world which his father was a part of. He’s certainly less annoying than Jai Courtney’s Jack McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard. Alas, the clash of titans that is Liam Neeson vs. Ed Harris is something of a let-down. When all is said and done, it feels like Harris hasn’t really done all that much throughout the film, even though he has a substantial role. Harris is an unsung old-school cinematic badass, so seeing him go toe to toe with the old-school cinematic badass du jour should be more of an event. The macho friends-turned-enemies plot is undercut by what can be interpreted as homoerotic undertones between the two characters. Common shows up as an ice-cold bespectacled assassin; his night-vision eyepiece and high-powered pistol equipped with a laser sight likely referencing the first Terminator movie. He provides the best thrills of the film.  


            Run All Night is too predictable and contrived to work as an engrossing crime drama but also lacks the over-the-top action spectacle required to make it successful as a piece of escapist entertainment, falling into an uncomfortable no man’s land. It’s sturdily-constructed, shot well and solidly acted all around, but it has nothing to distinguish it from every other New York-set crime thriller out there.


Summary: Nowhere near as exciting as its title makes it sound, Run All Night never goes off the beaten crime thriller path. Its central trio do turn in strong performances, but even then the film can’t outrun the realm of the generic.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Wild Card

For F*** Magazine

WILD CARD

Director : Simon West
Cast : Jason Statham, Michael Angarano, Dominik García-Lorido, Milo Ventimiglia, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 92 mins
Opens : 12 March 2015
Rating : M18 (Some Nudity & Violence)

If we were rich and famous and had our pick of any contemporary action star to be our bodyguard, we’d probably go for Jason Statham (if Dwayne Johnson were unavailable). In Wild Card, the Stath plays Nick Wild, a Las Vegas “security consultant” for hire. Young self-made millionaire Cyrus Kinnick (Angarano) procures Wild’s protection while he has a night on the town gambling. In the meantime, Wild’s ex-girlfriend Holly (García-Lorido) is dumped outside a hospital, having been beaten and raped and left barely alive. Wild somewhat reluctantly goes after the man responsible, gangster Danny DeMarco (Ventimiglia). Wild loathes Vegas, feeling trapped within the seedy confines of the city, and hopes to win big at the tables so he can cash in and move away to Corsica, leaving sin city behind.



            Wild Card is based on the book Heat, by nigh-legendary novelist and screenwriter William Goldman, whose credits include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All The President’s Men. The book was the basis for a 1986 film starring Burt Reynolds. Goldman’s involvement seems to suggest that this just might be more than your run-of-the-mill Statham action vehicle. It’s different enough from typical Statham action fare, but not in a good way. Here’s the Catch-22 – most audiences are tired of the Brit playing the same character over and over again and yet, there’s also the comfort of knowing what you’re getting when you go to see a Jason Statham picture. Even if it’s mediocre – which they often are – at least there’ll be some cool stunts. Despite being marketed as an action movie, the fights in Wild Card are few and far between, with no big set-pieces whatsoever. Zero explosions, nobody hanging off the side of a hotel balcony, not even a car chase.


            Wild Card purports itself to be “character-driven”, which is becoming something of a buzz-phrase for action movies. There just isn’t enough to the Nick Wild character to help him stand out from the “cool heroes with impossibly awesome names” pack. The film stays purposely ambiguous on his backstory – he was probably in the military in some capacity, not that it really matters. There are glimmers of character development in that he’s the man about town and knows everybody in every corner. There just isn’t anything really distinctive to Nick and at the end of the day, audiences want to see Jason Statham wrestle bad guys, not wrestle with a gambling compulsion.


