Author: Andrew McDonald

Five Indie Science Fiction Flicks Worth Catching Before Midnight Special

One of the reasons behind the enduring popularity of science fiction is that it’s a genre with plenty for both big blockbusters like Star Wars or Star Trek and smaller, more thoughtful films like the upcoming Midnight Special. In anticipation of Jeff Nichols‘ upcoming film, we thought we’d compile a collection of indie science fiction films that fans…

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Digital Film Review: Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (USA, 2014)

Few films of recent years have had ingredients for wonder so specific as Birdman. Michael Keaton portraying a washed up, former comic book star trying to revitalise his career in an inventive script co-written and directed by the man who brought us Biutiful; the potential for amazement is through the roof and somehow, the film…

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DVD Review: The Drop (MA15) (USA, 2014)

It’s always easy to fetishize the final performance of a late, great actor – especially one as towering and impressive as James Gandolfini. Whilst other recent tragic losses, like that of Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, have yielded a range of so-so posthumous performances, this is thankfully not the case for the final chapter…

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Film Review: Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (USA, 2014)

Few films of recent years have had ingredients for wonder so specific as Birdman. Michael Keaton portraying a washed up, former comic book star trying to revitalise his career in an inventive script co-written and directed by the man who brought us Biutiful; the potential for amazement is through the roof and somehow, the film…

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Film Review: The Rover (MA15+) (Australia, 2014)

“Australia – Ten Years After the Collapse” This is as explicit an explanation as David Michôd gives in terms of explaining where we find ourselves in his second full length feature, The Rover. Following on from the remarkable Animal Kingdom, this could not be more a different film. In place of a multitude of characters,…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 7 “Waterloo” (USA, 2014)

“They saw what I saw” And with that, the Draper torch has been passed. An incredible amount of hype and hesitation has been attached to the mid-season finale for Mad Men Season 7, and it’s safe to say that Waterloo delivered on every note it had to. From the rocket lift off at the episode’s…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 63 (Taboo Week) – 26th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

And we’re off! With the crew at The Feed focussing on the unspeakable and the impolite throughout the last week of May for its ‘Taboo Week’, what better way to kick off than with a brief look at the tragedy that are the Isla Vista killings. Whenever a shooting takes place, we as commentators and…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 6 “The Strategy” (USA, 2014)

What an episode! The Strategy stands up against some of the finest episodes of the entire series and will likely be looked back upon a defining moment of season 7. A whole lot happened in this one, by Mad Men standards of ‘a lot’, and much of focused on Don and Peggy. Always the most…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 61 – 22nd May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Thursday evenings are always a good night for The Feed crew – it’s always a fairly broad reaching episode that manages to touch on a lot of different topics, and last night’s was no different. Opening with the nightly wrap, we were subject to (/able to view, depending on how generous you’re feeling) Tony Abbott’s…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 55 – 14th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Got the post-budget blues? A daily dose of The Feed could be what you need! Even if we obviously wouldn’t be able to escape the miserable beast’s claws in a half hour news slot. The budget was given a cursory damning in the opening news collection, and as obvious as it was that a youth…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 5 “The Runaways” (USA, 2014)

Critics and fans of this current age of television are quick to wax lyrical over the current crop of shows we have to enjoy; “The Golden Age of TV” and “TV is the new cinema!” are two phrases that get bandied about often. Yet for all of the past decade or so of television’s ‘cinematic’…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 52 – 8th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Even as the fine journalists at Fairfax walk out in protest of impending cuts, nothing can stop The Feed. It was this story that opened the episode of May 8 2014, and it really just serves as another depressing chapter in the miserable book that ‘old media’ has become- yet you can’t help but feel…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 4 “The Monolith” (USA, 2014)

‘The Monolith’ – what a title for an episode of anything not directly related to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The one shot that recalls 2001 comes early is blink-and-you-miss-it quick; a shot of the SC&P elevator doors, black and imposing against a white background. And like the monolith in 2001, this doors represent all the…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 3 “Field Trip” (USA, 2014)

Continuing the show’s dominance of 60s soundtracks, Field Trip concludes with Jimi Hendrix’s If 6 Was 9 – a song that essentially about the counter cultural movement of the 60s and how the hippies are the really aware ones against the white collar conservatives. Whilst the show does flirt occasionally with the 60s counter culture,…

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Film Review: Three Poems (Australia, 2014)

