A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and so too does a journey of 1770 kilometres and one through a path of self-discovery. The latter is also known as Wild or a film that has been adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir from 2012. One things for certain, this journey is…
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The Price of Fame (La rançon de la gloire) has an interesting-enough hook. It is based on some true events that occurred in the seventies when two desperate crooks decided to steal the body of the legendary, Charlie Chaplin and hold it to ransom. The film is ultimately a letdown that is plagued by problems…
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It is only in 1970s Canada where an over-abundance of hippies, draft-dodgers, Buddhists, vegans, nudists, musicians, writers and tree-huggers could meet and create an organisation like Greenpeace. The documentary, How To Change The World looks at the origins of this grassroots, activist movement and shows how it became the enduring institution it is today. The…
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When veteran, Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi was jailed in 2010 and banned from making films this made him even more determined to carry on doing just that. In this time he has made not one but three movies, the most recent being Tehran Taxi. This one sees fiction dressed up as a documentary and it…
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Before the National Lampoon lent their name to some terrible straight-to-video films they were ground-breaking. This comedy institution started as a spin-off magazine; graduated to books, radio and stage revues; and eventually yielded cult comedy films worthy of inclusion in Hollywood. Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon is a funny and…
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The names Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp may not mean much to you unless you know that they were the unlikely managers of The Who during the sixties and early seventies. The pair are a rather odd couple and they’re also the subject of a documentary by James D. Cooper. The result is a vibrant…
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Get on Up was the entrée, a biopic on the inimitable, James Brown. But Oscar-winner, Alex Gibney’s documentary, Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown is the more substantial, main course. For over two hours the audience is treated to a film that is full of music and flamboyance, from old performances on stage and…
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Madame Bovary is a pleasant film but it’s an unnecessary adaption. The iconic novel by Gustave Flaubert has been adapted multiple times for film and television over the past few years. But what distinguishes this latest offering is that it is the first one to be directed by a female (Sophie Barthes (Cold Souls)). Here,…
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“In the land of the blind the one eyed girl is queen”. So goes the premise to director, Nick Matthew’s feature debut, The One Eyed Girl. The winner of the Dark Matters award at Austin Film Festival in 2014 is a raw, experimental and plodding look at how and why a psychiatrist descends into the…
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Sex, Love & Therapy (Tu veux… ou tu veux pas?) contains about as much insight and laughs regarding love as a garden hose and a bread basket. This French rom-com is a superficial tale about a sex-obsessed man and woman who have to work together. It’s a complicated romantic situation but the script is simple…
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Shaun the Sheep is a simple but smart story. It also marks the big screen debut for the Aardman Animations’ character who was spun-off from Wallace & Gromit’s A Close Shave before he got his own popular TV show. This little sheep that could is as charming and engaging as ever and along with his…
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The two main characters in The Foxy Merkins are not foxy ladies in the Jimi Hendrix sense. Smart? Yes. Sassy? Sure. But smouldering, not so much. The film is in fact, a fictional comedy based on the misadventures of two homeless, lesbian hookers. The film was directed by Madeleine Olnek who doubles as a writer…
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They say the eyes are like a window to the soul. And the story of Big Eyes and specifically artist, Margaret Keane would show one sad and sinister tale. The latest film by director, Tim Burton (a Keane fan) throws his familiar clutch and styles away to instead present a biopic that is rich, honest…
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It’s lonely at the top and much-loved Australian comedian, Carl Barron is all too aware of this. In his feature film debut he takes a leaf out of his book of life spent on the road for the past two decades. The film is brave and has an interesting enough premise, but it is let…
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It’s hard for us to contemplate a world where sex was a giant mystery. But in the late fifties the word “pregnancy” could be censored from television, Elvis caused a stir by shaking his hips and married couples often slept in separate, single beds. Welcome to 1957, the year when two pioneers, William Masters and Virginia Johnson took sex…
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Some of you have seen it. Heck, some of you may have even been in a similar situation. You Make Me Feel So Young is centred on a deteriorating relationship between two American twenty-somethings. The film is the work of writer/director, Zach Weintraub who also doubles as the film’s star. He is the boyfriend of Justine (Justine Eister). After…
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We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks looks set to polarise audiences as much as the organisation’s founder, Julian Assange does. The documentary is the latest film from the Oscar-winning, Alex Gibney (Taxi To The Dark Side, Enron: the Smartest Guys In The Room). It attempts to paint a portrait of this organisation with snappy animation and a good musical…
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What Maisie Knew could actually be called Matilda. The former is an adaptation of the Henry Jamesnovel but it also shares a lot in common with the latter, Roald Dahl book. There is the brilliant and mature-beyond-her-years little girl who has to take care of herself because her parents only do so when it’s convenient. Although both sets of parents are…
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Jeff Buckley may have sung “So Real” on his ground-breaking, Grace album, but the bio-pic of his and his dad’s lives concentrates on their mystical qualities. Maybe it was their untimely deaths – Jeff by drowning in Memphis’ Wolf River at age 27 and Tim at age 28 from an accidental overdose – that turned them into alt-rock…
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