It’s a story as old as time – a rising star burns bright but is cut down before achieving greatness. But Gary Hart’s fall – at least as depicted in Jason Reitman’s compelling The Front Runner – is more spectacular than most. Reitman has always been an astute observer of human nature. From his exploration…
Loro is a bloated two and a half hour indulgence that serves up pure unadulterated hedonism. Co-written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty), the film is about Italian media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi (Toni Servillo) between 2006 to 2010. In this fictional account, Sorrentino speculates on what may or may not have taken…
It’s one of history’s great rivalries. The intriguing story of Elizabeth I and her cousin Mary Stuart certainly has all the elements of a great movie – war, intrigue, family ties and treachery. But while Josie Rourke’s feminist retelling of the tale in Mary Queen of Scots hits the high points, it strays from the…
Geez, you think you know a guy! Whether you loved or loathed former US Vice-President Dick Cheney, Adam McKays’ new film Vice will probably give you new insight into this enigmatic figure. Oh, and it may just illuminate some recent history as well. But the most important thing about Vice is that it’s fun. Although…
Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine) is back as he turns his attention to examining Donald Trump’s election win on November 9, 2016 (that’s 11/9 in American parlance). Moore travels across America to get a sense of the social, economic and political impact of the Trump presidency amidst the chaos of the new administration’s provocative tweets,…
Darkest Hour is a kind of backgrounder on Winston Churchill’s “never surrender” speech. It also touches on the flotilla dispatched to fetch the British troops from the beach at Dunkirk (as to which, see Dunkirk). But this showy biopic has too much emphasis on levity. Joe Wright (Atonement) directs from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten (The…
Pablo Neruda was the pen-name (and later legal name) of Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, who lived from July 12, 1904 to September 23, 1973. In 1971, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Lyrical, poetic and steeped in politics, Neruda is what I would term a “festival” film; one for purists. It’s…
Safely ensconced here in the Southern Hemisphere, few Australians have first-hand experience of America’s sometimes-toxic racial politics. In general, we experience it from afar, via either the news or some other media (like the recent film Get Out). Our national experience, while arguably no better than the USA’s, is however markedly different. So the Netflix…
Chimerica, is a three hour (plus interval) play of epic scale, written by Lucy Kirkwood, that premiered at the Almeida Theatre, in London, in 2013. The play is epic in length, epic in production values, epic in cast, and best of all, epic in ideas. On a virtually empty stage, with the action of a…
