May 02

Marguerite (2016)

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An operatic performance of pride’s folly.

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April 28

Eddie the Eagle (2016)

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This is a wonderfully filmed true story about the enobling human values of perseverance and belief in one’s self.

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April 26

Burnt (2015)

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An engaging film that will leave you feeling well fed in a cinematic kind of way.

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April 22

Infinite (2016) (Short)

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Looks at a painful subject in a poetically beautiful way.

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April 20

Rams (2016)

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An immersive insight into life on an Icelandic farm told through sensitive cinematography and understated storytelling.

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April 17

Sherpa (2015)

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Beautifully filmed story of Sherpa life and their struggle for respect.

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April 14

Labyrinth of Lies (2014)

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An investigation into the tip of an iceberg that grew until it overwhelmed a nation.

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April 11

Salt (2010)

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If you can believe the things that Jolie does in this film, narrative is the least of your concerns in this very entertaining but logic-defying film.

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April 07

Eye in the Sky (2015)

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Eye in the Sky stands out as both a thoroughly gripping film and a consciousness raising experience.

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April 05

Crushed (2015)

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A daughter’s quest for the crushing truth is the binding metaphor of this story.

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March 31

Dirty Grandpa (2016)

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If you can ignore the inane smut you will find some laughs.

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March 28

The Witch (2015)

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Not your standard horror with floating sheets or flying broomstick-type special effects.

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March 21

A Bigger Splash (2015)

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Beautifully photographed Sicilian landscape dwarfs four small lives and the mess they create.

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March 17

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

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The ending transforms this film into an incoherent and unforgivable mess.

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March 14

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

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A sweet self-narrated story of a butterfly emerging from a lonely, self-loathing teenage-hood.

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March 10

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

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This is an hilarious take on ‘the Hollywood dream’.

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March 06

The Lady in the Van (2015)

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A slow portrait of a fractious relationship between two misfits.

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March 02

Son of Saul (2015)

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In terms of cinematography, storytelling and emotional impact, this film is a modern masterpiece.

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February 29

Ex_Machina (2015)

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A chess game of guessing what is happening, who is manipulating who, and what is the real reason Caleb is there.

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February 27

The Daughter (2015)

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A metaphorical collision between a single ray of truth and the lie that connects two families.

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February 25

Testament of Youth (2015)

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A restrained portrait of war that depicts feminist and class dynamics in an emotionally and sexually constrained world.

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February 23

Grandma (2015)

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Grandmas are supposed to be helpful, bake cookies and give warm hugs, not swear, threaten, smoke dope, verbally and physically assault people, while conniving to raise money for an abortion.

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February 21

Dogville (2003)

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This allegorical meditation on the nature of evil and justice is as universal as the human condition.

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February 18

Brooklyn (2015)

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A beautifully photographed and finely acted historical drama.

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February 16

Trumbo (2015)

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the story of the 1950s right-wing purge of Hollywood

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February 13

Concussion (2015)

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The story of a modest hero who inconveniently discovers why so many pro footballers were dying and it shows the pressures that were mounted to silence him.

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February 11

Holding the Man (2015)

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Based on the 1995 memoir by revered gay rights activist Timothy Conigrave, the film version struggles to avoid soapy melodrama and corny humour.

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February 09

The Babadook (2014)

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An unusual hybrid of two closely related but different genres for which Australian filmmakers are acclaimed around the world: the horror and the psychological thriller.

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February 07

Looking for Grace (2015)

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Looking for Grace explores random destruction in a novel way by taking a simple plotline and splitting into separate narratives that converge with deadly force.

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February 05

Anomalisa (2015)

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Angst-ridden puppets disguise a lack of humanity, morality, or narrative purpose.

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February 03

The Gift (2015)

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We all fear false knowledge: the possibility that the person we know and love is really someone very different.

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February 01

45 Years (2015)

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While it is about life-cycles and memories and marriage, it is also a gendered probe into how differently men and women are emotionally constructed.

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January 29

Spotlight (2015)

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A David and Goliath style investigative drama where brave journalism exposes systemic corruption in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston.

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January 26

Steve Jobs (2015)

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An unexpectedly unflattering and melodramatic portrait of a tortured soul.

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January 24

Last Cab to Darwin (2015)

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This film can mess with your head about the complex issue of assisted dying, but it’s an Aussie gem well worth the effort.

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January 22

The Danish Girl (2015)

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Its like watching a newborn chick push its way through the shell of an egg: one faint crack becomes several and suddenly a new life form emerges, bewildered by the public gaze and nowhere to hide.

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January 21

Truth (2015)

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Its a gripping tale about the exhilaration of the hunt for big game and the carnage that follows if you pull the wrong lion’s tail.

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January 19

Youth (2015)

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The wit and wisdom of beautiful young people cuts through the homilies of elders to stop Youth from being a maudlin tale of loss.