            There have been several disposable action flicks where the saving grace is a memorable, scenery-chomping villain. No such luck here. Instead, we get Milo Ventimiglia trying his best to be some shade of intimidating, which he doesn’t succeed at. As the tagalong kid, Michael Angarano is the dweeby semi-comic-relief, a sheltered rich kid who looks up to Nick for his toughness and swagger. There is an attempt to develop the relationship between the two characters but it fails to truly become anything interesting. There are several recognisable actors who pop up, but they do so for one scene each. Hi Sofia Vergara; bye Sofia Vergara. Hi Jason Alexander; bye Jason Alexander. Hi Stanley Tucci; bye Stanley Tucci. Of course, it is Tucci who makes the most impact, playing big-time Vegas crime boss “Baby” with his usual charisma.  The female characters don’t amount to very much either: Anne Heche plays a waitress and Hope Davis plays a croupier. Dominik García-Lorido is the victim-turned-Black-Widow, adding a dash of noir to the proceedings. There is one scene that will make all the men in the audience subconsciously cross their legs.


            Wild Card reunites Statham with Simon West, who directed him in The Mechanic and The Expendables 2. West is known for his bombastic action films and his forays into dramatic thriller territory such as The General’s Daughter are not well-regarded. There are many moments in Wild Card that made this reviewer think “this could make for a really cool TV show”. West consciously shies away from depicting Vegas as shiny and glamorous, instead embracing the seedy underbelly - and yet, he is obviously not the first director to give the town this treatment. There is one moment of striking symbolic imagery, with close-ups of a sewing needle piercing a cross-stitch Holly is working on as she recounts her sexual assault at Danny’s hands. Still, West can’t salvage this Jason Statham action movie that wants to be a Jason Statham drama but half-heartedly throws in a few punches and kicks just because it has to.



Summary: Wild Card is an episodic crime drama focusing on an uninteresting character instead of the action flick it’s advertised as. By the time Jason Statham takes on a bunch of thugs armed only with a butter knife and a spoon, it’s too little too late.  

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong
            

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Face/Value: Interview with special effects makeup artist David Willis

As published in F*** Magazine Issue #62





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FACE/VALUE


Special effects makeup artist David Willis chats exclusively with F***
By Jedd Jong

Special effects makeup artists: they’re responsible for transforming handsome leading men into hideous beasts, making it look as if someone’s been scalped without hurting a hair on their head and aging up 20-somethings so they look indistinguishable from actual octogenarians. Often as unsung as they are integral to the production, these artists make movie magic happen.

F*** spoke exclusively to David Willis, a special effects makeup artist with nearly 20 years of experience under his belt. David’s handiwork can be seen in films and television shows such as the Matrix trilogy, Star Wars Episodes I and II, Superman Returns, Farscape and the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road.

In addition to working in film and TV, David has done work for advertising campaigns, museums and theme parks and has lectured and given masterclasses around the world. His work has taken him from his native Australia to New Zealand, the United States, Sweden, France, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and China. Those who visited the first two Halloween Horror Nights events at Universal Studios Singapore would have witnessed David’s frightening creations first-hand.

Over coffee, David discussed his childhood turning his sisters into goblins and ghouls, the movie that was “so wrong” it convinced him that this was what he wanted to do for a living and the evolution of special effects makeup techniques and how they can co-exist alongside computer-generated effects work. David also weighed in on the Best Makeup nominees for the 87th Academy Awards, explained the frustrating politics of movie credits, shared what it was like working with A-list celebrities and explained how a certain cephalopod became the bane of his existence for a period.

As a kid, did you have Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Makeup Handbook on your bedside table?

I didn’t, but I had like 50 Fangoria magazines, which also had Dick Smith’s stuff in it. When I started, there was no internet, so it was just the library and the book shop, spending lots of money buying and ordering books in from the U.S. This was way before Amazon, if you wanted to do research on makeup effects, anything to do with creatures or even sculpting, the books are like $110. Fangoria magazine was $24 Australian. Every month, I would be at a place called Comics Kingdom in Sydney, which still exists, and I used to buy all the Cinefex and Fangoria magazines and there was Gorezone, which was really cool. And it just had disgusting blood and guts, that was cool. It had stuff from The Thing, back to the old days it had Dick Smith in it, it had Rick Baker in it, Steve Johnson, it had all the legends of makeup. I did have The Art of Makeup for Film, Television and Theatre and that was the only book I had. It was only 72 pages. This was in the early ‘80s.

