Tag: crime
The Apprentice
Thursday, October 17th, 2024 Film Reviews,First, a word about Donald J. Trump. Like so many, I’m completely flabbergasted that voters of any political persuasion would consider putting this man back in the White House. Not only is his campaign a policy-free zone, he’s unable to focus on any issue beyond his immediate self-interest. To advance that sacred cause he will […]
Joker: Folie à Deux
Saturday, October 12th, 2024 Film Reviews,If you’ve been hanging out for the most depressing musical of all time, rejoice, that moment has arrived! Todd Phillips’s Joker of 2019 was a surprising film which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and earned Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for Best Actor. The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, is no less surprising, but so […]
Sleeping Dogs
Saturday, August 10th, 2024 Film Reviews,If the word ‘thriller’ conjures up thoughts of car chases, shootouts, martial arts contests and desperate last minute escapes, you might not want to bother with Sleeping Dogs. The most thrilling moments in this film are when a tiny snippet of recovered memory comes flashing through the lead character’s mind. It might not sound especially […]
Birdeater & MaXXXine
Friday, July 26th, 2024 Film Reviews,There seem to be only two certainties about contemporary, non-Indigenous Australian films: they will be dark and unpleasant, and greeted with exaggerated enthusiasm that quickly subsides into silence. The latest movie to test this thesis is Birdeater, written and directed by Jack Clark and Jim Weir, which won the audience award at last year’s Sydney […]
A Silence & Spanish Film Festival 2024
Sunday, June 30th, 2024 Film Reviews,A Silence doesn’t announce that it’s Based on a True Story, but its origins are not hard to find. In this film by Belgian director, Joachim Lafosse, the crime that looms in the background is that of paedophile, rapist and serial killer, Marc Dutroux, who kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured a series of young girls from […]
Goodbye Julia
Sunday, April 7th, 2024 Film Reviews,For a debut feature, Mahomed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia is an astonishingly mature work. One of only a handful of movies to originate in Sudan, it’s an instant classic that sets a high bar for a future national cinema – when the civil war in Khartoum allows films to be made once again in that ravaged […]
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Friday, February 9th, 2024 Film Reviews,“Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight!” wrote Shelley, in a remarkable premonition of the Australian film industry. “Wherefore hast thou left me now, Many a day and night?” Australian cinema has reached such an impasse that I go along to each new feature hoping for something worthy and tradesmanlike. Occasionally there appears a film […]
Anatomy of a Fall & The Color Purple
Friday, January 26th, 2024 Film Reviews,“My job is to cover the tracks, so fiction can destroy reality,” says novelist, Sandra Voyter, not directly, but in a quote attributed to her by the presenter of a TV literary program. The context is significant, because Sandra, played by German actress, Sandra Hüller, is on trial for the murder of her husband, Samuel […]
Saltburn
Saturday, November 18th, 2023 Film Reviews,Downton Abbey it ain’t. The grand estate of Saltburn may be even larger than the Crawleys’ ancestral home, but the tone is distinctly lower. In her second outing as a director, Emerald Fennell takes aim at a subject that has been shot full of holes on many occasions: the English upper classes. If Fennell’s previous […]
The Origin of Evil
Friday, November 3rd, 2023 Film Reviews,Laure Calamy has amazing screen presence. She may not have the elegance of Catherine Deneuve or Fanny Ardant in their heydays, but she has charmed the French box office so effectively that, at the age of 48, she seems to be in every second movie. Naturally suited to comic roles, Calamy can turn on the […]