Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 69%
| Religulous (2008) | "
Rather disconcertingly, the film builds towards a vision of the apocalypse, the destructive fate that religious conflicts have in store for us -- a version of the future any hellfire preacher would be proud of." — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 9, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 73%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Young actor Max Records gives a terrific performance that captures both the uncertainty and the rampaging energy of his character." — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 85%
| Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) | "
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs is visually inventive and exuberant, and has some neat running gags. But its characterisations are a little disappointing." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 26, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 28%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
Weitz brings a few more flickers of humour to the narrative, but the essential, appealing earnestness of the book remains, whole-heartedly embraced." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Fresh 91%
| In Search Of Beethoven (2009) | "
Beethoven's creative life, with all its achievements, cannot easily be reconciled with the image of a difficult, solitary figure, shadowed by depression. Grabsky, to his credit, doesn't try to make one life fit the other, but manages to illuminate both." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 30, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 81%
| Departures (2009) | "
Departures is about life, death, grief and loss, but it's also, in a quietly effective way, about coming to terms with expectations." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 75%
| Julie & Julia (2009) | "
What makes this film memorable and pleasurable, above all, is the ebullient performance of Meryl Streep as Julia Child, unlikely culinary trailblazer and TV star." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 77%
| Valentino: the Last Emperor (2009) | "
Stays firmly, admiringly, on the surface of things -- which is where all fashion kings should reign." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 78%
| $9.99 (2009) | "
Set in a grim, grimy, often bleak world, a hybrid, densely detailed environment of interwoven stories and chance encounters, with occasional flights of fantasy and rare glimmers of hope." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 17, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 80%
| Blessed (2009) | "
Blessed is a rich, unsettling vision of the mother-child relationship, By the end, it is clear that things are not always as they seem. Sometimes it's a reversal of expectations, sometimes an unpredictable consequence." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Rotten 29%
| Aliens in the Attic (2009) | "
You get the feeling that the Aliens in the Attic video game probably has more to offer." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 64%
| Charlie & Boots (2009) | "
For some, the film will seem like a drive through an Oz theme park carrying a Father's Day message; others might appreciate its sentiments, but wish for more dramatic weight." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 91%
| Ponyo (2009) | "
Miyazaki effortlessly combines the marvellous and the mundane in his cinema. Visually, Ponyo is an imaginative, exhilarating work, but its vigour and energy are achieved with surprising simplicity." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 27, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 49%
| Taking Woodstock (2009) | "
For the most part, it's a genial pleasure, with something disarmingly daggy -- intentional or not -- about its vision of history and individual experience." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 27, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 84%
| The September Issue (2009) | "
What makes it worth watching is the often fraught dynamic of the relationship between Wintour and Vogue's creative director, Grace Coddington." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 21, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 85%
| Tyson (2009) | "
There is something compelling about the way he presents his version of the stories and scandals that surround him." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 7, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 73%
| Rudo and Cursi (2009) | "
A film that can’t quite choose between the light and dark possibilities it conjures." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 89%
| Red Cliff (2009) | "
A handsome, vigorous, entertaining film that never becomes exhilarating." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 67%
| Bruno (2009) | "
It can be entertaining, in a scattergun way. But its most extreme moments feel forced rather than revealed. Even its over-the-top finale, with echoes of Borat's rodeo escapade, seems over-calculated this time around." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 8, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 91%
| Every Little Step (2009) | "
There are still plenty of engrossing aspects to the film, moments in the audition process that demonstrate the complexity of performance." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 2, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 44%
| Hannah Montana The Movie (2009) | "
A perpetual Disney identity crisis that involves a blonde wig, a prepubescent Vertigo-meets Jekyll and Hyde-meets High School Musical." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 84%
| Disgrace (2009) | "
What makes Disgrace difficult and rewarding, among other things, is its ruthlessly clear-eyed sense of its own terms, its refusal to find easy comfort or solutions." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 21, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 66%
| Is Anybody There? (2009) | "
Weighed down by a surrounding air of quirkiness." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 12, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 83%
| Two Lovers (2009) | "
Despair and confusion are explored in Two Lovers with a rigorous, unsentimental directness that is also full of feeling." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 91%
| Katyn (2007) | "
An intriguing mixture of the monumental and episodic..." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 29, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 54%
