Tag: biography
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 […]
Tim Winton's The Turning & Lovelace
Saturday, September 28th, 2013 Film Reviews,Tim Winton may be the most overhyped writer in Australian history. This is not to deny his talent, merely to question the kind of reverence in which he is held by so many intelligent people. Personally, I’ve never found his books to be particularly interesting. There’s something irritating about his characters. They are not simply […]
I'm So Excited & Salinger
Saturday, September 21st, 2013 Film Reviews,It’s slightly disturbing to be sitting on a airplane writing about I’m So Excited, set almost entirely on an airplane. It could’ve been worse. There are real life docu-dramas such as United 93, where one spends the whole movie waiting for the plane to thump into a field in Pennsylvania. I’m So Excited is a […]
The Rocket & Jobs
Saturday, September 7th, 2013 Film Reviews,Laos has the unenviable distinction of being the most bombed country in the world. During the ‘Secret War’ waged by the United States and its allies, between 1964-73, Laos endured 580,000 bombing missions which dropped two million tons of ordnance – the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for a period of […]
The World's End & Greetings From Tim Buckley
Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 Film Reviews,There could hardly be a better setting for a movie called The World’s End, than a provincial English town. Regardless of the picturesque, ‘ye olde’ touches, many of those who spent their childhood in these soulless hamlets have fled like refugees from a scene of social disaster. It may not be entirely coincidental that director, […]
Behind the Candelabra & What's in a Name?
Saturday, July 27th, 2013 Film Reviews,It is almost impossible to explain Liberace to anyone under thirty. A walking Christmas tree decked out in rhinestones, sequins, furs and ostrich feathers, with a bouffant wig the size of Uluru, Liberace had millions of fans who never suspected he was gay. When newspapers dared make such slanderous accusations he sued them and won. […]
The Look of Love & In the House
Saturday, June 29th, 2013 Film Reviews,“I started out with a mind-reading act,” says Paul Raymond, ‘the King of Soho’. “I soon realised that people liked to look at attractive girls, and they liked it even more if the girls had no clothes on. So in that sense, and in that sense alone, I could read people’s minds.”The producers of The […]
The Other Son & Haute Cuisine
Saturday, April 27th, 2013 Film Reviews,‘Switched at birth’ was a favourite plot device for Gilbert and Sullivan. It resolved a lot of tricky dilemmas and allowed true love to overcome barriers of class and kinship. By now the theme might seem as corny as a Victorian operetta, but a good device can always be relied upon for new twist. The […]
Hyde Park on Hudson & Silence in the House of God
Saturday, March 30th, 2013 Film Reviews,Hard on the heels of Lincoln comes another movie about a great American President. But if Steven Spielberg seemed to be sending a message to Barack Obama about being steadfast and determined, it’s hard to know what Richard Michell is telling us about Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson. Allowing for its Spielbergisms, […]
Lincoln & Elles
Saturday, February 9th, 2013 Film Reviews,It’s impossible to watch Lincoln without thinking how little, and how much, American politics has changed since the days of the Civil War. The same ramshackle cast of opportunists, ideologues, yes men and non-entities sits in the House of Representatives, but nowadays the radical thrust comes from the right not the left. The radicals of […]