This contemporary retelling of Gustav Flaubert’s 1856 tragic tale Madame Bovary is something of a dull affair despite its lashings of sex, infidelity and comedy. The film is based on the popular graphic novel written in 1999 by Posy Simmonds, who previously wrote Tamara Drewe, which was filmed starring Gemma Arterton. Arterton appears here again…
It’s been a while since we last had a full-scale disaster movie (think Armaggedon, Independence Day), so why not a homegrown product (it was shot on the Gold Coast) starring the man-mountain The Rock? Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) is a seismologist with a nose for big earthquakes and one is about to hit the USA between…
The House on the Lake is a 90 minute, one act play. A psychological thriller, where David (Huw Higginson) seemingly suffering from anterograde amnesia, is coaxed back to health through a series of interviews by a forensic psychologist, Alice (Jeanette Cronin). What is gradually remembered, connected, produces a result that neither of the participants anticipate….
This is an unnecessary remake of the 1982 horror film of the same name, and it shows that Hollywood studios are basically lacking in originality and imagination. While this remake basically adheres to the story of the original it adds little beyond some CGI special effects and modern touches. The original film was written by…
A heady novel of love, intrigue and taking chances, Fiona McIntosh’s The Last Dance is a book made for reading in bed all night long. I’ve had this on my shelf for a while, but as I do sometimes, I left it for a while, wanting it for the right moment (I do that with…
Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) is an elderly former refugee who, with the help of her tyro lawyer, takes on the intractable might of the Austrian Government in a protracted legal battle to regain possession of a valuable painting and family heirloom that was confiscated by the Nazis during WWII. The painting in question is Gustav…
Tomorrowland was created by Walt Disney as a section of Disneyland that opened in California in 1955. The theme park was also populated with Adventureland, Frontierland and Fantasyland. It was a time when Americans imagined an optimistic future. Over the years since though, the public’s view of what was to come grew darker. That shift…
A thought provoking art-house film from a first time Australian director (28-year-old Melburnian Ariel Kleiman, now based in London), it focuses upon an enclave cut off from the real world. Under the guise of protection, a cult figure known as Gregori (Vincent Cassel) professes bonhomie while riding roughshod over a gaggle of women and their offspring….
“My short films were made as student films in a very unprofessional and renegade manner, but I think that grounding helped,” says Australian filmmaker Ariel Kleiman about his debut feature film Partisan, which hits local cinemas on May 28. Partisan is a grim coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of a sinister cult run by…
Six remarkably compelling stories in one, these are imaginative and colourful tales about people caught up in seemingly normal situations until something unexpected happens. Wild Tales concerns inequality, injustice and stress. #1 A model is flying on an aircraft when she is hit upon by a music critic, who discovers they have something in common…
