Off-topic Rants

Red Road is a dark thriller about Jackie, a surveillance camera officer, who watches over the dangerous streets of Glasgow on a matrix of television screens. One day, she recognises a man whose past collides traumatically with her own. She begins to stalk him. After following him under the security of closed circuit surveillance cameras, she takes the next step, and integrates herself into his life. As she becomes closer to him, and the stakes becomes much higher, we start to learn the facts behind why she is so intent of hunting down this man. This film starts off really slow. We observe Jackie watching camera footage of uneventful streets and shop fronts. But, as she becomes more obsessed with keeping tabs on the mystery man, the film gains momentum, and doesn’t stop until the very end. Jackie is thrown into a dangerous world, full of dodgy people. But we don’t understand why she puts herself in this situation until the very end, and by then, everything is quite intense. Although I wouldn’t say this is one of my favourite films, it certainly isn’t boring by the end. In fact, it becomes quite disturbing and almost terrifying in sections. Incredibly well acted – this film really takes you on a journey through some quite scary territory. The look of the film is very rough and gritty, to match the tough neighbourhood. The sound design is very minimal, with no music throughout the whole film. A bit slow in places, but waiting till the end is worth it.

At the time, I really enjoyed this film. It was exciting, it was interested, and I actually cared for the characters. I thought the opening special effects were a bit suss, but apart from that, I thought it was a good fun, and dramatic movie. But, in retrospect, I have a lot of issues with this film. That said, I still like the film – it kept me entertained for 126 minutes, but it does have its floors. This film is based on a true story of a US air pilot who was shot down while flying over Laos, during a classified mission during the Vietnam War. After the plane comes crashing to the ground, within no time at all, he’s captured and put into a prisoners camp – no surprise there! Not accepting the certain death ahead, he decides to craft a plan to escape with the several other American prisoners of War. This film was full of clichés. It started off very predictably, with US soldiers, being very cocky and arrogant, as they fool around before their mission. But the main problem I had was that the film was pretty unrealistic. Who shot down the plane? The whole opening happened so fast, that you didn’t have a chance to work out why it happened. The main character looked and acted as if he was enjoying his time at the prison. He was also very healthy looking, considering none of the prisoners ate anything of real substance. Why did the locals randomly kill the American solider with machetes? Why not kill them both? Why did the American’s throw away their guns? Why didn’t they capture the local who caught the fish, seeing as they had weapons, they were starving, and the man had nothing to protect him? Why was the ending so “this man’s a hero”? It was a bit over-the-top! I know this is supposed to be based on a true story – but there are just so many things I can’t see as really happening. Although a lot of people seem to disagree with me, I also feel this is a very “pro America” film. The American’s were “so good” and the people of the Vietnamese jungle “so bad”. I’m sure they weren’t the nicest people on earth – they did torture him after all, but the way the script was structured kind of disturbed me. I didn’t feel as if the enemy were real people, but instead, just the enemy. As I said, at the time, I really enjoyed watching it. Even after, I felt satisfied. I rate this film highly. It’s just that there were a lot of things that didn’t sit right. The actor behind Dengler was the main issue. He always seemed more “drunk” than someone who’s just been tortured and locked up. Finally, there was no perspective of time. The characters seemed to know what day it was, but the audience had no idea. Either way, I still liked it.

This witty yet tragic longish short film is about two Iranian refugees – a journalist in his 40s and an adventurous yet lonely man in his late 20s – who pretend to be a gay couple in order to obtain asylum. What starts off as a relatively straight forward plan becomes slightly more complicated when the younger man falls in love with an African lady with a child in the refugee camp. Things are further complicated when their documents claim they were whipped by the authorities prior to their leaving of the country due to their sexuality. This is a really entertaining short film. The acting by the “odd couple” is great; there is a real chemistry between the two men. The cinematography is excellent – I especially loved the look of the snow scene. There are some really funny moments in this film, although all of them are quite subtle. It also has a very cleaver and satisfying ending.

