A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
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…
Australian and New Zealand Films
“The Power of Falun Gong” (Foreign Correspondent, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 21 July 2020) Purporting to be an expose of Falun Gong’s activities as a secretive religious…
Carlton Meyer, “The False Tale of Killing Osama bin Laden” (Tales of the American Empire, 13 February 2020) This short documentary makes a succinct case for…
Andrey Klimov, “Azarkant” (2013) Made as a proof-of-concept piece for a film, “Azarkant” understandably is short on plot and character to the extent that it plays…
Carlton Meyer, “Protecting the American Opium Empire” (Tales of the American Empire, 9 July 2020) For an 11-minute video, this is perhaps a little too far-ranging…
Australian and New Zealand Films, Chinese and Chinese-language Films
“The Secret Armada” (Foreign Correspondent, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 14 July 2020) Despite the spine-tingling thrill of the episode title, this piece on apparent North Korean fishing…
Australian and New Zealand Films
John Tatoulis, “The Silver Brumby” (1993) Notable mainly for featuring a very young Russell Crowe near the beginning of his acting career, this film is framed…
Nour Wazzi, “Lab Rat” (2019) Initially the plot seems familiar to the point of banality: three scientists working for a robotics firm are suddenly trapped in…
Josh Bowman, “Eve” (2019) A character-driven sci-fi story with good acting and a strong visual look with a desert setting doesn’t need a fancy budget or…