BORING

It’s all the same, but we’re never going to stop.

Heard of it?

A jaw-lockingly sinister look at the side of modelling never really explored by Tyra Banks Co, Girl Model is a sparse but affecting documentary about the under-age beauty business, its victims and its beneficiaries. Director David Redmon does well to keep quiet, leaving it to his subjects to sketch out an deeply worrying world of exploitation and sexualisation.

As I understand it, there’s a genre of young adult dystopian fiction which sees teenagers or children dealing with issues and stuff in post-apocalyptic or distressing settings of some description. The ‘Tomorrow’ series, by Australian author John Marsden, is one example. Tomorrow, When The War Began is the first in this series, and it’s now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE. Or a quietly released DVD.

The Dark Lord rises.

A bleak look at the unravelling life of a New York sex addict, Shame showcases brave work by director Steve McQueen and his second time collaborator, Michael Fassbender. Expertly shot and powerfully acted, the film takes an affliction often the subject of ridicule and uses it to tell an affecting story of vice and isolation.

And it’s not rubbish!

Another week of 2012 ebbs away, and the offerings at your local gigaplex are still distressingly dull – basically, it’s sugar-coated biopics of female politicians or bust. Still, if there’s one thing we know how to do it’s make the best of a bad situation – all you need is to go on and on about The Artist even though it came out last week! Yay!

Seann William Scott is disarmingly loveable in this blood-spattered sports comedy written by Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg. Goon might initially strike you as brainless Lad fare, but don’t let appearances deceive you. It’s warm, funny and actually has something (vaguely) serious to say about a culture which encourages, and even downright applauds, violence – as long as it’s safely in the confines of a sports venue, of course.