KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON : Tuesday 31st October 2023.

In my first trip to a movie theatre in a month, I saw the MA15+ Rated 'KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON' this week. This American epic Western crime drama film is Co-Written for the screen and Directed by Martin Scorsese, who needs no introduction I'm sure, and is based on the 2017 non-fiction book of the same name by David Grann. The film, which cost a reported US$200M, had its World Premiere screening in late May this year at the Cannes Film Festival to widespread critical acclaim, and went on worldwide release on the 19th October. It marks the sixth feature film collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio and the tenth between Scorsese and De Niro. The film has so far grossed US$88M.

The film opens with elders of the Osage tribe of native American Indians sullenly burying a ceremonial pipe, and grieving over their descendants' assimilation into White American society. Wandering through their Oklahoma reservation, which features the annual 'flower moon' phenomenon of larger plants killing off smaller ones in Springtime, several Osage tribesmen are seen dancing as oil bursts from the ground and rains down the black gold on them. The tribe needless to say becomes very wealthy, as it retains mineral rights, and members share in oil-lease revenues, making them the wealthiest people on earth per capita. However, the law requires court-appointed guardians to manage the financial return to full and half-blood members, assuming them to be 'incompetent'.

In 1919, the money hungry and largely unintelligent Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from World War I, where he worked as a field cook, to live with his very wealthy uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro) on his large reservation ranch in Fairfax. Oklahoma. Hale, is a reserve deputy sheriff popularly known as 'King', who masquerades as a friendly benefactor of the Osage, speaking their language and bestowing gifts upon them, but he has ulterior motives and secretly schemes to kill them off and steal their wealth. He tells Ernest, who now works as a cab driver, to court Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage whose family owns oil headrights. 

A romance develops, and the two are married in a grand wedding. Hale meanwhile plots the deaths of several wealthy Osage. He tells Ernest he will inherit more headrights if more of Mollie's family dies, with her mother Lizzie Q (Tantoo Cardinal) already quite ill and knocking on death's door. After Mollie's sister Minnie (Jillian Dion) dies of a mysterious illness, Hale orders Ernest’s brother Byron (Scott Shepherd) to kill Mollie’s other sister, the rebellious Anna (Cara Jade Myers). Lizzie and the Osage tribal council blame the reservation's white folks for the deaths and urge the tribe to stand their ground and fight back. A newsreel of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma causes further concern among the Osage that a similar attack could occur on their land. Lizzie dies shortly afterward in her bed.

Despite everything Ernest genuinely loves Mollie and they have children. Hale, however, persuades Ernest to poison Mollie’s insulin which she is prescribed for her diabetes, and is led to believe that she is only one of five people in the entire world to benefit from this treatment, which Hale is paying for. Ernest is in denial about the damage it’s causing, as Hale insists it merely 'slows her down'. Mollie’s condition continues to deteriorate. Hale orders the death of Henry Roan (William Belleau), Mollie's first husband whom she married when she was just fifteen years old, to collect the sum of US$25K which Hale had insured his life for, and has Ernest organise the murder. However, Ernest messes up the killing, so Hale, being a member of the Mason's, brutally beats his backside with a wooden paddle. Hale then orders Ernest to arrange the murders of Rita (JaNae Collins), Mollie's last remaining sister, and her husband Bill Smith (Jason Isbell), by blowing up her house with the explosives laid by Acie Kirby (Pete Yorn) a local expert in such matters. Mollie inherits all her family's headrights.

Mollie hires William J. Burns (Gary Basaraba), a private detective, but he gets severely beaten up and is chased out of Fairfax by Ernest and Byron. Despite her illness, Mollie travels to Washington with an Osage delegation and begs President Calvin Coolidge for help. The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) sends Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) and several other agents, and they quickly uncover the truth concerning the series of murders and who is behind them. Hale attempts to cover his tracks by murdering several of his own hired killers, but White arrests him and Ernest. The agents find Mollie severely ill and have her admitted to hospital where she receives proper medical care and in time recovers. 

Agent White convinces Ernest to confess and turn state's evidence against Hale. W. S. Hamilton (Brendan Fraser), Hale's attorney, tries to convince Ernest to claim he was beaten and tortured while in custody, and to recant. After one of his daughters dies of whooping cough, Ernest decides to follow through with testifying against his uncle, with Prosecutor Peter Leaward (John Lithgow) leading the charge here. Hale unsuccessfully tries to have Ernest murdered. Mollie meets with Ernest a last time, but leaves him when he will not admit to poisoning her. 

