Slap bang in the middle of the Woody Wow Days, Broadway Danny Rose made in 1984 is couched between 1983’s Zelig and 1985’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. In ’86 he will make the brilliant Hannah and her Sisters, in ’89 he will make Crimes and Misdemeanours, in ’92 he’ll make my favourite Allen film Husbands […]
Category Archives: Film Reviews
January
20
Stories We Tell – Sarah Polley and the intangible truth. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Sarah Polley has said many times, including in Stories We Tell, that she wants to make a film about the nature of memory and the way that narrative is carved from perspective, but what comes through in Stories We Tell, and what makes it such a remarkable film, is its subliminal examination of what we […]
January
16
12 Years a Slave – Steve McQueen assuages white guilt. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
When the Howard Government won a mandate in this country in 2004, part of which stood on the shoulders of their unprecedented poor treatment of asylum seekers that included incarceration and bald-faced lies about these people trying to drown their children in order to curry favour with the Australian public, compensation was made for leading […]
January
15
The Great Beauty – Paolo Sorrentino and the floating nature of beauty. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
“To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.” Journey to the end of the Night. Louis-Ferdinand Céline This review / commentary gets a little personal, so my apologies in advance if it is a boring read. Confession time. […]
January
14
The Wolf of Wall Street – Scorsese supplies what we secretly demand. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
A singular moment upon which The Wolf of Wall Street stands, exists when Jordon Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), sitting in a booth at a diner guru-like, before his slack-bellied, poorly educated males desperately searching for their masculinity, asks his charges to sell him the pen he holds in his hand. Brad Bodnick (Jon Bernthal), a successful […]
January
13
Her – Spike Jonze and the all white on line universe.
posted by lisathatcher
With its muted colours, its non fashion specific clothing, it’s ambiguous imaging of Los Angeles, and its floating camerwork, Spike Jonze has created a world that could be our past, our present or our future, particularly given how many white Anglo people he has walking around Shanghai, which is the real setting for Her. Underlying […]
January
09
Short Term 12 – Destin Cretton and the harrowing world of the loveless child. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Short Term 12 is a film that teeters precariously on the verge of a “cool-Indie-sundance-esque-cliche” and one of the best films (to date) revealing the private hell that children and teens, developed enough to feel adult pain, but not to make sense of themselves and the world around them experience in the harrowing early days, […]
January
08
Autumn Spring – Vladimír Michálek and the influence of death. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Like many Czech films, Autumn Spring cannot be defined by its surface matter, and considering Vladimír Michálek’s first feature film was an adaptation of Franz Kafkas novel ‘Amerika’, it is safe to assume the absurdism is emblematic of something other than what it appears to be. Autumn Spring uses some tropes / actors of the Czech New […]
January
07
Museum Hours – Jem Cohen’s masterpiece. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Our relationship to art in all its forms, but particularly visual, is contextualised by the political, economic, social and cultural factors that surround it and inform our appreciation, and yet art retains the ability to mean whatever those contexts need, as well as defy the great impositions of the technological age. Reprints can’t replace the experience […]
January
03
Enough Said – Nicole Holofcener and the wealthy poet. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Nicole Holofcener may not be famous for her deep scripts or fascinating side characters in her films about white middle class angst but the empty vessels of thinly drawn nobodies that orbit Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Albert (James Gandolfini) join in the plot in becoming little more than a distraction from the genuinely interesting story […]
Lisa Thatcher 