Two hundred and ninety-eighth film: L’Atalante, or ‘The Passing Barge’ in English, a French film from 1934 that needn’t take up too much space in my head for too long. More interesting than you think a movie about a small town girl who marries a barge captain and then gets…

Two hundred and ninety-seventh film: L’Age D’Or, Luis Bunuel’s 1930 surrealist commentary on thwarted lust and — as far as I can tell — the importance of sunscreen if you’re a bishop on a beach. Some movies I watch, some I just sit through, and being of limited patience but…

Two hundred and ninety-sixth film: L.A. Confidential, the twisty neo-noir cop drama that is as quintessentially American as anything else that has two Australians and a Kiwi in it. Three cops, played by Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe are as different as chalk and cheese and pavlova, yet…

Two hundred and ninety-fifth film: Kramer vs. Kramer, the 1979 Hoffman and Streep juggernaut that’s ostensibly about a divorced couple’s fight for custody of their child but is deeply and stunningly about how you have to make the best out of the flaws you’re presented with. And every element —…

Two hundred and ninety-fourth film: Koyaanisqatsi, the 1982 ‘visual poem’ movie that you stare at rather than watch. A very beautifully shot collection of juxtaposed footage of nature, technology, people, and things blowing up with zero narration or dialogue, you make up your own mind as a viewer whether you…

Shelley: Dancing 2 When Shelley and I turned 18 our brother Mike gave us a membership to BASE, a nightclub on Sydney’s Jaimeson Street that was eventually demolished, with a hotel now in its place. …

Two hundred and ninety-third film: Korkalen, Swedish for ‘wagoner’ but called ‘The Phantom Carriage’ with English subtitles. A silent film seemingly sponsored by the Salvation Army, it tells the story of David Holm, a violent drunk who dies at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve and is therefore…

Two hundred and ninety-second film: Klute, a 1971 gritty thriller starring Jane Fonda at her incredible, can’t-believe-that’s-a-person-acting best, with the greatest shag haircut ever seen on or off screen. Fonda’s Bree, an endearingly emotionally stunted sex worker, is being stalked by a suspect who is also likely to have killed private detective Donald Sutherland (Klute)’s best mate Tom. While the real crime is that I don’t own any of Jane Fonda’s outfits, the crime part of this movie is secondary to the exploration of the messed-up-but-still-engaging characters and the extremely seventies-ish approach to sexuality and kink, causing me to google what a ‘button freak’ is. Also don’t stalk people, it’s bad. Unlike the movie, which is good. Three and three-quarter briefly-worn sequinned dresses out of five.

Two hundred and ninety-first film: Zero Kelvin, or ‘Kjærlighetens kjøtere’ in Norwegian if your keyboard can handle it. A grim Nordic film about three very different men who find themselves in an isolated outpost in Greenland to hunt animals for fur, this is a movie in which not all puppies have a good time. Not all humans do either, including me. Its bleakness is necessary, as it forces the three main characters — a scientist, a poet, and a tough guy (played by the mean mathematician from Good Will Hunting, Daddy Skarsgard) — to make decisions about being men in desolate, tough surroundings. But that doesn’t make its bleakness fun. Fine if you like feeling terrible and hating dogs and not being aware that there are better things to do. One and a half realistic walrus murders out of five.