Tag: sci-fi
Jurassic World Dominion
Friday, June 17th, 2022 Film Reviews,If Top Gun: Maverick took formula film-making into the stratosphere, Jurassic World Dominion has returned it to the primordial swamp. Whatever the shortcomings of the previous installment in this seemingly endless series, it feels like a classic alongside this new effort. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) Spanish director, J.A.Bayona managed a few clever twists […]
Dune
Saturday, March 5th, 2022 Film Reviews,There are fans for whom Dune’s second coming has been anticipated with a kind of religious devotion. The first cinematic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cult science fiction novel in 1984 was a film David Lynch would rather forget, so there were high hopes for Denis Villeneuve’s new version. Could they get it wrong again? Well […]
The Movies: A Boxing Day Round-Up
Saturday, December 25th, 2021 Film Reviews,For those not turned feral by the Boxing Day sales, the day after Christmas is the traditional detox after all that festive activity. Yes, it’s supposed to be joyous, but it’s also stressful when one has to work harder at a holiday than at a regular job. Hence the popularity of the Boxing Day test […]
Top Secret UFO Projects Declassified
Thursday, August 19th, 2021 Film Reviews,On 6 April, 1966, a UFO appeared in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton South. The saucer-shaped craft caused a stir among students of Westall High School who watched it fly overhead then land behind a nearby clump of trees. Shortly afterwards it ascended again at high speed and disappeared. Channel Nine sent a team to […]
The Trouble with Being Born
Friday, December 11th, 2020 Film Reviews,For a small, relatively low-key science fiction movie, The Trouble with Being Born by Austrian director Sandra Wollner has generated a lot of controversy. The feature was removed from the program of this year’s Melbourne Film Festival on the advice of two forensic psychologists who allegedly did not watch it in its entirety. There’s so much […]
Tenet
Friday, August 28th, 2020 Film Reviews,Christopher Nolan enjoys a charmed life among the ranks of Hollywood directors. He may have a reputation for bringing in projects on-time and on-budget, but few of his peers could hope to get away with such complex plots and abstruse ideas. If you thought Interstellar (2014) was incomprehensible, brace yourself for Tenet, a sci fi, […]
Colour Out of Space
Thursday, May 7th, 2020 Film Reviews,H.P. Lovecraft is the undisputed Old Master of American horror fiction. Although he died of cancer at the age of 47 in 1937, Lovecraft’s output was positively volcanic. The fantastic tales have made him posthumously famous, but he also wrote reams of poetry, and countless essays on science, philosophy, political and social issues. He ghost-wrote […]
Vivarium
Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 Film Reviews,This may not be the best time to release a feature about a couple trapped in a suburban nightmare, completely isolated from the rest of the world. Are we eager to stream a film that reminds us of our own predicament? Perhaps there’s a vicarious pleasure in watching others doing it harder than oneself. Vivarium […]
Epidemic entertainment
Thursday, March 26th, 2020 Film Reviews,If there were a stockmarket for movies the smart money would be on Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), which has become one of the most searched and downloaded titles on the web, even though it’s not available on Netflix or most of the other the major streaming services. With the news cycle so completely dominated by […]
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker & Cats
Tuesday, January 7th, 2020 Film Reviews,In the last weeks of 2019 the big studios generously served up two Christmas turkeys. Judging by the reviews I wasn’t the only person yawning through Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, or wondering how Tom Hooper’s weirdly sexualised Cats ever secured a G rating. Both films are self-conscious ‘blockbusters’ intended to appeal to a […]