Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Shadow of the Vampire is a film of many genres. These include… …a historical revisionist re-telling of the filming of F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, with John Malkovich playing “Herr Doktor” Murnau; Eddie Izzard playing Gustav von Wangenheim who plays Thomas Hutter; and Willem Dafoe playing a vampire who takes on the role of Max Schreck…

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.…

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

The Fault in Our Stars is carefully constructed to tear plaintively at your heartstrings. It works best not as a weepy, but as a gentle evocation of romance through the subjective perspective of teenage protagonist, Hazel Grace (Shailene Woodley). Hazel has cancer, yes, and the story is in many ways about that. It’s also about…

Tony Revolori and Saoirse Ronan - The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

“Times have changed.” So says Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) to Young Writer (Jude Law) as he luxuriates in the baths of the Grand Budapest Hotel. Except luxury is now in short supply; once a thriving symbol of opulence, the Grand Budapest Hotel is no longer so grand (and it’s not even in Budapest; the…

eXistenZ (1999)

eXistenZ is destined to always be second choice. Looking for a David Cronenberg film that eroticises the unerotic? Your first choice is Crash; eXistenZ comes a distant second. Looking for a film that cursorily engages with videogaming culture before becoming a philosophical treatise on the nature of reality? The Matrix does that better than eXistenZ,…