Film

A couple of new films have changed the box office landscape this week but the two from last week are back at it again, fighting for top spot. Southpaw has usurped number 1, earning $1.3 million last week. Although it is only in its second week in Australia (as opposed to its 7th in The States)…

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…

Given my past experiences with the horrific disease, I’m one person that finds the deus ex machina of cancer unbearable. It is often done tastelessly, depicting it’s sufferers as people without autonomy or regarded with the self-respect that they deserve – cancer patients are people, not pawns that should be used to explain a protagonist…

In the mid-90’s, Timothy Conigrave published his bestselling memoir, titled Holding the Man, 10 days before his death. It was a story so intimate and full of warmth that it continued to resonate with Australian audiences over the years. Tommy Murphy adapated it into an award-winning stage production in 2006, and now Director Neil Armfield…

Usually when imagining a career in rock n’ roll and a band called “Ricki And The Flash” you wouldn’t imagine it to involve a handful of old timers in a shabby Californian bar with a 60 something year old lead lady whose only ever record produced is stored in her ex-husband’s rubbermaid. And yet, this…

Given that at some point everything that is old becomes new again, it makes sense that the National Lampoon Vacation series would be on the reboot agenda. A surprisingly durable series that has spanned over three decades, the latest in line acts as a semi-reboot-come-sequel with enough sly nods to pay tribute to the original without…

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…

Hollywood hasn’t had the greatest track record when it comes to translating video games into films. There’s been but a handful that have been worth watching, the Resident Evil series, Lara Croft Tomb Raider and cult classic Mortal Kombat all rank amongst the good ones. With Hitman: Agent 47 this is actually a reboot and…

“Oh look it’s a boxing movie, cinema hasn’t seen that before,” is a cynical thought that would have gone through most minds when Southpaw was first announced. Having it directed by Antoine Fuqua, who brought us Training Day and The Equalizer, and written by Kurt Sutter, a man who worked extensively on Sons of Anarchy…

Woody Allen is quite possibly the only living director who could make a dark comedy film about a perfect crime. Heck, he has kind of already done that with his previous film, Crimes & Misdemeanours. But in 2015 Irrational Man is a wry, tongue-in-cheek story about an older professor’s relationship with a younger woman. Sound…

I said it on Twitter and I will say it again here- I have never been so unprepared for a film’s plot progression in my life as I was for My Ordinary Love Story. It was unexpected and completely masterful. The story follows a slightly outspoken Eun-Jin (Gang Ye-Won), who introduces us one by one…

There’s a worrying future for those of us in Australia’s largest cities: unless you already own a house or two, the rest of us are not going to make it in the property ownership game.  So we stress and stew about the fact that although we’re going to have to work till we’re 70 years…

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a little documentary with a big, important message. It chronicles the second wave of feminism in the United States from 1966-1971. It was a tumultuous time that saw some radical changes. This film is an illuminating one that tackles one key part of a complex social movement. This documentary…

Alexander Dunn’s expositional documentary 808 takes its name from the Roland TR-808, one of the first programmable drum machines. Originally manufactured in early 1980 for studio musicians to record demos, the 808 was criticized for its unrealistic drum sound and was likened to the sound of marching ants. However, the snappy, tinny sound of the…

You’d not be wrong in thinking that 2015 could be the year of the spy movie, with Kingsman: The Secret Service, Spy, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation having all been released already and Spectre due later in the year. We also have another contender in the genre, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. With a ridiculously attractive…

Amy (Amy Schumer) is a writer for a men’s magazine, along with her friend Nikki (Vanessa Bayer). One morning, they sit in adjacent cubicles of their office bathroom, comparing Johnny Depp(s) from different films based on their fuckability. They aim for the funniest answers, such as: Edward Scissorhands (1990) because you’d always have a great…

Who can it be now? The documentary, Colin Hay: Waiting For My Life To Begin is about the affable Men At Work front man-turned-solo troubadour who is now known for his appearances on the TV show, Scrubs. The film is a fascinating and honest one that is a little in-cohesive at times but still manages to…

We open in San Francisco in 1976. Minnie Goetz (Bel Powley) has just had sex for the first time. With Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), her mother’s (Kistin Wiig) boyfriend. Based on Goets’ graphic novel memoir of the same name, The Diary of a Teenage Girl charts a dark and disturbing journey of a young woman, going…

Mississippi Grind commences with a fixed camera shot of a pastoral landscape, a glorious rainbow stretches across the horizon in the background. Yet, when Ben Mendelsohn’s Gerry remarks on the spectacle with wonder around a local casino poker table later that evening, he is seemingly the only player to have witnessed it. At least, he…

How To Dance In Ohio is an intimate documentary that allows viewers to see the world through the eyes of a young person on the autistic spectrum. It’s an uplifting film that shows three young women who are coming-of-age and the challenges and triumphs they experience. The story is a gentle, subtle and uplifting one…

B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989 is a historically-oriented documentary that takes you through the unique underground music scene of the titular city that emerged during the 80s. Though clumsily-titled, it’s a fascinating portrait of a lost world of almost-surreal parties, rampant counter-culture and uninhibited artistic potential. Structurally, B-Movie follows the gradual immersion of…

A Poem is a Naked Person was completed back in 1974 and has only found wide release in this year. That has to do with legal issues, or creative differences, or some other things, all of which means little to you and what you intend to watch. Suffice it to say that you can very…

Larry (Jason Schwartzman) is on the road to nowhere in notoriously chillaxed Austin. He’s just lost his job for a string of misdemeanours, and his only friends appear to be his very beloved French Bulldog Arrow (Schwatrzman’s pet in real life), a prescription medication dealer and aged carer, Norwood, and his grandmother (Olimpia Dukakis), a…

Like the titular feathered character, I am Big Bird: the Carroll Spinney Story is big-hearted, filled with love and curiosity. This documentary by Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker explores the life and times of the man inside the big yellow bird that has been a joyful part of an inestimable number of childhoods over the…

Funded by Kickstarter and produced by the filmmakers behind The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Finders Keepers is a documentary that tackles the bizarre story of a legal dispute between a man who lost his severed leg in a plane crash and the man who found the appendage inside his barbecue.

Hollywood charm and charisma just doesn’t exist the way it did in the Golden Age of Cinema.  The “It” Factor, that certain something that turns a simple screen test into an experience akin to finding cinematic gold, is now often replaced or loosely recreated through physical enhancements, as if Botox or a boob job is…

So if you’re fresh off the blockbuster wave of dinosaurs and teeny tiny superheroes and are ready for some more action packed fun, then this week’s big release Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will be able to fill that gap nicely. As with any of the Mission: Impossible (aka MI) films, you need to suspend…

Another entrant in the found-footage genre of horror that might have reached its expiry date. The Gallows would have had to do something exceptional (and exceptionally different) to tear it apart from the usual suspects. This all started with Blair Witch Project, reprised by the Paranormal Activity franchise, and many many others that never saw…

Mankind’s eternal search for the fountain of youth has seen Hollywood explore more than one scenario where immortality is a reality, always at some morally reprehensible dystopic expense. Films such as Elysium,The Island, Transcendence or more recently Chappie have approached the idea from different angles with great success. Whether director Tarsem Singh’s (The Fall, Immortals,…

Making the third film in the Insidious series a prequel was the smartest move this franchise could have pulled; a respectable decision that could completely be overshadowed if a fourth one is ever released. Cutting the franchise off as a trilogy would be a good idea; the second Insidious was underwhelming and came nowhere close…