“And then man created time, and spent eternity trying to outrun it” From this opening piece of text set before a cascading cosmic landscape, it’s quite clear that Three Poems is no run of the mill short film. The debut effort from writer director Jake Houston Harris is exactly what it says it is- three…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2 Episode 46 – 29th April 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

The footage of the captain and crew being hauled to safety from the sinking Sewol ferry is how The Feed chose to open their April 29 show, and good on them for doing so. This South Korean ferry tragedy is being crazily under-reported this week, despite some 190 people now being confirmed dead. The photos…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 2 “A Day’s Work” (USA, 2014)

The Mad Men writing crew, whether this is planned or not, seem to always include one or two choice lines per episode that seem to sum up the theme (which certainly makes it fun to write about). Season 7’s second episode A Day’s Work had this line coming from Ted Chaough to Pete; “Just cash…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 1 “Time Zones” (USA, 2014)

This is the beginning of something – do you have time to improve your life? Would we ever have expected this kind of speech ad pitch Freddy Rumsen? His brilliant opening monologue (impeccably delivered by Joel Murray, in what was his work of the series thus far) belies every notion we’ve had of his character….

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Mad Men Season 7 – What Can We Expect?

Few show-runners are as tight lipped about their forthcoming seasons as Matthew Weiner is with Mad Men. For this reason, a certain amount of wild guessing is required… yet as is so often the case, this can lead to over analysis and needless extrapolation of minor plot points (let’s not forget the Megan Draper is…

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TV Review: The Feed (SBS2, Australia) Season Two, Addiction Week – Episode 1

Opening a potentially very heavy week of nightly evening news with a lighter story is a wise move- and that’s certainly what the team at The Feed appeared to be doing by having a story about cane toad licking addicted dogs kick off its Addiction Week. As cartoonish as this story may sound on paper…

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TV Recap: The Feed (SBS2) Looking back at the Top 5 Stories of their First Month!

After a month on the air in 2014, it’s high time to look back on five stories that have helped make The Feed the excellent show it is. 5- Nick Frost Interviewing British funny man Nick Frost about dance fighting is a no-brainer for a successful segment. Thankfully, The Feed’s Marc Fennell is able to…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Episode 12 – 27th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Whilst it’s not exactly ‘already done news’, it certainly feels like you could be accurate in reporting each night that there’s “more tragedy from Ukraine”, and unfortunately this evening was no exception. With the backing of SBS’s new team, The Feed is able to regularly show some harrowing and awful footage from Ukraine- this time…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Episode 10 – 25th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Certainly the most noteworthy of The Feed’s headlines for its February 25 episode was the proposed fatwa being put on a mission to Mars by the United Arab Emirates. Whilst this sounds like an Onion article or a bizarre pulpy science fiction plot, this is actually the situation many Muslims may find themselves in. Not…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Episode 8 – 20th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Thursdays come around so quick eh? And with it comes the week’s last episode of The Feed. This episode took a slightly different approach – with a core focus on the third anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake (yes that was somehow three years ago). Before that though- we were treated, if that is the right…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Episode 5 – 17th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

The Feed kicked off the second week of its second season with what seemed like a cruel tease of Back to the Future technology only to lead us into decidedly heavier news. The riots and breakouts on the Manus Island detention centre are troubling and depressing realities to our current asylum seeker policy are always…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Episode 4 – 13th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

What was probably the heaviest (and last) episode of the week saw the crew from The Feed tackling pig hunting, sexual abuse, Olympic hanky panky and nudist churches. Just another evening on SBS2! The lead headlines are always the least fascinating part of the show, yet Marc Fennell manages to get the show cooking with…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Episode 2 – 11th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

As if it needed anything to prove at all, The Feed easily showed that its success and ease in the half hour format was no flash in the pan with its second 2014 episode. The Feed has clearly got its format down-pat with an opening few minutes dedicated to what’s gone down in the day’s…

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TV Review: The Feed Season 2 Premiere – 10th February 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

A new year and, thankfully, a new season of SBS2’s The Feed. After making its debut last year in 15 minute format, the current affairs/news review program has now returned to the airwaves in extended 30 minute version and was clearly in no mood for time wasting. Kicking off with its trademark wrap up of…

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Film Review: Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (M) (USA, 2013)

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin … People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart” With such beautiful and moving lines, gracefully unaltered from the original source material…

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Film Review: August: Osage County (MA15+) (USA, 2013)

It’s almost become cliché to say it now, but Meryl Streep dominates yet another film. August: Osage County is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name, with original playwright Tracy Letts penning the screenplay for The Company Men director John Wells to helm. A darkly comic drama, the film begins…

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