Festevez / / Melbourne International Film Festival, Revelation Film Festival, Reviews, Sydney Film Festival
A Dog Called Money
PJ Harvey wasn’t up for recording a regular album, so she took it on the road
Divine Love
A near-futurist neon-dystopian theological Brazilian sex-sci-fi isn’t what you’d normally come across at the cinema
The Miracle of the Little Prince
Above and beyond all else beautifully shot, the sequences in each of the four locations are rendered stunningly
Here Comes Hell
The title tells you everything you need to know
The Best of Dorien B.
It’s rare you see a newcomer with such star power but then there’s The Best of Dorien B
High Fantasy
Four South African twenty-somethings of diverse racial backgrounds go on a camping trip into the country. Shot on a set of iPhones and largely improvised, they awake one morning to find they’ve switched bodies
RocKabul
Afghanistan’s first psychedelic metal band will hopefully not be their last
Number 37
There have been a lot of adaptations, homages or films otherwise inspired by Rear Window; Number 37 might just be the best
The Drummer and the Keeper
Casting matters. So does chemistry
The Seen and Unseen
Most stories are better without a sledgehammer to drive it’s point home, though subtlety doesn’t always help
Float Like A Butterfly
Stinging like a bee, Float Like A Butterfly lands every hook we’ve come to expect from boxing flicks, while unlike almost any that’s made it to the big screen
Dublin Oldschool
An uncommon insight into the less-travelled avenues of Dublin
The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid
Calling The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid a documentary wouldn’t quite be fair
The Wild Boys
Visually captivating and ever in a constant state of flux, The Wild Boys’ thematic bona fides are just trying to keep up
The Night Eats The World
If you’re going to make a zombie movie today you really have to clamber above the pack
Crime Wave
A comedy of awful errors and even worse people, Crime Wave stumbles sparingly and when it finds it’s feet it lands
Free Solo
Very few films are ground-breaking in a visual, technical or narrative sense. To manage all three is a rare achievement, though not nearly so remarkable as Alex Honnold
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
It took decades to get this film to theatres; the finished product, as much as Terry Gilliam’s perseverance, is as strong a reminder as any of why we watch movies, and always will
Festevez / / Bendigo Queer Film Festival, Geelong Pride Film Festival, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Queer Screen - Mardi Gras Film Festival, Reviews
Wild Nights With Emily
Recounting lesser-known events and their reasons for obscurity in the life of Massachusetts poet Emily Dickinson (Molly Shannon), Wild Nights With Emily takes a few less than conventional approaches
Festevez / / Adelaide Film Festival, Byron Bay Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Reviews
ARCTIC
Sometimes abstract just doesn’t work
You Were Never Really Here
All the pieces did well to come together for this one
The Kindergarten Teacher
Blocking. It doesn’t get talked about much, but it’s very important – and Sara Colangelo knows what she’s doing
Piercing
Putting us on a pile of rugs and ripping them all away, Piercing is having no go of the expected
Bodied
This author has only ever seen one film twice during a single Festival run. That was Bodied
Cam
Psychological and in this case supernatural thrillers are best when they’re relatable and (hopefully) original
Festevez / / Adelaide Film Festival, Jewish International Film Festival, Queer Screen - Mardi Gras Film Festival, Reviews
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
For such a well known actress, Melissa McCarthy is strangely underrated.
Roma
Roma screened as part of the Cine Latino Film Festival and will stream on Netflix from December 14
Sweet Country
Sometimes it’s never too early to reckon a film has the makings of a classic
Anna and the Apocalypse
A contender for one of the worst films of the year, look elsewhere than Anna and the Apocalypse
Maliglutit
You don’t need a dozen state of the art cameras to produce a good film, you just need a good place to point one