On the surface, this gritty boxing drama looks an awards season hopeful. Southpaw features a stellar cast headlined by Jake Gyllenhaal – replete with sweaty washboard abs. Unfortunately the film is a disappointing bore. Gyllenhaal puts in a commendable performance as champion pugilist Billy Hope, but the plot plods along, punch-drunk from decades of flogging…
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…
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,…
Modern horror is increasingly looking to the past for inspiration. There’re clever, nostalgic takes like You’re Next and It Follows. You’ve also got your remakes: the latest being the widely-derided Poltergeist. We Are Still Here shoots for the former category, but ends up missing the mark. Ted Geoghegan’s emulation of ‘70s haunted house films –…
The story told in Dinosaur 13 is perfectly suited to a feature-length documentary, featuring enough dramatic twists and turns to sustain 90-plus minutes with little padding. A complete T-Rex skeleton – “the most important paleontological find of all time” – is discovered by a group of scientists, but initial euphoria is overwhelmed when the skeleton…
Consuming the pop culture output of a country helps to develop an understanding of that country. Case in point: the United Kingdom. Despite my very English background (three quarters of my grandparents and my father were born there), I’ve never visited old Britannia, yet my familiarity with British television and movies has engendered a sense…
x+y demonstrates that a documentarian’s skills don’t always translate into the world of fiction films. Director Morgan Matthews has been making documentaries since 2002, but this film is his first foray into fictional features. x+y takes inspiration from his 2007 film, Beautiful Young Minds, telling the story of Nathan, an autistic, talented teenage mathematician (Asa…
It’s easy to commiserate with the difficulties John Ridley – Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave – faced getting his passion project, a biopic of Jimi Hendrix, off the ground. Unable to acquire the legal rights to Hendrix’s recordings or songs (a common problem – notice that the only Hendrix song you ever hear…
You don’t have to be an aficionado of science fiction to recognise that the Wachowski’s latest production, Jupiter Ascending, draws inspiration from countless sci-fi forebears. Oh, sure, it’s an “original” property, but as with the Wachowskis’ output from The Matrix and beyond, it’s an unabashed pastiche. Jupiter Ascending’s setting is classic space opera, galaxies ruled…
Remember the last low-brow comedy to centre on the attempted assassination of a world leader? I’m of course talking about Zoolander, where Ben Stiller’s empty-headed male model was brainwashed to murder the prime minister of Malaysia. Roger Ebert took issue with the subplot – “Didn’t it strike anybody connected with this movie that it was…
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