Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 100%
| The French Kissers (2009) | "
How many teen comedies do you see where the hero is troubled by pimples -- and not just a token few? That's an early sign that Riad Sattouf's funny first feature isn't going to play by the rules." — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 23, 2009 |
Fresh
| Fresh 100%
| My Year Without Sex (2009) | "
Watt strives to cram a great deal into a small space, but her special triumph is that the strain never shows. My Year Without Sex stands as the most accomplished Australian film so far this year." — 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 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 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 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 4/5
| Fresh 94%
| 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 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 |
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 |
Fresh 2/4
| Fresh 90%
| The Black Balloon (2008) | "
A writer-director portrays life with an autistic brother to heartwarming effect." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jan 12, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 89%
| Moon (2009) | "
By halfway the film starts to feel like a mere exercise, one more effort to get maximum value from limited resources. Too much machinery, not enough dread." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 8, 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
| 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 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 88%
| Spirit of the Marathon (2008) | "
In its more tranquil stretches, Spirit of the Marathon might be mistaken for a feature-length sneaker advertisement, but if you're looking for inspiration, you could do worse." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 7, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Fresh 88%
| Young@Heart (2008) | "
As an interviewer Walker is habitually condescending and sometimes downright inane..." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 17, 2008 |
Rotten 1.5/4
| Fresh 88%
| Son of a Lion (2008) | "
As a work of art, it's a transparent con, particularly when Gilmour defensively insists on the 'humanity' of his characters for the benefit of the Western viewer." — The Age (Australia) Posted Aug 29, 2008 |
Rotten 1/5
| Fresh 88%
| Unfinished Sky (2008) | "
This hysterically melodramatic climax marks it as a sure contender for worst Australian film of the year." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
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 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 87%
| 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 |
Fresh 2.5/5
| Fresh 87%
| Mongol (2008) | "
Temudgin is so single-minded that Asano has trouble suggesting much about his inner life." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 86%
| Celebrity: Dominick Dunne (2008) | "
Jolley and de Garis never come close to revealing whatever lurks in the heart of this intelligent, ambitious, plainly unhappy and not particularly admirable man, who bears scars from many wounds, not all of them self-inflicted." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 24, 2008 |
Rotten 2.5/5
| Fresh 86%
| My Brother Is An Only Child (2006) | "
Fast-paced, well-acted and acute about sibling rivalry, the film nonetheless fails to leave a strong impression." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 20, 2008 |
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 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 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 82%
| 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 3.5/5
| 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 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 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 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
| Fresh 75%
| Cold Souls (2009) | "
Cold Souls is imitation Kaufman, written and directed by newcomer Sophie Barthes, who makes no effort to hide the source of her inspiration." — The Age (Australia) Posted Nov 26, 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
| Fresh 72%
| Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) | "
Since this is a film for children, we know with virtual certainty that nobody we care about will come to harm. But there's no reason this deft fantasy shouldn't appeal to adults as well." — The Age (Australia) Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 72%
| Che, Part One (2008) | "
The Guevara portrayed here has humour but no irony: his commitment to the revolutionary ethos leaves little room for doubt, neurosis, or private loyalties of any kind." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 1, 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 |
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 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 71%
| The View From Greenhaven (2008) | "
Whimsical Australian fable with the soul of a tourist brochure." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 24, 2008 |
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 4.5/5
| Fresh 67%
| 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 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 66%
| Away We Go (2009) | "
Mendes paints in broad strokes, but in this case he seems little more than an interpreter of his screenwriters' obsession with innocence." — The Age (Australia) Posted Dec 9, 2009 |
Rotten 1.5/5
| Fresh 66%
| The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) | "
Adamson is probably indifferent to politics, which would be easier to forgive if the film gave you anything else to think about." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jun 7, 2008 |
Fresh 3/5
| Fresh 65%
| 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 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 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 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 64%
| Brideshead Revisited (2008) | "
Directed by Julian Jarrold from a script by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock, this new adaptation adroitly condenses Waugh's plot while eliminating or reversing most of his intended meanings." — The Age (Australia) Posted Oct 24, 2008 |
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 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 |
Rotten 2/5
| Fresh 62%
| Love The Beast (2009) | "
More than anything, Love the Beast testifies to Bana's need to be liked. As an onscreen presence he exerts visible control over every scene, while as a director he largely avoids tackling painful material head on." — The Age (Australia) Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Fresh 2.5/5
| Fresh 61%
| Marley & Me (2008) | "
Wilson may always appear a little too flaky to be bankable as a romantic lead, but set Aniston aside and this could be the purest love story he'll ever get." — The Age (Australia) Posted Jan 2, 2009 |
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