Widows: The Genre Film That Isn’t
But Widows exhibits cosmetic similarities with the heist genre, it resolutely resists generic conventions.
Source Material: 12 Years a Slave as an Adaptation
Solomon Northup’s autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave, was a bestseller in its own time, but like many others I’d never heard of this account of Northup’s gruelling ordeal in slavery until it was adapted into Steve McQueen’s masterpiece 12 Years a Slave. (McQueen’s film is actually the second adaptation of the book – television movie…
On Festivals
Today heralded the end of a great Australian festival that has lasted over two decades. I’m not referring to the Big Day Out, whose cultural capital was irrevocably eroded by the influx of teenage, Australian-flag-wearing bogans a decade ago and has limped its way to extinction ever since. No, I’m talking about the Brisbane International…
The 86th Academy Awards – Predictions and Thoughts
I’m not really that interested in getting too caught up in the Oscars fol-de-rol that consumes the critical community around this time of year. I read a lot about the Academy Awards because, well, it’s people getting passionate about film! People arguing emphatically about which film is better and the industry, about who will win…
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…
Shame (2011)
Shame appears to establish Brandon (Michael Fassbender) as the suave gentleman that doesn’t exist outside of fiction, unflappable and exuding preternatural confidence. We soon find that this persona is a thin shell around a damaged core, and the film the same: beginning with confident, gliding cinematography that becomes gradually more erratic, disjointed. Shame isn’t a…
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