Thursday, 18 September 2025

 September 19th  2025

Kangaroo
Bolero
More from Italian Film Festival
The Thursday Murder Club (streaming)

With school holidays upon us, don't miss taking the whole family to Kangaroo. There's also something for music lovers, Italian cinephiles, and fans of old-style British murder mystery. Dare I say, something for everyone!

Kangaroo
Dir: Kate Woods
© StudioCanal - cute and heartwarming
Sydney TV weatherman Chris Masterman (Ryan Corr) gets sacked from his job and heads to WA to take up a new position. En route he becomes stranded in the town of Silver Gum, after his car hits a kangaroo. The joey he rescues from the dead kanga's pouch will change his life. Twelve-year-old local girl Charlie (Lily Whitely), new to the Red Centre with her recently widowed mother Rosie (Deborah Mailman) also has a passion for kangaroos, and she and Chris form a friendship, with Lily coaching him on how to rear and care for a young joey.  This fictionalised tale is loosely inspired by the real life of Chris "Brolga" Barns, who set up a kangaroo sanctuary in Alice Springs years ago, and still rescues joeys to this day. But this fictionalised narrative ultimately has many more layers than the real-life story. We follow Chris's journey from up-himself TV personality, to humbled human who has to do a lot of self-examination. Alongside him is a young lonely girl grieving her father and finding her connection to Country and Mob, along with new friends. Of course the story hinges on the beautful connection between animals and humans, and those humans finding their place in the world. Corr brings a great blend of  humour and likeability to his character, while young Whitely in her debut role is a total star in the making. Supporting cast are all notable, and highlight the way Indigenous culture is an intrinsic part of  Alice Springs where this film is shot. The visual settings are gorgeous, and the starring Joeys adorable. With a strong story line, great insight into Aboriginal culture, and an embracing warmth and positivity, this is a wonderful new Aussie film for people of all ages to revel in.
4 - highly recommended

Bolero
Dir: Anne Fontaine
Length: 123 mins
© Palace - the story behind the world's
sexiest piece of music
In 1928, Russian dancer Ida Rubenstein (Jeanne Balibar) commissioned a young French composer to write a short piece of music for her, stipulating that it be highly erotic. And so Maurice Ravel (Raphael Personnaz) composed a 17-minute piece of music that, apparently, is still played around the world today once every 15 minutes. That piece is Bolero and this is the story of the man who created it. Personnaz embodies the melancholy composer, full of self doubt but constantly mentally scouring his surroundings for the sounds that will both haunt him and inspire his iconic piece. Emmanuelle Devos is Ravel's loyal pianist and supportive friend Marguerite, while Doria Tillier adds a poignancy as the beautiful Misia, an unattainable romantic interest for Ravel.  Director Anne Fontaine is skilled at capturing a defined historical period, lending the movie a visual loveliness. It is also a rather poignant examination of a sad man, who composed many fine works, but seems ultimately defined by the one iconic piece. This is a treat for music lovers.
3.5 - well recommended

More from St Ali Italian Film Festival 2025
Melbourne until 16 Oct
Palace Cinemas all over Melbourne
For other states, all times, synopses, venues visit: https://italianfilmfestival.com.au/

The festival is now in full swing, so let's look at a couple more that I've previewed. 

The Life Apart (La Vita Accanto): With several awards to its name, this sad yet uplifting  story tells of a young baby girl, Rebecca, born with a huge red birthmark on her cheek. Her mother Maria (Valentina Belle) goes into a lifelong depression, rejecting her child and loving her at the same time. Her father Osvaldo (Paolo Pierobon) does his best, but the true upbringing falls to Osvaldo's twin sister Erminia (Sonia Bergamasco), who is a world-renowned classical pianist. Erminia fosters the musical talent she recognises in her young niece, who progressively grows in confidence despite early rejection by her mother and people around her. There's much lovely music to be enjoyed here, along with a slow-burn narrative that hints at all manner of family secrets, and celebrates a young woman's resilience in overcoming her many life obstacles. Three different and excellent actresses play Rebecca at ages 6, 10 and 17, with the eldest being a real pianist, adding deep authenticity to the musical side. A moving and engaging film. 

Outside (Fuori): Multi award-winning actress in both Italian and English speaking films, Valeria Golino, plays feminist writer Goliarda Sapienza who, after a brief stint in a Rome jail, rediscovers her joy in life through friendships formed with other women she met in prison. Matilda de Anglis is noteworthy as Roberta, a drug-addicted ex-con who forms an especially close bond with Goliarda. While being an interesting study of female friendships crossing class barriers, the film is a bit too slow moving for my taste, and doesn't ever reveal just why Sapienza was considered such an excellent writer. 

