The Best Films of 2015

As befitting the blood pact all movie bloggers must sign upon founding their website, what follows is a list of my favourite films of 2015. It’s been a strong year at the cinema, even if I felt it was a slight step down from last year (specifically, I didn’t see a single new film I…

Critical Dissent: Debating Inherent Vice with Yen Nguyen

It’s fair to say that Inherent Vice, the latest from American auteur Paul Thomas Anderson, is a divisive film. This adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel is a digressive, intoxicated journey through 1970s California as perpetually-stoned PI Larry Sportello – everyone just calls him “Doc” – (Joaquin Phoenix) stumbles into a world of neo-Nazis, property…

Inherent Vice (2014)

Inherent Vice is one of those rare examples of cinema where the experience of the audience is entirely aligned with the experience of the film’s protagonist. This achievement should celebrated when found in great horror films, that terrify and alienate you along with their characters, or classics like Goodfellas, which follows sharp-edged cocaine dynamism with…

BAPFF - Winter Sleep

Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival 2014

  The last time I wrote about the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival, my attitude was one of scepticism. And, I’ll concede, a modicum of bitterness. You see, the birth of BAPFF meant the death of BIFF (the Brisbane International Film Festival), the latter cut down in its prime (at twenty-one years old!) to pave…