Through films like Air, Blackberry and now Dumb Money, an intriguing sub-genre has recently emerged in cinema: the maverick entrepreneur capitalist film. Through their depiction of quirky yet highly driven individuals, these movies both critique and celebrate the American obsession with the market and the pursuit of business success. The latest addition to this sub-genre, the fascinating, funny, cheekily inspiring,
Read moreMartin Scorsese has largely built his reputation and ravenous following as a filmmaker on contemporary stories of misfits seeking redemption and Italian American gangsters. Frequently, though, he’s stepped away from that milieu to explore historical subjects and biopics in films like The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York and The Aviator. He hasn’t ventured into the western genre but
Read moreShayda, which was the opening night feature at this year’s MIFF, is a semi-autobiographical film based on the childhood experiences of its writer/ director Noora Niasari. Set in 1995 in the Dandenong area, the film depicts an Iranian-Australian woman, Shayda’s (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) escape from abuse at the hands of her husband, Hossein (Osamah Sami). Having taken her daughter Mona
Read moreRetribution is another entry in that paranoid action movie sub-genre, the Liam Neeson film. As many will now be familiar, the formula for these films involves Liam as a seemingly ordinary guy suddenly being thrust into a deadly situation where he’s trapped in some form of transport with a mysterious fiend sending him cryptic messages and threatening to kill people
Read moreLow-budget British drama, Scrapper takes a slender plot and infuses it with pathos and slightly erratic humour for one of the year’s more engaging cinematic oddities. Following her mother’s death, 12-year-old Georgie (Lola Campbell) is living by herself on an English council estate. Dodging school, making money selling stolen bikes with her friend Ali (Alin Uzun) and duping social services
Read moreThe glacially paced but grimly compelling existential Danish drama Godland echoes films like The Mission, Martin Scorsese’s Silence and the works of Ingmar Bergman as it explores themes of faith, identity, culture clash and human frailty in the face of a brutal universe. On-screen text at the beginning of the film suggests a kind of Blair Witch scenario as it
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