 | RAN: Remote Area Nurse
David Caesar and Susie Porter shake off the stench of Mullet with this superb local production that shocked the nation by actually being good. With a cast of mostly non-professional actors and such a painfully worthy-sounding scenario RAN threatens to be awful, but is actually completely ace. Susie Porter is typically excellent but the big surprise is the total amateur Charles Passi, who excels as the shifty but charismatic Russ. The characters are three-dimensional and the story lines are genuinely interesting, rarely descending into melodrama or stale cliché. My only real complaint is that there are only six episodes and I was greedy for more when it ended. That said, the resolution feels very natural and the less-is-more approach ensures the quality doesn\'t dip. The Australian TV and film industry often seems like one giant sheltered workshop but this can be watched without covering your face with your hands in shame. Result!
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 | Itty Bitty Titty Committee
this film, which I saw in San Fran and then twice in LA knocked my socks off. Jamie Babbit needs an Oscar....this is fun, factual, funny and for god\'s sake a really good love story. I think that anna and sadie are sexy and really real as chicks who dig chicks....daniela sea has never been better and guin turner is funny. BUT THE BEST Part is the story. Good old fashion love story set against the funny group of hot chicks trying to change the world. This is so true and real it hurts. It is funny and the best lesbian film I have ever seen. I have seen a lot of them. Cheerleader is really good but this one is so much better. I don\'t know what film some of you gals are talking about here..only thing I can think is your uptight and then this film is not for you. BEST LESBIAN FILM EVER!!!!!
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 | Romulus, My Father
A broken family have a growing boy at his early teenage years and have no sense of responsibility to grow a child. Considering that both mother and the father is uneducated and clueless, they live in a farm before the World War II; we still have no idea upon why they ruin a child\'s life making a havoc of his psychology.Proved by adversity the family have nothing to distinguish their boy, nor to give anything to make him happy, nor to teach him anything precisely good. Father gets to figure out that the kid needs a college education, and sends him to a college. Then after the suicide of the mother, the boy gets closer to his father. A happy ending occurs and mops up all the pain and unpleasant situations out of the movie, and hopefully out of the boy\'s memory. Thus, his father taught him one thing, a very important one, how to be patient of adversity.For a tough story to put on silver screen, the actors\' performances are somewhat exhilarating; and that\'s the mainspring to tolerate this movie. Within low-budget movies with no technical endeavors, if you like to witness a modest triumph of a child, much better than My Father Romulus, I advise you to watch "I am David".
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 | Romasanta
I really liked this movie. This is not a B movie, although the title is rather hokey. I like the original title better, but on the other hand it might not have piqued my interest if it hadn\'t had "werewolf" in the title! It is a horror story and a love story. The acting is above average and the cinematography is absolutely beautiful. The story is somewhat based on a true story about a man tried and imprisoned for 15 murders in 19th century Spain. His defense was that he was in fact, a werewolf and had no control over himself once he transformed. The murders are quite gruesome. The few scenes of animal abuse disturbed me more, but that\'s just me.
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 | Princesas
I watched this movie in the cinemas in Madrid, and I was pleasantly surprised. Not haven seen or heard anything about the movie, except for the posters, I did not know what to expect.This movie is about the lives of prostitutes, and is not groundbreaking in selection of topic. The manner, in which it is portrayed, however, is perfect. Not being caught up in the American standards, Fernando León de Aranoa has gone his own way, making Princesas a great, original movie. When that has been said, it does contain a few clichés that keeps this movie from reaching it\'s full potential.Candela Peña fits perfectly in the role of Caye, and she does an amazing job conveying the emotions of her character to the audience. Even more so this time than she did in \'Todo sobre mi madre\'. In one of the last scenes, she is on a date with a guy she hit it off with (that does not know what she do for a living), and the feelings she displays... It makes you wonder how the crappy Hollywood actresses (of course not all of them) got their jobs, considering there are others out there, who just leave them in the dust.If you\'re looking for a realistic movie about prostitution, or just a story to live yourself into - take a look at this.
