Andrew’s Top 50 Films of 2018
Best of lists are always strange beasts. We sift through a
year of ‘stuff’ trying to find value and quality, only to put it in some kind
of arbitrary order. These lists always play like a competition – where y...
5
Revenge Review
Rape Revenge movies. Do
we need them? From I Spit On Your Grave 1 through 4 to Big Driver to Bound to
Vengeance, they seem to be here to stay – and they all have one thing in
common. Even straight up rev...
4
Instant Family Review
On paper, Instant
Family has all the ingredients for being a mess. It’s directed by Sean
Anders – he of That’s My Boy, Daddy’s Home and Daddy’s Home 2 fame. It has a comedic lead turn from Mark Wahlberg.
And, ...
Sweet Country and the annual Death of Australian Cinema Discussion
Each year, a post appears on a news website sounding the alarm that Australian cinema is dead. It’s dying! It’s all going down and you better start selling the furniture now because how else will you make some...
5
Vice Review
In nature documentaries, there are always two narratives working at once. You have the prey – a terrified gazelle fleeing across the Savannah, pulling every trick it knows in a bid to simply stay alive. Then, ...
4
Arctic Review
A man is stranded in the great white nothing of the Arctic. We meet him digging into the frozen ground, ploughing a legible SOS into the snow. His watch beeps, and he puts down his shovel and moves onto his ne...
3.5
A Letter to the President – Adelaide Film Festival Review
A letter to the President is a film that follows the story of Soraya (Leena Alam) whom is the head of the Kabul Crime Division. She is called to an incident where she is forced to protect a young woman by arre...
3.5
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – Adelaide Film Festival Review
I don’t like Coen brothers’
films. I did not like Fargo, I hated The Big Lebowski (yea that’s right, I
said it, dude), I was not a fan of O
Brother, Where art Thou? The
Ladykillers was a complete bore. No
Coun...
5
Hotel Mumbai – Adelaide Film Festival Review
In November of 2008, four
terrorists entered the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, India. They began to
massacre everyone they came across. Without going into too much detail, the
siege lasted over 60 hours le...
2
Beautiful Boy Review
The film watching period between October and January is one
that’s full with films that simply exist to earn their talent an Oscar
nomination. These are films that roll along, exist in the public consciousness...