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The Raid (Review) | By Tom Clift

Tom Clift — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:44:40 +0000

The Raid – inexplicably subtitled “Redemption” in some Western territories – opens on a watch and weapon. With one shot, director Gareth Evans has told you everything you need to know about the next 101 minutes. Unburdened by the convoluted narratives and romantic B-plots of so many Hollywood blockbusters, this brutal Indonesian martial arts picture is interested in one thing, and one thing only: bone-breaking, neck-snapping, jaw-shattering action. Despite some [...]

21 Jump Street (Review) | By Anders Wotzke

Anders Wotzke — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:42:54 +0000

In an age where comedies needn’t actually contain any comedy – a loophole commonly referred to as Adam Sandler’s career – 21 Jump Street is breath of fresh nitrous oxide-infused air. No, it’s not an instant classic like Jonah Hill’s breakout comedy Superbad, nor is it as hilariously zany as directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller’s previous outing Cloudy with a [...]

The Woman in the Septic Tank (Berlinale Review) | By Anders Wotzke

Anders Wotzke — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:27:37 +0000

In a Filipino slum, a desperate mother fights back tears as she chaperones her daughter to the doorstep of an elderly Caucasian man, ready to make a transaction that she’ll forever regret. This sequence, preceded by a child publicly defecating in the street, is the very definition of poverty porn, almost to the point where you expect to see UNICEF listed in the production credits.

Redeemably, however, the above sequence invites [...]

The Artist (Review) | By Tom Clift

Tom Clift — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:27:45 +0000

From Abrams (Super 8) aping Spielberg, Allen (Midnight in Paris) namedropping Bunuel and Scorsese (Hugo) paying homage to one of cinema’s earliest icons, lately we’ve seen filmmakers increasingly looking back. It’s a trend born, one suspects, of a desire to return to what many perceive as a simpler, more innocent time; a time when artists, not accountants, decided when and how a movie was to be made. Call [...]

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Review) | By Anders Wotzke

Anders Wotzke — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:10:49 +0000

Now that we’ve collectively agreed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never happened, let us return to fawning over Steven Spielberg for that kind of “gee whiz, let’s do that again!” giddiness you get from watching movies like The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The director might be working from a collection of mid-20^th century comics by Belgian artist Hergé, but this is undeniably [...]

Moneyball (Review) | By Tom Clift

Tom Clift — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:20:51 +0000

Bennett Miller’s Moneyball is not like most other sports movies. In most sports movies, no matter which game they concern, the drama takes place in the arena – on the basketball court and the football field, in the boxing ring and the baseball diamond. It is there that muscular athletes conquer pain, adversity and inevitably sharp odds to steal victory (or occasionally suffer honourable defeats) in front of lights, cameras, [...]

The Ides of March (Review) | By Tom Clift

Tom Clift — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:14:06 +0000

A first-class tale of political intrigue, The Ides of March offers a glimmer of hope to those people fed-up with the state of American politics, only to dash those hopes upon the jagged rocks of ambition, secrecy and betrayal. The story, based on the play Farragut North by Beau Willimon, concerns an idealistic junior campaign manager who gets a crash course in pragmatism when he discovers the man he is [...]

Arthur Christmas (Review) | By Anders Wotzke

Anders Wotzke — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:02:47 +0000

Whilst adults are busy pondering the meaning of life, kids have been losing sleep over a far more pressing question: how can a single man deliver billions of presents in a single night? Well, with plenty of wit and perhaps a bit of insider knowledge, Britain’s Aardman Animations (Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit) have come up with a cracker of an answer: all it takes is a gigantic spaceship, an [...]

Bill Cunningham New York (Review) | By Rebecca Mery

Rebecca Mery — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:21:52 +0000

In Bill Cunningham New York, first-time director Richard Press has captured and crafted a fascinating portrait of a fascinating man, one who works and lives in the world of today, yet in many ways seems to hark back to a by-gone era.

Darting around New York like on a Schwinn bicycle and sounding every bit like Katherine Hepburn’s long lost cousin, Cunningham is the camera-wielding journalist behind two influential fashion columns in [...]

Burning Man (Review) | By Tom Clift

Tom Clift — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 03:32:04 +0000

In both its non-linear structure and its astounding visual composition, Burning Man is a bit like Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life. Written and directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (Better Than Sex), the Australian drama presents a series of beautifully composed images and scenes that make up the memories from the life and marriage of it’s lead character, a cocky English chef [...]