Author: Peter Gray

If there’s one thing you can rely on when it comes to the romantic comedy genre, it’s that if there’s a wedding involved Jennifer Lopez can’t be too far from the fray.  The reliable superstar knows how to play the genre game, but if any audiences are concerned that Shotgun Wedding will play things a…

After 27 years of slicing and dicing his (and sometimes her) variety of assorted victims over 5 films, it’s nice to see the iconic Ghostface rebrand themselves as “something different”; at least that’s what’s being promised to returning franchise player Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) in the first full-length trailer for Scream VI, the hotly anticipated…

An elephant graphically defecates on its unsuspecting handlers, before stomping about in an uneven state amongst a storm of fornicating bodies.  An aspiring actress urinates on the face of a willing movie star in a coked-out stupor.  A tuxedoed lounge singer seductively croons about petting her girlfriend’s genitalia.  A party reveller bounces around on a…

Thanks to StudioCanal we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see What’s Love Got to do With It?, a new romantic comedy from Working Title Films, the producers of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love Actually, starring Lily James, Shazad Latif, Shabana Azmi and Emma Thompson. How do you find lasting love in today’s…

Emily tells the imagined life of one of the world’s most famous authors, Emily Brontë.  The film, written and directed by Australian actress Frances O’Connor (in her directorial debut), stars Emma Mackey as Emily, a rebel and misfit, as she finds her voice and writes the literary classic “Wuthering Heights”; further exploring her raw, passionate…

“It’s an ugly book, full of selfish people who only care for themselves” isn’t exactly the sterling praise one would reap upon something as treasured as “Wuthering Heights”, but it is how author Emily Brontë’s work was described by her older, more traditional sister Charlotte upon finishing it; or, at least, that’s how Frances O’Connor…

Right from the opening of M3GAN it’s obvious what type of film Gerard Johnstone‘s A.I. horror-lite is going to be: one that doesn’t take itself remotely seriously, has its wink poised at the audience, and knows you can’t think it’s ridiculous any more than the creators already do. If its trailer didn’t already clue you…

Originally scheduled for an early release starting in January of 2022, the sudden pulling of Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre from the theatrical schedule certainly didn’t bode well for a film that, from all appearances, seemed like a certified success.  Yes, it wasn’t uncommon for films to shift during the time period due to the…

Kiddo, a short film written and directed by Brett Chapman, is an oddity, to say the least. And that’s meant in the most complimentary of fashions, as the supremely bizarre, always unsettling outing announces itself as an original, individually interpreted horror film that’s likely to sit differently (and divisively) with its audience. In fact, it’s…

Needle drops have become more and more of a popular addition in film over the last year.  The notion of having a song not written for the film – often one that already has a sense of notoriety – and inject it into proceedings has been utilised to either enhance a physical sequence or, perhaps,…

Thanks to Universal Pictures we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see M3GAN, a fresh new face in terror from the horror genre’s most prolific minds – James Wan, the filmmaker behind the Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring franchises, and Blumhouse, the producer of the Halloween films, The Black Phone and The Invisible…

Thanks to Madman Films we have 10 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Emily, where the real and imagined life of ‘Wuthering Heights’ author Emily Brontë intertwine, in Australian cinemas from January 12th, 2023. EMILY tells the imagined life of one of the world’s most famous authors, Emily Brontë. The film stars Emma Mackey…

The biggest challenge with cold cases is finding out who people were back then. Who killed Isabel Baker? Such is the logline for Stan Australia’s thrilling new limited series, Black Snow.  In 1994,  seventeen-year-old Isabel Baker was murdered. The crime shocked the small town of Ashford and devastated Isabel’s Australian South Sea Islander community. The…

With The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg returns with his most personal movie yet – the legendary director’s own coming of age story set against the family drama which paralleled and ultimately intersected with his emergence as a filmmaker. Ahead of the film’s release in Australia on January 5th (read our review here), Michelle Williams and Paul…

As undoubtedly one of his generations greatest, most adored filmmakers, it’s difficult to fathom a project leaving an auteur such as Steven Spielberg vulnerable.  But for his latest film The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical look at his own beginnings as the director he came to be, Spielberg laid his soul bare – and Tony Kushner was…

