Well, the silly season is upon us and by silly I mean holiday blockbuster and awards seasons hitting us up for our valuable cinema dollars. I’m a little behind with the reviews this week, 99 Homes and By the Sea two films I wanted to chat about, along side an examination of whether Katniss is […]
Category Archives: Film Reviews
November
12
Spectre – Another day, another Bond. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The whole Bond thing does have a longevity one can’t deny, but this is the first of the films that imagines humans exist around the agent with a licence to kill, beyond the fulfilment of his own reason d’être. Spectre doesn’t rescue Bond from being that talisman for a ludicrously fictionalised masculinity but it does […]
November
05
Freeheld – Romantic naturalism forges into new territory. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
In this interview, Freeheld director Peter Sollett states his point that Freehelds purpose is romantic naturalism, that is to present love in a way that appeals to the broader conversation about what love is and what it looks like. This is usually a formulaic, identifiable love story that has traditionally been reserved for the heteronormative […]
November
04
The Dressmaker – Jocelyn Moorehouse makes an almost perfect film. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
If it is true that there is a crises in film criticism over the way females and female-centric films are judged, and it is, then it is also true that this can be used against male-centric critics when properly assessing those films that are ticket purchase worthy. The Dressmaker is a classic example of this poorly […]
November
02
Mistress America – Greta Gerwig shining layer upon layer. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The plotted subtext of Mistress America – that everyone is copying/stealing from everyone else all the time – is a very now response to the overbearing litigious implications of making art that include spilling into the reality of making anything in contemporary society. Greta Gerwig plays Brooke, the quintessential It Girl (played by the quintessential It Girl) in […]
October
27
The Gift – Joel Edgerton sells out his female protagonist in the worst possible way. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The Gift is a puzzle in itself, in that Joel Edgerton (writer, director and playing Gordo the weirdo) has immersed himself in the tropes of the thriller constantly examining and subverting them with the painfully obvious exception of his female lead, the perpetually little black dress-wrapped Robyn. Actress Rebecca Hall does a typically brilliant job, […]
October
19
Articles at The Essential – How Denis Villeneuve domesticates Emily Blunt.
posted by lisathatcher
Nope – not a fan of Sicario. Everywhere I go I see praise being heaped on Emily Blunt for her “bad ass” heroine Kate Macy, but for me, the role was a slap down after her great characterisation in Edge of Tomorrow. After all, she is criticised for not wearing lacy underwear in the field […]
October
10
Black Mass – Deep chracterisation reveals there is no honour among theives. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
Black Mass has been accused of unsuccessfully mimicking its predecessors such as Goodfellas. It’s a tedious and lazy comparison that again reinforces the over-hyped adulation of Scorsese and further entrenched that film in particular as the ultimate bench mark for gangster film perfection. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Goodfellas, but it can’t defend […]
September
30
The Intern – Nancy Meyers on trend as usual. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
One of my favourite cinematic moments saw Mel Gibson as Nick Marshall listening to his daughter Alex (Ashley Johnson) through a toilet door as she cries and details the problems between herself and her boyfriend. When Nick tries to leap to her rescue she cuts him off and says “He’s a total player – I […]
September
08
Articles at The Essential – The Guest
posted by lisathatcher
It’s a bug bear of mine that poorly made “male oriented” films such as the Furious franchise are marked up by the 80% male critical audience under the assumption that they are light hearted fun and need not be judged by the usual critical criteria, while female oriented films like Fifty Shades of Gray are […]
Lisa Thatcher 