Category: Film
My collected writing on one of my greatest passions: film. I was a film critic in my undergraduate days (trivia: that’s how I met my wife!) but I now take a more philosophical approach to thinking and writing about films I see.
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The Royal Hotel
Green | 2023 | Australia 99.99% wonderful, and rather unexpectedly so. Unfortunately, it does not stick the landing but everything else (including and especially Julia Garner) is borderline perfect, prompting you to question your own assumptions at every turn. So Australian in idiosyncratic but meaningful ways.
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Besson | 2017 | France Third or fourth watch. Criminally underrated (I understand the criticisms but I wholeheartedly disagree with them). The ‘Big Market’ sequence lives rent free in my head for both its inventiveness and execution. Just a relentless delight every time I get to revisit it.
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Anora
Baker | 2024 | USA | 35mm Sublime. I will have more to say but THIS IS CINEMA. Mikey Madison is incredible. If Tangerine was proto Sean Baker and The Florida Project was Realised Sean Baker, this is Actualised Sean Baker. An artist at the height of his powers.
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Heretic
Beck & Woods | 2024 | USA I really enjoy Sophie Thatcher but sometimes a movie is so exactly what you expected that it feels almost redundant to have watched it.
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Bookshelves Lined With Your Personality
I don’t get to read much fiction these days. As an academic, I read more non-fiction than most people (yet somewhat less than I’d like to read). Unfortunately, I can only read so much in any given day before I hit a point of diminishing returns in regard to my ability to engage with and […]
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Living In The Romantic Present
People have always told me I think too much. The accusation didn’t make much sense to me when I was a teenager. My view of the matter at that time lacked nuance: didn’t we all think the same amount, I wondered – and didn’t we do that thinking during every waking moment of our lives? […]
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A Slow-burning Socio-economic Horror Story
Orlando is a romantic yet transient place. I lived in or around the city for a period of two and a half years after graduating college and in that time I only ever had a meaningful relationship with two people who were from there; Orlando born-and-raised. Everybody else who crossed orbits with me was – like […]
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I Am Groot
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy stole a lot of hearts over this year’s blockbuster season (I would say “summer”, but it’s winter here in Australia!), including my own. As you know, I love finding lessons in non-traditional places and there were lessons aplenty in this comedic space western. Spoiler alert: engaged. Establishing Your Personal Brand Ain’t […]