Was there a film that you watched growing up that make you decide “I want to become a makeup artist”?

Hellraiser. That was the movie. I watched that when I was 12 years old. Remember, this was the most disgusting movie. It’s scary, it’s a guy with pins in his head. The other movie was A Nightmare on Elm Street. I grew up in the 80s so that’s the slasher time. The other one was The Thing and Alien. I couldn’t watch that until…I watched it when it came on video. I was so spooked. It was so scary. Now I watch it and go [scoffs]. It was so good. I’d say Hellraiser was the #1 film that made me go “I want to do that. It’s so wrong, I want to do that.”



In school, did everyone go to you for help with their Halloween makeup?

Remember in Australia, Halloween is not that popular, but I used to do tricks with my friends, like “Mum, Mum I’ve cut myself!” We didn’t have Halloween, it wasn’t popular, but we still had fun with it. My sisters, I used to turn them into ghouls and goblins with tissue and latex. I used to experiment with very expensive products so every Christmas or birthday, I used to get some sort of makeup effect blood stuff. My mother and father thought I was nuts.

Not the kind of makeup you’d usually associate with sisters!

No. But I would get lipstick and try and do bruises, bit of purple and red. I loved to make model aircraft, planes and trains. I used to be a big train buff; I had this huge train set, it was amazing. I was a nerd. I was a makeup, models and props nerd.

So this is your dream job, what you’re doing right now?

Yeah, I’m doing what I used to do as a hobby.

How did you get your first professional gig?

It’s all about who you know, isn’t it? I was learning makeup. I did work experience, that was like on Babe and also working with some local effects houses and it wasn’t necessarily going in and being paid full-time, it was doing an internship and I was also being a musician, I was cleaning toilets, I was being a waiter, I used to help with an electrician, I had just finished school and didn’t know what I wanted to do. I mean, I knew what I wanted to do, I needed to save money. Makeup is not cheap. Full stop. Opportunity came when some of the effects houses were working on commercials, I actually really started in commercials. That’s through the effects houses where I was first doing internships. Eventually for films, it didn’t come in until I started doing a makeup course in Sydney. It was through that that I got to know the teachers and the teachers were on jobs and you become friends, they like your work and the rest is history. I’d say the first big, known work that I was doing was Farscape. That was with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

Did you have to communicate a lot with the other departments?

Yes, we were doing stuff where the mould department had to talk to the animatronic department because the animatronic had to fit in the mould before you could cast it. From there, you’ll be talking to the costume tech department because the makeup effects for the big prosthetics has to fit into the costume. The makeup, hair, costume and makeup effects department are all very close. Now, those areas are talking to CG, depending on what the director wants. We don’t really talk to sound and lights and all that stuff, [but] the cinematographer, we do. We want to know the colours he uses.


What have been the major advances in makeup technology from when you first started until now?

I’d say silicone. The different products for making prosthetics, the evolution from a standard prosthetic to a silicone prosthetic to a 3D transfer. A 3D transfer is basically like a makeup tattoo. That was introduced during The Passion of the Christ, which [Christien] Tinsley and Brian Sipe created for the back, when Christ is being whipped. It was just so cool. The enhancements with Photoshop for pre-viz, design, 3D programs such as ZBrush, it’s like sculpting for makeup artists in 3D and I think the makeup effects industry has had to evolve and reinvent itself because we’re competing with CG.

That leads into the next question. What are your attitudes with regards to the use of computer-generated imagery to supplement or altogether replace makeup effects? We’ve seen that used to create aging effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

With stuff like Benjamin Button, it was all done [first] in physical makeup. Greg Cannom had done all the makeup effects for the pre-viz designs, he literally laid it all out for the 3D guys and girls. My attitude towards it is that it is a tool that can be used effectively but, like makeup, if it is done in a rush, it can look crappy. Another thing is that when it first came out, everyone was like “wow, this is so amazing.” The novelty of it, it’s already worn off. The general public who have no idea about the technical skills or advancements or whatever about CG and makeup, they know what is good and what is not.

