Much like Duncan Jones’ freshman endeavor, Moon, a film that was eclipsed (pun intended) at first, but which then skyrocketed to unprecedented levels of success during award season, Source Code is a cerebral thriller that takes an unorthodox approach to popcorn cinema. The similarities don’t end there, however; although both films were penned by different…
2009’s The Loved Ones is a delirious Australian mash-up of various movies, including Carrie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Prom Night. Several critics have also dubbed the film as “Pretty in Pink meets Wolf Creek“, and that’s another fairly accurate analogy of this frightening yet resonant exercise in genre dramatics — it represents an…
Why do so many documentary filmmakers decide to make films about relatives or people they know? The obvious answer is the ease of getting information. But that does not explain why they choose the subjects they choose. Andrew Neel’s portrait of his grandmother, Alice Neel, at least has the benefit of being a profile of…
Why, oh why, do people move into those big Victorian-style homes; you know, the ones with too many rooms and too few lights to illuminate them? It can’t be for the coziness and charm! You’d think by now people would know that 90% of those houses, according to the Horror Convention Law, are conduits for…
At first glance, Tomorrow, When the War Began — the filmic adaptation of the hugely popular teen fiction novel by John Marsden — appears to be a cheap Australian amalgam of Red Dawn and The Breakfast Club. Despite these superficial observations, this directorial debut for Stuart Beattie is a thrilling character-driven action-adventure film, and a…
There are at least 100 Christmas movies in circulation (go ahead and count them, I’ll wait). I’m guessing maybe a dozen or so movies with a Thanksgiving theme. Easter movies? I can’t think of a single one (those made for television specials like Yogi the Easter Bear don’t count). With such a gaping void ripe…
The Horseman is an Australian addition to the long line of “vigilante dad” films that stretch back to Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, in which a father — normally either a widower or a divorcee — is made a tad nutty by grief, and begins ruthlessly slaughtering those responsible for a crime against a loved…
