Seasoned film critic and editor. Gives a great interview. Penchant for horror. Unashamed fan of Michelle Pfeiffer and Jason Momoa. Contact: [email protected]
Operating as a double entendre for both the literal titular roadside placement and the relationships within Jason Buxton‘s tense drama, Sharp Corner lays focus on the vehicular and emotional torture put forth by a series of fatal crashes that take place on a suburban front lawn that kisses the edge of a tight curvature on…
A dark twisted thriller in the same vein as Se7en and Untraceable, DarkGame is an unsettling feature surrounding a determined detective (Ed Westwick) in a race against time to stop a sadistic game show on the dark web, where captives are forced to compete for their lives and the losers are executed via live broadcast. For…
Having helmed such actioners as Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team, The Grey, and Boss Level, as well as writing credits on the Death Wish remake and Bad Boys For Life, director Joe Carnahan is no stranger to the genre and the excessive cheese it can give way to. For his latest effort, Shadow Force, he’s working…
Following his highly anticipated return to Europe and the massive success of his 2024 North American tour, multi platinum, 8-time GRAMMY award-winning, global entertainment icon USHER has announced the Australian leg of his highly praised USHER: Past Present Future 2025 Global Tour, marking his long-awaited return to Australia for his first solo headline tour since the…
Directed by a then-rising Ang Lee, 1993’s The Wedding Banquet‘s tackling of themes around queerness, immigration and cultural identity marked something of a silent rebellion in cinema. It was a film that paved the way for furthered LGBTQIA+ stories to be told, and in Andrew Ahn‘s reimagining, Lee’s original story is expanded upon, allowing a…
A reimagining of Ang Lee’s acclaimed 1993 romantic comedy, The Wedding Banquet is a joyful, exuberant, fresh take on the genre, featuring a hilarious cast of multigenerational talent, headlined by Lily Gladstone and Bowen Yang. Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris, Min makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their friend Angela in exchange for…
As this year’s Sydney Film Festival program goes live (read all about it here), with 201 films from 70 countries on the bill, including 17 World Premieres, 6 international premieres and 137 Australian Premieres, bringing together hundreds of new international and local stories, festival director Nashen Moodley spoke with our Peter Gray about his vision,…
The 72nd Sydney Film Festival (June 4th – 15th, 2025) program has officially launched, with Festival Director Nashen Moodley unveiling an exceptional line-up, including 15 films direct from the Cannes Film Festival, including Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident and Kelly Reichardt’s 1970s-set art heist drama The Mastermind. Other major highlights include The Life…
Hagar’s Hut embarks on a journey through the complexities of psychological trauma and that of the lines it often blurs between reality and fantasy as it follows Skye, a young girl fleeing from the clutches of abuse inflicted upon her by her psychiatrists, who seeks solace in the untamed wilderness. There, she encounters Xan, a…
Having already dipped his toe in the comedy/horror field with both Little Evil and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, writer/director Eli Craig dives confidently headfirst into the cornfield for a meta slasher of sorts that subverts expectation as much as it plays into tropes of the genre. With a title like Clown in a Cornfield,…
Looking for a fresh start, Quinn and her father move to the quiet town of Kettle Springs. They soon learn the fractured community has fallen on hard times after losing a treasured factory to a fire. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning clown emerges from the cornfields to…
Established in 1993, in honour of two of Australia’s most significant filmmakers, Charles and Elsa Chauvel, the Chauvel Award acknowledges significant contribution to the Australian Screen Industry. In recognition of the incredible Charles and Elsa Chauvel, the Gold Coast Film Festival proudly honours those Australian screen industry legends, who shape Australian cinema in their own…
Ezra, a once-famous trumpeter, now struggles to keep his career afloat, performing for scraps at the local small jazz club. After his family is killed in a horrific car crash, Ezra stumbles upon a lighthouse and is mistaken for the keeper by one of the workers. Drawn by the power of the lighthouse, he decides…
Despite being created by Tina Fey, whose previous television ventures have adhered to a more satirical, exaggerated mentality (see 30 Rock and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), her Netflix offering, The Four Seasons, is considerably more grounded and dramatic. Sure, there’s genuine bouts of humour peppered across the 8 episodes, but audiences expecting raucous laughter best…
Whilst it shouldn’t have taken as long as 7 years for us to be gifted a sequel to 2018’s comedic thriller A Simple Favour – a quirky piece that played out like Gone Girl rinsed through the cycle of a soap opera – director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy) and writers Jessica Sharzer (who also penned…
