AustLit

'In horror movies, a disembodied hand almost always spells trouble. Who could forget Bruce Campbell's Ash duelling his severed appendage in Evil Dead II? Director Oliver Stone made an entire film about a missing meathook on a murder spree. And then there's 90s stoner classic Idle Hands, in which a teenager's possessed paw goes on a high school prom rampage that culminates in the scalping of a cameoing rock star. (It's a masterpiece, critics be damned.)' (Introduction)   

'Teen cinema is full of angsty outsiders, social climbers and mouthpieces for current pop culture, but rare are the coming-of-age films that dare to privilege sincerity – an uncool sensibility that can cut through the adolescent din with lovely, unforced levity.' (Introduction)

'Dressed in a sequinned shirt and flared black pants like some teenage Elvis, 17-year-old Kol (Elias Anton), the nervy centre of queer romance Of an Age, cuts a dazzling figure.'(Introduction)

'We tell ourselves stories in order to live – or, if you're Australian director George Miller, to smash up post-apocalyptic monster trucks, put a witchy Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer into a duel with the devil, or have computer-generated penguins shimmy and shake to a jukebox of pop bangers.' 

'Elvis: he's everywhere and nowhere, a mononym as familiar as Coke and a cipher as abstract as the clichés he came to (dis)embody. Both the King of Rock 'n' Roll and a costume party punchline, the man born Elvis Presley left the building an icon, his image now so ubiquitous — and for so long — that it's easy to forget how seismically his appearance ruptured the culture in the 50s.'(Introduction)

'Every kid knows the thrill of vicariously experiencing a movie they're way too young to see, thanks to a little imagination and an easily accessible slice of cultural ephemera. It could be a rubber Halloween mask from some gory horror flick, a pop smash that soundtracks a steamy romantic thriller, or a meme of a crazed clown shimmying down a New York stairway – irresistible invitations to illicit, R-rated netherworlds.' (Introduction)

'Arriving right on time for Australia's contested January 26 public holiday, the thorny new action drama High Ground is the latest in a growing body of local revisionist films to tangle with the racial violence that has become inseparable from the nation's troubled past.' (Introduction)

'There's a pivotal, and chilling, moment in The Assistant — the acclaimed new movie by Australian filmmaker Kitty Green — in which Jane (Julia Garner, Ozark), the entry-level underling of a New York studio mogul, visits the company's human resources director, concerned that a young female colleague has become the latest victim of her predatory boss.' (Introduction)

'H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man was often vulnerable to rain, fog, or falling snow, elements that would reveal his phantom shape and give him away to his pursuers.' (Introduction)

'The bleak world of South-East Asian people-smuggling might seem unlikely terrain for a coming-of-age adventure on the pirate fishing seas, but Australian director Rodd Rathjen has taken up the challenge — and attendant cultural risk — for his absorbing feature film debut, Buoyancy.' (Article summary)