Tag: Australian film
You Won’t Be Alone
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022 Film Reviews,If your idea of a sorceress is Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched, you may find Goran Stolevski’s debut feature, You Won’t be Alone, a disturbing experience. The witch we meet in the first scenes of this film, Old Maid Maria, AKA. “the Wolf-Eatress” (Anamaria Marinca), is not a pretty sight. Bearing the scars from a burning […]
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 […]
Elvis
Friday, June 24th, 2022 Film Reviews,There’s no mystery about a film by Baz Luhrmann. We know it’s going to be big and brassy, fast-moving, wilfully superficial, and packed with over-the-top theatrics. As a result, I go along to each new Baz film with a sense of diminished expectations. For me, everything started to go wrong with Moulin Rouge! (2001), which […]
Sydney Film Festival 2021
Friday, November 19th, 2021 Film Reviews,It was a long intermission between June 2019 and this month, but the 68thSydney Film Festival finally made it to the cinemas – and came through with every sign of success. My own attendance was more sporadic than usual but the overall impression was bouyant. I’m not sure if this was because of the program, […]
Nitram
Friday, October 8th, 2021 Film Reviews,Justin Kurzel may have a taste for dark, unhappy subjects, but he is a cut above most contemporary Australian directors. His first feature, Snowtown (2011), told the true story of serial killer, John Bunting, and those he drew into his orbit. It was a brutal but amazingly sophisticated debut. Ten years on, Kurzel and scriptwriter, […]
Acute misfortune (for the viewer)
Friday, June 18th, 2021 Journals,When viewers of Acute Misfortune first catch sight of Daniel Henshall playing artist maudit, Adam Cullen, they may experience a flash of déjà vu. The quiet, menacing tones of John Bunting, mastermind of the Snowtown serial murders, are back on air. Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown (2011) is a movie I have no desire to watch again, […]
My Name is Gulpilil
Friday, June 11th, 2021 Film Reviews,It’s not widely appreciated what an electrifying effect Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971) had on the Australian film industry. To put it bluntly, at that time there was no Australian film industry, only occasional features made in Australia by overseas directors. Michael Powell left two notable contributions: They’re a Weird Mob (1966) and Age of Consent (1969), […]
The Dry
Saturday, January 23rd, 2021 Film Reviews,As Australia Day looms so does another round of Australian movies. If you’re feeling patriotic you can now watch Glendyn Ivin’s Penguin Bloom, in which a disabled Naomi Watts finds new hope through a magpie. Coming soon is Stephen Johnson’s High Ground, an historical drama set in Arnhem Land, where Simon Baker treads a blood-stained […]
2020: The Year in Film
Friday, December 25th, 2020 Film Reviews,Until the coming of the pandemic the great tree of world cinema was flourishing, with fruit on every branch. It may not always have been high quality produce or in good taste, but it was plentiful. After a year of lockdowns in which theatres were closed for long periods and the Hollywood studios put almost […]
I Am Woman
Friday, September 4th, 2020 Film Reviews,There should be a warning issued with this bio-pic of singer, Helen Reddy: after the film you’ll be humming I Am Woman for the next week or so. This might sound harmless enough, but in the wrong context it could raise uncomfortable questions about masculine identity. Reddy’s unofficial anthem for the women’s movement is easily […]