Blueback (2023) - Movie Review

I haven't had the best luck with Tim Winton. I’ll admit that I haven’t read any of his books (far as I can remember, at any rate), and while I do like to highlight local talent in these reviews, the last two films I’ve looked at based on his work were differing kinds of “really not my thing”. With Breath, it was the jarring and rather unsettling exploration of sexuality, specifically between an underaged boy and a grown-ass woman, which just left a bad taste in my mouth. And with Dirt Music, I didn’t even get that much taste, despite it looking rather nice. Thankfully, this doesn’t feel as gross to watch as Breath… but unfortunately, that means it leans more into the Dirt Music side of things.

Transfusion (2023) - Movie Review

With how many films I get through every year, marketing material and trailers in particular don’t really have an effect on me nowadays. Most of the time, trailers just serve as snapshots for stuff I know I’ll be looking at at some point anyway, so they don’t serve the same interest for me that they would most general audiences. But then there are situations like the marketing around this film, and the subsequent response that the film proper has gotten, and I feel the need to address the discrepancy.

See, the trailer for this film presents it as some kind of crime thriller with shootouts, the kind of thing you’d expect Neeson to have helmed a few years back. But instead, the actual film is more of a slow-burn drama about family, masculinity, and how far men will go to preserve one or the other.

Sweet As (2023) - Movie Review

Pitching something as ‘The Breakfast Club, but set in the Outback’ is pretty much a done deal for a filmgoer like myself. One of the reasons why I love that film, and its central formula, is that it’s a straight-forward but effective foundation for good characterisation, since the story inherently involves discovering everyone’s different facets on the part of both the audience and the other characters. So, naturally, a film about a similar scenario involving troubled teens being brought together to reveal some greater truth that ties them all together… yeah, I’m all for that. But this film isn’t exactly that.

Run Rabbit Run (2023) - Movie Review

‘Elevated horror’ as a sub-genre heading has its elitist undertones and occasionally nebulous usage, but there is still a certain aesthetic that fits that heading. Artsy and unconventional horror films have been a backbone of the genre since its inception, but specifically since the early-mid 2010s, there’s been a noticeable push towards that kind of fare.

In retrospect, the whole movement (if it can even be considered unified enough to count as such) felt like a direct reaction to the waning years of the found footage craze spearheaded by Paranormal Activity, which was reaching its nadir around the time that elevated horror films really started to take off. Instead of the façade of amateur filmmaking provided by the prominent handheld camerawork, and the gratuitous use of jump scares, elevated horror tended to delve more into the formalist side of things, returning to the technical fundamentals to see how far they could be pushed and bent to create new sensations. I may not entirely agree with the naming and framing of this general wave, but as a functional label, it can be quite handy.

The New Boy (2023) - Movie Review

Two people can look at the same image and come away with two completely different understandings of what the image is. This is a fundamental aspect of the human ability to interpret, and something that crops up regularly when it comes to discussing art such as films. As much as I try and give the impression that I know what I’m talking about when writing about what a given image ‘means’, I also try and underpin that with the understanding that this is all my interpretation of things. I could be on the completely wrong track from what the image maker intended to convey, or I could be almost on the same wavelength but missing some vital piece of context, but all the same, I don’t tend to write what I think unless it actually is what I think.

You Can Go Now! (2023) - Movie Review

Much like with when I looked at The Witch Of Kings Cross back in 2021, this is a documentary about an Aussie artist that I didn’t know anything about beforehand. I consider myself an ally of the First Peoples of this country, and have (and will continue to) voice such opinions in my work, but I freely admit that there are sizeable gaps in my knowledge of the history. Specifically, when it comes to Black art. So, when it came time for me to draft up a list of films I wanted to make sure I got to before the end of the year, I knew that I had to include this look at one of Australia’s most prominent Black artists: Richard Bell. And while it gave me a better impression of who Richie is and his place within Australian art history, it also felt spread a bit thin.