What are the chances? The film I hated the most has been the only film with projection problems, forcing the screening to run for even longer. I think the projectionist fell asleep. I don’t know what it was about this film, but it was incredibly boring. It opened with a five minute wide shot of a forest. Nothing happened. Nothing at all! The rest of the film wasn’t that much better. Stuff happened, but it was so tedious, that I didn’t take any of it in. It shouldn’t have been boring. It had people dieing, wives creating on husbands, husbands sleeping with wives sisters, child dramas, and all that. But it was just really, really uninteresting. Everything was so slow. All the shots ran for a minute longer than they needed to. The acting was probably OK, but there was so much space between words, that you couldn’t take in the dialogue, and therefore didn’t even concentrate on what the actors were doing, let alone saying. The young girl was a good actor – I noticed that. She was very believable, and despite the fact she didn’t say much, her presence on the screen was very powerful. But that was the only positive thing I got out of this film.

Another Bloody Office Outing. The Company Is Making Cutbacks. If you put The Office (2001) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006) in a blender, the end result would be something quite similar to writer/director Christopher Smith’s second feature film, Severance (2006). Moving onward and upward from his first feature, Creep (2004), Smith has decided to expand upon his horror/thriller repertoire, adding comedy to the mix. However, unlike other British horror/comedy films such as the highly successful Shaun of the Dead (2004) – which is without doubts side-splittingly hilarious, but honestly not bloodcurdling in the slightest (despite a lot of airborne blood) – this film successfully oscillates between the two genres; it makes you laugh and yet still gives you the absolute creeps. The story is simple: a team of sales executives from Palisade Defence, a multi-national weapons company, head to a corporate retreat in the forests of Hungary as a team and morale building exercise. When they come across a road block due to a suspiciously fallen tree, and their foreign speaking bus driver refuses to go an alternate route, they are forced to walk to their secluded lodge. They make it safely (although much to their dismay, their supposed luxurious lodge is more like a haunted mansion), but are soon hunted down one by one by merciless masked assailants in the woods for reasons that are never fully explained – although a lot of hypothetical theories are thrown out there.

This film truly takes you on an emotional rollercoaster. It’ll make you laugh and it will [almost] bring a tear to your eye. But what I really liked about this film was that it was surprisingly unpredictable. I was absolutely sure that Potter was going to “do the right thing” and give back the money. Even when the whole town converged at the Bailey residence, I was just waiting for the villain to make an appearance and profess to his sins. But, it just never happened. Potter was just bad to the bone – pure evil (“Happy New Year to you…in jail”)! Ebenezer Scrooge should take lessons. The highlight for me though was the enormously outdated special effects. They really added an extra degree of humour to the film – although I have a strange feeling that even back in 1946 it still would have made the kids laugh. Despite the fact that the whole film looked like it was shot in a Hollywood studio, visually the film was quite beautiful. Shooting in Black & White was a great move – even though they had colour at that stage. I loved the old broken down house Mary and George eventually moved into. It kind of reminded me of the Adam’s Family house – so much character, so much history, and so much potential! Something else that stood out for me was the minimal use of music. Unlike a lot of films today – especially Christmas films – were the audience is bombarded with audio content, “It’s a Wonderful Life” only made use of an orchestral score when it really needed to for propelling the story along. Although I must admit, that some of the Foley work really reminded me about the whole “shooting in a studio” thing – which was kind of distracting. This is one of those “feel good” movies, which seems almost typical now days. It’s a magnificent Christmas movie – even though the message behind the screenplay isn’t really about the holiday season at all – although it still has NOTHING on Brian Henson’s 1992 “The Muppet Christmas Carol”. I mean, how can James Stewart possibly compete with Rizzo the Rat (“Mother always taught me…never eat singing food”)! So with that all said and done, I give it an eight…

Every once in a while you sit down on your couch, fire up the DVD player and watch something that completely blows you away. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it truly affects you as a human being. It takes a lot of extraordinary ingredients to pull off a masterpiece; a lot of sheer talent and a huge amount of luck (just look at the circus parade scene!). The first element you need is a great idea – something that sparks intrigue and imagination. A concept that is simple yet can be built upon to create a complex and intricate screenplay. When a friend of Michel Gondry (the director of Eternal Sunshine) came to him with the idea that someone sends you a letter informing you that you’ve been erased from their memory, his mind raced into action. He contacted Charlie Kaufman, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, who took up the challenge and helped transform that simple notion into an exhilarating and multifaceted screenplay. Once the words were on the page, it was then time to convert them into something that an audience can watch, listen and most importantly, feel.

