Ad Astra Offers an Aching Examination of Masculinity’s Failures
Ad Astra is an astonishing achievement.
Old Glamour And Sad Pitt: Is ‘Allied’ Worth Its Own Hype?
Situated somewhere between Mr and Mrs Smith and Casablanca, Allied makes for engaging, old-fashioned entertainment.
Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez Explain the Global Financial Crisis in The Big Short
“Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.” The above quote appears roughly midway through The Big Short, Adam McKay’s star-studded, irreverent take on 2008’s global financial crisis. It’s an effective encapsulation of a film that operates as the rare piece of ‘edutainment’ that’s both legitimately educational and entertaining while providing a self-reflexive…
Fury (2014)
A dark rider atop a white horse, a figure of nobility, mounts the horizon over an endless expanse of rutted mud. The horse trots into a landscape of wreckage and the rider – a Nazi officer, we now see – is knocked from his steed by a hitherto unseen assailant. The officer’s fate is swift…
The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013)
Is there anything more reliable in cinema than the crime drama? We have our middle-aged, grizzled police officer. He chain-smokes, drinks heavily, and seems to send his shirts to be custom-ruffled daily. He doesn’t get along with people – he’s taciturn, gruff, and so forth – but, dammit, he gets results. You will be shocked…
Double Feature: Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Act of Killing (2012)
“Why do people watch films about Nazis? To see power and sadism! We can do that! We can make something even more sadistic.” – Anwar Congo The Act of Killing, one of the best films of 2013 – and certainly its most confronting – has been the target of significant criticism recently (A.J. Schnack’s article…
Moneyball (2011)
I admire Moneyball for telling a story of baseball and statistics without embellishing with a romantic subplot – unless you include the professional chemistry between Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and his number-crunching number two, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). I also admire its ability to make that story engaging, with its confident…
Brisbane International Film Festival: 12 Years a Slave (2013)
12 Years a Slave takes its name from Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir, which recounts the true story of how Solomon, a free black man in antebellum (pre-Civil War) America, was kidnapped and sold into bondage in Louisiana. The title tells a casual moviegoer that this is a film about slavery; but it’s the first two…
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is somewhere between a history lesson and a thoughtful campfire tale, but without the romanticism this suggests – the outlaws here are real men, flawed, prideful, often inarticulate. This is not to say that the film is dry; its players may mumble their words, but the…
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