In America 1964, the audience is introduced with its four main players. Renowned boxer Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) had just defeated Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion of the world; Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is still fighting for the cause for Black people; pop musician Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom […]
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As evident in fellow AU critic Harris Dang’s TIFF review of Shadow in the Cloud, this film’s connection to disgraced screenwriter Max Landis is understandably a hot-button subject. Â Whilst I won’t go into the necessary detail, I’m certainly not making light of the allegations brought towards him, but given the fact that co-writer/director Roseanne Liang […]
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With an often bright, candy coated aesthetic that masks a darker, more poisonous taste inside, Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell‘s bold debut, is the type of delicious indulgence that will ultimately make your stomach churn. Headlined by a career-best Carey Mulligan (her performance sure to be a consistent contender come award season), Promising Young Woman […]
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Suitably gripping from the opening images of the bloody aftermath of a supposed murder-suicide – made all the more unsettling to the sounds of an infant crying – Robert Connolly‘s The Dry, an adaption of Jane Harper’s best-selling novel, is a tension-laced thriller that stays true to its source material. The murder-suicide that initially garners […]
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Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney have often asked that we do not name John Lennon’s killer. They reasoned that we should not reward Mark David Chapman, nor grant him the fame and notoriety he sought from that heinous act. There have been many films and books about John Lennon’s murder over the years. The latest, […]
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The opening of Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland opens with a sobering statistic. In Nevada, a small town – Empire – has essentially become a ghost town due to the local Gypsum plant closing down amid the recession. The Empire residents, most of whom lived in company-owned homes, had to vacate in masses, deactivating the town’s zip […]
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A far more meaningful film now given the climate of the world at hand, Soul is a deeply-felt, oft-hilarious, more experimental effort from Pixar that serves as a lovely ode to both life and death. Â Whilst it absolutely deserves the cinema treatment it’s unfortunately being denied – the film will stream from December 25th on […]
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When 2017’s Wonder Woman directed by Patty Jenkins was released it was considered the lighter, more fun of the films in the DC Extended Cinematic Universe. It brought us this portrayal of a character that was full of optimism and hope. The latest release sees Jenkins return to direct the follow up, this time setting […]
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Given that it’s been 7 years since the first Croods movie was released, the original target audience are all likely scattered across primary and high school now. Â But displaying the sense that it honestly doesn’t care about this statistic, The Croods: A New Age delights all the same, and very much presents itself as its […]
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Shane MacGowan is an artist specialising in Irish cream and the craic. The Pogues’ former front man is a brilliant raconteur, even if his body now seems rather battle-hardened. This documentary film is a detailed mosaic and in-depth look at this punk poet’s hedonistic life and his remarkable career. Documentarian, Julien Temple (The Great Rock […]
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You’d be forgiven for assuming I’m Your Woman is going to be a ferocious, revenge-driven thriller going off the simple, yet striking poster art that accompanies. Â Rachel Brosnahan, decked in a long trench coat, a baby on one arm, clutching a gun with the opposing hand. Â It’s a hell of an image – provocative, even […]
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Biding her time between newly found talk-show host duties and headlining the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet (a show gone too soon) has kept Drew Barrymore busy enough that it’s been 5 years since we saw her in a feature film. Â And though The Stand In gives the delightful star plenty of meat to chew […]
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A unique focal point weaved into a standard narrative, Roderick MacKay‘s The Furnace manages to compel thanks to a dedication to its historical and religious roots. Â Tracing steps of Australian history that have seldom been explored before, MacKay tracks a tumultuous period with a somewhat modern sensibility. Egyptian actor Ahmed Malek leads the film as […]
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Koko-di Koko-da starts off in an oddly jovial fashion. We are taken into a forest and there is a small troupe of people – visually influenced by nursery rhymes – dancing in unison while singing merrily. Yet not all is as it seems; and it sets the tone for what is to come: an eerie […]
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After his standout turn opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in 2014’s disturbing neo-noir thriller Nightcrawler, Riz Ahmed seemed destined for greatness on the big screen. Â And thankfully, after years of slumming it in supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters that have all wavered in their quality (Jason Bourne, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Venom), he’s finally been […]
