Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, Under African Skies
It turns out there is a whole lot more to Paul Simon’s Graceland album than a hilarious Chevy Chase film clip and universal childhood memories of road... read more...
Bobby Fischer Against The World
That old chestnut about genius being touched with madness is a dead horse that’s been beaten to a pulp. Yet it’s hard to watch this gripping... read more...
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Sushi chef Jiro Ono is a shokunin, a craftsman who seeks perfection by doing the same thing every day. At 85, he’s still striving for better sushi.... read more...
King of Devil’s Island
Marius Holst’s film tells the story of the 1915 rebellion at notoriously brutal (and supposedly escape-proof) Bastøy boys’ reformatory. read more...
Wish You Were Here
Director Kieran Darcy-Smith conjures a powerful dread in comfortable harbourside Sydney, as if our protagonists have unleashed a malevolent alien force. ... read more...
Café de Flore
The striking imagery and faith in music’s transformative power that made Canadian writer/director Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. so memorable is back. ... read more...
Rebellion
As an actor, Mathieu Kassovitz is best known as Amélie’s hangdog hero; as a director, for La Haine’s gritty violence. He combines both in this realpolitik... read more...
Life In Movement
Tanja Liedtke, a prodigious choreographer and the incoming director of Sydney Dance Company, was tragically killed in 2007. While the world lamented what... read more...
This Must Be the Place
This story reminded me very much of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, in which to mourn his dead Jewish father, a childlike oddball (aided by an old... read more...
A Dangerous Method
The name David Cronenberg conjures ideas of abject bodies, fragile subjectivities and perverse sexualities. Seems like an ideal directorial pedigree for... read more...
The Hunger Games
Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a rural teenager in a dystopian future America who hunts game with her buddy Gale (Liam Hemsworth), volunteers in... read more...
The Raid
The Raid, one of the most nakedly videogame-like films I’ve seen, has the clarity of a rung bell. Every impulse, from humiliation to family loyalty,... read more...
The Rum Diary
The anarchic spirit of Bruce Robinson’s cult film Withnail and I echoes through Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S Thompson’s autobiographical novel.... read more...
Fuel Tank TV first annual DVD
Like all busy and talented people, when the opportunity arose to do another project, Luke Ray (Fuel Magazine) and Tom Broadhurst (Bandit Films) took it... read more...
Headhunters
High-flying executive recruiter Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) has built a career on the theory that appearances matter. Secretly insecure about being short,... read more...
We Were Here
David Weissman’s documentary We Were Here chronicles the dramatic effect AIDS had on ’60s and ’70s San Francisco, transforming it from... read more...
Buck
Buck Brannaman, who consulted on Robert Redford’s film The Horse Whisperer and was one of the models for the title character, is a legend in ‘natural... read more...
'Buck' Interview
Directed by Cindy Meehl, Buck reflects on real-life cowboy Buck Brannaman’s transformation from an abused, affection-starved child to a generous, game-changing... read more...
One In A Million 2012
Reality program One In A Million is the most accurate portrayal I’ve seen of how skaters actually are; how they look, talk, socialise, and skate.... read more...
Shame
Steve McQueen’s beautifully crafted drama recalls Drive, and not just for transforming Manhattan into the same gritty, jaded demimonde as Refn’s... read more...
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Writer-director Sean Durkin’s debut feature is subtly, almost perfectly calibrated between idyllic and terrifying, all the way to its chillingly ambiguous... read more...
Flickerfest 2012
The international arm of this year’s Flickerfest tour showcases a worldly grasp of finesse and lingering. In an artform where every second counts,... read more...
Weekend
Russell sits at work with a blistering hangover, repeatedly revising a text to a guy he picked up the night before: “I feel like shit.” Should... read more...
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
<p>Where Ian Fleming’s espionage is flip and glamorous, John Le Carré’s is dreary and cynical; George Smiley is the anti-<em>James Bond</em>.... read more...