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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Director: Peter Weir By Marilyn Ferdinand As the world has gotten smaller and easier to negotiate through electronic means and jet-fueled transport, would-be adventurers have had to venture further and...
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The Cars that Ate Paris (1974)
Director: Peter Weir By Marilyn Ferdinand It’s been kind of a down-in-the-dumps week. The time was right for some unadulterated silliness. The hubby, who is an inveterate beach party movie buff,...
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Man of Flowers (1983)
Director: Paul Cox 9th Annual Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand Paul Cox, a Dutch/Australian director who Roger Ebert has long championed, has made sad nostalgia his stock and...
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The Proposition (2005)
Director: John Hillcoat Screenplay/Music: Nick Cave By Marilyn Ferdinand I am not going to mince words. I am absolutely dumbfounded by the hyperinflated 86% positive rating the Rotten Tomatoes critics...
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Jindabyne (2006)
Director: Ray Lawrence By Roderick Heath Ray Lawrence reappeared on the map 16 years after his cinematic debut—the unwatchable Bliss (1985)—with the much-praised drama Lantana (2001), an Altmanesque...
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Lucky Miles (2007)
Director: Michael James Rowland 2007 Chicago International Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand The United States isn’t the only country with its panties in a bunch about immigrants, legal or otherwise....
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Australia (2008)
Director: Baz Luhrmann By Roderick Heath Having been left bankrupt by the good graces of government bureaucrats, and with the last few cents in my pocket, I braved the mountain storms to go see...
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Samson & Delilah (2009)
Director/Screenwriter/Cinematographer: Warwick Thornton By Roderick Heath In its poetically sparse, yet intimately realistic first 45 minutes, Warwick Thornton’s debut feature film, which won the...
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Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975; Director’s Cut, 1998)
Director: Peter Weir By Roderick Heath It was easy as a young Australian movie fan to hate Picnic at Hanging Rock, so culturally ubiquitous—quoted in advertising and satirised on television and...
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The Shiralee (1987)
Director: George Ogilvie By Marilyn Ferdinand “Shiralee” is the Australian term for the bundle of worldly possessions carried by itinerant workers famously known from the unofficial anthem of...
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Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)
Director/Screenwriter: Stuart Beattie By Roderick Heath Aussies love action movies, but Aussies don’t make action movies, or at least, have barely tried since the heyday of George Miller’s Mad Max...
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Van Diemen’s Land (2009)
Director/Coscreenwriter: Jonathan Auf Der Heide By Roderick Heath Western civilisation’s remarkable capacity for setting up hells on earth at suitably distant places from itself in the Age of...
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Bright Star (2009)
Director/Screenwriter: Jane Campion By Roderick Heath Jane Campion is a puzzle to me. She rose out of Aussie cinema in the late 1980s with something of the reputation of a firebrand and a new breed of...
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Mystery Road (2013)
Director/Screenwriter: Ivan Sen By Roderick Heath In an unnamed town on the fringes of the desolate Australian interior where half-hearted suburban tracts abut soul-wearying, bone-dry flatlands and...
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Famous Firsts: Bad Taste (1987)
Focusing on the debut feature work of famous, and infamous, figures of film Debut film of: Peter Jackson, writer and director By Roderick Heath In the depths of a governmental office, a shadowy...
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Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Director: George Miller By Roderick Heath Mad Max (1979) was a weird and unexpectedly popular film made by George Miller, a young doctor who turned to filmmaking in his spare time during his residency...
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CIFF 2015: Women He’s Undressed (2015)
Director: Gillian Armstrong 2015 Chicago International Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand My 2015 Chicago International Film Festival coverage kicks off today, and the film under consideration is a...
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