The Thursday Murder Club
Dir: Chris Columbus
Length: 118 mins
Streaming on Netflix
© Netflix - British acting royalty in a
fun whodunnit
Four amazing stars from the pantheon of British actors: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie. A good start! Add to the mix a super supporting cast and you could have something amazing. Well, amazing it isn't, nor is it ground-breaking, but it sure is old-fashioned, entertaining British fun. Sometimes one just wants a movie with minimal challenge, to entertain and divert, and this could fit the bill. Four friends in a retirement village amuse themselves trying to solve cold cases, until real-life murder shows up on their doorstep. Daniel Mays adds many laughs as the hapless detective, Naomie Ackie plays policewoman Donna who gets in cahoots with the oldies, David Tennant is the nasty land-developing owner of the village, and along with the likes of Jonathan Pryce and Richard E Grant you have enough acting clout to carry a plot that, while fairly basic, is engaging, funny, and not without a few surprises. And fortunately, the retirees are portrayed respectfully, as more than diddering oldies, such that we don't get cheap laughs at their expense!  
3.5 - well recommended
Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, 10 September 2025

 September 11th  2025

Downton Abbey
Italian FF (Opening Friday 19th October - Melbourne)
Highest 2 Lowest (streaming)

Fans of Downton Abbey get out your hankies - this is the end! Italia-philes rejoice and start planning, a week in advance, for the Italian Film Festival. And for sofa-sitting streamers we have a new film by Spike Lee, starring the ever-watchable and wonderful Denzel Washington. 

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
Dir: Simon Curtis
© Universal - glamour, scandal, family -
and how to relinquish the reins. An era ends!
Get ready to wallow in sumptuousness, family connections, upper-class manners, snobbery, deception, more characters than you can shake a stick at, but most of all a warm and uplifting story of how to relinquish your accustomed role in life, move on, and start a new chapter. Although this film stands quite well on its own, here's some background you may find useful. Written by Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey was a very successful British series running for six seasons from 2010 until 2015. Then came the movies, thrusting the life of an aristocratic British family onto the big screen and giving Dame Maggie Smith yet another iconic role, as the family's matriarch, Violet Crawley. Now, in the third and final film, Violet has died and her son Robert (Hugh Bonneville) is deciding when and how to hand the running of the family and the ancestral home to his daughter Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery). Trouble is, Mary has recently divorced and in 1930 that's a major scandal. Mary's mother Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) staunchly supports Mary, in the face of constant snubs from the local hoi-poloi. While the wealthy folk upstairs are working out their succession plans, below stairs the staff are also going through some big changes. Loyal respected head butler Mr Carson (Jim Carter) is retiring and training up his successor while chief cook Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol) is handing her role over to Daisy (Sophie McShera). Faithful lady's maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt) attends to Mary, who makes matters worse by succumbing to the charms of a visiting American, Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola), a financial advisor to Uncle Harry (Paul Giamatti), Lady Grantham's brother. If you're overwhelmed already, add in Edith (Laura Carmichael) Mary's sister and Lady Merton (a wonderful Penelope Wilton), who takes over running the local county fair and standing up to her stuff-shirted old predecessor.  The piece de resistance is the arrival of man of the moment, playwright, composer and singer Noel Coward (Arty Froushan), accompanied by actor Guy Dexter (Dominic West), whose previous film was made at Downton. So . . . the story is warm, at times funny and a little sad, most of the characters easy to like, the sense of time and place so perfectly recreated, and the many details (marvellous sets and costumes) very engaging. Spending time at Downton makes for an uplifting and comforting experience, depicting a seemingly simpler time (probably not!) and feeling like a welcome relief from all the drama of today's world. With its glorious ensemble cast and old fashioned story-telling, it allows you to melt into and embrace the fading values of loyalty, trust and family, while aware that their world is on a trajectory to major change.
4 - highly recommended 

St Ali Italian Film Festival 2025
Melbourne 19 Sept - 16 Oct
Palace Cinemas
For other states, all times, synopses, venues visit: https://italianfilmfestival.com.au/

Always a winner with Aussie audiences, this festival again brings the latest and best of Italian cinema to our shores. And as usual, there's a retrospective, this year featuring what's known as "giallo cinema", blending mystery, style and shock. Five unsettling films from such legendary directors as Dario Argento challenge you to be disturbed. Another notable feature, a nominee for Golden Lion 2024, is Sicilian Letters, a Mafia tale starring Tony Servillo, winner of countless awards. With other high profile, award-winning films such as La Grazia, The Mountain Bride and Napoli-New York, a feast awaits you. Including the visually impressive winner of Film of the Year from the Italian Syndicate of Film Journalists -  Diamanti. 

Diamonds (Diamanti)
Dir: Ferzan Ozpetek
© Palace - ordinary women's lives and 
not-so-ordinary costumes
The stunning gown on the cover of the festival program indicates the level of glamour and luxury evident in this film, but it's about much more than that, and much is in fact not glamorous. The real director Ozpetek, meets with his favourite present-day actresses at the film's opening and together they devise a narrative set in 1970s Rome in a seamstress studio - one that produces gorgeous garments and costumes for the film industry. Two sisters, Alberta (Luisa Ranieri) and Gabriella (Jasmine Trinca), run the atelier, which is called upon to fulfil a prestigious order from Oscar-winning director Lorenzo (Stefano Accorsi). He clashes with the head seamstress Bianca, and a woman's attempt to be heard and respected forms much of the subtext of this film, starring almost 20 actresses. While Alberta rules with an almost condescending manner, this masks hidden conflicts. So it is with all the women - one an abused wife, one a struggling mother - all with their own small backstories. The camaraderie of the women underpins it all, as does the sheer magic of creating something so beautiful through passion, imagination and commitment. Ozpetek draws this parallel with creating film, which he talks to camera about, breaking the fourth wall (which doesn't totally work for me). All in all, a lovely tribute to women, film and the costume industry.
The Italian FF is, as always, highly recommended.   

