Widows (2018) - Movie Review

The phrase "honour amongst thieves" pretty much serves as the underlying mood behind most if not all heist films. Most of their main drive comes portraying thievery as a competitive sport. And with the placement in the realms of sport comes the preceding fixation on technical skills and strategy, with all the intensive choreography and smooth-as-butter timing that goes with it. There’s also an underlying aspect of revenge, or at the very least retribution, attached to a lot of them, with the heist being the means to get even with someone who doesn’t play fair.

12 Years A Slave (2014) - Movie Review

While the film season in the U.S. sees January/February as the dumping ground for the previous year’s leftovers, it’s the complete opposite case in Australia. The beginning of the year marks Oscar season, the time when all the big awards contenders that haven’t already been released are brought to the masses en masse. Since my recent cinematic compulsion began a few months after that season, I unfortunately missed more than a few of them. As my inevitable year-end lists would be conspicuously incomplete without mention of such films, I plan on using my new-found extra time to look back and see as many of these as possible before the New Year. As such, what better way to start than with one of the biggest critical darlings of that season? This is 12 Years A Slave.