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 …

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 …