Released: 4th March
Seen: 4th March
So Hollywood is kind of realising that relying on $100 million dollar films to turn an even bigger profit is an unsustainable business model right now. Thanks to the plague that everywhere but America is taking seriously right now, no one wants to go to cinemas at the moment which means that giant budget films are losing large amounts of money.
Continue reading “Chaos Walking (2021) – Chaos Crawling”
Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association took a vote to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. It was one of the most controversial votes that the board would ever have since homosexuality had been considered a mental illness since the first DSM was printed in 1952. With homosexuality being labelled a mental illness, it was able to be used as an excuse to deny employment or housing or basic rights to an entire class of people. This led to some of the most brutal torture ever done in the name of mental health, and a story that the film Cured tells brilliantly.
Continue reading “Cured (2020) – An Important Piece Of History”
And here comes another review for Soda & Telepaths, this time of a really great horror film that you should watch because I say it’s good, and you trust my opinion on this right?
Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)
The history of gay culture is hard not well recorded, this is almost intentional. Thanks to the way that the community at large was treated by a legal system that revelled in arresting gay people for the crime of existing, keeping records wasn’t a high priority. If one were to have letters or photos that caught moments of queer culture, they were either burned by an angry parent determined to pretend that their departed child was straight, or it was destroyed upon request by the person who wrote the letter who would often add “P.S. Burn This letter please” at the end.
Thankfully, someone in the 1950s ignored this request and kept a hold of a series of letters and photos that described the underground 1950s drag and gay scene and now we have a record of this period of the era when the LGBT community was its most secretive.
Continue reading “P.S. Burn This Letter Please (2020) – And Watch This Film Please”
Released: 19th February
Seen: 21st February
There is no greater evil, at least in my mind than those who take advantage of the elderly and infirm. The top of that list of evil people are known as professional guardians, not all of them (I’m sure some of them are perfectly good people) but we’re talking about the kind of professional guardians who take on a ward who is elderly and is needing help, pay themselves an obscene wage, puts that ward in an aged care home and slowly bleed them dry. To see how evil some of these guardians can be, I’d suggest watching this segment by John Oliver on them. They are so cruel and evil that it almost feels like an inevitable source for a film. I won’t lie, when I saw that I Care A Lot was about a woman who puts elderly people with dementia in a home and drains them of their money I was worried as hell about how it was going to handle this heavy topic. I’m glad to say it’s damn near perfect.
Continue reading “I Care A Lot (2021) – Care Is An Understatement”
Released: 12th February
Seen: 17th February
“It’s Groundhog Day, except…” is a fairly easy way of describing most movies that feature a time loop situation, it tells everyone exactly what to expect right off the bat. For example, Happy Death Day is “It’s Groundhog Day, except there’s a killer on the loose”. Well, when it comes to describing the charmingly simple The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things, I’m gonna go with “It’s Groundhog Day, except with teenagers”… yes I did just copy my entire opening paragraph from my Palm Springs review, there aren’t many ways to open a review that has a Groundhog Day premise and this film is good but not so good that I feel the need to try hard to come up with a great opening.
Continue reading “The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things (2021) – Almost Nearly Average”
Released: 12th February
Seen: 16th February
Some films require a lot of thought, you need to sit down with it to figure out what it meant by using a certain camera angle or how a certain line is a reference to a piece of ancient text that sets up something in the end. Some films are hard to write about because they’re so complicated that everything could easily be considered a spoiler. Then there are films like the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy which are just so easy going and sweet that you barely have to think about them, you can just enjoy them and not worry about them being anything more complicated than sweet little teen romance films that just barely approach the line of saccharine without fully crossing it.
Continue reading “To All The Boys: Always And Forever (2021) – It’s Sweet”
Released: 5th February
Seen: 8th February
Have you ever noticed how there are some movies that think they’re saying something smart, but’re in fact the dumbest pieces of shit you’ve ever seen? You know the kind of movie where you can almost hear the film theory teachers bouncing with excitement because they’ll get to show it to a class of bored 20 year olds who don’t get what’s so special about the film (because there’s nothing special about it) but want to pass so they make something up? The cinematic equivalent of a guy who wears glasses because he thinks it makes him look smart? Well, whatever list of films you just thought of, you can throw Bliss onto the list because this film really wants you to think that it’s brilliant but that would imply that it’s even worthy of thought.
Continue reading “Bliss (2021) – Uggh”
Released: 5th February
Seen: 8th February
In 2019 the world was rocked by a single moment, that moment being in the movie Hustlers when Jennifer Lopez walked onto a stage while Criminal by Fiona Apple played and performed a pole dance that commanded the attention of anyone who saw it. The pure athleticism and power on display was magnetic and there is no doubt in my mind that this moment led to a whole bunch of women buying poles to fit into their workout routines. Pole Dancing as a workout routine has been around for a long time, and in the documentary Strip Down, Rise Up we get to see just how powerful and meaningful this dance can be for women.
Continue reading “Strip Down, Rise Up (2021) – The Power Behind The Pole”
Released: 5th February
Seen: 7th February
During the last year, a lot of films and TV series have had to adapt to this strange new world of the pandemic. Some shows just stopped filming all together, others imposed strict rules to maintain safety. Watch a recent episode of Law & Order SVU and you’ll see large plastic barriers everywhere to protect the cast that had to be written into the text of the show. It’s also led to a lot of films being created from scratch to adapt to this new world of Covid.
Continue reading “Malcolm & Marie (2021) – Artsy Arguments”independent and curious
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