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John McDonald
Tomatometer-approved critic
Since 2011 I've been writing a weekly film column for the Australian Financial Review, which is also posted on my personal website, johnmcdonald.net.au which has a free subscription.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Fly Me to the Moon (2024) |
We understand that in any romcom the course of true love requires many twists and turns, but Tatum’s character is so maudlin, so self-denying we begin to think of him as a big boofhead unworthy of the charismatic Kelly. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jul 20, 2024
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The Bikeriders (2023) |
What begins as an expression of rebellion against the conformity of mainstream American society, with Cream’s I Feel Free playing as the guys zoom along on their bikes, will gradually degenerate into sordid criminality. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jul 20, 2024
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Kinds of Kindness (2024) |
All three chapters involve demands for “love”, which can’t be separated from total submission. Sexual pathologists such as Krafft-Ebing, who investigated sado-masochism and other perversions, would have plenty to say. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jul 20, 2024
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A Silence (2023) |
One minute in and we’ve already had the scandal and the crime. The son is in a police cell, the father in intensive care. No wonder Astrid looks stressed. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jul 20, 2024
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La Syndicaliste (2022) |
...it shows how governments increasingly act like big corporations, crafting decisions and policies under a veil of secrecy, putting capital before community. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jul 20, 2024
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Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line (2024) |
It’s worth the price of admssion to see Peter Garrett with a shaggy blonde haircut, which gets gradually mown down to the familiar chrome dome that would become his trademark. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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The Three Musketeers: Part I - D'Artagnan (2023) |
Although he virtually invented the potboiler, Dumas’s books have a panache that distinguishes them from those lifeless popular squibs written to a formula. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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High & Low - John Galliano (2023) |
For Galliano, whose psyche resembles a ball of wool that’s been with the kittens for a few days, his fall from grace seems to have arrived in stages. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) |
In Fury Road not a minute was wasted, but in this film, Miller gets caught up with all the gruesome particulars of the post-apocalyptic world he is creating. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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The Taste of Things (2023) |
The kitchen is the engine room of this film. Occasionally the action may stray into the garden or the bedchamber, but almost every scene, and every relationship seems to revolve around the oven. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) |
The early part of the story spends so much time introducing us to the lead chimp, Noa (Owen Teague), and the rest of his clan, that I half expected David Attenborough to appear from behind a tree and start explaining the nature of their community. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Monster (2023) |
Kore’eda keeps us wondering about who, if anyone, is the monster. With each part of the puzzle falling into place, the picture keeps changing. It’s not even clear what being a “monster” might mean. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Fremont (2023) |
Although everyone is a philosopher in this film, wisdom remains in short supply. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Golda (2023) |
Golda, with Helen Mirren in the lead role, is a sympathetic portrait of a leader under extreme pressure, who rises to the occasion in defiance of her own physical frailty and the demands of her American allies, but it’s not entirely flattering. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Evil Does Not Exist (2023) |
The low key nature of the first scenes makes the later scenes even more disturbing. It’s like a screw that is slowly tightened while we feel nothing is happening. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Challengers (2024) |
The contest is conducted on the court and in the minds of the three players, with Tashi being by far the most psychologically complex. What does she want? - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Late Night with the Devil (2023) |
As the show begins, the real horror for Jack is his persistent inability to win the ratings war, and the anxiety that the studio is losing patience with his failures. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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The First Omen (2024) |
It’s ironic, but perhaps understandable, that the austere life of nuns has always given rise to the most lurid cinematic treatment. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Goodbye Julia (2023) |
Kordofani effortlessly weaves the political issue of the Independence vote into the ongoing moral drama, allowing us to see how race, religion and politics influence every interaction between Northerners and Southerners... - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Perfect Days (2023) |
We understand Hirayama’s good nature as related to his chosen way of life, but the mechanism of that relationship remains unfathomable. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Io Capitano (2023) |
The real skill of this film lies in Garrone’s abilty to take us to the edge of despair and engineer a rescue through an unexpected act of kindness or a stroke of luck, let alone a small but mesmerising dream sequence. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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American Fiction (2023) |
On that rapidly shrinking plain called Common Sense, a chasm has opened up, and ideologues are conducting a race to the bottom. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Subtraction (2022) |
The realistic approach makes the implausible seem plausible, even as Farzaneh and her doctor think she must be going mad. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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The Zone of Interest (2023) |
Glazer wants us to reflect on what is normal, and what is abnormal, barbaric, obscene. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Fallen Leaves (2023) |
Nobody speaks unless they have to, although there is a wealth of wordless communication. At a time when movies seem to be getting longer and longer, Kaurismäki keeps everything under 90 minutes. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024) |
This time the landscape shots are of lush, green forest and mountain vistas, chiefly the Otways, the Dandenongs and the Yarra Valley. Once again, the scenery threatens to be more engaging than any of the characters. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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May December (2023) |