So audiences have becoming more discerning?

Yes, exactly. Just because of the internet, YouTube, they know what they like. At the end of the day, it comes down to the story. Why do you need to put so much CG into something? You sit down to be entertained. As soon as you’re entertained, you start to zone out. It loses its “wow” [factor]. Bad CG automatically makes you go “now I’ve lost it.” The same with makeup. I’ll give you an example: I was watching the first Hobbit. Within 30-40 minutes, I was bored. Not because of the story, but you could tell. You could see all the lace wigs!

Again, with the advancement of technology, it has made our job harder; you’ve got all these high-res cameras. Even with 3D renderings and animation, they have to be in line with the camera work and it’s just so advanced. The cameras which they’re using now, the resolution is so big that your eyes can’t even see it, it’s like a lens you put into space. So when they transfer it back to what we see, you can tell the difference – “okay, they’ve put a lot of money and thought into that” and there’s another production “no, that’s crap”, and there’s another one, they used hardly any makeup effects or any major special effects in terms of visual or spectacle, you go “ah, that’s fantastic!”

At the end of the day, it’s about the story. It’s what our jobs are. It’s to enhance the director’s vision of the story that’s being portrayed. CG forgets that, it always forgets it. But I believe in both, if it’s in service of what the director wants to tell the story. We will not have a makeup effect if we do not believe that it will enhance the story. That’s our job, telling the director or producers “yes” or “no”. CG now is more expensive than practical. Practical is usually better because it’s in-camera, it’s physically there. If you ask me, I like both.



What is the experience like working on big movies, and what are celebrities like in the makeup chair?

Actors in the chair…I’m going to refer to The Matrix on this one. We were doing the life cast of Hugo Weaving, we did all the Agent Smiths. We did 120 Agent Smiths then we did all the masks, so we had an extra 80 people wearing the mask of Agent Smith. Tom Hardy, we did the body cast, when he’s on the truck in the movie [Mad Max: Fury Road], that’s not him, it’s a prop. He’s extremely nice, Hugo Weaving is extremely nice, Laurence Fishburne is awesome; we worked with him. We were walking in the Fox studio and he even came out to acknowledge the talent who works on the film, not just with our department but the other departments. On Star Wars, Natalie Portman, we got to do a couple of things with her which was really nice, she’s lovely.

Paris Hilton’s a bit funny, wouldn’t want to be working with her again [laughs], I don’t think she’ll ever do a movie ever again. That was just a slasher, “kill the celebrity” [movie, House of Wax]. It was awesome. On Wolverine, I worked on the first one, we did [work] with Hugh Jackman – he’s awesome. On Moulin Rouge, we did some stuff with Nicole Kidman, she’s lovely – everybody’s lovely! I’ve actually been very blessed to have very nice talents who respected all the crews, everybody’s just very nice. The only time I’ve heard anyone have a complaint was with Tom Cruise, but I’ve never worked on any of his movies.

I’d say that from Star Wars, Matrix, House of Wax, Superman [Returns], even the Farscape crew, everyone’s been awesome. In terms of how it feels to be on set and what the experience of being on set is, it’s like “go go go go” and then all of a sudden you’re standing around for 5 hours not doing anything. There’s a lot of waiting; it gets very boring. But it does get exciting especially if you’re in the makeup department because that’s where everybody goes. Everybody wants to know what’s happening in the makeup department. That’s where everybody hangs out. It’s really funny, like on the makeup truck, there’s always the ones that are very well-received by the majority of the crew, but are not respected by the directors and producers. We are the first ones on set with the grips and the lighting and we are the last people to go. We’re always there and we’re always around. It’s funny when I’m on there doing makeup because the majority of the makeup people are female and they’ll go “where are the makeup girls?” and I’ll go “ah, I’m not the girl,” because they’re so used to it being all girls.

You just worked on Mad Max: Fury Road. How were you affected by the production delays on that film?

The whole movie shut down for a year. It rained and the whole of the outback of Australia, for the first time in over 150 years, it flowered. They relocated to Namibia, just above South Africa. I didn’t do it because I had a contract with Universal, so I couldn’t go.

