Hollywood charm and charisma just doesn’t exist the way it did in the Golden Age of Cinema. The “It” Factor, that certain something that turns a simple screen test into an experience akin to finding cinematic gold, is now often replaced or loosely recreated through physical enhancements, as if Botox or a boob job is…
So if you’re fresh off the blockbuster wave of dinosaurs and teeny tiny superheroes and are ready for some more action packed fun, then this week’s big release Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will be able to fill that gap nicely. As with any of the Mission: Impossible (aka MI) films, you need to suspend…
Another entrant in the found-footage genre of horror that might have reached its expiry date. The Gallows would have had to do something exceptional (and exceptionally different) to tear it apart from the usual suspects. This all started with Blair Witch Project, reprised by the Paranormal Activity franchise, and many many others that never saw…
Mankind’s eternal search for the fountain of youth has seen Hollywood explore more than one scenario where immortality is a reality, always at some morally reprehensible dystopic expense. Films such as Elysium,The Island, Transcendence or more recently Chappie have approached the idea from different angles with great success. Whether director Tarsem Singh’s (The Fall, Immortals,…
Making the third film in the Insidious series a prequel was the smartest move this franchise could have pulled; a respectable decision that could completely be overshadowed if a fourth one is ever released. Cutting the franchise off as a trilogy would be a good idea; the second Insidious was underwhelming and came nowhere close…
Trailing behind the release of the enormous The Avengers: Age of Ultron comes the final film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 2 line up of films, Ant-Man. After much talk surrounding the production prior to its release, and always ongoing questions of ‘what if’ we’re now witness to the final product. It’s surprisingly small…
Paris of the North is director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson‘s second feature film. His first feature was the Icelandic comedy Either Way, which was remade into the US film Prince Avalanche, directed by David Gordon Green. The film was written by Icelandic script writer and novelist Huldar Breidðfjörð. Long time actor and musician Helgi Björnsson plays the father (an unwanted guest); previously…
When faced with the challenge of representing over 20 years of the evolution of “French Touch”, a music genre inspired by American Garage, it can be difficult to know where to start. Directed by french auteur Mia Hansen-Love and co-written with her DJ brother Sven Love, Eden is somewhat an autobiographical film taking inspiration from…
Daft Punk’s 2006 directorial debut Electroma is a step away from previous pop- film collaborations such as Discovery 2003 to a more surreal and conceptual journey. Running for 74 minutes without dialogue, Electroma follows the journey of a robot duo who try to achieve humanness. If there was any doubt that the robots desired to…
So let’s get one thing straight from the get-go with this film, this is a movie about a bunch of “male entertainers” (aka strippers) so it’s a given that it’ll be a basic story and be overloaded with a lot of attractive semi-naked men in it. If you’re coming for anything more meaningful than that,…
Interstella 5555 is the result of a collaboration between french House duo Daft Punk with Anime legend Leiji Matsumoto, and director Kazuhisa Takenouchi. It’s hard to define what makes this eclectic, feature length animated album collaboration so engrossing. Is it the melodramatic narrative with visuals that hit the House beats again and again? The satisfying…
Yes, Terminator Genisys is a robotic movie in more ways than one, often confusing as it appears to be a prequel, a sequel, and a reboot, often all at once. Alan Taylor, the director behind Thor: The Dark World, gives us an inconsistent new entry into this iconic sci-fi film franchise, taking contrived stabs at…
I didn’t like 2012’s Ted. The jokes were as uninspired as the ridiculous plot, relying on the same formula that makes Family Guy a tedious watch and putting too much faith in shots of a teddy bear being crude and smoking bongs being funny. That said, I couldn’t stop laughing during Seth MacFarlane’s Ted 2…
I’m ending my Sydney Film Festival coverage looking at a short film that was a perfect end to the run of incredible cinema at the 62nd annual event. Sari Braithwaite’s Smut Hounds was a nine minute film, screening before the French film Metamorphoses, detailing the festival’s role in bringing the conversation of censorship to the…
From one of the most creative minds working in cinema today, Pete Docter, comes his third feature length film for Disney/Pixar. First, there were the monsters living in our closets in 2001’s Monsters Inc.. Then, in 2009 he brought us the tale of a man, a house, some balloons and a Boy Scout in Up; a…
