Starring: Jacques Tati Director: Jacques Tati Rated: G Distributor: Madman Ever feel that the Americanisation of the globe is not in your best interests? That the technological western whirlwind in which we live might not be the most fulfilling way to spend your time? French director and comic genius Jacques Tati was thinking along these …

Starring: Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, Robert Lepage Director/Writer: Denys Arcand Rated: M Distributor: AV Channel Release At this time of the year most church groups are deep in rehearsal for their annual Passion play and so it is for Montreal’s Catholic Sanctuary at the start of Canadian writer/director Denys Arcand’s wonderful film Jesus of Montreal. …

Starring: Ngarla Kunoth, Robert Tudawali, Betty Suttor Director: Charles Chauvel Rated: G Distributor: Screensound Australia Jedda is, without a doubt, one of the most marvellous, magical movies in our national screen history. Not only was it the first Australian feature film to be shot in colour, it was also the first one to be screened …

Starring: Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Yves Montand, Emmanuelle Beart Director: Claude Berri Rated: PG Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Like a Greek tragedy in scale yet very much provincial in tone, Jean de Florette (1986) and its sequel Manon des Sources (’87) are two totally absorbing films about greed, envy, ignorance and finally justice. …

Starring: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert de Niro Director; Quentin Tarantino Rated: R Distributor: Miramax Home Entertainment Word is that director Quentin Tarantino was arrested for stealing an Elmore Leonard novel when he was just 15. If so, it comes as no surprise that when he finally got to adapt and direct another of …

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Sergio Rubini Director: Federico Fellini Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema DVD Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Cleopatra – these are just some of the classics that were shot at Cinecitta Studios on the outskirts of Rome. However, the most imaginative body of work to emerge from these gates is arguably …

Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, Linh Dan Pham Director: Régis Wargnier Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema No-one does passion quite like the French. And no-one does it on-screen quite like Catherine Deneuve. Her cool presence seems to mask a seething desire that never fails to excite. In Indochine, it’s an impossibly handsome naval officer …

Starring: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan Director: Howard Hawks Rated: PG Distributor: DV1 Drag fans will delight in seeing Cary Grant don a horse tail wig and slip into female military regalia to become Florence – a rather ugly woman, to be sure, but one who manages to pass the scrutiny of a some pretty butch …

Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable Director: Jean Negulesco Rated: G Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox The studio bosses at Twentieth Century Fox must have been licking their lips when Nunnally Johnson’s screenplay for ‘How To Marry A Millionaire’ landed on their desks. With it’s racy plot about a trio of fashion models who rent …

Starring: Grigor Taylor, Joseph Bottoms, Judy Davis, Wendy Hughes Director: Igor Auzins Rated: R Distributor: Roadshow Entertainment Extras: AFTRS short film ‘A Horse With Stripes’ To see Judy Davis in her first screen role is to understand why she could very well be Australia’s answer to Katherine Hepburn. Not that her character, Lynn or ‘Spunkbubble’, …

Starring: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Llyod Bridges, Katy Jurado Director: Fred Zinnemann Rated: PG Distributor: Paramount Watching Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) try to gather a posse to eliminate some crazed outlaws in the legendary 1952 Western High Noon one is reminded of George W. Bush assembling his coalition of the willing for the War …

Starring: Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn Director: Mel Brooks Rated: PG Distributor: Fox Home Entertainment Fans of Alfred Hitchcock may not appreciate flagrant parodies of the old master’s work – sending up the shower scene from Psycho, for instance, may seem a tad sacrilegious. On the other hand, watching an out-of-control bellboy attacking a naked Mel …

Starring: Beat Takeshi, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi Director: Takeshi Kitano Rated: MA Distributor: Madman Hana-Bi is arranged like a strange piece of ikebana – scenes of explosive violence are juxtaposed with serene meditations on flowers and landscapes. And then there are the eponymous fireworks; dysfunctional fizzles with the exception of one big beautiful bang. But …

Starring: Ricki Lake, Divine, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono Director: John Waters Rated: PG Distributor: Roadshow Entertainment When cult writer/director John Waters was growing up in Baltimore in the sixties there was a local TV program which showcased the most beautiful teenagers in town demonstrating the latest dance crazes like The Roach and The Mash Potatoes. …

Starring: Bette Midler, Peter Riegert, Cynthia Gibb Director: Emile Ardolino Rated: G Distributor: Roadshow Entertainment Musicals, by their very nature, can often feel a little stagy and over-the-top but with the Divine Miss M at the epicentre displaying her triple threat talents of singing, acting and dancing, somehow bursting into song at the drop of …

Starring: Edith Bouvier Beale, Edith Beale Director: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer Rated: PG Distributor: Shock ‘Distinction Series’ A sweeping shot past the spacious beachside mansions of East Hampton on Long Island comes to rest on one that is totally overgrown with privet. This is Grey Gardens, a once grand 28-room house …

Starring: Robert Buchanan, Dee Hepburn, Allison Forster Director: Bill Forsythe Rated: PG Distributor: Roadshow Home Video Gregory is just about the biggest dork you’ve ever seen on screen but probably one of the most adorable too. Towering above all his high school buddies this gawky Glaswegian lives by his wits, able to con his soccer …

Starring: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee Director: Peter Weir Rated: PG Distributor: Paramount For many young Australians, visiting Gallipoli has become something akin to a pilgrimage. There, on that narrow strip of land in Turkey, thousands of our nation’s youth, under British command, threw themselves like lemmings at the German allies. They say that their sacrifice …

Starring: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, Huerequeque, Paul Hittscher Director: Werner Herzog Rated: PG Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema DVD German director Werner Herzog has the kind of faith that can move mountains…..or at least a 340 ton steam boat over one. In his visually breath taking and logistically mind boggling film Fitzcaraldo, he does exactly this …

Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham-Carter Director: David Fincher Rated: R Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Feminists have railed against it and some critics have even gone so far as to call it “fascist” but Fight Club is, according to its director David Fincher, essentially a “pitch black comedy”. Before embarking on the film, however, …

Starring: Federico Fellini, Pia de Doses Director: Federico Fellini Rated: M Distributor: MGM DVD World Films Fellini’s love affair with the Italian capital is legendary but in Roma, there’s a hint of regret. The city is presented as an old whore, plundered over millennia by a succession of conquerors, the most recent of which being …

Starring: Tura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams Director: Russ Meyer Rated: M Distributor: Madman Russ Meyer knew a good pair of boobs when he saw them, no doubt about it. As one of the early ‘Playboy’ centrefold photographers, he had his lens firmly trained on particularly fine specimens from the start. Even in his later years, …

Starring: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards Director: Amy Heckerling Rated: M Distributor: Universal Pictures If you’re all a-dither over Sean Penn after his stellar performances in Mystic River and 21 Grams, it might be a good time to rewind a few decades to the film that gave …

Starring: Marco Hofschneider, Julie Delpy, Andre Wilms Director: Agnieszka Holland Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema DVD For 16 year old Solomon ‘Solly’ Perel, surviving the Second World War was all about concealing his foreskin, or lack thereof. Everything else about him was adaptable; his clothes, his language, his winning looks. Even when brought before …

Starring: Aamir Khan, Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna Director/Writer: Deepa Metha Rated: MA Distributor: Madman Entertainment So often in times of conflict children are the ones who suffer most. Adults feuding over things like boundaries and religion must seem utterly ridiculous and incomprehensible to those innocents. Why can’t everyone simply tolerate cultural differences and celebrate the …