I’m originally from Australia and I moved to Los Angeles. From there, I was doing stuff with KNB, just inside the shop, working around inside the workshops and then I came back here, went around the planet, depends on where the job is. At the time, Australia went through a full renaissance with filmmaking because of the dollar. For nearly 12 years, all the movies came to Australia, all the big ones. And then, I was fortunate that I was able to part of that, because I was there. If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be where I am [today].

Around the time of Dark City, The Matrix

Dark City, that was my very first movie. I was 15 years old, being an assistant coffee runner. I was part of the effects atmospherics department. I was still in school, I used to ditch school to go and work on production, calling it work experience. Just being there and seeing how it all works. I mean, it’s completely boring, sitting around waiting between each take, all the set-ups, but it was just fascinating. Then the next movie was The Matrix. I was working for a company called MEG, the Makeup Effects Group, I was still learning. They did the baby in the first Matrix, they did the torso of Keanu Reeves, when that little robot goes in, in the taxi. That was the only thing I did on the first Matrix.

For Matrix 2 and 3, that was a 2 and a half year project, back to back. That was when the Australian dollar was 50 cents to the US dollar, so they doubled the money. I ended up going in there as part of mould shop, part of the art department. Then I got moved to models and props, and then from models and props I moved to the makeup effects department. So it was 2 and a half years in 3 departments which you never, ever, ever get anymore, those days are over. There were some people in there that would be credited for something that they never were in. It would be like “why am I ‘scenic painter’ when I was never even scenic?” I was a “plasterer”. That’s how it works. You’re in the makeup department but you’re in the hair design department, and I was like “what?” Because they didn’t have any more space. Or they run out of money, because every credit costs money. If there’s not enough money for that, then they go “I don’t need that person, I don’t need that person”. Or they shift you to the bottom. It’s like “what am I going to be this time?” It’s always a surprise. Every time we walk out of the theatre, it’s like “huh? Why are you there man?”

That’s a shame, because I think a lot of times, people behind the scenes in special effects or makeup don’t get their due credit.

We get credited within the industry ourselves, because everybody knows, the circle of people, everybody knows who did what, it’s not just one person that did it, there was a team inside that. If we’re not credited on something we were working on, whether it was for 2 weeks or 6 months or a year, [shrugs]. The only time it becomes a real problem is if we really put blood and sweat and tears into the movie, then you just get rejected, not even being acknowledged in the credits, and that’s when we get pissed off, because that’s a real slap in the face.

How many times has that happened to you?

All the time, all the time. On House of Wax, it ended up that ¾ of the makeup department and the wax department weren’t even credited. Only the wax technician, which is my good friend Keith, and some of the KNB boys, which were like 4 [were credited], and then there’s 30 of us. What sucks is that some of the people who were credited were only on there for 2-3 weeks and for us, we were on there for 8 months, working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, the studio burnt down, it was so much fun but at the same time it’s like “hey! Here’s our photo, here we are with everybody on the team, where’s our credit?” So that’s why we don’t care about it. The circle of people in the industry, they know about it.

The general public, they don’t even look at the credits. As soon as it finishes, if you’re not in the intro, no one, I don’t know anybody that sits [through] after the lights go on. It’s very rare. I’ll give you an example: my dad was watching Star Wars II, and then my younger sister went “oh, there’s David’s name” while the credits were still rolling. My Dad went “what?” My Dad didn’t even know. He rang me up, at 3 o’clock in the morning because I’m on Los Angeles time, and goes “I just saw your name in the credits, my God, my son’s in the credits of Star Wars!” and I went “yeah? That was 7 years ago!” But he doesn’t watch those kinds of movies.

What’s the most fun you’ve had on a job?