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 | Rats and Cats
Working for an obscure magazine, Ben (Zwar) tracks down faded TV soap star Darren McWarren (Gann) in a tiny broken-down coastal town outside Melbourne in order to interview him for a \'Where Are They Now?\' segment. But when the reclusive Darren invites Ben to stay with him, his girlfriend Cindy (Beyersdorf) and his dogsbody Bruce (Denny), Ben gets more than he bargained for. *Very* dark (and very funny) comedy is brilliantly conceived by Gann, Zwar and Rogers, whose first successful creation was the Wilfred character (which emerged in a prizewinning 2002 Tropfest short). RATS AND CATS is much edgier, gloomier and subtler than WILFRED, as Zwar is superb as the straight foil to Gann\'s over-the-top narcissist. It\'s a shame this barely got a release.
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 | Caterpillar Wish
I\'m over in Sydney on business and I popped in to see what was on in the local cinema. All the films that were on i\'d seen, and the only thing I hadn\'t was Caterpillar Wish. I kinda groaned a little when I realised it was an Oz picture, I went in almost expecting a not great film. A "We have to show something home grown because the government says so" type film. BUT I was amazingly surprised! It was so much better than I expected. Oz really does have talent! The actors were pretty good, the only thing I felt that let it down a little was the cinematography. Things could have been a little tighter, I think the crash sequence (without giving anything away) could have been done more effectively, in my eyes it just didn\'t work.
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 | Strange Fits of Passion
`She\' (Noonan) is a self-obsessed twentysomething desperate to lose her virginity but unsure of why or how or to whom. A `curl-up-in-front-of-the-fire-with-a-cup-of-hot-chocolate-on-a-winter\'s-night\' film for the 16-35 year old bracket: self-important, but identifiable, and it leaves you with those familiar warm fuzzies afterwards. Noonan does a terrific job, leading a cast of essentially unknowns (with the exception of Johnson, who would achieve international fame with his role in the acclaimed The Secret Life of Us, for a similar demographic) through a searching script that has nothing for action movie fans. The `she\' character is written well – we can spot her flaws almost immediately, but, as with life, it is up to the individual to address them, and the way she goes about doing that provides us with angst-ridden, often cringe-able humour. Successful at film festivals, romantic will love it, but critics might find it to be a difficult sell.
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 | A Good Lawyer\'s Wife
This is less of a movie than a very extended soap opera. An apparently conscientious young Korean attorney has an affair while his sexually frustrated wife goes looking elsewhere for fulfillment. Apparently he\'s lousy in bed since both of his women seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in post-coital masturbation. Meanwhile his mother finds love elsewhere as his father lies dieing while his young and tasty assistant yearns for the day when she can make his triangle a square. Altogether it provides a fascinating insight into Korean society, that being - they\'re just like Americans - or maybe, more specifically, just like Manhattanites - those in Sex and the City, for example.If this movie has anything deeper to say than "get it while you can" it keeps it well hidden. The tragedy which brings the attorney\'s marriage - and the movie - to its inevitable conclusion seems to have nothing to do with the plot other than to provide it with a convenient resolution. Still its refreshing to see sexual relationships, marital and otherwise, portrayed in such a frank and nonjudgmental manner. Pity that the film continued about 45 minutes beyond the point that I stopped caring.
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 | The Book of Revelation
In these days of \'safe\' cinema, it\'s great to see a bold director not afraid to take big risks. This is challenging cinema, and though there is nudity and sex, it is never gratuitous. It is intelligent, well-filmed, and with nice music. It\'s the best performance I\'ve seen from Tom Long.The consistency of the film wasn\'t as sharp as it could have been. Colin Friels was (as always) very good, and it would have been good for his role to have been further developed, as his part at the end seemed a little abrupt. The film seemed a little long, not as satisfying as the director\'s previous film Head On, but well-done nonetheless.There was something unsettling about this film that I can\'t quite put my finger on. It has something to do with the look and feel. It seems it was an exploration by the director that didn\'t completely pay off. Maybe there was an air of unreality – it certainly didn\'t have the grittiness that pays off in Alkinos Tsilimidos\' Em4Jay.
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 | Hung: Season 1: Episode 1
The verdict is not in yet, the series just started. It has great potential and we are looking forward to seeing that large dick. However this is HBO so male frontal nudity will be limited.
