Author: Peter Gray

Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the US box office success One of Them Days, starring Keke Palmer and Grammy Award-winning songstress SZA, in Australian cinemas from March 5th, 2025. Best friends and roommates Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) are about to have One of…

The Melbourne Women in Film Festival (MWFF), a vital home for the championing of female filmmakers, has today unveiled its electrifying 2025 program, featuring an impressive lineup of over 40 world-class features, shorts, and special events. The ninth edition of the festival is set to disrupt, challenge, and inspire filmmaking in a showcase of the…

A starring role with her talents front and centre always suited Kate Hudson, so, immediately, Running Point lands its lay-up, with the Netflix comedy series giving the actress the material needed to flourish. Inspired by Los Angeles Lakers president Jeanie Buss, the Mindy Kaling-produced series subs in the Los Angeles Waves and Hudson’s Isla Gordon,…

Whilst there were many movie-goers that may have been surprised at hearing Fernanda Torres‘s name being called at this year’s Golden Globes as the recipient of the Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) over the likes of Nicole Kidman’s acclaimed turn in Babygirl and Angelina Jolie’s seeming front-runner presence in Maria, once I’m Still…

Transferred from juvenile to adult prison, Mel is taken under the wing of both Shepard, Australia’s most despised criminal, and Warren, a soon-to-be-a-paroled inmate.  The paternal triangle that forms between them becomes their undoing. From Cannes Film Festival-winning director Charles Williams, Inside is a tale of emotional dynamics within the prison system, spearheaded by a…

The Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) has announced its full program for its 2025 event, with over 40 sessions, more than 115 speakers, and 90 industry decision makers taking place in-person at ACMI in Melbourne / Naarm, from 2nd to the 5th of March, 2025, with an online-only international marketplace between the 6th and 7th…

The Alliance Française French Film Festival (AF FFF) has unveiled its 2025 programme of groundbreaking French cinema. Now in its 36th year, the largest celebration of French film outside France will arrive in Australia from 4 March – 27 April 2025. Festival-goers are invited to embark on a unique cultural journey, featuring captivating stories of…

Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the Oscar nominated drama I’m Still Here, starring Fernanda Torres in her Golden Globe nominated role. Brazil, 1971. Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after…

Will could never compete in the sport he’s always loved: racewalking. While struggling to find respect as a coach, Will’s fortunes change when he spots a burnout baseball pitcher, Matt, with the most impeccable racewalking stride he’s ever seen.  Together, Will and Matt team up, face the challenges of a sport that doesn’t want them,…

As ridiculous a sport racewalking may seem – Aussies are sure to have images of Jane Turner and Glenn Robbins powerwalking with all their might come to mind – writing/directing duo Phil Moniz and Kevin Claydon lace such with a tenderness and respect that allows audiences to laugh with the sport’s quirk rather than at…

Regardless of what stories you’ve heard about William Tell, there’s one consistent note to his tale surrounding his son, a crossbow and an apple. A legendary folk hero of Switzerland, his tale has been told many times across many mediums, and Danish actor Claes Bang is the latest to embody the legend.  Under the direction…

Academy Award winning director Andrea Arnold has always honed a unique voice in the landscape of cinema.  From her short films Milk and the Oscar celebrated Wasp, to her distinctive take on the classic Wuthering Heights and the experimental American Honey, no project is like another, and she’s continuing such a filmic outlook with her…

Similar to the naturalistic, almost documentary-like aesthetic she laced her film American Honey with, writer/director Andrea Arnold approaches Bird with a realism that, for the majority of its 119 minute running time, rarely lets up to allow audiences a proper escape from the poverty-stricken housing estate setting it largely sits within. Unfolding through the eyes…

Good Cop/Bad Cop follows Lou and Henry, a sister and brother detective team in a small Pacific Northwest police force who must contend with colourful residents, a serious lack of resources, and their very complicated dynamic with each other and their police chief, Big Hank – who happens to be their father. A social media…

Whilst there’s certainly nothing wrong with the prestige approach to television and treating an entire season as an extended film, essentially, Good Cop/Bad Cop is a welcome example of the type of throwback, one-hour sittings of pure entertainment, riding off the benefits of a snappy ensemble, familiar rhythms and lived-in characters. Set for release locally…

