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Articles by Dougal Macdonald
Gaza vs. Dresden, The February 1945 Dresden Fire Bombing: Allied War Crime Prelude to the Cold War - Global Research
This article was originally published in 2016. Is this the model of killing innocent civilians now being applied against the people of Palestine: Not only is Israel demanding Guterres’s resignation but its officials have “proudly compared” its killing of Palestinian civilians to the Allied bombing of the German cities of Dresden and Hamburg at the end of World War II, which quite deliberately targeted civilians.
Dougal's most-clicked movie reviews of 2022
Here are DOUGAL MACDONALD’S most-clicked movie reviews of 2022. “How To Please A Woman” ★★★½ May 20 – “How to Please a Woman”, Dullsville wondered movie reviewer DOUGAL MACDONALD. “I wuz wrong, big time!” he says. “The Drover’s Wife” ★★★★★ May 7 – Five stars for “The Drover’s Wife”: “I hope movie lovers will flock to see this film. When naming the year’s best Aussie film next comes around, I reckon that it has to be in with a very good chance,” says DOUGAL MACDONALD.
Movie review / 'The Road Dance'
“The Road Dance” (M) *** and a half THE gentle 117-minutes-long drama is the third feature film by American writer and director Richie Adams, whose career in movies began in 2002 in the unexciting but essential trade of creating those slides listing everybody who got paid to work on a task, big or tiny, in every film’s creation. The story from John MacKay’s best-seller 2002 novel unfolds for the most part in 1916 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
Movie review / 'Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical'
“Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical” (PG) *** THIS is a film about children, with a cast preponderantly composed of children. But I judge that many children will find it to be just a little bit too grown up for their taste. It’s one of two movies released during 2022 that tell Dahl’s story about how a girl foiled a domineering head mistress (from what I’ve been able to discover, the other has had only limited release).
Movie review / 'Kompromat'
“Kompromat” (M) **** “KOMPROMAT” is a portmanteau of “compromising” and “material” borrowed into Russian from English. In director and writer Jérôme Salle’s film allegedly based on a book by Yoann Barbereau, Gilles Lellouche plays Mathieu, gregarious, dedicated, director of the local branch of the Alliance Française in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. Local Russian Federal Security Service (formerly known as KGB) chief Rostov (Michael Gor) accuses Mathieu of distributing kiddie-porn photographs.
Movie review / 'Stars At Noon'
“Stars At Noon” (MA) *** INITIALLY based on a novel by Denis Johnson told against the backdrop of the ’80s Nicaraguan revolution, “Stars at Noon” up-dates the story to one taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Freelance journalist Trish (Margaret Qualley) is surviving in Nicaragua by hooking up with the right people while she tries to get to Costa Rica to follow a story that might give her an exclusive if she can get there in time, but her passport status is questionable.
Movie review / 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery'
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (M) *** CREATED by Rian Johnson about whom we may, or may not, hear more in future years, “Glass Onion” is, after three years of gestation, the second movie in what may, or may not, become a series under the “Knives Out” banner. Its murderous whodunnit flavour neither bored nor excited me.
Movie review / 'Margrete; Queen of the North'
“Margrete; Queen of the North” (MA) *** and a half IN the 14th century, no woman had the right to rule Denmark. While Margrete commanded respect, she was obliged to rule through a man. In 1387, when her son Olaf died unexpectedly, she adopted her German-born great nephew Bogislav, changed his name to the locally more palatable Erik, and placed him on the throne. This arrangement worked well for everyone until a stranger (Jakob Oftebro) arrived.
Movie review / 'On The Line'
“On The Line” (M) *** WATCHING writer/director Romuald Boulanger’s whodunit (reported to be a remake of a Korean film “Midnight”, which I don’t remember having seen) set up tensions in my mind that sustained my interest most of the way through its 104 minutes. Is it any good? It doesn’t fly any flag suggesting that it’s not to be taken seriously. When it reveals the purpose of its true outcome, the screenplay invites the audience to make a refreshing choice between dramatic relief or clever comedy.
