Australia
March 4, 2009
After his debut film Strictly Ballroom (1992), writer/director Baz Luhrmann never looked back, creating lavish, ultra-stylish musicals William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001), and let’s not forget that $5 million Chanel...
Deception
October 17, 2008
How can a film starring three marquee names like Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams get an extremely limited theatrical release with very little publicity? Collectively, they have appeared in some serious moneymakers: McGregor with the...
The Prestige
March 6, 2007
In the cinematic duel between two films about 19th century magicians, The Prestige (2006) certainly had the advantage over The Illusionist (2006) with big name stars, a large budget and a major studio backing it. The film was directed by Christopher Nolan...
X:Men: The Last Stand
September 21, 2006
After two impressive outings, The X-Men franchise was handed over to Brett Ratner when Bryan Singer was unavailable due to his commitment with Superman Returns (2006). This caused fans to grumble due to Ratner’s less than stellar track record and reputation...
Van Helsing: 2 Disc Special Edition
February 28, 2005
After his financial success with The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, director Stephen Sommers was given free reign by the studios to make anything he wanted. He went off to write a small scale film but came back with the script for Van Helsing which, with...
X-Men 1.5
November 29, 2003
If Batman and Robin (1997) didn’t nearly kill off the comic book super hero film, it did a great job of reducing the genre, in the public’s eye, to the stuff of silly camp. After such an embarrassingly awful effort, the only way to go was self-parody...
Van Helsing
March 31, 2003
The veritable assault and battery that Universal Pictures marketing department have bestowed in recent weeks is now all abundantly clear. Realising the celluloid travesty they have on their hands the powers that be have invested as much money as possible...
