It’s Oscars season and there’s plenty of controversy, as usual, about what’s made the cut and what hasn’t. But I want to focus on what will be the most dramatised moment of Sunday’s award ceremony: the…
President Business is a bad guy. We know that because he is the chief executive of the Octan Corporation. He also has bad hair, control issues, and transforms into the evil tyrant Lord Business who – together…
After a series of orgasmic promotional posters Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac hit UK cinemas on Saturday 22nd February. And unsurprisingly, everyone is talking about it. A four hour double feature of explicit…
Quite apart from the obvious reason, that four hours of anyone’s life is a lot to ask, the heart and soul of it is that Lars von Trier is one of the great proofs of the auteur theory. Auteurists believe…
Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty is one of the five films nominated in the category of best foreign film in the 2014 Academy Awards, which take place on March 2. If it wins, the Oscar will follows…
It is 20 years since the AIDS-related death of Derek Jarman, filmmaker, painter, author, gardener – and a crucial voice in gay politics in Britain. And when you look at his work today, two decades can…
Channel 9’s new series Love Child made its television debut this week. Its storylines are based on the systematic practice of removing babies from young, single mothers from the 1950s to the 1970s in Australia…
This article contains spoilers. John Wells’ film August: Osage County tells the story of a family which has gathered for the funeral of its father. Ostensibly, they are also there to help its ill and drug-addicted…
In 1961, German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt was sent by The New Yorker to cover Adolf Eichmann’s trial, in Jerusalem, Israel, where he faced execution for crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes…
Britishness seemed to be main motif in the BBC’s broadcast of the 2014 Baftas. When host Stephen Fry mentioned the event was the highlight of the British film calendar, he backtracked and asked, “Is there…
All modern Olympics employ directors who stage-manage the huge spectacle of the Games – and Sochi 2014 is no different. So what does this stage management tell us, internationally, and what is it intended…
The recent death of Shirley Temple at the age of 85 appears to buck the trend for the tragic child star. In marked contrast to the likes of Judy Garland and Michael Jackson, Temple made the transition…
David Court, Australian Film, Television and Radio School
The Lego Movie was released to a legion of fans in the US last Friday and massive box office success. So what do a Hollywood movie and a Danish toy company have to do with Australia? Well, quite a lot…
The first thing to understand about the Oscars is that, as a measure of the aesthetic value of films, they are completely unreliable. To understand why this is the case, we need to know what exactly “The…
This article contains spoilers. In the award-winning movie The Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey plays the role of Ron Woodroof, a real-life Texas cowboy who was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1985…
In retrospect, it seems a foregone conclusion that The Great Gatsby would have blitzed the 3rd AACTA Awards, held in Sydney last week. As a A$120 million budget film that took more than A$28 million at…
Even the briefest glance at recent cinema listings and television schedules suggests that the remake is everywhere. Currently showing in the UK is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, an update of the 1947…
It is a basic tenet of mainstream filmmaking that you want the audience to identify with your protagonist: to go on an emotional journey with them, to empathise with them. What, then, are the particular…
I’ve just asked Siri about Her. Two screens of text appear in answer to my query. “Is that all you can find for Her?” I ask. “Let me check on that,” comes the response. More screens of text appear with…
Seeing the live National Theatre broadcast of Coriolanus brought home once again how we’re all glued to screens now: our eyes rarely far from and seemingly hypnotised by the lure of the light emanating…