I should love Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It’s about a game show impresario who is, according to his own supremely questionable accounts, a CIA assassin. Said alleged assassin is played with trademark jerky charm by the inimitable Sam Rockwell and the screenplay is from the legendary Charlie Kaufman. In short: exactly my kind of…
I’ve recently written a couple reviews for films screening at the Brisbane Queer Film Festival for Cheated Hearts. Victim(1961), one of the first films to feature a gay hero and a considered examination of the sociopolitical realities of homosexuality in the era. Free Fall, a recent German film with a fairly conventional coming out narrative…
It would seem to be a betrayal to discuss in any detail the plot of What Richard Did; specifically to explain what, exactly, Richard (Jack Reynor) did would do the film a disservice. It is sufficient to say this is a deeply-felt, emotionally-complex drama concerning Richard – handsome, charismatic teenage rugby star – and leave…
The consensus on Divergent, the latest piece of young adult literature to be rendered onto the big screen, is that it’s a watered-down Hunger Games ripoff (often accompanied by an uninspired pun on the title and the film’s lack of originality, and an underlying assumption that art directed at teenage girls is inherently inferior). I’m…
G.B.F. – “gay best friend” – is essentially a queer Mean Girls. Like that film, it exists in an exaggerated candy-coloured high school reality, our world emphatically underlined with a pink highlighter. It’s defined by rigid cliques spouting made-up slang, ruled over by picture-perfect teenage girls. The story centres on how a gay teenager’s inadvertent…
A truly excellent long movie is a wonderful thing. Some of my favourite films time stretch over more than three hours – Once Upon a Time in America, Lawrence of Arabia, Short Cuts – with the runtimes allowing for extensive character development (much like television). More significantly, long movies have the opportunity to create –…
My fondness for episodic television reviews – both writing and reading them – has waned sharply over the last year or so. The appeal of this form of criticism is undeniable: liked an episode of television? Hated an episode of television? Jump online and read what <insert critic x> thinks of it! Share your thoughts…
The story of a 52 year old Chilean man, Raúl Peralta (Alfredo Castro), obsessed with Saturday Night Fever competing in a television show’s Tony Manero-lookalike competition seems perfectly pitched for a light-hearted comedy. A farce featuring oblivious characters trying their best, failing, but learning something important in the process. Tony Manero is not that film.…
Darren Aronofsky has apparently been obsessed with Noah since he was a teenager. Watching Noah, that makes a lot of sense – this is the sort of movie a teenager concocts in religion class, half-listening to Biblical tales while thumbing a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel. The film has more in common with the film adaptations of…
I liked Tim Winton’s The Turning more than most critics. Looking back at my review now, I don’t think I succeeded in explaining why it appealed to me; it’s an assumption underlying my write-up, but I don’t think I made it clear. In part, it’s based in my fondness for Winton’s original anthology, which I’d…
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