Lou
Drama
M 80
John Hurt, Emma Barclay , Lily Bell-Tindley
Written &
Directed by Belinda Chayko
Filmed
in Murwillumbah, LOU is a tender story about the relationship
between 11-year-old Lou and her grandfather. Not long after Lou’s
father walks out of her life, her grandfather crashes in. But when
Doyle comes to stay, Lou discovers, against all her expectations,
the healing power of love.
Review
by David Stratton - At The Movies
“LOU
is the work of filmmaker Belinda Chayko, her first film in a
decade. It's a most beautifully performed piece by all concerned,
with a notable presence from its young cast. Lily Bell Tindley is
so impressive in the title role, embodying a young girl on the
verge of puberty, having too much responsibility for her age and
who is starting to set herself up as very much her own woman.
John Hurt is wonderful as Doyle, a man who senses what he's
lost and is seeking to reclaim what was good about his past. And
Emily Barclay gives another nuanced performance. This is a small
film with a lovely heart.”
DAVID:
“Okay. Well, look, the performances, I agree, are really
wonderful. Lily Bell Tindley, a remarkable - how old is she: 11,
12, something like that?
MARGARET:
Yes.
DAVID:
She's really, really good. Some child actors are just astonishing
and I think she's very, very fine and John Hurt gives another fine
performance. It's a small film but I did like it very
much.
MARGARET:
That ability to access... that core of emotion in a film like this
is sort of like... it takes a talent.”
Review
by Louise Keller: Urban Cinefile
"The
mood is what writer director Belinda Chayko captures best as we
become engrossed in the reality of 11 year old Lou (Lily
Bell-Tindley), drawn to the fantasy world of her delusional
grandfather. It's a remarkable performance from Bell-Tindley, who
transmits great assurance as the defensive, indignant and hostile
daughter whose resentment and anger turns to acceptance and
understanding as she begins to understand the beauty and power of
love."
MARK
NAGLAZAS, The West Australian
“What
might have been a creepily off-putting development is handled with
marvellous delicacy by Chayko, who walks a fine line between
childish fantasy, the dreamy longings of an old man and a rather
sad-beautiful replaying of a heartbreaking incident long in the
past.”
“While Hurt gives his usual nuanced,
layered performance as the man drifting between past and present,
the coup here is the casting of Bell-Tindley, who has one of those
rare faces in which you can see the future woman.”
“Chayko
also has a deft touch with visuals and landscape, with the
stunning sub tropical landscape and the burning of the cane fields
an arresting metaphor for an identity and personality still in
flux.”
Eclipse
Drama, Romance M 124
Xavier
Samuel, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson
Bella once
again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by
a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues
her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to
choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob
-- knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the
struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly
approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision
of her life.
Food
Inc
Documentary
PG 94
filmmaker
Robert Kenner lifts the veil on the nation’s food industry,
exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden
from the consumer with the consent of our government’s
regulatory agencies. Our nation’s food supply is now
controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit
ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer,
the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals
surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we
eat, how it’s produced, and what we have become as a
nation.
Dennis
Schwartz
“You're
probably not going to like what you see here, but you'd better
hold your nose and choke it down anyway. Food, Inc. is for your
own good.”
Gavin
Bond Sunday Times
“An
activist-made film of considerable interest, Food, Inc is also a
piece of investigative journalism that tells us a thousand things
that are pertinent to eating everyday food.”
Letters
To Juliet
Romance
PG 105
Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave
When
a young woman travels to the city of Verona, home of the
star-crossed lover Juliet Capulet of Romeo and Juliet fame, she
joins a group of volunteers who respond to letters to Juliet
seeking advice about love. After answering one letter dated 1951,
she inspires its author to travel to Italy in search of her
long-lost love and sets off a chain of events that will bring a
love into both their lives unlike anything they ever
imagined
Allan
Hunter Daily Express
“Letters
From Juliet is far from a great movie. But if you're female or --
like me -- a man with a taste for romance and a fairer deal for
our senior citizens, this is one of the year's guiltiest
pleasures.”
Robin
Hood
Drama
M 140
Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett
Robin
Hood chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously
interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King
Richards army against the French. Upon Richards death, Robin
travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a
despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the
spirited widow Lady Marian (Oscar winner Cate Blanchett), a woman
skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from
the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marian and salvage the
village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are
matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin
preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under
the sheriff.
tonymacklin.net
“Ridley
Scott and his usual Oscar-winning crewmates turn the familiar old
English legend it into a robust, thumping epic.”
David
Stratton The Australian
“A
big, sweeping epic executed in a manner that makes all the
spectacle and pageantry appear effortless.”
Shrek
Forever After
Animation
PG 95
Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz
After
challenging an evil dragon, rescuing a beautiful princess and
saving your in-laws' kingdom, what's an ogre to do? Well, if
you're Shrek, you suddenly wind up a domesticated family man.
