Ridley Scott is rightly regarded as one of the most innovative filmmakers of the 1970s and ’80s. His groundbreaking work in films like Blade Runner, Alien and Thelma & Louise still stands up today. But since Gladiator (2000) his work has tended to the epic and slightly bombastic. His latest, The Last Duel, remains in…
The British Film Festival celebrates the best of British with a line-up of 31 films, many of which are screening for the first time in Australia. This year’s event includes the best in contemporary cinema, documentaries and some of the most significant British films of the 1970s on the big screen. The Festival opens with…
Screening from 20 October (with Canberra and Melbourne to follow on 17 and 19 November respectively) Palace and ST. ALi coffee have announced the full line-up for the 2021 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival. After another disrupted year, this hallmark event celebrating Italian culture, stories and language hits screens around the country just in time…
The 27th Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) has unveiled its program. BIFF presents a Brisbane-wide program of international festival favourites, Australian content, award-winners and critical darlings over 11 packed days from 21 to 31 October 2021. The program this year includes 81 feature films – including 4 world, 26 Australian and 33 Queensland premieres –…
I’m starting to suspect at some point during the 2020 lockdowns, a bunch of screenwriters all had the same idea: a highly trained assassin is redeemed through a connection with a child. Cut off from regular contacts, they all pitched this same idea – and many were accepted. That could explain the slew of movies…
The ABC’s brilliant little gem Rosehaven is now no more. We’ve reviewed it in the (web)pages of The Blurb previously. But with the show now wrapped forever, it seems a fitting time to look back at this memorable work of local production. What began as “the little show that could” in 2016 has vaulted into…
The Norwegian comedy Diana’s Wedding really puts family values to the test. This small film offers some hard truths, wrapped in that peculiarly Scandinavian sense of humour. Director Charlotte Blom doubles as the screenwriter. She brings a sharply observational style to what is essentially a kitchen-sink dramedy, but doesn’t seek to inject any great flair…
If you’ve ever seen and enjoyed Baz Luhrmann’s kinetic Romeo + Juliet (1996), you’ll probably enjoy Die in a Gunfight. Like Luhrmann, director Collin Schiffli updates Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for a contemporary audience. Although the result is a mixed bag, Schiffli gets it mostly right. The film reminded me a lot of the recent…
Updating classic fairytales is nothing new (see: Shrek). And, of course, the musical has been around for as long as movies have had sound. So combining an updated take on Cinderella with a pop-laden musical would seem to be a guaranteed winner. But somehow director Kay Cannon (Blockers) and her team have created a by-the-numbers…
Despite perceptions to the contrary, art and crime are never far apart. Dark deeds plagued Renaissance painters like Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi. The artist Walter Sickert has been accused (posthumously) of being Jack the Ripper. And the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre is one of many “crimes of the 20th Century”….
