This is a film review of Blancanieves, which is showing at the Sydney Film Festival. Get Tickets here. It’s shocking I know, but I haven’t seen The Artist. It has everything I love, including being apologetically French, and I am ashamed to say I suspect it was its popularity that turned me off. This is […]
Category Archives: Film Reviews
May
22
Blancanieves – Pablo Berger and the rediscovery of beauty past. (SFF Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
May
20
Mistaken for Strangers – The National, The Berningers and rock stars. (Sydney FF Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Music films are a highlight of the Sydney Film Festival this year and among them is the heartwarming, fascinating Mistaken for Strangers. Officially, Mistaken For Strangers is a rock documentary about The National and the biggest world tour they had yet encountered. The National are a fascinating band because – as the title of the […]
May
17
Sping Breakers – Harmony Korine goes wild. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
I knew as soon as I saw the trailer, I was going to love Spring Breakers. Spring Breakers is biting social satire. Those who regularly attend the real spring break would be hugely offended if they understood or even recognized subtle (or not so subtle) irony, but fortunately (as Harmony Korine seems to think) those people don’t exist. The […]
May
14
The Perverts Guide to Cinema – Slavoj Žižek and the reality of cinematic fiction. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
(This is a review of Sophie Fiennes film The Perverts Guide to Cinema. The follow up to this film, The Perverts Guide to Ideology will be shown at the Sydney Film Festival. You can grab your tickets here. ) I don’t know about you, but for me the most interesting thing about cinema both past […]
May
13
My top twenty-one film choices for the Sydney Film Festival. (SFF review)
posted by lisathatcher
It’s almost Sydney Film Festival time again and already the films are selling out. Check out the festival program here, if you are lucky enough to be in this lovely town this time of year. I am hoping to get along to as much as I can attend. It’s always a huge fortnight, and given […]
May
11
Hangovers, Bridesmaids and Bachelorettes: The strange case of competing naughties. (film reviews)
posted by lisathatcher
So I finally took a leap out of my comfort zone and did the whole “The Hangover, Bridesmaids and Bachelorette” films in one go. There seems to be some sort of contemporary theme around wedding fuckups in popcorn films. This whole ‘who does more damage’ idea, the gals or the guys. It is refreshing to see […]
May
07
The Room and The Roomsical – the worst film ever made moves to theatre. (Film and theatre review)
posted by lisathatcher
Have you seen The Room? It has the illustrious title of the worst film ever made, and yes – it is even worse than The Paperboy which is the worst film I have seen so far this year. The Room is considered to be the “Citizen Kane” of bad films, and like many things that […]
May
06
Pusher Three: I am the Angel of Death – Nicolas Winding Refn completes his ode to Goodfellas. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
In 1990 Martin Scorsese speaking about the making of Goodfellas, said he wanted to show the glamour of the gangster lifestyle in order to explain why people are attracted to it. Around the same time Lorraine Bracco said in an interview that she felt she had to make her role powerful because the set was so male dominated she feared […]
May
04
The Hunt – Thomas Vinterberg and the Salem Witch Hunts. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
When recording data about the Salem Witch trials in 1963, Governor William Phips had this to say: “When I put an end to the Court there ware at least fifty persons in prision in great misery by reason of the extream cold and their poverty, most of them having only spectre evidence against them and their mittimusses being defective, […]
April
29
The Place Beyond the Pines – Derek Cianfrance and the testosterone high. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me…” (Exodus 20:5, NIV) I’m starting to feel a bit like my voice is going to […]
Lisa Thatcher 