This film has only had a limited release but has been showing at special screenings across Australia. Language: Bengali (narrated in local Chittagonian dialect) – with English subtitles This film is a powerful tragi-romance about the struggle between power and love, a metaphor for life and death on the river Halda in southeast Bangladesh. The … Continue reading Review Special: Haldaa হালদা (2017 Tauquir Ahmed)
Sweet Country Directed by Warwick Thornton. Featuring Hamilton Morris, Bryan Brown and Sam Neill "...the scenery of the central Australian outback is not only overwhelmingly beautiful, it is scintillating..." Prior to the ironic use of Johnny Cash’s song 'Peace in the Valley' on the closing credits, the Christian preacher Fred Smith (played by Sam Neill) … Continue reading The Two Reviews: Sweet Country (2018 Warwick Thornton)
Australiana, noun - items relating to or characteristic of Australia. As the Australian film critic Luke Buckmaster pointed out recently, the madly popular 1980s blockbuster Crocodile Dundee not only gave the world a less than flattering impression of Australians, it was also racist, sexist and homophobic. As fun as it may have seemed when I … Continue reading A Slice of Australiana in Five Films
Darkest Hour 2017. Directed by Joe Wright, featuring Gary Oldman, Ben Mendelsohn and Kristin Scott Thomas. Darkest Hour is a war-drama that follows the first few weeks of Winston Churchill’s Prime Ministership – a period of intense military and political turmoil for Britain. The German army is marching through Europe, a seemingly unstoppable military force, … Continue reading The Two Reviews: Darkest Hour and The Post
"...an adult fairytale, with love, passion and blood and violence..." The Shape of Water is a ‘Beauty and the Beast’-style fairytale between a mute woman and an amphibious creature. Unapologetically emotional and melodramatic, director del Toro, who seems to specialize in deep-colour and moody fantasy narratives, delivers a moving and engaging film. Given the somewhat … Continue reading The Two Reviews: The Shape of Water (2017 Guillermo del Toro)
"...several scenes are improvised and have a beautiful natural quality..." The Florida Project is a warm but sometimes poignant drama of poorer citizens who live a day to day existence on a drab estate on the outskirts of Disney World, Orlando. It depicts a slice of life of Orlando’s under-class through the eyes and adventures … Continue reading The Two Reviews: The Florida Project (2017 Sean Baker)
'...a vehicle for comedy and for showing character flaws...' This dark comedy was filmed in 33 days on a relatively small budget, released in late 2017 in the US and had a world release in January 2018. It has already picked up numerous awards. This doesn’t automatically qualify it as a great film, but to … Continue reading The Two Reviews: Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017 Martin McDonagh)
This is the second part of our discussion of the year in film (the first part is here). In this post, we discuss our choices of best film, worst film, documentaries, TV shows, best moment in a film and also a selection from our home country (Scotland, Ireland and Australia). As with part 1, we … Continue reading Momentary Cinema’s Review of the Year 2017 in Film – Part 2
The team at Momentary Cinema (JJ McDermott, Alan Matthews and Robin Stevens) have decided to form our review of the year in film through a discussion format. Now, this format did not have us sit down and have someone record our nerd-ish ramblings. That would be difficult considering that there is a non-conforming, geographical issue … Continue reading Momentary Cinema’s Review of the Year 2017 in Film – Part 1
Murder on the Orient Express (Director, Kenneth Branagh. Featuring Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley, Penelope Cruz, Lesley Odom, Derek Jacobi and Sergei Polunin) Everyone is on the same train i.e. The Orient Express. There is a murder most hideous and everyone is a suspect. I enjoyed this movie … Continue reading The Two Reviews: Murder on the Orient Express and Loving Vincent
Momentary Cinema 