Note: the last two paragraphs of this review spoil the ending of the film. Caveat emptor. John Grisham’s 1989 novel A Time to Kill was rejected by major American publishers, ultimately getting a 5000-copy print run from Wynwood Press. When his second … Continue reading REVIEW: A Time to Kill (1996)
A Japanese journalist makes a bicycle journey down the Taiwanese coast in Riding the Breeze, a pleasant, charming, but fairly derivative road movie. Produced in 2014, the film was never going to win awards or significant acclaim, but if these … Continue reading REVIEW: Riding the Breeze (2014)
There are essentially two methods to plotting a biographical picture. The first, and most popular, is a ‘whole of career’ approach: the film tracks the life and development of its protagonist over a period of years, or even decades. The … Continue reading REVIEW: Judy (2019)
As part of Australian distributor Imprint’s growing range of archive titles, there have been a number of excellent film noir boxed sets produced. These have provided our local market with some wonderful crime films in high definition for the first … Continue reading REVIEW: Framed (1947)
How many times can audiences tolerate another rock biopic? They are cut from as formulaic a cloth as popular cinema can provide: the humble beginnings, the prodigy talent, the rise to fame, and the crash spurred on by drugs and … Continue reading REVIEW: Rocketman (2019)
Lowell Sherman’s pre-Code drama Born to be Bad is a distinctive and unusual film. While in many ways it seems critically compromised, it also reveals a remarkable boldness and originality in its storyline and characters. I have written in the past about … Continue reading REVIEW: Born to be Bad (1934)
A disaffected civil servant in late middle-age (Takashi Shimura) learns that he has terminal cancer and a few months left to live. After the initial shock and panic wears off, he sets out in a last-ditch attempt to find a … Continue reading REVIEW: Ikiru (1952)
I have written in the past about how so many silent features have been lost from cinema’s early years, either being lost in accidental fires – nitrate film is ridiculously flammable, sometimes explosively so – or simply not perceived to … Continue reading REVIEW: Apart from You (1933)
In Nicholas Hytner’s drama Center Stage, an ensemble of young dancers join the prestigious American Ballet Academy in New York – but only a select few will progress beyond their first year. The academy itself is entirely fictional, but Hytner … Continue reading REVIEW: Center Stage (2000)
Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper will forever be remembered for their 1933 monster classic King Kong, but it was not the only film they made together. In 1935 they co-directed the RKO Pictures Roman epic The Last Days of … Continue reading REVIEW: The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)
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