Film

Despite its incredibly generic title and direct-to-DVD status, No Escape is a surprisingly effective thriller elevated by its above-average cast and fuelled by its ability to maintain tension from start to finish. Director John Erik Dowdle is no stranger to lacing his films with palpable tension (the found-footage horror outing Quarantine and M. Night Shyamalan…

Spectre is the 24th James Bond film, 52 years into a franchise that has defined and redefined espionage thrillers, showing absolutely no signs of stopping both financially and creatively after Skyfall’s overwhelming success in 2012. Sure Daniel Craig’s iteration of Bond has given us some dull moments (see Quantum of Solace), but the 47 year…

When it comes to modern crime thrillers, film sometimes has trouble competing with television. Each year sees dozens of TV series – prime-time, cable and otherwise – tackle the genre and for a film to really stand out against this herd and compete with stuff like True Detective or Luther, it has to go big or go home….

In terms of Coen brothers fare, Hail, Caesar! stands as one the duo’s most carefree affairs. Doing away with a cohesive narrative and firing on cylinders that are very much their own, the film is sure to tickle the funny bone of die-hard Coen brothers fans but likely to polarise general audiences who will attend…

Charming, funny, poignant and so very British, The Lady in the Van is a wonderfully entertaining true story (of sorts) anchored by an unrelenting performance from Maggie Smith. Based on the memoir by playwright Alan Bennett, this quirky comedy soars when Smith’s titular lady is at her most cantankerous and the unlikely relationship Bennett shared with her…

Deadpool clearly doesn’t care what enters the box office at this point. Three new films opened last week but Wade still sits on top, earning another AU$4.4 million. This brings the worldwide gross to $609 million. Deadpool is now the third highest grossing R rated film of all time in the U.S as it draws…

If there is one thing I have always been upfront about, it’s that despite Marvel’s undeniable domination at the box office with their live-action films, DC have always had the animation sector locked down. Since 2007, DC’s stable of ‘Animated Original Movies’ have retold timeless stories first seen in comics (Superman’s death in Doomsday; Batman’s origins…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when Hollywood is on to a good thing, they will milk the shit out of it and exploit it until audiences are sick of it and then move on to the next “cool” thing. Right now that thing is very much zombies, so don’t be surprised to see…

The Intern is an expression of contemporary norms and a challenge towards gender behaviours and expectations through societies’ transition to a more equal way of life. Written and directed by Nancy Myers, this feel-good comedy is set in Brooklyn New York. The film follows Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro), a seventy-year-old widower whom is struggling…

Season 4 of Luther sees the titular British detective (Idris Elba) return for a two-part adventure that, while all too brief, does a fantastic job of picking up the ball and running with it. It’s every bit as dark, moody and drenched in grey-morality as previous seasons and the slick production values behind the series…

Deadpool might very well be more of a household name than Wolverine soon. The merc with a mouth has broken more than the fourth wall, topping every X-Men movie to date in the US and only trailing Days of Future Past’s worldwide gross. Deadpool is only a couple of million away from hitting half a million…

Clearly a passion project for director Michael Bay, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is a far-more restrained feature from the usually excessive filmmaker who (mostly) avoids the political side of things to deliver a factually-based action film. Surprisingly streamlined despite its overblown 144 minute running time, the film is the most disciplined we’ve seen Bay…

Gods of Egypt isn’t bad – but it certainly feels out of place. It feels like an effects-heavy blockbuster from a time before superheroes ruled the box office. With no spandex in sight, the movie stands out like a sore thumb. While this does the movie some favors, there’s plenty of other missteps which act as…

Saul (Géza Röhrig) is a Sonderkommando: a prisoner of Auschwitz who assists in the extermination of his own race. That requires a great deal of work, which, apparently, is far too dirty for the hands of Nazi soldiers. Each day, he ushers the people in and cleans the remains of the showers with hopeless resignation….

