Film

Tom Hanks, what can we say about Tom Hanks? Quite frankly, it’s hard to say anything bad at all. Despite the rare lacklustre movie, this man just cannot seem to steer anything in the wrong direction. And Sully, out now in Australian cinemas, proves no different, with the venerable actor steering both a movie and…

Yesterday, an ambitious new Australian film premiered on streaming service Stan. Helmed by Stuart Willis, Restoration is the latest in a long line of original Australian sci-fi features to find itself an audience. Think modern classics like Dark City and more recent releases like Predestination  – though they describe the film here as being inspired by Twilight Zone,…

Now I admit I don’t really watch a lot of documentaries, but in recent years I have gotten myself into a good groove when I discovered the work of documentary filmmaker, Louis Theroux. The first documentary I saw of his was The Most Hated Family in America, which was about people in the Westboro Baptist…

One of the first thing that Blood Father makes clear is that John Link (Mel Gibson) is over being a flashy action hero type. It’s old hat to an ex-con like him and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. However, don’t be fooled, Gibson himself seems to be having a hell of a…

Fede Alvarez surprised horror fans in 2013 when he tackled a remake of Evil Dead in a way that was satisfying and consistent with the classic blood-soaked series. This time around the Uruguayan director is trying his hand at something much different, a sharp original home-invasion thriller titled Don’t Breathe about three delinquent burglars who…

Looks like Suicide Squad has finally been knocked off its number one perch by Bad Moms, after dominating the box office across the first three weeks of its release. Having coasted at number two for a fortnight, Moms did an impressive $1.99 million this week to move into the top spot, possibly due to the weekend being the third…

Despite a strong (albeit utterly unhinged) performance from Kevin Costner, Criminal‘s convoluted and underdeveloped plot make for what can only be described as an incredibly boring, yet more importantly, disappointing film to watch. Best known for his mildly received 2012 biographical crime thriller The Iceman, Ariel Vroman’s Criminal sees Kevin Costner star as Jericho Stewart, an…

The iconic character David Brent, last seen 15 years ago in the BBC series The Office, has returned in the year’s anticipated – and highly awkward – film David Brent: Life on the Road, which is released in cinemas today. The film sees star, writer and producer Ricky Gervais return as the character who kickstarted his…

No one asked for the remake of arguably the biggest Hollywood epic of all time. And yet, for some obscure ($) reason, the universe decided the 1959 classic Ben-Hur must be done again. And this time, it has Morgan Freeman in dreadlocks. We all know the story. Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) is a wealthy Jewish…

So if you’re over superhero films, Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto, you will not be happy to hear that Suicide Squad remains top of the Box Office ladder this week, its third week in no. 1 since its premiere week. The DC Comics’ supervillains remain in top spot with AU$3.18 million made this week, followed by Bad Moms, having…

Gary Ross’ Civil War drama Free State of Jones recounts one of the most interesting, albeit lesser-known, tales from the 1860s and 70s in Mississippi. Matthew McConaughey’s Newton Knight, disillusioned with the Confederate forces, deserts the war and builds himself a ragtag army comprised of poor farmers and runaway slaves, bent on fighting back against…

Believe it or not, this isn’t a film about Simone Biles latent fifth gold medal that became a bronze. Aside from the scenes of gymnastics, this film is about as far from the grace of the American superstar as any film could possibly be, but unabashedly so. The Bronze is what happens when The Big…

Pain and Gain. The Wolf of Wall Street. Scarface. What do these films have in common? The characters are all on a quest to achieve their own versions of the American Dream. They are all about greed and the seduction of power that shows that absolute power corrupts absolutely. But what makes the first two…

If all was right in the highly politicised world of award shows, Logan Lerman would be looking at a good upcoming season, seeing as his performance as Marcus Messner in James Schamus’ Indignation will be almost impossible to overlook. The Cold War-era film is an adaptation of Philip Roth’s period novel of the same name,…

Green Room is one of those movies that isn’t at all hesitant about sneaking up on you and showing you exactly what you’re in for, be it through taboo subject matter (white supremacy) ultra violence or a range of truly sadistic characters. And once you accept what your next hour and half is going to…

