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Keywords: Violent Films

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Ten films that will get you talking

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 18 December 2014
    8 Comments

    It's December, and film writers everywhere are putting together their lists of the best films of 2014. But best-of lists are so subjective, so here's our take: ten films from 2014 that are guaranteed to get you thinking, and talking!

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A distasteful slice of gender politics pie

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 February 2014
    1 Comment

    Adele is a single mother suffering the debilitating after-effects of past trauma. But her story offers no robust consideration of mental illness. In stark contrast to her male counterparts, Adele is merely pitiable and helpless, and lacks the agency to raise herself from despondency. Weakness is thus conflated with femaleness. Only the arrival of a strong, practical and violent man serves to raise her Adele from her stupor.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Mixed messages about exploiting girls

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 08 May 2013

    Melinda Tankard Reist says 'in a culture that rewards exhibitionism, your achievements count for nothing unless you're willing to get naked'. The characters in Spring Breakers are the end product of a culture that has commodified young women completely. But is it helpful to objectify women to make a point about objectifying women? 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Child soldier learns murder and motherhood

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 14 March 2013

    Komona is just 12 when she is brutally conscripted by rebel soldiers. Before long she falls pregnant under horrific circumstances. The best that can be said about her situation is that it offers fragile hope that life may be made to flourish even in a landscape of violence and death.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Stories about people who want to do better

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 20 December 2012
    3 Comments

    One man suffers the shame of sex addiction. For another, a quadriplegic, sex is a matter of dignity. Two couples meet for a civilised discussion about their children's behaviour, but civility collapses. An antihero embraces violence as a solution to exploitative American media. Eureka Street counts down its essential films of 2012.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Amish psychopaths and Gandhian action heroes

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 08 November 2012
    1 Comment

    A grief-stricken Amish man stalks and psychologically tortures the man who murdered his daughter. A Vietnamese veteran seeks vengeance on the American soldiers who slaughtered his fellow villagers. But for one alcoholic writer, the idea of absolving violence through violence jars with his pacifistic leanings.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Blaming Batman for gun violence

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 26 July 2012
    12 Comments

    As far as US politicians are concerned, blaming Batman for the massacre at Aurora is as good as hiding their heads in the sand. The larger issue is not violent entertainment, but gun control. Ironically, the Batman films take a decidedly thoughtful approach to violence in general, and gun violence in particular.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Savaging sex and religion

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 15 December 2011
    4 Comments

    Three teenagers are lured into the midst of a demented cult waging a brutal crusade against society's sexual profligacy; the Westboro Baptists re-imagined as violent extremists. This is not the first time questioning Catholic filmmaker Kevin Smith has had a go at religion.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Harry Potter's dark days

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 18 November 2010
    1 Comment

    The youths take fearful strides into adulthood, embracing responsibility through necessity, unprotected by parents, teachers or mentors. Like many fictional 'chosen ones', Harry Potter is an allegorical Christ figure.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The morality of violent films

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 August 2010
    7 Comments

    'Anyone watching this saying it in some way supports or encourages violence is watching the film in a very perverse way.' UK filmmaker Michael Winterbottom has a point, but one must wonder what scenes of brutal violence against women contribute to the betterment of the public imagination.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The gay Jewish butcher and other tales of Israeli conflict

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 12 August 2010
    1 Comment

    Aaron initially rationalises his sexuality as a test from God, a test that priveleges him, as it gives him an opportunity to prove his resilience. Ultimately his affair with a younger man is rather more serious than simply a rebellion against an oppressive ultra-orthodox society.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Child abuse fable

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 May 2010
    5 Comments

    The pastor terrifies and humiliates his adolescent son with tall tales about a painful and fatal illness that can be contracted through masturbation. We are led to believe such secret acts of parental abuse lay at the core of the more public crimes that occur in the village.

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