Leave it to David Simon, the creator of The Wire, to turn a story about housing developments into the one of the richest miniseries television has seen in years. Show Me A Hero is a six-episode miniseries that adapts the real-world story behind the enforcement of federally-mandated public housing in the American city of Yonkers….

When the BBC brought us Sherlock in 2010 it was a fresh updated consulting detective Sherlock Holmes with his partner Dr John Watson taking on some complex mysteries and solving crimes. With Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson, we were taken on a revival of some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories…

The sequel to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy officially entered production yesterday, putting an end to rumors that Kurt Russell was set to join the cast – by completely confirming their accuracy. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is being directed by James Gunn, with original cast members Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper,…

Highlighting every little detail from Colm Toibin’s superb novel, screenwriter Nick Hornby’s skilful words effortlessly give life to Brooklyn, a simple story that proves there’s more power in how you tell your tale than the tale itself. An intellectually and emotionally satisfying film, Brooklyn’s best asset is indeed the coming-of-age performance from Saoirse Ronan, the…

It goes without saying that football is a sport that potentially endangers its player’s week in and week out with their bodies constantly put at risk due to the intense contact required for the game to be played. Of course, the money involved in all aspects surrounding the game means everyone involved will do whatever…

Dalton Trumbo was a political activist, a writer, a family man, and a man of principle. In Trumbo, a new film starring Bryan Cranston in the leading role, we’re taken back to a time when going against the grain was grounds for treason and imprisonment.  It’s one of the most intriguing – and ghastly –…

Well how about that Fox? I’m guessing the big wigs wished they did this years ago but better late than never. Marvel’s most unadulterated superhero, Deadpool, has made a mockery out of box office records everywhere. As I like to do with big openings, I’m going to hit you all with some numbers. First off…

N.W.A have, is, and always will be integral to hip hop and it’s status as one of the most unique, and accessible, forms of self-expression in music. Birthed in the excessively rough neighbourhood of Compton, California, the group became a reference point for hip hop as a channel through which youth can make sense of…

Following last year, the festival will be showcasing the film sequel of Spanish Affair 2 as this year’s opener. In the opening night of the film and party, audiences will find out why director Emilio Martínez Lázaro and stars Clara Lago and Dani Rovira have teamed together in making the sequel. It’s anticipated that it will make audiences…

There has been enough fuss over Johnny Depp going into Black Mass that the commercial reception of the film is pretty much locked in; the trailers released in the lead up have all signalled a substantial turn for Depp, whose biggest role in recent times has been as a highly exaggerated and energetic pirate. Any doubts…

It happened again. Despite negative reviews and a ridiculous premise, Dirty Grandpa has remained on top in its second week, earning AU$1.4 million. The comedy has kept The Revenant to second place, the Oscar nominee being the only other film over AU$1 million this week. Zoolander 2 had a pre-release, opening on 125 screens. The…

When the first Zoolander film hit the cinema in 2001, the world was a very different place.  Smartphone technology went as far as colour screens (pretty sure we were all still playing that weird snake game on our phones waiting at the bus stop with our travel 10s), but with zero online connectivity.  Social media…

When you hear the words ‘food-critic’, Jonathan Gold is probably the kind of person you imagine and City of Gold is a sprawling documentary that explores what life is like for the Pulitzer-winning restaurant critic. It’s as much a love-letter to Gold and his work as it is the city of LA and Director Laura Gabbert lets City of…

The Martian is the much anticipated adaptation of Andy Weir’s acclaimed debut novel of the same name – a book which is as fascinating in its rise to notoriety as the content itself. Released in 2011 as a self-published, free-to-download ebook by the author (he released it chapter by chapter on his website before sticking it…

For a while there it looked like the only version of Deadpool we’d ever see on the big screen was the somewhat cringe-inducing one we saw in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Studio execs at Fox were unsure about how to move forward with the character and make it a viable film. But when some test footage…

Well that was unexpected. Even though the contenders here have all been out for multiple weeks, I don’t think anyone saw the Zac Efron/ Robert Deniro comedy Dirty Grandpa beating out a pile of big films for top spot.