Legend (2015)

Fade in on London in the 1960’s. A female voice (Emily Browning) narrates our story. The story of the Crays twins, infamous Gangster Princes of the East End. One suave and loquacious, the other gritty and a little bent. Legend’s first hour is exceptional. It’s what I was expecting walking in, with Tom Hardy playing…

Pan (2015)

I remember a time. A special time, when around every corner was another secret waiting to be discovered, another story to be told. It was a time that could never end. Of course it did end. We grew up. Reality intertwined our perception and the tales we’d created faded into insignificance. Pan asks us to…

Office (2015)

Is it weird that cinema is almost entirely absent realistic presentations of office politics? Don’t expect Office, an office-drama-comedy-romance-musical from Hong Kong director Johnnie To to buck that trend. Realism is almost entirely avoided in this tale of ambition, set in the heady times of pre-GFC 2007 and staged on an abstract, artificial, gorgeous set…

Everest’s Lofty Highs are Undermined by a Shaky Descent

What would it be like to summit Mount Everest? Even in this post-Hillary, commercialised world, where the opportunity is there for anyone of sufficient physical capabilities (not to mention a hefty bank balance), a mythical halo still engulfs the Tallest Mountain On Earth. I have a sneaking suspicion it’d be deeply disappointing. Not necessarily the experience…

Haemoo (2014)

Haemoo – South Korean for “sea fog” – is a deceptive film; despite initially presenting itself as a people-smuggling drama, loosely based on a 2001 real-life tragedy, it’s in fact smuggling a carefully-crafted tragicomic thriller. The initial framing of its smuggler protagonists as desperate souls soon gives way to overt, melodramatic villainy – rape, violence…

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

Scorch Trials picks up literally where its predecessor left off, as Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and friends are ferried into a large complex, where supposedly anti-WCKD Aiden Gillen is transporting kids to safety. It doesn’t take long for the wheels to come off though, and Thomas and friends head out into the desert, searching for answers.…

Best of Enemies (2015)

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”…