Features – ROUGH CUT

‘The Most Beautiful Boy In The World’ is a pornography of suffering

Elroy Rosenberg reflects on the troubling MIFF documentary about Björn Andrésen’s life as an object of aesthetic attraction — and then pity.

Features

False Proximity in ‘Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine’

Alex Piperno’s surreal film is a tight synthesis of utter, lacklustre realism and dream logic that lulls one into belief in the unreal.

Features

I Haven’t Felt This Good in Ages: On Being Sober and Watching ‘Another Round’

Thomas Vinterberg’s boozy dark comedy explores the pleasure, pain, and ambiguities of alcohol — and challenges us to see both drinking and sobriety in a new light.

Features

The Joys of Not Understanding ‘Tenet’

Nolan’s confusing action flick has Elroy Rosenberg thinking about the very nature of art and ambiguity.

Features

Alight, alight, alight: On Matthew McConaughey’s ‘Greenlights’

A fellow alum of Gorokan High School, Sam Twyford-Moore breaks down the Texan Best Actor winner’s less-than-illuminating autobiography.

Features

Reflection: ‘Happiest Season’

Tina Huang reacts to Clea DuVall’s lesbian Christmas romcom.

Columns, You Tried

You Tried: Nicole Kidman in ‘The Paperboy’

Kidman’s transformative role brings power and authenticity to Lee Daniels’ pulp film.

Features

New Cinephilia: The Rise and Rise of A24

Rhea Thomas dives deep into the independent US studio’s cleverly constructed public image, from ‘Midsommar’ merch to the reinvention of Robert Pattinson.

Features, Melbourne International Film Festival

‘Ema’ and the Explosive Composite of the Dance Film

Pablo Larraín’s latest film is a metaphysical exploration that gives into the domination, submission and total openness of the senses.

Features, Melbourne International Film Festival

Lessons in Tenderness from ‘First Cow’

Kelly Reichardt’s quiet film offers examples of kindness amongst the exploited.

Features, Melbourne International Film Festival

The Slippery Substance of ‘Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets’

Matilda Dorman deciphers the hollow political and social resonances that lie with a quasi-fictional film about a bar on closing night.

Columns, You Tried

You Tried: Uma Thurman in ‘Batman and Robin’

Thurman is the sole performer in this goofy BatFilm to not only perfectly reflect Schumacher’s weightless camp, but to enrich it.

Sketch & Study, Sydney Film Festival

Sketch & Study: ‘A Year Full of Drama’

Marta Pulk documents a teen’s shifting sense of self, as she is tasked with watching 224 plays in 365 days.

Features, We Are One: A Global Film Festival

Fantasy and Loneliness in ‘Tremble All You Want’

Curated by Tokyo International Film Festival, Akiko Ohku’s 2017 comic romance deftly explores the dangers of idolising relationships when it halts an engagement with real-life.

Features

The True Apocalypse Trilogy

Rory Doherty looks at three films set before, during and after apocalypses, and uncovers how they reveal the strain global catastrophes can have on human life.