A filmed report for a radio show sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes, provides a closing update. Ernest and Hale were both convicted and received life sentences. They were, however, paroled after many years of serving jail time, despite protests to the parole board by the Osage. Byron served no prison time, due to a hung jury. Doctors James and David Shoun (Steve Witting and Steve Routman respectively), who had given Ernest poison to administer to Mollie along with insulin, and were implicated in other 'wasting deaths', were not prosecuted due to 'lack of evidence'. Mollie divorced Ernest after the trial. She remarried and died of diabetes at the age of fifty in 1937. She was buried with her family - parents, sisters and daughter. Her obituary did not refer to the Osage murders that came to be known as the 'Reign of Terror'.

'Killers of The Flower Moon' is a talkfest of a film interspersed with moments of unforgivable violence meted out on the Osage peoples. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with that, as we have seen recently with Christopher Nolan's epic biopic 'Oppenheimer' which was made for half of what Scorsese spent to bring this epic to the big screen and grossed almost ten times that amount and still counting, where as for all the justifiable praise heaped on this film it is hardly likely to make back its production budget! That said, Scorsese has here crafted a meticulous work of cinematic art - from the top notch production design, to the formidable acting talent on display, to the sweeping vistas and the rotten corrupt truth of how the white man tried to eradicate the first nations people of America all in the name of greed, jealousy and ultimately murder. A must see film on the big screen, if nothing else than to be taught a valuable history lesson, for me this film is good, very good in fact, but its not great, and at a runtime of just a nudge under three and a half hours it does labour in places.

'Killers of The Flower Moon' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 19th October 2023.

The Adelaide Film Festival runs this year from Wednesday18th until Sunday 29th October, in Adelaide, South Australia. An independently financed Adelaide International Film Festival (AIFF) had been held from 1959 to 1980. The idea of a new film festival to stimulate the local film industry and celebrate the 30th anniversary of the South Australian Film Corporation was raised in 2002, with the inaugural Adelaide (International) Film Festival being held from late February to early March 2003. It ran a programme of screenings, special events and forums in a number of cinemas across Adelaide, and was the first film festival in Australia to introduce an international competition, and also the first to create an investment fund specifically for film production. After its first edition, the festival ceased to use 'International' in its title, denoting a withdrawal from FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) membership.

This years Opening Night Gala film presentation is 'The Royal Hotel' Co-Written and Directed by Kitty Green and starring Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving, Toby Wallace and Daniel Henshall. The film was shot in South Australia. The Closing Night Gala film is 'My Name's Ben Folds - I Play Piano' Directed by Scott Hicks and starring Ben Folds and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey. 

This years Feature Fiction Competition sees six films that are a selection of almost entirely first features capturing imagined worlds both rooted in the real or entirely visionary. Those films are :-

* 'Blaga's Lessons' from Bulgaria and Germany and Co-Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Stephan Komandarev. Seventy-year-old Blaga is mourning the recent death of her husband and is  stretched financially to cover the costs of his grave. When she falls for a phone scam and is stripped of her savings, she is humiliated and desperate. Aged out of the job market, she becomes a driver for some shady figures, and on track to collide with the criminals who preyed on her. Australian Premiere.
* 'Embryo Larva Butterfly' from Cyprus and Greece and Written and Directed by Kyros Papavassiliou. Penelope and Isidoros exist in a universe where one day they can be young lovers, and the next older and divorced. Their relationship is stretched into new dimensions as their shared and individual recollections are in constant flux. However, somewhere next to their world is another where time is linear. Australian Premiere.

* 'Empty Nets' from Germany and Iran and Written and Directed by Behrooz Karamizade. Amir loves Narges, but they are at the opposite ends of the economic order. As the sanctions against Iran begin to bite, the poor are the first to be bitten, and Amir finds that his only way of making money is to join a group of fishermen who augment their meagre income through an illegal poaching operation. Australian Premiere.

* 'On the Go' from Spain and Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Maria Gisele Royo and Julia de Castro. Milagros, a free-spirited woman who wants to have a child, is joined by Jonathan, a Grindr-loving criminal with a past, and a mermaid sporting a broken crown. The group hits the road in a ’67 Chevrolet Corvair, careening from one wild encounter to another. Australian Premiere.

