Public Enemies (Review)

Michael Mann’s  Miami Vice was certainly stylish, but the horribly convoluted plot and bland characterisations made it about as appealing as Colin Farrell’s mullet. In Public Enemies, Mann makes his apology by enlisting charismatic heartthrob Johnny Depp to portray notorious American bank robber John Dillinger.  Whilst Depp sure does make up for Farrell’s mullet,  it’s clear that Mann has yet to renounce all his other vices. He still  under-develops his characters and has a nonsensical love for digital [...]

Cedar Boys (Review)

Australia’s crime and its underworld are wealthy sources full of story ideas, but while TV audiences have been recently spoilt with the likes of Underbelly and East West 101 moviegoers have hardly received the same treatment. The same seems to apply with ethnic representations; characters with European backgrounds largely outweigh those of Middle Eastern descent. With Sydney’s drug scene as the focus of Cedar Boys we see young Lebanese-Australians enter the criminal world to make a quick buck – but [...]

My Sister’s Keeper (Review)

Ah, how Hollywood presents so many possibilities. Its two biggest child stars, Dakota Fanning and Abigail Breslin, in the one film? Sounds intriguing enough, and for My Sister’s Keeper it looked to be a go, but Fanning eventually pulled out (allegedly for refusing to shave her head) and the dream pairing was gone. The first Jodi Picoult novel to be adapted for cinemas has more than its fair share of A-listers, and as one of her biggest sellers [...]

An Englishman in New York (Review)

Right off the bat, I admit to having literally no prior knowledge of Quentin Crisp before turning up for my first screening of this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. In fact, it failed to register that it was a film based on the life of a real person when I had read the blurb in the MIFF programme, failed to register as I thought, “Ooh! This sounds intriguing! Book les tix!”

Upon having now seen An Englishman in New York [...]

Friday the 13th [2009] (Review)

I try to be a ‘glass half-full’ person. So when watching yet another pointless addition to the Friday the 13^th franchise, I took joy from the fact that with each victim Jason Voorhees claims, the end credits were one step closer. It was the only way I could endure through this god-awful slasher-rehasher from director Marcus Nispel (2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre).  Well, that and the copious amounts of nudity. But that’s free on the internet.

Just [...]

MIFF Madness, are you ready?

What does an unemployed film student staring down the barrel of their last ever semester, with a short film to get off the ground in less than a month do when faced with the prospect of spending money they don’t have to watch at least a film a day for about two weeks?

I can’t speak for the countless other unemployed students in Melbourne, but I do know this: as I stood in line at the [...]