Stone dares with truthful portrait of man who exposed the US
Oliver Stone's penchant for bending the truth has been compromised this time around – making for an absorbing, rather than galvanising, film.
Paul Byrnes was director of the Sydney Film Festival from 1989 to 1998. He has been a film critic for The Sydney Morning Herald for 20 years. In 2007, he was awarded the Geraldine Pascall prize for critical writing, the highest award in the Australian media for critics in any genre.
Oliver Stone's penchant for bending the truth has been compromised this time around – making for an absorbing, rather than galvanising, film.
The Secret Life of Pets has all the strengths and weaknesses of big-studio feature animation: it's loud, strident in comedy and action, lacking in real character development, but sufficiently plausible to attract good opening weekend grosses.
The story of Panti Bliss, the alter ego of Rory O'Neill, is told in a powerful - and bizarre - documentary,
It has taken Terence Davies 18 years to bring Sunset Song to the screen, but it was worth it.
A masterclass of a performance saves this indulgent English comedy, writes Paul Byrnes.
It's meant to leave a bad taste and it does. High-Rise is an effective adaptation of a classic dystopian novel that no longer seems like science fiction.
As it Is in Heave 2 is a mess, in which the small failures of the first film turn into great, heaving mistakes of judgment,
Are you happy with your body? Neither am I. If the issue is mundane, it is also universal, but Taryn Brumfitt's engaging documentary argues that it is a question of degree.
The mysticism and the performances of the two men playing Karamakate give the film its power, which is considerable.
Director Rebecca Miller once again gets away with surprising us.
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