At the opening night of the Victorian College of the Arts graduate film screening season this month, keynote speaker Clayton Jacobson (writer/director of Kenny, 2006) mentioned to the audience his belief…
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is released around the world this month. Never mind the top tens, this film will skew the box office stats for 2014 and 2015. Image: John Bell as Bain and Luke Evans as Bard. Photo: Mark Pokorny.
Warner Bros
Tis the season to make Top 10 lists. Why? Because we are hurtling with unavoidable haste toward the end of another calendar year. It’s almost impossible to get through the day without some kind of Top…
Movie theaters have seen declining box office revenues over the past two years.
Michael Gabler/Wikimedia Commons
If Dumber and Dumber To, Interstellar and Big Hero 6 didn’t get you to the movies last week, you weren’t alone: just before Thanksgiving, Box Office Mojo put year-to-date gross receipts at almost $9 billion…
In Interstellar, Matthew McConaughey plays the protagonist, Cooper, who wears many hats: everyman farmer, laconic space hero, grieving father.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
At about the midway point of Interstellar, a spacecraft descends into the atmosphere of a pristine white planet. Gliding downwards, the tip of the craft brushes against a cloud, and the cloud shatters…
Movies such as Matrix Revolutions are explicit about their desire to make us think.
AAP Image/Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow Films
Showbusiness is about entertainment, right? Film-going should be fun. We want to laugh or squeal or sigh as emotion arises in us when the music swells and the camera zooms in for an extreme close up…
A girl lights a candle during a candlelight vigil. How does tragedy square with the idea of a loving, omnipotent god?
Rupak De Chowdhuri
On All Saints Day in 1755 the earth quaked beneath the city of Lisbon. Crowds rushed to open spaces near the sea only to be engulfed by a tsunami. The philosopher Voltaire lamented the tragedy in his Poem…
If you think of the enduring screen partnerships – Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Grahame Kennedy and Bert Newton – few are based on equality of authority and mutual respect. But elements of equality…
Helen McCrory, the modern Medea.
Richard Hubert Smith
The September 4 live transmission of Euripides’ Medea will have brought an ancient Greek tragedy to thousands of viewers. And it’s quite a play. Spurned by her husband Jason, Medea commits unspeakable…
The vampire stars of What We Do In The Shadows, a new New Zealand film released today.
Kane Skellar/Madmen Films
Yes, some vampires like to live in looming, crumbling, cobwebby castles. But some, the vampires of What We Do in the Shadows, a New Zealand film released today, like to live in flats in Wellington. This…
I’ve often felt depressed going to the cinema recently, but this all came to a head when I went to see Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For in Montreal. I rather loved the film; loved how the hushed heightened…
How can big data help us to better understand the cinema habits of movie-lovers around the world?
Kenneth Lu/Flickr
The backlash against “big data” studies is well underway. And no more so than in the area of humanities and creative arts research. If I had a dollar for every person who has told me over the past year…
A testament to Bacall’s strength of personality was her ability to move beyond the shadow of being Mrs Bogart.
Insomnia Cured Here
Lauren Bacall carried with her an air of mystery and intrigue in life – and now in death. She died of a stroke today at the age of 89 at her home in Los Angeles. As sex symbol – the Look, the Voice – lover…
Caesar (Andy Serkis) is the leader of the ape nation in a scene from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
Weta/20th Century Fox
The notion that a chimpanzee could win an Academy Award for acting (or anything else) seems farcical at first glance but, of course, it’s not an actual chimpanzee being discussed in the case of the latest…
Hercules is once again back on our screens. This latest version has Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson in the title role, alongside an international cast which includes a host of British stars. John Hurt is Cotys…
Good Vibrations tells the story of Belfast’s punk scene against the backdrop of the Troubles.
Curious Films
Punk music’s role in overcoming sectarian divides during one of the bloodiest chapters in northern Irish history isn’t a topic we hear much about. But that’s the subject of the film Good Vibrations, currently…
The hero’s journey in three stages - separation, initiation, return - offers a narrative framework for understanding character progression.
Pineapples101
When you tell someone a story, do you plan it out beforehand so that it’ll sound good? Do you carefully plot what you’ll say, in a specific order? Or does the story find a way of telling itself, the plot…
Norman McLaren working on Begone Dull Care, 1949.
National Film Board of Canada
Animation is all around us – from Pixar to manga to animated gifs. As with any creative field, it has its unsung heroes – the innovators who have shaped and defined the art form. So it was a great delight…
This article contains spoilers. Some reviewers have somewhat lazily compared Amma Asante’s recently opened film Belle to the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, that other film about slavery. But this entirely…
Belgian star Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night.
Sydney Film Festval
The Sydney Film Festival concluded last night with the announcement of the winner of the Sydney Film Prize, a not insignificant award for best film in the Official Competition. It was awarded this year…
It has been almost a truism of television, in the discussions of professionals and the analyses of academics, that television broadcasting is a sound medium with added pictures, while cinema is a visual…