Sydney film-maker Shae-Lee Shackleford has put together a short film called The Anti-Social Network which pokes a bit of fun but also manages to highlight a growing trend in social media addiction and its impact on people’s lives. Our story follows Lucas whose life is consumed by Facebook, played by Sam Mcmillan. From waking in the morning with his phone…
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After an epic three weeks, seven cities and twenty-four films, the 16th Spanish Film Festival came to a close on Wednesday night at the Verona Cinema in Paddington. The celebrations were low-key cool; guests were treated to enormous and delicious goblets of Sangria as part of a pre-screening gathering at the cinema bar, where Spanish…
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The Royal Exhibition Building hasn’t seen a sight like Oz Comic Con since the zombie’s shuffled past it last year. Today there are scores of die hard comic and movie fans all streaming into the building to gain knowledge about a favourite actor, score some great purchases or meet new friends. A scene of mecca…
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Brutal action scenes and a decidedly clumsy Superman is what Man of Steel will be remembered for; this reimagining of the classic superhero myth, by director Zack Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan, is loud, confronting, and grand, and this is why watching it on a screen as big as the one at IMAX Darling Harbour was absolutely essential; it’s this…
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The Spanish Film Festival turned sixteen this year. To celebrate, it added Canberra and Byron Bay to its already impressive list of cities to be visited by all things Cine español. Plus, this year, Maribel Verdú, the brilliant actress from Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), has joined the festival to participate in audience Q&As to follow…
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Michel Gondry has always been one of my favourite directors. His ability to take dreamlike concepts and turn them into something visually tangible has always been his strength, and a unifying quality between all his productions – be they feature length, short or music video format. Though perhaps we won’t consider The Green Hornet in amongst this…
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Jeff Buckley may have sung “So Real” on his ground-breaking, Grace album, but the bio-pic of his and his dad’s lives concentrates on their mystical qualities. Maybe it was their untimely deaths – Jeff by drowning in Memphis’ Wolf River at age 27 and Tim at age 28 from an accidental overdose – that turned them into alt-rock…
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What Maisie Knew could actually be called Matilda. The former is an adaptation of the Henry Jamesnovel but it also shares a lot in common with the latter, Roald Dahl book. There is the brilliant and mature-beyond-her-years little girl who has to take care of herself because her parents only do so when it’s convenient. Although both sets of parents are…
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We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks looks set to polarise audiences as much as the organisation’s founder, Julian Assange does. The documentary is the latest film from the Oscar-winning, Alex Gibney (Taxi To The Dark Side, Enron: the Smartest Guys In The Room). It attempts to paint a portrait of this organisation with snappy animation and a good musical…
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This year’s Russian Resurrection Film Festival marks its 10th anniversary as the largest festival of Russian Cinema outside of Russia. Showcasing a cross section of Russian culture over a variety of film genres, the program welcomes award winning Director of comedy musical Hipsters Valery Todorovsky. Set in 1950s Soviet Russia, Hipsters follows the relationship between Mels (Anton Shagin) who is a member of…
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The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival (HRAFF) is currently touring the country as a medium for showcasing, engaging and informing audiences of pressing and lesser known human rights issues. After a two week stint in its hometown of Melbourne, HRAFF landed at the Chauvel Cinema for Sydney’s opening night, screening a documentary directed by Harry Freeland titled In the…
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The Wolfpack is back in the third and final installment of The Hangover franchise. You would think after the last two films that there would be not much more in the way of shenanigans these guys could partake in, but clearly director/writer Tom Phillips had other ideas.
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Iron Man 3 is the third film in the Tony Stark story arc and promises more action and intensity than the previous two incarnations. Considering its box office success and it hasn’t even had a full week on screens in Australia yet; clearly the Marvel Cinematic Universe fans are flocking to watch it.
