Category: Film ReviewsPage 24 of 32

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       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…

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Review by © Jane Freebury It used to go without saying that brandishing a fist at the authorities was a staple of Australian film. It probably still is….

Florence Foster Jenkins

by  © Jane Freebury It’s fine to belt out a song in the shower when you can’t hold a tune, the acoustics are good and no one is…

A Month of Sundays

  Review by © Jane Freebury   The hint of self-deprecating humour in the title of writer-director Matthew Saville’s new film doesn’t cost him a thing. The expression…

Pawno

  © Jane Freebury It’s good to know that a hide like a rhinoceros isn’t a prerequisite for working in a cash converter business in multicultural Footscray. A…

A Bigger Splash

  © Jane Freebury Sipping daiquiris, feasting on seafood, skinny dipping in the pool, away from it all on a remote Sicilian island. Just perfetto. Director Luca Guadagnino…

The Daughter

Review by © Jane Freebury A forest of tall timbers. Valleys strewn with mist. How readily a Henrik Ibsen classic has been transposed to the wilds of Tasmania,…