Tag: movies
Three films about Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a ‘worthy’ issue and such issues don’t often make for great films. Even the most successful have their moment of exposure and then fade away like memories. That said, Alzheimer’s is an issue with inbuilt dramatic thrust. What could be more scary than a disappearing self? I’ve a special interest in dementia,…
Reflecting on the Saw Series: A Cut Above or a Bloody Mess?
My daddy, before going off to parts unknown, left me with two warnings about life. The first, as you probably could guess, was to never get involved in a land war in Asia. The second was to never trust the title “Final Chapter” when it is applied to a popular film franchise. With news cropping…
Dolares de arena: Small Pleasures, Deep Hearts and Dreams to Explore
The story goes that when financiers of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc screened his initial cut, they were appalled. They had invested quite a bit of money so that Dreyer could recreate the court in Rouen where French clerics would ultimately find Joan guilty of heresy. Yet Dreyer’s…
Jake Wilson on Mad Dog Morgan: Histories, Myths, Legends and Motivations
It was in 1976 that Philippe Mora released his underappreciated classic, Mad Dog Morgan, starring Dennis Hopper as the once notorious bushranger Daniel Morgan. In many ways, Jake Wilson’s excellent new monograph of the same name, the latest entry into the Australian Screen Classics series from Currency Press, positions Mad Dog Morgan as a fusion of…
Why Shyamalan’s The Visit is less than the sum of its parts
You want to know the problem with writing? Everything gets written down. In ink. Posted to websites where it will never go away. And so, occasionally something like this happens. A few weeks ago, I posted a review of the new Jesse Eisenberg movie American Ultra. It was a very positive review for a movie…