A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Korean Films, North American Films
Joon-ho Bong, “Snowpiercer / Seolgugyeolcha” (2013) Joon-ho Bong’s first outing in the English language is an enjoyably silly ride into the post-apocalyptic dystopian SF genre. Concerns…
German and German-language Films
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “Lili Marleen” (1981) An unhappy tale of thwarted love, Fassbinder’s “Lili Marleen” plays hard and fast with its original source material, a biography…
Mark Devries, “Speciesism: the Movie” (2013) As home movies go, few possibly extend very far into the realms of journeys of self-discovery and self-awakening as this…
French and French-language Films, West African Films
Abderrahmane Sissako, “Timbuktu” (2014) Set in northern Mali some time after the downfall of Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi’s regime in late 2011, “Timbuktu” is a set of…
Italian and Italian-language Films
Luchino Visconti, “Il Gattopardo / The Leopard” (1963) A sumptuous film even by the glamorous standards of its time – and the 1960s did see a…
German and German-language Films
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “Der Amerikanische Soldat / The American Soldier” (1970) A loosely stitched pastiche of elements borrowed from old Hollywood and French New Wave film…
German and German-language Films
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “Götter der Pest / Gods of the Plague” (1970) Following on from “Love is Colder than Death” in R W Fassbinder’s trilogy of…
“Coffee and Papers with The Sydney Morning Herald, Jeremy Scahill and Antony Loewenstein,” Sydney Writers Festival (The Bar at the End of the Wharf, Sydney Theatre…
John Frankenheimer, “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) At some point during the Korean War in 1952, a platoon of American soldiers is betrayed by their Korean interpreter who…
German and German-language Films
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “Liebe ist kälter als der Tod / Love is Colder than Death” (1969) Gangster films might be an unusual choice for film-makers to…