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…
There are lots of reasons to like Ant-Man. You’ve got the sparkling comic chemistry of Paul Rudd and Michael Peña (Evangeline Lilly’s there too). There’s a zippy Michael Douglas/John Slattery/Hayley Atwell prologue that makes you long for an MCU film set in the ‘80s. Minus a misjudged training sequence, the film’s bouncy heist framework is…
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…
Talking heads seem to be the most maligned convention in documentaries. Just look at Asif Kapadia’s Amy, which has earnt widespread praise for its omission of such interviews despite not being an especially good film. Certainly, talking heads can be a crutch for uncreative documentary directors, who use them solely as an opportunity to flesh…
Breaking down a film festival program – especially one that stretches to 370 films, as does this year’s Melbourne Internal Film Festival – is a daunting task. And, frankly, kind of futile. Unless you’re a Melbourne-based cinephile with no day-to-day commitments, the films you choose to see are going to determined more by scheduling than…
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…
On the way to completing my Science degree, most of my electives were spent on Philosophy courses, thanks to a roughly-equal combination of intellectual inquisitiveness and a desire for bludgey subjects. My favourite course was probably the one titled Philosophy of Time Travel, which looked at the philosophical and metaphysical ramifications of time travel; specifically,…
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