A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Australian and New Zealand Films
Matt Richards, “The Disappearance of Willie Bingham” (2015) A truly unsettling short realist film about a bureaucracy gone insanely inhuman, pandering to the lowest common denominator…
Kaveh Mazaheri, “Retouch” (2017) A stunning character study of a married woman, submissive to her bullying husband, who is unexpectedly given a new lease of life…
Daniel Sorochkin, “Check Please” (2015) A man, Ben (Bryan Manley Davis), takes his girlfriend Laura (Amelia Brain) to evening dinner at a swish restaurant, planning to…
Tamar Glezerman, “Fill Your Heart with French Fries” (2016) Based on an actual incident in China, in which a woman jilted by her boyfriend ended up…
Max Silver, “Trunk Space” (2016) As surely as the sun rises in the east, birds fly in the sky and fish swim in the oceans, so…
Courtenay Johnson, “Last Requests” (2017) A sombre character study of a prison worker on her last day in a program that supplies last-request meals to death…
Carlton Meyer, “The Incident at Benghazi” (31 July 2020) As short reports go, this one on the lynching death of US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens…
Carlton Meyer, “The American Annexation of Okinawa” (Tales of the American Empire, 24 July 2020) In a little over ten minutes, this documentary presents a good…
John Curran, “Chappaquiddick” (2017) A thoughtful and well-acted film, as the metonym title suggests, this work revolves around the drowning tragedy of Mary Jo Kopechne on…
John Furse, “Not In Our Name: The Psychological Torture of Julian Assange” (July 2020) Making good use of archived video material and photographs, current news reels…