In Tony Scott’s 1998 blockbuster, “Enemy of the State”, a successful Washington DC lawyer is hunted down by a government intelligence group, after he is inadvertently given a video tape revealing the murder of a congressman. As he attempts to gather the facts with the intention to release them to the public’s eye, the full weight of the government’s surveillance equipment is swung into action – everything from coin size bugging devices and telephone location tracing to real-time satellite surveillance. The lawyer’s bank details, phone records and other extremely personal details are brought up and manipulated with ease by the government using their extensive computer networks (Touchstone Pictures 1998). Although at the time of the movies release the majority of the technology displayed in this film appeared far fetched and extremely unlikely. Step forward seven years and most, if not all of the equipment, suddenly seems all the more plausible.

The purpose of this document is to explain the philosophy behind Open Source. It will first examine the definition of the term, then reveal its history,

As part of our Language and Communications class, we split into groups of four people and conducted a series of interviews. One person acted as camera tech, another sound tech, an interviewer and an interviewee. The purpose of the interview was to try and learn something about the interviewee that the interviewer didn’t previously know. It gave us a chance to consider documentary ethics, practise the technical aspects of documentary production, and to experiment with different interviewing styles.

I have just realised that after half a year of studying film and television, my whole perspective of what makes a fantastic movie has changed. Last year, I would have said it has to entertain me and absorb me in its world. That’s still true – a good movie still must do this. However, I have started to believe that a good movie must also offer something new. It has to push boundaries. It has to challenge its viewers. It has to be groundbreaking. I knew this – it almost seems like common sense. However, I didn’t truly understand the concept. Movies like The Isle, 2:37 and The Book of Revelation, fit into the revolutionary category. Although all of them scared the hell out of me, and seriously made me wonder what I was doing watching them, I have grown, not only to appreciate them, but I now actually understand that they’re truly fantastic pieces of art and because of that, I have made the conscious decision to say “I like them”. Previously, I only appreciated them – I didn’t consider them compulsory viewing. I’ve change my opinion. I think you need to watch film like these, if you are going to become a filmmaker, so that you understand that the challenge is to create something that hasn’t been done before. To create something that will spark people’s imaginations. Make them angry – make them cry – whatever. Now, a lot of people have suggested that 2:37 is just a rip off of Elephant. Personally, I think that’s a bit of an over exaggeration. Yes, the cinematography is very similar. Some of the camera work is almost exactly the same. And yes, the sound design is very similar (which isn’t unpredictable seeing as the same person did both movies). And yes, the story does have its similarities – i.e. it’s about a high school that suffers a tragic event. However, after watching elephant for the first time, I came out of the room with a completely different feeling to when I left 2:37. After watching 2:37 I felt sick. I felt like I had just been tortured. However after watching Elephant, I felt something completely different. That’s why I don’t believe 2:37 is a rip off of Elephant. Although it has a lot of similarities, you leave the theatre feeling different emotions. It’s not so much about the sound design, or what’s shown on screen. It’s more about the feelings and emotions it sparks. That’s what film school has taught me thus far. It’s not about pretty pictures and nice sounding audio. It’s about a story that messes with the viewer. The story is everything. The story must evoke a passion in the viewer, whether it’s negative or positive. I’ve come to realise that that’s what filmmaking is all about.

As Robert stands in the middle of a street contemplating the text written on a coin, he is suddenly hit by a SUV and instantly killed. In the waiting room of the afterlife, Robert soon is told by a clerk that he’s destined for Hell. All the little bad things that Robert has done in life have added up and his “score” is not good enough for the likes of heaven. When the clerk’s Windows computer crashes, Robert makes a quick getaway, and returns back on earth. He then foils a robbery, visits his girlfriend, dances and drinks a smoothie with his dad. His score rises with each good deed – but the afterlife authorities are on hot pursuit. This is an extremely funny film with great production values. It has a very “Run Lola Run” style to it as Robert races around just to stay alive.

It truly is an amazingly uplifting sensation, when you leave a cinema knowing that you’ve just witnessed a cinematic masterpiece. It feels even better when the film has been produced by people from your own home country. Like Minds is a refreshingly new and unique Australian film (despite the fact that it is set in the UK), which is sure to make a huge impact in the box offices not only locally, but internationally as well.

