When House of Balloons dropped in 2011, The Weeknd didn’t seem like your typical popstar. Rather than a carefully orchestrated PR campaign, here was an immaculately produced mixtape that was fully formed, less a rough-edged debut than an assertive statement, something imbued with purpose yet cloaked beneath impenetrable anonymity. House of Balloons – and, to…
Here are the things to like about American Ultra: Kristen Stewart’s performance as a put-upon girlfriend. She’s fantastic, as always. The chemistry between Stewart and on-screen boyfriend Jesse Eisenberg, playing a kind of Cheech-and-Bourne stoner/super-soldier mashup. Some imaginative use of neon/black light colours. …and that’s it, sadly. American Ultra could have been a funny, energetic…
Indie sensation Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a proven crowd-pleaser, with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film’s easy, cutesy humour and plethora of classic movie references earning it Audience Awards at Sydney and Sundance. It’s certainly entertaining enough. But the exceedingly twee title also hints at its incessant solipsism, with the “Me” of the title…
“What was your point?” “Nothing. It’s just a funny story.” Your typical creature feature suffers from the ‘fireworks factory’ effect: the cumulative expectations of violence, horror and – of course – the appearance of the creature in question building into frustration and, often, disappointment. Spring, on the other hand, had me wondering if I’d put…
I’ve done a lot of travelling in my time. There was a lot of dancing, more music than I could shake a glowstick at, and enough glorious (at the time) experiences that there’s definite “nostalgia” (cringeworthy recollections) to be “remembered fondly” (blatantly denied). We Are Your Friends captures all of that and then some. At its heart,…
A biopic of the seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A feels long overdue in 2015. It doesn’t seem especially surprising that F. Gary Gray’s take on the material has busted down the doors upon its States release, clocking up over $100 million shortly after its release. The story of Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr Dre and associates…
When introducing the 2014 Brisbane Asia Pacific Festival, my largely optimistic take briefly pondered “will anyone actually turn up?” before concluding, basically, “who cares.” Fast-forward a year or so later and I have to adjust that answer slightly; as I noted in my Queensland Film Festival piece argued that “sometimes, the atmosphere of the film…
The intellectual American subjects of Best of Enemies – bug-eyed National Review editor and conservative iconoclast William F. Buckley Jr; vaguely-aristocratic-looking playwright, screenwriter and very-un-Right Gore Vidal – are a long way from household names nowadays. This documentary covers the infamous ABC debates between the pair, but where I’d expected a “things sure have changed”…
Opening your tragic love story with a re-enactment of Romeo and Juliet is a bold move, but it’s the kind of decision that neatly encapsulates the strengths – and weaknesses – of Holding the Man, Neil Armfield and Tommy Murphy’s film adaptation of Timothy Conigrave’s memoir. This is a film that unashamedly tilts for the…
Meryl Streep adds ‘Righteous-Rock-Chick’ to her resume in this breezy dramedy by Jonathan Demme. A musical masterpiece this is not. But it does offer a meaty slice of familial tribulation as the eponymous Ricki Rendazzo (Streep) attempts to reconnect with resentful offspring following self-imposed exile. Streep, the consummate pro, is clearly having a good time…
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