* 'Sahela' from Australia and Co-Written and Directed by Raghuvir Joshi. To their respective conservative Indian parents, Vir and Nitya are a happily married couple living in Parramatta, Sydney. They love to play the sitar together, she is a successful dentist, and he is studying for his accounting exam. However, as the cultural expectations ingrained into them from childhood start to take their toll, they both struggle to keep up appearances. Australian Premiere.

* 'You'll Never Find Me' from Australia and Co-Produced and Directed by Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell, Written by Indianna Bell and Edited by Josiah Allen. Strange hermit Patrick lives in an isolated caravan park. During a violent thunderstorm, a mysterious young woman appears at his door, seeking shelter from the weather. The longer the night wears on and the more the young woman discovers about Patrick, the more difficult she finds it to leave. Soon she begins to question Patrick’s intentions, while he begins to question his own grip on reality. 

In addition, there are six films in the Feature Documentary Competition, which are 'Apolonia, Apolonia', 'Hollywoodgate', 'Lakota Nation vs United States', 'Mutiny in Heaven : The Birthday Party', 'Seven Winters in Tehran' and 'The Mountains'. 

Those films being screened as part of the Special Presentations strand that are a selection of the most talked about films of the year that promise to excite and delight. They are 'Fingernails', 'Uproar', 'All Of Us Strangers', 'Foe', 'Poor Things', 'Saltburn', 'Hot Potato : The Story of The Wiggles' and 'Strange Way of Life'.

For the complete synopsis of these latter films, plus a whole lot more good stuff, you can visit the official website at : https://adelaidefilmfestival.org/

This week there are no less than eight new movies coming to a big screen Odeon close to home, and we kick start with an epic Western about members of the Osage tribe in the US who are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920's, sparking a major B.O.I. (F.B.I.) investigation. Next up we have a biographical offering telling the story of a sixty-four-year-old marathon swimmer who attempts to become the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida. Then we have a French film about a woman who is sucked into a world of secrets and betrayal as the battle over her estranged father's massive estate reveals him to be more than the genial patriarch she'd assumed. We then turn to an Aussie doco concerning a man who experiments with disconnecting from his smartphone and social media for thirty days to see what the impact is upon him and the people around him. This is followed by a second Aussie doco charting the great Aussie rivalry between two leading car manufacturers and the impact on the Australian psyche both on the racetrack and off it. Up next we have a Filipino movie telling the story of how after a ruthless firing and its devastating aftermath, a determined woman embarks on a strategic revenge plot against a chic, rich retail mogul. And our third Aussie offering this week is a comedy romance about a successful romance writer who takes a post-breakup vacation to the tropical island where she meets a handsome stranger and starts to fall for him - only to find out that he's actually a Prince; and we close out the week with a Dutch animated film about a young girl, and a piglet gifted to her by her grandfather, who has ulterior motives for doing so. 

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the eight latest release new films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON' (Rated MA15+) - is an American epic Western crime drama film Co-Written for the screen and Directed by Martin Scorsese, who needs no introduction I'm sure, and is based on the 2017 non-fiction book of the same name by David Grann. The film, which cost a reported US$200M, had its World Premiere screening in late May this year at the Cannes Film Festival to widespread critical acclaim, and goes on worldwide release this week. It marks the sixth feature film collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio and the tenth between Scorsese and De Niro. 

Set in 1920's north eastern Oklahoma and depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the 'Reign of Terror'. Sparking a major Bureau of Investigation (which became the FBI in 1935) inquiry directed by a 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover and a former Texas Ranger Tom White (Jesse Plemmons) into the deaths of some sixty or more wealthy, full-blood Osage Indians who were reported killed from 1918 to 1931. Also starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Scott Shepherd and Sturgill Simpson. 

'NYAD' (Rated M) - this American biographical sports drama film is Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin in their feature film debuts and is based on Diana Nyad's autobiography 'Find a Way'. The film tells the story of how, three decades after giving up marathon swimming in exchange for a prominent career as a sports journalist, at the age of sixty, Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) becomes obsessed with completing an epic swim that always eluded her - the 110 mile open water swim from Cuba to Florida. Determined to become the first person to finish the swim without a shark cage, Diana goes on a thrilling, four-year journey with her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) and a dedicated sailing team. Also starring Rhys Ifans, the film saw its World Premiere screening at the Telluride Film Festival in early September, and is released in the US this week too before streaming on Netflix from 3rd November. 

