Author: Peter Gray

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…

On the initial surface, Cooper Raiff‘s television series Hal & Harper appears to be a sibling drama about two children and their single father.  And whilst that is the case in the most basic of manners, when the film presents its grown-up cast (Raiff as Hal and Lili Reinhart as Harper) as the seven-and-nine-year-old iterations…

East meets West as stars face-off in collaborative sing battles for the recently announced Apple TV+ series KPOPPED, an all-new eight-episode song battle series from executive producer Lionel Richie, starring PSY, the international chart-topper who helped bring K-pop to the world with his global sensation “Gangnam Style”, and three-time, Grammy award-winning superstar and executive producer Megan…

We’re only a month-and-a-bit into 2025, and it’s possible that Netflix have given birth (pun unintended) to one of the year’s absolute worst filmic offerings in Amy Schumer‘s Kinda Pregnant, an absolutely unfunny “comedy” that wastes the talents of its capable cast. A Happy Madison production – which tells you all you need to know…

Much like how his 2018 psychological thriller Unsane was elevated by it being shot entirely on an iPhone 7 Plus, Steven Soderbergh is implementing another technological gimmick of sorts in Presence, a ghost story that’s filmed entirely from the point of view of the haunting figure lurking within the walls of a sprawling suburban residence….

Throughout his directorial career, Steven Soderbergh has so often gone against the grain.  From his avant-garde arthouse approach in films like Sex, Lies and Videotape, shooting the entirety of the psychological thriller Unsane on an iPhone 7, to acclaimed studio franchises like the Ocean’s and Magic Mike trilogies, he indulges in the unexpected.  And his…

Fiyero, I don’t think we’re in Oz anymore. After making an entrance as the Winkie Prince in last year’s thrillifying Wicked, Jonathan Bailey is trading dancing (through life) for dinosaurs in the anticipated first trailer for the latest chapter in the Jurassic Park film series – Jurassic World Rebirth. As paleontologist Henry Loomis, alongside Scarlett…

Described as his most personal work yet, Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer is an adaptation of William S. Burrough‘s 1985 novel of the same name; though published in the 80s, it was written between 1951 and 1953.  Guadagnino has made a career out of telling vastly opposing stories with each of his productions – Call Me By…

When it comes to depicting real-life violence on screen, Australian director Justin Kurzel has an enviable history of such.  His 2011 debut, Snowtown, was a harrowing re-enactment of the South Australian body-in-a-barrel murders that plagued the 90s for close to a decade.  In 2021 he represented the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre through the psychologically taxing…

25 years ago, a rejected X-Files plot and a morbid sense of humour came together in the most glorious (and gory) fashion for Final Destination.  At a time when the horror genre was heavily reliant on the slasher subsect, Final Destination dared to go beyond conventions, taking the pin-up cast of its contemporaries and offing…

There’s a certain period-piece sexuality billowing through Widow Clicquot that brings to mind other such similarly-set efforts as Atonement and Pride & Prejudice.  And given that those films’ second-unit director, Thomas Napper, is at the helm here, it makes perfect sense that such detail and intimacy is adhered to; fittingly, Joe Wright, director of the…

Sensitively handling the queer love story at its core, Mathias Broe‘s Sauna explores the fluid possibilities of connection, further exacerbating its impact through the filmmaker’s own relationship with his transitioning partner. The sauna of the title refers to the place of work for young Johan (Magnus Juhl Andersen), a barely-legal, zero body fat-type twink who…

A self-awareness regarding certain specifications in getting his film made along with a universality in conjunction with its narrative, writer/director Alireza Khatami goes beyond genre conventions with The Things You Kill, a twisted thriller that breaks apart what it is to transform. At one point in the film, the language professor at the centre of…

There’s a certain frustration felt when watching Predators, a 96 minute documentary centering around the series To Catch a Predator, itself an offshoot from NBC’s Dateline.  In the early 2000s, the show lured audiences in as it highlighted online predatory behaviour – primarily older men meeting underage boys and girls for the intention of sexual…

Given how she made history as the first deaf person to win an Academy Award for acting, one might think the documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore would be something of a straightforward and celebratory profile on the actress.  Shoshannah Stern – who, like her subject, is also a deaf actor and director – certainly…

There’s a certain bittersweetness in watching OBEX (the title specifically capitalised) only weeks after David Lynch’s sad passing, as Albert Birney‘s truly bizarre odyssey feels like a kindred spirit to Lynch’s Eraserhead, with the hallucinatory anxiety and surrealist mentality playing into a personality that is perversely into its own weirdness. Set in a pre-internet 1987,…

The ball appears to be in Kate Hudson‘s court, with the Academy Award nominated actress and singer flexing her “biggest bitch” energy in the first-look trailer for her new comedy series Running Point, premiering February 27th on Netflix. Created by Mindy Kaling, the series follows Isla Gordon (Hudson) who is appointed president of the Los…

Audiences today, specifically modern queer audiences, may not quite understand the gravity of shame and fear expressed throughout Plainclothes, a 90s-set drama that sets itself around the gay cruising scene that honed a far-more secretive temperament than what is experienced today. By no means is Carmen Emmi‘s enveloping film an alienating experience, but freedom in…

For the first time in their careers (bar a Saturday Night Live appearance), Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon have joined forces for some wedding hijinks in the new comedy You’re Cordially Invited. When two weddings are accidentally booked on the same day at the same venue, chaos ensues as the father of the bride (Ferrell)…

Very much speaking to just how much times have changed in terms of film distribution, a romantic comedy from the director of such acclaimed titles as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bad Neighbours, and Bros, and starring proven talent as Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon is releasing straight to the streaming service market. Oh, and it’s actually…

The night belongs to Sinners From the director of Creed and Black Panther, Ryan Coogler, comes a terrifying new vision of fear in Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan as a duo of twin bothers looking to leave their troubles behind, returning to their hometown, only to discover a greater evil awaits them. As the new…

New Line Cinema, the studio that brought you The Notebook, the unhinged creators of Barbarian, and writer/director Drew Hancock cordially invite you to experience a new kind of love story… Companion. Companion, which makes for “biting viewing, gleefully playing at once with the dynamics of power and sex as it toys with our own expectations”…

There’s a certain appeal of freedom that comes with the notion of freelancing.  For most creatives, there’s the feeling of independence in choosing one’s own working conditions, and, to the more corporate minded nine-to-fivers, this may conjure a sense of envy in being able to escape certain confinements.  Whilst this isn’t necessarily untrue, freelancing is…

Based on Rachel Yoder’s acclaimed novel, Nightbitch tells of an artist who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mother.  Seeking a new chapter in her life, she encounters just that when her nightly routine takes a surreal turn and her maternal instincts begin to manifest in canine form. Brought to life to screen by…

Despite the fact that the recently released trailer made Nightbitch look more like a quirky comedy – think a female-drive, R-rated take on Tim Allen’s The Shaggy Dog – I can attest that Marielle Heller‘s take on Rachel Yoder‘s seemingly unadaptable 2021 novel of the same name is far from the laughable ridiculousness some may…

Regardless of how one feels about him personally, you can’t entirely deny that Mel Gibson knows how to direct a movie.  Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto are all, at worst, competently made features that speaks to a creative awareness of the craft.  The Gibson that made those movies, however, isn’t anywhere to be…

There was a point when it came to initially reviewing Companion that I was thinking how difficult it would be to navigate around certain plot points, given that Drew Hancock‘s horror-leaning, sci-fi adjacent, romantic thriller bets on a particular narrative reveal.  It’s one that I wasn’t dare going to spoil – I had the luck…