Watched on Sunday January 5, 2025.

So much more enjoyable than I expected.

Beautiful and gripping! That dope alley scene with the grasping hands and fluttering sounds. And the slow emergence of the antagonist. Brilliant.

Spectacle and no substance. And women as sacrifice. Sigh.

OMG that ending! A gut-shot deer indeed.

Nostalgia and tristesse.

I kept wanting Martha to get on with it.

Totally surprised by this moving portrait of what read as BPD. Nature film making from Eisenberg.

A delightfully intense experience with a fascinating central performance from Mickey Madison. Although it often reads like a comedy, you are stuck in an uncomfortable space between humour and abuse and I appreciate this complexity. Same goes for the whiplash tonal changes in the final scene which finally gives us insight into Anora’s psyche. I wish it had more convincingly passed the Bechdel Test - it sometimes felt like one more story of a strong women told by her interactions with men.

Watched on Thursday December 26, 2024.

Brilliant! Love the casting.

Loved this. The indomitable and scrappy antipodean nature!

So many better films called Poison. This feels every bit the play it is.

This could have been so much better.

Greek heroes are arseholes.

Watched on Sunday December 8, 2024.

Quietly lovely. Three great performances by Lyonne, Olsen and Coon.

Reasonably diverting. Perhaps a tad hagiographic.

Although I liked the loose absurdity and the very 80s post WWII outfits, this hasn’t aged too well.

Interesting concept and monster. Loved Emily Blunt’s full metal biatch and even Tom Cruise’s transformation from smarmy suit to kick ass grunt but can’t get past the cringe of Cruise as romantic and all American hero.

Watched on Saturday November 9, 2024.

Ah Dev!

Holds up reasonably well. Love Diane Weist.

Dev Patel! He’s got the chops!

Watched on Monday October 28, 2024.

Watched on Sunday October 27, 2024.

Watched on Saturday October 26, 2024.

Watched on Monday October 28, 2024.

Watched on Sunday October 27, 2024.

Watched on Sunday October 27, 2024.

An early insight into the realities of censorship of movies and media in Iran that will go on to become the rich subtexts of Rasoulof’s later dramas.

Screening as part of the Irish film festival, this is a deeply moving story about the generations of children stolen from their mothers in Ireland for most of the 20th century. The stories are horrendous but the responses from church and state are disappointingly bland and insubstantial. It certainly feels like deep misogyny that allows such inhumanity.

This was the first R rated film I ever saw with a clandestine viewing on a hotel tv when I was a young teen. I can see why it is so lauded. The slow, languid cinematography feels ahead of its time with its weird angles and roving camera. De Niro is compellingly awful and it felt perfect right up until the third act bloodbath. The epilogue felt ambiguous and I assumed we were seeing fantasy but, as reality, it is perhaps an even more bleak view of society.

Worth it just for Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart, pre-sullen mannerisms, together on screen.

Still satisfying, particularly for the low burn bromance between Brad Pitt’s young, brash detective and Morgan Freeman’s cynical old-timer on the brink of retirement. Fincher does a good job with the dismal never ending rain and grime. The ending shock is more muted now but still has power.

With the wisdom of 45 years, Judy Morris’s beleaguered housewife Jill no longer seems neurotic as she feels harassed and intimidated by the creepy plumber who outstays his welcome. It feels like the TV movie it is, churned out by Peter Weir to make some cash between The Last Wave and Gallipoli. The sublimely brutalist university apartment block turns from middle class castle to claustrophobic prison as plumber Max charms everyone but won’t stop singing and smashing his way through Jill’s sense of safety. It has a neat ending that feels satisfying now and in 1979 might have constituted horror for entitled white tradies.

Watched on Saturday September 28, 2024.

Watched on Saturday September 28, 2024.

Watched on Saturday September 28, 2024.

Watched on Monday September 30, 2024.

This review may contain spoilers.

If you’ve seen The Intouchables or The Extraordinary, you’ll know that codirectors Olivier Nakache and Eric Tolenado have a deft hand at giving us emotional, character driven stories that also tackle important social issues.

With A Difficult Year, they have taken a lighter approach to give us something that plays with comedy and romance while skittering over the surface of some real issues of our time.

Our two protagonists, Albert and Bruno, are strangers to each other but they are both men who have sunk themselves deep into debt and don’t really have any way of getting out of it. The intro to the film shows French leaders year after year going back into the 70s announcing how “this year is going to be a difficult year” so perhaps we are to understand that these two men have good intentions but are victims of an economic crisis.

Albert (Pio Marmaï) works at the airport handling luggage and has a good line in confiscated goods that he sells on the streets. He has a backpack and a suitcase like a tourist and sleeps overnight, camouflaged amongst all the other travellers. Answering an eBay ad from Bruno (Jonathan Cohen) to purchase a TV for him at a black Friday sale, Albert is confronted by a group of climate activists, led by the enigmatic and passionate Cactus (Noemie Merlant).

