HARPOON [2019]

Harpoon is director Rob Grant’s most conventional film of his decade-long career given his past experimental approach to film-making. Harpoon is hardly experimental and therefore much more accessible, though it retains the staunchly independent qualities that define his work. This latest effort possesses the barest of plots: the basic notion of survival when stranded…
BEASTIE BOYS STORY [2020]

Ignoring typical tropes of most documentaries, The Beastie Boys Story is refreshing in its presentation as it is delivered similar to a comedy show, being presented to a live audience. Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, the remaining members after the passing of MCA (Adam Yauch) to cancer in 2012, speed through almost…
AUSSIE CLASSICS: CHOPPER [2000]

Originally written as a bite-sized review for THOMAS J: My Journey Through Film, aka digitalshortbread.com If you haven’t seen Chopper, watch it. A movie that will forever linger in your brain, it is also perhaps the quintessential Aussie film, a preservation of the ‘occa’ culture that is sadly suffering a slow death chiefly due to…
THE PAINTED BIRD [2019]

Original review written for Cinemaaxis.com Not unlike Pasolini’s ‘The 120 Days of Sodom’, The Painted Bird film will be known by some as ‘that three hour child torture movie’, ‘child torture porn’, or a similar, basic summary along these lines. I hope I am wrong, but despite knowing what they were going into, last year’s…
CAPONE [2020]

After 2015’s cinematic disaster, it is hard to fathom why Josh Trank received funding not just for a major film, but one to star Tom Hardy in the titular role. At least 12 months ago, photos of Hardy in full make-up as an older Capone circulated the internet. and whether it was intentional or not,…
AN OFFICER AND A SPY (J’ACCUSE) [2019]

His best picture since The Pianist, The Officer and The Spy (or J’Accuse, its title in France) is Polanski’s third and arguably most accessible film since he began working in French seven years ago. Refreshingly, no opening titles announce that the film is based on true events, as once the name Alfred Dreyfus is heard…