review Archive

Interview with Matthew Mishory, director of A Portrait of James Dean: Joshua Tree, 1951

Matthew Mishory’s debut feature length film is a speculative biopic of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Set during the years preceding his brief film career, it is an unconventional telling, concerning itself more with tone and poetry, rather than plot. Set primarily in the desert of Joshua Tree national park, the film presents James Dean as a young poet finding his voice; a man on the cusp of greatness, but in many ways innocent to all that surrounded him. Ali Gardiner talks to the director to find out the inspiration and motivation behind the movie.
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A Portrait of James Dean: Joshua Tree 1951 – DVD Review

Even if you've never seen a James Dean film, there is one thing you can say for sure: the man was, without a doubt, an icon. That as a stand-alone statement, however, leaves a question open: if we take the definition of icon as “a person or thing that is regarded as a representative symbol of something”, what, then, is James Dean an icon of?
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A Hijacking Review

Most of the action in cargo ship hijacking thriller A Hijacking occurs over the telephone. The emotional stakes are set in the opening moments by a conversation between soon-to-be-hostage Mikkel (Pilou Aesbæck) and his wife and daughter, and later raised through a fraught and highly affecting second conversation between the two parties. That these two conversations occur hundreds of days, and about forty onscreen minutes apart, yet mark the only contact this family has is telling of the quality of control and construction present in Tobias Lindholm's immaculately thought out thriller.
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Village at the End of the World Review

Village at the End of the World is a seductive documentary and it succeeds in it's seduction in a number of ways; for a start, it clocks in at 78 minutes, during which time the audience are taken on a fulfilling and heartfelt journey from an intriguing introduction to a seemingly final conclusion.
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The Eye of the Storm Review

Charlotte Rampling gives a powerhouse performance as the overbearing dying matriarch in Fred Schepisi's adaptation of Patrick White's 1973 novel, The Eye of the Storm. Rampling plays Elizabeth Hunter who for one reason or other is the owner of a beautiful estate in the Sydney suburb of Centennial Park.
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BOYS ON FILM 9: Youth in Trouble – DVD Review

The ninth in their series of collected short films is a fantastic example of why queer cinema is moving out of the closet and into the public eye – without exception, all the shorts featured on BOYS ON FILM 9 stay true to the spirit and purpose of the queer cinema movement, but without alienating heterosexual audiences. This is not only cinema for a minority, but also manages to be cinema that can educate the majority on what it means to be gay.
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