The easiest barb to direct at Brendan Cowell’s Ruben Guthrie is that it’s another Aussie film about the problems of rich white blokes (see also: Little Death, The/Any Questions for Ben?). This isn’t technically incorrect; the titular protagonist is, indeed, a wealthy white dude (Patrick Brammall). But the screenplay’s real concerns aren’t so much the…
It’s hard to fault the craft behind this live action adaptation of iconic Japanese gentleman thief; it is nothing if not competent. It looks very professional, with a sleek, slickly colour-graded aesthetic that resembles an up-scale watch or automobile advertisement. The action scenes – of which there more than a few – are crisply edited…
That Sugar Film manages to be both entertaining and educational; no easy task when you’re spending your runtime lecturing your audience on what they’re putting into their body. Director – and ‘subject’ – Damon Gameau (who I interviewed earlier this year) shifts from a wholesome no-sugar diet to forty teaspoons of the stuff a day,…
Cormac McCarthy had no hand in the production of The Homesman, but his shadow stretches long over Tommy Lee Jones’ neo-Western. The spare landscape, lensed with wintery clarity by Rodrigo Pietro, embodies the harsh tone of the author’s prose while also allowing for the glimpses of poetry that pervade his writing. The setting is, of…
Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) finds herself torn between three suitors in Thomas Vinterberg’s Far From the Madding Crowd. There’s the honest, earthy masculinity of Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), the restrained respectability of wealthy William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and the hot-blooded lustfulness of Sergeant Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge). Vinterberg establishes Miss Everdene’s independence amidst gorgeous, pastoral…
Modern horror is increasingly looking to the past for inspiration. There’re clever, nostalgic takes like You’re Next and It Follows. You’ve also got your remakes: the latest being the widely-derided Poltergeist. We Are Still Here shoots for the former category, but ends up missing the mark. Ted Geoghegan’s emulation of ‘70s haunted house films –…
I spent so long trying to untangle the allegorical and psychological underpinning of Christian Petzold’s post-Holocaust drama, Phoenix, that it took me a while to recognise how profoundly unmoved it left me. It’s not that I couldn’t embrace its implausible premise – where a concentration camp survivor (Nina Hoss) returns to her husband (Ronald Zehrfeld)…
It’s odd that one of the most dramatic, life-changing events of middle-class life – having a baby – tends to be an afterthought at the movies. Babies, more often than not, are presented as incarnations of a successful relationship. Look, they have a child now! Curtain goes down, happily ever after, etcetera. The impact of…
The Invitation sets a dinner party within a familiar horror movie setting: an expensive, (relatively) isolated mansion. Conspicuously comprehensive security, no mobile phone coverage, a creeping atmosphere of dread. Said mansion belongs to Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and David (Michiel Huisman), who are hosting a reunion of sorts after a sojourn to a ‘grief group’ in…
Unlike most critics, I take no joy in composing scathing reviews. I love films – even the shitty ones – so it pains me to cut one down to size. Even if it deserves it. (This might explain why I’ve yet to see Aloha.) I feel especially bad about writing a negative review of this…
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