Film Screening 4th June, 1999

Poster for The Interview

The Interview 

8:00 PM, 4th June, 1999

  • M
  • 105 mins
  • Unknown
  • Craig Monahan
  • Gordon Davie, Craig Monahan
  • Hugo Weaving, Tony Martin, Aaron Jeffrey, Paul Sonkkila, Michael Caton

It's early in the morning. You are asleep in your bed. Without warning the door is broken down, police come from everywhere and thrust guns in your face while they search your apartment. You are arrested and thrown into a police cell, with no idea why. What would you do? How would you react? This is just what faces Eddie Fleming (Weaving) in The Interview.

Fleming, all the time protesting his innocence, is arrested by old cop John Steele (Martin) and rookie cop Prior (Jeffrey) and subjected to a grilling in the dungeon-like interview rooms within the menacingly gothic police headquarters. Slowly we discover the crime (or series of crimes) he is accused of, as the detectives attempt to trip him up with their questions, and Fleming, his early fears abating, starts to play their game.

Tony Martin filmed his role prior to playing a similar character in TV's Wildside, though here he seems older and wiser but more wearied by his life, up against adherence to the police rule book as much as the man he is trying to convict. Weaving too is excellent as the sometimes bewildered, sometimes manipulative accused that we never quite get inside. It's hard to imagine anyone else able to handle the changes his character goes through, and he picked up another AFI award for this effort. The Interview is confidently directed by Craig Monahan and was an unexpected but worthy winner of the 1998 Best Film. Monahan also won the AFI for Original Screenplay which he co-wrote with former detective Gordon Davie.

John Brady

Poster for In the Winter Dark

In the Winter Dark 

10:00 PM, 4th June, 1999

  • M
  • 95 mins
  • Unknown
  • James Bogle
  • James Bogle, Peter Rasmussen
  • Brenda Blethyn, Ray Barrett, Richard Roxburgh, Miranda Otto

In a quiet country valley, something is killing the animals. Is it animal sacrifice or a wild cat evolved to monstrous proportions? The four frightened residents, each scared by life, form an uneasy alliance to confront the unknown and their darkest fears.

Everything about this film is superb: the cast, the acting, the script, the music and the cinematography. The film is a psychological suspense thriller. It is a film to see again and again, and each time it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

AJ Austin