This isn’t so much a review of Where the Wild Things Are as a justification of a theory. The theory? That the film, Jonze’s third, is at its core a tale of the erosion of the notion of “home” from a child’s perspective. Max, its prepubescent protagonist, finds the tendrils of adulthood encroaching upon him.…
The Killing is designed to be confusing. Stanley Kubrick’s third feature concerns a crew of two-bit crooks who plan and execute a heist on a racing track. Their scheme is convoluted enough – six people needing to be in the right place at the right time doing the wrong thing – and is further complicated…
Blood Meridian is a fitting title for Cormac McCarthy’s brutal anti-western. The book is heavy with blood, thick streams of the arterial liquid pooling and coagulating at its dark heart. McCarthy wields words like a surgeon’s blade, finding spare beauty in unforgiving landscapes lit by blue flashes of lightning or unforgiving men unleashing violence for…
Woody Allen’s third feature film, Bananas, finds the famously neurotic comedian playing Fielding Mellish, a hapless product tester who ends up becoming the president of a small Latin American nation … all because he wanted to impress his radical girlfriend. How exactly did he get to that position? Well – who cares? It’s hardly the…
There was something volcanic about Future of the Left’s show last night. The sweltering heat in a tightly packed crowd and the smell of bushfire smoke in the air contributed, but the fierce, white-hot rock that erupted from the stage was the main factor. The band channelled something primitive, Andy Falkous straddling the stage like…
The Ghost Writer is a tense, understated thriller, eschewing violence for political intrigue. Director Roman Polanski channels his classic noir Chinatown, with Ewan McGregor’s ghost writer standing in for Jack Nicholson’s private detective, with the corruption here inspired by Tony Blair rather than California’s seedy underbelly. There’s also an inversion of Polanski’s “predicament” in Pierce…
The full title of this flick is H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond, but if you’re looking for a faithful adaptation of Lovecraft’s famous works of gothic fiction, you’re shit out of luck. If you’d prefer a film that combines the demonspawn and bondage of Hellraiser with the grotesque special effects of Reanimator (plus its deliciously campy…
If you believe The Dissolve and The AV Club, Computer Chess is one of the best films of 2013. I don’t entirely agree, but the film is appealingly different, an eccentric little movie filmed using (comparatively) ancient video cameras. It initially concerns a gaggle of geeks in the 1980s competing in a tournament pitting chess-playing…
I can vividly remember watching Anchorman in the cinema. Going in with no expectations, I found myself in the throes of infectious, intense laughter throughout. That unexpected experience ranks among my favourite cinema memories. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues didn’t replicate that experience. It has its fair share of belly laughs – generally found in…
What Maisie Knew presents a unique perspective on domestic drama, telling the story of a bitter divorce and strained custody battle through the eyes of seven-year-old Maisie. This point-of-view keeps the film from feeling conventional despite its well-worn subject matter, but it also keeps the audience from gaining a deep insight into its characters. The…
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