I don’t want to put people off this film. It’s actually a pretty good, solid family film and I think it will be well-liked. Just look at that photo – quirky outfits, cute kids and Viggo Mortensen. It starts out well. We see Viggo (Ben) and his six children living in the forest, almost completely self-sufficient. They hunt, climb, make their own clothes, read and discuss world issues at a sophisticated level and follow the rigorous training regime of their father. We soon discover that their mother is not there, she is ‘sick’ in hospital, and this is the first sign that not all is well in their world. Continue reading
Tag Archives: 3 stars
Elle (2016)
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Aaagh. I think this movie is well-made crap but I’m not sure. Okay, I need to admit my bias. It is directed by Paul Verhoeven who also directed Starship Troopers, the favourite film of a person very dear to me who I won’t name to save him embarrassment although anyone who knows him well will know who I’m talking about. And I think Starship Troopers is a heap of well-made misogynist crap. But believe me, I went into this movie with high (though slightly nervous) hopes. Continue reading
The Nightingale and the Rose (2015)
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Not a MIFF film. I took a detour at ACMI this morning as I waited for my first film session of the day and watched Del Kathryn Barton’s sumptuous animation of Oscar Wilde’s short story, The Nightingale and the Rose. Continue reading
What’s in the Darkness (Hei chu you shen me) (2015)
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I took the advice of my husband this morning and ditched the Romanian drama Sieranevada. His advice was to make sure I enjoyed my MIFF experience and to not make it hard work. My MIFF buddy Alex pointed out that Sieranevada is nearly three hours long and I just didn’t feel like it. Instead, I booked this Chinese drama, What’s in the Darkness, that reads like a Nancy Drew set in rural China. It isn’t. Strangely, it is not so different from last night’s The Demons. Continue reading
Harmonium (2016)
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I’m not really sure what this film was trying to say and it took just a bit too long to not say it. Toshio and Akié are a married couple with a young daughter, Hotaru. One day a neat, quiet man, Yasaka, arrives and Toshio gives him work and invites him to stay in their house. Toshio’s demeanour and offhand furtiveness show that there is more to this connection than meets the eye and his generosity is not necessarily being done through friendship. Continue reading
Ma (2015)
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I knew this film was going to be different. The story of the Virgin Mary, without dialogue, as a choreographic piece and framed as a southern US road movie. And different it was. Writer, director, choreographer and star, Celia Rowlson-Hall attended a Q&A afterward which helped me understand this surreal, movement-based story. Though I’m still not sure why the members of the Village People were carrying motel room furniture across the desert. Continue reading
Sonita (2015)
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I couldn’t pass up this Iranian documentary about a young Afghan girl in Tehran, battling her family’s conservative plans to achieve her dream of being a rapper. In many ways it is like As I Open My Eyes made real. Sonita Alizadeh, like Farah in that movie, is young and idealistic, channeling her anger at the injustice she sees all around her into her song lyrics. For her it is the limitations placed on her as a young woman, destined to be married off by her Afghani family for a bride price, like so many other teenagers, and forbidden from performing. Continue reading
Midnight Special (2016)
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I had a really interesting conversation yesterday with a friend about the subjectivity of film reviewing and how the baggage you carry with you influences your judgement of a film. I’m not sure he totally agreed with me but we then watched Midnight Special and, for me, my bias was clear. My sister asked me to see this film as she wanted to talk to me about it’s metaphor and metaphorical it certainly is. At least it has to be otherwise it doesn’t really make sense. Continue reading
Eddie the Eagle (2016)
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The trailer for this film sucked me in. It looked like a warm, quirky British biopic in the vein of Billy Elliot or Chariots of Fire. It’s based on the true story of Michael ‘Eddie’ Edwards, the irrepressible everyman who managed to represent Great Britain in ski jumping at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, despite being a relative newcomer to the sport and not on a par with other competitors. Unfortunately this film has more in common with Cool Runnings, the largely fictionalised Disney film of the Jamaican bobsled team that competed at the same Olympics, than I hoped. Continue reading
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (2015)
StandardI have mixed feelings about this documentary. I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about an interesting and non-conformist woman who had an impact on the development and understanding of modern art, something that seemed to be the domain of men in the mid-20th century. The documentary itself, though, is rather pedestrian and does not match its subject’s love of challenging and expressive art. Continue reading
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