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Tara, Kat, Abigail, Ben, Christian, Ollie – if you’ve got children who love dance, you will know the Australian series Dance Academy. Four years after the end of the third and last season, the imaginatively titled Dance Academy: The Movie revisits our favourite student dancers as they try to make their way in the professional world.
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I wasn’t expecting much from this live action musical remake of the 1991 animation and, at 2.5 hours long, I was thinking I might get a bit of shut eye. Surprisingly I stayed awake for the whole thing and I didn’t hate it. Continue reading
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It’s possible that this is the worst film about women ever made by women. It’s also possible it is the most disappointing remake of all times. What an opportunity – to take the crackling wit of the 1939 George Cukor original and show what has changed for women in 70 years. Instead they give us a sexless Sex and the City, short on charm and long on white privilege. Continue reading
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“What will you give me for a basket of kisses? A basket of kisses? Why I’ll give you a basket of hugs.” A discussion with two good friends lead to an afternoon where each brought along their favourite ‘bad movie’. Bad movies are the ones you love to watch, even though you know they fail to meet many standards of cinematic quality. I had never heard of the 1956 The Bad Seed; it is based on a successful Broadway play and from where Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds took its name. What a melodramatic gem it is; predating Hitchcock’s Psycho in its Freudian exploration of horror that comes from within a family. Continue reading
Image from Spirited Away via http://www.neogaf.com
If you’ve got kids living at home, you’ll know the struggle to find a movie that the whole family can watch and enjoy that isn’t overloaded with Disney cuteness. We all know about the big blockbuster movies but here are a handful of lesser known PG movies that have been on high rotation in our household. Continue reading
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I wasn’t expecting this documentary about the Melbourne suburban and Victorian rural sect The Family and leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne to pack such an emotional wallop. It begins as a blow-by-blow retelling of the investigation into the cult in the 80s and takes a while to build a coherent story but ends as a devastating insight into the repercussions for the children involved and the inability of investigators to breach the protective wall of privilege around the cult to obtain justice. Continue reading
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The closing night Melbourne Queer Film Festival film had me the moment I saw it starred Sheila Vand (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night). It is writer, director and star, Ingrid Jungermann, though who steals the show. This is a comedy, albeit a dark one. Morgan (Jungermann) and Jean (Ann Carr) host a regular podcast called ‘Women Who Kill’ about female serial killers. They are exes who seem like an old married couple; they bicker and banter until Morgan meets the mysterious Simone (Vand) at the food co-op she volunteers for. Continue reading
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Another Melbourne Queer Film Festival screening and with a title like that you know it’s going to be a raunchy lesbian film. There were two queues snaking down the stairs at ACMI and I could tell at a glance that the all male one was not the one I needed. The first of two sold out sessions, my expectations were high. Sigh. Below Her Mouth is everything that Lovesong isn’t. Continue reading
Image via MIFF
Lovesong is one of the films I missed at MIFF and the Melbourne Queer Film Festival has given me another chance to see it. It won’t be to everyone’s taste but I loved this sparse, quiet tale of the significant loves we have in our lives and what steers our choices. Continue reading
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The delightful, tiny film Once thrust musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová into the spotlight when they won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008 for Falling Slowly. The Swell Season is the name of the band they formed and toured around the world as well as this quiet and genuine B&W documentary that follows the ups and downs of their personal and professional relationship in the aftermath of their success. Continue reading
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