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 | Boogeyman
Something I\'ve noticed lately is that horror movies make for great previews. When I saw the trailer for BOOGEYMAN I was thinking, "This film is gonna rock!" WRONG! This is another terrible Hollywood scare flick that couldn\'t scare a 12 year old. I jumped more at the preview than the movie. The worst part is the story is so heavy handed that it steals any fun out of this convoluted mess. Let\'s remember what were making here, guys, it ain\'t no Oscar contender. Too bad the movie wasn\'t just a shade worse so it could enter that so-bad-it\'s good realm. This one is just bad.There are a lot of great horror movies out there these days so skip this one!
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 | Hung: Season 1
The verdict is not in yet, the series just started. It has great potential and we are looking forward to seeing that large dick. However this is HBO so male frontal nudity will be limited.
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 | Stoned
You might think the life and lifestyle of rock star Brian Jones consisted of a little more than what we get in Stephen Woolley\'s 2005 film entitled \'Stoned\'. But then again, it isn\'t about his life as much as it is about his death; it isn\'t really about Brian Jones as much as it is about a certain Frank Thorogood, and the things he did during a famous but fateful period of time. I read that there is no definitive answer regarding Jone\'s death, a deathbed confession that supposedly never was; a tragic accident that was apparently very deliberate. The film is, in the end, a documenting of one side of the story – a belief a certain director might have or a take on previously transpired events. It is a documentation that is brimming with style and emphasis on the visual as it flies through this person\'s life up to the point he\'ll meet the man that supposedly murdered him, before slowing down and making a meek study.The man in question is Brian Jones (Gregory), a member of a rock band named The Rolling Stones from which I\'m pretty sure the title of the film comes; although he did rather like his drug use. The film begins with Jones\' euphoric rise to power with archive footage shoved in our faces as fast edits, bright colours and general build up hogs the screen. This is before Paddy Considine\'s Frank Thorogood arrives, a builder who leads a very simple life with unspectacular but somewhat desired results. He is unimpressed by Jones at first, even under-rawed by his presence in comparison to flocks of screaming fans shown mere minutes ago. And so the slight study is established with an underwhelmed Thorogood initially meeting super-star Jones before time develops mindsets and attitudes eventually change.The study isn\'t so much obsession with a celebrity, as explored in The King of Comedy, as much as it is eventual jealousy; a taste of the forbidden fruit and then a constant temptation to revert back to it. But it is Jones whose given the majority of the runtime, through a series of necessary flashbacks unfolded mostly through a visual filter of bright colours; bizarre camera angles shot on an array of different lens\'; this down to the influence the ecstasy has on said people. We get all the necessary stuff: the scenes at the concerts; progression with the rest of the band members and how that spirals out of control; the progression of his relationship with girlfriends and the meeting of a certain Anna Wohlin (Novotny) backstage at Munich, although I\'m not sure how she got through all that crowd control. She does, incidentally, pretty much exist to remove her clothes every now and again as well as act as the object of Thorogood\'s gaze.Jones seems to have garnered all of what he had by accident. He\'s portrayed as immature and not as a particularly clever individual at the best of times, but he inherits all this fame and attention which comes with the house, the cars and the women following shows across Europe. But rather than portray Jones in a negative light and force us into disliking him, I really just felt sorry for him; that this individual, who clearly loves what he does for a living, just doesn\'t know how to use all this money and fame in a sensible manner with moderation seemingly ever-elusive. A lot of whatever kick you\'re going to get out of the study the film makes, lies within Thorogood\'s gaze. He, along with a few other builders, is hired to extend Jones\' huge manor house based out in the country as Jones himself faces exile from the band that made him famous.As a character, Frank is central to the film. He represents not only the audience, as a figure that is given permission to be allowed into this little world of allure and fame, but additionally as a representation of how easy it to fall into the \'trap\' of this lifestyle; how someone quite feasibly on Brian Jones\' \'level\' of sensibility and intellect can be lured into a life of women, hallucinogenic drugs and rock music. It also acts as a demonstration on Jones\' influence and how his way of life is able to influence. Frank is allowed glimpses of Anna when he does push-ups in front of her as well as Jones; he gets a flavour for the laid back lifestyle as Jones sits beside an empty pool and listens to rock music, Frank looking over him in eerie fashion given how it all ends; and the casual drug use soon follows before Frank begins to loose the trust and connection with his fellow builders, much like Jones began to loose the respect and acknowledgement of his own group of co-workers, that being his band: The Rolling Stones.It\'s all quite interesting, but progressive and feels somewhat obligatory. David Morrissey turns up now and again as Tom Keylock, Jones\' manager and chews the scenery as he spouts dialogue delivered in what sounds uncannily like a Michael Caine impression; but the supporting cast is disappointing on the whole. The other \'Stones\' members are there purely for petty visualisation; the girls exist to get naked and daft cameos from people like David Walliams as an accountant just distract when it shouldn\'t. Regardless, the film is worth seeing for its documentation of Jones\' last days and its look at the lifestyle it studies.
