The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity by Linnie Blake Robyn Citizen July 2009 Book Reviews In The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity, UK lecturer Linnie Blake argues for the horror genre’s unique abilit...
“In Between” the Moving Image: Mutant Media: Essays on Cinema, Video Art and New Media by John Conomos Sean Lowry July 2009 Book Reviews With an interest in cinema tracing back to the 1960s, an involvement in video and new media art since the 1980s, coupled with a deep understanding of ...
Sam Peckinpah: Interviews edited by Kevin J. Hayes Gabrielle Murray July 2009 Book Reviews Making a picture is a big love affair, the biggest love affair in the world. – Sam Peckinpah (1) Sam Peckinpah’s personal relationships all seemed...
Generalising from the Particular: Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema” by Geneviève Sellier and “Making Waves: New Cinemas of the 1960s” by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith Tony McKibbin July 2009 Book Reviews It seems the Nouvelle Vague will not go away, and we may wonder if there has been any other film movement in history - from Neorealism to Dogme, from ...
Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia by Marijke de Valck Gaik Cheng Khoo July 2009 Book Reviews In Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia, Marijke de Valck takes a cultural theory and media studies approach to a subject th...
A Family Affair: Cinema Calls Home edited by Murray Pomerance Mark Nicholls and Anika Ervin-Ward April 2009 Book Reviews In Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991), Jessica Lange and Nick Nolte are lying in bed discussing the increasingly disturbing harassment they are experi...
The Imp of Mischief: “Have You Seen…?” A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films by David Thomson Tony McKibbin April 2009 Book Reviews If Pauline Kael is often pugnacious, Jonathan Rosenbaum belligerent, Anthony Lane frivolous, then what word should we bestow upon David Thomson? Perha...
“Despised and disparaged”: Reconsidering the Epic: The Epic in Film: From Myth to Blockbuster by Constantine Santas and Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds by Jeffrey Richards Djoymi Baker April 2009 Book Reviews Few film genres have been so critically despised and disparaged by film critics as the Ancient World epic. Serious, whole-hearted appreciations of suc...
The British New Wave: A Certain Tendency? by B.F. Taylor Michael Fleming April 2009 Book Reviews We know immediately from the title that this book accepts the existence of a “New Wave” in British cinema. B.F. Taylor begins with an unambiguous cano...
The Boy From Oz: Blood and Tinsel: A Memoir by Jim Sharman Jake Wilson April 2009 Book Reviews The fabulous was Jim Sharman’s birthright. Grandson and son of successive managers of the legendary Jimmy Sharman’s Boxing Troupe, he fills the openin...
Documentary Display: Re-Viewing Nonfiction Film and Video by Keith Beattie Adrian Danks April 2009 Book Reviews Keith Beattie’s Documentary Display: Re-Viewing Nonfiction Film and Video is an extremely valuable and refreshing contribution to the burgeoning field...
The Decline of Sentiment: American Film in the 1920s by Lea Jacobs John Fidler April 2009 Book Reviews “I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas…” Too sentimental! – Boris (Woody Allen), as he throws out one...
Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression by Martine Beugnet Saige Walton April 2009 Book Reviews Those familiar with French director Claire Denis will be aware of the exquisite sensuality of her cinema. Whether coming together with another body in...
Alvin Purple by Catharine Lumby Brian McFarlane February 2009 Book Reviews If you take a piece of paper and cut off half of the image of Graeme Blundell on the cover of this book and then inspect the left-hand side, you w...
Mining the Home Movie: Excavations in Histories and Memories edited by Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia R. Zimmermann Adrian Danks February 2009 Book Reviews Mining the Home Movie: Excavations in Histories and Memories is a significant and often extremely rich contribution to the existing writing and resear...
Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture by Raymond J. Haberski, Jr Patrick Ellis February 2009 Book Reviews The Paris Theater, on 58th Street in Manhattan, once received bomb threats for showing Roberto Rossellini’s “Il Miracolo” (“The Miracle”) from L’Amore...
City That Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination edited by Murray Pomerance Anna Knight February 2009 Book Reviews In his essay on New York as “noir universe” in City That Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination, Wheeler Winston Dixon argues that, New Yo...
Don’t Let Them Drag You Down: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert by Philip Brophy Diana Sandars August 2008 Book Reviews The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert by Philip Brophy is part of a Currency Press series designed to introduce more audiences to Australia...
Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris Simon Weaving August 2008 Book Reviews It is one of the most iconic film posters of the last 50 years. A shapely female leg splits the image horizontally, stocking halfway off, or halfway o...
Polanski in Motion: Roman Polanski: The Cinema of a Cultural Traveller by Ewa Mazierska Michael Goddard August 2008 Book Reviews The familiarity of Polanski’s name both as a filmmaker and as a cultural figure extends well beyond the field of film studies. This could lead to a qu...
Hitchcock’s Romantic Irony by Richard Allen Karen Goodman August 2008 Book Reviews Richard Allen demonstrates his enduring fascination and respect for Hitchcock’s filmmaking within a compelling new authorial study. Hitchcock’s Romant...
The Cinema of Small Nations edited by Mette Hjort and Duncan Petrie Polona Petek August 2008 Book Reviews Film scholarship is undergoing a paradigm shift. In the past decade or so, a significant body of work has emerged, which reflects the opinion that the...
The Cinema Book edited by Pam Cook Constantine Verevis August 2008 Book Reviews Several years ago, I took on the coordination of a large, introductory film studies unit, entitled Contemporary Popular Film. A look over items that h...
Blacksmith Blues: History, Film and the Outlaw: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Henry Reynolds Sean Gorman August 2008 Book Reviews I first came across the story of Jim and Joe Governor in 2002 when I was researching, for my PhD, a biography of the Noongar (south-west Western Austr...
Alejandro and the Academy: Anarchy and Alchemy: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky by Ben Cobb Margaret Barton-Fumo August 2008 Book Reviews For nearly 40 years, the Chilean-born eccentric Alejandro Jodorowsky has reaped both the disadvantages and the rewards of worldwide cult status. His f...
A Critic Unbuttons: I Peed On Fellini: Recollections of a Life in Film by David Stratton Jake Wilson May 2008 Book Reviews Every film lover in Australia owes David Stratton an enormous debt of gratitude. He was largely responsible for the growth and success of the Sydn...
Clever Meets Stupid: Criticism, Theory, and Spielberg Apologists: Citizen Spielberg by Lester D. Friedman and Empire of Dreams: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of Steven Spielberg by Andrew M. Gordon Stephen Rowley May 2008 Book Reviews DAVID ST HUBBINS : It’s such a fine line between stupid, and... DEREK SMALLS : ... and clever. – This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984) Two familiar...
The Future is Now: The Virtual Life of Film by D.N. Rodowick Tony McKibbin May 2008 Book Reviews If cinema as a celluloid form allowed us to meditate on the issue of scepticism, does the age of digital demand something closer to suspicion? This is...
Searching for Schindler by Tom Keneally Scott Murray May 2008 Book Reviews Given the barbarous German persecution of Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, to name just a few, it is not surprising some of World War II’s oppressed fou...
Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film by Yana Hashamova Lars Kristensen May 2008 Book Reviews There is no question of the achievements of Yana Hashamova in this vivid publication on post-Soviet cinema and I see Pride and Panic as an important d...
James Benning edited by Barbara Pichler and Claudia Slanar Vera Brunner-Sung May 2008 Book Reviews If I am going to make up my history let me make it up the way I want to. If you criticize that, you have to criticize all history not just mine. – ...
Letters to the Editor from Martha P. Nochimson and Lindsay Coleman Various April 2008 Book Reviews Letter to the Editor: re. Dying to Belong: Gangster Movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong, by Martha P. Nochimson, reviewed by Lindsay Coleman in Senses ...
Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses by Howard Hampton Patrick Ellis March 2008 Book Reviews Is there another American film critic as aggressive as Howard Hampton? In “Lynch Mob”, an article for Artforum that is indicative of Hampton’s tenor, ...
Dying to Belong: Gangster Movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong by Martha P. Nochimson Lindsay Coleman March 2008 Book Reviews Dying to Belong, the newest book by author Martha P. Nochimson, cannot be faulted for lack of ambition. Her stated intention is the symmetries and a...
Physical Evidence: Selected Film Criticism by Kent Jones John Fidler March 2008 Book Reviews The critic must have two things: personality and an ax to grind. – Eric Bentley, critic and playwright (1) In his review of Todd Haynes’ I’m Not The...
Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to Do This…: True Stories from a Life in the Screen Trade by Bruce Beresford Tom Ryan March 2008 Book Reviews He didn’t know it at the time, but, in October 2003, Australian film director Bruce Beresford (The Adventures of Barry McKenzie , “Breaker” Morant , D...