Film

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.

Internet comedy team Rooster Teeth have been kicking around for over a decade now. They created the cult machinima series Red vs Blue and from there, expanded into a community driven, multi-channel, YouTube sensation. It is with that growth and loyal fan base that they were able to drum up over US$2 million on Indiegogo…

Another month, another found footage horror film. Well, ostensibly. You see, Jeruzalem approaches the sub-genre with (credit where it’s due) an interesting new take, but still manages to completely cock it up by the end. Which isn’t anything new for these films but seeing the opportunity unfurl and then burn right in front of your…

Steve Jobs is the highly anticipated and Oscar nominated film based on the life of the late Apple CEO and co-founder of the same name. It’s the second take at a biopic on the iconic entrepreneur since his death – the first, Jobs (2013) starring Ashton Kutcher was widely panned, and didn’t see the support of…

Joel Edgerton has already proved himself indispensable to Australian cinema, particularly with Animal Kingdom and The Rover, both films with an atmosphere and scope much larger than The Gift. For his directorial debut, Edgerton, who plays Gordon “Gordo” Moseley, brings a much more insular focus in both character and environment and it helps him deliver…

Best known for co-writing on Sasha Baron Cohen projects (Borat, Ali G), Dan Mazer’s 2013 directorial debut I Give It A Year was a crowd-pleasing, fairly underrated romantic comedy, that brought together a stellar cast and showed Mazer as a Director to watch in the commercial sphere. Fast forward three years and Mazer’s follow up film,…

Adopting a story that tragically resembles real-life accounts, and presenting an opening 40-or-so minutes that prove an uneasy watch, Room is an initially cold but masterful drama all the same.  Describing the film as cold is not a criticism on its part though as director Lenny Abrahamson has displayed such skill in housing the film…

It had its limited release in 70mm and now The Hateful Eight has entered the box office arena and what a first week it enjoyed. After its official opening, Quentin Tarantino’s 8th film has shot to number one with an opening AU$2.4 million, just edging out The Revenant which made AU$2.2 million. Following on from…