15-year-old Nils invites his 12-year-old girlfriend Livia to spend the holidays with him and his mother and father at their summer home. One day whilst sailing, Nils returns home without Livia, much to his families shock. Silvia returns home later that day, with Bill, a much older man who took her sailing. When the brazenly sensual Livia begins flirting with Bill, Miriam (Nils’ mother) feels it is her responsibility to stop the questionable relationship. But as she does so, it is she herself who falls for the shy and charmingly insecure Bill. Miriam forges ahead, seducing him, seeing him secretly. But it is Livia that Bill loves, not Miriam. And suddenly the vast horizons of her life vanish in a fog of jealousy and rejection – emotions that prove to be far less controllable than she thought. This is a beautifully shot German film, with a simple yet unpredictable and mesmerising screenplay. Once you start watching, you can’t look away.

One of the worst things about attending any film festival is that unfortunately, you will, at least once (although probably more often than not), be trapped in a jammed packed theatre and forced to witness some of the worst footage ever projected onto the big screen. It’s simply a matter of common courtesy not to walk out during a film, however, during the Melbourne Film Festival this year, I made the disastrous mistake of watching the Quay brother’s second feature length movie, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes. In retrospect, I should have ignored etiquette, and just have made a run for it. I would say it’s a “cinematic abomination”, but that would be an understatement. The fact that it won several prizes in the Locarno International Film Festival, makes me seriously wonder if all the judges were all high on marijuana, seeing as it’s still legal to grow in Switzerland. All I can say is, lucky them! The only possible way of making sense of this film would be to watch it under the influence of some kind of weird and wonderful mind altering substance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m normally strongly against all forms of illicit drugs, but this film is making me seriously reconsider their use as a tool to make sense of other people’s sick and twisted ideas and interpretations.

This is a great experimental documentary, made up of a series of short clips filmed by actual inmates of Baumettes Prison in France. Basically, someone has given ten men a handheld video camera, some quick instructions on how to press record, and let the people do their thing. This is a really interesting film, as the characters are so interesting. However, it is what it is: a bunch of criminals with digital cameras.

This is an experimental film that shows a whole heap of seemingly random images and sounds. I really like the look and feel of this film. The images looked fantastic and really kept you interested making you want to watch more. I especially loved the out of focus streams of coloured light. But what I loved most was the truly unique soundtrack. It used a whole heap of sounds from various locations to achieve a mood which suited the images – and it worked really well.

This is a short Australian documentary that focuses on the stories from a group of “old blokes” that live in a public high-rise building. The occupants tell us about their daily routines, their past and dreams. And that’s basically it. The filmmaker got a camera and filmed a group of old people as she asked some rather random questions. To me, I found this film to be a lazy attempt of a documentary. The photography was average, and the sound quality was pretty ordinary. Even though the characters in the film were very interesting people, it seemed as if they weren’t being fed the right questions to spark up exciting conversation. Although there were some funny moments, and it did give an insight into a world I’m unfamiliar of, I think it could have been pulled off a million times better. I wasn’t impressed with this film.

An insurance investigator is brought in to scrutinise a car accident in which a notorious scam artist has been allegedly burnt to a crisp. But as he digs deeper into the events leading up into the incident, the more complex everything becomes. It explores good versus evil; con artist versus insurance companies (both as unethical as each other). Although I like some elements of this movie, overall I wasn’t that impressed. Julia Stiles, Peter Coyote and the little boy who played Thor, were fantastic. Although they were really the “bad guys”, I felt for them. However, for one reason or another, I just didn’t seem to connect with the main character, played by Forest Whitaker. Maybe I just didn’t like his character? Maybe I just didn’t like the fact that he worked for an evil bean counting insurance company? I’m not sure. I did however like the tone and look of the film – very bleak, barren, isolated and dark. I’m not sure about whether I liked the story or not. It offered plenty of twists and turns, but at times seemed a little unrealistic. It has plenty of action and suspense, which keeps it exciting. The music was also very powerful but didn’t always complement the images on screen. Well worth watching, although I have a gut feeling it’s missing something.

This is a short Portuguese film about a drinking and smoking man who harasses a woman in his apartment. It was kind of entertaining to watch, as you didn’t know how aggressive this man would get, or whether maybe the woman was a “villain”, but the end was very anticlimactic. The production values were also relatively poor, with average lighting and average sound.

