Newcastle
Out gay director Dan Castle’s first narrative feature suggests Newcastle, NSW is all sandy beaches, lively surf breaks, and seaside factoryscapes counterpointing the youthful idyll of beach life.

With Puberty Blues a clear precursor, the film’s narrative follows fairly standard teen drama lines. An unsupervised surfing weekend away will be instrumental in the collective comings of age of a small group of mid-to-late teens. Four boys, all contestants in a recent and slightly rancorous surfing competition, will seek to prove themselves in and out of the water.

Along for the ride: two pretty young girls, and Fergus (Xavier Samuel), a gay outsider. Awkward sexual encounters, conflicts and disaster ensue.

Newcastle distinguishes itself with some beautiful outdoor cinematography, and its attractive, sun-kissed cast acquit themselves admirably. Queer audiences primed to expect the worst for gay characters placed in narratives woven around macho (sub)cultures will find that Fergus’ very presence generates considerable suspense, further elevating this laudable new Australian teen flick.

The Wackness
As admonished by his inamorata, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby), the dope-peddling, hip hop-loving Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is a virginal young man preoccupied with life’s ‘wackness’ – which is to say, he’s a glass half-empty sort of guy.

Luke reluctantly seeks to address this in psychiatric sessions with a regular customer: Stephanie’s drug-addled and contrary stepfather, Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley). The doctor becomes a wayward role model to Luke, although he doesn’t want Luke to apply any of his good advice in his interactions with Stephanie, for all their sakes.

Set in the newly-sanitised New York City of 1994, The Wackness is a little too keen early on to push its period credentials. It nonetheless effectively conveys the way we once managed to organise our social, professional and criminal affairs back when we didn’t have access to today’s telecommunications technologies, in a time when a mixtape was amongst the greatest gifts a friend or aspiring intimate might give another.

Peck and Kingsley especially are terrific in this unpredictable and highly enjoyable American indie. Mark writer/director Jonathan Levine as one to watch in coming years.

Youth Without Youth
Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in ten years is one of the most pretentious releases of 2008.

Tim Roth plays Dominic Matei, a brilliant but underachieving and ageing linguistics professor who is subjected to the miraculous rejuvenating and quickening powers of a lightning strike in Bucharest in 1938. The incident and its after-effects drive Matei to complete his magnum opus on the origins of human language, chris-crossing Europe while simultaneously dodging Nazis who want to harness his new-found vitality for the Reich.

The end of the war only complicates matters, with Matei – and his Mephistophelian doppelganger – developing a relationship with the beautiful Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara), a mysterious woman prone to speaking in Sanskrit and other dead languages spoken by her previous incarnations. Veronica looks able to provide the missing link in Matei’s research – but at what cost?

Coppola’s comeback is one kooky film, labouring under the weight of all its metaphysical flights of fancy. The dialogue is often terribly stilted, and some of the techniques employed in its many fantasy sequences are just plain naff. But, even though low-budget, it’s a handsome production, and will yet gather a few vocal admirers.