In his one-man stand-up show about a substandard stand-up comedian, Damian Callinan has invented the saddest, least funny comic to ever try out for Raw Comedy – and that really is saying something. Is This Thing On?: The Dave Berry Story has to be the most meta stand-up you will ever see. Dave Berry isn’t funny, but he tries, he tries so very hard. He tries using props, he tries observational humour, and even puts on weight so he can tell fat jokes. Till one day, when the world …

Lovestruck is Megan Spencer’s fourth foray into documentary-making. Best known as the long-time triple j film reviewer and face of SBS’s revamped ‘The Movie Show’, Spencer’s fingers have been in countless other film-related pies over the years.
10 years in the making but only 52 minutes long’which, alongside its 4:3 screen ratio, makes it particularly television-friendly’this documentary takes us on a journey into the life Sue Chuter, wrestling fan extraordinaire, with tales of her first marriage and the birth, ten-year estrangement, reunion, and re-estrangement or her daughter. Oh, there’s a little …

William H. Macy, once again representing white middle-class America, plays Edmond the businessman run off his rails and clumsily plunging into a life of self-induced turmoil. Edmond leaves his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon) and heads out on the town, looking for some action. Unaccustomed in the ways of the underworld, Edmond continues to find his situation worsening, getting beaten and robbed. Fed up, he hits back hard with poor aim and finds himself in more trouble.
The warning ‘Contains scenes that may offend some viewers’ is true enough. Some of a more …

This film’s premise alone is probably enough to get people interested. A bunch of disaffected, socially backward and just plain strange adults get together biweekly, dress up in steel armour and gaudy medieval costumes, and pound each other with enormous padded swords. All the while, they’re carefully plotting each others’ (or each others’ ‘countries’) demise.
Yep, they’re nerds. The funny thing is that they seem to know it, and even funnier, they don’t really seem to care. For a group of social outcasts, the inhabitants of the imaginary world of ‘Darkon’ …

As a rule (And I have plenty of them in my narrow, sad little life.), I think it’s good to be wary of movies with exclamation points in the title. Especially when the preceding word is in another language. I don’t know what ‘Zisek!’ means; it could be ‘Splade!’ or something else. So imagine my surprise when I found out Zizek! is not the name of something boring’no’it’s actually the surname of a bombastic Slovenian academic, complete with green corduroy jacket! Strap yourselves in, we’re in for a roller coaster …

There’s that old saying that mums like to throw down their kids’ throats: ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’ Sarah Silverman’s mum must’ve told her: ‘If you can’t say anything nice, tell the whingeing cunts to fuck off.’ I guess it stuck. It stuck like a mother fucker.
All right, I think I’ve suitably set up what we’re dealing with, as well as completely alienated my family, friends, potential employersÔøΩƒ∂
Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic is basically a concert film; 70-odd-minutes of stand-up with five short musical …

Roky Erickson probably should’ve died young. He’d be remembered as he was then: a snake-hipped, baby-faced rocker howling and shrieking on stage. After You’re Gonna Miss Me, it’s impossible to think of him as anything but middle-aged, jowly, filthy, with fingernails overgrown and hair matted into one giant dreadlock. In the grips of schizophrenia and psychosis. As he is now.
While Roky’s journey from 13th Floor Elevators rock idol to recluse is the ostensible focus of the film, You’re Gonna Miss Me is not standard music doco fare. Closer to Capturing …

Directed by Tim Irwin, We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen is a 90-minute documentary chronicling the life and times of ’80s punk band, the Minutemen. It also serves as a poignant tribute to lead singer D.Boon, who died in a car accident at the age of 27 in 1985.
The Minutemen never sought commercial success, nor did they receive it; but they exerted their innovative sound’a synthesis of punk, funkadelic riffs, mexicali rhythms, and even a touch of jazz’on a variety of bands, including Black Flag, Dinosaur Jnr, and …