After last year’s Longlegs became a breakout success and lent a certain elevated air of relevance to writer/director Osgood Perkins‘ name, there’s understandably a level of expectation surrounding his follow-up, The Monkey, especially with the added gravity of being based off a Stephen King short story and having the producer credit of James Wan (Saw,…

At the centre of Gia Coppola‘s The Last Showgirl is Shelley (Pamela Anderson), a 57-year old (though she’ll initially tell you otherwise) Vegas all-girl revue performer whose 30+ years in the Razzle Dazzle show are coming to an abrupt end.  But just as Shelley’s tenure is closing, and the uncertainty of life sets in, Anderson’s…

In a time when there’s so much uncertainty in the world, a film like The Last Journey feels even more special and affirming as it projects pure beauty and an uplifting nature in telling its central story around two men and their determination to reaffirm life’s wonder for another. Swedish journalists and television hosts Filip…

Known in their local Sweden as Filip och Fredrik, popular TV hosts and journalists Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson have moved into the documentary film space with The Last Journey, which sees the duo take Hammar’s father, Lars, on a road trip to France. Lars has recently retired after 40 years as a French teacher…

Following its premiere at the 2023 Austin Film Festival, where it was a Jury Winner for a Dark Matters Feature, the new horror film Inhabitants is preparing to haunt households this Valentine’s season as it arrives on VOD. Releasing February 14th, the film follows a young woman who moves in with her lapsed Catholic boyfriend,…

Given that The Gorge is directed by Scott Derrickson, who has helmed such horror pleasers as Sinister and The Black Phone, penned by an action familiar in Zach Dean (The Tomorrow War, Fast X), and is headlined by the reliable duo of Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller, one would feel safe sitting down to stream…

Whilst the slasher genre has certainly maintained a steady presence within the horror genre as of late, Heart Eyes very much leans into the sporadically gory, gloriously nonsensical mentality that so many Scream imitators indulged in across the late 90s and early 2000s in the wake of Wes Craven’s original slasher rejuvenating the field. The…

Serving as the first cinematic Marvel offering of 2025, Captain America: Brave New World is neither a return to familiar form or a step in a, well, brave new direction, but a middle-range actioner that’s just serviceable enough to earn entertainment points; even if it ultimately adds up to very little of consequence. Post-Endgame, it’s…

As the writer and director of the original animated How To Train Your Dragon, and both sequels, Dean DeBlois is all too aware how closely audiences hold those films to their chest and that a live action adaptation is, perhaps, not that necessary; heck, he even admits himself that he’s never been one to think…

Whilst lightning has never really struck twice when it comes to the Bridget Jones film series – the 2001 original, Bridget Jones’s Diary, is entirely unmatched in its quality – hats must be taken off for director Michael Morris and writers Helen Fielding (whose novel of the same name it’s based off), Dan Mazer and…

Bridget’s back.  Just as she is. 24 years ago Renée Zellweger slipped into those pants, and the world has been in love with Bridget Jones ever since. Returning to her Academy Award nominated role, Zellweger is navigating a new life for one Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, where she is alone…

When a down-on-her luck video editor takes a mysterious, well-paying job cutting snuff films, she finds herself seemingly haunted by the people in her videos. Such is the logline for Freelance, an atmospheric psychological thriller from director John Balazs, headlined by Nicole Pastor, and described by our Peter Gray as “a shining example of homegrown…

Thanks to Madman Entertainment we have 10 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Pamela Anderson in her transformative role as The Last Showgirl, in Australian cinemas from February 20th, 2025. A poignant film of resilience, rhinestones and feathers, stars Pamela Anderson as Shelly, a glamorous showgirl who must plan for her future when her show abruptly closes after…

Co-writing/directing team Linsey Stewart and Dane Clark have quite the sitcom premise on their hands with Suze, but yet, thanks to an inherent understanding of their characters, the film overcomes any outlandishness to prove itself a sweet relationship dramedy about flawed, real humans who just want to be loved – whatever form that arrives in….

When her only daughter leaves for college, Suze (Michaela Watkins), a single mom who has lost her purpose, gets stuck taking care of her daughter’s heartbroken ex-boyfriend, who she can’t stand. On her journey of self-discovery, Suze discovers what living purposefully really looks like, while making an unlikely bond along the way. A success out of the 2023…