This review will include spoilers, which means I can’t post it on IMDB or most other places, but I can’t speak frankly about the problems of the films critique without spoilers, so I’m going with the spoilers. Be warned. Without any doubt, the most astonishing thing about the film Maleficent is the appalling inability of […]
Category Archives: Film Reviews
May
30
Maleficent – Female power and the complete failure of critical analysis. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
May
24
The Bourne Identity – Doug Liman and the start of something big. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
It was for a good reason it was supposed the Jason Bourne films might eventually become an American answer to the James Bond films. When Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity first appeared on the big screens, we weren’t necessarily unfamiliar with the plotting, but the director of the successful Swingers in 1996 and Go in […]
May
24
Mr. and Mrs. Smith – Doug Liman and the casting of the centrury. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Anyway you slice it, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a contemporary classic – and yes yes yes, I know what the common contrarian thinking is on this issue, but the reason “everyone hates” Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is the same reason that makes Mr. And Mrs. Smith work so perfectly well. There is something […]
May
22
The Trip To Italy – La Dolce Eata. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The trip to Italy opens in Sydney on the 29th of May 2014 Not being familiar with the previous incarnations of the Coogan/Brydon/Winterbottom food porn series, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into the cinema to see The Trip To Italy, though I was pleasantly surprised to find it was an enjoyable […]
May
19
Sunshine on Leith – Dexter Fletcher and 500 Miles of Feelgood. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
It’s interesting as you get older and you start to recognise true trends that encapsulate your particular generation, and this is sometimes a good thing and sometimes something completely odd comes out of left field and gives you a total WTF moment. Was it ever on the cards that Gen Xers would embrace feel good […]
May
16
Godzilla – Gareth Edwards and the Godzilla film we had to have. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
Godzilla is one of those film legacies, a little like James Bond, who managed to collapse retro chic with contemporary perspective due to several key happy accidents of politics and style throughout the years. The original 1954 Honda film carried its anti nuclear War themes (it was made only nine years after the bombing of […]
May
14
The Broken Circle Breakdown – Felix Van Groeningen and the attraction of opposites. (Sydney Film Festival Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
This is a review I did for the Sydney Film Festival twelve months ago, but seeing as it is about to open in Sydney, I’ll bring the review forward to here. The Broken Circle Breakdown is Felix Van Groeningen’s fourth film. It is in competition at the Sydney Film festival this year and you […]
May
10
Broken English – Zoe Cassavetes and the conversation we all avoid. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The radical tension that underlies the romance genre is a kind of post modern reflexive in reverse. Where works, I’m thinking here mostly of books and films, seek to include an awareness of self in a clever catchall fashion, romance as a genre has the opposite problem of self-awareness; that is it is self-conscious in […]
May
07
The Double – Richard Ayoade and the Dostoevsky Dystopia. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
So here we arrive at Richard Ayoade’s second feature film, The Double, a take on the much admired novella by Dostoyevsky. The Double remains fairly close to the original writers narrative plot. For many reasons this is film belongs to Jesse Eisenberg and art director David Crank with Eisenberg coming off as more complex than […]
May
06
Child’s Pose – Călin Peter Netzer and oppressive mother regimes. (SFF Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
I saw Child’s Pose 12 months ago at the Sydney Film Festival, but seeing as it is about to screen in Australia, I thought I would bring the review back to above the fold. This is an excellent film. Child’s Pose is currently in competition at the Sydney Film Festival. It has previously won […]
Lisa Thatcher 