Remote control
Eric Bana is back in the bush to reprise his role as a steadfast cop
beautiful and I always fear they make people feel like going into the bush is a traumatic thing.”
Both agree that all the hard work and hardship paid off for the film, which was co-produced by Bruno Papandrea of Big Little Lies and The Undoing fame and also stars Aussie stalwarts Deborra-Lee Furness, Anna Torv, Richard Roxburgh and Jacqueline McKenzie. Like the first film, the wild landscape is very much a character in Force of Nature, in which multiple crimes unfold over two different time periods, as a group of five women disappear in the wilderness and Falk is on the trail of a massive corporate fraud.
“What I love about the way Jane Harper creates these locations within the stories as a character, is it helps you as a filmmaker avoid the danger of feeling like a tourism ad because the landscape has a narrative function,” Connolly says. “And if you’re making a survival story, if people are joking that you are shooting The Revenant in Victoria, there can’t be half measures. You can’t make it feel like we took the actors down at night and filmed in the Botanic Gardens, so we put the actors in the toughest landscapes.”
Like many local films, Force of Nature was a lean, mean production, with Bana directing some scenes to save time and money. If Connolly was in one location with the women, Bana would sometimes be dispatched to shoot scenes featuring Falk.
“It was fine,” he says, with a laugh, of directing himself. “Very easy. I’m very low maintenance. Very efficient.”
It’s been a long time between drinks for Justin Timberlake – six years since Man Of the Woods – but the pop superstar has announced his eagerly anticipated sixth studio album. Everything I Thought It Was will be released on March 15. The first taste of the new music is Selfish, with JT showing off his sensitive side with that trademark falsetto voice over some smooth, midtempo, moody beats courtesy of his long-time producer Timbaland, and new collaborators Louis Bell and Cirkut.
BALTER CERVEZA
The GABS Hottest 100 has been run and won again with Mountain Culture’s Status Quo Pale Ale once again on top. Balter had the best of the newcomers with their Cerveza lager making its debut at No. 43. It’s a super, sessionable sensation.