This is a really bizarre and comical film about the last performance of a fictitious radio variety show; before a Texas Company turns the old theatre venue they use into a multi-story car park. Full of singing, dancing, seriously bizarre and eccentric characters, and even an Angle from above, this film is really entertaining. The radio show manager was hilarious, as were some of the less major characters, such as the sound effects man and the stage manager. It had an almost documentary feel to it, as all the characters felt so real and natural. The chemistry between all the characters is also really good. Despite the fact I’ve never been a big fan of musical films, I really like this one. It had loads of colour and beautiful camera work, and a killer soundtrack and musical score. Well worth watching.

This is a short film based on Shakespeare’s Richard III, but set in present day Melbourne that explores the relationship between to people, murder, betrayal, emotional turmoil and seduction. To be perfectly honest, I can’t really remember if I found this film to be of really high production value or really low. Never-the-less, it was very Shakespeare, and seems to fit together fine. It’s not my sort of film though.

A tale of a butcher, a baker, a hunter, a dog, a cat, an apple pie and a series of misunderstandings and unfortunate events! This is a funny little animation that doesn’t have any dialog. The colours and look of the film are great – very bold and modern. Although the story is a bit hard to follow straight away, it proves to be a great little screenplay!

I’m not exactly sure what was going on a lot of the time in this movie. It seemed quite random. Set in Bamako in Africa, from what I could gather a trial was taking place between the African people and the World Bank, in someone’s courtyard. The actual trial was really interesting, as the “witnesses” expressed their views and opinions about globalisation, privatisation, and the African debt. The film then took an unusual turn midway, when it had a film-within-a-film; a Western spoof, with a whole lot of random shootings. It then went back to the trial, whilst focussing on several of the town’s people at various points. Personally, I couldn’t get my head around this film. I really liked some of the speeches people made at the trial, but I wasn’t and am still not completely sure what the trail actually was! I’m also not sure what a lot of the people at the trial were doing there. In fact, there was probably more I didn’t understand in this film, than there was stuff I did! However, it was certainly different, and at the beginning, it was really interesting. However, by the end, one of the characters in the film summed it up best: “when’s this trail going to end?” A very strange film indeed!

This is a great little fake English documentary about Siamese twins, who are groomed into becoming commercial rocks stars. The script is really well done, and you seriously feel like you are watching history – not fiction. All the acting is great, and each character is unique and fits the story perfectly. If you’re in the mood for watching a fake documentary, this is a great movie!

This is a really simple and slow movie that shows the lives of two small town workers at the local doll factory. It shows Martha, a middle aged woman, and Kyle, a young man, going about their mundane day to day lives as they exchange their thoughts, dreams and experiences over bad coffee and cheap fast food. Things change when a new and attractive woman called Rose starts work at the factory. Kyle is instantly attracted to her as she brings with her a change to his dull daily routine. Martha on the other hand, although she’s quite friendly towards the new kid on the block, knows that Rose possess the potential to destroy her perfectly organised world of small actions and repetitive complacency. When Rose is discovered murdered, the movie changes into more of a detective story, although the pace and style doesn’t change. The weird love triangle between the three main characters, offers some dark humour, but apart from that, it’s basically a snail-paced film that tells the story of bored and humdrum individuals.

This is a great fake documentary, about a group of people who make a fictional film about a terrorist cell that captures infamous former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It mixes footage of the making of the fictional no budget film shoot (as the character are harassed by the authorities), with footage of a finished product (basically a film-within-a-film). This is a really gutsy and intelligent film, of which I have a lot of respect for. I can only imagine, actually making this film (the one I saw), was just as hard as what, as I viewer, I witnessed of the characters making the film. Despite the fact that it was constantly going from fictional “real life” to the actual film content, the movie was easy to follow. The characters were great, and the look of the film suited the style. But what made this film special is that the script/story is unique. It’s a really bold statement about the freedom of speech, which has been made tremendously well…

This is unique film about three dysfunctional men, who decide to leave their troubled city lives, and head out to the country to work on a farm, run by one of the men’s eccentric uncle. All the characters in this film are fantastic, from the crazy local cop to the attractive girl next door. What I love about this film is you’re never quite sure we’re its headed. The pacing is quite slow for the majority of the movie; however there is always this underlying tension, where drama threatens to take place. There are some seriously funny moments throughout the film and some very nutty conversations between the three confused and unconventional main characters, and the army-trained uncle. This is a very strange film, but it’s very entertaining, and well worth watching.

