If you thought abusive communications were a recent thing, think again. Humans have unfortunately been sending horrible correspondence to each other basically since writing began. In the late 19th Century, these nasty notes were given a name: poison pen letters. Now they’ve largely disappeared – thanks to the Internet – replaced by the equally nasty…
You know how siblings can be. When one gets to do something, the other just has to do it too. So when Joel Coen stepped out of the Coen Brothers cocoon in 2021 to direct the brooding, highly stylised The Tragedy of Macbeth, it was only a matter of time before younger brother Ethan Coen…
The Alliance Française French Film Festival feels like a cultural institution in Australia. But it might be somewhat surprising to learn this is the largest celebration of French cinema outside of France. And even more impressively, this year marks 35 years of the festival bringing the best in French film Down Under. The 2024 edition,…
Birds chirp on a summer’s day. Families enjoy a picnic by a stream. A woman tends to beautiful flowers in her garden… Welcome to the most disturbing film of the year. British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (probably best known for Under the Skin starring Scarlett Johansson) goes where few have dared to tread in The Zone…
Non-indigenous Australians have often had a rather fraught relationship with the landscape of this continent. On one hand, its “boundless plains” offered a sense of opportunity; a chance to control the environment. But the land is also sometimes perceived as a wild place that can never be controlled. This led to a pervading sense of…
In a crucial scene in Anatomy of a Fall, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) tells her son, “Everything you hear in the trial it’s just… it’s twisted. It wasn’t like that.” Indeed, a lot about Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning drama isn’t what it seems. This multi-layered film presents a complex narrative web that invites its…
It’s been a boom time for new films from some of cinema’s great stylists. In the past 12 months, we’ve had new movies from the likes of Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese. Now we have a new release from Sofia Coppola in Priscilla; a layered, impressionistic portrait of the relationship between Priscilla Presley…
The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) has added another layer to Australia’s most prestigious screen awards with the debut of the AACTA Festival. A four-day celebration of Australia’s vibrant screen industry, the AACTA Festival at promises an immersive experience for all at the Home of the Arts (HOTA) on the Gold Coast…
Alexander Payne doesn’t make movies all that regularly – only five full features between 2000 and 2020. But when he does, everyone takes notice. And while his previous film, Downsizing (2017) might have been a little underwhelming, there’s nothing disappointing about The Holdovers. Payne’s best-known film is probably Sideways (2004), and here he teams with…
Celebrity – it’s the dream of many and the nightmare of some. Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (in his English-language debut) takes a quirky but deep dive into the nature of celebrity in the current cultural moment with Dream Scenario. The result, while a little uneven, is nonetheless intriguing. Depicting dreams in cinema – or any…
