Spotlight (2015)

Real life doesn’t fit a movie narrative – real life rarely accommodates twists, dramatic speeches, or neat climaxes. In Spotlight, an excellent return to form for writer-director Tom McCarthy, a true story is presented exactly as it (presumably) happened, for better …and sometimes for worse. Spotlight follows four journalists (Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton,…

Southpaw (2015)

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…

Philip Seymour Hoffman in A Most Wanted Man (2014)

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

Zero Dark Thirty was one of the best films of 2013 (going by Australian release dates), but its relentlessly American point-of-view is arguably a failing. I don’t think that Bigelow’s film unambiguously views Bin Laden’s murder as a success, but the controversy/conversation that developed regarding the film as “pro-torture” was predicated on that very assumption.…