Highest 2 Lowest
Dir: Spike Lee
Length: 123 mins
Streaming on Apple TV+
© A24 - 
Any film with Denzel Washington is bound to lure me in. And when he's collaborating with director Spike Lee even better! This script is loosely inspired by High and Low (an Akira Kurosawa film), and focuses upon music mogul David King (Denzel). He's the head of successful record company Stackin' Hits, and has just received $17.5 million in investors' money to do a deal to buy back his share of company.  On that very day he receives a ransom demand from a kidnapper: his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) has been taken. King prepares to turn over the money from the deal for his son's return. But when Trey is found safe, it turns out the kidnapper has accidentally abducted his best pal Kyle (Elijah Wright), son of King's buddy and chauffeur Paul (Jeffrey Wright). So ensues a moral dilemma of the highest order. Will King and wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) risk all to buy back another man's son? Things start off dramatically un-Spike Lee-ish (with views from a lavish penthouse over New York to the tune of Oh What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma). This deliberate choice underscores the fact that King's fortunes have been tanking; he's too attached to the past, and has lost a lot of his enthusiasm for the music - it's now just a business (and includes a lot of gripes about AI!) But after he makes a brave decision re the kidnapping, he achieves viral hero status. The film takes a dramatic turn of style, moving away from King's extravagant life, to him reconnecting with his seedier side as he teams up first with the police, then with Paul to do what has to be done. The setting moves into gritty Brooklyn, a Spike Lee favorite. Some stunningly vibrant and tense scenes ensue: a train interior pursuit that is nailbiting, a motorcycle backpack swap and police chase through a street full of Puerto Rican festa celebrations, (fabulous, tense music!), and a head-to-head rap battle between King and Rapper Yung Felon (A$ap Rocky). Like many American films, the ending is a bit too neat, but all in all, this makes for exciting viewing, and of course to see Denzel in full flight, ably suppported by Wright, is something to revel in. 
4 - highly recommended


Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, 6 September 2025

September 6th  2025

But Also John Clarke
Billy Joel: And So It Goes (streaming)


Only two this week; both docos and both beauties! A wonderful doco on much-loved comedian, John Clarke, and a long but brilliant streaming doco, in two parts, on Billy Joel. 


But Also John Clarke
Dir: Lorin Clarke
© Rialto - wonderful homage to a clever
and much-loved man
Comedy lost a brilliant man with the death of comedian and satirist John Clarke in 2017. Now his daughter Lorin has crafted a glorious tribute to her dad, the man New Zealanders came to know and love as Fred Dagg. The outrageous man in gumboots broke through NZ's staid exterior to herald a new era of comedy. In the 1970s Clarke headed for Oz, where he became one of the best known satirists of the era. For a man whose private life was always subordinate to his personae, he is lovingly revealed in a mixture of archival footage, and interviews, both with Clarke himself, but also with more than 40 friends and colleagues. Actors, journalists, comedians and old friends from around the world talk of Clarke in a way that lets us see how well-loved and respected he was, while Lorin introduces us to "my Dad" in a very warm and naturalistic style. Many hilarious clips had me laughing out loud, while the insights into Clarke's troubled family background, his intellect, as well as his kind nature, round out a picture of an unforgettable cultural icon. 
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended

Billy Joel - And So It Goes
Dir: Susan Lacey and Jessica Levin
Length: 2 hrs 26 (part 1) 2 hrs 34 (part 2)
Streaming on HBO Max 
© HBO Max - you can't get a more in-depth
look at the singer/songwriter than this!
Ok, so I know it's not a cinema film - but a mesmerising five-hour biopic of a genius songwriter deserves to feature here. Painstakingly constructed, the doco features many aspects of Joel's life, from his childhood background, through his career, his relationships and his philosophy on the world and songwriting. The directors don't go for a chronological timeline, and this works really well, adding constant interest. Present-day interviews with Joel are interspersed throughout the rest, which examines his life and works, as he talks honestly and openly about the highs and lows of his life. His many marriages (including to celebrity model Christie Brinkley) feature, as do clips from recording sessions and fabulous concerts. We learn that fans adored him yet the music critics never gave him the credit he deserved until later in his career. Front and centre are his wonderful creations with segments from more than 100 songs featured. His chameleon-like ability to change genre throughout his life cannot help but impress, especially as he returns in later life to his classical roots.  This doco should thrill music fans everywhere.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended


Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)