Ryan (George Clooney) is charming, successful, and well on his way to a world-record total of frequent-flyer points thanks to his job: he’s the guy companies bring in to tell staff they’re being retrenched. He’s never in one place or with one woman. But his life of loyalty-card luxury is threatened when his employer trials… Read More Up In The Air
Katie and Micah are happily living together, but Katie’s having trouble sleeping due to things going bump in the night. So Micah decides to set up a video camera in their bedroom to discover the cause. And indeed, things are certainly afoot at the foot of the bed – Katie seems to have a demon… Read More Paranormal Activity
Mr Fox generally has no trouble outwitting nasty farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean to snaffle their chickens, ducks and turkeys. But the farmers finally decide to launch a concerted effort to dig him out, threatening both his family and every other burrowing creature in the neighbourhood. It takes a while to warm to the animation… Read More Fantastic Mr Fox
A box with a button on top (amazing props!) arrives on the doorstep of a suburban couple along with a moral dilemma: press the button and they’ll get a million bucks, but some stranger will die. The man making the offer (Frank Langella) has apparently survived some sort of top-secret disaster with alien help, but… Read More The Box
A blind scriptwriter is visited by a figure from his past – from 14 years before, when he wasn’t blind and directed his movies too – and is compelled to face up to some unfinished business. This typically elliptical Almodóvar tale doesn’t reach the emotional heights of his best work but it does feature Penèlope… Read More Broken Embraces
In a parallel world where people speak only the truth, the romantic prospects for Mark (Ricky Gervais) – short, pudgy and unemployed – aren’t fantastic. Until, that is, he suddenly discovers he can lie, and accidentally invents religion overnight. The resulting fame and fortune will attract the woman of his dreams (Jennifer Garner), but will… Read More The Invention of Lying
Yes, it’s a faithful adaptation of the book, for better or for worse. A man (Viggo Mortensen) leads his son on a probably pointless journey south through a post-apocalyptic landscape where humans are the only things still living – and they’ve started living off each other. Not a knockabout comedy, then. Cormac McCarthy’s novel bombards… Read More The Road
Jim Carrey plays Scrooge in the chin/nose prosthesis he last wore for A Series of Unfortunate Events, but here it’s motion-capture animated in 3-D. This film deserves praise for being true to the Dickens story and putting misery-guts Ebenezer centre stage, but there isn’t much for kids to hook into emotionally and, swoopy flying sequences… Read More A Christmas Carol
Willie’s a nice boy, but torn between training for the priesthood to please his mum and hanging out in Broome with Rosie (Jessica Mauboy), the girl he hasn’t quite got around to kissing. After running away from a Perth Aboriginal mission, Willie falls in with cheerful dero Uncle Tadpole (Ernie Dingo) and two hippies in… Read More Bran Nue Dae
Mercifully Short Reviews 