Given how much time I waste compiling lists, it’s hard not to be disappointed when mistakes are made. So it was with last year’s list of my favourite 20 films of 2013, which crucially omitted Only Lovers Left Alive – which was technically an Australian 2014 release, but I caught the film at BIFF (rest…
What is there to say about Kim Kardashian: Hollywood? If you’re anything like me, you’ve had a celebrity riding around in your pocket for the last month or so, jangling alongside your car keys and loose change. My celebrity is named Eve; she’s an A-list up-and-comer with just shy of 100 million Twitter followers, a…
Spectacular lip-synch scene aside, The Skeleton Twins is much lesser comedic than the presence of SNL alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader would lead you to believe. They play twin siblings, each possessing an air of superior condescension that barely conceals their crippling insecurity and depression. They’re re-united after Hader’s suicide attempt, and share a…
Both Tod Browning and Francis Ford Coppola’s interpretations of Dracula hone in on the heart of the vampiric myth – the commingled fear and allure of eroticism – while reflecting the norms of their time. Browning’s film is mostly remembered for Bela Lugosi’s undeniably iconic (yet profoundly overrated) performance, but there’s surprising little substance to…
Wish I Was Here has copped a lot of undeserved flack; Zach Braff’s foray into Kickstarter to film the thing raised the ire of those who saw his use of the crowdfunding site as a co-option of a resource for everyday Joes and Janes. A lot of critics entered the cinema with well-sharpened knives, and…
Who wouldn’t want to be a vampire? Save the minor inconvenience of hyper-photosensitivity and a rarely quenchable thirst for human blood, you gain the ability to fly, to transform into a bat, and to carry an aura of lascivious sexuality to go with your extended incisors. Not to mention the whole immortality deal, which turns…
If you’re anything like me, you’re tired of reading about Boyhood by now, and the film hasn’t even come out in Australia (it’s released tomorrow). There were the months of pre-release hype as the rumoured-Linklater-twelve-project became an actual thing being released. There was the tsunami of hyperbolic reviews – coming in progressive waves as it…
The observational mode of Mike Leigh’s storytelling in Secrets & Lies did not initially impress me. Leigh tends to stand back from his characters; his camera maintains a close proximity to working-class mother Cynthia (Oscar-nominated Brenda Blethyn), her brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) and Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), the daughter Cynthia gave away decades ago …but generally…
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