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Keywords: Film Review

  • Maintaining the humanity of the public square

    • Greg O'Kelly
    • 01 July 2015
    3 Comments

    The phrase 'the public square' is peppered throughout Frank Brennan's work. The 1988 film Cinema Paradiso depicts the public square in a Sicilian village over 30 or so years, and its slow and subtle change from a place where human beings gather to laugh, play and discuss. Billboards and garish signs appear and it becomes a car park bereft of its humanity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Women exploited on the road to human extinction

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 07 May 2015
    1 Comment

    Nathan has been able to refine Ava's software thanks to his unmitigated access to internet users' search data, as well as to their telecommunications. Caleb, too, wonders if his attraction to Ava is due to her design being based on a review of his internet pornography profile. It is no coincidence that Ava replicates an idealised version of the female form. Nathan's and even Caleb's relationship to her is fundamentally exploitative and voyeuristic.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Doomed actor's devastating ego trip

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 22 January 2015

    Riggan's ego is immense. The action takes place backstage during the days leading up to the premier of his latest vanity project, and onstage during a series of previews. Riggan is out of his depth, prone to humiliating blunders, including one that results in a near-naked dash through the crowds of Times Square. But his resolve to affirm his greatness in the eyes of a media and public that has dismissed him is maniacal.

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  • 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

    Films a blind man loves

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 04 December 2014
    1 Comment

    Try watching slasher parody Scream 4 with your eyes closed and see how much sense it makes. On the other hand, Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and Kevin Smith's Clerks, with stories driven by strong characters and dialogue, offer up cinematic pleasures even a blind person can appreciate. Welcome to the world of America's Blind Film Critic, Tommy Edison.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dark descent to ethics-free journalism

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 27 November 2014

    The 'intervention dilemma' is a perennial consideration for journalists and those who pay them and ought to be dictated by robust personal and institutional ethics. Louis Bloom is an example of what happens when ethics are stripped away and replaced with the bottom line. He raises himself from petty thief to the rank of nightcrawler — a cameraman who specialises in shooting the aftermath of accidents and crimes, and selling the footage to news networks.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A faithful woman visits me weekly

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 18 November 2014
    1 Comment

    Supplying food, whisky, news, loving sex. All this on a pine-scented mountain. I trim my stark white beard, shampoo, sweep, spray, squeegee and swipe. The hour you drive up our steep hill I open our front gates like a greeting.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Gone Girl promotes conversations about misogyny

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 October 2014
    5 Comments

    'If we strapped a bunch of Men's Rights Advocates to beds and downloaded their nightmares, I don't think we'd come up with stuff half as ridiculous as this plot,' wrote one blogger. Dogged by charges of misogyny since the release of her novel (and now film) Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn nonetheless maintains her right to create interesting, complicated female villains.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Disconnected landscapes

    • Anthony Morris
    • 11 September 2014

    As with her previous films, Kelly Reichardt is interested in people moving through and reacting to their landscape. In Night Moves, the drama comes from the way the characters' reaction to their environment cuts them off from the world around them. This refusal to connect turns toxic.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Timely liberation

    • Anthony Morris
    • 04 September 2014

    While not everything always turns out for the best in Boyhood, the stakes aren't high in any traditional sense. Instead, time gains power from its sheer passage on the screen. For Mason, the central character, it is a liberation. 

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  • MEDIA

    Practical magic

    • Megan Graham
    • 28 August 2014
    3 Comments

    While we are all afraid of the unknown, complete certainty and predictability do not make for a vibrant life. Magic in the Moonlight is a film about the lens through which one chooses to see the world. Cynicism or wonder? Mayhem or magic? It poses the question: Which way brings more joy?

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  • MEDIA

    Multimillionaire's self-indulgent science

    • Megan Graham
    • 21 August 2014
    2 Comments

    In Deepsea Challenge, James Cameron admits that, having desired it since he was a kid, his film Titanic was basically the excuse he needed to explore the depths of the ocean. The documentary feels like Cameron meets 'Make A Wish Foundation' with the audience acting as the benevolent donors.  

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