Starring: Jacques Tati, Jean Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie Director: Jacques Tati Rated: G Distributor: Madman Cinema If you’re the type of person who still has difficulty operating a video recorder (and I know I am), then you’ll adore Mon Oncle. In it, the much loved French actor/director Jacques Tati revived a character that he created …

Starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman Director: John Schlesinger Rated: M 15+ Distributor: MGM DVD Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a picture perfect Texan cowboy, from his black Stetson right down to his shiny, flamboyant boot tips. He may not be able to ride a horse but as he himself admits he’s one hell of a …

Starring: Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich, Brigitte Helm Director: Fritz Lang Rated: G Distributor: Madman/Av channel It was after a trip to New York in the mid 1920s that German director Fritz Lang and his wife and collaborator Thea von Harbou concocted the masterpiece that is Metropolis. Inspired by the skyscrapers of Manhattan, Lang, a former …

Starring: Maria Callas, Massimo Girotti Director: Pier Paulo Pasolini Rated: M Distributor: Madman Director’s Suite The legendary opera singer Maria Callas was at the height of her fame and beauty when her millionaire lover Aristotle Onassis decided to ditch her and marry Jackie Kennedy instead. Spurned and full of anger, she channelled her feelings into …

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Marthe Keller, Roy Scheider Director: John Schlesinger Rated: M 15+ Distributor: Paramount Golden Classics When I was at NIDA, there was a wonderful story that used to amuse us acting students no end. It was about Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier on the set of the thriller Marathon Man. Hoffman …

Director: Dziga Vertov Rated: G Distributor: Madman Directors Suite A miniature man climbs on top of a massive movie camera and sets up his trusty tripod. Morphing into a giant, he straddles the horizon and pans his lens across the city below. Life size again, he rides through the streets on the back of a …

Starring: Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyoko Kagawa Director: Akira Kurosawa Rated: PG Distributor: Madman Director’s Suite It is a truly special teacher who, without the slightest provocation, motivates his students to buy him a house then purchase the adjacent block so that developers won’t block out his sunlight. Such was the gratitude bestowed on Hyaakken Uehida by …

Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Bryne, Roger Ward Director: Dr George Miller Rated: R Distributor: DVD by Roadshow Entertainment If the sound of squeaky leather turns you on, you’ll probably already be a huge fan of Mad Max. If it doesn’t, then the sight of the spunky young Mel Gibson wearing it top to …

Starring: Thomas Gibson, Ruth Marshall, Mia Kirshner Director: Denys Arcand Rated: R 18+ Distributor: Madman/Newvision According to Canadian director Denys Arcand there are two main subjects in life; death and sex. And both of them get a good work out in Love and Human Remains. Made a full decade before The Barbarian Invasions which won …

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort Director: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe Rated: R Distributor: Madman Entertainment When you watch a film for two hours or so it’s easy to forget the weeks, months and years of intense work that went into the making of it. In the case of maverick director Terry …

Starring: Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte Director: George Miller Rated: PG Distributor: Universal A newspaper article was the genesis for this film that went on to receive widespread critical acclaim and two Oscar nominations; one for Susan Sarandon for her powerful portrait of a mother dealing with the unimaginable reality of witnessing her only son crippled …

Starring: John Hargreaves, Briony Behets Director: Colin Eggleston Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment, ScreenSound Australia Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t Tasmanian Devils only found in Tassie? And aren’t dugongs restricted to Australia’s northern waters? The makers of Long Weekend, a film set just a ways up the coast from Melbourne (but in fact, …

Starring: Wendy Hughes, Norman Kaye Director: Paul Cox Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Aussie DVD In an age when screen courtships tend to occur between incredibly gorgeous couples and last only a nanosecond before copulation occurs, it’s refreshing to watch the tentative steps of Patricia (Wendy Hughes) and Peter (Norman Kaye) as they inch their way …

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson Director/Writer: Bill Forsyth Rated: PG Distributor: Roadshow Entertainment Big cities can blind people to the beauty of nature and the simple pleasures of life; things like beachcombing and star gazing and watching a perfect sunset. But, as one character in this charming little film points out; “You can’t …

Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak, Walter Slezak Director: Alfred Hitchcock Screenplay: Jo Swirling (from a story by John Steinbeck) Rated: PG Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend but for a precocious Chicago-born foreign correspondent adrift in the mid-Atlantic, they become a matter of survival. We first meet the …

Starring: Linda Griffiths, Jane Hallaren, Jon DeVries Director: John Sayles Rated: M Distributor: Hopscatch We’ve come a mighty long way since the mid ’80s, especially in terms of our attitude to same sex relationships. Back then, very few films would ever dare to broach the subject whereas today, there’s hardly a sitcom or a drama …

Starring: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault Director: Marcel Carne Rated: PG Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment What Les Enfants du Paradis doesn’t say about unrequited love is probably not worth knowing. With lines like ‘the dead matter of love rotting in the heads of the unloved’ and ‘jealousy belongs to all if a woman belongs to none’, this 1945 …

Starring: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price Director: Otto Preminger Rated: PG Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment When dramatic shadows are cast about the sets and the characters linger in a haze of cigarette smoke, you can be pretty sure that you’re watching film noir, especially if it’s shot in black and …

Starring: Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart Director: Federico Fellini Rated: M 15+ Distributor: Madman Cinema The road of life is strewn with carnivals…at least, it was in Italy in the ’20s and ’30s when director Federico Fellini was growing up. Legend has it that he even ran away with the circus when he was …

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Rated: PG Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema DVD Unravelling like a cool and melancholic jazz riff, Antonioni’s La Notte charts the slow yet inevitable demise of a marriage between a successful Italian author named Giovanni Potano (Marcello Mastroianni) and his beautiful wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau). At …

Starring: Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Juliet Berto Director: Jean-Luc Goddard Rated:M Distributor: Madman Cinema – director’s suite Released just months before the student uprising in Paris in May 1967, Jean-Luc Goddard’s confronting La Chinoise was not just a prophecy but perhaps even a provocation – a call to action from one of France’s most influential …

Starring: Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong, Gyurme Ththong, Tulku Jamyang Kunga, Tenzin Yeshi Paichang Director: Martin Scorsese Rated: PG Distributor: Hopscotch Could there be a bigger dilemma for a devoutly non-violent spiritual leader than to have his country invaded by a weapon-wielding army under the command of a general who believes that religion is poison? At the …

Starring: Christopher Walken, Larry Fishburne, David Caruso Director: Abel Ferrara Rated: R Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment The gangster drug lords in this film don’t just shoot people – they pump them full of so many bullets that resuscitation isn’t even a option. The first victim falls just minutes after the film opens. We see the ice …

Starring: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, David Carradine Director: Quentin Tarantino Rated: MA Distributor: Miramax Films It seems amazing that the first instalment of Quentin Tarantino’s two-part martial arts extravaganza is only three years old. But few would deny that Kill Bill – Volume 1 has already attained the status of a modern cult classic. Sucking …

Starring: Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu Director: Federico Fellini Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema There are so many wondrous visions in Fellini’s dazzling Juliet of the Spirits that every time I see their seamless parade, I fall in love with this film all over again. There’s Suzy, the eccentric blonde bombshell (a favourite …