Darkon is a fascinating and intriguing documentary about an endearingly bizarre live action role-playing game, whose hundreds of members dress up as wizards and warriors, and engage in simulated, un-choreographed medieval battles with homemade padded weaponry. It gives you a fantastic insight into a world that most would never even dream of entering. It tells the story of people who use the game as a way of escaping their ordinary humdrum lives; to become heroes in their own make-believe world. This is an honest and seriously funny film, with stories and characters that absolutely glue you to the screen. Technically, the film is inspiring as well, with great dolly, crane and helicopter shots. I really loved this documentary, as it showed me a world that I never completely understood. I now know there is a unique group of people out there, which I never want to be associated with.

This is a fascinating documentary about a group of journalists who have travelled to France, to cover and report on the 2005 Tour de France cycling race. Offering a very uniquely Australian perspective into the massive sporting event, this film has some great interviews with all kinds of people involved in the event, from cyclists, to commentators, the public, celebrities, and even bus drivers. You are really taken on a journey with the four large larrikins, as they drink a lot of beer, and make full use of their press passes, interviewing everyone and anyone. Although this film is extremely entertaining, you almost feel embarrassed watching it, as the four are hardly the most appropriate Australian ambassadors (getting pissed all the time, and generally making a lot of noise). Never-the-less, it’s clear that they love the event and the lifestyle lived whilst the race takes place. They add a bit of extra, well lets be honest, actually quite a lot of extra life to the whole event. Technically, this film isn’t anything special with some really poor audio quality in places and some dodgy looking computer graphics. The musical score is also very amateur, although it suited the feel of the film. This film was much like a low-budget surfing movie. However, it makes you laugh, and at places almost makes you cry, and is a really enjoyable ride. Not really high class entertainment, but well worth a look.

This is a great little animation about Fumi and her cursed foot. After surviving a lighting strike, a hippopotamus attack and bank vaults falling on her foot, Fumi discovers a way of using her curse as a powerful tool to help others. This is a cute little animation that proves that cute little characters getting hurt really is good comedy!

This is a cute little film about a mother and her intellectually handicapped son, who visit a remote regional train station, so that they can sit around and watch the express trains zoom by. Despite the boring story line, the photography is amazing, with beautiful shots of the lush forest landscapes. This film has a lot of fantastic dolly and crane shots. The soundtrack is also subtle yet very effective.

I really loved this short film. It’s basically about a society that has the ability to fly, and yet, everyone is locked down by gravitation boots. One day, a simple man’s ungratifying humdrum routine is broken when a bird invades his workplace, inspiring him to escape his dull life. The look of the film is very simple and monotonous. No fancy special effects and no psychedelic colours. And yet, that is what makes this film so special. The soundtrack is also fantastic. I especially like the sounds on the gravitation boots hitting the ground. Although it’s a simple story, with simple production elements, it’s a very effective film that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

This is a really nice animation about a grieving insect collector (with a light bulb for a head) and his search for understanding love and life. The look of this film is really fantastic, although the storyline is a bit too out there for me.

This is a broad documentary that explains the history of Korean Cinema. It tells the story of the countries cinematic history and shows interviews of artists who express their concerns, fears and aspirations. The production values were fairly average (with some really amateur sound), but the content was quite interesting for me, as I know very little about Korean Cinema. Worth watching, but it could have been made so much better.

Having never seen a Royston Tan film, I must say I was really impressed! Starting with D.I.Y, Royston explores the music found in everyday life. The footage in this film was really bold and beautiful with some great panning/dolly shots. His film, Cut, is a hilarious attack at the Singaporean film censors in the form of a full blown singing and dancing musical. I really loved the humour of this film, and the big, loud and colourful performances. I didn’t really understand the story behind Monkeylove; however I really liked the look and sound of the film, with its grainy amateur-like images, and unnatural ear-piercing effects. Mother was a really narration driven story, with some great archive footage. Sons, like Mother, was again heavily narration driven, and explored the relationship between a father and son. New York Girl is a hilarious short film that shows an audition tape of a Chinese New York-born girl and her dream of becoming the next Wonder Women in an upcoming feature film. Although it’s just a girl, white backdrop and a camera, it really makes you laugh! Hock Hiop Leong, is an ode to an old café that has long since closed down, that starts off quite simple and documentary like, but latter breaks into full swing singing and dancing, almost Bollywood style! Careless Whisper is a love story, about a geeky man and his quest to get the attention and love of his dream women. Inspired by a dreadful singer that auditioned for the TV show Singapore Idol, this is a truly funny, yet painful film. Unfortunately, I can’t reminder what the last film, 24 hrs was about – but I’m sure it was good. Royston Tan is an amazingly diverse filmmaker that has a great attention to detail, and an obvious love of life. It would also seem he’s quite a fan of just randomly breaking into song and dance! I can’t wait to see some of his feature films!