After-parties! Not so much now, but before, they used to be really, really good. That’s when everybody gets together to say thank you, the directors and the producers all come and hang out and everybody gets drunk and we celebrate the fact that we’ve finished. Long, crazy hours dealing with people’s egos and good friends become enemies, enemies become friends, all within the span of 2-3 months, and then you move on to the next job. It’s not easy, to work in the movie or television industry, the entertainment industry overall, it is a roller-coaster ride. You have to expect the unexpected. If you’re not that inclined or not ready for that, you won’t last 5 minutes. That’s a wild ride.

How do you find that sweet spot for horror makeup to be scary but not over-the-top and make someone say “pfft, that’s just makeup”?

Less is more. That’s an easy question [chuckles]. What happens is people overdo it. A good makeup effect is something that is subtle. You think it’s real, and you go “that’s so real” then you go back and go “oh my god, that’s a prop, that’s a prosthetic”. They’re the ones that win Oscars. It’s not the big, over-the-top makeup effects, aliens, whatever – they don’t win Oscars. It’s the old age or the character makeups. Character makeups are one of the hardest makeups to do. That’s why old age makeups are always seen as the pinnacle of a good makeup artist, because they’re difficult. It’s got to be real.

Everyone knows what an elderly person looks like, nobody knows what an alien looks like.

Exactly. And also diseases, deformities, if there’s some sort of makeup effect that’s been executed well, respect. It’s not just starting from the application of the makeup, it goes all the way back to the beginning, from the life cast, to the sculpting, to the moulding, to the casting, to the painting, and then there’s application. There could be 6 people involved in that whole process right up until that application. That’s why the people who do get the awards, it’s usually the head of makeup who’s there to receive the award. But it is the team. And majority of the time, they thank their team, they say the names and stuff. If they don’t, then they’re a bit arrogant, because they didn’t do it all by themselves.

Speaking of awards, what are your thoughts on the Oscar nominations? They are Foxcatcher, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Guardians of the Galaxy. (Since this interview, The Grand Budapest Hotel has won the Oscar)

You know what? Budapest Hotel. It is so good. I watched that recently and it is such a character-driven film. In terms of the Galaxy one, I didn’t even bother going and watching it, I said “this looks like crap”. And the makeups look like stuff from Farscape. My head of makeup department even mentioned “you know what’s funny? Half the characters all look like they’re being copied from Farscape”. The bright colours, there’s the red-green striped…

Drax.

The Drax. Is he meant to be a paddle pop? It doesn’t work for me and it hasn’t worked for a few makeup artists who have actually gone “you know what? Good movie for kids” but in terms of the makeup, I think “nah”.

Some people have been saying that Maleficent was snubbed this year, what do you think about that film?

Good movie, I liked it. The makeup was great, they’re just transfers. In terms of makeup, there’s nothing fancy about it. In terms of the story and Angelina Jolie, I mean Angelina Jolie’s the one that pulled it off, she’s just got the look for the character. Overall, it’s designed for children. It did have that dark side to it but I’d say overall, the movie did quite well, I enjoyed it. But the makeup? Eh.

Looking through your Facebook page, you’ve done a lot of work in many different media, including stuff for museums. What’s the weirdest assignment you’ve had to accomplish?

[Laughs] Things that are not shown! Yeah, I’ve done some weird stuff. I love doing museum work because you get asked to do an exhibition and it’s land, sea or air creatures, it’s really interesting because it used to exist or it still exists and you can’t put the real thing in the exhibit because it would shrivel up and die. This was just mind-boggling - they wanted a Blue-Ringed Octopus to be put in a glass bottle. I said “how am I going to do that? How am I going to get the damn thing through that hole?” They said “oh, just cut the bottom off and we’ll just stick it back on”. I said “I’ll see what I can do” and it didn’t work. You still see the ring. So I made it out of silicone, but made it really, really like “sproing” [makes stretching gesture]. Then I just poked it in and “bloop!” it worked. But it took me 3 months to figure it out [laughs]. A lot of trial and error and it was always on my bench. It was the first task I was asked to do and it was the last one I finished. Eventually it was just trial and error. The museum lets me experiment a lot more than the films, because you have the time to do it.

How about theme parks?

