Essays/on/Films

"Life in the movie business is like the, is like the beginning of a new love affair; it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting fucked." (1) The alchemy of business has long been recognised as...

As this is a critique and not a review I won't offer a synopsis, on the assumption that readers have seen the film. Mullet (David Caesar, 2001) is the Australian screen's most perceptive depiction of our 'ol...

When Baz Luhrmann's latest Red Curtain movie opened the Official Selection at Cannes last month, the critics had already made up their minds. As far as most were concerned this was film as disco, or even Ka...

It's well-known that Ernst Lubitsch had an autocratic way with actors, modelling gestures for them in order to get the precise timing and physical articulation of emotions. An interesting approach to cinema...

Now that he's directed two feature films of his own, as well as contributing to the scripts of two directed by Emma-Kate Croghan (1), it should be possible to infer a few things about Stavros Kazantzidis (f...

Samantha Lang's new film The Monkey's Mask (2001) opens with an extreme close up on the freckled face of investigator Jill Fitzpatrick (Susie Porter). The position of the camera cuts her in half - we see on...

One of the many disappointing aspects of Alan White's Risk (2001) involves the internecine combination of actor and image. White's previous feature film Erskineville Kings (1999) was far from an empty movie...

When Sally Potter first appeared on the independent British filmmaking scene in the late 1970s, she attracted considerable critical attention. The influential circle of feminist film critics who arguably do...

At last, an Australian heroic bloodshed actioner that doesn't skimp on sex, violence and other funny stuff. In fact, sex is the weapon of choice in Sensitive New Age Killer (2001), as it madly expedites the...

Steven Soderbergh's The Limey (1999) is a brash economical movie full of self-reflexive '60s interruptions and clenched teeth violence. From the impressionistic opening visuals introducing Wilson (Terence S...