Maria Flood Keele University The backlash against the backlash has begun. Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips of Hangover trilogy fame, has opened to conflicting reviews and negative press. Having been hailed as a masterpiece when it first screened at the Venice film festival (and drawing an
Sung-ae Lee Macquarie University Parasite, the South Korean film directed by Bong Joon-ho, received four Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. It was an historic moment. Parasite is the first non-English-language movie to
Ann Vickery Deakin University Growing up in Australia in the 1970s, I much preferred the hijinks of Han Solo and Chewie to Princess Leia’s sexualised damsel in distress. My sister and I spent an entire summer pigging out on Choc Wedges and Barney Bananas so we could collect the
Ari Mattes University of Notre Dame Australia People often roll their eyes when they hear about a major Hollywood studio re-releasing a film from its back catalogue to cinemas. Director’s cuts, “reduxes” and remastered prints can seem like cynical corporate moves, re-commodifying a long dead vision of
Adrian Danks RMIT University It’s hard to imagine that Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas is 30 years old. A massive influence on contemporary filmmakers ranging from Quentin Tarantino and Fernando Morales to David O. Russell and Paul Thomas Anderson, it remains one of the peaks of Hollywood genre filmmaking. GoodFellas
Daryl Sparkes University of Southern Queensland Ten years on from its release, and hitting cinemas again, Christopher Nolan’s Inception still puzzles and intrigues. It is one of those films in which you discover something new each time you watch it. Or, more likely, it makes you reinterpret what you
Daryl Sparkes University of Southern Queensland It wasn’t the first time I’d crashed a film set. My first was the 1984 film The Coolangatta Gold. You’ll recognise me in one of the shots because I’m the only person wearing jeans on a beach. Many years, and
Phoebe Macrossan Queensland University of Technology Jessica Ford University of Newcastle While many teen films fade away never to be heard of again, Clueless, a loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, has remained in the cultural consciousness since its 1995 release. Maybe it’s the catchy soundtrack, or familiar
Ben McCann November 1959. Film director Alfred Hitchcock is at his commercial and critical peak after the successes of Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959). So what does he do next? A black-and-white made-for-TV movie hastily shot, with no big-name actors and a leading
Inger S. B. Brodey University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The latest film adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic “Emma” is a visual feast of color, pattern and texture. It’s also a bit too perfect. The colors are too vibrant, the skin too clear, the homes too opulent,
Jane Barnwell University of Westminster Christmas movies are so often linked to classic themes of redemption and rediscovery of innocence. Old favourites such as Home Alone, Love Actually, The Wizard of Oz, It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Holiday and Elf reappear on our screens in
Even so grim a year as 2020 has to have at least one bright spot. That bright spot must surely be Bill and Ted Face the Music. The eponymous pair return after a 25-year hiatus for a most triumphant conclusion to the beloved 80s comedies. The plot is familiar
Bruce Bennett Lancaster University Forgive me, I’m about to go all Scrooge. Christmas, you see, is a particularly grim time of year. Rolling around with grinding, Groundhog Day relentlessness, it is an interval of dark days and long nights, bad music, kitsch clothing and decor, enforced jollity, stilted family
Fans and casual observers of science fiction love to claim that the genre or its key works “predicted” this or that technological or social development. “Jules Verne predicted television and the moon landing!” they claim, for instance. But, is it really true that SF writers are Nostradamus-like prognosticators? Mostly,
Daryl Sparkes mercatornet.com I’m a film-maker who became an archaeologist who became a film-maker who became an academic. I’ve had films screened at the Maleny film festival all the way to Cannes and everything in between. As well as a Senior Lecturer in Film Production
Where would the internet, or indeed movies, be without fan theories? Sometimes, fan theories can set off unlikely creative sparks. For instance, Captain America fan turned writer Ed Brubaker noted that the presumed death of Bucky Barnes was never firmly established. In 2004, Brubaker resurrected Bucky as the Winter Soldier.
