Author: Peter Gray

Winner of Best Narrative Feature and Best Actress at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, as well as recently earning nominations for Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards, The Novice, director Lauren Hadaway, and actress Isabelle Fuhrman are more than receiving their fair share of accolades for one of this…

Though presented in the guise of a character drama, The Novice is very much a psychological thriller detailing the compulsive, obsessive need one can hone in their attempt to perfect their field of interest.  For the central figure in Lauren Hadaway‘s dark effort, Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman, dedicating herself wholeheartedly to the role, both physically…

To coincide with the release of the trailer for the anticipated animated action film The Bad Guys from Dreamworks Pictures, based on Australian author Aaron Blabey‘s #1 New York Times best selling series, our Peter Gray chatted with the writer himself about where the books originated from, pitching a “Tarantino film for kids”, and how…

Arguably 2021’s most anticipated film – and safely the most anticipated Spider-Man title in the history of the character, thus far – Spider-Man: No Way Home is the epitome of the sweeping superhero epic.  Already a release that comes with an unreasonably high set of expectations (the are they or aren’t they debate surrounding the…

Whilst I completely understand wanting to re-visit a fruitful series such as Resident Evil, one that pulled in significant coin despite being critically slaughtered, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City hardly makes such a trip worthwhile. For starters, Milla Jovovich, patron saint of these entirely disposable films, hasn’t been brought back.  Yes, it being a…

Despite the fact that it’s a narrative known to the many that witnessed its theatre run since 2015, when the synopsis was revealed for the filmic adaptation of Steven Levenson‘s Dear Evan Hansen there was considerable shock and near-instant backlash.  The notion of an emotionally disturbed teenager’s ultimate suicide being used as a plotting hook…

Before making waves in the horror genre with such box office successes and critical winners as Daybreakers, Predestination, and Jigsaw, German-born, Australian-raised brothers Michael and Peter Spierig pooled their talent, connections and coins together for Undead.  Originally released in 2003, the low-budget Australian zombie thriller was an homage to the B-grade horror entries of the…

New Zealand-born director Martin Campbell is no slouch when it comes to the action genre.  Sure, there was the stumble that was the thorn in Ryan Reynolds’ side, Green Lantern, and Beyond Borders, despite suitable work from both Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen, was a boring misstep, but having reinvigorated the Bond films at times…

A coming-of-age stage musical that won immediate critical acclaim from its opening in 2015, Dear Evan Hansen‘s inevitable stage-to-screen adaptation was always going to be a mammoth task to whichever filmmaker dared to take it on.  For Stephen Chbosky, it was a challenge he tackled with open arms. As the film arrives in Australian cinemas…

If there’s one thing director Paul Verhoeven loves to do, it’s poke the bear.  As he has so gleefully outraged audiences and critics across his career, his latest exploitive project – the “based on a true story” nunsploitation drama(?) Benedetta – could easily be dismissed as blasphemous, but there’s also an alarming sincerity to his…

For so many of us the theatrical experience remained out of reach for a large portion of 2021.  With cinemas back open and thriving in the wake of a double dosed population, these coming weeks look to end the year that was with a considerable bang. From the much-hyped multiverse tease of (potentially) multiple Spider-men…

Kenny Rogers so famously told us “You gotta know when to fold ’em”, and in The Card Counter writer/director Paul Schrader seems unsure as to which hand he wants to confidently play.  It’s not that this film is poorly made, nor is his commitment to the representation of desolation anything other than pure, but it’s…

Despite reading Frank Herbert‘s 1965 novel many moons ago and viewing David Lynch’s bizarre 1984 adaptation during my youth, Dune was still a title that felt foreign to me when entering the theatre to bare witness to Denis Villeneuve‘s much-discussed imagining.  Sure, I can clearly see the inspiration this operatic story had on the science-fiction…

An ordinary teenager trying to fit into an extraordinary world is not exactly the road less travelled in film, and certainly not in the realms of the animated genre, but it’s where Disney have opted to explore (again) in Encanto. Now, as much as the general plot line of Jared Bush‘s and Byron Howard‘s outing…

