Category: Film ReviewsPage 23 of 31

Frantz

    Review © Jane Freebury Is peace between former enemies possible while the horror of war still haunts them? The process certainly gets complicated in the latest…

The Country Doctor

    Reviewed by Jane Freebury If Irreplaceable, the original title of this genial tale seems a bit over-stated, the title for English speaking audiences, The Country Doctor,…

Land of Mine

Review by © Jane Freebury A rag-tag bunch of German soldiers, some barely men. A beautiful beach on the Danish coast, and it’s spring. Now that the war…

The Salesman

    Review by © Jane Freebury   The films of writer-director Asghar Farhadi are taut, tense, obliquely scripted and immaculately performed. His latest film in similar vein…

Jasper Jones

  Review by © Jane Freebury The film of the popular novel by Craig Silvey is not so much about Jasper. It’s about his loyal, younger friend during…

Silence

  review by © Jane Freebury Here’s one from a director we can expect to throw us a curve ball. Silence is the story of two Jesuit priests…

shortcuts

       My Cousin Rachel Handsome, lush, gorgeous to look at and not nearly as over the top as the trailer suggests. Romantic obsession has been plausibly updated,…

Manchester by the Sea

Review by © Jane Freebury It is no small irony that the main character in Manchester by the Sea is a dependable handyman who can fix anything and…

Lion

Review by © Jane Freebury A little boy lost with no way home. As he wanders through throngs of strangers in the streets of Kolkata, several things can…

La La Land

Review by © Jane Freebury   Why this? Why now? A singing-dancing entertainment brimming with optimism to close a tough, unruly year and open a new one that…

The Legend of Ben Hall

  Review by © Jane Freebury A refusal to submit to authority has pride of place in movies from down under. Here we expect a film about a…

Top Films 2016: 20 of the Best

… in no particular order:   Love and Friendship (dir. Whit Stillman) Hunt for the Wilderpeople (dir. Taika Waititi) Nocturnal Animals (dir. Tom Ford) The BFG (dir. Steven…

Paterson

Review © by Jane Freebury   Would this film have attracted much attention without the name of Jim Jarmusch attached to it?  About a loving and contented couple,…

Nocturnal Animals

Review © by Jane Freebury Nocturnal Animals is without question a transporting tale, stylish and clever, but it is also an onslaught of cruelty, yearning and pathos. A…

I, Daniel Blake

Review © Jane Freebury It is clear that Ken Loach, who turned 80 this year, will never retire. Making films about people who are disadvantaged and dispossessed has…

Elle

  Review by Jane Freebury © This graphic and unsettling film from an arch provocateur known for Hollywood blockbusters is not without its director’s signature high-level sex and…

Joe Cinque’s Consolation

  © Jane Freebury     As stories go, the story of Joe Cinque is at the very least alarming. A young Canberra man who was guilty of…

Truman

© by Jane Freebury Of all the titles to choose for a film about a man facing his premature demise, Truman takes its name from a saggy, baggy…

Embrace of the Serpent

  © by Jane Freebury Against expectations, this journey set in the Amazonian wilderness is almost entirely told in black and white. The filmmaker, young Colombian Ciro Guerras,…

Goldstone

Review by © Jane Freebury   In the space of the three years since we saw Mystery Road, detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) has buckled a bit under…