Marc Fennell - Planet According to the Movies: Awesome, Weird and Wonderful Flicks FromFour Corners of the Globe

Marc Fennell has another name. Its That Movie Guy. Each week two million triple j listeners are subjected to Marcs pithy some might say bitchy reviews on the ABCs national youth broadcaster, making him Australias Most Listened-to Film Critic. An achievement he celebrated by buying himself a choc-top and watching Armageddon for the 12th glorious time. Marc is also the face of film for SBS. He introduces movies from around the world each night and hosts events like Tropfest. Marcs first publishing effort, That Movie Book, sold sufficiently well in a contracting print market to justify a second book and so here we are.

In his spare time Marc is also an award-winning journalist. Hes the host of Radio Nationals technology program Download This Show and anchor of SBSs current affairs program The Feed. In a career spanning the BBC, Network Ten, Foxtel and basically every part of the ABC this side of Playschool, Marc has interviewed all sorts: from Julian Assange to Will Smith.

If none of this is ringing a bell you might also remember Marc as the curly haired 19-year-old who presented on SBSs 2004 post-Pomeranzian reboot of The Movie Show. He was also a presenter and producer for all three seasons of ABC1s ground-breaking Hungry Beast under executive producer/criminal mastermind Andrew Denton.

Marc is currently ranked 3rd in the world in the sport of referring to himself in the third person but looks forward to taking out frontrunners Kanye West and Kevin Rudd in the coming months.

Praise for That Movie Book by Marc Fennell

Witty, irreverent and fun...

Good Reading

Gold!

Cleo

A film companion with a difference

Daily News

That Movie Book

The ABC Wave device is a trademark of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia.

First published in Australia in 2015

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright Marc Fennell 2015

The right of Marc Fennell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollinsPublishers

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, United Kingdom

2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA

ISBN 978 0 7333 34085 (pbk.)

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Fennell, Marc.

Planet according to the movies/ Marc Fennell.

978 1 4607 04790 (e-book)

Includes index.

Motion pictures.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

791.43

Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover photography by Stuart Scott; hair and makeup by Rachel Montgomery

@ Reload Agency; background images by shutterstock.com

Back cover illustration by Matt Stanton, HarperCollins Design Studio

Let there be no doubts: all of the good bits in this book

were actually written by my brilliant wife, Madeleine Genner.

Much like how all of the good bits of my life are because of you.

To Max, yes, Daddy can come play now.

Our planet is a stunning cornucopia of food, natural beauty, breathtaking man-made wonders and other things you can Instagram. Its also an equally stunning cornucopia of jetlag, crotch sweat, inaccurate maps, self-destructing shoes, tastebud-repellent airline food, things that dont fit in overhead storage, and things that for some reason travellers insurance never seems to cover.

Travel is actually terrible. Heres my advice: lets not and say we did. Better still, allow movies to do your travelling for you. Put your feet up, close the blinds (natural sunlight, ugh) and pour yourself a tall glass of Pina Colada Singapore Sling Long Island Ice Tea Kava Plum Wine Happy Funtime Juice. You, my friend, are about to experience the entire globe through the utterly infallible eyes of cinema.

Inside this extremely pleasing book youll find entertaining and compelling movies from all around the planet, and youll get a sense of how different cultures and countries have influenced filmmaking throughout history. Did you know that post-World War I Germany inadvertently created the horror movie or that Iceland is not real but actually a mythical land of aliens, elves and the Japanese?

Each chapter examines what movies have to say about a particular nation. For example, Vietnam has been overwhelmingly defined by the Vietnam War while Scotland seems to be mostly famous for its peoples prolific artisanal swearing. Theres also chapters dedicated to countries that have gifted us with entire film genres like Hong Kongs Heroic Bloodshed action movies or Italian spaghetti westerns. Some chapters are serious while others involve movies with 6-foot men in styrofoam calamari suits. Discover movies you never realised existed and the stories you never knew behind the movies you love.

Interspersed throughout are International Death-matches where different nations are pitted against each other to see, say, which nation has the best swordsmen? (ahem, Japan) or which country produces the best spies? (categorically: The Philippines. Why? Youll just have to read it to find out), or which movie monarch would make a better king than Prince Charles?

There is one thing Id like you to note: this is the sort of book you agree to write, sign the contract, cash the advance and then and only then does it occur to you, Wait, isnt this a little bit racist?

The answer is no.

It is extremely racist.

Yes, were basically taking select nations of the earth and then reducing them down to a handful of thematic threads that run through generally decent films. Some threads are thin. Some are so thick theyre almost straws to clutch at. All of the movies, however, are worth talking about, and definitely worth watching.

Just remember that each of the nations featured here is as rich, varied, complex and banal as your beloved home country. And please recognise that while cinema sometimes does do a very good impression of reality, it most certainly is not that.

Disclaimer over. Please now enjoy a deeply imperfect, subjective, porous and yes, a little bit racist, guide to Planet Earth as curated by me: an author who spends his advance first and asks questions later.

Science, Bjork and maps would have you believe that Iceland is a real place. But its not. Its a country so ancient, so raw, so unforgiving, so magical, so unearthly that it clearly exists as a parallel dimension gateway accessible only by making a pact with Satan or Harvey Weinstein.

In truth, Iceland is one of the youngest countries on earth (only 16 to 18 million years old). In geothermal terms its still in the most tortuous stage of puberty. Hence the unexpected boners of stone rising from the depths of an indigo sea, the awkward grinding intercourse of glacier on volcanic rock, the cracked lava fields of geological menstruation. Yes, I have really pushed the metaphor to the limits.