When it comes to modern crime thrillers, film sometimes has trouble competing with television. Each year sees dozens of TV series – prime-time, cable and otherwise – tackle the genre and for a film to really stand out against this herd and compete with stuff like True Detective or Luther, it has to go big or go home….
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Although the upcoming Star Trek Beyond is the first post-reboot film in the franchise that JJ Abrams isn’t Directing, there’s a lot that the film could learn from the success of Abram’s recent Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Female agency Star Trek’s post-reboot treatment of Uhura has been pretty well-received but in comparison to what…
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Comedy webseries Hollywood Hitmen is coming to Melbourne WebFest this year. The series sees Enver Gjokaj and Maximilian Osinski play two insecure hitmen in L.A.’s bizarre community of contract killers. We caught up with cast member and co-Producer Dichen Lachman (The 100, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.EL.D., Shameless) to talk about the series. How did you get involved in…
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Right from the get go, Season 6 of Game of Thrones has been all about answering expectations. Things like The Hound’s continued survival and Jon’s parentage have been the subject of speculation for years by fans and this season of Thrones has been all about setting the record straight. “The Winds of Winter” very much…
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Homegrown science fiction adventure film Arrowhead brings a lot of ambition to the table but little else. For fans of the genre, it’s a bold step forward into disappointingly familiar territory. Directed and written by Jesse O’Brien, the film follows Kye (Dan Mor), a prisoner of war between two interstellar factions locked in political conflict. Kye is…
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Loosely-based around Japan’s real life (and really terrifying) ‘suicide forest’, The Forest is a pretty underwhelming and generic horror flick. There’s an enormous gulf in how evocative and eerie the subject material can be and how compelling this film is. There are so many different ways to deploy and explore the premise of this film. Unfortunately, it seems very few of those…
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With a mammoth lineup of over 240 films, this year’s Sydney Film Festival was one of the best efforts yet. From the return of Mel Gibson in Blood Father to the crude-but-evocative absurdism of Swiss Army Man, there was a lot on offer. We’ve compiled our picks for the best of the festival below: Best Australian film…
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John Carney‘s latest effort, Sing Street, made its Australian debut through the Sydney Film Festival. In honor of the occasion we caught up to two of its stars, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo and Mark McKenna to talk about the film. What drew you to the project? How did you get involved with Sing Street? Ferdia: I went to…
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Craig Boreham’s Teenage Kicks made its worldwide premiere last weekend as part of this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Our reviewer, Simon, called it, “a beautifully filmed coming of age tale…that leaves you thinking long after the final credits have rolled.” Fergus Halliday caught up with the director himself and star Miles Szanto to talk about the film, the ideas…
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Rock & roll conquers all in John Carney‘s latest film, Sing Street, where the young and introverted Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) starts a band in order to impress a girl (Lucy Boynton). It’s to the film’s credit, however, that this is only the spark that sets off the movie and there’s a lot more going on here than just…
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Paramount will be bringing Star Trek Beyond stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and director Justin Lin to Australia next month to promote the release of the new Star Trek film. They’ll be walking the red carpet for the Australian Premiere of the film at 6.30pm on Thursday July 7 at Hoyts Entertainment Quarter in Sydney. Star Trek…
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Miles Ahead might have a few tricks (and some strong casting) up its sleeve, but it never quite manages to triumph. Set in the late 1970s, the very-loose biopic introduces us a disillusioned and drug-addled Davis (Don Cheadle)who hasn’t made music in almost five years – despite the best efforts of his label. When a recording of…
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Even at just a surface level, Me Before You feels like a movie that’s just ticking boxes than it is engaging heartstrings. You’ve got three big franchise stars (from Game of Thrones, Doctor Who and The Hunger Games, respectively), a picturesque British backdrop and premise that all-but-guarantees a tragic end. However, it never really feels like the film is genuinely leveraging…
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One of the first thing that Blood Father makes clear is that John Link (Mel Gibson) is over being a flashy action hero type. It’s old hat to an ex-con like him and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. However, don’t be fooled, Gibson himself seems to be having a hell of a…
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Closet Monster isn’t a film that succeeds because on its premise alone. It’s all in the execution. Though hardly the first drama film to concern itself with what it means to grow up queer in the 21st century, it feels rare to find a film as well realised as this one. The acting, direction, editing and music…
