This 1947 film noir is staged around the traveling carnival, using the temptations of wealth and trickery to bring the heavy hands of fate on the main character, Stan, played by Tyrone Power. Stan starts off as a young apprentice to a mind reader named Zeena, who is rumoured, used to be in the ‘big-time’, […]
Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-Sheng was the centerpoint of the films of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang; working with the celebrated director must have taught Lee something about filmmaking, as he’s reinvented himself as a director of his own accord. “Help Me Eros” is his second feature, and it screened at the Sydney Film Festival, on a
Julie Delpy wrote, directed and starred in “2 Days in Paris”, a whirlwind of disorientating shots from a short stopover in Paris, visiting her family and friends with her American boyfriend. Well, that’s the story Delpy plays Marion, a photographer, and Adam Goldberg is Jack, her American boyfriend with a Woody like New York personality.
Alphaville” is a science fiction movie made in 1965, filmed in black-and-white. From that one description, you’d expect tin-hat robots and aliens that look like people, but with weird ears. “Alphaville” though depicts a future which is almost indistinguishable from real life in the 60s. Men wear suits, women wear dresses, people get around in
There’s an iconic photo taken on the shooting of “Apocalypse Now” of director Francis Ford Coppola holding a pistol to his head, his eyes locked with the camera in a bestial, glazed look. That pose may well have been a joke, but it’s served to encapsulate the passion and terror behind “Apocalypse Now” a director
At some point between making “Audition”, “Ichi the Killer” and “Dead or Alive”, notorious Japanese director Takashi Miike managed to direct the outlandish film “The City of Lost Souls”, a crime and gangster film that depicts the rotten underground of Tokyo. Of course, this is all tedious stuff for Miike, who has been firmly entranced
This week, I was surprisingly entertained by Ben Stiller’s latest comedy, “Tropic Thunder”, a movie about the making of a movie that goes native in the jungles of Vietnam. Quite obviously, the movie parodies “Apocalypse Now”, with its tale of madness in the Heart of Darkness. While “Tropic Thunder” makes a few jabs at Francis
It is of no small importance that Umbrella Entertainment decided to release the 1974 sci-fi film, “Silent Running”, on this year. At the very least, interest in the movie was piqued by Danny Boyle’s latest movie, “Sunshine”, which draws heavily from “Silent Running”. The 1974 film depicts a bleak future, when the Earth has become
Richard Green was in Long Bay Prison in New South Wales when director Kriv Stenders approached him for a part in a short film, and would use Green to star in “Boxing Day”, a ferocious Australian film with teeth made of razor blades. Green is an Indigenous spoken word poet, with a powerful voice and
For today’s Friday Filth, we have the raunchy 80s comedy, “Hamburger… The Motion Picture”, a title that was chosen because, apparently, just “Hamburger” would confuse moviegoers into ordering burgers at the cinema. The 80s were a wonderful time for useless, ridiculous comedy, and the sex comedy was the king of the hill. Many fond memories
