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Keywords: Film Reviews

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Truth the first casualty of war film

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 27 November 2008
    3 Comments

    Brian De Palma's Redacted took as its grim inspiration the true account of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, and the murder of her family, by a wayward group of US troops in 2006. It plays pretty fast and loose with the facts.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Hunger, pain

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 30 October 2008
    1 Comment

    In life and art Nick Cave is drawn to the potent territory where the sacred meets the profane. Steve McQueen's brutal, beautiful portrait of Irish republican prisoners of an uncaring Thatcher government achieves a similar transcendence.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Coens' cynical spy spoof

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 23 October 2008
    5 Comments

    It can be hard to spot the villain in a Coen Brothers movie. The ill-fated scheme at the heart of their latest comedy is instigated by Linda, an endearingly goofy gym employee who longs to be able to afford cosmetic surgery.

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  • RELIGION

    Moral relativism's extreme close-up

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 October 2008
    2 Comments

    Two people embrace on a verandah. The camera pulls back to disclose a housing estate, with couples embracing on each verandah. Relativism works like the move from close-up to broad perspective in film, by seeming to deflate the significance of what we have just seen.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Wired, profound

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 16 October 2008

    In 1974 French acrobat Philippe Petit balanced mortality and destiny on a wire between New York City's Twin Towers. This documentary imbues Petit's dizzying, existential quest with the dramatic tension of a bank heist.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dull Duchess

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 02 October 2008

    Famous for being famous, the Duchess of Devonshire is an independent woman in a man's world. A more substantial script might have evoked the subordinate role of women in Western politics, or slyly spoofed the cult of celebrity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Hook turns on weighty subtext

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 25 September 2008

    The characters provide a microcosm of Australia as a fledgling federation. Most poignant is the place of the film's sole Aboriginal character, a gifted pugilist who is ultimately subservient to the purposes of the white characters.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Film implicates audience in acts of cruelty

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 11 September 2008
    3 Comments

    The previous films of director Michael Haneke depict a media-saturated society disconnected from reality. His latest release is a critique of 'violence as entertainment', and every audience member is implicated.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    'Freaks' on film

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 04 September 2008
    1 Comment

    In 1932, Todd Browning's Freaks sought to unsettle with the 'otherness' of its circus sideshow performer characters. A modern-day festival of films by and about people with disability emhasises not otherness, but humanity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Film of the week

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 28 August 2008
    2 Comments

    During the 1970s, Australian cinema experienced what many now regard as its golden age. Who were the maverick filmmakers gleefully scuffing up the flipside of that glittering coin, and why does Phillip Adams despise them so?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Autism comedy strikes emotional equilibrium

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 06 March 2008

    The Black Balloon's early '90s suburban locale is a tangible and familiar environment, where intolerance and ignorance brood beneath the surface. Lead actor Rhys Wakefield embodies everything that it is to be a teenager on the brink of adulthood.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Wilberforce film points to task of modern abolitionists

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 January 2008

    This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain. Social justice organisations around the world are using the film Amazing Grace to put a spotlight on the modern trade in human trafficking. From 25 July 2007.

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