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The Sydney Film Festival is set to be slightly-extended this year, with addition screenings announced for the event’s most popular films. The screenings will take place at Palace Cinemas in Leichhardt and Paddington across the 20th to 22nd of June. “This is the second year we will extend our run for top-selling films beyond the…
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“No One” is an episode of Thrones that can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. It isn’t quite clear whether this episode is the spark that sets off the cascading events of the season’s final two episodes or a climax in its own right. Though it offers some closure to the Braavos and Riverlands…
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Embedded fits nicely within the growing catalog of Australian films determined to prove our country has much more to offer the world of cinema than just koalas and beaches. Part erotic thriller, part political statement. Embedded revolves entirely around the relationship between disillusioned war correspondent Frank (Nick Barkla) and Madeline (Laura Gordon), the enigmatic woman he shares…
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If there’s anything that sticks with you the most about Jan Gassmann’s latest documentary effort Europe, She Loves, it’s the striking cinematography. A surprisingly intimate look into the emotions and lives of five couples across Europe, the film never really looks, nor feels, like a documentary. It wears its authenticity with pride, inviting you to engage and…
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Stephen Sewell‘s erotic political thriller Embedded sees a former-war correspondent meet an alluring, enigmatic woman at a party, before a dangerous power play engulfs them both. Fergus Halliday caught up with Stephen in the lead-up to the film’s screening at the Sydney Film Festival and talked it’s origins and the ideas the film dissects. Where did…
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Between Red Christmas, High-Rise and Patchwork, the 2016 Sydney Film Festival is delivering some really solid offerings for horror movie fans. Fergus Halliday caught up with the Sean Byrne, the director of The Devil’s Candy, to talk about the film’s appearance at the festival, the film’s origins and the state of Australian horror. I wanted to start by…
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Universal will be bringing Matt Damon and Alicia Vikander down under next month to promote the release of their new Jason Bourne film. The pair will walk the red carpet at the film’s Australian Premiere on Sunday July 3rd at Hoyts Entertainment Quarter in Sydney. It has been fourteen years since The Bourne Identity, but Damon assures fans…
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Simply titled and straight out of Denmark, A War dives into the thick of modern warfare and finds itself fascinated by the moral nuance that most blockbusters simply glaze over. It’s about a soldier coming to terms with a world that isn’t black and white – but not in the way you think. Pilou Asbæk headlines as Claus…
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The Sydney Film Festival is kicking off this week and we’ve gathered together a short-list of some of the big films you’ll absolutely want to make space on your flexipass to see. Blood Father Directed by Jean-François Richet and show in the crispy outlands of New Mexico, Blood Father marks Mel Gibson’s return to the action movie. He…
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The first Now You See Me had a thrifty premise and a slick cast but was let down by a last-minute plot twist that was, quite literally, almost-unbelievable. The second film, while disappointingly not called either Now You See Me Too or Now You Don’t, settles a more evenly-spread acceptance of the impossible. However, if the series’ previous…
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Music doco Goodnight Brooklyn: Death by Audio is headlining this year’s Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. We spoke to director Matt Conboy about the film’s origins and the process of bringing the final hours of one of New York’s most beloved DIY venues. Why ‘Death By Audio’? What initial connection, if any, did you have to their story? The film…
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Japanese punk doco Mad Tiger is showing at this year’s Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. We reviewed the film earlier and the week and caught up since to talk about the film with one of the directors behind it. How did you first discover Peelander-Z? My friend Kenji Hayasaki introduced me to Peelander-Z in 2008, right when…
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Beyond any thematic or visual symmetries, the biggest common thread across Season 6 so far has been a sense of direction. Thrones has spent the last five seasons scattering our favorite characters across both Westeros and Essos but with The Night’s King and the White Walkers on the march, it’s about time for things to pull themselves…
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When we were first introduced to the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary in the 2013 debut season of Orange is the New Black, it was quite clear that we were supposed to be introduced to this new environment through the show’s protagonist, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling). The upper-class NYC dweller’s transportation to a world completely different to the…
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Taika Waititi‘s Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a delightfully off-beat trek through the New Zealand bush, starring Julian Dennison and Sam Neill. We caught up with Waititi and Dennison to chat about what it was like working on the film, its origins and what’s on the cards next for the two. Taika, how do you feel Hunt…
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