A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Reviews of all films made in Australia and New Zealand.
Australian and New Zealand Films
Sally Aitken, “Seduction in the City: the Birth of Shopping (Episode 1: A Genius Idea)” (2011) Ah, shopping – the bane of modern life or the…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Mitchell Hawkes, “Heavenly Pop Hits: the Flying Nun Story” (2002) A long overdue and welcome survey of a particular music scene at a particular time in…
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…
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…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Anthony Lucas, “The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello” (2004) A nominee for a Best Animated Short Film Oscar in 2006, this is a visually beautiful…
Australian and New Zealand Films, British Films
Paul Campion, “Night of the Hell Hamsters” (2005), “Eel Girl” (2008) Film shorts are a flexible medium for telling particular kinds of stories or expressing ideas…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Lee Tamahori, “Once Were Warriors” (1994) An intense film from New Zealand of a family in an impoverished and degraded social environment dominated by alcohol, a…
Australian and New Zealand Films, Eastern European Films
Ben Ferris, “Penelopa” aka “Penelope” (2009) Lovely to look at but beautiful, almost abstract scenes of nature and long circular panning shots that lovingly savour the…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Sonia Bible, “Recipe for Murder” (2010) Contrary to what most people think about the 1950’s, the decade or the early part of it at least wasn’t…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Peter Jackson, “Heavenly Creatures” (1994) Having made his reputation as purveyor of gory splatter horror comedy flicks to amuse teenagers and kidults, New Zealand director Peter…