This is a truly fantastic film about an attractive young woman called Eva that lives at her parent’s home with her brother and is coming to terms with adulthood and love. Eva blends the joys and confusions of growing up with the sadness and restriction of living in a country under brutal dictatorship (Romania). It’s a film that explores the feelings of everyday people in a time of disorder. The cast is truly magnificent – Eva and her young brother are the most lovable characters, who bring to the film a huge amount of hilarious moments. A truly beautiful movie.

This is an impressive animation about a Brooklyn teenager who is asked to look after a local store owner’s dog whilst he goes on holiday. Although the film is rather dark and depressing, the look of the film is quite incredible and overall it displays a powerful, yet tragic story.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this film. It’s really bizarre! It tells the story through the eyes of a highly imaginative young girl, the daughter of junkies, who’s taken to the country with her father after her mother dies. When her father dies as well, her world comes even wackier as she gets to know her neighbours. This film has some great special effects, some really funny moments and some moments that truly stun you. It has everything from talking squirrels, to talking bodiless Barbie dolls, to train disasters. The opening scenes scared the crap out of me, as I have a great fear of needles, but I really loved the dream sequences. This is truly a unique and ambitious film that I just can’t really make sense of. The young actress that played the lead did an amazing job; she’s got some real talent!

This is a beautiful looking animation about a girl who struggles to feel comfortable in her own body. Although the images are truly breathtaking, the story is a bit weird, and doesn’t do the images justice.

Although, I love the idea of this movie (documenting a group of people who mess with electronics to make “cool” sound effects), the filmmakers just didn’t pull it off. The quality of the footage was poor, as was the sound. I also really hated the animations/title sequence that was used. This is a great example where a good idea has been ruined by poor production values.

This is a really eye opening and interesting documentary about a man called Troy Davies, an intense and passionate artist. He’s an anarchist with a vibrant and colourful life as a man, a women, performer, and musician, owner of a fashion label, a prostitute, and a person living with AIDS. He’s basically just a really amazing, and slightly insane person, who comes up great on film!

Despite the fact that everyone who saw this movie with me hated it, I thought it was really intriguing. It’s a feature length documentary that is made up of home video footage captured by American television personality Rick Kirkham, over his lifetime. When he was fourteen he got a video camera, and basically has been filming his life ever since. He’s basically in love with being in front of the camera and captures everything (and I mean everything). This is a really self indulgent film, but at the same time, feels authentic and truthful. Rick’s life starts off full of excitement and success as he works as a national correspondent for the television show Inside Edition. But when his wife becomes pregnant and they get married, his life suddenly becomes far more complex. This film gives, what I can only presume is an accurate representation of Rick’s life. It shows his highs, and the moments when he hits absolute bottom. Rick’s life is truly a rollercoaster ride. One minute he’s on top of the world, the next, he’s fighting just to survive. Unfortunately drugs and depression play a huge part in Rick’s life, and it’s all caught on film. What’s so amazing about this film is that we really get an insight into this man’s life for better or for worse. We witness everything, from his fights with his wife, to his moving self confessions, to when the police take him away. Rick becomes completely and utterly obsessed with recording everything, which in the end contributes to his wife and children leaving him. This is not a happy film. It’s actually really depressing watching this man throw his life away. But it really does give you an amazing insight into the psyche of human beings. I don’t care what anyone thinks; I really got a lot out of this film. Sure the production values were crap, as it was shot on a dodgy handy cam. But the content was just so fascinating. Who ever edited this together did an amazing job. What would have been millions of hours of footage has been nicely compressed into a tight and effective story. This film also explores a generation obsessed with celebrity and technology. It will make you laugh, but more often than note, it will make you just think to yourself “why”! Human beings are so very complex and frustrating. This film proves it.

