Tag: Gerard Elson
[FILM: Review] Lawless
Lawless is only John Hillcoat’s fifth feature in a career of 24 years. Until now, his career has been characterised by rigorous, uncompromising productions like The Proposition (2005) and Ghosts… Of The Civil Dead (1988). Even his largely forgotten “colonial madness” thriller To Have And To Hold (1996) seems like the work of a restlessly self-challenging sensibility.
Posted: October 15th, 2012 under Arts, Film Reviews.
Tags: Gerard Elson, Guy Pearce, John Hillcoat, Lawless, Shia LaBeouf
[FILM: Interview] Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Seth Grahame-Smith is the mash-up meister behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the surprise bestseller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Gleefully inane, the latter is undoubtedly a forerunner for ‘daftest idea ever’, making it ideal source material for a big budget Hollywood action movie. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted) from a script by Grahame-Smith, produced by Tim Burton, and starring Benjamin Walker (Flags of Our Fathers) as an axe-swinging, demon-hunting Honest Abe, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter the movie at the very least has forthrightness in its favour: Lincoln, as the film’s troubled protagonist, does indeed slay befanged paranormal nasties.
Posted: July 31st, 2012 under Arts, Arts - Interview, Arts Feature, Brag 473.
Tags: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Gerard Elson, Seth Grahame-Smith
Screening info HERE. Also releasing in cinemas through Palace. A rule of thumb has emerged at this year’s fest: if it’s in 4:3, run – don’t walk. The boxy aspect ratio has already corralled to great effect the putrid fug of Aleksander Sokurov’s Faust, where it served to cramp the vile against the viler, leaving [...]
Posted: June 16th, 2012 under Arts, Film Reviews, Sydney Film Festival 2012.
Tags: Gerard Elson, Sydney Film Festival, Tabu
[SFF 2012: Review] ¡Vivan Las Antipodas!
Screening info HERE. Antipodes are polar geographic opposites: points on the globe 180° apart. Victor Kossakovsky takes this notion as stimulus for this sublime quasi-documentary-meets-lyrical essay on cultural/ecological juxtaposition, which swings between four pairs of antipodes, enabling his camera to survey jaw-dropping panoramas, wildlife and unlikely domiciles in Argentina, China, Russia, Patagonia, Hawaii, Kubu, Spain [...]
Posted: June 12th, 2012 under Arts, Film Reviews, Sydney Film Festival 2012.
Tags: Gerard Elson, Sydney Film Festival, ¡Vivan las Antipodas!
[SFF: Interview] Despite The Gods
Directed by Australian filmmaker Penny Vozniak, Despite the Gods details the abortive attempt by Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David) to shoot her third feature – a “creature feature-love-story-comedy-musical” inspired by the snake gods of Hindi mythology – in Bollywood. Injury meant it was 15 years between Lynch’s debut – the widely-reviled amputee fairytale Boxing Helena, which she wrote aged 19 and directed at 24 – and its follow-up, 2008’s deadpan serial killer thriller Surveillance.
Posted: June 5th, 2012 under Arts, Arts - Interview, Arts Feature, Brag 465 (June 4), Sydney Film Festival 2012.
Tags: Despite The Gods, Gerard Elson, Jennifer Lynch, Penny Vozniak, Sydney Film Festival