Author Archives: lisathatcher

March 04

La Belle et la bête – Jean Cocteau re-imagines fairytales. (film review)

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I’ve always wondered at the Beauty and the Beast story – even as a girl – that the rewards for seeing through ugliness to the beauty within are… well, a beautiful husband. It’s a little like the ugly duckling story. If you’re picked on by the ducks that are prettier, stronger and better than you […]

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March 03

Roman Polanski: A film Memoir – Laurent Bouzereau let’s the camera roll. (Film Review)

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I’ve always felt conflicted about loving Roman Polanski films. It was a Polanski film (Death and the Maiden) that first left me spellbound in a cinema, staring at the film in disbelief immediately hungry for m0re cinema. Once I got hold of Cul-de-sac, Revulsion and The Tennant, I couldn’t help but admit he was one […]

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March 01

Cooper / Abrahams duo at the Seymour Centre in Sydney tonight. Catch it if you can. (music performance)

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For those lucky enough to be in Sydney at the moment, two of my absolute favorite artists are playing together tonight at the Sima lounge at the Seymour Centre. Mike Cooper and Chris Abrahams will be there playing together. A collaboration that has meant a lot to both for some time. If I were a […]

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March 01

Coup de torchon (Clean Slate) – Bertrand Tavernier and the dark comic side of French Colonialism. (film review)

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Hot on the heels of my watching Dead Man, I saw Coup de Torchon.  Where Jarmusch depicts a savage landscape shaping and creating its previously half dead inhabitants, Bertrand Tavernier gives us a very dark show of law men plonked in French occupied Senegal just before the outbreak of world war two.  These films have […]

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February 28

Dead Man – Jim Jarmusch, William Blake and the death of America. (film review)

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Some are born to sweet delight, some are borne to endless night. William Blake In 1793, William Blake wrote America a Prophesy which amounts to a kind of formula for revolution. One of the subplots of the work is oppression of the mind – what we might call ‘unconsciousness’ in pop terminology today. Blake had […]

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February 27

Side Effects – Steven Soderbergh and the twisting plot combined with the old chestnut. (film review)

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Steven Soderbergh started his career with Sex Lies and Videotape and for that one film alone, he has a lot of credibility with me, no matter how high is “Ocean’s” count goes. He’s an interesting director, the  way he can move rather seamlessly between big budget, low substance, Hollywood blockbusters and high-grade art house films.  […]

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February 26

Christian Wolf / Keith Rowe – together again, Erstlive 010 (music review)

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PSF: You once said ‘it would be better to get rid of all of that–melody, rhythm, harmony, etc..’ What did you mean by that? Christian Wolf:  That was from that early period again. We imagined, though you never do it completely, that we were starting with a completely clean slate. We were trying to think […]

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February 26

Adelheid – František Vláčil places all his hope in what goes on between two people. (film review)

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František Vláčil is surely one of the greatest directors to have ever lived. For what it’s worth, he is certainly one of my favorites. I’m not alone in thinking highly of him, his film Marketa Lazarová was voted to be the greatest Czech film ever made (high praise indeed) and he was honored with a […]

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February 25

The Saddest music in the World – Guy Maddin makes morbid arty self-consciousness fun. (film review)

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“I just try and put things into forms that will be fun, and if anything, it feels just too good to blurt out the truth.” Guy Maddin I saw my first Guy Maddin film, Keyhole,  at the Sydney underground film festival last year. I liked it immediately, feeling right at home with all his film […]

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February 24

Raj – Derek Piotr and the relentless march toward a new horizon. (music review)

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The world of Dance music isn’t usually explored on this blog. I tend to be a listener rather than a mover – but that’s by accident rather than design. I was lucky enough to stumble upon the music of Derek Piotr recently, and true to my habits, I’ve done my deep listen rather than an […]

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