Author: James Curnow
Reviewing Maggie: Schwarzenegger acts, Maggie Muses, Zombies Zombify
Somehow or other I managed to remain entirely ignorant about the existence of Maggie until I was confronted with it in my local DVD store. The worn and tired face of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Blu-Ray cover of a zombie film I’d never heard of was more than a little surprising. How had this happened?…
Ten Great Spaghetti Westerns NOT directed by Sergio Leone
For most people, the term Spaghetti Western applies almost solely to the films of Sergio Leone, particularly those starring Clint Eastwood. But the reality is that close to 600 Westerns were produced in Europe between 1960 and 1980, and during it’s peak, Italy was churning out more than 40 Spaghetti Westerns a year. Of course,…
‘Kung Fury’, ‘Predator: Dark Ages’ and the Democratisation of Spectacle
As a member of a short film selection panel for a major film festival in 2013 and 2014, I was quite surprised by the increasing number of submissions that sought to replicate big-budget Hollywood genre cinema. I suppose I had, quite ignorantly, entered with a preconception that short films were the reserve of art cinema.…
Mad Max: Fury Road is to Mad Max as a hipster is to a hippy
After watching Mad Max: Fury Road, I have to confess to facing an internal struggle about how to approach any kind of review. There is no doubt that this is an outstanding action film within the context of a contemporary milieu of high-octane, CGI-driven, blockbuster extravaganzas. In fact, it may be one of the best…
Mad Max and the Man With No Name
In many ways, it’s entirely appropriate to describe George Miller’s original Mad Max trilogy as Australia’s equivalent to Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy. Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns are innovative reworkings of the American Western that permanently changed the landscape of the genre. But Leone’s films were also a surprising and positive result of an Italian industry largely…