Movie review / 'She Said'
“She Said” (M) **** and a half THE list of German-born director Maria Schrader’s filmography shows an acting career that began in 1988 in six TV series and 47 films and directing one TV series and five features.
Movie review / 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (M) * and a half MY first venture into the fantasy world of Wakanda is the last in what was only ever intended to be a five-film series about a kingdom peopled by characters of brown-coloured ethnicity on a planet that may be Earth in an era that has yet to be reached. There’s good people trying to live at peace. And other people wanting to conquer those good folk for reasons of political power. People whack each other with sticks.
Movie review / 'La Panthère des Neiges'
“La Panthère des Neiges” (The Velvet Queen) (G) **** FRENCH wildlife photographer Vincent Munier wants to photograph the rare snow leopard in the mountains of east Tibet. This beautiful animal continues to elude him. Together with writer friend Sylvain Tesson, Munier searches for the prized animal at elevations of 4500 metres among peaks reaching 6000 metres.
Movie review / 'Whina'
“Whina” (G) *** and a half JAMES Napier Robertson and Paula Whetu Jones’ NZ-made film might confuse some people trying to pronounce its title. And good luck to them. They would belong to the 99.99999 per cent of the world’s population not born Kiwis who get it wrong. Not me. I’ve been happily married to one for decades. And I don’t remember hearing her pronounce that word.
Movie review / 'Armageddon Time'
“Armageddon Time” (M) ** THE dramatic thread of writer/director James Gray’s film doesn’t really bind its core themes of family, friendship’s complexity and the American Dream to its playing out between middle-class, white schoolboy on this hand, working class, indeed, neglected Afro-American schoolboy on the other. In 1980, the Graff family has settled into the challenges of life in their new New York home.
Movie review / 'Mrs Harris Goes to Paris'
“Mrs Harris Goes to Paris” (PG) *** and a half DEPENDING on where one seeks it, reliable information varies regarding how often Paul Gallico’s novel about London char-lady Ada Harris’ (Lesley Manville) must-have-at-all-cost yearning for a dress as lovely as Lady Dant’s (Anna Chancellor) 500-quid Christian Dior gown, has been filmed. The best answer is “several”. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter.
Movie review / 'The Woman King'
“The Woman King” (MA) *** GINA Prince-Bythewood’s film set in the year 1823 impresses rather than entertains. Its chief virtue, which is also its chief burden, is that it tries, with some success, to tell a fictionalised true story.
Movie review / 'Barbarian'
“Barbarian” (MA) * and a half ETYMOLOGICALLY, a barbarian (or savage) is someone perceived to be either uncivilised or primitive. The human contents of writer/director Zach Cregger’s latest fling into the horror genre fall rather short of that definition.
Movie review / 'Muru'
“Muru” (MA) **** THIS is my second attempt to write about this quite special film after a savage scam left three good paragraphs languishing on my PC while I tried to replace them on the laptop. While “Muru” is fictional, its repeated discrimination of Maori people has a background in truth packed together with a suspenseful thriller to provoke a strong emotional response that at every twist turns oppression and police raids into factual narrative.
Movie review / 'A Taste of Hunger'
“A Taste of Hunger” (M) *** and a half I ONCE considered earning a living by feeding folk. Sanity prevailed. Cheffing is not for amateurs. I’ve said this before and I don’t mind saying it again; movies provide a great platform for expressing human sensitivities. But there are two basic human passions that movies don’t do well. Food and sex. Visual, tactile, olfactory temptations. Look. Yearn. Don’t expect to touch. This Danish film serves the restaurant trade on a platter of hard realities.
Movie review / 'Amsterdam'
“Amsterdam” (M) *** and a half THE opening titles for David O Russell’s somewhat large (134 minutes) film claims that “a lot of this really happened”. “A lot” is relative. “Amsterdam” starts with World War I, a nasty introduction to a new kind of warfare. In that war, and in its successor that is about to kick off when it ends, US troops arrived late.
