Robert Redford gets lost in a dense sea of symbolism in All is Lost. My review of this impressive, if monotonous, film can be found at Cheated Hearts. 300: Rise of an Empire is more interested in 3D sprays of blood and conflicts – between fleets of ships and Eva Green/Sullivan Stapleton alike. My review…
In my interview with Tracks director John Curran, he emphasised the importance of the interior journey of Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska), the young Australian girl who completed a solo trek across thousands of miles of Australian desert. That interior journey is a large part of what makes Tracks such an excellent film; the way Robyn…
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…
I’m not really that interested in getting too caught up in the Oscars fol-de-rol that consumes the critical community around this time of year. I read a lot about the Academy Awards because, well, it’s people getting passionate about film! People arguing emphatically about which film is better and the industry, about who will win…
“Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them up.” It’s hard to separate The Wind Rises from its creator, Hayao Miyazaki, iconic anime director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Barring a Jay Z-esque change of heart, The Wind Rises represents his last feature length film, and with this in mind…
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…
A Band Called Death is an oral history of a band called Death (surprise), the first black punk band (and one of the first punk bands, full stop, even if they didn’t call themselves that at the time). Formed in Detroit in the early ‘70s, their music was vital and visionary, but never caught the…
Two more pieces of writing on other websites to spruik: I found Wolf Creek 2 an interesting film; it’s marketed as a gritty horror film, a successor to its (quite brutal) predecessor, but there’s a lot of intelligence beneath its bloody surface, a satire of Australian xenophobia amongst other things. It’s also a pretty entertaining…
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.…
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