I admire Moneyball for telling a story of baseball and statistics without embellishing with a romantic subplot – unless you include the professional chemistry between Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and his number-crunching number two, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). I also admire its ability to make that story engaging, with its confident…
Captain Phillips approaches greatness. Tom Hanks has received as much praise as criticism for his work in the film as the eponymous captain, taken hostage after an aborted pirate raid on his commercial shipping vessel, with critics acclaiming the last few minutes of the film and deriding earlier scenes. I was actually impressed at how…
Magic Mike is a weird movie. It’s essentially a musical, except instead of big Broadway numbers you have male strippers (Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer) cavorting on stage, routines with such meticulous choreography and high production values that they’re as fantastical as a town spontaneously breaking into song. Outside of these scenes, Steven Soderbergh…
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* asks a lot of questions. Questions like “Do Aphrodisiacs Work?” and “What Happens During Ejaculation?” and “What is Sodomy?” If you’re looking for answers – or a coherent feature length film – you’ll be disappointed. If you’re looking to watch Woody Allen’s series of sketches loosely parodying…
The Outlaw Michael Howe tells the story of its eponymous bushranger’s rebellion against the British empire in early nineteenth century Van Diemen’s Land (an embryonic title for Tasmania). Played by Damon Herriman (who you might recognise as a far less noble outlaw, Dewey Crowe, from Justified), Howe is defined by anger and sadness. His rebellion,…
Over a decade later, Manic feels too familiar for its own good. An indie with an impressive cast – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Don Cheadle – it spends its time in the walls of a psychiatric institution. Handheld, Dogme 95-style camerawork indicates the film’s insistence on naturalism, but the institution itself feels filmic, like any…
“I can’t remember. And it doesn’t matter.” Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) responds with the above when his son, David (Will Forte) asks about his childhood dreams. That kind of no-nonsense refutation of warmed-over romanticism is critical to Nebraska’s appeal, which tells the story of Woody’s journey to Nebraska, fuelled by his delusional conviction that he’s…
My review of Shane Carruth’s enigmatic Upstream Color ended with a statement that it was a film “I’m eager to revisit.” Six months later, the film’s strengths and weaknesses became more apparent. One such weakness: I remain unconvinced by Carruth’s acting. He’s an impressive director, producer, sound engineer etc … but an average actor. I…
The camera glides through the sun-bleached streets of Rome, surveying its architecture, singers, tourists. It’s omnipresent; yearning like an idle god striving for subjects. This divinity chances upon a vibrant party and eventually focuses its gaze on one man: Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), “king of the socialites,” an idle, wealthy journalist/ex-novelist celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday.…
“In the war against terrorists, forget about morality.” The Act of Killing and The Gatekeepers have a lot in common. The Gatekeepers doesn’t have the surreal style of Oppenheimer’s film. Its presentation is traditional: talking heads, stock footage, computer animation. The titular “gatekeepers” are six ex-leaders of the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet; men who…
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