Tag: biography
Bombshell
Thursday, January 16th, 2020 Film Reviews,It’s commonly believed that hatred pays a higher “psychological dividend” than peace, love and understanding. This debatable insight, which assumes the bleakest view of human nature, seems to be borne out by the success of Fox News. The formula pioneered by Murdoch svengali, Roger Ailes, was to turn the news into an adversarial contest with […]
Where’s My Roy Cohn?
Friday, December 6th, 2019 Film Reviews,On meeting Roy Cohn, we are told, “you knew you were in the presence of evil.” This statement occurs within the first few minutes. The rest of Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary adds support to the proposition. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering how American politics attained its current level of crazed amorality, Where’s My Roy Cohn? […]
Ford v Ferrari
Friday, November 15th, 2019 Film Reviews,In Rush (2013) Ron Howard turned the rivalry between racing car drivers into an engrossing portrait of two uncompromising personalities. In Ford v Ferrari James Mangold has stepped up a few gears, giving us a movie about fast cars, larger-than-life personalities and corporate hubris. It’s also a buddy film, a celebration of the common man […]
The King
Thursday, October 24th, 2019 Film Reviews,It would be foolish to expect the cinema to accurately portray historical reality but some films leave one itching to get home and pick up a reference book – or more likely, ask Google. Whether your preferred route is paper or digital, David Michôd’s Netflix drama, The King, is a film that cries out for a […]
Judy
Thursday, October 10th, 2019 Film Reviews,If Joker has put Joaquin Phoenix firmly in line for an Oscar, Judy has done the same for Renée Zellweger. Like so many Hollywood bio pics the film charts the decline that inevitably follows fame and fortune. We focus on the tumultuous final year of Judy Garland’s life, although the story is punctuated by flashbacks […]
The White Crow
Friday, July 26th, 2019 Film Reviews,Rudolf Nureyev (1938-93) was not only one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of all time, but an icon of popular culture in the 1960s. His defection at Paris’s Le Bourget airport in June, 1961, at the height of the Cold War, was a major embarrassment for Soviet authorities who had sent the Mariinsky Ballet […]
Mystify: Michael Hutchence
Thursday, July 4th, 2019 Film Reviews,One night at Sydney University we all turned up to see Mental As Anything. The support band was a lesser-known outfit named INXS. At this point the script should read: “…but that support band would blow the Mentals away and go on to international superstardom. It was all down to their electrifying lead singer, Michael […]
Never Look Away
Thursday, June 20th, 2019 Film Reviews,Gerhard Richter’s official biography, written by Dieter Elger, curator of the artist’s archive, is a very dull book. This is partly because Richter, a micromanager of his own career, is famously protective about the details of his life. In Never Look Away it is director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s achievement to have recognised a powerful set of […]
Rocketman
Thursday, May 30th, 2019 Film Reviews,Dexter Fletcher may well be the new Ken Russell. In Bohemian Rhapsody, and now in Rocketman, he reveals a taste for overheated theatricality that hasn’t been seen since Russell turned Franz Liszt into a teen idol. The difference is that this much-anticipated bio pic of Elton John never departs too far from formula, no matter […]
Stan & Ollie
Friday, February 22nd, 2019 Film Reviews,There’s famous line attributed to actor, Edmund Gwenn, on his deathbed. When a sympathetic friend said: “This must be terribly difficult for you, Teddy,” he replied: “Not nearly as difficult as playing comedy.” I think of this line almost every time I see a comedy nowadays because so few are actually funny, even when the […]