Like a sweet and sad Ghibli film where the present-day demon is indifference.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Bechdel fail
Flathead (2024)
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If you like a documentary that is about giving the subjects agency in how their story is told, then Flathead is not for you.
Continue readingThe Substance (2024)
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I think what threw me about this often delightful, often gross body horror was the expectation from reading the synopsis that it was feminist. It has made me muse on what my expectations are when that term is applied to a film, and I think it is about more than putting women’s stories at the centre, It’s about stories of women’s power and autonomy.
Continue readingA Different Man (2024)
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This was not what I was expecting at all. It’s an oddly torturous, funny, thought-provoking story of a man who has significant facial disfigurement.
Continue readingBlack Dog (2024)
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I was expecting a sentimental man dog road movie and thank goodness it was so much more than that.
Continue readingOccupied City (2023)
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A four hour documentary is always going to have its challenges. Steve McQueen (Hunger (2008)) takes a deep dive into the recorded history of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam by overlaying a narrated retelling with a river of footage of the city in 2020 and 2021.
Continue readingThe Golem (1920)
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Dark Mofo is a space for oddities and the screening in the Hobart Town Hall of this 1920 silent, German horror with live music score by electronic artist Lucrecia Dalt is a good place to start.
Continue readingNever Look Away (2018)
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The credentials of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others (2006)) were enough to get me to this 189 minute German epic at its first session. Fortified with a strong coffee and a stash of dark chocolate and mandarins, I felt confident that I could stay the course.
Continue readingTolkien (2019)
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JRR Tolkien was my first major literary crush. Watership Down was a first love and paved the way for 17 years as a vegetarian and refusal to ever eat rabbit but reading The Lord of the Rings in my teens began a long-lasting love of epic fantasy. I read and reread it many times in my teens and 20s and owned pretty much every published book by or about Tolkien until his estate began churning out unpublished, and unfinished works.
Continue readingAll is True (2018)
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There have been a few decent British biopics of late (I wrote this in 2019). Well-crafted, character-driven and largely sympathetic toward the subject – The Chaperone (2018) and Red Joan (2018) come to mind.
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