Dwayne Johnson has had a lot of iterations as a performer: The Rock, franchise Viagra, unlikely hit singer, television personality, Tequila connoisseur, United Football League owner…and now, possible Oscar winner? Transforming himself to embody Mark Kerr, an American former wrestler and mixed martial artist, Johnson is looking to prove his detractors wrong in The Smashing Machine, a filmic…
Following the star-studded intrigue of its first season (you can read our review here), Prime Video’s Nine Perfect Strangers has finally returned for a second helping of a gloriously accented (and wigged) Nicole Kidman and her questionable methods of therapy in the first look trailer for the anticipated new seasons. In the latest episodes, nine…
Not unlike its DC counterpart the Suicide Squad, Marvel have assembled an anti-hero-minded crew of degenerates to lead the charge for the greater good in Thunderbolts*, one of the MCU’s strongest efforts in a recent phase of mostly underwhelming, middle-ground entries that have all largely failed to live up to the expectations of a post-Endgame…
Marvel are being careful with who they assemble with Thunderbolts*, an unconventional team of anti-heroes who, after finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their past. As the Thunderbolts – Yelena Belova, Bucky…
Unhinged was the first word that came to mind when viewing Murder Ballads: How to Make It in Rock ‘n’ Roll, a British rock mockumentary (rockumentary?) that very much submits to a level of madness that is likely to prove incredibly divisive. Writer/director Mitchell Tolliday and co-writer Neil Rickatson adopt a more-is-more type mentality across…
Launching at Screen Forever next month, the new First Nations initiative, Damulgurra Stories, is set to redefine respectful, holistic engagement with First Nations communities in the screen industry. Founded by Larrakia man Cian Mungatj McCue, of Moogie Down Productions, and award-winning casting director and producer Sarah Price of Castaway NT, Damulgurra Stories aims to transform…
Basic, comedy-inclined title aside, Neighbourhood Watch proves to be more than just a mismatched buddy effort thanks, in large part, to the winning chemistry between Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jack Quaid, who, against their characters’ best efforts, find a sense of kinship in their respective societal outcasts. There’s a bit of clumsiness to their exposure…
As someone who hasn’t played the video game upon which this film is based, and is only vaguely familiar with its plot outline, I’m coming into David F. Sandberg‘s adaptation with horror movie eyes. And in that regard, the Lights Out director – returning to the genre that made him a name after dipping his…
Derived from the interactive survivalist horror game, Until Dawn is an original standalone story that expands upon the game series’ mythology, focusing on Clover and her friends, who head into the remote valley where Clover’s sister vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor centre, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and…
It’s been nearly 10 years since Ben Affleck debuted as Christian Wolff, aka The Accountant, in the same-name actioner that Gavin O’Connor pushed to a sizeable box office haul ($155m) despite tepid-ish reviews. That being said, average reviews have never stopped a sequel from being brought to fruition before, and the creation O’Connor, Affleck and…
Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) has a talent for solving complex problems. When an old acquaintance is murdered, leaving behind a cryptic message to “find the accountant,” Wolff is compelled to solve the case. Realizing more extreme measures are necessary, Wolff recruits his estranged and highly lethal brother, Brax (Jon Bernthal), to help. In partnership with…
With legacy sequels working in the favour of classic horror titles like Halloween and Scream, it only makes sense that another staple of the slasher genre gets its due, with the 1997 teen chiller I Know What You Did Last Summer getting a 2025 revisit; and if Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell can face…
It Feeds follows the harrowing story of a young girl who insists that a malevolent entity is feeding on her. Ashley Greene (Twilight) stars as a clairvoyant therapist who must confront her own past traumas to save the girl before it’s too late, with Shawn Ashmore (X-Men) as the anguished father desperately fighting to protect his daughter…
Though there’s usually always a sense of unflinching violence that laces the filmic work of director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram, The Order), his debut detour into episodic television, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, is considerably more blunt in its brutality. Perhaps because the prose at the series’ center – Richard Flanagan‘s winning novel…
Based on Richard Flanagan’s acclaimed 2013 novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a savagely beautiful five-part series charting the life of Dorrigo Evans (played by Jacob Elordi as a young man and Ciarán Hinds as the older iteration), through his passionate love affair with his uncle’s wife (Odessa Young), his time held…
