Phil Jeng Kane

HITCHCOCK is a love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville. The film takes place during the making of Hitchcock’s seminal movie PSYCHO. The nature of film direction is that it is essentially a practice, a craft or an art hidden from public view. For example, unless one is a film fan, knowing the identity of the...

At a home for retired opera singers, the annual concert to celebrate Verdi’s birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, an eternal diva and the former wife of one of the residents. This log line is from the International Movie Database and is 100% accurate. QUARTET is indeed about the disruption that ensues at a home for retired opera singers with the arrival of Jean the eternal diva and ...

A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims. The crime takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The perpetrator is easily found, but claims to be innocent. His only instruction to the police is “Get Jack Reacher” Reacher is a hard man to find. The police discover he is an ex Military Policeman and reportedly an excellent investig...

Filmed over five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, SAMSARA transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders. Producer Mark Magidson and director Ron Fricke have carefully constructed a feature film of amazing images, wonderful sounds and beautiful music. It’s a non-narrative documentary that shows us the diverse range ...

A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfil his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives. Wreck-It Ralph (John C.Reilly) is the bad guy in an old school 8-bit video arcade game called Fix-It Felix Junior. The premise of the game is straightforward; there is an apartment complex filled with “Nicelanders” who are terrorised whenever Ralph wrecks the bui...

On a mission to rid society of its most repellent citizens, terminally ill Frank makes an unlikely accomplice in 16-year-old Roxy. Frank (Joel Murray) is a middle-aged man who feels as if he is losing everything. He is a divorced father of one who lives alone next to noisy, inconsiderate neighbours.  He has trouble sleeping and fills in his lonely hours watching television. Everything he sees conv...

When 30-something Jesse returns to his alma mater for a professor’s retirement party, he falls for Zibby, a college student, and is faced with a powerful attraction that springs up between them. In Australia, we view higher education as important, but I don’t believe we see it as the life-changing experience that Americans do. Not too many Australian films spring to mind that deal with unive...

Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost. Bond 23 a.k.a SKYFALL has been on Australian screens for just over a week. This review will contain mild spoilers in its main section, so you have been warned. It morphs into a fanboyish rant in the final section, which wil...

Set in the near future, Frank, a man with the early signs of dementia receives a gift from his son: a robot butler programmed to look after him. But soon Frank works out ways to manipulate the robot’s programming and they embark upon a series of illegal activities. ROBOT AND FRANK is a small film with no great ambitions. It takes as its starting point the number of Japanese elderly who have simple...

Two young officers are marked for death after confiscating a small cache of money and firearms from the members of a notorious cartel, during a routine traffic stop. END OF WATCH, the new feature by writer-director David Ayer, is an episodic adventure into the dark world of drugs and gangs in South Central Los Angeles. The story is told through the eyes of two young, but experienced police officer...

A dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran. The Iranian Hostage Crisis dominated news in the western world in 1979. The militants who occupied the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage committed an act that was particularly newsworthy because it was unprecedented. The concept of embass...