Rudy and Jacob are twin brothers who are best friends, yet totally different. Jacob is quiet, shy and has a nasty birthmark on his face (which obviously doesn’t help), whereas his striking brother is oozing with confidence and bravery. They are both friends with Malee, an intelligent and pretty only-child of a single mother, and Leonard, an overweight boy who lives in a household of food obsessed family members. When Rudy dies protecting his tree house, after a group of kids set it on fire (not knowing people were inside), Jacob, Malee and Leonard each deal with the tragedy in different ways. Malee, who believes she’s mature enough to deal with her own feelings, becomes totally obsessed and claims to fall in love with one of her mum’s patients (who is more than double her age). Leonard, who lost the ability to taste and smell due to the tree house fire, becomes passionate about losing weight, and forces his diet and exercise theories on his unimpressed family. Jacob, becomes fixated in making sure the boys who killed his brother, pay dearly for the pain they’ve put him and his family through. All of the young actors in this movie are truly amazing. You really feel their love and their pain. This movie offers some really sad moments, some really funny moments, and constantly makes you think about life and death. It’s a seriously powerful film, which is filmed beautifully. There was never a dull moment in the whole movie, and you are constantly fixated on the screen and the characters. I really like this movie.

This is a unique documentary that gives a detailed insight into the life of an extremely colourful and gutsy Australian design innovator and artist, Florence Broadhurst. She was found murdered in her wallpaper design studio in 1977, a crime which is still unsolved. This film explores Florence’s life, leading up to this tragic event. Using a mixture of visually stunning real interviews, stylised drama re-enactments, wonderful computer graphics, Monty Python-style animation, incredible archival footage and interviews, this is a truly vibrant and intriguing film. As Florence eventually gained her local fame by designing wallpaper, this film makes use of this fact, and every shot has the same vivid, multi-coloured and flamboyant feel as her designs. It took me a while to work out whether this movie was fiction or fact (despite the fact it was label as a documentary), as the opening voiceover was that of someone who was apparently dead. But once I got my head around what I was actually watching, I slowly got hooked. Although Florence’s life was very interesting – she was such a powerful and determined women – it was the overall look of the film that I respected the most. The mixture of so many different styles and mediums was amazing. I really loved some of the animations in the film as they really made me laugh. Overall, it was a relatively slow paced film, that was a little hard to follow at first, but as the time paced and the story progressed, it developed into a stunning work of art. For a film based around wallpaper, I guess it was fairly exciting in contrast!

I really hated this film. It explores stalking, but it does so in a very unique and bizarre manner. Personally, I hated every thing about this film. It used a lot of video footage that was supposed to look like security camera footage. This gave the film a very cheap documentary feel to it. It also had a very school essay type feeling, as the two voice over’s spoke in a very unnatural book-like educated manner and tone. I didn’t really understand what was happening a lot of the time, as I tended to zone out, due to sheer boredom. This is just one of those films, that I fell doesn’t work. It seems very experimental. Unfortunately, this experiment failed miserably.

This is a short documentary about Frida, an Australian Muslim who attempts to set up a Boutique clothing shop in Melbourne. It documents her highs and lows, as she tries to bring in a profit. The narration was good, and the story was interesting. The highlight for me personally, was learning that her husband worked for a boxing promoting company that owes the company I worked for a hell of a lot of money!

This is a very well made New Zealand short film about a young woman who stumbles across a man that has hung himself just outside of the campsite she is staying at. Completely overwhelmed, she visits a young male friend who is also camping at the same site. In the safety of his tent, he shares a story of his past, which puts the girls own feelings sharply into focus. Like the New Zealand short, “Nature’s Way”, the production values of this short are truly fantastic. The images and sounds perfectly capture the beautiful New Zealand landscape. It’s kind of depressing however, that both these shorts focus on death. I didn’t really like the concept, after watching the complete film, however it was very captivating and the acting was very impressive. Overall, this was a nice short film.

This is a great little film about an Indigenous magician, who gets locked up for a crime he didn’t commit, after encountering an unwelcome passenger on a taxi ride home. This is a truly moving film that explores race, magic and memory. I was really impressed with this film. Unlike a lot of Aussie shorts, this film looked amazing, sounded great, had fantastic actors, and most importantly a well written and developed script. Not many shorts I’ve seen achieve success in all departments! The colours in the film were really inspiring. I loved the red lighting used to light up the trees and pub. This film really has everything going for it.

This is a really cute animation, about the memories of some old Yallourn’s residents, brought to life with illustrations drawn by primary school kids. Listening to the voice over is quite interesting, and mixed with the unique drawings gives you a very interesting little insight into the past of the old town.