Michel Gondry’s The We and the I is a high-concept, low-budget portrait of the selfishness of teenagers. Aside from its introduction and a few anecdotal excursions, the entirety of the film takes place on a school bus. The setting ensures the film maintains a singular focus on teenage social dynamics; it’s an appropriate metaphor for…
I don’t like to read books before watching their cinematic adaptations, because I tend to come down more harshly on the film due to the baggage of expectations. Such is the case with Sam Mendes’ interpretation of Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road. The strength of novel is that its critique of fifties suburbia is elevated by…
Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) is a corporeal work of fiction, a creation of writer Calvin (Paul Dano) somehow magicked into existence. She’s a free spirit. A flash of red hair and purple stockings. She’s deeply in love with her creator (though unaware of her origins). Their relationship is portrayed with weird tonal shifts; a whimsical…
Fat Tony and Co. doesn’t bear the title “Underbelly” (for reasons to do with Screen Australia that I don’t really understand) but it’s the most Underbelly-esque series yet. It’s essentially a remix of the first series, with most actors returning (except for the ones who, y’know, actually became successful), with the masculinity pumped up to…
A belated, brief review here. But I have to keep some sort of record of seeing my favourite band of all time – post-punk royalty, Wire – live. It’s clichéd to describe a band whose longevity has left their members with grey hair (if at all) as “playing like a younger band.” But Wire played…
Gloria (Paulina García) is refreshing and complex. A 58 year-old divorcee, she’s neither a sexy cougar nor a dowdy grandmother; rather she’s intelligent, attractive and assertive. Gloria, a Chilean drama/comedy from Sebastián Lelio, opens and closes on similar shots of Gloria alone on a crowded dancefloor. Alone, not lonely. Gloria’s still dating, becoming acquainted with…
Lone Survivor desperately wants to be described with clichéd buzzwords like “authentic,” “gritty” and “visceral,” but never earns such descriptors. When its four bearded Navy SEALs find themselves outnumbered by hundreds of Taliban guerrilla fighters, the action sequences’ painful physicality (there’s some bone-crunching stuntwork on display) is squandered by poor directorial choices from Peter Berg.…
Overseas holidays often serve as impetus to examine one’s life, to recognise and ponder the crossroads you stand at. Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi’s Le Week-End instead finds Meg (Lindsay Duncan) and Nick (Jim Broadbent), in Paris for their thirtieth wedding anniversary, at a roundabout. Much like tourists encircling the famous l’arc de triomphe, they…
A mini-series/telemovie about INXS was probably never going to be great, but Never Tear Us Apart ends up being this awkward combination of astoundingly misjudged moments amongst surprising glimmers of goodness. Let’s talk the good stuff: the casting of the band was well done; Luke Arnold is too young and pretty for Michael Hutchence, but…
In case you couldn’t guess from the title, this ‘ere post is commemorating the completely arbitrary milestone of reaching 100,000 total views on ccpopculture. It also conveniently comes at a time where my focus for the site is shifting away from fostering page views. When I first started ccpopculture, it was practically an obsession –…
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