January, 2010

Just who is the law abiding citizen in Law Abiding Citizen? Certainly not Gerard Butler aka Clyde Shelton, a pushed-over-the-line newborn psychopath who dedicates his existence to bloody revenge against all and sundry after the murderers of his wife and daughter get off with a lean sentence. And surely not Jamie Foxx, who plays state [...]

The common perception of Clint Eastwood is that of a tough, uncompromising figure in Hollywood, the kind of rugged seen-it-all type who can smite souls with his eyes and talks through gritted teeth, grousing about the foibles of a harsh, unforgiving and morally vacuous world. As an actor he is both revered and stereotyped as [...]

Last November I wrote about the striking use of white employed in the poster for Clint Eastwood’s new political biopic/sports movie Invictus. This simple but rather wonderful one-sheet for Creation (left, click to enlarge) ups the ante with a whole lot more nothingness; it’s a strikingly elegant, uncluttered image that uses empty space to maximum [...]

3D movies are traditionally associated with horror, science fiction and animation, but in the wake of Avatar’s monolithic success expect to see the third-dimensional playing field substantially widened to accommodate a much more diverse array of pictures. With this in mind, it’s not all that surprising that Australia’s first 3D flick will be a nature [...]

In the Loop is a film stuffed to the gills with words – mean, pointy, slashing words, words used as weapons by the characters to taunt and belittle each other or as tools for self-aggrandisement. Often both. Vicious diatribes flow like streams of venom from the mouths of twitchy people who incessantly argue, bicker, bitch [...]

Below is a summary of this year’s Golden Globe winners for most of the major categories. Full results including nominees can be found over at the official website. No time at the mo for commentary, but I did write a “guide to the Globes” story last Friday for the Crikey newsletter (see below for a [...]

The new Star Wars instalments arrived in cinemas across the country on Friday. No, wait – they didn’t arrive in cinemas at all. They arrived in, er, shoe shops. In yet another shameless Star Wars merchandise tie-in the folk over at Twentieth Century Fox have collaborated with the guys and gals from Adidas to create [...]

Director John Hillcoat’s poignant post-apocalyptic father and son yarn The Road provides one helluva case study in last minute cinematic cock-ups. It is by and large an impressively made film. Over a couple of carefully constructed hours Hillcoat slowly ropes the audience into his patiently paced adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel about lonely vagabonds who [...]

This week the National Board of Review gave Wes Anderson (left, click to enlarge) a Special Filmmaking Achievement Award in recognition of the fabulous stop motion artistry exhibited in the quirk-laden director’s new flick Fantastic Mr Fox. Check out Anderson’s rather fantastic acceptance speech below, in which he decided to “express my gratitude through the [...]

At the butt end of what has been widely reported as a long and bitter stoush between Sony Pictures and director Sam Raimi (pictured left) comes two big pieces of Raimi-related news: firstly, the fo(u)rthcoming Spider-Man sequel, Spider-Man 4, has been scrapped and secondly, the studio has announced that the franchise is to be rebooted [...]

First glimpse of Dennis Quaid playing Bill Clinton The first still of Dennis Quaid playing Bill Clinton emerged last week from the set of The Special Relationship, which is not – contrary to the insinuation plenty of us will read from the title – about the former President’s raunchy rendezvous with Monica Lewinsky. The Richard [...]

James Cameron’s “blockbustepic” Avatar is now officially the highest grossing film ever released in Australia. Late last week the spectacular box office behemoth overtook the previous all time local record of $57.6 million, obtained by Titanic – another James Cameron movie – 12 years ago. Globally Avatar has now gobbled up around $1.14 billion, which [...]