The mighty Melbourne International Film Festival opens next week. The challenge of any festival is working with A) the time you have, B) the money you have, and C) decisions on what to see. We can’t help you A or B, but we can with C. Here we profile – from the massive 200+ selection of movies – our 20 must-sees…
The Lobster
The Lobster is weird. Not in the Tree of Life why-the-f**k-are-there-dinosaurs kind of weird. This is comprehensible weirdness, accessible weirdness, hilarious weirdness, a weirdness that says something about our current – and flawed – understanding of companionship with a cocked eyebrow and a malicious grin.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Berlin and Sundance Festival winning coming-of-age black comedy, the debut from Marielle Heller, based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. Bel Powley (A Royal Night Out) stars alongside Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård.
Says the Guardian: “This is the rare movie that realises that individuals are the sum of formative experiences some good, some bad, and some productive in their devastation.”
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Finders Keepers
Absurd, only-in-America documentary: Man buys BBQ, finds a fella’s mummified leg chilling inside it. Fella, sans-leg, claims its his. Fella takes man to court (televised court).
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
The Wolfpack
The documentary section always sucks us in bad because no matter how weird the arty dramas direct from Cannes get, they’ll never reach the levels of bizarre that real life does. Six brothers practically imprisoned in their Lower East Side apartment somehow overcome their oppressive childhood by watching and re-enacting films. What a salute to the power of movies.
See our interview with director Crystal Moselle here.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Grey Gardens
Here’s a chance to see the Maysles brothers’ cult classic, observational documentary on the big screen. Follows mother and daughter Beale – the reclusive cousins of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, high-society dropouts, and tenants of a faded and decaying Hampton mansion.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Mistress America
Looking to strike gold again after 2012’s fantastic Frances Ha, director Noah Baumbach and actress Greta Gerwig reunite for this New York comedy.
Says Sundance Film Festival: “A comedy about dream-chasing, score-settling, makeshift families, and cat-stealing… Featuring incisive dialogue and boundless wit, this is a ride through New York that captures the hopes and dreams (some shattered) of those who are drawn there.”
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
End of the Tour
Jesse Eisenberg is Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and Jason Segel is the late, great American novelist David Foster Wallace in this true road trip drama, following the final days of the writer’s book tour for Infinite Jest.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Tangerine
Hit Sundance indie film shot almost entirely on an iPhone 5S, following a working girl fresh out of a month-long term in prison.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Walkabout
Screening at part of MIFF’s David Gulpilil retrospective, this is the great man’s very first film appearance.
New York Times critic A.O. Scott: “Although Roeg was British, there’s a lot in Walkabout that anticipates the Australian New Wave of the mid and late 1970s. It condemns the brutality of western civilisation while celebrating the nobility and vitality of native people. It’s violent, sexy, poetic, trippy – sometimes almost to the point of self-indulgence.” (Watch the NY Times video appreciation here.)
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Results
Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders are fitness freaks in this romantic comedy about two personal trainers who become entangled with a wealthy client (Kevin Corrigan), who has one goal: to be able to take a punch. From the “Godfather of Mumblecore”, Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha).
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Yakuza Apolcalypse
A violent yakuza vampire fantasy from Takashi Miike, the prolific director of no-holds-barred Japanese gore-fests, Ichi The Killer, and Lesson of the Evil, starring Yayan Ruhian (The Raid 1 and 2)? You had us at Takashi Miike.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
99 Homes
Andrew Garfield might not be a reason to see a movie, but Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) most definitely is.
Says the BBC: “Stand aside, Gordon Gekko. [The] Wall Street corporate raider may stand as the emblem of 1980s rapacity, but now he has a successor for the credit-crunch era: Rick Carver (Shannon).”
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
7 Chinese Brothers
Jason Schwartzman is Larry, an unqualified, inebriated, slacker, sad sack who manages to land a job vacuuming cars and washing windshields. Co-stars TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Raiders!
Documentary love letter to the 11-year-old filmmakers who, in 1982, started to remake Raiders of the Lost Ark – a mission they pursued for seven years. The videotape was only recently discovered by filmmaker Eli Roth, projecting the movie into fan-film fame.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Love 3D
Let’s not pretend we’re the only ones looking forward to Gaspar Noé’s soft-porn (who are we kidding? It’s porn-porn). Now we can experience porn the way it was always supposed to be seen – in 3D and surrounded by strangers.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
The Guest
This is a wry, revved-up 1980s-style psycho thriller that barely puts a foot wrong. From the makers of You’re Next. Co-stars Maika Monroe, star of breakout indie horror It Follows.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Victoria
This is a Berlin bank robbery in one unbroken shot (like Birdman). It’s not just a gimmick though, Victoria took the Silver Bear (Best Director) and was nominated for the Golden at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry
Documentary tracing the modern women’s movement from the ’60s to the ’70s – from the founding of the N.O.W. feminist organisation to the emergence of more radical factions of women’s liberation like the street theatrics of W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell). Presented through dramatisations, interviews, performance and archival footage.
Says the L.A. Times: “An exceptional chronicle, bristling with the energy and insight of one of the most important social movements of the 20th century.”
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
The Witch
Winner of the Directing Award at Sundance 2015 for first-timer Robert Eggers, this atmospheric historical thriller follows a devout family living in the wilderness of 1630 New England (60 years before the Salem witch trials) who fall victim to paranoia and superstition.
There’s no trailer yet for The Witch, but see interviews from the premiere here and a Variety interview here.
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
Phoenix
From the director of the superb Barbara, this Hitchcockian drama of mistaken identity set in post-WWII Berlin. A concentration camp survivor (Nina Hoss, also from Barbara) who suffered a horrible disfigurement, roams a broken Berlin in search of the man who may have betrayed her to the Nazis – her own husband.
Says Empire Magazine: “A gripping study of treachery, identity and survival.”
MORE INFO/REVIEWS | MIFF TICKETS
