Cinetology

The phenomenal success of the Twilight and Harry Potter books prove great fortunate can be found in the arena of high school and adolescent coming of age stories, provided tales of classroom dramas, puberty blues and extra curriculum shenanigans can be mingled with more risqué supplements. ...

Writer/director Rian Johnson’ s 2005 debut feature, Brick, was a bold exercise in genre-merging that combined familiar concepts – the noir thriller and the high school coming of age drama – ...

Star-centric posters featuring large floating heads and a pithy tag line are the film industry’s garden variety marketing one sheets, but here is one cookie cutter image that really works. The poster (left, ...

“I always wanted to do a biblical flood movie, but I never felt I had the hook. I first read about the Earth’s Crust Displacement Theory in Graham Hancock’s “Fingerprints of the Gods”. When I discussed ...

Since making a name for himself in 2001’s indie mind melt Donnie Darko and later as Heath Ledger’s lover in Brokeback Mountain (2005) Jake Gyllenhaal has remained somewhat aloof and left-of-centre from the inner circle of mega-earning A list Hollywood actors, largely avoiding the cha-ching! ...

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is arguably the world’s most famous festive season morality fable, a story of spiritual redemption and rediscovered merriment for misanthrope miser Ebenezer “bah humbug!” Scrooge. ...

In The Time Traveler’s Wife Eric Bana plays Henry DeTamble, an unlikeable mope with an uncontrollable tendency to spontaneously melt into nothing and reappear, naked, in another timeframe. As you do.

This Is It was the name of Michael Jackson’s highly anticipated concert tour that was scrapped less than three weeks before opening night, when death interrupted the pasty-faced star’s plans for a comeback. ...

Earlier this year myself and some Twitter buddies played a game called #nicer filmtitles. As its title suggests, the game all about taking the name of popular films and making them, well, nicer. For example, The Empire Strikes Back becomes The Empire Writes A Strongly Worded Letter. ...

If you’re looking for even handed and maturely nuanced debate, if you’re looking for objectivity, multifaceted perspectives and intelligent arguments unencumbered by sentiments and emotions, then stay ...

Phil Grabsky’s widely acclaimed doco In Search of Mozart (2006) was broadcast in over 25 countries, screened theatrically at cinemas around the world, and, in Australia and New Zealand, made it into the top 50 list of all-time highest grossing documentaries (excluding IMAX). ...

Many of the issues surrounding the ever-beleaguered state of the Australian film industry are encapsulated in Into the Shadows, a dense, compelling and cheaply produced documentary from debut writer/ director Anthony Scanaro. ...