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Kristen Stewart Finds Autonomy in Self and Character with Camp X-Ray
I recently caught up with John Curran’s Tracks and found myself marveling at star Mia Wasikowska. Not so much for her performance, although she is great in it, but rather how the Australian actress has...
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78 Years of Horror Reaches The Town That Dreaded Sundown
“Wow, look at this place. It’s like The Town that Dreaded Sundown.” “Yeah I saw that movie. It’s about a killer in Texas, huh?” -Sidney Prescott and Deputy Dewey, Scream There’s certainly something...
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The Elements of Control in Before I Go to Sleep
In this past month we’ve seen both David Fincher’s Gone Girl and Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure examine the relationships between men and women and the ways in which both parties delicately handle...
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Triumph of the Human Spirit Isn’t Triumphant Enough in Unbroken
One of the biggest problems in Unbroken – and trust me, there are many – is that director Angelina Jolie and presumably her screenwriters (which include the Coen brothers and Richard LaGravanese)...
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The Water Diviner a Fine Reminder of Crowe
The most surprising thing about The Water Diviner isn’t that Russell Crowe directed it, but that in taking upon the extra role of director, and a debut director at that, Crowe somehow got one of the...
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Avengers: Age of Ultron is (For Better or Worse) More of the Same
At this stage of the game, it seems impossible to be truly surprised by a Marvel film. That’s not necessarily a knock against the billion-dollar team that effectively changed the way people make and...
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The Limits of Control in Hungry Hearts
“This is very embarrassing”, says Adam Driver’s Jude to Alba Rohrwacher’s Mina in a confined toilet cubicle of a Chinese restaurant in the opening scene of Saverio Costanzo’s Hungry Hearts. It’s a...
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War of the Words
I find it interesting when people claim to have a hard time watching silent movies since more and more these days, movies find themselves in chaotic third act action sequence that feature barely a...
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We Need Another Hero, and it’s George Miller
It turns out we do need another hero, and it comes in the guise of George Miller. The 70-year-old Australian director’s absence from the action genre since the proliferation of computer graphics is...
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Historical Innacuracies Catch Up with ‘Milat’
The two-part miniseries Catching Milat follows a prick of a character. And I don’t mean convicted serial killer Ivan Milat. Peter Andrikidis’ drama, which just concluded on Channel 7, looks at the...
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Partisan a Striking Debut for Ariel Kleiman
In an unnamed country, Gregori (Vincent Cassel) rules over a clan of women and children with what could probably be best described as a gloved iron fist. He’s not a cruel person, rather he is attentive...
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Photocopy Frights in Poltergeist
Remakes can be many different things. Despite all the energy spent complaining about them, we wouldn’t probably have what we know as horror if it weren’t for remakes, and we certainly wouldn’t have...
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54: The Director’s Cut Rises Like a Phoenix
This review was originally published on The Film Experience. The history behind Mark Christopher’s wannabe decadent, sexually-charged disco epic 54 is almost as interesting as the real life nightclub...
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Strangerland Tackles the Australian Myth
This review originally appeared on The Film Experience. Kim Farrant’s Strangerland is deeply, uncomfortably Australian. In many ways, it goes right to the heart of the country as a family infiltrate a...
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Terminator Genisys trumps Jurassic World‘s Referential Reboot
This review originally appeared on Weekly Gravy. There’s something about the Terminator franchise that I truly dig. I like that it doesn’t pretend its science is anything other than ridiculous coming...
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Jurassic World Reboots in Plastic
This review was originally published by Weekly Gravy. Somebody let the dinosaurs into the liquor cabinet. Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park turned 21 last year and, just like anybody allowed to...
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The Troubled Musical Tribute to ‘Amy’
This review was originally published by The Film Experience. Given what director Asif Kapadia was able to accomplish with the otherwise (to me) uninteresting world of vroom vroom speed racing in Senna,...
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Putting on the Ritz with Magic Mike XXL
This review is reworked from the original featured at SameSame. Channing Tatum is back with his buddies – and minus his shirt – and they’re going on the road in Magic Mike XXL. Let’s start for a moment...
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Lawrence Johnston’s Latest Buzzes Bright with Neon
It takes a special filmmaker to do what Lawrence Johnston does. There are certainly no Australian documentarians working today that I can think of doing what he does. He takes subjects of such a niche...
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A Film is a Naked Director
It’s impossible for Les Blank’s A Poem is a Naked Person to not be taken in by audiences as above all a time capsule. Emerging in 2015, 40 years after its initial completion due to legal and personal...
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