50/50
Based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s real-life diagnosis with a rare spinal tumour, 50/50 gets that having cancer can be both funny and terrifying. Sure,... 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...
Elia Kazan at Melbourne Cinémathèque
Melbourne Cinémathèque, the ACMI-based rare film club, is about to start its weekly 2012 program with a season dedicated to director Elia Kazan. Kazan... 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...
The Artist
Michel Hazanavicius’s now ten-times-Oscar-nominated film is the story of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent movie star who rejects the incipient... 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
Where Ian Fleming’s espionage is flip and glamorous, John Le Carré’s is dreary and cynical; George Smiley is the anti-James Bond. Still, director... read more...
Morning of the Earth
Albie Falzon’s Morning of The Earth (1972) is sometimes described as the greatest surf movie ever made. Other times it is described by my uncle... read more...
Young Adult
Some films really get you in the guts, and for me Young Adult was one. At times bitingly funny and achingly sad, Jason Reitman’s dramedy recalls Bad... read more...
The Interrupters
Directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams), The Interrupters documents a year in the life of Chicago’s ‘violence interrupters’, an innovative... read more...
Vincent Moon, 'An Island', presented by Sugar Mountain and The Thousands
Parisian filmmaker Vincent Moon has chosen the chamber pop of the stupidly talented Danish band Efterklang for his latest investigation. The film follows... read more...
Mars
Geoff Marslett’s Mars is a science fiction, romantic comedy live-action animation. Nominally rotoscoped, it feels more like Ralph Bakshi’s... read more...
The Iron Lady
What better traditional holiday entertainment than a rollicking English pantomime? This political fairytale is seasonably hilarious, and ultra-conservative... read more...
The Skin I Live In
Both preposterously serious and blackly playful, Pedro Almodóvar’s melodrama explores how trauma and perversion are literally inscribed on the body.... read more...
Don't Need You - The Herstory Of Riot Grrrl
To understand why Riot Grrrl mattered, you need to know that ’80s punk and hardcore shows were a major sausage fest. Mostly male bands played to... read more...
Films of Kenneth Anger
If you’re a fan of experimental film (or octogenarians with ‘LUCIFER’ tattooed across their chests) and are yet to get into Kenneth Anger,... read more...
Attack The Block
English writer-director Joe Cornish (of cult comedy duo Adam and Joe) splashes with a feature film debut that’s just plain fun. It’s the anti-Harry... read more...
Restless
Restless lacks the uneasy mood that pervades Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and Paranoid Park, and has very little original to say. But I found its obviousness... read more...
Japanese Film Festival, 'Milocrorze'
Yoshimasa Ishibashi’s Milocrorze is an anthology film of sorts with Takayuki Yamada (of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins) in multiple roles. Though... read more...
Melancholia
I feel strongly that Lars von Trier is fucked in the head and that we should condemn his films’ glorying in women’s psychological (and sometimes... read more...