Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Cinemascape

This Thursday I'll be live on air on Eastside 89.7 FM's Cinemascape show. This week I'll be reviewing James Gunn's hommage to the Eighties gore film Slither. The show goes out at 5:30am so if you are in the Sydney area please tune in.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Sydney Film Festival 2006 preview

The line up for this year’s Sydney Film Festival has been announced and as always, there is a fantastic variety of films on display. Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoe’s opens festivities and after hearing about the film from David Lightfoot, producer of Greg McClean’s Rogue, it sounds amazing. Paul Greengrass’s already infamous United 93, David Slade’s Hard Candy and Menhaj Huda’s Kidulthood all sound like they will be stirring up a bit of controversy and this years retrospective on Jean-Pierre Melville will give us a welcome opportunity to see Le SamouraĆ­ on the big screen. The Hong Kong Express programme brings us Ronny Yu's Fearless starring Jet Li, anyone who knows me will know how much I love Yu's The Bride With the White Hair so I'm very much looking forward to his return to Hong Kong cinema and the festival also brings back that perrenial action favourite Jackie Chan in The Myth. It will be interesting to see what William. H. Macy makes of the title role of Edmond in Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of the David Mamet play. I saw Kenneth Brannagh play the role in London and it was one of the most astounding and disturbing experiences I have ever had at the theatre. There is, as always, also a fabulous amount of documentaries and world cinema to indulge in. In particular; Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and Starfish Hotel from Japan.

On a personal note, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis will help with the research on my book on Paul Morrissey and last, but by no means least, Ra Choi will be making it’s Australian premiere at the Dendy Opera Quays at 1.15pm Saturday June 10th and 6.00pm Sunday June 11th.

For ticket details and availability check out www.sydneyfilmfestival.org

Sunday, May 14, 2006