Godland was the centrepiece of the recent Scandinavian Film Festival, and now this slow moving but visually stunning Danish drama gains a cinematic release. The film is set in the frozen inhospitable wilds of Iceland in the 19th century. Lucas (Elliot Crossett Hove) is a young idealistic Lutheran priest who is sent to Iceland to…
The deeply personal coming-of-age tale Armageddon Time is loosely based on director James Gray’s own childhood experiences. And while the film explores many themes that have been typical of his canon, this one builds a strong emotional response from the audience. Gray’s counterpart here is Paul Graf (newcomer Banks Repeta) an eleven-year-old who is just…
The kid who fell to Earth? In 2018 a small group of astronauts head off to live on Mars in an experimental colony known as East Texas. This space mission is the brainchild of Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldman), a billionaire entrepreneur clearly modelled on Richard Branson, who is the CEO of Genesis Space Technologies. But…
Last week we brought you a potted preview of this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. Now with the festival well and truly underway, our intrepid and bleary-eyed reviewer Greg King sorts through some of the highlights and not-so-high-lights of this year’s event. Force of Destiny Paul Cox is a perennial favourite of the Melbourne International…
Hero or villain? Richard Jewell, the movie, answers that question about the chief suspect in the Centennial Park bombing in 1996. That incident killed two people and left more than 100 injured. On 27th July that year, during the Atlanta Olympics, security guard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) discovers a suspicious backpack hidden under a bench…
Food, sex and art are three of the key ingredients in Flux Gourmet. This is the latest bizarre cinematic concoction from British director Peter Strickland, who’s based in Hungary. This black comedy is an absurdist satire of the contemporary art world with its provocateurs, sycophantic backers and receptive audiences and the creative process itself. Over…
The prolific Francois Ozon is one of France’s most stylish and intriguing filmmakers, especially with visually sumptuous melodramas like Swimming Pool winning great critical acclaim and reaching international audiences. His films deal with sex and death, and often have a strong queer subtext. His latest film is no exception. Frantz is a haunting and stylish…
Caroline, or Change is a work, an autobiographical work from Tony Kushner. He is famous for Angels in America (1993). Born in Manhattan, his family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, when he was a young boy. He wanted to write about race relations, the civil rights movement, and African Americans and southern Jews in the…
While gay marriage was recognised in the United States some time ago, it hasn’t led to an influx of mainstream gay-themed movies. They remain few and far between. Something like the excellent Academy Award winner Call Me by Your Name remains in the art house space. Love, Simon breaks the mould – an openly gay…
The fourth film in The Conjuring series, in which the possessed doll Annabelle originally had a small role, Annabelle: Creation is the origin story of said toy. It also serves as a prequel to 2014’s Annabelle. The story starts in the mid-1940s, but the majority of the action is set in the mid-to-late `50s. This…
