Film Reviews
Declaration of War
Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Declaration of War may be the most peculiar, most polarising film of the year. A controversial choice for the opening night of the 2012 French Film Festival in Sydney, it divided the audience between those who felt touched and moved, and those who saw it as a monumental act of self-indulgence. As a general rule […]
Get the Gringo
Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,South of the border, down Mexico way. We’ve been here before, but never in the company of Mel Gibson, working to restore a reputation that has taken a dive in recent years. There have been slight problems with alcohol, domestic violence, and anti-Semitic pronouncements delivered to officers of the law. “Sick to his empty core […]
Cleopatra
Saturday, May 26th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Hollywood has never made a more difficult, more expensive movie than Cleopatra (1963). It reputedly cost between US$35-$40 million, which is approximately US$300 million in today’s money. Avatar, in comparison, has been costed at US$280 million. The shooting of Cleopatra was hardly less epic than the Roman empire itself, with a cast that qualified as […]
Bel Ami
Saturday, May 26th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,It probably requires a teenage girl to understand the attractions of Robert Pattinson, and here I’m deficient in empathy. Having missed out on all those romantic vampire flicks I must be lacking a crucial point of comparison, for on first impressions this young Adonis’s acting style consists of several variations on the theme of the […]
Silent Souls
Saturday, May 19th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Look no further, the sleeper of the year has arrived. Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls is a sparse, beautiful film filled with the bare, frozen landscapes of west-central Russia, and rough-hewn characters that hold the viewer spellbound. Cinephiles will recognise the atmosphere of an Andrei Tarkovsky film with its scenes of mesmeric dilapidation, but this is […]
The Dictator
Saturday, May 19th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,For a riotous comedy about a North African dictator imagine a documentary about Colonel Gaddafi’s 42-year reign in Libya. Were he still around to see The Dictator, Gaddafi might have felt flattered by the number of features that Sacha Baron Cohen has borrowed from his glorious regime. There are the costumes, of course, and the […]
Iron Sky
Saturday, May 12th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Why is it that film-makers think the Nazis are funny? There may have been something inherently absurd about the Third Reich, with its fetish for uniforms, racial purity and Wagner, but it was no laughing matter for those obliged to share the planet with Hitler’s minions. A few weeks ago I expressed reservations about Hotel […]
Trishna
Saturday, May 12th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,When a story is based on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, you know there will be no happy ending. I’m not giving anything away because the Hardy reference is proudly displayed in the opening credits, although there will be cinema-goers who have never read this most miserable of novelists. This is the third time […]
Delicacy
Saturday, May 5th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,What a brilliant year it has been for French films. After The Artist rightly swept the board at the Academy Awards, the highlights have continued to arrive in unbroken succession. From the 45 features shown at year’s French Film Festival, an unprecedented number have enjoyed local theatrical releases. The list includes Romantics Anonymous, The Well-Digger’s […]
The King of Devil’s Island
Saturday, May 5th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Prison camp movies are a distinct genre, with many minor masterpieces – from I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang to Stalag 17, to Cool Hand Luke. It’s not easy to say why we find these films so compelling. Perhaps it’s because the prison environment is so mysterious and frightening to the average citizen. […]