The Royal Hotel (2023) - Movie Review

After landing on my Best of 2020 list with the chilling and rather emblematic The Assistant, I was definitely curious to see what writer/director/editor Kitty Green would come up with next. And sticking to her roots as a documentarian, she pulled inspiration from the doco Hotel Coolgardie to tell the story of two American backpackers who find themselves in the middle of woop woop, working at a bar until they can make enough to continue their trip. Well, if they make it that far, that is.

Scarygirl (2023) - Movie Review

Coming off of the decent if inconsistent Tales From Sanctuary City trilogy, director Ricard Cussó’s latest is a major switch-up, both textually and visually. Textually, it’s adapted from an IP that has been doing the rounds semi-regularly for the past two decades, becoming toys, a comic book, a Flash game and even an Xbox Live Arcade download before making it to the big screen.

Visually, however, is where things get really interesting. While Australia has been experiencing something of a boom within the animation industry over the last several years, thanks in no small part to studios like Animal Logic and Flying Bark, this still manages to look like nothing else I’ve seen this country produce thus far. Not even the Sanctuary City movies come anywhere close to this.

Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2023) - Movie Review

There is something especially Aussie about a small-budget independent local production finding its way into the modern trend for exorcism horror… by playing into the nation’s predominant fascination with true crime stories. This is based on the real-life death of Joan Vollmer, a 49-year-old Antwerp resident who died in January of 1993. She was being exorcised by her local congregation, with her husband Ralph being the one who instigated and took part in the proceedings, and she died during the attempt. Four of those involved, including Ralph, were charged with manslaughter but ultimately walked away with such a slap on the wrist that they and their congregation “clapped, sobbed and hugged each other at the news”, with Ralph himself saying that the magistrate’s finding was the will of God

Talk To Me (2023) - Movie Review

I got into this when I looked at Arctic a few years back, but now more than ever, it has been cool to see so many YouTubers making it in the film business. Joe Penna went from MysteryGuitarMan to delivering the kind of survival thrillers that even I can get into; Radio Silence, the guys who pioneered the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ format on YT, not only have been contributing to and are now producing the V/H/S anthology series, but now have the keys to one of the most beloved slasher franchises ever in the new Scream movies; and the Martial Club stunt team got to work on last year’s runaway success Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Before this blog even existed, I was one of many who thoughtthey could turn YouTube into their career (before realising that going into video-making with that mindset is, to put it simply, a terrible idea), and while I realised that it wasn’t the way for me, it’s still quite nice to see so many others turn that passion into something viable.

And this time around, we have a success story from my neck of the woods (kind of), with the Adelaide-based team of brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, AKA RackaRacka. It was quite surreal to see their production logo next to national grant Screen Australia and A2-bloody-4 in the opening credits, and that’s only the beginning of it where this film is concerned.

Gold (2022) - Movie Review

Considering the summer heat is officially kicking in down here in Australia, I’m probably in the most ideal state of mind to engage with a film about a guy trying to survive in the desert. And considering this first came out near the end of January of this year (deep in the middle of the last summer), I’m willing to bet that that timing isn’t a coincidence. Trust me to be both timely and late to the party at the same time.

The Drover's Wife: The Legend Of Molly Johnson (2022) - Movie Review

Something keeps telling me I shouldn’t be as down on Westerns as I have been in the past. The reason for its cultural and artistic appeal, even to this day, is out of a sense of moral ambiguity. Of a land untamed by man, unchained by law, where the only way to make things right is to right them for one’s self. Sure, its presence in American and even Australian folklore can feed into certain power fantasies that shouldn’t apply in societies that keep insisting that they are bound by rules of law… but as someone who tends to feel less safe, rather than more, whenever law enforcement officers are nearby, even I can understand the draw of that kind of story.

