This American Life - Live!
Weird as it may seem to put a radio show on the big screen, this works. This American Life – Live! was staged live at a theatre in New York City,... read more...
EAMES: The Architect & The Painter
EAMES: The Architect & The Painter does a good job portraying these two innovators like the right and left side of the same brain, and all the issues... read more...
Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, Buffalo Girls
I’m fairly sure anyone with an adequately functioning moral compass would agree that paying eight year olds to beat the shit out of each other is wrong.... 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...
Sydney Film Festival 2012
An embarrassment of riches, every year the Sydney Film Festival program sits on your coffee table for weeks – until the fest is over – its... 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
Mathieu Kassovitz’s Rebellion is based on the true story of a Kanak uprising in French-controlled New Caledonia during the May 1988 presidential... 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
Action flicks’ videogame structure – progressing through various levels, dispatching enemies and defeating bosses – attracts criticism on both moral... 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
Morten Tyldum’s thriller is based on the bestselling novel by Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø, but it’s no po-faced Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Its... 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
Rather than ‘breaking’ horses, Buck ‘starts’ them, using empathy and kind authority to inspire a seemingly uncanny transformation. Meehl shows... read more...
Mardis Gras Film Festival 2012
Dirty Girl and Au Pair Kansas (featuring former porn star Traci Lords) look like promising indie comedies. A few incredible underground features are screening... 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 Los... 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...