Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 100%
| Man On Wire (2008) | "
It's a hell of a story, and Petit is a mesmerising storyteller, with an extravagantly poetic turn of phrase and the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 17, 2008 |
Fresh 4.5/5
| Fresh 66%
| Public Enemies (2009) | "
A triumph of pure cinema, Public Enemies is one of the most visually experimental films of Mann’s career." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 77%
| The Informant! (2009) | "
You never know where you stand with Steven Soderbergh, but you cannot accuse him of resting on his laurels -- or making the same film twice." — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 87%
| A Serious Man (2009) | "
On some level, the Coens' flippancy is self-protective. But there's fascination and pleasure in their trick of constructing a film like a theorem where nothing adds up." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Rotten 55%
| Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) | "
Even as [Zemeckis] uses the 3D process to turn A Christmas Carol into a rollercoaster ride through a solidly built fantasy world, he never forgets that at bottom the tale is an awful warning about how egoism and greed can destroy your humanity." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 4, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 63%
| Louise-Michel (2009) | "
As stylists, Kervern and Delepine specialise in turning industrial landscapes into cartoon playgrounds, through sight gags that rely on offscreen space -- leaving crucial events to the imagination." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 8, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 63%
| The Girlfriend Experience (2009) | "
The low-budget digital drama The Girlfriend Experience is one of [Soderbergh's] most successful experiments" — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 65%
| Duplicity (2009) | "
On the simplest level, Duplicity is a tribute to the power of performance." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 93%
| Milk (2008) | "
The film itself can be taken as an act of testimony, mingling archival footage with re-enactments and immediacy with nostalgia." — The Age (Australia) Posted Feb 5, 2009 |
Fresh 4/5
| Fresh 80%
| Gran Torino (2008) | "
Interpreted by another director, Nick Schenk's script might have been merely a sentimental fable of a grinch redeemed." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jan 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/4
| Rotten 55%
| Step Brothers (2008) | "
One thing spoils the mood: for all the joy that Ferrell and Reilly take in brawling or whimpering like two-year-olds, immaturity is still seen as something to be overcome." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 19, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 23%
| Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) | "
The film serves as a defense of beauty in the face of moralism, a theme that can never go stale." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 64%
| Watchmen (2009) | "
[Snyder] seems only half aware that every adaptation must be some kind of betrayal — or remain a shadow of its source, like a pattern sketched in the dust of a dead planet." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 6, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 93%
| Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2009) | "
Not Quite Hollywood contains as many crazy characters and improbable events as its recent fictional counterparts, except that the people are real and the stories all true." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 28, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 56%
| Defiance (2008) | "
Zwick's limitations as an action director seem linked to a troubled conscience: he seems conscious of a need to entertain, but worried that his audience will take too much pleasure in the spectacle of vengeance." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 51%
| Funny Games (2008) | "
Registers more strongly than the original as a film about privileged white people..." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 12, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Fresh 82%
| Tropic Thunder (2008) | "
Stiller never stops bombarding the audience with outrageous ideas, like a monkey throwing dung at a wall." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 29, 2008 |
Fresh 3.5/5
| Rotten 37%
| Speed Racer (2008) | "
Given that Speed Racer itself is basically an elaborate commercial, the anti-corporate message inevitably rings hollow." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 12, 2008 |
Fresh 2.5/4
| Rotten 37%
| Space Chimps (2008) | "
A movie called Space Chimps ought to be cheap, crude and silly, and this computer-animated lark delivers on all fronts." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 19, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 84%
| Broken Embraces (2009) | "
Spain's best-known living director Pedro Almodovar ranks among the modern masters of melodrama -- as he demonstrates once again in Broken Embraces" — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 17, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| N/A | The Strength of Water (2009) | "
There are more ambitious films around at the moment than The Strength of Water, but it would be a shame if this small gem were forgotten in the Christmas rush." — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 2, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 63%
| The Brothers Bloom (2009) | "
This is the kind of "movie movie" that puts everything in quotation marks, letting Johnson indulge his most romantic daydreams." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 66%
| The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) | "
Doctor Parnassus is sometimes exhilarating, sometimes merely deranged -- but since excess and fragmentation are Gilliam's trademarks, his virtues are impossible to separate from his vices." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 28, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 94%
| An Education (2009) | "
A nostalgic, rather equivocal study of the mid-20th-century British sea change in attitudes to sex, class and culture." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 22, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 47%
| Whatever Works (2009) | "
Whatever Works is funnier than anything he's done in a long time -- funny in the robust vaudevillian manner of Groucho Marx." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 29%
| The Final Destination (2009) | "
The characters are crash-test dummies, with dialogue to match. Yet Eric Bress' script is mockingly self-aware, framing the film as the ultimate example of violence as entertainment." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 71%
| Van Diemen's Land (2009) | "