Of course, that runs into the problem of who has been holding the pen when writing those stories. It’s a period in time when men were damn-near encouraged to take the law into their own hands… but only the men, and even then, only some of them get the benefit of doubt in altercations with firearms. As I got into when I reviewed Sweet Country, there’s a thick vein of hypocrisy in our own country’s glorification of the image of the outlaw, as they were (and in many ways still are) willing to denigrate for embodying a different variety of that same image. This is the reason why Revisionist Westerns exist in the first place, and it’s why this particular one managed to grab my attention and keep it.

Girl At The Window (2022) - Movie Review

 

Studying a thing and being able to do that thing aren’t the same. As much as the phrase “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” genuinely annoys me for how condescending it is, and admittedly some of that may be insecurity about my own lot in life commenting on the work of others for fun and profit, there is some degree of truth to it. And that seems to be the case for Aussie director Mark Hartley here. The man has put a lot of effort into documenting the history of exploitation cinema, both here and abroad, to the point where his film Not Quite Hollywood is what originally coined the term ‘Ozploitation’. Between that and his documentary on the history of Cannon Films, Electric Boogaloo, the man seems to know his stuff. But looking at his own attempt to add to the tradition of Ozploitation cinema, he doesn’t seem able to apply much of it.

Seriously Red (2022) - Movie Review

There is no such thing as being completely free from outside influence. For as much as people, especially nowadays, just love to extol how much of a unique spirit they are, and how they don’t follow any such dogma that the ‘sheeple’ do, and other such pseudointellectual wankery, we are all in one form or another shaped by exterior influences, the people around us in particular. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Hell, I've made it no secret that I’ve basically modelled myself after The Dude from The Big Lebowski, because that’s the kind of chill I want to exhibit in everyday life, and I could use the rest of this write-up to just list all the different rappers I’ve taken some kind of personal inspiration from over the years.

However, there’s a difference between taking inspiration from others to become your true self, and thinking that you need to be them to become your true self. This is something at the heart of this particular Aussie flick, all about the world of celebrity impersonators and following a dissatisfied real estate agent (Krew Boylan’s Raylene) as she decides to make her own mark as a Dolly Parton impersonator.

Everything In Between (2022) - Movie Review

Well, we struck gold with an Aussie production last time, so let’s go for another one. A suicidal teenager (Jordan Dulieu’s Jay) meets terminally-ill 20-something Liz (Freyja Benjamin) and they teach each other about life and love and all that good stuff. Sure, it all sounds a bit sicklit-y, but hey, Babyteeth turned out great, and I seem to be on a good roll for films lately, so maybe this’ll turn out alright.

I don’t even know why I’m even pretending to give this the benefit of the doubt. In the minutes since leaving the cinema, I’ve already taken to calling this Nothing Nowhere Never, because that’s what it made me feel while watching it.

Sissy (2022) - Movie Review

This film has a lot in common with Bodies Bodies Bodies. It’s a black comedy-horror slasher type deal that takes the piss out of social media influencers and the kind of attitudes they engender. Except, where Bodies Bodies Bodies had a bit of a voyeuristic bent to it, treating the influencers with some distance between them and the audience in terms of relatability, this one is more of an inside-out affair. It focuses on Cecilia (Aisha Dee), a mental health advocate on social media, who is invited to the hen’s night of her school bestie (Hannah Barlow’s Emma, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film with her husband Kane Senes). Shit accidentally goes wild.

Wog Boys Forever (2022) - Movie Review

The original Wog Boy is one of my favourite Aussie films ever. It is everything I love about the self-deprecating Aussie sense of humour, used to highlight the multicultural patchwork that makes me appreciate the country I live in. It’s definitely a product of its time, and rather juvenile as such things go, but for a comedy that pokes at ethnic stereotypes while also taking the piss out of the social welfare system and local government at large, a lot of it is as accurate today as it was when it first came out.