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 | Hallam Foe
Definitely. I even dreamt about him. Jamie Bell\'s performance as a juvenile peeping tom is one that stays with you, following your subconscious around without permission. Eliciting sympathy one moment and astonishment the next, this teenager reeling from the death of his mother leaves viewers similarly out of kilter. A dramatic thriller funnier than a lot of what passes for comedy, David McKenzie\'s new feature is beautifully shot in Scotland without wasting a second, the camera lingering like Hallam\'s binoculars one moment before leaping to the next vantage point. The plot often feels erratic as Hallam rushes around Edinburgh in a haze of paranoia and confusion, but I felt this added to my sympathy for the young crazy, and only a couple of conveniently unfortunate incidents to ratchet up the tempo jarred slightly. A strong soundtrack from Scottish indie heroes Orange Juice and a host of their darker-tinged descendants helped everything along nicely. A strong cast made for compelling viewing, particularly Sophia Myles as the object of Hallam\'s roving lenses, though for me it was Jamie Bell\'s impressive turn that made it real. He even overshadowed Spud.
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 | The Notorious Bettie Page
First, let me say that Notorious is an absolutely charming film, very lovingly rendered of its time and subject(s). Gretchen Mol is utterly, painfully convincing, the very soul of the contradictions smoothly reified by Ms. Page herself. Irving and Paula Klaw are richly drawn as the working-class stiffs they were (having met Paula at Movie Star News in 1990 I can say that Lili Taylor\'s performance is unimpeachable), and Jared Harris as John Willie (Coutts) is an adoringly debauched genius. Anyone with an interest in the recorded history of American attitudes toward sexuality must see this movie, in a theater preferably, where votes made with dollars count more.Second, I will allow that I am a producer of material similar to that for which the Klaws would become famous, which is no way affects my estimation of Ms. Harron\'s work as the splendid piece that it is, but does condition my view of Notorious as an act of political resistance of the first order. Ms. Harron has crafted a work of subtle subversion. Along with V for Vendetta, it is a movie about another time for our times.Few readers of this site will be aware that the government they will see enacted in Notorious (through transcription of the very words uttered in closed Senate committee hearings) is a very close approximation of the one they live under right now. While Ms. Harron expressly disallows that she has a political agenda appended to this film, her faithfulness to the facts, and the respectful and unsensational way in which she renders them, synchronizes Notorious with the present day. The very acts that Notorious portrays in loving and accurate detail are defined as obscene by the Communications Decency Act, recently brought to the Supreme Court as a First Amendment case and turned back there at the behest of the Bush administration. In other words, the delicate and ineffectual bondage depicted in Notorious is indictable today by Federal prosecutors in whatever (hostile) jurisdiction they choose. Of course, there were no hearings in the Senate or elsewhere on this matter when the CDA was passed. Of course you know nothing about it, because you don\'t want people in Peoria telling you what you can and cannot look at (likewise, people in Peoria probably don\'t want me telling them what they\'re allowed to view). Of course Notorious will never be indicted. It\'s Hollywood. It\'s lawyered up. Countless Klaws will, however, continue to be steamrolled by a puritanical bureaucracy that has not advanced its aesthetic, moral or biological composition much in 50+ years.In addition, Notorious posts no 18 USC 2257 compliance statement, which is mandated by the unnoticed "earmark" recently voted into law. If any media contains images of "sadomasochistic restraint" it is required to make available (ex warrant) records of age and circumstance of all performers. Notorious fails in this regard also.In addition to being a splendid piece of entertainment and an (nearly) accurate historical document, Notorious will be the litmus against which the Bush Justice Department is itself judged with respect to the 14th (Equal Protection) Amendment and on perhaps several other Constitutional grounds. In this regard alone, a debt of gratitude is owed Mary Harron. You\'ll be grateful in any case, Constitutional or otherwise, if you see this film.
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