Film

In light of the current COVID situation in Melbourne, and with the safety of audiences and staff at the forefront of their thinking, the board and management of Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) have taken the very difficult decision to cancel the in-cinema component of this year’s festival, planned to be delivered from Thursday 12th…

Disney’s Cruella follows the early days of one of cinema’s most notorious –and notoriously fashionable –villains. The film releases on Blu-Ray and digital August 18th and we have 5 copies up for grabs! Set in 1970s London amidst the punk rock revolution, Cruella follows a young grifter named Estella (Oscar® winner Emma Stone), a clever and creative girl…

Whilst movies based on video games continue to mostly earn a reaction that’s far less enthused than their source material, the video game inspired flick is another story entirely.  Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, the latest Jumanji films (Welcome to the Jungle and The Next Level), the vast amount of time-loop movies, Sucker Punch (y’all know…

To coincide with the anticipated release of Free Guy, 20th Century Studios invited our own Peter Gray to chat with the film’s creative team during a roundtable dialogue.  Discussing with director Shawn Levy, production designer Ethan Tobman, SFX supervisor Swen Gillberg, cinematographer George Richmond, and stunt coordinator Chris O’Hara were, among Ryan Reynolds praise, the intricacies of…

With a title like Freshman Year, known originally as Shithouse, you’d be forgiven for thinking Cooper Raiff‘s debut is more akin with the juvenile comedies so many cinematic colleges have been the setting for.  Nothing could be further from the reality though, with Raiff injecting a sweetness and raw emotion into his script as it…

The tried and tested time loop narrative gets another incarnation of sorts in Matthew Butler-Hart‘s impressively made Infinitum: Subject Unknown.  Filmed during the UK’s first lockdown entirely on an iPhone, the evident budget issues that may cause ire from some eyes are all the more forgiven when looking at its scope as a whole. The…

A group of men looking to escape their everyday lives, a couple of inept gangsters, and a one-eyed killer who thirsts for his kills cross paths in Ernar Nurgaliev‘s wild horror comedy Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It. Slapstick comedy and irreverent bloodshed work hand-in-hand throughout the film’s crisp 85 minute running time, centring initially on…

It doesn’t take much for director James Ashcroft to create the most horrific of situations from the simplest of ingredients laid bare in the early stages of the eerie Coming Home in the Dark.  A loving family, an idyllic New Zealand locale, and a duo of passing strangers provide all that is needed for Ashcroft’s…

Whenever an evidently low-budgeted project gets itself off the ground and revels in the possibilities of creativity, rather than monetary reliance, whatever the result it’s difficult to not be somehow impressed. Such is the case with Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, a high-concept time-loop effort filmed on iPhones and born from an acting workshop.  It…

Thanks to Rialto Distribution we have five double passes to give away to the upcoming release of the action film The Ice Road, starring Liam Neeson and Laurence Fishburne, in Australian cinemas from August 12th, 2021. After a remote diamond mine collapses in the far northern regions of Canada, an ice driver leads an impossible rescue mission…

As The Suicide Squad gear up to take on the big screen here in Australia, where cinemas are open, of course, (you can read our review here), director James Gunn and his cast, including Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Jai Courtney, Sylvester Stallone, Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion and Joel Kinnaman, were on hand at…

A film that perhaps tries a little too hard to embellish the emotionally manipulative story its true-to-life basis can conjure on its own accord, 12 Mighty Orphans’ “classic underdog” mentality is both a help and a hindrance to its overall delivery. Set during the Great Depression, Ty Roberts’ syrupy drama lays focus on the saintly…

In light of the Sydney lockdown extension announced by the NSW Government on 28 July, Sydney Film Festival will postpone the 68th edition of the Festival until 3rd-14th November, 2021. “Sydney Film Festival looks forward to returning to cinemas for a COVID-safe event in November, when we’ll come together to celebrate the films we love,…

Arguably one of the best marketing campaigns ever afforded for a blockbuster title, 2016’s Suicide Squad was ultimately a victim of its own hype.  After the DC brand suffered disappointment with the reaction to Batman v Superman, David Ayer’s impressively stacked line-up of second-tier characters and their super villainous mentalities seemed poised to right the…

As much as Jungle Cruise owes its filmic inception to the success of fellow Disney-theme-park-attraction-turned-blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean, this light-hearted, gloriously old-fashioned adventure is just as much in debt to such titles as The Mummy and The African Queen. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with honouring the spirit of those films in such a…