Its sequel, Kings Of Mykonos, is a completely different story. An example of Adam Sandler-esque paid-vacationcore, it is so fucking dreadful as to be a fair bit worse than even the most dire examples in Sandler’s own filmography. When Kevin Sorbo is the most enjoyable part of your film, it might be time to reconsider what you’re doing with your life and who you’re inflicting it on.

And this is all without getting into writer/star Nick Giannopoulos going full Lou Interligi a few years ago and taking other comedians to court because he had patents on words like ‘Wog’. I may have a strange kind of respect for having the nards to take out a legal patent on an ethnic slur that is meant to target yourself, but using that to get all litigious on people who are also trying to reclaim it is pretty dicey.

With all this in mind, seeing posters crop up for this film had me going full rubberneck. I am willing to look past the legal shit (legal disputes between comedians is something I grew up hearing about, so I’m not as phased by it as I probably should be), but I’m really hoping that this returns to the first film, rather than continuing the sad display of KOM. And thankfully, that’s exactly what’s happened here.

Ticket To Paradise (2022) - Movie Review

Well, after spending the last several reviews neck-deep in the weirder sides of genre cinema, I figure it’s about time to wind things down a bit. Time to get into something a little simpler, a little more straight-forward and, truth be told, a little less intensive when it comes to writing about it. I mean, while I have all the respect for filmmakers that care enough about their audiences to try and challenge them, there is still a place in the world for breezy and cheery rom-coms like this.

Ol Parker, after managing a quite surprising hit with the Mamma Mia sequel, wanted to keep going with bringing back the more fluffy rom-coms of the 2000s which… yeah, I’ve ragged on the formulas that came from those quite a bit on here, but considering how miserable the world has been the last several years, wanting to go back to more pleasant times isn’t that bad an idea. I mean, even with the lamer comedies out there, there’s something to be said about that communal sense of fun that comes out of having a nice giggle together in a crowded cinema. It helps to have a film worth giggling over, of course, which is why I’m very thankful that Ol Parker has delivered another modest winner.

You Won't Be Alone (2022) - Movie Review

Whenever a film’s discourse involves comparisons between it and the works of Terence Malick, that’s a pretty big red flag that I shouldn’t be watching it. We don’t exactly have the best working relationship, let’s say.

But… well, it’s been nearly five years since that review. A lot has changed about my approach to film critique since then. I used to think quite poorly of ‘artsy-fartsy’ films, and I freely admit that I was one of many budding critics that overused the word ‘pretentious’ until it ceased to have any meaning. Nowadays, the more out-there features tend to be the ones I gravitate towards the most, and with how much I pontificate on the human condition in these reviews, I probably stopped calling things pretentious just so I could avoid being a complete hypocrite.

With all that in mind, I get the feeling that I’m getting closer to the point where I can actually start understanding Malick being lauded as one of the all-time great filmmakers. So I basically went into this film with that main comparison in mind and with a willingness to hear it out. Yeah, it might be a bit slow for my tastes, but who knows? Maybe it’ll finally click for me.

Or maybe it’ll just re-affirm that, even as a chronic navel-gazer, I still have limits.

Blaze (2022) - Movie Review

(cw: rape, childhood trauma)

The story of this film is deceptively simple, and truth be told, not a lot technically ‘happens’ over the course of 100-or-so minutes. On her way home from school, 13-year-old Blaze (Julia Savage) witnesses Hannah (Yael Stone) being raped and killed in an alleyway by Jake (Josh Lawson). In the midst of the trauma seeing such an event triggered in her, and retreating into her own mind as a result, she has been asked to testify in court as a witness to the assault.

It’s a rather straight-forward dramatic premise that could easily fit into a short film, which both director/writer Del Kathryn Barton and co-writer Huna Amweero have more experience with over anything feature-length. However, in the process of making it into a feature-length production, Barton has managed to create something that looks entirely unlike any other Australian film I have ever encountered, nor any coming-of-age story from here or anywhere else.