Albert has no time for them - when you are struggling just to survive on the streets, rallying against consumerism must seem like triviality. He buys the TV for Bruno but when he goes to deliver it, he finds that Bruno’s life has fallen apart and he is there as he tries to end his life.

This throws them together into a workshop by financial guru Henri (Mathieu Almaric) who gives them ‘helpful’ tips like not shopping at the supermarket when you’re hungry and questioning whether you really need something before you buy it. A more practical strategy that Bruno discovers are the socialist meetings where you get free food and drink in exchange for listening to impassioned speeches (or rather you’re able to donate what you could pay which for Bruno and Albert means nothing). This throws them in to the orbit of the climate action group and, we suspect almost against their better judgement or will, they start to get swept up into their enthusiasm for a better world and enveloped in a sense of community and purpose.

Although it is a comedy, and there are definitely light scenes, the story is about something fairly deep but we don’t ever feel like it really gets under the skin of the main characters. Merlant is as captivating as usual and it felt like the screen lit up whenever she was on it. It’s a fun story and I wonder if it will get negative reviews from those who feel that climate change is not a real thing. It doesn’t really delve into this topic particularly deeply, just showing it as something that has galvanised young people to change the world for the better.

It builds to a nice dramatic third act and then somehow lets us down with a twee ending that focuses too much on the romance. By this point I was in great admiration of Cactus’s determination to not get into a relationship until the world is in a better place and it felt like a stance that said her character/female leads are more than just a romantic interest. 

It also definitely casts Albert as a lovable rogue rather than a soulless charlatan which I suppose is what is to be expected from a comedy but I felt let down.

It’s feeling like a bit of a golden age for horror films where they are more than just a vehicle for shock.

Maxxxine is the third in the trilogy by Ti West that stars Mia Goth as a small punky porn star hero. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the others before this one as it is so firmly rooted in very familiar horror tropes that you’ll know exactly what’s happening.

Goth is Maxine Minx, a reasonably successful porn star and adult entertainer who just wants to be famous. She has come from an ultra religious family - this will be important later – and gets what feels like a big break in a legitimate horror movie, albeit a sequel.

She is pugnacious and determined but around her 1985 Los Angeles is in a panic about a serial killer, the night stalker, as well as the satanic panic where conservatives thought that rock music and horror films were corrupting their children.

This means that Maxine has a lot of dodgy things going on around her that seem to be getting in the way of her big break. There’s a shadowy man dressed all in black leather who seems to be killing off sex workers There’s a delightfully loathsome Kevin Bacon as a private detective set track Maxine down, and there are two pesky detectives who suspect that Maxine knows more that she is letting on.

In reality the plot doesn’t matter so much, you will get swept along by the music video/B grade horror vibe, Mia Goth’s face and irrepressible determination and some delightfully camp moments of gore. There are some memorable scenes – the one where Maxine deals with her 6° of Kevin Bacon Springs to mind.

I’m not sure that this will stick with me for the plot, most characters other than Maxine seem to be just catalysts for her story without much depth. I’ll remember it for the vibe though, and Maxine’s freckled face as she shoots someone in the head.

Gotta love ACMI! You come down to Melbourne on a random weekend and find that all of the cinemas are playing various combinations of the same films and that you’ve seen most of them at the Melbourne Film Festival. ACMI, in contrast, is showing a 2004 classic Thai horror film Shutter. What a gem!

I knew nothing about this, just that I like horror films from non-English-speaking countries, particularly if they have stood the test of two decades to still be considered worthy.

It might not seem like a new premise, a young photographer after being involved in a car accident where a woman may or may not have been killed finds that his photos are inhabited by a ghostly presence.

What I loved about it was its ability to build story, and character and a pleasing finale that didn’t leave you feeling letdown.

Our two protagonists are photographer Tun and his newest girlfriend Jane. Tun has a group of ex-college friends who are all a bit loud and juvenile, getting together to drink and bragging about how they go on the prowl for girls. Even married Tonn jokes about it.

Tun seems to be cut from a more sensitive cloth and on the way home from a boozy dinner with the boys, with girlfriend Jane driving, she is momentarily distracted as they profess their love for each other – never take your eyes off the road, when you’re in a horror movie folks - and she hits a girl and crashes her car.

Tun, panicking we think at getting caught (we know better later), urges her to drive off and all seems to be well, albeit with Jane‘s more significant guilty conscience than his, until his photos begin to be affected.

There’s a backstory that we are given in small, slow, pleasing increments. There are some really good jump scares, and some great set pieces that reminded me of Ringu in the otherworldly unsettling spookiness.

Searching for information about this film I noticed that there is a an American version of the same name, I assume this is a remake and it would be interesting to see how it compares. Although we thoroughly believe the horror is a dead girl, we find out that it is something really quite different and this I can see is something that would translate well across many patriarchal countries. 

The closing scenes are powerful both visually and in how they resonate.

Watched on Friday September 27, 2024.

Watched on Friday September 27, 2024.

Watched on Saturday September 14, 2024.

Watched on Saturday September 14, 2024.

Watched on Friday September 13, 2024.

Brilliant monsters!

Watched on Saturday September 7, 2024.