By Janine Gericke. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia opens with an achingly slow motion shot of Kirsten Dunst, looking drenched and disturbed as birds tumble from the sky behind her. As the audience stares, hushed and humbled, Wagner’s Tristan and Islode – brought to life by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra – saturates the scene. This is the end […]
The Future (2011)
By Jacob Mertens. When we are young, we are told that we can do anything with our lives. We feel our path unfold before us, a wide expanse of possibility. However, as we get older that very freedom can become frightening, and we yearn for something calm and simple. In […]
Drive (2011)
By Jacob Mertens. Moving towards an aggressive theater launch, Drive has featured a lot of dizzying, full throttle marketing ploys that suggest Hollywood escapist thrills. The poster is all grit and masculine energy, Rotten Tomatoes has posted an interview claiming that Drive is Ryan Gosling’s “superhero movie”[1], and the trailers […]
The Secret World of Arrietty
By Anna Arnman. Arrietty is Studio Ghibli’s latest film, based on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers from 1952. Arrietty belongs to the four-inch tall Clock family who lives anonymously in another, ‘big’, family’s residence and their home is a collection of things they have borrowed from the big world. Arrietty […]
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
By Jamie Isbell. In 2008 Tomas Alfredson lit up the vampire genre. His collaboration with author John Ajvide Lindqvist on Let The Right One In broke away the formulaic mist surrounding the vampire flicks that had occupied decades of cinema, and replaced it with a terrifying breath of reality. It […]
A Documentary History of Swedish Metal
By Anna Arnman. Så jävla metal (which translates as ‘So damned metal’) is a Swedish documentary about the nation’s heavy metal scene, from the early 1970s until now. It is based on hundreds of interviews with bands and performers like November, Neon Rose, Europe, Yngwie Malmsteen, Arch Enemy and In […]
The Eye of the Storm (2011)
By Carolyn Lake. Fred Schepisi’s latest film, The Eye of the Storm, opened this month in select theatres around Australia and enjoyed a warm reception for its international debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is an adaptation of the 1973 novel by Nobel prizing-winning Australian author, Patrick […]
Attack the Block (2011)
By Janine Gericke. “This is too much madness to explain in one text,” one of five hoodlums turned heroes screams in Joe Cornish’s already-cult sci-fi film Attack the Block. The film won raves at South by Southwest, winning the Audience award, and was quickly picked up by Screen Gems for U.S. […]
Drive (2011)
By Bryan Nixon. “What do you do?” Irene asked. He carefully calculated his response and replied, “I drive.” The protagonist of Drive is a passive aggressive unnamed entity who consistently acts with precision in any given situation. He rarely speaks, and when he does it is usually when he has […]
Beginners (2010)
By Janine Gericke. I have to say that I adore this film. Beginners is Mike Mills’s second feature film, following 2005’s Thumbsucker, which intrigued me through its vulnerable perspective. In Beginners, Mills creates a delicate story based on his own experiences. It’s packed with a spread of incredibly sweet and absolutely heartbreaking moments. At […]