Film Reviews
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
Saturday, November 16th, 2013 Film Reviews,“All vulgarity is crime,” wrote Oscar Wilde. “Vulgarity is the conduct of others.” One wonders what Wilde might have made of Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa – a film that has confounded everyone by surging to the top of the United States box office. He may have seen it as affirmation of another witticism: “America is […]
Mr. Pip
Saturday, November 16th, 2013 Film Reviews,Directing the Shrek movies and Chronicles of Narnia may seem a strange preparation for a movie about the bloody conflict in Bougainville in the early 1990s. It would be good to report that Andrew Adamson removes all doubts in his film adaptation of Lloyd Jones’s acclaimed novel, Mr. Pip, revealing himself as a truly versatile […]
Fruitvale Station
Saturday, November 9th, 2013 Film Reviews,“Based on a true story” is a claim that confers a special moral distinction on a movie. We are not talking about the fantasy adventures of James Bond or Superman, or some frivolous rom com. The film we have chosen to watch is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If only. […]
The Counselor
Saturday, November 9th, 2013 Film Reviews,In a hotel room in El Paso, two anonymous bodies are entwined beneath the sheets. We listen to their conversation for minutes before we lay eyes on Michael Fassbender and Penélope Cruz, playing the Counselor and his girlfriend, Laura. Having just seen a big René Magritte exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, […]
Renoir
Saturday, November 2nd, 2013 Film Reviews,Renoir, a bio-pic about the great Impressionist, poses a familiar paradox: directors love making films about artists, but most artists lead completely sedentary lives. For every Caravaggio, whose life was a tangle of sex and violence, there are thousands of plodders who barely left the studio except to go painting in a field. This doesn’t […]
The Butler
Saturday, November 2nd, 2013 Film Reviews,When a film touches on shameful events that are still raw and painful it exerts a strange moral blackmail on the viewer. In terms of script and character development, The Butler is a horribly corny movie. As a nose-to-the-glass chronicle of the civil rights movement, Lee Daniels’s melodrama strikes at the heart of America’s good […]
Blancanieves & Patrick
Saturday, October 26th, 2013 Film Reviews,Blancanieves There must be a reason why certain myths or fairy tales suddenly resurface in popular culture. Blancanieves was one of three movies made last year based on the story of Snow White. It is the best by a considerable margin – the other two contenders being Mirror, Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman […]
Mystery Road & Exposed
Saturday, October 19th, 2013 Film Reviews,Before Mel Gibson got a real American accent, the film Mad Max (1979) was dubbed to make it acceptable to a United States audience. Is that Australian twang still a barrier to international success? Ivan Sen’s Mystery Road should answer this question. The accents could hardly be more Australian but the film is pitched firmly […]
Italian Film Festival 2013 & Thanks for Sharing
Saturday, October 12th, 2013 Film Reviews,Anybody who remembers the thrill of seeing Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) for the first time should swiftly book a seat for the major drawcard in this year’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival: The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza). The film critics are strangely sniffy about director, Paolo Sorrentino, but I can’t understand their reticence. He […]
The Act of Killing & Rush
Saturday, October 5th, 2013 Film Reviews,There are limits to a social conscience. When a film has attracted every possible superlative it takes on the status of a must-see event, but after about ten minutes you know The Act of Killing will be both sickening and unforgettable. As one deadpan horror follows another in an interminable procession, many viewers will decide […]