Although directed by Jocelyn Moorehouse, The Dressmaker has the stamp of its writer and producer P.J. Hogan all over it. Like Hogan’s classic Muriel’s Wedding, The Dressmaker is a quirky Australian comedy that pits a sophisticated outsider against prejudiced Aussie bogans, celebrates femininity and glamorous reinvention while satirising both, has a wedding scene but also makes frequent turns into darker
Read moreThe Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1 suffers the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows curse where, in a final cash grab, the last instalment of a film franchise is split in two making the first half a mostly dull prelude to the actual finale. That’s not to say Mocking Jay Part 1 doesn’t have its attractions. Director Francis Lawrence
Read moreWith the excellent Harry Potter film adaptations and the not so excellent Twilight films now done and dusted, the quest for the teen movie dollar falls to The Hunger Games series. The first instalment, simply titled The Hunger Games, was moderately inventive, occasionally exciting and at times attractively shot but was let down by maddening use of wobble cam during
Read moreIn a plot line suspiciously reminiscent of Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, director Robert Luketic’s tepid corporate espionage thriller Paranoia sees another smart, ambitious young guy, who is desperate to escape his working class background, wind up seduced and manipulated by a corporate Satan. Liam Hemsworth plays Adam Cassidy, a lowly software engineer who mistakenly thinks he has the technological ideas
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