Reviews by Anton Bitel

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  The Squid And The Whale (2005)

  Review preview for The Squid And The Whale

  A strangely static affair - more a revealing family photo than a moving picture.

  Breaking up is hard to do - especially for the kids.
• 
  Stay (2005)

  Review preview for Stay

  Not so much a thriller, with an unexpected twist, as a schizophrenic character study, a portrait of the artist as a disturbed young man, still exercising his creative imagination to the very end.

  A psychiatrist tries to stop a young man committing suicide on his 21st birthday.
• 
  Stone Bros (2009)

  Review preview for Stone Bros

  Stone Bros is perhaps the first Australian film to take the rapidly shifting body politic of the nation's race relations and to roll it into fresh, full-flavoured comedy.

  Two cousins embark on a road trip fuelled by spliffs.
• 
  Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

  Review preview for Stranger Than Paradise

  A complex of narrative symmetry and existential ennui pointing to something far more resonant than the sum of its parts.

  An unlikely trio head for Florida in search of paradise.
• 
  Sweatshop (2009)

  Review preview for Sweatshop

  Put simply, for all the modesty of its budget, Sweatshop delivers high-impact gore by the bucket load.

  A group of young rave organisers find themselves stalked by a silent slasher.
• 
  A Swedish Love Story (1970)

  Review preview for A Swedish Love Story

  It is as sweet and tender, not to mention as well-observed, a portrayal of young love as you are likely to find the other side of a John Hughes movie.

  Two youngsters fall in love.
• 
  Syriana (2005)

  Review preview for Syriana

  Multi-faceted, open-ended and provocative, Syriana is a film whose many parallel scenes, recurring motifs and curious ironies offer plenty of fuel for thought.

  A high-octane thriller for adults that exposes US dirty tricks in the Gulf oil business
• 
  Starred Up (2013)

  Review preview for Starred Up

  Mackenzie shows everyone, inmates and guards alike, to be trapped in a corrupted, corrupting system that resists all change.

  A young offender is relocated to the adult prison where his father is locked up.
• 
  Starsuckers (2009)

  Review preview for Starsuckers

  A film that makes sceptics of us all, shaking us from brainwashed passivity into a state of awareness that makes resistance possible.

  Documentary casting a spotlight on celebrity culture and the people who generate - or bury - the stars.
• 
  Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Complete Season One (2008)

  Review preview for Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Complete Season One

  This 3D animation is a joy to behold, and is of a quality rarely seen in anything made for televison.

  Animated antics from a galaxy far, far away.
• 
  Summer Scars (2007)

  Review preview for Summer Scars

  Richards' film may be an ultra-low budget affair, but it is also a punchy thriller.

  The fate of a gang of urban kids who skip school to play in the woods with a stolen moped is changed forever when they crash.
• 
  Sunrise (1927)

  Review preview for Sunrise

  Murnau's film bridges the gap between the era of silent cinema, and of the talkies.

  A man is seduced by a flapper who wants him to murder his wife.
• 
  Superman Returns (2006)

  Review preview for Superman Returns

  Overlong and just a tad underwhelming.

  The Man of Steel returns to save lives - but can he salvage his own?
• 
  Sweethearts Of The Prison Rodeo (2009)

  Review preview for Sweethearts Of The Prison Rodeo

  Beesley uses his conventional frame to cast light on people who normally have no voice, on issues that have few public champions and on 'inside' perspectives that invert expectation.

  Documentary tracks the preparations for the Oklahoma State Penitentiary Rodeo in the second year that female cons are allowed to take part.
• 
  Swerve (2011)

  Review preview for Swerve

  Despite a solid cast and good use of location, we really have been here many times before, regardless of how many twists Lahiff compounds to get us there.

  Thriller, sees the paths of a drug dealer, a dissatisfied wife, a straight up ex-soldier and a psychotic cop collide.
• 
  Synecdoche, New York (2008)

  Review preview for Synecdoche, New York

  This is without question Charlie Kaufman's finest and most important work.

  The story of a theatre director's drive to produce his masterwork.
• 
  Tabloid (2010)

  Review preview for Tabloid

  Morris traces this perfect tabloid tale in all its hilarious, sad and bizarre particulars.

