Richard Cotter

Art for art’s sake. Art felt and artful.

1760 posts by Richard Cotter

AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW: DECEMBER EDITION

T’is the season for reading. Buying books for gifting or for personal downtime, slung in hammocks, lost in the pages, what bliss. Always a reliable guide of what to choose is the December issue of the Australian Book Review.

This

Read More »

KARLA’S CHOICE: SMILEY UNEARTHED

In the old days if an agent did something embarrassing he’d have the good sense to defect. Christ I miss the Cold War.” says M in the film Casino Royale.

That nostalgia for Iron Curtains, Checkpoint Charlies, Warsaw Pacts

Read More »

THE DEAD DON’T HURT: TO VICKY, THE SPOILS

Is that a medieval knight riding through the forest that starts this Western?

Yep. It’s a part of the split narrative employed in Viggo Mortensen’s revenge tragedy, THE DEAD DON’T HURT.

THE DEAD DON’T HURT, just like Romeo and Juliet,

Read More »

YOUR MONSTER: MONSTROUS GOOD FUN

Forget Godzilla versus Kong or Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman.

In YOUR MONSTER, allegory and metaphor duke it out in a mix of horror, musical theatre, and cinephilia.

Referential but irreverent, YOUR MONSTER takes Beauty and The Beast and gives it

Read More »

OUT OF SEASON: FLAME REKINDLED

Beginning with an aerial shot of a car traversing the verdant urban outskirts to the more arid coastal verge, visuals beautifully accompanied by a sarabande by Vincent Delerme, Stephane Brize’s latest film, HORS-SAISON or OUT OF SEASON, is, in essence,

Read More »

CONQUERING SKIN CANCER: THE SUN IS A GUN

This documentary could save your life.

CONQUERING SKIN CANCER is a scary but inspiring film, capable of influencing life style change that will serve individuals and society for the better.

CONQUERING SKIN CANCER is a horror movie and one that

Read More »

GREEN BORDER: ASYLUM SEEKING SISYPHEAN

Poland doesn’t come out un-pummeled but Belarus is made look totally brutal, brutalised and bankrupt of any human empathy in Agnieszka Holland’s scathing, searing GREEN BORDER.

The so called “green border” of the title is the treacherous and swampy forest

Read More »

NO OTHER LAND: DEVASTATING DOCUMENTARY

Drama is conflict. Good drama is conflict with resolution. Without resolution you have the ongoing drama of the Middle East. Tragedy beyond measure.

NO OTHER LAND is a horror movie, a documentary of destruction and displacement. Does expulsion equal extermination?

Read More »

GOODRICH: GOOD, RICH

Good and rich in comedy, drama and pathos, GOODRICH is an unheralded feel good gem, another showcase for the incomparable Michael Keaton.

Keaton plays Andy Goodrich, the affable but flawed gallery owner whose life is upended when his wife and

Read More »
Scroll to Top