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JJ Abrams helms an explosive larger than life sequel in Star Trek: Into Darkness but does it live up to the hype and fanfare? And furthermore, can it survive the nitpicky Trekkies? As somebody who is definitely NOT a Trekkie and unfamiliar with the universe aside from a very basic knowledge of who Kirk and…
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Larry Heath talks to Sara Paxton, one of the stars of the SXSW Buzz Film Cheap Thrills – a ‘black comedy thriller’ – about seeing the film for the first time at the festival, reuniting with Pat Healy, playing the reasonably deranged character Violet and working with the hilarious David Koechner and more… Part Two:…
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The genre of the Grindhouse film usually involves a short narrative, one set and some cheap prothetics thanks to a low budget. The narrative is generally put together by posing a simple question: what would happen if a bunch of rich kids went camping and a guy with a chainsaw showed up? What would happen…
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There aren’t many straightforward, non-Romantic Comedies these days. At least not ones that get a big advertising budget. And generally, when they do, they suffer from juvenile humour, a disappointing, predictable script and scenarios that illicit little more than the occasional giggle. The sorts of movies that cause geniune, belly aching laughter – at least…
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From one brief look at its poster, you very much know what to expect from Safe Haven, the latest film from Dear John director Lasse Hallström, based on a novel from the author of The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks. Even that sentence will tell you all you need to know, let alone the loving embrace of…
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It’s all fun and games until you enrage a pair of witch hunters.
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Every now and then a romantic film comes along that avoids a vast amount of the clichés that plague the majority of the genre (especially from the US). It’s usually a refreshing, entertaining, well produced take on the concept. The latest film to tick these boxes and save us from the romantic tripe that the…
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As we return to Middle Earth, exactly 9 years after Peter Jackson delivered the Academy Award winning climax of his Lord of the Rings trilogy, it goes without saying that a fair few things have changed. We begin in The Shire, Hobbiton, with the familiar Sir Ian Holm as the elderly Bilbo Baggins, telling a…
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Set in the beautiful surrounds of Centennial Park in Sydney, the Moonlight Cinema has very much become a part of the essential annual filmgoers calendar in Sydney, with a relaxed family atmosphere, a string of anticipated movie previews along with a host of the past year’s favourites (and a couple of classics along the way)….
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The short film that won the 2012 Bondi Short Film Festival “The Maker”. The 12th annual Bondi Film Festival took place at Bondi Pavilion on Saturday. The brainchild of Francis Coady, It is an annual event in which documentary makers from around the country are invited to submit their works to the panel to win…
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The live action adaptation of popular manga series Rurouni Kenshin (aka Samurai X) has proven itself a box office hit in Japan and it seems news travels fast, with original and encore sessions at the 16th Japanese Film Festival screenings selling out. A 45 minute delay caused by technical issues did little to deter an eager crowd, who lined…
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The Japanese Film Festival turns sweet 16 this year, and is screening the latest and greatest Japanese films on offer to celebrate. Slotting into the program is the beautifully crafted anime adventure, Friends: Naki on the Monster Island directed by Takashi Yamazaki and Ryūichi Yagi. Takeichi a naïve boy from a poor village goes in search of an infamous Monster…
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Skyfall lives up to all the expectations I had for the next Bond film courtesy of a clever script, exceptional acting and casting. Plus an even balance of explosive action VS visually stunning cinematography.
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Human Meat Factory is a stop animation short created by Korean born director Anna Han. Aimed at engaging audiences by providing an animal’s perspective of the slaughter industry, the short will be screened as part of the 4th Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival in Korea and the 6th Sydney Underground Film Festival. At a touch…
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Originally titled El Infierno (aka Hell), Luis Estrada’s black comedy El Narco is a brutally twisted, yet darkly humorous perspective on the political, social and economic impacts of drug trafficking in Mexico. Released on the bicentennial of Mexican Independence Day 2010, the controversial film has found commercial and critical success in its home country despite attempts to stop its…
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Madman Entertainment once again hosted the Reel Anime festival this September, showcasing four upcoming Japanese animated releases. Screenings at Dendy Newtown included the launch of the highly anticipated adaptation of part one of Kentaro Miura’s best-selling Berserk Golden Age Arc trilogy, ‘The Egg of the King’ as directed by Toshiyuki Kubooka (Lunar games). Set in…
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Madman Entertainment once again hosted the Reel Anime Festival this September, showcasing four of the latest and highly anticipated Japanese animated releases. Screenings at Dendy Newtown included Wolf Children, a film directed by Mamoru Hosada (Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time), which follows the story of a young lady and her relationship with a wolf man. Nineteen year-old…
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