To celebrate the release of SPIT, a new Australian crime comedy, I talked with star David Wenham and director Jonathan Teplitzky about the first time they read GETTIN' SQUARE, their attraction to the familiarity of the character, de ja vu making SPIT, and a cheeky PUBLIC ENEMIES story for good measure.

To celebrate the release of a new Australian outback thriller THE ROYAL HOTEL, I talk with writer/director Kitty Green about the differences between narrative and documentary cinema, the balance of time and style, Julia Garner choosing her own own love interest, and so much more.

To celebrate the roadshow release of a new Australian Neo-Noir ("Yeah Noir") SLANT, I talk with writer/star Michael Nikou, director James Vinson, producer Monique Fisher and the icon Sigrid Thornton about shooting chronologically, being "in for a penny, in for a pound" making an independent original film and so much more.

To celebrate the release of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, I speak with one of my favourite filmmakers, the Oscar-winning writer and storytelling laureate Christopher McQuarrie about casting Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis, bringing back Henry Czerny, and the 'fiat that ate Rome'.

To celebrate the release of his latest "starkly atmospheric outback noir" LIMBO, I talk with writer/director Ivan Sen (Mystery Road, Goldstone, Beneath Clouds) about his obsession with the Australian justice system, inspiring Simon Baker's career-best performance, drafting GOLDSTONE as the best Australian film of the 21st Century, his love of Peter Weir and the possibility of the third MYSTERY ROAD sequel gracing our cinema screens.

 Michael Mann is clearly a ‘new Hollywood’ filmmaker dislocated from his period of origination. Thoret best describes the ‘brand’ of Mann’s work when he writes: “Mann’s artistic project… [charts] the effects of this era, tracing its origins and testing some of its hypotheses.” [xv] The films of Michael Mann study the effects of ‘new Hollywood’ from its immediate end after Raging Bull to the present, primarily rendered through the frame of masculinity.

Mann’s casting in Heat allows Pacino and de Niro’s portrayals to incorporate the same morally ambivalent and politically ambiguous archetypes formulated during the 1970s because the actors’ previous work permeates and influences their portrayals – without being explicit in either execution or effect in their multi-levelled performance. The role histories of these actors epitomise ‘new Hollywood’ as they were the pioneers of a new generation of actors that were cast because of their lack of established studio/role history.

The Insider is evidence that Mann’s cinema is marked by a formal and cultural ‘tense’ linked to his historical heritage. In the watershed article ‘La politique des auteurs’, Bazin writes: “Jacques Rivette has said that an auteur speaks in the first person. It’s a good definition; let’s adopt it.”[iii] Mann’s film language speaks in the ‘past tense’ about Mann’s biography.

“Guns Akimbo” is now irrevocably the film that’s both about and embroiled in a painful online saga with offline consequences.

I can't fathom a world that "The Beach Bum" exists where it wasn't some instant cult classic.