All about the cinema

Yearly Archives: 2012

Dolphins, The Dark Knight Rises and what Warner Bros will do about Morgan Freeman

A quick question, before we go further: why do you think Warner Bros’ wholesome 2011 family adventure Dolphin Tale — “the amazing true story of a brave dolphin and the compassionate strangers who banded together to save her life,” thank you official synopsis — generated disappointing results at the US box office? Your answer, if [...]

The Dictator movie review: smarts beneath the stains

The shape-shifting scenery-chewing Sacha Baron Cohen is back, flaunting the world stage, defecating on standards of public decency and injecting his trademark brand of in-ya-face parody in The Dictator, which marks his fourth collaboration with ex-Seinfeld brains trust Larry Charles. Charles’ first film, Masked and Anonymous, was released in 2003 but has already been lost [...]

Meet the Critics: Clint Morris — PR wiz turned reviewer and Moviehole maestro

Maintaining collaborative relationships with film publicists is a must for every professional film critic, and Clint Morris — long-time reviewer and founder of popular movie website Moviehole — is no exception. Where Morris differs from the pack is in his innate understanding of the PR industry and issues publicists face. After all, he used to [...]

Bringing Nazis on the moon down to Earth: an interview with Timo Vuorensola, director of Iron Sky

It’s not every day you get to watch a movie about Nazis from the dark side of the moon who come down to invade Earth, and certainly not every day you get to speak to the filmmaker who made it happen. Iron Sky (currently playing in Australian cinemas) aka the ‘Nazis from the moon movie’ [...]

Dark Shadows movie review: minor, minor, minor Burton

In the dimly lit ornately adorned gusty hallways of gothic-esque “out there” cinema, once crazy-cool auteur Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Batman, Mars Attacks! etc) has not so much jumped the shark as splattered it in ghoulish make-up and rocket launched himself into a thick cloud of unintentional parody from whence he may never emerge. The veteran [...]

Parallax Podcast: debating Tim Burton and Dark Shadows, Wish You Were Here & more

Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Parallax Podcast In this episode of Crikey’s fortnightly movie podcast, myself and co-host and Rich Hardy discuss two new cinema releases (Dark Shadows and Wish You Were Here), two new DVDs (Hugo and Young Adult) then invite cult film guru Zak Hepburn to pluck a [...]

Lashing out at critics: when film cast and crew go feral (with comment from Richard Wilkins)

#Avengers fans, NY Times critic AO Scott needs a new job! Let’s help him find one! One he can ACTUALLY do! Those were the “them’s fightin’ words” shot down the barrel of the Twitterverse last week. They reverberated across the geekosphere with the force of a Hulk smash to the nads and spawned blog and [...]

Win a double pass to see Trishna

To mark the Australian theatrical release of Trishna, from acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom, Cinetology offers readers the chance to win one of 20 in-season double passes valid nationwide from May 10. To enter the competition follow these steps: 1) became a fan of Cinetology on Facebook (if you already are, skip this step) and 2) email me with your [...]

Wish You Were Here movie review: vivid and disjointed dramatics

Infidelity, drugs, violence, car crashes, betrayal, sordid secrets and dingy bars where unspeakable acts take place behind beaded curtains. No, not the One Direction crew a decade from now (boom tish) but the tumultuous soul-sucking events that enflame the lives of a group of Aussies on holiday in Cambodia in writer/director Kieran Darcy-Smith’s Wish You [...]

Win a double pass to see Iron Sky

To mark the Australian theatrical release of Iron Sky, director Timo Vuorensola’s Nazis-from-the-moon schlockbuster, Cinetology offers readers the chance to win one of ten in-season double passes valid nationwide from May 10. To enter the competition follow these steps: 1) became a fan of Cinetology on Facebook (if you already are, skip this step) and 2) email me with your [...]

Act of Valour movie review: throbbing modern warfare

The latest gung-ho Hollywood war movie to disembark on Australian shores is predictably chocked to the gills with guns, explosions, beefcake soldiers and petrified looking foreigners. But Act of Valour, from directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh, new kids on the explosives-laden blockbuster block, is distinguishable from the rest of the “fire in the hole” [...]

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: coming to cinemas near you, in six different formats

2D in 24 frames per second. 2D in 48 frames per second. 3D in 24 frames per second. 3D in 48 frames per second. IMAX 3D in 24 frames per second. IMAX 3D in 48 frames per second. These are the six different formats — that’s right, six — Peter Jackson’s first adaptation of The [...]

Checking back in to 1408 — and visiting John Cusack as a Hunter S. Thompson incarnation who never left the hotel

Author, journalist, DIY bomb maker and gun loving liberal Hunter S. Thompon (aka the ‘Good Doctor’) was celebrated for many things, none more so than his brutally colourful pointy-edged prose, his lust for drugs and alcohol and his legendary ability to transform hotel rooms into sites that reportedly resembled zones of apocalyptic destruction. Like any [...]

The Parallax Podcast: exploring The Avengers, debating Act of Valor, praising Burning Man & more

Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Parallax Podcast Is The Avengers a spectacular all-star superhero success? Is the latest Hollywood war film Act of Valor disgusting propaganda? Plus, reviews of Wasteland, Burning Man and a surprise cult film in this fortnight’s episode of The Parallax Podcast. 

The Avengers movie review: all-star superhero shenanigans

It’s a marriage made in geeked-out fanboy heaven: Buffy brain trust Joss Whedon arranges the biggest ensemble of iconic superheroes since his target audience played with figurines in their sand pits. The Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor franchises collide in a big budget behemoth designed to bring out the gawking child in all [...]