Australian cop flick Felony opens with a perfunctory action scene – the only scene in the film that fits that description. Detective Malcolm Toohey (Joel Edgerton, star and screenwriter) gives chase to a crim fleeing the scene, and earns a deposit of lead in his bulletproof vest for his trouble. Struggling to his feet, he…
Within the rusted, mud-splattered framework of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer is a distillation of 1970s American cinema. It has the bruised masculinity of Taxi Driver, the abiding pessimism of Chinatown and the nightmarish madness that would send Coppola deep into the jungles of the Philippines for Apocalypse Now. It’s fitting that its release would be eclipsed…
There’s a conspiratorial tenor to the discourse about Charlie McDowell’s The One I Love, as critics are driven to conniptions contemplating how to discuss the film’s concept. A quarter hour into The One I Love, the rug is pulled from under you as a secluded couple’s getaway – that troubled spouses Mark Duplass and Elisabeth…
The 2014 Israeli Film Festival kicks off tonight in Brisbane and Melbourne, with screenings in other Australian capitals to follow. With the Gaza situation plastered all over the news recently, it’s certainly a difficult time to promote a film festival celebrating the work from a country engaged in such devastating warfare (with questionable tactics, to…
There’s no reason Nurse 3-D couldn’t have worked. A bloody mixture of sex-negative horror, nurse sexploitation and American Psycho sounds like it should be an interesting mess. Instead Nurse 3-D is just bloody terrible, a Frankenstein’s monster lurching awkwardly through the detritus of better B-movies, assembling the occasional “so-bad-it’s-good” moment within its remarkably tedious eighty-four…
In order for a documentary to be great, is it obliged to be innovative? Some of the best documentaries I’ve seen over the past year – Stories We Tell, My Winnipeg, The Act of Killing – are innovative in one way or another, whether it’s through a self-reflexive examination of the process of documentary-making or…
Half of a Yellow Sun is constructed around the proven formula of personal drama against the backdrop of political upheaval. The personal drama involves the many infidelities – and repercussions that follow – of a group of Nigerian bourgeoisie played by the likes of Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anika Noni Rose and John Boyega. The…
Sam McCosh from An Online Universe asked me to participate in the 6 Degrees of Separation Blogathon, a blogathon started by Nostra at My Film Views. The purpose of the blogathon is pretty straight forward – connect two actors/directors/movies in six or less steps (most of the recent posts seem to have reinterpreted the task as being…
“I don’t see nothin’ but what I’m lookin’ at.” This line – or variations thereof – is repeated in John Slattery’s God’s Pocket, as ordinary folk reassure one another that they have no interest in the other’s minor misdeeds. It’s also a reasonable description of my reaction to the film; it’s not bad, but it…
Over at the 500 Club, Jesse Thompson and myself took a look at some films screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Sunday the 3rd of August. My lineup for the day included Journey to the West, Fish & Cat, We Are the Best! and The Immigrant. Read the roundup at The 500 Club.
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