A bold attempt at a full-throttle Australian art movie, Van Diemen's Land disappoints mainly when it falls back on convention... the film is at its strongest when it shifts into an elemental realm and psychology falls away." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 24, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 23%
| Push (2009) | "
McGuigan's saving grace is a willingness to slow down and savour his own images. At best, a moody inconsequence takes over and confusion feels like part of the plan." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 68%
| Funny People (2009) | "
The film is also an admiring portrait of the artist as Californian solipsist -- unburdened by personal ties or even the need to seem intelligent, free to follow his own random, petty, moment-by-moment train of thought." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 98%
| Up (2009) | "
The latest computer-animated adventure from Pixar Studios has a simple premise that should enchant viewers of all ages, fusing childhood fantasies of escape with adult feelings of melancholy and regret." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 89%
| Coraline (2009) | "
This is one of those films that works best if you can forget about the source material. Selick’s film is more like a three-ring circus." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 5, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 54%
| Cheri (2009) | "
Stretching out like a cat on the wide screen, Michelle Pfeiffer shows off her durable glamour in the star role of Lea de Lonval, a high-class courtesan in pre-World War I France." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 15%
| Year One (2009) | "
Year One is an enjoyable knockabout comedy, but as a satire on human folly it's a disappointment; Ramis could have gone much further underlining the parallels between ancient and modern religious wars." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 21, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 83%
| I Love You, Man (2009) | "
Rudd ... is perfectly cast -- no actor this side of Hugh Grant is more comfortable getting flustered." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 12, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 84%
| State of Play (2009) | "
State of Play succeeds as mainstream entertainment to the point where it hardly makes sense to complain about its pulled political punches." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 29, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 100%
| The Square (2009) | "
The script is neatly plotted, though not without flaws. Some developments occur in a rush, as if to distract us from asking inconvenient questions." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 31, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 59%
| Paris 36 (2008) | "
Most of the disasters and triumphs that follow can be predicted well in advance. But the film brings them off with panache, particularly when it transforms into the fully fledged musical that it should have been all along." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 1, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 88%
| Frozen River (2008) | "
Despite a few contrived plot turns and some heavy handed symbolism, this first feature from writer-director Courtney Hunt can be recommended as a thriller, as a tearjerker, and as a regional study." — The Age (Australia) Posted Feb 20, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 85%
| Ghost Town (2008) | "
Writer-director David Koepp is almost too careful a craftsman for his own good, but Gervais and Leoni share a talent for throwing the audience off-balance..." — The Age (Australia) Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 74%
| Son of Rambow (2008) | "
It's a mildly startling choice of subject matter, but Jennings takes for granted that even the most innocent cineastes have their sadistic side." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 5, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 38%
| Smother (2008) | "
This film has its share of crass, unlikely jokes, but also allows its characters some psychological complexity." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 7, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Rotten 51%
| Then She Found Me (2008) | "
The overt stylistic flourishes are so few that they have a special impact, particularly the moment when the camera slowly tracks towards April after she receives a piece of devastating news." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 7, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 18%
| Dance Flick (2009) | "
Much of the material is stupid enough to make anyone's brain ache." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 21, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 90%
| District 9 (2009) | "
As an action director, Blomkamp is no John Carpenter. Parts of the story are not dramatised but narrated direct-to-camera by supposed interview subjects -- a lazy device that reduces immediacy and momentum." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 45%
| Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) | "
Children will probably enjoy Ice Age 3, but adults may find the script a little over-sophisticated, not to say conflicted in its attitudes towards women." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jul 3, 2009 |
Fresh 2.5/5
| Fresh 76%
| Quiet Chaos (2009) | "
Touching and sentimental in equal measure, Quiet Chaos exhibits many traits that fans will recognise from Moretti's own films as director, such as Caro Diario (1993) and The Son's Room (2001)." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 22, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 86%
| The Baader Meinhof Complex (2009) | "
To do full justice to this fascinating subject, you'd need a director with something like Martin Scorsese's appetite for detail, capacity for spectacle, and willingness to face up to his own ambivalence." — The Age (Australia) Posted May 15, 2009 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Rotten 23%
| Fired Up (2009) | "
It fails, partly through prudery -- the "nude" scenes are notably unrevealing -- and partly because the leading men make no effort to perform their own stunts." — The Age (Australia) Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
Rotten 2/4
| Rotten 39%
| Wild Child (2009) | "
The screenplay by Lucy Dahl (daughter of Roald) dwells unpleasantly on cruelty and humiliation, and finally Poppy does little more than exchange one form of snobbery for another." — The Age (Australia) Posted Sep 19, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 71%
| A Film With Me In It (2008) | "
Shot digitally on a low budget, the film is basically a one-joke concept spun out to 90 minutes." — The Age (Australia) Posted Apr 24, 2009 |
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