EIFF 2013: ‘The Last Time I Saw Macao’
★★★☆☆ The critical success last year of Miguel Gomes’ Tabu (2012) and fresh appreciation for the works of Pedro Costa and Raoul Ruiz has seen […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Mister John’ review
★★★★☆ An exotic thriller ensnared within a Lynchian nightmare of confused identities, Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy’s follow-up to Helen (2008), Mister John (2013), is […]
EIFF 2013: ‘What Maisie Knew’ review
★★☆☆☆ Screening in Europe for the first time at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s What Maisie Knew (2012) is a […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Consequence’ review
★★★☆☆ Chronicling the daily rigmarole within a German crematorium, Thomas Heise’s Consequence (Gegenwart, 2012) is a muted observation of a process many of us know […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Leviathan’ review
★★★★★ An often overwhelming oceanic opus, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel’s Leviathan (2012) is a sublimely sensory experience like no other. One of the most […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Sofia’s Last Ambulance’ review
★★★☆☆ The Bulgarian capital of Sofia has an estimated population of just over two million – yet has only thirteen operational ambulances. At a time […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Hawking’ review
★★★★☆ Stephen Hawking’s first wife, Jane, once explained that as the years passed and her husband made new discoveries, their relationship evolved two faces. The […]
EIFF 2013: ‘The Conjuring’ review
★★★★☆ From director James Wan (Saw, Insidious) comes The Conjuring (2013), a 1970s-inflected haunted house movie that throws every trick in the book at it […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Before You Know It’ review
★★★☆☆ After focusing predominantly on short film projects, director PJ Raval returns with only his second feature, Before You Know It (2013), a thoughtful documentary […]
Film Review: ‘Renoir’
★★★★☆ Like the revered work of the artist himself, Renoir (2012) – director Giles Bourdos’ biopic of the French impressionist, starring Michel Bouquet, Vincent Rottiers […]
Film Review: ‘I Want Your Love’
★★☆☆☆ Banned from Sydney’s Mardi Gras Film Festival due to its graphic real sex and ardently defended by friend-of-director James Franco, Travis Mathews’ I Want […]
Film Review: ‘Night of Silence’
★★★★☆ Winner of the Crystal Bear at the 2012 Berlinale and Best Screenplay at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Reis Çelik’s Night of Silence (Lal […]
Film Review: ‘Stories We Tell’
★★★★☆ “When you’re in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all”. This is the line that introduces Canadian Sarah Polley’s Stories […]
EIFF 2013: ‘Sanctuary’ (‘Faro’) review
★★★☆☆ Examining the powerful bond shared between a father and daughter, Fredrik Edfeldt’s Sanctuary (Faro, 2013) is a nostalgic, innocent and handsomely presented drama that […]
Film Review: ‘The East’
★★★☆☆ The gravitational pull of cults served as the premise for director Zal Batmanglij’s previous collaboration with writer/actress Brit Marling, 2011’s Sound of My Voice. […]
Film Review: ‘This Is the End’
★★★☆☆ This (remarkably) is the way the world ends – not with a cataclysmic blast, but with an especially juvenile dick joke from a self-parodying […]
Film Review: ‘Despicable Me 2’
★★★☆☆ Despicable Me (2010) was the first offering from Universal Pictures off-shoot Illumination Entertainment, and it’s financial success proved that Pixar and Dreamworks can be […]
Film Review: ‘The Act of Killing’
★★★★★ American filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer’s Berlinale hit The Act of Killing (2012) – in cinemas this week from Dogwoof – challenges the very limitations of […]