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The musician documentary is one that can easily be an exhausting experience. Â Any form of relative success and cultural impact often results in a film being made about whichever artist, and the ones worthy of the subject’s talent are few and far between. Â This is what makes The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a […]
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Originally scheduled for release in 2017 (what a simpler time that was), The War with Grandpa is finally seeing the light of day – in the middle of a global pandemic, no less. Â Whether it be a case of Tenet-like confidence, knowing self-sabotage, or a strategic move to claim its monetary underperformance is solely on […]
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Oliver Sacks was an incredible man. The neurologist, writer and naturalist forced us all to rethink our understanding of the brain with his absorbing medical case studies and books. He showed a real empathy towards his patients at a time when the establishment were sceptical about such treatment. Now he is the focus of Oliver […]
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David Byrne is no stranger to starring in concert films. In 1983, as frontman of Talking Heads, he appeared in the acclaimed Stop Making Sense. Now he stars in his very own: American Utopia, courtesy of director Spike Lee. The result is something that is stripped back yet ultimately brimming with authenticity. For American Utopia, […]
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Despite Kevin Costner and Diane Lane perfecting the kindly rural American in Man of Steel, in no way should they be confused with the kindly rural Americans they embody in Let Him Go. Â Superman’s parents they are not in Thomas Bezucha‘s slow-burn thriller, a 1960’s set, western-slanted revenge piece that takes a little longer than […]
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Likely to appeal to the Nicholas Sparks crowd, All My Life is a particularly sweet (almost too much so for its own good) true story-inspired tearjerker that, in many ways, gets away with being so cookie cutter because – as we are informed in the opening monologue – we only remember the most beautiful and tragic […]
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Jiu Jitsu stars Alain Moussi as Jake Barnes, an amnesiac military man who is on the run from an unseen force that is attacking him. Sustaining a severe head injury in the process, he is taken in and nursed back to health by the military. He is interrogated severely by Myra (Marie Avgeropoulos); who believes […]
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Sophie Hawkshaw stars as Ellie, a high school student captain who has a healthy relationship with her overprotective mother Erica (Marta Dusseldorp) and feels content with her existence via her good grades and her source of inspiration through her subject for her assignment Faith Underwood (a cameo by Chiara Gizzi). The main thrust of the […]
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Coming off of such aggressive roles in features as Dragged Across Concrete and Brawl In Cell Block 99, the thought of Vince Vaughn flailing his arms and strutting with the poise of a flustered teenage girl is one that’s all the more appealing when you view it in its actuality. Â And it’s the hulking 6’5 […]
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It won’t happen overnight; but, it will happen. That’s certainly the message we should take away from the documentary, Machine. The film is a fascinating dive into the technological revolution that our world will experience, in time, as artificial intelligence (AI) augments all aspects of our lives. The film comes to us from the creators […]
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When an esteemed actor’s five-decade-long career includes one Academy Award from five nominations, three BAFTA Awards from eight nominations, and two Emmys from five nominations, you hardly expect to see them deliver their finest performance in the twilight of their career. But Anthony Hopkins‘ astonishing performance in The Father may just be the greatest he’s […]
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Written and directed by an openly gay man and fronted by a quartet of women – one of whom a woman of colour – 1996’s supernatural teen horror film The Craft was, in retrospect, ahead of its time. Â 2 years before witchcraft would become weekly viewing on the television series Charmed, and over a decade […]
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Despite being a reimagined take on the 2015 Icelandic drama of the same name, Rams feels distinctly Australian. Â The brotherly rivalry between its lead characters – symbolised by their opposing sheep flocks – offset by the wonderfully captured Western Australian backdrop gives Jeremy Sims‘ occasionally amusing drama a homegrown identity, despite the fact that it’s […]
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Steve Ewert and Dick Russell certainly had good reason to say, “We’re not in Kansas anymore!” In 1971 the photographer and writer went on a gruelling 4300km hitchhiking trip through the Sahara Desert. The result was like On the Road meets Wild. The documentary, Hitchhiking to the Edge of Sanity looks back at the pair’s […]
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Whilst the novelty of the original Borat film has indeed worn off, this surprise sequel showcases creator Sacha Baron Cohen‘s twisted mindframe still has a place in an America, a country that sadly has only deteriorated since he last held up his own dirty mirror to their mentality. A few weeks ago none of us […]
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