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 …
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Mary MCDonnell Writer/Director: Richard Kelly Rated: M (15+) Distributor: Madman Since its release in 2001 the Sci-Fi fantasy Donnie Darko has become something of a cult classic. In a relatively low budget yet ultimately stylish fashion it covers twenty-eight action packed days in which the eponymous anti-superhero must …
Starring: Bob Dylan Director: D.A. Pennebaker Rated: Distributor: Sony BMG Music Entertainment If you’re not already a Bob Dylan fan then let Cate Blanchett convert you with her remarkable performance in Todd Haynes new release I’m Not There. It will automatically lead you back to D. A. Pennebaker’s observational documentary of Dylan’s 1965 English tour …
Starring: John Hargraves, Jeanie Drynan, Graham Kennedy, Candy Raymond Director: Bruce Beresford Rated: MA Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment/ Screensound Australia Disappointment is the over arching mood of Don’s Party; disappointment in marriage, in career and, finally, in the Australian Federal election of October 25, 1969. After twenty years of conservative rule, ten friends gather in what …
Starring: Colin Friels, Helen Buday Director: Rolf De Heer Rated: PG Distributor: Umbrella Aussie DVD Out in the remote Western Australian desert a man blows his trumpet at the setting sun. His blues are echoed back to him from the distant mountain range. A rogue dingo also howls his appreciation. This clever dog has been …
Starring: Bruce Spence, Natalie Bate, Max Gillies Director: John Duigan Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Aussie DVD Aussie playwright Jack Hibberd was in London when he got the urge to write a play about life in a small Victorian country town. He got out his atlas, closed his eyes and pointed his finger at a spot …
Starring: Yuri Solomin, Maksim Munzuk Director: Akira Kurosawa Rated: G Distributor: Shock (Distinction Series) Legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa embarked on a film adaptation of the popular turn-of-the-century Russian book Dersu Uzala when he was just starting out on his illustrious career but quickly realised that it needed to be shot where it was set, …
Starring: Sam Neill, Zoe Carrides, John Clarke Director: John Ruane Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Aussie DVD When this film was screened in the north Melbourne suburb that bears its name, audiences cheered the geography. But the performances also deserve an ovation. Sam Neill is adorable as the goofy Sting look-alike Carl Fitzgerald and Zoe Carrides …
Starring: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer Director: Jim Jarmusch Rated: R Distributor: Madman (Director’s Suite) From the very outset, Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man creates a eerie, strangely doomed tone. A bespectacled Cleveland accountant by the name of William Blake (Johnny Depp) travels by steam train through the wild west circa 1875, nodding off frequently along the …
Starring: Bryan Brown, Ernie Dingo, Angie Milliken, Aaron Pederson Director/Writer: Nick Parsons Rated: MA Distributor: Roadshow Entertainment Following hot on the heels of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Nicholas Parsons’ Dead Heart provided a dramatic examination of the ramifications of enforcing white fella law in black fella country. One of the main …
Starring: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz Writer/Director: Terrence Malick Rated: PG Distributor: Paramount There’s something strangely timeless about Days of Heaven, even though it is firmly set in the year 1916 when the wheels of industry were turning America into a brave new world, full of hope and promise. Maybe it’s the …
Starring: Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joe Pilato Director: George A. Romero Rated: R (18+) Distributor: Umbrella Horror DVD Zombie fans the world over gather in salivating droves at conventions to celebrate George A. Romero’s series of gut guzzling horror movies. Starting with the original black and white 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, these …
Starring: Christina Sanchez Pascual, Julietta Serrano, Chus Lampreave Director/writer: Pedro Almodovar Rated: R Distributor: Hopscotch Entertainment Nuns shooting up behind closed doors; taking acid with their vows of chastity; lusting after fallen women who seek refuge in their holy sanctuary? It could only be the work of that devilish master of Spanish cinema, Pedro Almodovar. …