Emerald Fennell gives us Brideshead Revisited and The Talented Mr. Ripley dragged screaming into a fantastical modern world where desire perverts everything.
Continue readingSaltburn (2023)
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The Royal Hotel (2023)
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Director Kitty Green has some worthy documentary subjects under her belt and it’s no surprise that the excellent Hotel Coolgardie (2016) inspired her in this outback noir fictionalisation.
Continue readingHead Wind (باد دبور) (2008)
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ACMI in Melbourne is running a retrospective of the films of Mohammad Rasoulof, an Iranian director who has made some of my favourite films (Manuscripts Don’t Burn, A Man of Integrity, There is No Evil).
Continue readingArcadian (2024)
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Okay full disclosure, I have a bias towards Nicolas Cage films. He won me over with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and now I get as much enjoyment out of his films that are badly scripted and acted as I do from the good ones.
Continue readingA Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
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Sequels come with expectations, perhaps of inevitable disappointment. The two predecessors to this film were solid, tense and imbued with the adorable coupledom of John Krasinski and Emily Blunt who further burrowed into our hearts during Covid with their goofy charm.
Continue readingA Difficult Year (Une Année Difficile)(2023)
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If you’ve seen The Intouchables (2011) or The Extraordinary (2020), you’ll know that co-directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Tolenado have a deft hand at giving us emotional, character-driven stories that also tackle important social issues.
Continue readingThe Teacher who Promised the Sea (2023)
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This Spanish historical drama directed by Patricia Font was a recommendation by a dear friend and it was only one session a day so I’m sure it will disappear from cinemas soon.
Continue readingThe Small Back Room (1949)
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I’m a bit of a fan of a good 1940s film, specially when it is restored and shown up on a big screen. This one was scheduled because there was a Powell and Pressburger documentary at the festival this year and it was a pleasant way to pass the last Sunday morning of MIFF 2024.
Continue readingAbiding Nowhere (2024)
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After sitting through four hours of McQueen’s Occupied City, I walked into slow cinema maven Tsai Ming Liang’s 70 minutes of a monk walking slowly.
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