Screened in the spacious, ornamental Regent Theatre, United 93 is a film you already know the conclusion to.
The film is told in ‘real time’, recreating from the beginning the hijackers’ start to the day, arrival at the airport, the take off, the nervous take over of the plane, through to the final upheaval at the hands of the passengers.
Cut in between the scenes on United 93 are scenes from Boston, New York and US air traffic headquarters, and even NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command). These scenes are generally chaotic, …

Considered a model couple by their friends, Nicholas (Bruno Todeschini) and Marie (Val‚àöÔøΩria Bruni-Tedeschi) return to Paris for a wedding and smilingly announce their separation at the pre-wedding dinner. From that moment, the impending split becomes reality and the couple begin to ponder the significance of their decision.
This film is slow, painfully slow. A number of people left the theatre before the end and there was an audible sigh of relief when the film finished. The scenes are long and punctuated by lengthy silences. Camera shots are static and the …

There is only one truth for self-confessed ‘video junkie’ Rick Kirkham’the camera keeps rolling, no matter what.
When Kirkham was given his first video camera at 14, he began to record everything. From his role as dancer on ‘American Bandstand’ to national reporter for ‘Inside Edition’, Kirkham’s obsessive desire to remain centre screen, both in public and private, saw him film over three-thousand-hours of footage. Co-directed by Michael Cain and Matt Redecki, TV Junkie is the condensed result.
All Kirkham wants is ‘the perfect life’: he marries a nice girl from Texas, …

There was a time before the legend of Tony Hawk, before his street-skating adventures graced our video gaming consoles, before skating tournaments offered multimillion dollar sponsorship deals and slots on MTV. The skater-punk aesthetic was encapsulated by The Dead Kennedys rather than Good Charlotte’and the skate movement was rooted firmly in the underground.
The old-school and underground-focussed skateboarding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys was released in 2001 to wide acclaim. It inspired Lords of Dogtown (2005), starring our own Heath Ledger as a pioneer pool skater in Venice, California.
Rick Charnoski and Coan …

Director Detlev Buck holds his audience in a headlock throughout his compelling film, Tough Enough, which explores unflinchingly, and without sentiment, the seedy side of Berlin. When 15-year-old Michael’s mother is dumped by her doctor boyfriend, the pair find themselves confined to a boxy apartment, living in a rundown area of inner Berlin. Within hours of starting school, Michael (David Kross) becomes the target of malicious violence that goes well beyond schoolyard bullying.
Michael inhabits a world where gangs demand money from mothers with prams, and violence occurs in crowded streets …

In his 2004 review of comic book adaptation Catwoman, The Age’s Adrian Martin gave the film four stars. Martin was adamant that the undertones of feminism, mixed with pleasing aesthetics had constructed a ‘fine film’. He was particularly impressed that the film had serious feminist ideals while still being a huge Hollywood blockbuster.
The film was a critical and financial flop, even drawing ire from fans of the genre and character. It won several Razzie Awards, awards for the worst films of the year. Many have said that there is little …

Tokyo Express 06 is a showcase of four different series of Madman’s upcoming anime releases.
Eureka 7 is another in a long-standing tradition of Japanese animation that involves a 14-year-old and a giant robot. This series sees teenager Renton living in an isolated city, wishing he’s somewhere else. Once Eureka and her trusty robot arrive the show takes it up a notch. It might be a little too heavy on the philosophical meanderings, but once put out for general consumption the kids are going to eat this up.
Basilisk is about two …

It’s beautiful and terrible. I’m so glad I saw it’and I don’t think I’ll ever want to watch it again.
Tideland is the latest addition to cult director Terry Gilliam’s fascinating oeuvre, and like many of his movies such as Brazil, 12 Monkeys and the ill-fated and incomplete The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, it is thematically and stylistically obsessed with divisions between reality and fiction, madness and reason, horror and humour.
Jeliza-Rose (played by extraordinary Jodelle Ferland) is a little girl living with junkie parents (Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly) who …