  A documentary about a former beauty queen alleged to have raped a Mormon missionary with whom she was infatuated.
• 
  Tales From Earthsea (2006)

  Review preview for Tales From Earthsea

  A seaworthy effort, both as an impressive debut from someone who has never previously worked in animation, and as a fine (if somewhat bewildering) piece of synoptic adaptation.

  A young prince is caught up in a titanic struggle of sorcerers.
• 
  Tales Of The Riverbank (2008)

  Review preview for Tales Of The Riverbank

  A family movie of considerable appeal.

  Hammy the hamster and pals get a re-imagining.
• 
  Taxidermia (2006)

  Review preview for Taxidermia

  With painterly mise-en-scène and the subtlest of CG effects to aid the camera's fluid movements... Taxidermia always compels us to stare wide-eyed at the screen in awe as much as disgust.

  Three generations of grotesque goings on in Hungary.
• 
  Taxi To The Dark Side (2007)

  Review preview for Taxi To The Dark Side

  An angry powder-keg of a film, exploding the reactionary myth that under certain circumstances torture can be acceptable, serviceable or even necessary.

  An unflinching look at the Bush administration's policy on torture.
• 
  Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)

  Review preview for Tetsuo II: Body Hammer

  Tsukamoto's preoccupations with meta(l)morphosis, body horror and unchecked masculinity remain firmly in place, as does the writer/director's way with outrageous images and ideas.

  A conspiracy of a gang of cyborgs.
• 
  Thomas Mao (2010)

  Review preview for Thomas Mao

  A true original, collapsing and cross-fertilising all manner of shifting ideologies in the best unlikely pairing since Laurel and Hardy.

  When a Westerner comes to stay in the guest room of a shepherd's house, an unlikely friendship develops.
• 
  Three... Extremes 2 (2002)

  Review preview for Three... Extremes 2

  A far more essential viewing experience than its dumb-assed Western title might suggest.

  Tryptich of short horror films, featuring Memories, The Wheel and Going Home.
• 
  Thumbsucker (2005)

  Review preview for Thumbsucker

  The setting may be small-town, but this is a vision in microcosm of a whole nation that has been driven inevitably towards anxiety and unease by self-imposed pressures and impossible aspirations.

  Teenager from the 'burbs attempts to quit suckin'.
• 
  Thursday Till Sunday (2012)

  Review preview for Thursday Till Sunday

  The camera of Bárbara Álvarez carefully observes the tensions mounting against a backdrop of ... landscapes that mirror the young girl's anxieties.

  A ten-year-old becomes aware of the strains on her parents' marriage over the course of long car journey.
• 
  Tickets (2005)

  Review preview for Tickets

  The trans-European train on which the film's sections unfold is the perfect setting for such a synergistic venture.

  Three international film directors take a train to Rome and tell stories of love, loss and the beautiful game.
• 
  Timber Falls (2007)

  Review preview for Timber Falls

  If there is the germ of an interesting idea in Timber Falls, a hack job is made of turning it into a reality.

  A couple’s camping trip turns into a gruelling nightmare.
• 
  Times And Winds (2006)

  Review preview for Times And Winds

  A beautiful film, shot with a fluid lyricism.

  A haunting portrait of life in a remote Turkish mountain village.
• 
  Tiresia (2003)

  Review preview for Tiresia

  Intense, intriguing, beautifully framed and intellectually challenging.

  Modern take on ancient myth of a blind seer who is man and woman.
• 
  Tomorrow (2012)

  Review preview for Tomorrow

  When a journalist is so embedded, a bit of historical accuracy and broader perspective might actually have helped.

  Documentary about Russian artists' group Voina.
• 
  Toomelah (2011)

  Review preview for Toomelah

  Sen does not flinch from showing a community plagued by misguided models of masculinity, but offsets this hopelessness with a qualified optimism for a different kind of cultural continuity.

  In a remote Aboriginal community, 10-year-old Daniel aspires to be a gangster.
• 
  Tough Enough (2006)

  Review preview for Tough Enough

  Buck has crafted an assured, uncompromising and often tense piece of social commentary.

