A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Hyunsuk Kim, “Pinki” (2018) Initially looking like a Korean mash-up of Neil Blomkamp’s “District 9” and “Chappie” with The Transformers film series and Joonho Bong’s “The…
Mark Slutsky, “Final Offer” (2018) The premise is the height of implausibility but great acting from Aaron Abrams and Anna Hopkins as protagonist and antagonist lawyers…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Luke Sparke, “Occupation: Rainfall” (2020) Here’s a brisk and flashy science fiction action film done on a small budget with plenty of Australian bravado and no…
Nino Aldi, “Tribes” (2020) In societies obsessed with categorising people on the basis of arbitrary and artificial criteria such as race and gender self-identity, this short…
Italian and Italian-language Films
Ferzan Özpetek, “The Goddess of Fortune / La Dea Fortuna” (2019) On the surface, this very visually stunning and colourful film appears to be a heart-warming…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Alister Lockhart, Patrick Sarell, “Nullarbor” (2011) Across the longest stretch of straight road through the flat desert that is the Nullarbor Plain in southern Australia is…
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…
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…
Barry Sonnenfeld, “Men in Black II” (2002) Five years after the events of the original “Men in Black”, at the end of which Agent K (Tommy…
Joel Schumacher, “Batman & Robin” (1997) Some folks probably call this film “Flatman & Ribbon” for the fact that the Dynamic Duo (played respectively by George…