Welcome to the latest reviews, interviews, and articles submitted by AFCA members for the week ending 10 July 2024.
The Bikeriders (2023)
Alaisdair Leith – Novastream – Review: A nostalgic slow ride through motorcycle culture worth taking
- Excerpt: The slow moving tale of how the biker gang was formed and follows its evolution through the years is a fascinating story that is accompanied by some spectacular cinematography from writer/director Jeff Nichols based on a photography book of the same name by photographer and fellow filmmaker Danny Lyon.
- Rating: 4
Jonathan Spiroff – The Mono Report – Review: The Bikeriders Review – Born to Be Wild
- Excerpt: THE BIKERIDERS is an outstanding examination of ’60s counterculture crafted through an honesty and sincerity for a bygone era.
- Rating: 9/10
Nadine Whitney – The Curb – Review: The Bikeriders: Jeff Nichols’ Portrait of a Counterculture to Counterculture in the American Midwest On and Off the Road.
- Excerpt: Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders is an understated masterpiece of lost Americana
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Grant Watson – Fiction Machine – Review: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
- Excerpt: I did enjoy this sequel in fits and starts, but at no point did I particularly respect it. I feel that is telling.
Stubbornly Here (2024)
Andrew Peirce – The Curb – Interview: Stubbornly Here Director Taylor Broadley Talks About Disappearing Teens and Positive Nostalgia in This Interview
- Excerpt: Taylor Broadley’s feature debut film Stubbornly Here is a welcome blast of indie filmmaking inventiveness with the Perth-based filmmaker presenting a sci-fi-adjacent story about three teens who live in an apathetic society where teenagers sometimes vanish into thin air. Stubbornly Here speaks to the anxieties of the day, focusing on a generation of kids who have grown up in a world that does not support their future and who the vitality of youth has been robbed of them.
Whale Rider (2002)
Nadine Whitney – The Curb – Review: Retrospective Review: Whale Rider by Niki Caro
- Excerpt: Niki Caro’s delicately laced film of belief, bravery, and true leadership honours the importance of Rangatira (Chiefs) in Māori self-determination while negotiating the inherent limitations of patriarchal succession by making a young girl the true figure of hope.
The Promised Land (2023)
Nadine Whitney – The Curb – Review: Mads Mikkelsen: The Epic Bastarden
- Excerpt: A romance, a critique of privilege and greed, a big sweeping drama with Mads Mikkelsen stoic, pained, selfish, loving, grizzled, and fierce. Bastarden is a story that almost seems to come from another time not just as a historical epic, but as low-budget (under nine million USD) saga that Hollywood would make fifteen years ago, but not now.
Dandelion (2024)
Nadine Whitney – InSession Film – Review: Dandelion Peers into the Soul of an Artist
- Excerpt: Dandelion is precious and rare; a piece of cinema about the creative flame where the drama has more weight the longer the audience considers it.
- Rating: B+
The Vourdalak (2023)
Nadine Whitney – InSession Film – Review: The Vourdalak: A cinematic reverie beyond time
- Excerpt: The Vourdalak is a precise enchantment crafted by a director and a team of actors who pull you into their strange web and delight in teasing with genre treats.
- Rating: A
KILL (2023)
Greg King – filmreviews.net.au – Review: KILL
- Excerpt: The title says it all you need to know about this visceral, ultra-violent action thriller from India. Kill delivers a high body count and plenty of gore and mayhem. Most of the action is confined to a train, so it comes across like The Raid set on a train.
- Rating: ★★★★
