The films of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) are strange, off-beat, enigmatic, unsettling, confronting, and often hard to fathom, and have divided audiences. The Lobster, his first English language feature film, is no exception, and will probably go down as one of the weirdest films to hit screens this year. It won the Jury Prize…
Isabelle Huppert shines in the lead role of Elle, a sordid, twisted tale of lust and brutality. Michèle (Huppert) seems indestructible. Head of a leading video game company, she brings the same ruthless attitude to her love life as to business. Being attacked in her home by an unknown assailant changes Michèle’s life forever. She…
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…
Magic done well remains as perplexing, as mind bending as it ever has … and so it is here. The Illusionists 1903 transports us back to a time when these entertainers were the rock stars of their day. As the program notes attest, the art of magic enjoyed a Golden Age that spanned roughly 60…
– Europa! Europa! Film Festival – Sydney and Melbourne 4 – 27 February 2022 We have 2 double passes to a session at the Festival (excluding Opening Night) Note: tickets are digital *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Festival website HERE From international film festival favourites to star-studded blockbusters and subversive works helmed by Europe’s most…
Chaos Walking is a science fiction action adventure set on a distant planet known as New World in the year 2257. The male settlers are constantly bombarded with the thoughts of others in the settlement. These take the form of an unrelenting cacophony of sounds and visions, called The Noise. It drove the men insane…
If you aren’t a fan of either the Foo Fighters or shlock horror, you can give Studio 666 a wide berth. The band gather around a boardroom table and their record label CEO Jeremy Shill (Jeff Garlin) enters with expletives flying. He tells them he’s in debt up to his eyeballs and the Foo Fighters…
The name Dalton Trumbo is little known outside of those with an interest in Hollywood history, but this hugely successful (as in Oscar winning) writer is the subject of Jay Roach’s detailled and compelling biopic, Trumbo. For a little background, Trumbo was a prolific and celebrated screenwriter during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood. His many…
Writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s rigorous commitment to excellence in filmmaking (Magnolia) pays off again big time in One Battle After Another. Featuring stellar performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and others, it is an epic, darkly comedic, dramatic, action thriller. As Pat Calhoun, DiCaprio is in a frenzied relationship with…
This tale of redemption is based on the writings of French travel writer and adventurer Sylvain Tesson, who was the central focus of the 2022 documentary The Velvet Queen, which depicted his search for the elusive Tibetan snow leopard. In 2014 Tesson fell from a balcony after a night of heavy drinking and was severely…
