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HOT: Art Chat with Murray Walker, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne

June 11, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

An art gallery (granted, the major gallery) in a city of only 3 million people can afford to open late one night a week, and people will actually turn up. These facts make me appreciate living in Melbourne, a city with what I believe is a disproportionally high level of interest and creativity activity in [...]

HOT: KK Exports, Guildford Lane Gallery, 202-4 Guildford Ln, Melbourne

June 11, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Having lived in Melbourne for several years, I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about what was hidden in its mysterious laneways. Not so – I only found out about Guildford Lane today, and discovered that it is the resident of a fabulous (but freezing) warehouse-style art space called the Guildford Lane Gallery. The gallery is [...]

HOT: Gomorrah, Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton

June 9, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

Gomorrah has been termed the best mob movie since The Godfather, but I think with one difference. The Godfather, while based on reality, was clearly a work of fiction and the film had a sleek cinematic look to it. On the other hand, the jerky handheld documentary style camera work of Gomorrah and the very [...]

HOT: Dressed to Rule, NGV International, 180 St Kilda Rd, Southbank

June 4, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

The second half of my very informative (and one-on-one) fashion-focused tour with the NGV guide was to the Dressed to Rule exhibition. I never knew that the NGV had such a well-preserved collection of Chinese imperial robes, and this exhibition includes robes worn by members of the imperial court and even the Emperor, as well [...]

HOT: Persuasion, NGV International, 180 St Kilda Rd, Southbank

June 4, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I’m a keen devotee of BBC costume dramas and I’ve just finished a marathon screening of the delightful Lost in Austen – so I was pretty sure that Persuasion: Fashion in the Age of Jane Austen would be right up my alley. The free exhibition is a small and well-curated examination of the fashion cycles [...]

HOT: Sunshine Cleaning, Classic Cinema, 9 Gordon St, Elsternwick

June 3, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

It’s hardly a surprise that perenially sunny Amy Adams is the star of the movie called Sunshine Cleaning. But it’s not all singalongs and pastel cupcakes – the film is about a former high school cheerleader, now single mum Rose (Adams) who teams up with her flaky, dope-smoking sister Norah (Emily Blunt with a very [...]

HOT: Two Lovers, Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton

June 2, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

In Two Lovers, Joaquin Phoenix plays Leonrard, an awkward, lumpish and directionless bachelor who lives with his parents in Brooklyn. He falls in love with his wild, needy and self-centred neighbour Michelle, while on the other hand conforming to his familial duty to propose to Sandra, the stable daughter of his father’s business associate. I’ve [...]

HOT: Australia’s Top 100: Competition Session 3, St Kilda Film Festival, Palace George Cinemas, 135 Fitzroy St, St Kilda

May 28, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Another diverse collection of drama, action, animation and documentary short films. All interesting but overall not as strong as some of the films in Session 2. Of note was the cute plasticised animated style used in Mutt, a story about a farmer, his cow and his dog who just wants to play fetch, and the [...]

HOT: Australia’s Top 100: Competition Session 2, St Kilda Film Festival, Palace George Cinemas, 135 Fitzroy St, St Kilda

May 28, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

My pick from the five films on show in competition session 2 was the elegiac Trampoline. The story was about a little girl, a silent social outcast who harbours a dream to fly. Through her tentative friendship with the new kid at school, who also doesn’t quite fit in, she discovers that she really can [...]

HOT: Armed & Dangerous, St Kilda Film Festival, Palace George Cinemas, 135 Fitzroy St, St Kilda

May 28, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Thanks to my MIFF membership, I won a mid-week pass to the St Kilda Film Festival, which allowed me to delve into a veritable smorgasbord of short films over two days. Unbeknownst to me initially, the first session I chose to attended was a schools session of twelve short films made by various secondary schools [...]