A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Latin American Films (non-Spanish / non-Portuguese)
Iara Lee, “Modulations, Cinema for the Ear” (1998) Billed as a history of electronic music and music technology in the 20th century. “Modulations …” turns out to…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Matthew Bate, “What the Future Sounded Like” (2006) Here be a good little documentary about the synthesiser company Electronic Music Studios (London) Ltd, formed by British composers…
Tomas Alfredsson, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (2011) I’m too young to know the 1979 BBC TV series starring Alec Guinness but general critical consensus is that this movie adaptation…
Jan Svankmajer, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1981), “The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope” (1983) Both these live action / stop-motion animation films by…
Mel Bucklin, “Emma Goldman – An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman” (2003) This portrait of Emma Goldman, the American woman anarchist / political activist / writer / feminist…
Carl Urbano, “A is for Atom” (1952) Created and produced by John Sutherland and sponsored by General Electric, this promotional / education film is aimed at junior…
Australian and New Zealand Films, Multi-media Presentations
Ms&Mr, “Xerox Missive 1977 / 2011”, multi-channel video installation (2011) Technically not a film but a multi-channel video art installation using old archived video recordings among other…
Hiromasa Yonebayashi, “Arrietty / Karu-gurashi no Arrietti” (2010) A charming offering from Studio Ghibli, based loosely on Mary Norton’s novel “The Borrowers”, this film is beautiful…
Shane Carruth, “Primer” (2004) A low-budget film (it cost about US$7,000 to make) about four enterpreneurial engineer / scientist friends and work colleagues working on an…
Guy Maddin, “Fancy, Fancy Being Rich” (2002), “My Dad is 100 Years Old” (2005), “Spanky: To the Pier and Back” (2008), “Send Her to the ‘Lectric Chair” (2009)…