Kandisha tells the story of three young teenage women Amelie, Bintou and Morjana (Mathilde Lamusse, Suzy Bemba and Samarcande Saadi); three childhood friends who are enjoying their summer break in the dilapidated streets of Paris. Chilling out with their peers, branding walls with splatterings [sic] of graffiti; it is all about living in the moment…

Given that Snake Eyes is releasing with the subtitle G.I. Joe Origins, it would appear that Paramount have faith that the G.I. Joe brand could possibly be retooled after the 2009 and 2013 efforts (The Rise of Cobra and Retaliation, respectively) failed to truly ignite as intended. It’s a bold strategy, especially as Robert Schwentke‘s…

There’s really no other way to say it – M. Night Shyamalan‘s Old is bad.  It’s very bad.  In fact, in some instances it’s downright awful!  Mirroring the same career slump he experienced after the 1-3 punch of The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) with such misfires as The Lady in the Water…

As Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins prepares for battle in Australian cinemas this week, the cast were in promotion mode to discuss the choreography and camaraderie on set. Talking to our own Peter Gray, Andrew Koji (who plays Storm Shadow), Haruka Abe (Akiko) and Úrsula Corberó (Baroness) discussed their history with the G.I. Joe brand,…

There’s nothing particularly original about The Resort.  In some manner hoping to be a type of The Shining-in-Hawaii set-up, Taylor Chien‘s supernatural scarer at least doesn’t tread on the expected genre trope of the found footage angle – something that this type of narrative could easily have adopted. A film that unfortunately lets itself down…

Dubbed as “your favourite band’s favourite band”, Sparks are the Californian-bred, European-stylised glam rock duo you don’t know you love yet.  As their documentary, The Sparks Brothers (read our review here), continues to screen across select Australian cinemas, Peter Gray caught up with famed director Edgar Wright to discuss the making of the film, why…

There’s often a sense of nostalgia, awe, love, respect and intrigue that goes into watching a music documentary.  It’s learning about an artist we idolise, how they affected us upon that first listen, and a further understanding of their music.  When it comes to The Sparks Brothers, those are indeed all sentiments adhered to, but,…

Given how well she’s utilised her heart and her humour when leaning into the action heroine outfit – see the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jumanji franchises for reference – it makes sense that both additives be applied to Karen Gillan‘s latest genre effort, the delightfully named Gunpowder Milkshake. Initially she’s a little too cold-hearted…

Thanks to Random Space Media and Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment we have five exclusive Blu-ray copies of the acclaimed French Exit (you can read our review here) to giveaway. A widowed New York socialite and her aimless son move to Paris after she spends the last of her husband’s inheritance. For your chance to win…

With an incredibly vague premise that could read as pretentiously high-concept, Nine Days is the type of life-altering experience that, as cliched as it is to state, needs to be seen to be believed. A powerful piece of storytelling that announces writer/director Edson Oda as a major talent to keep tabs on, Nine Days centres…

Statistics regarding the prevalence of mental illness in men today have become a more commonly known factor as the walls of machoism continue to break down.  No longer a subject that goes undiscussed, the depression aspect of a man’s mental psyche is at the centre of Saul Abraham‘s striking short film, Enjoy. Following its screening…

Celebrating its 69th edition, Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has revealed its 2021 program, with an astonishing lineup of 283 international and Australian films and transformative screen experiences. Presenting 199 feature films, 84 shorts and 10XR experiences, the program includes 40 world premieres — the most in the festival’s history — and 154 Australian premieres,…

Whilst subtitling the film “A New Legacy” seems a bit too confident for the team behind this Space Jam sequel, it’s arguably not straying too far from the truth in relation to its selected talent.  Whilst the original film received a mixed reception upon its release in 1996, it made considerable bank and has, in…

No stranger to the world of CGI wizardry and starring alongside names of sizeable weight, Don Cheadle is utilising both his talent and knowledge for his latest big screen venture – Space Jam: A New Legacy – opposite Los Angeles Lakers MVP, LeBron James.  Talking with our own Peter Gray ahead of the anticipated sequel’s…

If you want an example of the transportive power of dance then you need to look no further than Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra. This documentary packs a lot into its slender 96-minute run time, by tracing the origins of this First Nations dance troupe. This film draws together many facets and stories including the…