Australia may not have an overabundance of horror films but they’ve managed to produce some quality genre pictures. The recent success of the acclaimed documentary Not Quite Hollywood has shed light on a much overlooked aspect of Aussie genre filmmaking, from lowbrow slashers to twisted thrillers and gross-out horror comedies. Back in the 70’s a …
As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up. Enjoy! **** 150: Session 9 Directed by Brad Anderson Written by Stephen Gevedon …
When I was a kid, I used to love a scary movie. I remember catching the original The Haunting (1963) one night on Channel 9’s Million Dollar Movie when I was home alone. Before it was over, I had every light in the house on. When my mother got home she was screaming she’d been …
To fully appreciate Peter Jackson’s last foray into Middle-Earth, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, one must understand it’s actually two separate movies. The first movie is a sour, pseudo-Shakespearean morality play that has nothing to do with Hobbits. The second movie is a heartfelt rumination about friendship and self-sacrifice. For those willing to overlook the sour for the sweet, there are great treasures to be found, as Jackson brings his trilogy to a suitably-epic conclusion.
In Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson establishes the societal isolation of his protagonists right from the beginning. The movie opens with a 1950s documentary concerning the story’s setting, Christchurch, New Zealand. The area is wholesome and idyllic. People ride their bikes down busy streets. Children play in the local park. Vibrant flowers bloom in the springtime sun. Then, just as the documentary’s narrator begins to proclaim that Christchurch is New Zealand’s finest town, the distant sound of screaming is heard. It swells to a terrifying volume.
Like a twisted and reversed Chekov’s Gun, everything that appears in the popular original trilogy has to appear in the prequels: it is lazy foreshadowing to reward the fans of the series for being able to spot the glaringly obvious references.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro Directed by Peter Jackson New Zealand, United Kingdom, and USA, 2013 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is, no doubt, an improvement over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, though perhaps because it is the second of three …
Ah, splatter. A singular genre, only achievable in its most fully realized form in a cinematic format, seemingly crafted solely to delight. But there must be something within the way we react to the films of this genre that says something about us, whether that response is deliberately in the artist’s intent or not. Splatter’s fundamental …
The second in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug continues the adventure of the title character Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as he journeys with the Wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and thirteen Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) on an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Written by: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo Del Toro Directed by: Peter Jackson New Zealand, UK, US, 2012 There is an argument to be made that Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the best series of films of the naught decade, if not of …
#1: West of Memphis Directed by Amy Berg Written by Billy McMillin and Amy Berg 2012, USA Following from the original Paradise Lost film and its two sequels, West of Memphis follows the events of one of the most media-covered American crime stories of the last two decades: The West Memphis Three, a case in which three teenagers (Jessie …
I hate being wrong. Really hate it. The only thing I hate more than being wrong is publicly admitting I’m wrong. And, man, when it comes to how 2012 played out at the movies matched up against what I’d predicted in my end-of-2011 box office wrap-up, I couldn’t have been more wrong. “Want a prediction …
West of Memphis Directed by Amy J. Berg Written by Amy J. Berg and Billy McMillin U.S.A., 2012 How many movies surround a character who has been wrongfully accused of any sort of heinous crime? Much like with the revenge thriller, there appears to be a definite interest with this type of plot, perhaps because …
To say that none of the 40 + films on our staff-voted list is universally beloved is putting it mildly; but then, that’s the nature of polls like these. Every year we’ve run this poll, there’s been a runaway winner; this year, the top film crossed the three-hundred-point threshold, a first here at Sound On …
25: The Dark Knight Rises Directed by Christopher Nolan Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan 2012, USA The Dark Knight Rises feels as if it was made up of two equal halves, with the most critical moment of the film breaking the movie in half, almost literally. While the second half may have …
2012 wasn’t a bad year for movies. It was actually a great year. The problem is, the movies we were most anticipating, specifically the Hollywood blockbusters like Prometheus and The Hobbit, didn’t live up to our expectations. With that said I still managed to make a list of 50 films I loved. Maybe I just …
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Directed by Peter Jackson Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo Del Toro New Zealand and USA, 2012 Who can blame Peter Jackson for not wanting to leave Middle-Earth? His adaptation of The Lord of the Rings book series, written by J.R.R. Tolkien, was an enormously successful …
Attention war film buffs: there are three exciting, scheduled new releases to put in your diaries for 2013. Each is based on a true story, two from WW2 and one from Vietnam, so it will be interesting to see – if you are a stickler for ‘authenticity’ like me – just how closely each sticks …
Last weeks release of Halo 4 by Microsoft’s 343 Industries was a huge deal for videogame fans. A trailer released for the game a few weeks earlier was an equally huge deal for completely different reasons. The two-minute and twenty-one second launch trailer, titled “Scanned,” made its debut on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” on …
This holiday season Peter Jackson is venturing back to Middle Earth with The Hobbit, and also along for the journey is Howard Shore, who established the world’s musical parameters. Today The Film Stage posted a preview of one of the score’s complete tracks entitled “Radagast the Brown”. This is a perfect track for Warner Brothers to release. …
A Priest, A Rabbi and Your Mom Walk Into a Movie Theatre… You might think that your Mom disapproves of all horror films on principle. At least that’s the stereotype: the wagging finger; the warning that horror films cause nightmares. But the truth is that this is merely a bit of parental judo, reverse psychology …
Mars Needs Moms Directed by Simon Wells Written by Simon Wells and Wendy Wells Starring Seth Green, Joan Cusack, Dan Fogler, Elisabeth Harnois A fascinating trend has been cropping up in mainstream filmmaking over the last 20 years, specific to major male directors who are widely considered to be technological pioneers. From James Cameron to …
