2012

Want a free double pass to a soul-enriching film about the fragility of the human experience? We’re plum out of them, but Cinetology does have ten passes to give away to Nitro Circus 3D: The Movie, valid nationally from November 15 to November 21.

Melburnians: want to be one of the first in Australia to see Pitch Perfect, director Jason Moore’s Glee-esque musical comedy starring Anna Kendrick? Cinetology has 20 double passes to give away for a special preview screening of the film next Wednesday November 14 at Hoyts, Victoria Gardens.

I assumed acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson would be happy to discuss correlations between his new film, The Master, and the Scientology movement on which it was partly based. I was wrong.

Last week the Australian Classification Board banned a film two days before it was set to screen at a Melbourne festival. But in the ongoing battle to generate PR and word of mouth, is that such a bad thing?

This week George Lucas sold his beloved Lucasfilm to Disney for US$4billion. In a sense, the Hollywood doyen’s story is a perfect encapsulation of the American Dream. In another, it’s a cautionary tale of obsession.

Early buzz suggests Argo, director/star Ben Affleck’s entertaining “historical” thriller, has a good shot at the top prizes come awards season next year. Here’s why Hollywood should not reward it with an Oscar.

Want scares? Squeals? Shocks? A thrill a minute? You won’t find them in Paranormal Activity 4. What you will find is one of the easiest ways for a bunch of lucky producers to make windfalls of cash.

Is Ben Affleck’s acclaimed drama Argo as good as the hype suggests? Is Dredd 3D as bad as it looks? Was I too hard on Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. Myself and co-host Rich Haridy explore these questions and more in this fortnight’s The Parallax Podcast.

Hollywood’s most commercial ‘out there’ auteur, Tim Burton, directed classics such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. His new stop-motion feature Frankenweenie shows how far he’s fallen.

It’s hard to make an innovative film about a writer. The acid test is, well, good writing. And you won’t find that in The Words.

Actor Mark Duplass might be signing off from the mumblecore movement with this sweet-hearted dramedy splashed with a side of SCI-FI.

Director Andrew Dominik’s third and most assured feature film — a gritty crime drama headlined by Brad Pitt — isn’t just an inventive rumination on the faltering US economy. It’s a masterpiece.

To mark the Australian theatrical release of Savages, director Oliver Stone’s balls to the wall action flick starring Benicio Del Toro (read my interview with him here), John Travolta, Salma Hayek and others, Cinetology offers readers the chance to win one of five in-season double passes valid nationwide from October 18.

Benicio Del Toro’s road to success has not been a conventional one. The Oscar-winning actor spoke to me about making it in Hollywood, his new film Savages, the legacy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and being a bad-ass Puerto Rican.

Director John Hillcoat’s terrifically acted prohibition era thriller, inspired by the real-life story of the Bondurant brothers, shows how the American dream starting to go wrong — before it even existed.

Australian dramedy Mental is “good fun,” I say. It’s “a total mess,” retorts my co-host Rich Haridy. This fortnight on The Parallax Podcast we argue about Mental, fawn over Oliver Stone’s latest film, Savages, and get a report on this year’s Fantastic Fest from cult film guru Zak Hepburn. Plus we review two new DVD releases: Margaret and Piranha 3DD. 

The producer claims they had an agreement. The star, Chopper Read, calls bullshit. Both speak to me about the bizarre launch of new Australian film The Hurtin’ Kind Part One: The Albanian.