|
4/4
|
90%
|
Hotel Rwanda (2004) |
"
Cheadle has an Oscar nomination for best actor. But this isn't a grandstanding portrayal: it is a performance at the service of the work."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
5/5
|
81%
|
Oldboy (2005) |
"
Oldboy is a delirious, confronting ride, a movie full of visceral shocks and aesthetic pleasures: it has an explosive immediacy and a persistent afterlife, a lingering impact that is hard to shake."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
4.5/5
|
86%
|
Howl's Moving Castle (2005) |
"
Miyazaki has an appeal that crosses generations. Adult audiences are drawn to the depth and variety of his vision, but so are kids, and for exactly the same reasons."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
3.5/4
|
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
|
|
3.5/4
|
71%
|
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) |
"
I began to appreciate the neat reversals of expectations, slow pace and serene non sequiturs of the plot, the film's smart approach towards teen alienation, ludicrous ambition and impossible dreams."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
3.5/4
|
74%
|
War of the Worlds (2005) |
"
Bewildered, mildly optimistic, holding out the hope of salvation in spite of everything in a blasted, empty landscape, War of the World is, in the end, and perhaps despite its intentions, a fairly tentative assertion of hope for the future."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jul 6, 2005
|
|
4/5
|
85%
|
Easy A (2010) |
"
It has at least one thing going for it: an excellent performance from Emma Stone (Superbad) as the statuesque, sardonic Olive, a conscientious high-school senior who is, she assures us, an anonymous figure among her classmates."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Sep 16, 2010
|
|
4/5
|
97%
|
Animal Kingdom (2010) |
"
Michod gives us a conclusion that is simultaneously shocking, decisive and ambiguous; one that exemplifies the unsettling richness of the film."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Jun 3, 2010
|
|
4/5
|
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
|
|
4/5
|
83%
|
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
|
|
4/5
|
92%
|
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
|
|
4/5
|
82%
|
Two Lovers (2008) |
"
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
|
|
4/5
|
92%
|
Katyn (2009) |
"
An intriguing mixture of the monumental and episodic..."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted May 29, 2009
|
|
4/5
|
91%
|
Gomorrah (Gomorra) (2008) |
"
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
|
|
4/5
|
93%
|
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
|
|
4/5
|
97%
|
Entre les Murs (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
|
|
4/5
|
96%
|
Waltz with Bashir (2008) |
"
It is an autobiographical quest, an immersion in memory and history that leaves a remarkable, lingering impression."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Sep 12, 2008
|
|
3/4
|
92%
|
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
|
|
|
93%
|
L'Heure d'été (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
|
|
|
85%
|
Dean Spanley (My Talks with 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
|
|
3/4
|
47%
|
My Blueberry Nights (2007) |
"
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
|
|
|
89%
|
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
|
|
|
6%
|
Big Momma's House 2 (2006) |
"
It's mildly, amiably funny, in a juvenile way."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jul 1, 2006
|
|
|
68%
|
The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004) |
"
hile there is something a little familiar about the use of a journey narrative, and the hint of an uplifting message at the end of the film, the breezy insouciance, gleeful absurdity and wacky innocence of the series remains."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
3/4
|
96%
|
Sideways (2004) |
"
A study of friendship, disappointment and self-deception, Sideways, directed by Alexander Payne, has at its centre the most leisurely of bachelor parties: it's a road movie that stops off at vineyards."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
|
76%
|
Crash (2004) |
"
There are some powerful scenes that have a harrowing quality."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted May 13, 2005
|
|
3.5/5
|
85%
|
The Hunger Games (2012) |
"
The Hunger Games' strength is not its social critique - rather, it's an exhilarating sense of a character learning to control her own destiny. "
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Mar 20, 2012
|
|
3.5/5
|
63%
|
Here I Am () |
"
Quietly, and with an unobtrusive grace, Here I Am explores harsh truths, everyday realities and intimations of change."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Jun 2, 2011
|
|
3.5/5
|
84%
|
My Afternoons with Margueritte (2011) |
"
A disarming film with a pair of deftly judged performances at its centre, Jean Becker's My Afternoons With Margueritte risks sentimentality, but maintains a sense of lightness that is its saving grace. "
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Apr 8, 2011
|
|
3.5/5
|
61%
|
Griff the Invisible (2011) |
"
There is something consistent, likeable and heartfelt at its centre, and Kwanten and Dermody are ideally cast. They bring a mixture of robustness and restraint to this gentle account of solitude, fragility and the possibilities of complicity."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Mar 23, 2011
|
|
3.5/5
|
79%
|
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010) |
"
Yates has developed a distinctive visual style and there are some striking locations in this film, landscapes that have an almost dreamlike power. And the action has an abrupt kinetic impact."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Nov 15, 2010
|
|
3.5/5
|
79%
|
The Other Guys (2010) |
"
It works best when it is freewheeling and absurd, and based on the relationship between the character and loses ground when the filmmakers worry too much about plot."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Sep 9, 2010
|
|
3.5/5
|
81%
|
Despicable Me (2010) |
"
It's an engaging movie that feels to be aiming for -- and happily gestures towards -- the bright inventiveness of the Pixar studios."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Sep 9, 2010
|
|
3.5/5
|
73%
|
The Waiting City (2011) |
"
The Waiting City is an immersive film, but also a contemplative one."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Jul 15, 2010
|
|
3.5/5
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
83%
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
90%
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
81%
|
Disgrace (2008) |
"
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
98%
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
83%
|
JCVD (Van Dammage) (2008) |
"
[Van Damme] brings a kind of weary dignity to the role, and a surprising self-awareness..."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Mar 6, 2009
|
|
3.5/5
|
62%
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
82%
|
In Bruges (2008) |
"
Clever, unpredictable and entertaining, with moments of anguish..."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Sep 5, 2008
|
|
3.5/5
|
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
|
|
3.5/5
|
86%
|
Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters) (2003) |
"
This is a carefully structured film about grief and guilt, as well as horror. They don't resolve every disturbing moment or confusing element: they leave some questions hauntingly unanswered."
—
Sydney Morning Herald
Posted Jan 17, 2006
|
|
3/5
|
78%
|
Santa's Apprentice (L'apprenti Pere Noel) () |
"
Bright, amiable traditional animation with an old-school flavour and solid storytelling. "
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Nov 10, 2011
|
|
3/5
|
67%
|
Love Crime (2011) |
"
Rather than contemplating the tension of performance, we are resigned to watching the elements of the story click mechanically and rather drearily into place."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Aug 3, 2011
|
|
3/5
|
94%
|
Los ojos de Julia (Julia's Eyes) (2011) |
"
Julia's Eyes becomes a little incoherent as it plunges towards resolution, but it's unerringly stylish and whole-heartedly suspenseful along the way."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Jun 2, 2011
|
|
3/5
|
80%
|
Barney's Version (2011) |
"
If Giamatti's performance is rigorously unsentimental, director Richard Lewis and writer Michael Konyves (adapting Morechai Richler's novel) succumb, a little too often, to slow-moving warmth and wryness."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Mar 23, 2011
|
|
3/5
|
51%
|
The Next Three Days (2010) |
"
It's an all-consuming task, and Crowe makes this obsessiveness plausible."
—
The Age (Australia)
Posted Feb 2, 2011
|
63%
——
97%