Movie review / 'Don't Worry Darling'
“Don’t Worry Darling” (M) *** THIS a curate’s egg sort of a movie – some parts good, others less so. In the Arizona desert town of Victory, a few couples live on a one-road, pastel-colored cul-de-sac, visually the sort of ’50s Americana that sells the promise of the American Dream, with perfectly manicured lawns, doting wives, and hard-working husbands.
Movie review / 'See How They Run'
“See How They Run” (MA) *** and a half IN this comical who-dunnit spoof of Agatha Christie’s long-running play “The Mousetrap”, during a backstage party in the London West End theatre celebrating its 100th performance in 1953, a faceless antagonist murders visiting American film director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody). Mark Chappel’s screenplay imagines that Scotland Yard, its hands full of serious crime in the search for the 10 Rillington Place serial killer, sends its B team to investigate.
Movie review / 'On the Count of Three'
“On the Count of Three” (MA) ** and a half WHAT goes through the mind of somebody who chooses suicide as a means of hastening a process that nature normally selects in its own good time? “On the Count of Three” proposes to try to offer a cogent cinematic explanation for DIY life-ending for which no matter of erudite scientific enquiry has, or could have, ever really succeeded.
Movie review / 'Hunt'
“Hunt” (MA) *** and a half IT took me a while to decide whether this South Korean movie was satirising parody or parodying satire. Or a lampoon of its subject matter (Hollywood movies from no particular era and every era for more than a century) in praise of itself by presenting itself at its most fatuous. Some commentators suggest that “Hunt” deals with actual historical events in Korea in the ’80s. That’s as may be.
Movie review / 'You Won't Be Alone'
“You Won’t Be Alone” (MA) *** THE provenance of Australian-born writer-director Goran Stolevski’s debut film is unusual, to say the least. Taking a pragmatic view of a community that the rest of the world has left behind as its violence, gore, nudity and sexual assault spreads across the screen, “You Won’t Be Alone” depicts 19th century Macedonia before revolution or machinery made agriculture a commercial venture operated for profit.
Movie review / 'The Railway Children Return'(PG) ***
“The Railway Children Return” (PG) *** IN 1944, there was a second blitz when German rocket bombs began to fall on Britain. Fifty-two years after the original “Railway Children” film was made, Morgan Matthews directs a sort of a sequel, with some of the original actors repeating the characters they played then; or maybe different characters – I never saw the original.
Movie review / 'Bodies Bodies Bodies'
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” (MA) half a star IN an otherwise empty cinema, there was me in the back row and a pair of young adults several rows nearer the screen. As they passed me after the lights came back up, I asked what they thought about director Halina Reijn’s film of this story by Kristen Roupenian scripted by Sarah DeLappe. “Quite good”, the woman replied, followed by a brief agreement from her companion. They asked me what I thought about it.
Movie review / 'An Cailín Ciúin'
“An Cailín Ciúin” (The Quiet Girl) (M) *** AFTER winning Best Feature Film at this year’s International Film Festivals in Berlin and Dublin Ireland; this film got 10 nominations at the Irish Film and Television Awards, resulting in seven wins, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress in a Lead Role. Writer/director Colm Bairéad’s first fiction feature is an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novella “Foster”.
Movie review / 'Flux Gourmet'
“Flux Gourmet” (MA) * IT has been suggested that filmgoers attuned to writer/director Peter Strickland’s wavelength will find this horror-laced satire a “savoury delight”. It isn’t for all tastes. Ludicrous but serious, simultaneously high and lowbrow, sensitive folk may find it turning their stomachs. Coprophagy isn’t for everybody! In the US and Canada, “Flux Gourmet”earned $3780 from 19 theatres in its opening weekend, $1397 from six theatres the following weekend and $4387 in its third.