[Chuckles] I first did makeup for Halloween Horror Nights in Los Angeles, for Universal [Studios theme park]. That was a one-month-of-a-year job and I did it for like 5 years. Then I stopped doing it because I came back to Australia and was doing other projects. It doesn’t necessarily pay a lot of money, but it’s fun, blood and guts!

When I was teaching around the planet, I ended up in Southeast Asia and my ex-girlfriend introduced me to Universal Studios Singapore. I was more or less going “where is that?” because where do you put it?! I thought it was going underground! She told me it was on Sentosa, I’d never heard of it. It had not even officially opened yet. I went in there and saw the makeups that were being done and said “why on earth are they doing this in 40° heat!?” I rang Resorts World and asked for the entertainment clerk and the next day I had an interview and 2 days later, I had a job. It was all just because I was in town.

First, I ended up being the consultant for Universal Studios Singapore, then I ended up being the head of makeup and then getting ready for the first Halloween, so I was the main guy giving them information on what to do, how to do it. There was a designer who’s now living in Norway, he used to work for Universal Studios Orlando. He didn’t end up winning the bid, but he helped with some of the designs. It was the first one, Singapore had never seen a Halloween Horror Nights ever and it was huge.

Working with Universal, it was interesting, definitely a struggle because it’s so difficult to get product. Sometimes it’s like “why are we using this product? We shouldn’t be using a commercial brand, we should be using professional brands.” But that’s a deal that gets done with suppliers. So I was in Singapore for 2 and a half years, I did the opening, then I did Halloween Horror Nights…my role was to help the locals to do the job at Universal, all the foreigners leave, that’s how they start up. Train the locals, “now it’s your turn to take care of it”. I did 2 Halloween Horror Nights. Possibly again for Halloween this year, I don’t know. Then I opened up my own horror park in Manila, Scream Park, which will be reopened again at the end of this year. Theme parks are fun but they’re not a full time [job]. You just go in, have fun, and pull out. I’d rather do productions in TV and film.


What are some of the considerations with regards to doing makeup in Southeast Asia because of the heat and humidity?

Wherever you go, no matter where you are in the world, first thing you need to do is determine what the weather is doing. Then you understand “okay, we’re going to be using a particular product or method to balance out what’s going on with the weather.” Now – humidity hates everything. It’s extremely difficult because you sweat, everybody’s different. When it comes to makeup, especially if it needs to last longer, you need to use less, not more.

Now the industry here and the culture here, it’s very thick where it should be going the other way around. It’s funny because in the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere, it’s quite light. But then the more northern you get, the thicker it gets, maybe it’s due to the cold weather. But when you get to the equator areas around the planet, it’s very thick. I don’t know why! But it’s cultural as well. If you go to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Cambodia, the history of makeup is more theatrical. It’s an indigenous culture. Even going into China, Japan, it’s more of a theatrical style of makeup, not the typical style of what we see as makeup. That sort of thing transcended over time into normal everyday makeup. Weddings are seen as something that is very theatrical, whereas to western eyes, it’s meant to be very natural. That’s a cultural thing.

The makeup industry has grown so much over the many, many years it’s been around. For me, when I’m here, I’m always asking the makeup artists “what’s the biggest problem?” they say “it’s the heat. The makeup always runs.” I say “why don’t you use…not necessarily a better product, but understand your product. It might not be something that’s superior, it might be something that’s cheaper but lasts longer.” Less is more, but less should have enough pigment such that it stands out, and that’s the point. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. The last question I’d like to ask is, is there anything you’d like to do personally or professionally that you haven’t done yet?

What I’d like to do are my own productions. I want to do more film, but either if it’s independent or if I’m producing it or co-producing it. I wish I could do more personal projects, but I don’t get time, because personal projects don’t pay the bills. It’s evolved, if you ask me this question next year, it keeps changing. That’s what makeup effects is, it’s constantly evolving. An elderly artist might see their early work and go “oh, that’s crap!” It’s a journey, it’s a personal one. I guess you could say that I want to do everything that I possibly can that I haven’t done, then I want to go back to what I’ve done before and do it again, and revamp it.