Questions

Who Are You?

So what's the point of the site?

This site is simply a repository of my writing about films. In terms of content choices, unlike other film sites, I tend to write a smaller number of in-depth reviews and articles, covering both select new movies and looks back at older movies. There is also occasional more flippant commentary and off-the-cuff thoughts on the Odds & Ends page.

This means I don't concentrate on new release films, and I certainly don't ever provide a comprehsnive coverage of what's out. There are plenty of other sites - not to mention traditional media - doing that. If you want a frequently updated Australian site with comprehensive coverage, I recommend In Film Australia (to which I contribute) or Hoopla.nu. There are also some good blogs around that provide ongoing reviews and information about what's going on, such as the Melbourne Film Blog and Last Night with Riviera.

I'm not intertested in criticism purely as a consumer advsiory service (that is, advising people who haven't seen a movie as to whether they should). The focus in my writing is much more on discussing films in some depth, looking at meaning, themes, technique, and so on. My reviews are therefore aimed as much at people who have seen the film as people who haven't.

When were the reviews written?

Some of these reviews are old. I started the site in 1997, and my base content at that time was a series of notes I had written on film in the preceding years that had never been intended for publication. This was subsequently augmented by new reviews, and essays that I wrote for my university studies. The earliest content therefore dates back to as early as 1990, when I was in my mid teens. While I do occasionally go back and edit the older material when I find it outright embarrassing (and most of the really old content has now been removed for this reason), there is still clearly a variance in quality between some of the newer material and hew older material. Reader beware.

Copyright dates don't indicate definitively when a review was posted as most of the copyrights have been updated at some point during site edits. Those that have been written since the launch of the site will have an entry somewhere in the Update Log, if you really want to know when it dates from. If it's not listed in there, it was written prior to the launch of the site.

Some of the reviews in the Update Log seem to have dropped off the site. What's going on?

Well spotted, hypothetical visitor. Over the years I have purged a lot of older material from the site as I wasn't happy with the quality of it, which means some content is listed in the updates section, but nowhere else. You can actually often still access that material from there, if you really want.

What's with "Cinephobia?" Shouldn't it be "Cinephilia?"

Okay, I'll admit this doesn't make much sense. My original coinage of the name was a (lame) play on Microsoft's now defunct "Cinemania" CD-ROM. I also just prefer the sound of "Cinephobia" to "Cinephilia" (the latter sounds like some form of sexual deviancy).

Incidentally, an unrelated Australian based site named Cinephilia has cropped up since I started writing this site.

Why so few art films / old films / foreign films?

I'm the first to admit the focus of this site is skewed towards contemporary Hollywood, and I am not actually quite as single minded in my viewing preferences as this site suggests. However, it is Hollywood cinema I find most fascinating: the fact that a system so industrialised can still produce quality works really interests me (and yes, I do think a lot of good stuff comes out of Hollywood). Even when Hollywood product sucks, I think it demands attention. I am not one of those people who assumes that nothing intelligent can be said about unintelligent films: rather, I think Hollywood's massive influence makes it more important than ever to turn a critical eye on their product.

That said, in the last few years I;ve been making a conscious effort to mix it up a bit more, particularly when it comes to the retrospectives.

Are there spoilers on the site?

Since I am aiming to discuss films rather than simply review them, I sometimes feel an urge to discuss plot information that some readers might prefer not to know. I generally assume that if you're browsing reviews on the web you're willing to take the risk of finding out too much about a film; if you want to go into a film totally "clean" then you should not be looking through sites such as mine. Yet I do try to be responsible in what I reveal, and do not give anything that I feel will destroy enjoyment of a movie. I'm certainly not about to reveal any surprise endings. So all I can say is that basically you just have to trust me. I will say, however, that in general you will find less in the way of plot summaries on my site than on 90% of other sites on the web.