Category: Reviews

One of the more remarkable aspects of Bonnie Ryan’s Real. Live. Girl. are the two intertwining worlds of neon-lit webcam shows and sombre, ever-slipping reality of Alzheimer’s. Starkly different, their blend is a tricky business and Ryan manages to accomplish it with dexterity.  Rachel Nichols’ Jennifer is the link that connects these: she is a… Continue reading Real. Live. Girl.: On Alternating Between No One and Just The One

502 people were laid off at a factory, including the employee of the month. One turned to vengeance – with DIY masks and packing tape. Chris McCaleb’s 15 Minutes at 400 Degrees sees an unemployed single father turned hapless robber try to avenge his firing a year ago by robbing his erstwhile supervisor.  The resulting… Continue reading 15 Minutes at 400 Degrees: A Kindly Comedy of Errors

Death, many would argue, is hardest on the people left behind. From that perspective, what is death if not absence? And if it is an absence that torments those left behind, death is no worse than dementia. It is perhaps worse, losing a person one piece at a time so that near the end, your… Continue reading Dementia: Theorising Memory As A Form Of Love

Protagonist moves into new apartment/house/villa with a horrific past and is subsequently served up as dinner for body-snatching ghosts/demons/any number of variations on a malevolent supernatural entity. Writer-director Lucy Luna’s We’re All Here is a story we’ve all seen play out before.   Christin Muuli as Anika Mills, a literature podcaster and the latest unsuspecting protagonist,… Continue reading We’re All Here: We Have All Seen This Before

Look! asks you not just to look closely, but to look where there may not be much to look at. Look! asks you to see. Writer-director Adam Trad’s 5:55-minute short watches Evan (Jonathan Reason) ponder on his life, sitting on a park bench in Sightly Park (appropriately named for more than one reason). It is… Continue reading Look!: The Loneliness Of Combating Loneliness With Self-Reliance

Town Hall. Casey Lock styles this story of townspeople affected by corporate greed like a courtroom drama. In a small town, the city councillor is retiring. A kindly man with a booming voice, Carl (Steve Herson) is being replaced by his colleague, Olivia (Robyn Coffin), a woman on the Vinci company’s trail with the certainty… Continue reading Town Hall: Going The Unorthodox Extra Mile For The Greater Good

Violence in cinema means little in and of itself. Each significant act of violence on screen is built up with meaningful plot and characters so that when blood finally runs, it has the emotional impact that lasts for at least a while. Without that backing, it can feel feeble – or worse still, evoke no… Continue reading Vengeance Runs Red: Classic Tale of Exacting Revenge