'THE ORIGIN OF EVIL' (Rated MA15+) - this French and Canadian Co-Produced thriller drama film is Written and Directed by Sebastien Marnier whose first feature film was 'Faultless' in 2016 and which he followed up with 'School's Out' in 2018. Here, Stephane (Laure Calamy), a fish cannery worker discovers that she is the biological daughter of wealthy businessman Serge (Jacques Weber), and is being introduced to his established family despite their unwillingness to accept her. As Stephane embarks on an extended visit in hopes of getting to know Serge, she also becomes entangled with the hostile women who share a tense existence in his beautifully appointed mansion by the sea, and all of whom are clearly unsettled by the arrival of Serge's newly announced heir. But Stephane is a confident liar with secrets of her own. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing at the early September 2022 Venice Film Festival and only now is it released in Australia having completed the film festivals circuit and so far taking just US$1M at the Box Office and generating largely positive reviews.

'DISCONNECT ME' (Rated PG) - is an Australian documentary film Written, Directed and starring Alex Lykos in only his second feature length film after his debut in 2019 with the comedy 'Me & My Left Brain'. This film focuses on Alex who experiments with disconnecting from his smartphone, all of his electronic devices and social media for thirty days, while examining the ever-pervasive role that technology plays in our daily lives. How will this impact his life both personally and professionally? How will he and those around him react? Along the way, Alex investigates the social impacts of the smartphone and social media, interviewing children, teenagers, adults and academics asking the question 'why are we so addicted to technology?'

'FORD V. HOLDEN' (Rated CTC) - this Australian documentary film is Written by Meaghan Wilson Anastasios, narrated by the Aussie Actor, Writer and Producer Shane Jacobson, and is Produced by Universal Pictures. The film explores the decades-long competition between two of Australia’s most iconic car brands, Ford and Holden. From the early days of the automobile industry to the present, here we delve into the history, technology, and culture of these rival companies and their impact on the Australian psyche and automotive landscape.

'A VERY GOOD GIRL' (Rated M) - is a Philippine dark comedy film Directed by Petersen Vargas whose debut feature film was '2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten' in 2016 and then 'An Inconvenient Love' in 2022. Here, following a heartless firing triggers a chain of unfortunate events, as Philo (Kathryn Bernardo) plots a meticulous revenge against retail mogul Mother Molly (Dolly de Leon), aiming to dismantle her empire and seize the ultimate payback. This time, there is no mercy. The film has so far grossed US$1.3M since its release at the end of September in the Philippines and its release Stateside earlier this month, and has garnered generally positive press.

'A ROYAL IN PARADISE' (Rated G) - this Australian comedy romance film is Co-Written and Directed by Adrian Powers in only his second feature film outing following 'Battle Ground' in 2013 with 'Love Is in the Air' released on Netflix towards the end of September. Olivia Perkins (Rhiannon Fish), a New York Writer struggling with writer's block after a recent break up, takes a tropical holiday in hope of some inspiration and meets Prince Alexander (Mitchell Bourke), who needs some distance from his mother, Queen Patricia (Andrea Moor), who expects him to marry royalty. 

'OINK' (Rated PG) - is a Dutch stop motion animation film based on the book 'The Revenge of Oink' by Tosca Menten. It was the first stop motion feature film ever made in the Netherlands, and is Directed by Mascha Halberstad. Here, nine-year-old Babs (voiced by Hiba Ghafry) is gifted a pig named Oink as a present from her Grandpa Tuitjes (Kees Prins). She convinces her parents to keep it under the condition that Oink follows puppy training. But her parents are not the biggest threat to Oink because actually her grandfather is secretly taking part in a sausage making competition organised by The Society for Meat Products from Fresh Pigs. The film had its World Premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival, and it went on to win three Golden Calves at the Netherlands Film Festival for Best Feature Film, Best Director and Best Production Design, making it the first animated film to ever win these awards. Following its success, it was announced that a twenty minute short film prequel is being made and will take place 25 years before the events of the first film. Titled 'King Sausage' it follows the parents of Babs.

With eight new release movie offerings this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the week ahead.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-