Film Reviews
The Survival of Kindness
Thursday, May 4th, 2023 Film Reviews,Plenty of people will tell you that Rolf de Heer’s The Survival of Kindness is a “weird” film. That’s probably an understatement considering that all the dialogue is muttered in an incomprehensible language – or set of languages, and that most of the characters walk around wearing large, clunky gasmasks. Nobody has a name, and […]
Polite Society
Saturday, April 29th, 2023 Film Reviews,Anglo-subcontinental filmmaking has come a long way since Bend it Like Beckham (2002). That “heartwarming” tale of a young girl from an Indian migrant family who wants to be a soccer star, has been superceded by a story of a teen from a Pakistani family with ambitions to be a stuntwoman. Once again, the cultural […]
Beau is Afraid
Friday, April 21st, 2023 Film Reviews,Ari Aster is a director who suffers from a bad case of David Lynch envy. His previous two features, Hereditary and Midsommar, were unusual enough to appeal to those with cultish tastes, but Beau is Afraid is more Twin Peaks than Twin Peaks. Alas, multiple peaks also entail multiple troughs, and this film lingers most […]
The Innocent
Friday, April 14th, 2023 Film Reviews,Although I didn’t get to write about this year’s French Film Festival, our national love affair with French cinema shows no signs of abating. As usual, a good percentage of the movies shown during the festival will get a local release. This comes as something of a relief, as we have gone into the annual […]
Air
Friday, April 7th, 2023 Film Reviews,Air is truly a film for our times. Essentially a two-hour advertisement for Nike, it is being acclaimed as stunning entertainment, and a potential “movie of the year”. We’ve come a long way from 1999, when Naomi Klein’s No Logo made the case against Nike and other big brands as shameless exploiters of the developing […]
Of an Age
Friday, March 31st, 2023 Film Reviews,Goran Stolevski announced his arrival as a force in Australian cinema with his debut feature of last year, You Won’t be Alone – a gender bending horror movie set in 19th century Macedonia. Those who responded enthusiastically to that weird, very original production, may find themselves less enamoured of his follow-up, Of an Age. You […]
EO
Saturday, March 25th, 2023 Film Reviews,Those journalists and foreign policy geeks Paul Keating recently called “donkeys”, might think better of the former PM after watching EO. In making this film, veteran director, Jerzy Skolimowski, has produced a strident defence of the donkey. “Some people say they are stupid, which is not right,” he says in the press release, “because they […]
Living
Friday, March 17th, 2023 Film Reviews,Bill Nighy has been in so many frivolous films I had begun to think of him as a lightweight, mannered actor, forever striking poses and talking in a languid drawl. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot with Love, Actually (2003), a movie I loathed at first sight. Whatever the reason, Living has forced […]
Academy Awards 2023
Friday, March 10th, 2023 Film Reviews,After last year’s Academy Awards I hesitate to make any firm predictions, as it still seems to me that giving CODA the prize for Best Picture was a palpable miscarriage of justice. When a film is viewable only on the Amazon TV platform it’s hardly cinema at all. When it’s a feel-good remake of a […]
Empire of Light
Saturday, March 4th, 2023 Film Reviews,Looking at the Rotten Tomatoes listings this week, I was amazed to see that Charlotte Wells’s debut film, Aftersun, scores a 95% approval rating from the critics, while Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light clocks in at 45%. This suggests that Wells has given us a masterpiece and Mendes has made a dud. Despite this apparent […]