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January 17

Suffragette (2015)

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A tale about brave protesting women and a suffragette who threw herself under the King’s horse.

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January 16

The Intern (2015)

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Do today’s audiences really want pre-feminist stories about wise old men that step in to prop up gorgeous and successful young career women…

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January 14

Room (2015)

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Brie Larson’s acting fixates on maternal dynamics at the cost of a convincing portrayal of captivity trauma.

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January 12

The Dressmaker (2015)

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The Dressmaker is a very funny and engaging Australian farce.

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January 10

The Revenant (2015)

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This film ticks all the top boxes for storytelling, casting, filming and action. It really is an epic.

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January 09

The Martian (2015)

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Science fiction or comedy, this is neither.

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January 09

Goodnight Mommy (2014)

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This is what the horror genre is all about: bringing us close to terror, then letting us down from the ceiling, calming us with logic to make our own lives feel better.

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January 08

Carol (2015)

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This is one Blanchett film that struggles to inspire.

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January 06

The Great Gatsby (2013)

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This is an outstanding modern adaptation of an all-time classic.

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January 04

The Bélier Family (2014)

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Can you imagine crying over a song you cannot hear?

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January 03

Joy (2015)

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An entertaining but clichéd story of feminine triumphalism in the fabricated-value world of television commerce

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January 01

Thelma & Louise (1991)

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One of the most remembered stories of feminist struggle in modern times

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December 24

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

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A brave challenge to Hollywood’s idea of sexuality

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December 22

Lost in Translation (2010)

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A wonderfully crafted film, but unsettling in its ability to leave you yearning.

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December 22

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

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A cinematic triumph on its own merits or a beloved movie with a cult following?

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December 22

A Room in Rome (2010)

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A gem of a film that deserves more critical acclaim

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October 27

Philomena (2013)

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A story of a mother’s search for her son and the lack of compassion by religious institutions

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September 27

NEBRASKA (2013)

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A touching father and son road movie

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August 29

Struggle Street (2015)

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This is poverty-porn of the worst kind that does not even resemble a truthful documentary.

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August 22

Aussie Wedding Films

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How does Australian film represent the “white wedding” ritual?

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July 26

Truth and Documentary

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There are many kinds of documentary just as there are many kinds of truth

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June 22

Short Story: Steamtrains

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A short dark story about many lives

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March 22

Book: Inside Bureaucratic Power (1994)

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The continuing challenges of changing the public sector are better understood through the lens of history

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August 04

Who owns Government information?

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While ever governments lock up vast stores of inaccessible information there can never be true democracy.

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August 03

Social media and social change

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  The traditional web is a top-down framework that separates the ‘means of production’ from consumers. In other words, there were only web controllers and web users. The concept of ‘produsage’ as developed by Axel Bruns refers to the “breakdown” or convergence of producers and consumers. While this has not yet fully inverted the traditional […]

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August 01

Whats post-human about the web?

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The history of the digital age was launched when Alan Turing built the first computer in the 1940’s at the UK National Physics Laboratory. The story of how he did this is told in the acclaimed film The Imitation Game (2014). In the time since his pioneering work, computers have evolved from large mainframes, to […]

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July 31

How does GPS work?

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  Always-on internet connectivity and the evolution of context-aware apps has transformed the idea of the traditional “map” as a representation of spatial location. Most apps integrate global positioning technology (GPS) with smartphone hardware, and there is now no theoretical limit to the kind of information that can be overlaid and interrelated with geographical coordinates. […]

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July 22

What is the Semantic Web?

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 Web searches to date has been based on syntactical code, which is the “nearest fit” between the queried keyword and stored data. The evolutionary turning point for the Semantic Web is the shift towards semantic code which incorporates “reasoning using probability and causality…and the relationships between statements, concepts, or propositions, and the rules of inference” (Dowd 2008). […]

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July 14

Can computers think?

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Films like Blade Runner (1982) reflect a social anxiety that the machines we build will one day control us. It seems simple now, but key steps in getting here relates to simple information indexing. Half a century ago my parents gave me a 7-volume encyclopedia called the Book of Knowledge to use through high school. My friends and […]

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July 11

How did the Internet start?

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In 1945, George Orwell coined the term “cold war” to describe a prolonged period of political confrontation between the United States and Russia. By the 1950’s, there were several military crises as the two superpowers were constantly trying to out-perform each other. Few people today know that the “Space Race” was the major stimulus for […]

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July 11

WELCOME to CineMuseFilms

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This blog started out in 2013 as part of a digital media unit in a Bachelor of Media & Communication course.  I’ve left the original posts here as historical markers, as well as eclectic mix of other writings, such as academic essays, a short story, a book published from my PhD, and other odds and sods. The […]

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