If our sympathies are with Elizabeth at the beginning of the film as she tries to crack Gracie’s mask of forced positivity, by the end we’ve learned to mistrust her motivations. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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The Color Purple (2023) |
The entire package is bathed in an evangelical glow that would seem to be part of the problem rather than a promise of salvation. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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Anatomy of a Fall (2023) |
The “fall” is not only Samuel’s plummet from the third floor, it’s the decline of a marriage, and we know that’s never a speedy process. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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Priscilla (2023) |
The bulk of the film is devoted to the confusions and uncertainties of an immature girl who meets the world’s most famous pop star when she is only fourteen, and finds herself the object of a strange, chaste courtship. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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The Iron Claw (2023) |
Although the film has the makings of a rollicking comedy, it grows progressively darker until it becomes the saddest feature you’re likely to see this year. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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The Holdovers (2023) |
In a film that manages to be touching and consistently funny, you won’t be surprised to learn that a rapport develops between existentially miserable Paul, who seeks solace in Jim Beam and Marcus Aurelius, and prickly, troublesome Angus. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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The Boys in the Boat (2023) |
Clooney has given us a reminder of all the reasons people once went to the cinema and suggests those preferences have been repressed but not abandoned. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Feb 18, 2024
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Ferrari (2023) |
It’s a film about racing, but not narrowly focused on scenes of cars speeding around a track at hair-raising speeds. Yes, there’s plenty of that, but an equal amount of time is spent negotiating the hairpin bends of Enzo Ferrari’s love life - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jan 07, 2024
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Dream Scenario (2023) |
The temptation of social media fame is presented as a bargain with the devil that can quickly turn sour. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jan 07, 2024
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Poor Things (2023) |
But where Frankenstein’s monster went searching for love and met only rejection, Bella is the universal object of male lust. Her personal evolution is from object to subject. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Jan 07, 2024
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Wonka (2023) |
The only way to approach Wonka, with its manifold special effects and relentless cheeriness in the face of adversity, is to remember that it’s a kids’ film. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Dec 23, 2023
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Maestro (2023) |
The sexual focus is but one way of telling the story, but a powerfully revealing one. Instead of seeing Bernstein as a great man or an artistic genius, we take these things for granted and look at the ferment beneath the carapace of fame.
- Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Dec 23, 2023
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The Old Oak (2023) |
Despite the tide of misery that usually engulfs his characters, Loach is an optimist. He wants to believe human beings are basically good-hearted, no matter how their attitudes may be deformed by circumstances. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Dec 23, 2023
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Napoleon (2023) |
While it’s impossible not to have reservations about this film, it’s equally impossible to avoid being impressed. Scott has given us a magnificent, flawed epic, with a lead actor strapped into the character like a pilot in his cockpit. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Dec 23, 2023
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) |
The ”snakes” of the title may refer to that mass of multicoloured serpents Dr. Gaul wants to unleash on the hapless tributes, but it’s just as easy to see Coryo as the snake to Lucy Grey’s songbird. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Dec 23, 2023
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Saltburn (2023) |
Saltburn owes its lurid magnetism to the grotesque nature of the characters. We feel the hatred, lust and envy beneath Oliver’s deadpan demeanour, and the superficiality of Felix’s compassion, born from a life of shameless privilege. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Dec 23, 2023
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Foe (2023) |
There was potentially an engaging film in this material, but the fuse burns slowly from start to finish, and nothing ever goes bang. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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The Origin of Evil (2022) |
The gothic mansion, the feared but wounded patriarch, the ghastly family, the scheming grifter who takes her chances… we’ve seen these things a thousand times, but they never lose their appeal. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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Dumb Money (2023) |
The hedge fund guys are still thriving, still doing exactly what they did before, perhaps with a trifle more caution. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) |
Ernest can’t draw a line between fact and fiction. He is unable to reconcile his genuine feelings with the part he is expected to play in this genocidal plot. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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Lie with Me (2022) |
Stéphane has made a fetish of his teenage affair, using it to fuel his literary imagination, but he must have known that first loves rarely survive - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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Scrapper (2023) |
Scrapper is constantly animated by a spirit of fun, as if Regan and her team couldn’t bring themselves to dwell too long on the sad bits. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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The Creator (2023) |
Although ‘New Asia’ is America’s enemy, we are encouraged to transfer our sympathies in that direction. Yet the abiding vision of Asian life is a mass of touristic clichés seen through western eyes. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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The Exorcist: Believer (2023) |
The outcome is a qualified success – a horror feature that tries to say something profound about good and evil, love and faith, but ultimately creeps around the edges of these big topics. - Australian Financial Review
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| Posted Nov 13, 2023
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