Movie review / 'Three Thousand Years of Longing'
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” (M) *** and a half THIS modern take on the “Arabian Nights” directed by George Miller (maker of the Mad Max films among others), co-written with Augusta Gore and based on British novelist AS Byatt’s novella-length story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye”, owes more than a little to Australian inputs behind and inside the camera. Narratologist Alithea (Tilda Swinton) arrives in Istanbul to lecture on the shifting power of myth in the age of rational science.
Movie review / 'Both Sides of the Blade'
“Both Sides of the Blade” (MA) *** and a half TWO people of one sex, one person of the other. Storytellers in all media know they can be on to a surefire best seller if they tell that story effectively and convincingly. “Both Sides of the Blade” depends for its story on director Claire Denis’ adaptation of Christine Angot’s novel “Fire, or With Love And Fury”. Sara, for a decade, has lived happily with Jean (Vincent Lindon).
Movie review / 'The Invitation'
“The Invitation” (MA) ** ACCORDING to IMDb, writer/director Jessica M Thompson’s venture into the latest moving talking image foray into Bram Stoker’s legacy was available to Australian audiences on the same day as I saw it, which was a day after its absolute world-first release in France and the Philippines. Does that portend some marketing wizard’s judgement of skill of the Australian audience to judge a new release at first sight? I think not.
Movie review / 'Fire of Love'
“Fire of Love” (PG) **** ON June 3, 1991, Japan’s volcanic Mt Unzen erupted. Among the 43 people who died were Katia and Maurice Krafft. Earlier this year (2022), this documentary was released.
Movie review / 'Bosch & Rockit'
“Bosch & Rockit” (MA) No stars PRODUCED by Tyler Atkins. Written by Tyler Atkins. Directed by Tyler Atkins. First feature movie listed on the filmography of? Yup, you’ve guessed it – Tyler Atkins. The NSW north coast around Byron Bay offers great locations for the right kind of movie. Setting any movie anywhere demands a balanced, rational dramatic line in any genre so long as it doesn’t insult the filmgoer’s common sense. We are not fools. Clever comical dramatic work is always welcome.
Canberra CityNews
“Good Luck to you, Leo Grande” (M) **** and a half MAINSTREAM cinema is, perhaps understandably, a little coy about women’s sexuality as a central topic. “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” spends 97 minutes in conversation between Nancy (Emma Thompson) and Leo (Daryl McCormack) each concealing the fact that they are using a fake name. And what are they discussing?
Canberra CityNews
“Everybody’s Oma” (G) *** THIS Australian documentary is a gentle message film observing a family dealing with a tension that its members neither expected or deserved. “Oma” is Dutch for “Mum”. Filmmaker Jason van Genderen wants you to enjoy watching his affectionate memorial to his mother Hendrika, who died early this year, her 90th.
Canberra CityNews
“Die Wannseekonferenz” (The Conference) (M) *** and a half ON January 20, 1942, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders gathered to determine the “Final Solution to the Jewish question”. What happened that morning set in motion the machinations that culminated in the Holocaust that killed six million Jewish people across Europe by the war’s end in 1945.
Movie review / 'Juniper'
“Juniper” (M) 3 and a half stars IN writer/director Matthew J Saville’s gentle, observant, affectionate small movie, English actress Charlotte Rampling plays Ruth, retired from photographing the world’s wars. Ruth now lies a cripple in the NZ farm house belonging to her recently widowed son Robert (Marton Csokas), who is going away on business leaving his late-adolescent son Sam to care for Ruth.
Movie review / 'Bullet Train'
“Bullet Train” (MA) half a star IN the words of respected British cinema magazine “Sight And Sound” (born in the same year as I was): “’Bullet Train’: mind the gap between its ears”. The common factor driving movie people from the day they enrol for Cinema 101 is to make money.
Movie review / 'The Reason I Jump'
“The Reason I Jump” (M) *** and a half PREMIERING in January 2020, this relatively brief (82 minutes) doco examines an issue little known except in families where it’s a daily companion, often a burden but never beyond the boundaries that an undiscriminating Mother Nature has built around it. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that “causes a wide range of impairments in social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviours”.
