Film Review: The Past (2013)
Asghar Farhadi’s highly anticipated follow up to 2011’s A Separation is another portrait of complex family life, this time in Paris. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa)…
Film Review: 28 Hotel Rooms (2012)
28 Hotel Rooms is an interesting concept, a very close character study and an overall relatable story. Sadly missing out on a release in Australian cinemas, it is a very subtle, yet stimulating film that really hits home.
Film Review: In Bob We Trust (2013)
Supported by the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Premiere Fund and one of the highlights of this year’s festival, In Bob We Trust is entertaining and extremely touching. This is a film for everyone, regardless of whether you know much about McGuire or not.
Film Review: A Beginners Guide To Endings (2010)
From the onset of A Beginners Guide To Endings you feel a quirky, slight Tarantino-esque vibe injected by writer/director Jonathan Sobol, in his feature length film debut.
Film Review: Runner Runner (2013)
Despite what the title may suggest, Runner Runner certainly runs out of steam way before its average climax. With superhero enthusiasts already dubious about his casting in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman, here’s hoping Affleck is saving all his efforts for Bruce Wayne.
Film Review: I’m So Excited (2013)
The richness of the colour onscreen separates the world Almodovar presents from reality, isolating the characters in their own dimension, and its use is very reminiscent of films of the French New Wave, particularly Jacques Demi’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman Is A Woman (1961).
Film Review: R.I.P.D (2013)
R.I.P.D desperately strains to get laughs where it can and they only really come from Roy and Nick’s avatars, a Victoria’s Secret model and a short, elderly Chinese man respectively. But even then, the joke is milked way too much and by the end the audience is so unbelievably sick of it.
Film Review: V/H/S/2 (2013)
In 2012 we were given V/H/S, a horror anthology aimed at shocking and disgusting its audience through gritty violence. Like many horror films nowadays it didn’t take long for a sequel to get spat out and we have it here in V/H/S/2.
Film Review: Pain and Gain (2013)
Pain and Gain isn’t an action-packed comedy, it’s offensive, boring and way too drawn out. Failing to be entertaining on the most basic of levels, around the halfway mark you’re wondering how it could possibly continue. Whether the encompassing parody is deliberate or not it is very unsettling.
MIFF 2013: Harmony Lessons (2013)
Ultimately this haunting Darwinian tale of violence and morality is a social commentary on the normality of violence and crime in the region. One can only hope the extreme brutalisation against children from the police force is an exaggeration of current times in Kazakhstan, rather than a reality.