Film Reviews
Ticket to Paradise & Moonage Daydream
Thursday, September 15th, 2022 Film Reviews,George Clooney and Julia Roberts have bought a ticket to Paradise, but which Paradise is that? They think they’re in Bali but someone has sold them a pup, because it’s actually Queensland – the Whitsundays to be precise. Their confusion is understandable because they seem to have landed in a colony of Balinese people, all […]
Three Thousand Years of Longing
Friday, September 9th, 2022 Film Reviews,It’s widely believed the genie in a bottle who grants three wishes to the one who sets him free is a story from The Arabian Nights. In fact, nobody quite knows how this classic tale originated. There’s an element of The Arabian Nights, which was first translated into English in the early 18th century, along […]
The Quiet Girl
Friday, September 2nd, 2022 Film Reviews,Before I sat down to watch The Quiet Girl, I was told, over and again, it was “a beautiful film”. Regardless of the professional cynicism weekly reviewing breeds, I can now report: It’s a beautiful film. Colm Bairéad’s debut feature has won major awards at international film festivals in Berlin and Dublin, triumphing in eight […]
Blaze
Friday, August 26th, 2022 Film Reviews,It was inevitable that Del Kathryn Barton’s debut feature, Blaze, would gather a swag of rave responses. Every new Australian film, no matter how bleak, depressing or sadistic, finds plenty of people willing to sing its praises. Too often this compulsive need to support the local product only helps perpetuate the artistic mediocrity that has […]
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Thursday, August 18th, 2022 Film Reviews,Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is that rare cinematic beast – a two-hander. The very nature of the cinema prompts filmmakers to stuff plays with extra scenes and characters when adapted for the screen. The worry is that audiences will feel bored by long conversations between two people, or miss the usual […]
Nope
Friday, August 12th, 2022 Film Reviews,Jordan Peel has enjoyed a meteoric rise from the margins to the mainstream in the space of only three features. Peel’s debut effort, Get Out (2017), had all the hallmarks of a cult classic. An off-beat zombie movie with a political subtext, it gave a dark, satirical twist to those racial anxieties that have divided […]
Full Time & Juniper
Saturday, August 6th, 2022 Film Reviews,If you’ve been to Paris and not experienced a demonstration or strike, you’ve missed one of the quintessentially French cultural experiences. Perhaps it’s a legacy of the Revolution, but Parisians have never been shy about taking their grievances to the streets. It’s tremendously stirring for those doing the marching and chanting, but a pain for […]
The Forgiven
Friday, July 29th, 2022 Film Reviews,No-one is ever really “forgiven” in a film scripted and directed by John Michael McDonagh, or his brother, Martin. Like the Coens or Jim Jarmusch, the McDonaghs specialise in overturning the cinema’s age-old storytelling conventions. In a James Bond movie, for instance, a large part of the audience’s pleasure comes from watching the same predictable […]
Official Competition
Saturday, July 23rd, 2022 Film Reviews,Hubris, which comes from Greek tragedy, means “excessive pride or self-confidence”. Official Competition begins with a grand display of hubris, as a billionaire businessman commissions a movie as a monument to himself. It won’t be just any old flick but an instant cinema classic intended to win prestigious awards and stand the test of time. […]
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song
Saturday, July 16th, 2022 Film Reviews,Hallelujah, the Hebrew word of praise for the Lord, is all over the Old Testament. How strange, but how very typical of our contemporary neediness and confusion, that Leonard Cohen’s song of that name should have become a secular pop anthem for our times. Daniel Geller and Dayna Golding’s innovative documentary, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A […]