June 05

For Those Who Can Tell No Tales – Jasmila Žbanić gives a voice to the silenced. (SFF Film Review)

For Those Who Can Tell No Tales is currently showing at the Sydney Film Festival. You can Purchase tickets here. I saw Kym Vercoe’s play, Seven Kilometers North East, and was so moved, I jumped at the opportunity to see the film inspired by that play, For Those Who Can Tell No Tales. The film […]

June 04

Fair Game – Doug Liman and left wing angst. (Film Review)

I don’t think I can call Fair Game a particularly great film, probably more of a guilty pleasure because I share its very obvious point of view, but as far as those films made in the post 9/11 backlash against Bush go, it’s a huge improvement on genre contributors such as Home of the Brave, […]

June 04

Swingers – Doug Liman starts out strong. (Film Review)

The Swing Revival was a relatively short period, really hitting its stride around 1995, but kind of petering out by the time the new century blew in. I was dating a guy at the time who kept wanting me to go with him to ceroc dancing lessons, and I confess, I thought he was mad. […]

June 03

Edge of Tomorrow – Doug Liman and what goes around comes around. (Film review)

I have to confess, I’m enjoying seeing Doug Liman getting some love at the moment. I do like his films a lot, a position I can only defend by the wishy-washy statement that his films always entertain me and never offend me, which (I guess) does make him stand out in the crowd. By no […]

June 01

Only Lovers Left Alive – Jim Jarmusch and the dark Eden. (Film Review)

  Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, a film that is so pathologically cool it practically argues for it as a brand of aestheticism, is the current manifestation of Jarmusch’s ongoing relationship between his artistic self (The Artist) and his heritage as an American, which he claims to be made up of a collection of […]

May 30

Maleficent – Female power and the complete failure of critical analysis. (Film Review)

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 […]

May 24

The Bourne Identity – Doug Liman and the start of something big. (Film review)

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)

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 23

The Young Tycoons – Darlinghurst Theatre Company and the resurrection of mistakes. (Theatre review)

The Young Tycoons Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Spooky Duck Productions Eternity Playhouse 16 May to 15 June.  Buy your tickets here.  It’s a shame, in this county, we don’t have more theatrical satire on some of our greatest high-profile melodramas, because this form of humour seems to suit Australian wit perfectly. After all, it was […]

May 22

The Trip To Italy – La Dolce Eata. (Film Review)

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 […]