  A teenager is drawn into a criminal underworld as he struggles to get by.
• 
  A Town Called Panic (2009)

  Review preview for A Town Called Panic

  A Town Called Panic is a truly postmodern concoction, where, along with the village's properties, narrative norms are deconstructed brick by brick, as free associations and visual gags come thick and fast, offering a surreal jaunt through toy town.

  Three friends pursue thieves to the centre of the Earth and beyond in this animated adventure.
• 
  Transformers (2007)

  Review preview for Transformers

  High-octane nonsense for those who suffer from permanently arrested development.

  Robots in disguise!
• 
  Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)

  Review preview for Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

  It is bigger and longer than the original – but certainly no better, and this time round lacking even a novelty factor.

  Sam Witwicky has to save the earth from Decepticon (again).
• 
  Transmission (2009)

  Review preview for Transmission

  A dystopian allegory like no other.

  As the airwaves fall dead and communication systems become useless, three brothers try to survive.
• 
  Treacle Jr (2010)

  Review preview for Treacle Jr

  The contrasts in education, class and outlook between likable buffoon Aidan and his 'straight man' Tom, though certainly funny, also come with an underlying pathos, as both men struggle to find their place in the world

  Homeless after walking out on his family, a confused man finds himself dependent on an unusual couple.
• 
  Terminator Salvation (2009)

  Review preview for Terminator Salvation

  Terminator Salvation looks more towards its potential sequels than towards itself.

  After Judgement Day, the last remnants of humankind battle for survival against the machines.
• 
  Tetro (2009)

  Review preview for Tetro

  Aesthetically, it is a joy from start to finish.

  Two reunited brothers consider their family's past.
• 
  Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

  Review preview for Tetsuo: The Iron Man

  The film's vision of creation and destruction as coexisting drives within the steely heart of man has lost none of its arresting force over the years – or been outdone by Tsukamoto's two sequels.

  The seminal work of extreme Japanese cyberpunk, newly restored from the original negative by cult director Shinya Tsukamoto, who will be in attendance at EIFF.
• 
  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

  Review preview for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

  Hooper infects characters and viewers alike with the thrill of a madness from which there can be no real escape.

  A tragedy that befalls five youths in the Texas outback takes horror to a new dimension.
• 
  Thank You For Smoking (2005)

  Review preview for Thank You For Smoking

  Played so amiably that you barely notice how prickly its barbs are until they have dug right in.

  Satire on smoking and spin.
• 
  This Must Be The Place (2011)

  Review preview for This Must Be The Place

  Funny, moving and endlessly surprising.

  An oddball retired rock star takes a roadtrip across America inspired by his dead father.
• 
  Transamerica (2005)

  Review preview for Transamerica

  These characters could so easily have been turned into figures of ridicule, but instead they are taken entirely seriously and presented as rounded individuals whose sexuality and gender are only parts of a more multi-faceted identity.

  A pre-operative trans woman takes an unexpected journey after discovering she has a son.
• 
  Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011)

  Review preview for Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

  The comedy is not funny, the action is exhausting, and by the time its 156 minutes are over, you too will have been transformed into a dead-eyed machine that has lost the power or will to care.

  The Decepticons and Autobots battle once again.
• 
  Treevenge (2008)

  Review preview for Treevenge

  Short, sweet and wonderfully unhinged.

  Sometimes Christmas is worth crying over.
• 
  TRON: Legacy (2010)

  Review preview for TRON: Legacy

  You are unlikely to see a better-looking film this year or a film that is more of its moment – but if you see this a few years hence, it will no doubt already have started looking as redundant as an Eighties arcade game.

  Seven years after his mysterious disappearance, Kevin Flynn's son discovers his father is trapped in his own 'utopia'.
• 
  True Grit (2010)

  Review preview for True Grit

  Where Roberts' screenplay opted at times for easy sentiment the Coens' writing is not only wittier but also as chilly as a late Oklahoma autumn.

  A young girl seeks out a lawman to hunt down the killer of her father.
• 
  Twin Falls Idaho (1999)

  Review preview for Twin Falls Idaho

  The overall effect is not unlike watching a delicate and subtle poem slowly turn into something altogether more clumsy and prosaic.

  Conjoined twins find their world turned upside down by the love of a call girl.