Saturday, April 21, 2012

Review: Make-Out with Violence

Make-Out with Violence
Dir. The Deagol Bros
Country: USA
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 105mins

Zombies have been inserted into all sorts of unexpected texts in the last decade. We’ve read Jane Austen go all Resident Evil on them in Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, they put the “zom” in the “rom-zom-com” of Shaun of the Dead, and infamous Canadian provocateur Bruce LaBruce even made a couple of gay romance/porn movies most notably Otto or, Up With Dead People. Meanwhile, the television adaptation of the popular The Walking Dead comic series has put the flesh eaters in Prime Time. Now comes Make-Out with Violence, which takes the bittersweet American indie coming-of-age drama and gives it a zombie twist. Naturally.

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I really hope the dodgy local cover art of this film - finally being released here for the first of any kind - doesn't deter people from watching it. It's really quite special.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Review: The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea
Dir. Terrence Davies
Country: UK
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 98mins

The first non-documentary feature from esteemed British director Terrence Davies (The House of Mirth) in some 11 years is a rather curious creature. Davies has crafted–oh my, has he crafted–a rather drowsy and leisurely paced film that is bathed in rich, deep yellows, crimsons and blues and filmed through a haze of post-war cigarette smoke. Despite seemingly being confined to all but a few sets, Davies has punctuated his minimalistic romance with beautiful refined costumes, ornate set decoration of sublime precision and sumptuous cinematography that nonetheless appears to be slowly strangling its protagonists from behind. An omnipresent autumnal chill permeates the film and The Deep Blue Sea never transcends its stage bound origins, but the finely modulated performance of Rachel Weisz is a thing of such beauty that one can forgive its simpler trappings.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine