Chocolat, No Reservations, Soul Kitchen, Big Night, Babette’s Feast, Like Water for Chocolate, The Hundred Foot Journey, Eat Drink Man Woman, Ratatouille – just some of the films about food that have bombarded us. Food has become a lifestyle obsession, rather than the fuel it was considered to be a few decades ago. Television schedules…
M Night Shyamalan subverts the usual expectations of the fairy tale visit with kindly old grandmother with this mix of horror and uncomfortable black comedy. The subdued horror film The Visit marks a return to form of sorts for the Sixth Sense filmmaker, whose last couple of films were the awful The Last Airbender and…
Unease is what greets you in this psychological crime drama set in Melbourne in the mid ‘70s. The film tracks the relationship between Sparra (Alex Russell) and Paula (Jessica De Gouw) and the impact on their lives of the charismatic and dangerous Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton). Sparra is a very private man in his twenties who…
Based upon the successful memoir and stage play of the same name, this is a true story of a 15-year love affair between two people who met at school. It is Australia in the ‘70s and Tim Conigrave, a budding actor at an all-boys Catholic school, has fallen big time for the captain of the…
Is there anything that Meryl Streep cannot do? At an age when most actresses find it hard to land meaty roles or substantial character parts, Streep is a chameleon who seems to still be going strong, playing a variety of diverse and challenging roles. A case in point is her new film in which she…
This droll and offbeat fish out of water story is actually based on a 2001 urban legend about a Japanese woman who died while trying to find the money that Steve Buscemi’s character buried in the snow in the Coen brothers’ classic movie Fargo. That myth has provided the inspiration for this quirky drama from…
Inspired by a seven-year affair between celebrated British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor Harold Pinter and television presenter Joan Bakewell, the silences say as much as the words. In fact, when he had finished writing the play, Pinter sent it to Bakewell, who was shocked her life was being raked over. As she read through…
I think I like adaptations rather than translations – especially from Russian and German. Turgid prose tends to translate to turgid prose. Daniel Evans is good at the adaptation business – Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Any More is a good example and this one bears his unique in-your-face style, with bad language, lots of smoking,…
Director Paul Cox (My First Wife, Human Touch, Innocence) had a second chance at life when he received a liver transplant on Christmas Day 2009. The experience profoundly affected him and Force of Destiny, the first film in the new phase of his life, is in many ways an outpouring of his renewed love for…
Fifty shades of bland? This offbeat film exploring a sadomasochistic relationship between two women in an unnamed community of women situated somewhere in Europe has hit local cinemas in the wake of more sexually explicit films like Blue is the Warmest Colour and Nymphomaniac, as well as a couple of other more risible films exploring…
