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Michael Fassbender To Play 'Macbeth' For 'Snowtown' Director Justin Kurzel

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • April 29, 2013 7:59 AM
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  • 17 Comments
News
Everyone from Sam Worthington (really) to Orson Welles has taken on "Macbeth," and the Shakespeare play that dare not say its name has been adapted countless time for the stage, television and multiplex. Well, when it comes to the cinema, (quality) movie versions have been a bit fewer and farther between, so the news that Michael Fassbender might take the lead in "the Scottish play" certainly has our attention.
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More: Macbeth, Michael Fassbender, Justin Kurzel

5 Key Directors Of New Australian Cinema As Andrew Dominik's 'Killing Them Softly' Hits Theaters

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • November 27, 2012 1:01 PM
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  • 11 Comments
Features
Though born in New Zealand, Andrew Dominik, the director of this week's "Killing Them Softly," moved to Australia at the age of 2, and was raised there. And around thirty years later, he provided a firecracker up the arse of the nation's film industry by directing "Chopper," a biopic of colorful criminal Chopper Read that made Eric Bana a global star, and firmly launched Dominik as a filmmaker to watch.
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More: Features, Cate Shortland, Nash Edgerton, Joel Edgerton, John Hillcoat, Andrew Dominik, Justin Kurzel

On The Rise 2012: 10 Directors Who Look To Be Bright Sparks Of The Future

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
  • |
  • May 15, 2012 2:33 PM
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  • 14 Comments
Features
Like it or not, filmmaking is undeniably a director's medium. It wasn't always like that, of course: it was only the coming of the auteur theory in the 1950s and 1960s that popularized the idea of the director as the person responsible for all that was great and terrible about a picture. And while anyone who's worked in film knows that it's a collaborative medium, there's still no better way of seeing where the form might be going in the next few years than by looking at the directors who've been making splashes of late.
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More: Features, Benh Zeitlin, Justin Kurzel, Lucy Mulloy, Adam Wingard, Colin Trevorrow, Will Sharpe & Tom Kingsley, Alan Taylor, Dee Rees, Gareth Evans, Zal Batmanglij, On The Rise Features

'Snowtown' Director Justin Kurzel To Helm Adaptation Of John Le Carré's 'Our Kind Of Traitor'

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
  • |
  • May 4, 2012 5:20 PM
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  • 2 Comments
News
While we'll have to wait see if the team behind "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" ever gets the sequel "Smiley's People" going, it looks like fans of John Le Carré have another adaptation to look forward to.
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More: Justin Kurzel, Our Kind Of Traitor, Hossein Amini

Director Justin Kurzel Talks About The World Of 'The Snowtown Murders' & His Dark Comedy Followup

  • By Julian Carrington
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  • March 2, 2012 6:30 PM
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  • 0 Comments
Features
Despite taking a short film called “Blue Tongue” to Cannes Critic’s Week in 2005, Australian director Justin Kurzel isn’t a member of the Aussie collective Blue Tongue Films, which includes “Animal Kingdom” writer/director David Michôd and star Joel Edgerton (also of acclaimed MMA drama “Warrior”). Comparisons will be inevitable, however, in that like “Animal Kingdom,” Kurzel’s debut feature is an uncommonly accomplished crime drama about a naive teen corrupted by the poisonous, sociopathic tutelage of a deranged father figure. The two films also share cinematographer Adam Arkapaw who spent time behind the camera for both productions. If there’s a key difference, though, between Kurzel’s film, “The Snowtown Murders,” and Michôd’s "Animal Kingdom," it’s that the former is based on a horrific true story. Specifically, “Snowtown” dramatizes the events of Australia’s notorious Snowtown murders (also called the “Bodies in Barrels murders”), perpetrated by John Justin Bunting and three accomplices, one of whom was teenager James Vlassakis. "Snowtown" is a grim, hard-to-watch chronicle of how Vlassakis was lured into Bunting's world, eventually participating in his brutal, vicious murders.
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More: Justin Kurzel, Snowtown

Director Justin Kurzel Talks About The World Of 'Snowtown' & His Dark Comedy Followup

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
  • |
  • September 16, 2011 2:12 AM
  • |
  • 0 Comments
Despite taking a short film called “Blue Tongue” to Cannes Critic’s Week in 2005, Australian director Justin Kurzel isn’t a member of the Aussie collective Blue Tongue Films, which includes “Animal Kingdom” writer/director David Michôd and star Joel Edgerton (also of acclaimed MMA drama “Warrior”). Comparisons will be inevitable, however, in that like “Animal Kingdom,” Kurzel’s debut feature is an uncommonly accomplished crime drama about a naive teen corrupted by the poisonous, sociopathic tutelage of a deranged father figure. The two films also share cinematographer Adam Arkapaw who spent time behind the camera for both productions. If there’s a key difference, though, between Kurzel’s film, “Snowtown,” and Michôd’s "Animal Kingdom," it’s that the former is based on a horrific true story. Specifically, “Snowtown” dramatizes the events of Australia’s notorious Snowtown murders (also called the “Bodies in Barrels murders”), perpetrated by John Justin Bunting and three accomplices, one of whom was teenager James Vlassakis. "Snowtown" is a grim, hard-to-watch chronicle of how Vlassakis was lured into Bunting's world, eventually participating in his brutal, vicious murders.
Read More »
More: Films, Justin Kurzel, Snowtown

Cannes Review: 'Snowtown' An Uneven But Still Mesmerizing & Disturbing Serial Killer Thriller

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
  • |
  • May 17, 2011 4:00 AM
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  • 1 Comment
This film was screened as part of the Critic's Week sidebar.
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More: Films, Review, Justin Kurzel, Snowtown

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