There are few films that take your breath away in such a graphic fashion as Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.  The Romanian black comedy (you can read our review here) is now screening in select Australian cinemas, and to coincide with its release our own Peter Gray got to chat with the film’s writer…

Though it’s undeniable what a powerhouse actor and director Clint Eastwood is – he won the Best Director and Best Picture Academy Award twice, for those keeping score – Cry Macho is proof that he’s losing his touch. His fourth film in three years – following 15:17 To Paris, The Mule, and Richard Jewell –…

Come for the porn.  Stay for the social commentary. A film that very much opts to take no prisoners during its confronting opening minutes of unsimulated sexual activity, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is at once an enraging drama and a wicked comedy that consistently goes against the grain of what we feel like…

I think it’s a fair assumption to state that not many people expected Tom McGrath‘s 2017 effort The Boss Baby to clear the half a billion dollars it did at the global box office.  It was a bizarre comedy that entirely banked on its central premise – a baby that spoke like an entitled adult…

Look, I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but it’s precisely what one will do with Best Sellers, a cliched dramedy that nudges every narrative beat you expect, only mildly saved by the odd-couple pairing of Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza; his cantankerousness at odds with her more manic downtrodden-ness….

As easy as it is to wax lyrical on the fact that we have yet another Marvel property release in 2021, not to mention the fact that it’s basing itself around a character that never appeared like enough of a stable figure to centre around, the resulting Hawkeye is all the more alarming and engaging…

Four years after an infant Alec Baldwin steered Dreamworks’ The Boss Baby to over half a billion dollars at the global box office and an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated feature, the troublesome tyke is back in The Boss Baby: Family Business, and he’s bringing his household along for the ride. Joining Baldwin and…

Despite the fact that the film was ripped apart by critics and was centred on a character who had previously been brought to “life” in a less-than-well received iteration, 2018’s Venom was a mammoth success.  Pulling in upwards of $856 million worldwide, it was the seventh highest grossing film of that year – beating out…

Billed as a docu-narrative, indicating that both fact and fiction will be blended throughout, I’m An Electric Lampshade is a bizarre take on the age-old “It’s never too late to follow your dreams” tale, focusing on the unlikeliest of pop star wannabes. Doug McCorkle is the most basic of nondescript American men.  60-years-old, with the…

Although the fantasy genre had always had a dedicated fanbase, one could argue that it wasn’t until the filmic adaptations of the Lord of the Rings in the early 2000’s that it truly became a classification known and embraced by a mainstream audience.  Second to that, in a more culturally relevant manner, Game of Thrones…

The last time Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson shared the screen it was some 24 years ago when they faced off against an oversized CGI snake in the cult hit Anaconda.  Now, they’re tackling a viper of a different kind in the first-released trailer of Marry Me; a cheating boyfriend. Lopez, returning to her romantic…

At just 21 years of age, New Zealand-born actress Thomasin McKenzie has amassed quite the career since her 2012 debut.  In the last few years alone she has worked with the likes of Taika Waititi (on the acclaimed Jojo Rabbit), M. Night Shyamalan (on his recent hit Old) and Jane Campion (The Power of the…

Once it was revealed that Spider-Man: No Way Home would be exploring the multiverse and introducing a slew of characters that appeared in previous Spider-Man films separate from the current slate, fans were convinced that both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield would be making return appearances as the respective web-slinger from their own films; Maguire…

As much as King Richard has all the trappings of a biopic – and a sports drama, for that matter – it’s a testament to everyone involved that it manages to entirely transcend expectation and feel like something that’s so much more. It’s easy to wax lyrical about the fact that we’re getting a film…

A gorgeously rendered, lovingly crafted, maybe slightly messy, giallo tribute drenched in 1960’s London culture, Last Night In Soho is the type of film one wishes to dissect and divulge in intimate detail.  But that would entirely undo any service to writer/director Edgar Wright, who has implored audiences the globe over to keep their mouths…

When we are first introduced to Red Rocket‘s lead subject – washed-up porn star Mikey (Simon Rex) – writer/director Sean Baker frames him in such a manner that alludes to him being one of those scrappy anti-heroes whose undeniable charm is enough for us to forgive his indiscretions. And indeed, Mikey is that (in a…