| What Just Happened (2008) | "
What Just Happened, despite an air of crisis, feels sluggish and plodding." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 21, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 91%
| Gomorrah (2009) | "
We don't get to know the characters, exactly, but we experience something more interesting: we are brought into disconcerting, almost documentary proximity with the lives they lead and the worlds they inhabit." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 15, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 93%
| Summer Hours (2009) | "
Summer Hours examines sentiment and attachment, but it is an unsentimental work, a film that lets some secrets remain undisturbed and does not insist on confrontation." — The Age (Australia) Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 56%
| A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008) | "
A sporadically entertaining portrayal of male humiliation and self-abnegation." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 27, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 92%
| Of Time and the City (2009) | "
Past and present are summoned up, and contrasted, yet their emotional impact is intermingled in a collage of archival images and footage, and newly filmed material, set against music, sound and the filmmaker's voice." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 51%
| Easy Virtue (2009) | "
It is a sure-footed, entertaining period piece, a revamp of a Noel Coward play from the '20s that never takes itself too seriously, yet never treats its source material with contempt." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 97%
| Let the Right One In (2008) | "
The torments of childhood, in Let the Right One in, are as disturbing in their own way as anything that the supernatural has to offer." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 6, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 85%
| JCVD (2008) | "
[Van Damme] brings a kind of weary dignity to the role, and a surprising self-awareness..." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 6, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 60%
| W. (2008) | "
Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser have little...to offer us." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 6, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 85%
| Dean Spanley (2008) | "
Fraser and Sharp have structured the film, and the cast interpret it, so that comedy and poignancy are intertwined to the last; even as all is revealed, a sense of wonder remains." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 6, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 62%
| The Reader (2008) | "
The film...hankers after something redemptive. But whatever difficult possibilities about guilt and silence it explores are dissolved into disconcerting blandness." — The Age (Australia) Posted Feb 20, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 61%
| Changeling (2008) | "
There are moments when it seems as if it wants to be an inspirational story about a person who refuses to be beaten by a corrupt system -- but it doesn't, in the end, settle for the uplifting narrative." — The Age (Australia) Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 86%
| Rachel Getting Married (2008) | "
Demme...allows events to meander at times, but his cast is deft and emotionally direct." — The Age (Australia) Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 97%
| The Class (2008) | "
[An] energetic, tightly focused, intriguing feature that has the look and feel of a documentary." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jan 22, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Rotten 27%
| Seven Pounds (2008) | "
There is indeed a secret, but it is not overly challenging to work out what's going on in this annoying film." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jan 9, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 41%
| Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) | "
Actually better than its premise and its trailer might lead you to expect." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 26, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 68%
| Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) | "
A bright, fitfully entertaining adaptation of two of Louise Rennison's popular novels for tween-to-teenage girls." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 26, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/4
| Fresh 92%
| Caramel (2008) | "
Labaki, who co-wrote the film and also stars, maintains a knowing comic tone throughout." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 19, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 80%
| In Bruges (2008) | "
Clever, unpredictable and entertaining, with moments of anguish..." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 5, 2008 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 49%
| My Blueberry Nights (2008) | "
As visually lush and distinctive and enveloping as you would expect from a Wong Kar-wai film, with space for performances that have impact." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 29, 2008 |
Rotten 2/4
| Fresh 63%
| Baby Mama (2008) | "
An under-achieving, lightweight movie that settles for a few competent gags and doesn't bother to take risks." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 29, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 36%
| You Don't Mess With The Zohan (2008) | "
Things work out, of course, to everyone's satisfaction: there are a few political gags that have a veneer of audacity, but in essence, the movie takes risks only with its audience's gag reflex." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 66%
| The Incredible Hulk (2008) | "
It's high-energy, but oddly unsatisfying; the nature of Hulk's rage is left unexplored and undeveloped." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 13, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 18%
| The Happening (2008) | "
A tantalising, sometimes frustrating parable about the menaces that human beings might face from unexpected quarters." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 13, 2008 |
Fresh
| Fresh 91%
| Bonnie and Clyde (1967) | "
It's a film that is vividly self-conscious about its own mythologising, a sharp, brash, glamorous and entertaining mixture of comedy, satire, social commentary and off-kilter romance." — Sydney Morning Herald Posted Mar 14, 2008 |
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