Instead of scaring villagers away like he used to, a reluctant
Shrek now agrees to autograph pitch forks. Whats happened to this
ogre's roar? Longing for the days when he felt like a "real
ogre," Shrek is duped into signing a pact with the
smooth-talking dealmaker, Rumpelstiltskin. Shrek suddenly finds
himself in a twisted, alternate version of Far Far Away, where
ogres are hunted, Rumpelstiltskin is king and Shrek and Fiona have
never met. Now, it's up to Shrek to undo all he's done in the
hopes of saving his friends, restoring his world and reclaiming
his one True Love.
Andrew
L. Urban Urban Cinefile
"Brilliant
animation, 3D magic and a subversive script filled with quirky
humour transports us to Swamp Heaven for this perfect Shrek final
chapter. It's a whirlwind of a film”
The
Concert
Comedy,
Drama M 120
Aleksei Guskov, Mélanie Laurent
Thirty
years ago, Andrei Simoniovich Filipov, the renowned conductor of
the Bolshoi orchestra, was fired for hiring Jewish musicians. Now
a mere cleaning man at the Bolshoi, he learns by accident that the
Châtelet Theater in Paris invites the Bolshoi orchestra to
play there. He decides to gather together his former musicians and
to perform in Paris in the place of the current Bolshoi orchestra.
As a solo violin player to accompany his old Jewish or Gypsy
musicians he wants Anne-Marie Jacquet, a young virtuoso. If they
all overcome the hardships ahead this very special concert will be
a triumph.
Sarah
Boslaugh
“The
Concert delivers one of cinema's most moving and satisfying
emotional payoffs in years, transforming a film that is pretty
good into a film of true greatness.”
Girl
With The Dragon Tattoo
Michael
Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace
Drama MA
Author Stieg
Larsson, who died suddenly in 2004, left behind three unpublished
novels, known as the "Millennium" trilogy, which have
become a global sensation, elevating Larsson to the world’s
second best-selling author last year (behind "The Kite
Runner"’s Khaled Hosseini). "The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo" is one of the decade’s major literary
success stories, selling over 8,000,000 copies worldwide and the
film adaptation is the highest grossing Swedish film in history
and 2009’s highest-grossing European production
Forty
years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on
the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her
body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder and
that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but
dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist
Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, ruthless computer hacker
Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's
disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty
years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family
history. But the Vanger's are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and
Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to
go to protect themselves.
Harvey S. Karten Compuserve
“Nothing beats a good whodunit.”
Roger
Moore Orlando Sentinel
'The Swedish thriller 'The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' miraculously causes the adjectives
'convoluted' and 'implausible' to become positive” Margot
Harrison Seven Days
“... a sensational,
spine-chilling thriller that will leave you clenching the arms on
your theater chair until your knuckles turn white.”
Toy
Story 3
Comedy,
Animated 94 Min
Tom Hanks, Joan Cusack
Andy
departs for college, leaving his favourite toys for storage, but
keeps Woody. Mum thinks he’s throwing them away and gives
them to the local playcare centre. Something far worse is
happening at the playcare centre from which only Woody can save
his unsuspecting friends.
The
Prince of Persia
Adventure/Fantasy
M 111
Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley
Set
in the mystical lands of Persia, a rogue prince and a mysterious
princess race against dark forces to safeguard an ancient dagger
capable of releasing the Sands of Time -- a gift from the gods
that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.
The
Secret In Their Eyes
Drama,
Thriller MA 127 (Subtitled)
Retired
justice agent Benjamín Espósito is writing a novel,
using an old closed case as the source material. The case, which
dealt with a horrible rape and murder of a young woman and mother,
was not resolved correctly in Benjamin's opinion. Although he is
aware that historical accuracy is not paramount for the novel, the
process of revisiting the case is more an issue of closure for
him. He teams up with his drunken friend, Sandoval. Clumsily, they
go around gathering clues and information to find the actual
murderer, making a scene almost everywhere they go. He tries to
speak to the key players in the case, most specifically Irene, who
still works in the justice department and who he has always been
attracted to but never pursued due to the differences in their
ages and social classes. The other issue is that the killer is
still at large and may still be a force to reckoned
with.
BrianOrndorf.com
“The
Secret in Their Eyes is a best-of-both-worlds affair, combining
old-school storytelling with modern-day technique.”
Rebecca
Barry Flicks.co.nz
“An
expertly crafted murder-and-more mystery that should appeal to
fans of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' and other ambitious
thrillers that work to attract a mass audience...”
Rob
Thomas Times
“The
Secret in Their Eyes joins No Way Out and The Sixth Sense in my
personal trove of rare movies with surprise, credible endings I
didn't guess.
tonymacklin.net
“A
structurally sound, splendidly acted thriller, achieving a
continuous swirl of suspicion other directors would sell their own
mothers to achieve.”