A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Films made with an obvious bias to serve a larger agenda or to mitigate a controversial topic and make it safe for general public consumption.
Elliott Kew “Treasures Decoded (Season 4, Episode 1:The Real Tower of Babel)” (2017) The Bible story of the construction of the Tower of Babel as a…
Terry George, “The Promise” (2016) A film about the Ottoman Turkish genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities (1915 – 1918) is probably never going to…
Rob Marshall, “Memoirs of a Geisha” (2002) Essentially a variation on the Cinderella story through Western stereotypes about geisha and their role and function in Japanese…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
Zhang Yimou, “Hero” (2002) If one needs proof that a visually gorgeous film with a good cast can ultimately be undone and wasted by a demoralising…
Australian and New Zealand Films
John Pilger, “The Coming War on China” (2016) Two years in the making with literally a cast of thousands involved in crowd-funding it, Pilger’s “The Coming…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Rolf de Heer, “The Tracker” (2002) On the surface, a simple story of four men hunting a fugitive who has committed a crime, “The Tracker” is…
Alfred Hitchcock, “Torn Curtain” (1966) To properly appreciate how good a director Alfred Hitchcock was over a career of 50+ years, one needs to see the…
Matt the White Rabbit, “AntiRacist Hitler” (2013) A subversive animation short satirising open-borders immigration policies and multiculturalist agendas in Western countries, most of which also hypocritically…
Sergei Eisenstein, “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Although this film was made over 90 years ago and is a silent black-and-white work, it still stands up well against…
Charles Chaplin, “The Great Dictator” (1940) It’s over-long and the slapstick comedy is laid on very thickly but film legend Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” is…