Movie review / 'The Forgiven'
“The Forgiven” (M) *** and a half MOROCCO is where writer/director John Michael McDonagh took Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain to play the principal characters in a very serious drama based on a novel by Lawrence Osborne. “The Forgiven” runs for 117 minutes with precious few laughs apart from two rather unlovable Brit gay blokes who’ve rented the house in which much of the action takes place. And they’re easier to laugh at than with.
Movie review / 'Where the Crawdads Sing'
“Where the Crawdads Sing” (M) *** I’VE not read Delia Owens’ Carolina salt-marsh novel about pre-school girl-child Kya, abandoned in the care of a brutal father when her mother and siblings flee the family’s backwoods house. The screenplay by Owens and co-writer Lucy Alibar for director Olivia Newman’s 125 minutes of filming may well accurately reflect the book.
Movie review / 'Official Competition'
“Official Competition” (M) ***** FROM Spain, Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s comedy “Official Competition” casts Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martinez and Penelope Cruz skewering the business of movie making while falling victim to some of the bloat it seeks to satirise. As his legacy, ageing millionaire Humberto Suarez (José Luis Gómez) decides to finance a great movie with the best people.
Movie review / 'Falling for Figaro' (M)
“Falling for Figaro” (M) **** and a half FOR the first three or four minutes of writer/director Ben Lewin’s musical comedy, it looked as if what followed would be a predictable outcome. Aspiring soprano Millie would sing grand opera and walk off stage to thunderous applause, a multitude of curtains and a happy ever after with the handsome baritone. Fortunately, those portents were mistaken.
Movie review / 'The Phantom of The Open' (M)
“The Phantom of The Open” (M) *** and a half THIS British comedy comes with an assurance that It’s based on a true story. But even if it were the biggest porky in cinema history (and there is no reason to to aver that it’s not) that would not matter. It’s genuinely funny. As the annals of golf would very likely agree. Maurice Flitcroft died in 2007 aged 77.
Movie review / "Sundown"
“Sundown” (MA) *** TO get the full impact of Mexican writer/director Michel Franco’s simple, little (82 minutes) movie about a man who just wants his life to go the way he wants it rather than how his family wants it to be, you need to get inside his head while you watch him from outside it. When his wealthy family holidaying in Acapulco hears that grandma’s passed away, Neil (Tim Roth) tells his adult sister that he’s misplaced his passport so isn’t able to fly home to mourn her.
Movie review / "Compartment No.6"
“Compartment No.6” (MA) *** and half COVID-19 may have complicated the antecedents of this Finnish drama and its production, but when it gets down to what appears on Australian cinema screens, I reckon it does well enough. Since childhood, I have loved trains – the longer, both train and journey, the better.
Movie review / 'Elvis'
Elvis (M) **** and a half THREE people stand in the creative front line of this filmic blockbuster (159 minutes) around the life of the singer credited with creating rock and roll. Leading the pack is Australian Baz Luhrmann. Director and (with three associates) screenwriter. Says he prefers not to work with a producer, but a film this big needs somebody at the top of the heap to make the decisions and I can’t find anybody higher than him for “Elvis”. Next is actor Austin Butler.
Movie review / 'Lost Illusions'
“Lost Illusions” (M) **** BASED on a novel by Balzac, this film tells how, in the early 19th century with the French monarchy back in power, liberals were pushing for changing the regime or at least experimenting with new liberties such as parliamentarism and press freedom Coming to Paris eager to live from his literary skills, driven by forbidden love to a rich aristocrat, Lucien de Rubempré (Benjamin Voisin) loses his illusions as greed and machiavellian dishonesty exploit his naïveté and...
Movie review / 'A Hero'
“A Hero” (PG) *** and a half BY now, films like “The Runner” or “The White Balloon” have been consigned to that great vault that holds movies once enjoyed but overtaken by time and changed audience preferences. They are among a small collection of Iranian movies that I remember with warm pleasure, despite it being several decades since I saw any of them.
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