We've combed through the remaining films of this season's Rev Film Fest program (curated by program director Jack Sargeant), and picked out the films that piqued our interests the most to help you with your movie marathon.
All in Screen Nation
Hilariously dark and madly energetic “Wild Tales” is the perfect lightning-in-a-bottle closer for this year’s Spanish Film Festival
"Wild Tales" is a horrifically hysterical, playfully violent, and rousingly poignant thrill ride of revenge that is best experienced with minimal knowledge of what’s about to come.
“Game of Thrones” Season 5 Episode 3 debrief: The one in which Sansa can’t ever catch a break
"High Sparrow": The Stark children are forced to make difficult choices and Cersei finds a new ally in an excellent episode filled with intimate, poignant character moments.
"X + Y" is a charming British drama that sensitively explores the concepts of grief and tragedy
Based on a true story, X + Y is a touching, beautiful and absolutely endearing experience. The acting is impeccable, bringing the character’s to life and allowing the audience to really relate to their hardships.
"KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER" is tense, distressing, poignant, but rarely enjoyable
While Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is commendable in its ambition; the film's execution of its central character's sombre tale is ultimately frustrating and alienating to its audience.
"Girlhood" is a stylistic but gritty slice-of-life exploration of what it means to be a teenage girl
In a way, it can be argued that Girlhood is the spiritual successor to recent Oscar Best Picture loser Boyhood (come to think of it, both films would make the perfect double-feature for a movie night).
Film Review: "SELMA" Seeks Insight
Taking audiences on a journey through a civil detente is a hard thing to achieve. Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay and produced by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, accomplishes the Hollywood glamour that audiences want in historical dramas.
Andrey Zvyagintsev's sprawling "Leviathan" is depressing, slyly comedic and inimitably Russian
A modern day interpretation of the Bible's most famous parable, the tale of Job, Leviathan is a stinging rebuke of the systemic corruption that underpins modern Russia, told through the collapse of a family and the downward spiral of its patriarch.
VIDEO: BEST FILMS OF 2014 - A SUPERCUT
What is the best movie you've seen this year?
Why settle on THE best film of the year when I can just make a hastily-edited (thanks iMovie) supercut of ALL my favourite movies of 2014? Genius, I know.
Stylish and captivating Italian drama "Human Capital" is a perfect opener for this year’s PIAF film season
In addition to being an engrossing character study, Human Capital is also a searing indictment of capitalist greed - from the perspectives of its wealthy perpetrators, as well as the people who idealize it.
Look Closer... American Beauty
When American Beauty was first released it was met with pretty much universal acclaim; and the Oscars, with their love of all things in love with Americana, melodrama and mature seriousness, found American Beauty to be the best film of the year. The film also took numerous other Academy Awards, including best screenplay for Ball, best director for Sam Mendes and best actor for Kevin Spacey. It also won several Golden Globes but like, is that even a real thing anyways.
Film Review: Nick Cave: 20,000 Days on Earth
This whole film pieced together is bursting with stories and lines of narration that at first seem to be cluttered en masse, soon prove to be beautifully crafted together in a familiar and deliberate manner.
I.N. After Dark #1: Why TV is No Longer Film's 'Inferior Cousin'
Back in the old days, television was regarded as the “inferior cousin” to cinema, but that is not the case anymore. This year’s Emmys is a good example to illustrate how much that tide has turned, and television’s ascension to being the home for quality visual storytelling and characterisation.
Look Closer…Psycho, 1998
But as we know by this time it was already the school of thought that if you were to remake a film, you must add something new, do something different; but Van Sant opted against this and demanded that if he were to do it, he must do a true remake. The film must be a shot-for-shot, score-for-score, moment by moment redoing of what Hitchcock did. His thinking was pretty much; who was he to change what was already perfect.
This weekend, let Possible Worlds Film Festival scratch that burning indie film itch inside you.
You know you’ve got one.
Look, I get it: Guardians of the Galaxy was space-tacular, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was ape-tastic, and Transformers 4: Age of Extinction was more like Age of Ex-stinking-garbage. But now that you’ve satiated your blockbuster appetite, I know that you’re craving for that sweet, sweet high you get from smaller, wackier, and more brain-churning indie flicks.
Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy
Sometimes you’ve got to leave serious movies to the cinephiles and see a movie featuring a talking raccoon and a tree fighting evil aliens.
Film Review: Snowpiercer dir. Bong Joon-Ho
So the story goes that in the year 2014 humanity, after finally accepting global warming as a thing, attempted to fight against it and thus, set of chain of events that ushered in a new ice age. Our present day is now the not too distant future of 2031 and those who are survived managed to do so by purchasing a ticket on a train that travels around the entire planet each year.
Film Review: These Final Hours dir. Zack Hilditch
So it is a hot summer day in Perth and you just found out that in a matter of hours, the whole world is going to go up in smoke and everyone is going to die a horrible fiery death, what do you do?
REVELATION FILM FESTIVAL 2014 Preview: Our Top Picks
The Revelation Perth International Film Festival is back, and with it comes the thought-provoking documentaries, the quirky indie flicks, and the mind-bending art-house films from all over the world. You know, those obscure films you heard about, the ones with trailers you happen to stumble upon but thought would never reach our shores? Well, from the 3rd to 13th of July, you can actually see it them in an actual theatre near you!
Film Review: Nymphomaniac dir. Lars Von Trier
Nymphomaniac is the latest film by independent film legend Lars Von Trier. The film follows on from the critical success of both Melancholia and Antichrist, and is the concluding installment in his Depression trilogy.