Given my past experiences with the horrific disease, I’m one person that finds the deus ex machina of cancer unbearable. It is often done tastelessly, depicting it’s sufferers as people without autonomy or regarded with the self-respect that they deserve – cancer patients are people, not pawns that should be used to explain a protagonist…
Once named “the director of the decade” from the late, iconic film critic Roger Ebert (who, in turn, has this film dedicated to him), Ramin Bahrani’s new film 99 Homes is a self-described “humanist thriller”, which takes us into the realities of the American housing crisis, out of which tragedy and corruption has emerged. Set…
It is only in 1970s Canada where an over-abundance of hippies, draft-dodgers, Buddhists, vegans, nudists, musicians, writers and tree-huggers could meet and create an organisation like Greenpeace. The documentary, How To Change The World looks at the origins of this grassroots, activist movement and shows how it became the enduring institution it is today. The…
The Price of Fame (La rançon de la gloire) has an interesting-enough hook. It is based on some true events that occurred in the seventies when two desperate crooks decided to steal the body of the legendary, Charlie Chaplin and hold it to ransom. The film is ultimately a letdown that is plagued by problems…
In the mid-90’s, Timothy Conigrave published his bestselling memoir, titled Holding the Man, 10 days before his death. It was a story so intimate and full of warmth that it continued to resonate with Australian audiences over the years. Tommy Murphy adapated it into an award-winning stage production in 2006, and now Director Neil Armfield…
Track the movements of several gastronomy-addicted bloggers while they travel around the world and eat at some of the absolute top restaurants, most guided by the holy foodie grail that is the Michelin Star rating system. It seems like a terrible idea when you think about it – food bloggers are notoriously uninteresting – but…
Most of the crew involved in We Are Still Here are veterans to the horror genre, and their collective talents come together beautifully in this half satire, half serious story. Director Ted Geoghegan pays homage to the vintage and slightly cheesy, always stringing a thread of self-awareness through the film while it unfolds with a…
From prolific Oscar Winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Freakonomics and dozens of others) comes the much talked about new film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, one of three films Gibney has showcased at this year’s Sydney Film Festival (the others were Steve Jobs: The Man…
East England county Norfolk is a drab, scrappy location for Guy Myhill’s The Goob and it’s got just the atmosphere necessary to tell a tale of one family’s disquieting struggle with abuse and oppression that runs alongside the portrayal of a young boy’s – the family’s youngest – need for identity and a stable role…
To even try and explain a Roy Andersson movie is a mission in itself; his signature absurdist and surreal style is often laced with dark comedy, providing an introspective view into humanity. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch and Reflected on Existence is the third instalment from Andersson’s Living Trilogy – films about “being a human being” – following…
New in films that unexpectedly leave you completely satisfied and slightly breathless: Victoria, a two-hour, one-shot, action-drama from Director Sebastian Schipper. It’s a film that takes you all over the late-night streets of Berlin as the sun slowly creeps up and the fallout from a chance encounter continues to get more and more intense until…
If director and cinematographer, Thomas Burstyn (This Way of Life) appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? It would be one fascinating episode. His family tree boasts a poet-turned-businessman father, an explorer brother and a mother who became a fashion designer after fleeing the Nazis. In Some Kind of Love Burstyn describes all of…
Cartel Land is the documentary that award-winning filmmaker Matthew Heineman risked his life for, and the danger he thrust himself into is communicated shockingly well in this 98 minute look at cartels and vigilante militias both north and south of the U.S./Mexico border. Heineman has a blockbuster flair for this work, which is why it’s…
When veteran, Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi was jailed in 2010 and banned from making films this made him even more determined to carry on doing just that. In this time he has made not one but three movies, the most recent being Tehran Taxi. This one sees fiction dressed up as a documentary and it…
It’s been 22 years since Jurassic Park, and long have us fans of that very first film waited for a sequel that was worthy and lo we finally have it in Jurassic World. We can now safely relegate those other two films into extinction and rest assured that this is now an honourable contender for…
