FEELING DOWN DOWN UNDER.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic Welcome to sunny Australia, where all they think about is death. At least, the people in Sarah Watt's ``Look Both Ways'' do. They have their reasons: Protagonist A, Meryl (Justine Clarke), has just lost her father and witnessed a man getting hit by a train. Protagonist B, Nick (William McInnes This article is about the Australian actor. For the Australian painter of the same name, see William Beckwith McInnes. William McInnes (b. September 10 1964) is a tall (6' 4" (1.93 m)) Australian actor born in Redcliffe, Queensland. ), has a recently departed dad, too, and has been informed of his own testicular cancer testicular cancer Malignant tumour of the testis, or testicle. Although relatively rare, testicular cancer is the most common malignancy for men between the ages of 20 and 34. It typically affects men between 15 and 39 years old. . On top of all that, the TV won't shut up about another railway disaster, in which a trainful of people died in a tunnel crash. So, Meryl and Nick and a lot of their friends have good excuses for spending most of a long, hot weekend thinking mortal thoughts. Those that aren't tend to be going through equal angst over child-related issues. Hey, we've all got to go to those places sometimes. But a whole movie's worth of this dour dithering Simulating more colors and shades in a palette. In a monochrome system that displays or prints only black and white, shades of grays can be simulated by creating varying patterns of black dots. This is how halftones are created in a monochrome printer. eventually devolves into uncomfortable self-parody. And by that, I don't mean the intellectually rich black comedy Woody Allen Noun 1. Woody Allen - United States filmmaker and comic actor (1935-) Allen Stewart Konigsberg, Allen mines, and that Watt has invoked as an inspiration for ``Look Both Ways.'' For one thing, Allen's morbid humor humor, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was is usually funny. What little I could detect of Watt's (the film seemed very serious about itself to me) usually wasn't. Some interesting stylistic flourishes, though. Meryl is an illustrator, and her running inner fantasies of being eaten by sharks or strangled stran·gle v. stran·gled, stran·gling, stran·gles v.tr. 1. a. To kill by squeezing the throat so as to choke or suffocate; throttle. b. by strange men are depicted by Crayola- style animated sequences (Watt did the art; her previous films have been cartoons). Nick, a newspaper photographer, thinks of his own troubled past in a series of still montages. He also sees microscopic footage of metastasizing malignancies once he and Meryl hook up and make love. And that's one of the film's cheerier moments. But misery loves paying patrons, so if you're in a grim mood and want to commiserate com·mis·er·ate v. com·mis·er·at·ed, com·mis·er·at·ing, com·mis·er·ates v.tr. To feel or express sorrow or pity for; sympathize with. v.intr. with a bunch of mopes mope intr.v. moped, mop·ing, mopes 1. a. To be gloomy or dejected. b. To brood or sulk. See Synonyms at brood. 2. To move in a leisurely or aimless manner; dawdle. n. with different accents, you could not do better than ``Look Both Ways.'' Please be sensitive, though, and don't laugh in the wrong places. Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com LOOK BOTH WAYS - Two stars (PG-13: sex, language) Starring: Justine Clarke, William McInnes, Anthony Hayes, Lisa Flanagan. Director: Sarah Watt. Running time: 1 hr. 40 min. Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Royal, West L.A. In a nutshell: Australians with problems share a really depressing weekend. The filmmaker claims it's a comedy - maybe, if you think exaggerated morbidity is a hoot. |
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