The Visitor, a 2007 movie written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, represents the sparkling side of American cinema, the antidote to all those ‘great story, fine acting, but why the hell the predictable Hollywood sentimentality’ films that drive one insane. The story is simple but original: a lifeless academic (played by Richard Jenkins, one of [...]
The Band’s Visit, a film by Israeli director Erin Kolirin, surfaced in Australian cinemas last year, garnered appreciative reviews, stayed at our main art house cinema here in Melbourne for longer than anyone anticipated, and then vanished. I kept it on a list and watched it on a holiday last week. The film’s ambit is [...]
Much of this month’s viewing, after the hothouse of the film festival, will be catching up on DVDs: Balibo – the film festival’s opener but I’ll see it at our local Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds – the big question to me is: does he trivialize this? The Soloist – reaches our shores later in the month [...]
District 9 sounds like one of those films to avoid, alien contact for morons, but an acquaintance recommended it and n0w here’s Andrew O’Hehir at Beyond the Multiplex, a stern critic of nonsense, commending it. It comes out on the big screen in Melbourne in a couple of weeks.
Also posted in Science Fiction |
Thirty or so films is not a sufficiently large sample to judge properly, nonetheless let me present my outstanding experiences: Ana Kokkinos’s Blessed was the standout – compelling, beautifully acted and with a driving, multipronged narrative that stuns Close behind was Sergio, Greg Barker’s documentary on the 2003 death and, less so, the inspirational life, [...]
I remember Ana Kokkinos’s debut Loaded as a bold eye opener. I missed her dark, challenging sophomore film, The Book of Revelation. Blessed, based on (and far more appropriately titled than) the play Who’s Afraid of the Working Class, is a huge change in direction and, I venture, in directorial accomplishment. For it’s a momentous, [...]
Sergio, the dramatic, inspirational doco on the life and death of Sergio de Mellor, is more about the latter than the former. However, I noted that his idealism sprang up after a radical period at the Sorbonne in 1968. In other words, though it wasn’t put that way, he was a hippy, or at least [...]
The closing day was docos galore: Anders Østergaard’s Burma VJ captures, courtesy of anonymous citizens with handy cams, the 2007 uprising in totalitarian Myanmar. It’s spellbinding, well structured, and a tribute to the spirit of mankind. 4 stars. Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect, made by Markus Heidingsfelder, is a doco about a controversial architect. [...]
Mainly docos on a busy Saturday: The Entrepreneur, made by Jonathan Bricklin, is a doco about Bricklin’s father, an irrepressible businessman in the car industry over decades. It proves to be a fascinating look at the unstoppable force of business, as the father chases investors and car manufacturing partners in China. 4 stars. Josh Whiteman’s Shadow [...]
Variety galore on my biggest festival day: Louise-Michel, a dark but comedic French satire directed by Gustave Kervern, is quirky fun that doesn’t always work (the ending is silly) but strikes a few ideological blows. 2½ stars. A doco about a psychologist in Gaza refugee camps, Pea Holmquist’s Young Freud in Gaza, is an eye [...]
Also posted in Vietnam Redux |