David Oelhoffen’s adaptation of The Guest, a short story by Albert Camus, expands the story’s scope beyond Camus’ single schoolroom setting to the desolate wilderness of the Algerian steppes. French film Far From Men fleshes out its source’s narrative by adopting Western tropes like tense standoffs erupting into gunfire while retaining its stark moral conflict.…
What is the purpose of an international film festival? This is a tricky question, with many answers. It’s a question I’m not particularly qualified to answer, either, but as I see it, the primary responsibility of a film festival is to provide an opportunity for cinephiles to see films that they otherwise might not –…
Let me get this out of the way first: Trainwreck is a very good film. That needs to be said upfront, because this one of those reviews where I’m going to spend more time talking about what didn’t work rather than what did, and that imbalance might suggest that I didn’t enjoy the film. But…
French queer drama Eastern Boys is constructed from four vignettes, each revolving around the titular group of illegal immigrants under the thumb of a charismatic leader dubbed “Boss” (Danill Vorobyov, whose performance is the best thing about the film). They spend their days loitering idly in train stations or hotels while dabbling in theft and…
German director Oliver Hirschbiegel is likely best known to Australian audiences for helming Downfall (2004), a drama about Adolf Hitler’s final days that earned an Academy Award nomination and hundreds of YouTube memes. Thursday sees the release of his latest film, 13 Minutes, which returns to the subject matter of the Third Reich. The film’s…
You’d need a heart of stone to grow up in the ‘90s and come out without some environmentalist tendencies. You’d go to the movies and watch as cute rainforest animals had their home imperilled by oncoming bulldozers (in Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest) or cringe at the cruelty inflicted upon an innocent orca (in Free…
The title of 13 Minutes is a reference to the slim margin of time that could’ve made all the difference in World War II; had musician Georg Elser’s handmade bomb gone off thirteen minutes earlier, and killed Adolf Hitler. Frontloading Elser’s (Christian Friedel’s) failure suits the film’s approach, which examines both the aftermath of his…
The opening minutes of Paper Towns, the latest instalment in the John Green Cinematic Universe, aren’t especially promising. Our middle-class white teenage protagonist explains, in faux-profound seriousness, that “everyone gets a miracle.” Maybe you win the lottery, maybe you “marry the Queen of England.” Said middle-class white teenager, Quentin (Nat Wolff), has already found his…
The framing of Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes is, on the face of it, rather peculiar. Adapted from Mitch Cullin’s “A Slight Trick of the Mind”, it tells a fictional tale about a fictional character – Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) – yet it’s presented as though it were a biopic about the final years of a…
Growing up in this fair country of ours, it doesn’t take too long to realise that the phrase “Australian drinking culture” is a tautology. We Aussies love our booze; we forge friendships over a couple beers, we pick up at the club after a suite of shots, we share a glass of wine with our…
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