Australian cinema is nothing if not brave and brutally frank, a reflection of a national psyche that is, by and large, willing to tackle an issue rather than leave it happily unattended. And while this narrative embracing of the elephant in the room often pays dividends, it can also result Continue Reading
Movies
Bring on the bloopers: The light side of Star Trek Into Darkness
SNAPSHOT Director J.J. Abrams’ global sensations Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness set a course for the ultimate home entertainment package in STAR TREK: THE COMPENDIUM, arriving September 9, 2014 from Paramount Home Media Distribution. The set includes four Blu-ray Discs with both films in sparkling high definition Continue Reading
Movie review: The Maze Runner
It would be easy to assume, given the recent deluge of movies adapted form red-hot popular YA novels,that there is a large factory hidden out the back of Hollywood in which pale and drawn authors, shackled to their typewriters (for they are far more evocative than PCs), are writing dystopian Continue Reading
Marvellous massing of movie trailers: Rudderless, While We’re Young, The Rewrite, White Bird in a Blizzard, Men Women & Children
I love the end of the year! So many wonderful, rich, intelligent dramas all throwing themselves at audiences, and of course Oscar (he of the Academy Awards) like lustful teenagers at a One Direction concert. I don’t even care that it will mean I never leave the cinema; it will Continue Reading
Movie review: Wish I Was Here
Life can be a tough thing to get right. It’s shockingly shorter than we imagined it to be, far more complex and demanding and our attempts to make the most of it come with a raft of unintended consequences which often bear little or no resemblance to the way we thought Continue Reading
Why LPs and books aren’t dead as a Dodo just yet
On April 19 this year, as on the third Saturday of every April since 2008, a strange thing happened outside record stores around the world. People lined up, often overnight and around the block, to buy vinyl records. Yes, vinyl records, which by the clearly incorrect reckoning of most of us had Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: The adorable MacGuffin-inspired art of LA artist 100% Soft
I love the artwork of LA-based artist 100% Soft. One look at the adorable baby-like characters that populate his work and you know which immensely talented person is responsible for them. He is one of those unique artists who not only has a distinctive style that is all his Continue Reading
Movie review: Magic in the Moonlight
Life is, notes one of the main characters in famed writer/director Woody Allen’s latest love letter to the glories and excesses of the Jazz Age, Magic in the Moonlight, a Nietzchean exercise in self-delusion, with every moment dedicated to distracting ourselves from what the German philosopher called “the horror Continue Reading
Marvellous Massing of Movie Trailers: Monsters: Dark Continent, Maggie, Shaun the Sheep, Burying the Ex, Exists
These are not your grandmother’s movie trailers my friends. Un less of course they have a thing for the undead, weird tentacled beasties from outer space, legendary creatures from the dark woods or talking claymation sheep. OK maybe that last one is so scary or deeply unsettling but really Continue Reading
Batman meets The Incredibles: Pixar’s creation is given a suitably dark, Nolan-esque vibe
I adore pretty much everything Pixar does. Even owned as it is by Disney (who truth be told have lifted their game under Pixar maestro John Lasseter), it remains the most magical, inventive, innovative animation studio there is, able to invest every single one of its films – yes Continue Reading