Tag: drama
Demolition
Friday, July 15th, 2016 Film Reviews,Eighteenth century writers gave us the novel of sentiment, and a character known as ‘the man of feeling’ – which was the title of a best-seller of 1771 by Scotsman, Henry Mackenzie. The man of feeling responded readily to misfortunes and joys of others, and this display of sensitivity was seen as profoundly moral. Readers […]
Mustang
Thursday, June 23rd, 2016 Film Reviews,Put five teenage sisters together in one household and it’s a recipe for chaos. Put them into a provincial household in Turkey and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. First-time director, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, has made a film that sums up the violent contradictions that face a young generation of Turks growing up in a […]
Miles Ahead
Friday, June 17th, 2016 Film Reviews,In a week in which all the talk is about America’s bloody love affair with firearms, it’s remarkable to see three movies that show the devotion that Elvis, Hank Williams, and Miles Davis felt for their guns. The portrayal of Miles Davis brought to us by Don Cheadle, who both directs and stars, is on […]
Sydney Film Festival 2016
Friday, June 17th, 2016 Film Reviews,This is the closing weekend of the Sydney Film Festival and I’ve managed to see 22 out of 254 films. A paltry score, but enough to get the general flavour of proceedings. Some of those films such as Goldstone, Everybody Wants Some!!, Demolition and The BFG will be released in the near future, so it […]
Queen of the Desert
Friday, June 3rd, 2016 Film Reviews,Werner Herzog has made some great movies in the course of a career of more than 50 years, but Queen of the Desert isn’t one of them. In this biopic – a virtual masterpiece of miscasting – the “waif-like” Gertrude Bell is represented by the towering form of Our Nic; James Franco struggles with a […]
Money Monster
Friday, June 3rd, 2016 Film Reviews,At a Q & A last week, after the premiere of Money Monster, director, Jodie Foster spoke about her admiration for the films of Sidney Lumet. It was no revelation as her movie has resounding echoes of two Lumet classics – Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Network (1976). There’s also a more-than-passing resemblance to Spike […]
The Man Who Knew Infinity
Thursday, May 12th, 2016 Film Reviews,There may be no Afghans in lead roles in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, but The Man Who Knew Infinity does manage to insert a few genuine Indians in key places. Who else but Dev Patel, known for his work in Slumdog Millionaire, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and Neill Blomkamp’s underrated Chappie. Patel has become the […]
Mia Madre
Friday, May 6th, 2016 Film Reviews,Mia Madre is an example of a favourite cinematic sub-genre: the film about a director making a film. Fellini’s 8½ is the grandfather of the lot, but every year there are new installments. This time it isn’t Fellini’s alter-ego wading through a surrealistic cavalcade of memories, or Wim Wenders’s bleak evocation of a stalled film […]
Florence Foster Jenkins
Friday, May 6th, 2016 Film Reviews,Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) entered my consciousness in the early 1990s when I first heard her rendition of the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute. This shrieking, tuneless performance of one of the most challenging pieces in the soprano’s repertoire is the stuff of high comedy. In 2003 Naxos issued an album […]
A Month of Sundays & Pawno
Friday, April 29th, 2016 Film Reviews,‘Fun’ is not a term one associates with contemporary Australian cinema, which has mistaken humourlessness for high seriousness. I’m not pining for slapstick comedy, only for films that can hold an up-tempo mood for more than a minute at a time. The Dressmaker came close last year, while Last Cab to Darwin – a film […]