Australian Film Reviews
Strictly speaking, I include reviews of film from New Zealand also—‐which makes my category more like privileged Oceania.
I’ve been invested for a long time. Probably longer than you, though I lack or have been deprived of the means to show that. Recently I was back with this old goto, and wondered if I could do anything with it? Then I thought of short reviews. Well, there’s something. Let’s see.
Ratings out of five.
5
Sound and vision delivers script with something going on
4
Good things gone wrong in some way
3
Solid but nothing new
2
Flat without being inept (once in a while a good thing overwhelmed)
1
Major faults of script and film, like no ideas or why did you pick up a camera? (not many commercial films likely to get this rating, but I know student product)
Fair warning:
I can and will listen through poor sound and visual quality
I’m not interested in ‘gaffs’, ‘wobbly sets’ or ‘how good’ actors are
I’m not an ‘expert’ on Oceanic film, I’m engaged
Review word limit: 96 words
Cappuccino
Date
1989
Rating
2
Review
A storyteller on stage. Which story of actorly success and failure then appears on screen. Then policemen appear for some reason, which then is the twist, as the story is revealed as a script written in jail—which jail sentence was for, if the ‘script’ is to be believed as ‘autobiographical’, accumulated parking fines. Solid characters and rattly scenes replay every actor’s‐life ham from magazines, “She was born to play [on stage]….” If the aim was to spin something from nothing, outdoes Samuel Beckett, but without the fun.
Deadly Chase
Date
1884
Rating
3
Review
Two kids on a drive in a woodland backwater area of Victoria get muddled into a drive‐here/drive‐there game with a driver out for harm. Enough small twists on the idea, for example the bad guy’s explanations and consistency, to think a sensibility may be peering out. Keeps hinting it may become something special, if only they’d stepped out further. Solid film—check out the main theme music.
The Magician
Date
2006
Rating
5
Review
Commercial film can’t be made for less—a handheld and tripod affair mostly set in drab suburbs of Perth. But with kit like this, you couldn’t do this good. A bloke earns a living by doing dirty work for others, and who is to say he’s wrong? Every character sharply outlined and unusual, nasty moral drama cranked through every episode of car banter and DVD‐player recovery. If you want for beautiful stars who throb with cool lines, pass on this one—you’re not here for the same reasons as me.
Dear Claudia
Date
1999
Rating
3
Review
Desert island survival recast from existential crisis to Aussie comedy romance. Aussie comedy is usually limited in expression, but inventive and fun. This ticks those boxes, with added plus that it’s comfortable about how to live on an empty island. Another plus: good film of crabs, spiders, sea and sky.
Glass
Date
1989
Rating
2
Review
This got my rating scale wavered. Arty touches of film‐making here and there, see the intro sequence, then the title hints at metaphor and the plot about a fight between building developers proposing a casino is loaded with potential. But a drama‐free script with no sense of who is doing what, or why, or for what stakes, makes me wonder if after all they had anything in the can.