Film Reviews
Wide Open Sky
Thursday, April 14th, 2016 Film Reviews,It would be a shame not to mention a new Australian documentary released this week. Lisa Nicol’s Wide Open Sky, follows the indomitable Michelle Leonard, as she rounds up country children to take part in her annual choir project, the Moorambilla Voices. It’s a completely hands-on activity that sees Leonard not only conducting the choir, […]
Spanish Film Festival 2016
Thursday, April 14th, 2016 Film Reviews,In the days of the infamous Motion Picture Production Code, which stretched from 1930 until the 1960s, Hollywood’s movie makers were constrained from producing any film that might lower the moral standards of its audience. This meant crime could never pay, while law-breakers always suffered for their sins. Innocence and goodness were invariably rewarded. For […]
Rams
Friday, April 8th, 2016 Film Reviews,At last, a movie for sheep fanciers everywhere! Rams is a small, deadpan story about two brothers who live next door to each in a remote part of Iceland, but haven’t exchanged a word in forty years. The only thing that gets people excited in this barren environment is sheep. The brothers, and their fellow […]
Where to Invade Next
Thursday, April 7th, 2016 Film Reviews,Donald Trump says he will make America great again. Michael Moore has plenty of suggestions about where to start. In the fanciful opening to Where to Invade Next, it’s not Trump that asks Moore for advice, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are concerned that they’ve bungled every engagement since 1945. They need a […]
Sherpa
Thursday, March 31st, 2016 Film Reviews,One wonders if our addiction to the ludicrous disaster fantasies of superhero films makes us more or less susceptible to real disaster stories? Jennifer Peedom’s documentary, Sherpa, was filmed one year before the earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April 2015, but it shows a community that had already endured its share of trauma. Peedom […]
Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice
Thursday, March 31st, 2016 Film Reviews,At the age of twelve I read Marvel comics with religious dedication. As a fan one made a clear choice between the Marvel universe and that of its great rival, DC comics. While DC may have had those two archetypal superheroes, Batman and Superman, Marvel had a whole raft of characters that seemed more imaginatively […]
The Witch
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2016 Film Reviews,Robert Eggers’s directorial debut, The Witch, is a horror movie that will appeal more strongly to arthouse types than to viewers weaned on a diet of ‘shock and gore’. It’s undeniably creepy but most of the director’s energy has gone into the creation of atmosphere and period detail. The entire film seems to have been […]
A Bigger Splash
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2016 Film Reviews,Ten years ago Ralph Fiennes was the model of a stiff-upper-lip character actor, the epitome of English reserve. There was, however, another persona biding its time until it could be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. This Fiennes has given us a brutal warrior in Coriolanus, a sparkling portrait of Charles Dickens in The Invisible Woman, […]
10 Cloverfield Lane
Thursday, March 17th, 2016 Film Reviews,Would you like to wake up and find yourself locked in a bunker with John Goodman? In 10 Cloverfield Lane this is exactly what happens to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays Michelle, a young woman who leaves her fiancée and heads off on a road trip. After a car accident she regains consciousness chained to […]
Eye in the Sky
Thursday, March 17th, 2016 Film Reviews,“Something inherent in the necessities of successful action,’ wrote Joseph Conrad in Nostromo,’ carried with it the moral degradation of the idea.” He could be describing the contemporary ‘war on terror’, in which the efficient use of drones makes a mockery of the idea of the nobility of armed conflict. There’s nothing romantic about sending […]