“Mommy and Daddy will be right next to you the whole time.” From the opening line of dialogue in Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans, an autobiographical coming-of-age tale that boasts itself as his first writing credit since A.I. some two decades prior, we get a sense of what’s to come as, outside a New Jersey movie house in the early…

As the lead in Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer and flexing a more intimidating muscle on screen in films such as The Magnificent Seven, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and Sweet Girl, it’s a welcome change when Manuel Garcia-Rulfo arrives in A Man Called Otto, beaming an infectious smile and displaying effortless charm. Said smile and…

Welcome back, Mr. Hanks. After adopting a not-so-easy to digest accent and exaggerated acting style in Baz Luhrmann’s divisive Elvis, and whatever the hell that adaptation of (not Guillermo del Toro’s) Pinocchio was, America’s loveable dad has returned for another of his committed, affable turns in Marc Foster‘s A Man Called Otto; which is rather…

Following a nation-wide search, Prime Video Australia have secured their “Buff”. Queensland-born Alex Bain has secured the illustrious Prime Video couch for the next three months, where she will be the streaming service’s voice of recommendations and reason – all the while being paid $40,000. As she settles into her first month of catalogue shuffling,…

The last time Peter Gray spoke with Australian actress Radha Mitchell, the two discussed a considerably controversial film detailing female revenge in the aftermath of assault.  Narratives couldn’t be any further removed from each other with Blueback, an adaptation of Tim Winton’s acclaimed short story that follows a young girl who befriends a magnificent wild…

Given just how successful his last film The Dry was, it’s understandable for their to be a certain expectation and closely examined look at what director Robert Connolly has on his table for his immediate follow-up.  Not that you should expect a crime thriller 2.0 given he’s adapting Tim Winton‘s family-friendly short Blueback, but don’t…

The rich eat, but then suffer mercilessly in Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, a wicked, at-times horrifically and humorously gross satire that takes aim at the wealthy in a manner that is deliciously void of any subtlety. Divided into three chapters – all linked by a young, glamorous couple – the film promises one observation…

Though he certainly didn’t lose any of his sense of comfort by travelling across the Atlantic for his last film – 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – there’s a sense of grandeur in writer/director Martin McDonagh returning to his homeland for The Banshees of Inisherin, an impossibly funny and, at times, heartbreakingly bleak dramedy…

Fascinated by the stories we don’t tell, and why we don’t tell them, Philippa Langley has a passion to tell distinctive and original narratives that challenge our perception of established truths. In 2012 she led the successful search to locate the grave of King Richard III through her Looking For Richard Project. Philippa conceived, facilitated…

Behind every true story there’s always a slew of accusations as to what is exactly fact and what’s fiction.  In the case of The Lost King, a charming dramedy surrounding everywoman Philippa Langley and her search to find the grave of Richard III, there’s the historians who believes it absolves the king of the supposed…

Much like a Greatest Hits package where it’s all the beats that both fans and the casual listener are familiar with, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, a glossy biopic about “The Voice”, Whitney Houston, Kasi Lemmons‘ film refuses to delve beyond a catchy hook.  There’s no bridge, no worthy duets, and no deep-rooted B-side. And…

It’s always an amusing statement to hear when people say that “There are just no good movies out there.” You can cry foul on 2022 being “the worst year of movies, ever” all you want – it’s considerably not true – and, perhaps, because certain blockbusters failed to wow you or due to the endless…

Thanks to StudioCanal we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical story loosely based on his adolescence and first years as a filmmaker.  Winner of the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and nominated for 5 Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture (Drama),…

She came.  She saw.  She conquered. Margot Robbie is a towering vision in a pastel world as her anticipated debut in Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie has finally arrived for us mere humans to admire. After showing exclusively in front of screenings of Avatar: The Way of Water, Universal Pictures on behalf of Warner Bros. have delivered…

Given the absolute phenomenon Shrek became upon its debut in 2001, it’s not hard to see why Antonio Banderas would want to join such a franchise.  But standing out in a cast that includes such comedians as Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy is another ballgame entirely, but he managed to not only shape his own…