Archive for the 'Reviews' Category
Gillian Armstrong’s latest directorial outing, Death Defying Acts, is a glossy cage of cinematic feints signifying nothing. The story is a pretty typical contrivance — a rich man offers a reward and a pair of likely aspirants try to con their way into a fortune. The twist is that the rich man is Harry Houdini […]
Take several established directors.
Add a handful of legendary actors (with a sprinkle of fashionable ones).
Fold in some cobble stones and avenues.
Add it to a well-greased pan, splash it with Pernod and put it into a fan-forced oven.
Remove it before it’s fully baked and serve with 4kg of icing sugar.
If you like the sound of that, […]
Noise is hardly an underrated film. It earned its makers a host of major nominations and some very handy wins. Yet, somehow, the rumble of critical acclaim wasn’t enough to launch the film with quite the stratospheric trajectory it seemed to deserve. Nevertheless, for those of us who simply missed out during its time in […]
The Meat Market is one of Melbourne’s most beautiful venues. The cast iron meat hooks are still on the beams, the names of the butchers are still painted in copperplate and the arches of the central arcade give a classical lift to proceedings. Nestled in North Melbourne, the hall has been given a facelift for […]
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: 100 Days, 100 Nights
0 Comments Published October 11th, 2007 in Reviews.Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
100 Days, 100 Nights
Roll me up in some gold lamé, serve me up some sweet home cooking and call me your big daddy, because Sharon Jones has filled my glass with funk anticipation. From the first brassy intro to the last full-band fade-out, the album 100 Days, 100 Nights has the […]
This film is a devastatingly good example of storytelling that is both potent drama and documentary. The documentary-as-film paradigm has gained momentum as audiences realise that the social milieu of the cinema is more conducive to collective outrage or edification than the isolating domain of television. Nevertheless, Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’s film is strong […]
Monster movies are generally a critically maligned genre. But that’s because monster movies generally have all the cinematic quality of a two-week-old lamb kebab. On the other hand, Korean cinema is the hottest thing around the festival circuit. So, what do you get when you synergise it up with a Korean monster flick? You get […]
In a wasteland of monochromatic post-industrial dullness we see fleeting moments of quiet desperation, quixotic humour and heaving torpor. It’s kind of like Samuel Beckett went to Ikea and came back with everything and a kitchen sink. The characters are beautifully realised archetypes and their stories, unravelled across intersecting vignettes, present modern maladies and […]
Theo van Gogh’s legacy as a filmmaker is darkly tied to the tragic end of his life but as Interview illustrates, his sense of humour is equally worthy of our attention. The film has the deceptively simple structure of a two-hander conversation that, in its rich text and complex psychological games, unearths a complex thematic […]
A disclaimer: from all appearances, Werner Herzog lives a highly creative, highly prolific, highly nomadic existence of which I am insanely envious. I feel a pang of excitement whenever there’s an opportunity to see a new Herzog film as much because I want to vicariously inhabit his world as I want to see the movie. […]