Mixed reviews and Jared Leto critiques be gone, because Suicide Squad remains firmly in first place on the Australian Box Office report.  Whilst it didn’t do as well in its second week against its unbelievable performance in its opening week (where it earned AU $13,904,557), its takings of AU$5.9 million mean that it’s stronger than Jason Bourne’s second week on…

Laika Studios is an animation studio that is yet to become a household name. I honestly didn’t know them before hearing about their latest film, Kubo and the Two Strings. Though, without knowing it, I had already enjoyed their first studio film, Coraline, immensely. And reading about their other works like The Boxtrolls and Paranorman,…

Blake Lively finds herself in her own little Castaway-slash-All Is Lost-slash-Life of Pi type role with The Shallows, Director Jaume Collet-Serra placing a lot of faith in the young actress, who to this point is best known for her role on Gossip Girl. The purpose is to basically place Lively’s character, Nancy, as an injured…

Seemingly about the fun, bizarre world of an adult sub-culture called ‘Competitive Endurance Tickling’, comes a documentary that takes fast steps sideways, trips down some steep, morbidly dark stairs and leads viewers into the world of abuse, identity theft and cyber bullying. Like so many great documentaries before it, you walk away from Tickled wanting…

Seth Rogen has always been associated with stoner humour and raunchy comedy, but in the case of Sausage Party, he takes it to a whole new level. With animated films that have anthropomorphised objects like toys (i.e. the Toy Story films) and cars (i.e. Cars), Rogen had the idea to anthropomorphise consumer products while retaining…

Unapologetic, bold Australian “black comedy” Down Under had its world premiere earlier this year the 63rd annual Sydney Film Festival, the only logical platform for Writer/Director Abe Forsythe to debut his second feature film seeing as it concerns one of the most talked about and shameful moments in the city’s history. This inevitably controversial film…

OK, as we’ve already reported on Suicide Squad breaking opening day box office records, it should be no surprise that it sits at the top of the leaderboard on the Australian Box Office , knocking rogue former CIA agent Jason Bourne off the number one spot after just one week. Suicide Squad made a massive AU $13,904,557 since its release last…

When I realized that the directors of this film (also the writers of The Hangover) also directed the awful 2013 teen comedy 21 and Over and contributed screenplays to abysmal comedies like Four Christmases, Ghost of Girlfriends Past and Rebound, it’s fair to say that I went into Bad Moms – out in cinemas tomorrow…

Apparently we live in a world where members of boybands decide that writing and starring in a post-apocalyptic zombie filled cowboy shoot-em-up Western is a good idea. Initially when I saw the trailer for this film I had a little optimism that it could be one of those “so bad it’s almost good” type of…

In 1988, a year after Tim Burton, Micheal Keaton and Jack Nicholson tried their hand at interpreting the Batman mythos, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland released a 48-page graphic novel that explored the Jokers origin, the extent of his lunacy and Batman and Jokers relationship far better than anyone had done at that point. That…

The USA is well into their summer, so blockbuster after blockbuster have been trotted out, both here and internationally, while Australian audiences delight in getting great content as we freeze our butts off. Matt Damon‘s new action-venture, Jason Bourne, has just made it through its first weekend in Australia and it’s already done well over the previous week’s newest release, Star Trek Beyond (making…

The DC Comics Extended Universe (aka DCEU) has a bit of catching up to do if it wants to level up to its competitor Marvel. Even though DC has some of the more renowned superheroes in its deck of cards – Superman and Batman being two aces – it hasn’t had as much luck with…

It’s not very often a film will change my perspective on life, but after viewing Taryn Brumfitt’s documentary Embrace it was a completely different story. The roots of this inspiring documentary stem from a post of Brumfitt’s that went viral in 2013, depicting Taryn in an unconventional before and after photo – from having a…

Biographical films, especially ones that revolve around triumphs of the human spirit, can range from the truly inspirational The Pursuit of Happiness to award-bait films like the dull and manipulative The Blind Side to unmitigated disasters like the agonizing Patch Adams. However, very few of those films show the comedic side of life and this is where Eddie the Eagle…

The all-female reboot of Ghostbusters spent one week at the top, with Star Trek: Beyond taking the throne this week. Beyond had the lowest opening of the trilogy domestically, but that didn’t stop it from taking its place on top. The third film in the rebooted series earned AU$4 million dollars in its opening weekend…