Fantasia Festival Review – The Columnist
In the beginning, the internet was a magic and mysterious place. A place where you could connect with people around the world at the touch of a button. Where information and excitement was only a dial-up away. Then it all went to shit. Whilst the ability to consume and share is now easier than ever, …
Fantasia Festival Review: Sleep
(If we’re lucky) We spend a significant proportion of our lives asleep. To function properly, it is estimated that an adult requires between seven to nine hours of sleep per night. However, for many of us this is more of a dream than an achievable reality. Especially given our increasingly sedentary lifestyles which revolve more …
Fantasia Festival Review: Fried Barry
Drugs are bad for you. Fairly obvious, I know, but it’s a fact that is regularly being reinforced by cinema. The Hollywood narrative is such that characters who are addicts or dealers are almost certainly going to meet a grizzly end. Occasionally, a film comes along which manages to accurately capture the essence of addiction. …
Fantasia Festival Review: Yummy
Whilst cosmetic surgery feels like something which should have stayed in the 20th century, it’s still as popular as ever today. Our obsession with perfection and eternal youth is even more insipid than ever. Given the ethics and debates around these ‘improvements’, it has provided fertile ground for genre filmmakers. Rabid, Goodnight Mommy and Seconds …
Film Review: Yes, God, Yes
Going through puberty and traversing the teenage years is undoubtedly a trying and troubling time for any young person, regardless of where they live or their personal circumstances. When you throw religion into the mix, it gets a whole heap more confusing. Especially with the knowledge that eternal damnation awaits for anyone who acts on …
Film Review: Sputnik
If extra terrestrials do show up at our door it’s highly unlikely that it will play out like something from Independence Day. If we can even recognise them as sentient beings, and vice versa, the form they take is likely to be highly unusual to human minds. Communication by traditional means may well be impossible. …
Blu-Ray Review: After Life
What’s your earliest memory? It seems like such a simple question but it’s one which can leave people at a total loss. It might seem a strange thing to ask and it’s not something a typical person often thinks about. The older you get, the harder it becomes to recall childhood events. There’s only so …
Film Review: Babyteeth
Over the years, Australian cinema has shown time and time again that when it comes to tackling teenage drama and family tragedy it has a fairly unique spin on things. Cate Shortland’s hypnotic debut Somersault and Simon Stone’s incredibly powerful tale of lies and repercussions, The Daughter, are two great examples of this. They’re now …
Fantasia Festival Preview
Since its inauguration back in 1996, Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival has been pushing boundaries by showcasing the best in new international genre cinema. Now in its 24th year, the festival’s reputation continues to grow. With a commitment to diversity and screening challenging ground-breaking cinema from Canada and around the world, it’s one of the …
Blu-Ray Review: Lady Eve
Barbara Stanwyck was one of the most iconic actors of her generation. In a glittering career which spanned five decades, she won five Academy Awards and became one of the most recognisable faces of Hollywood. A favourite of the likes of Fritz Lang and Cecil B. DeMille, she was noted for her confident and striking …