Reviews

A pandemic story without exclusively being as such, Everything Will Be Alright has an everyman-type quality to it in how it presents the dilemmas the Coronavirus inflicted upon the world.  Director Farhard Pakdel fuses his narrative with a heightened sense of drama though, injecting a potentially triggering additive that further highlights how people’s realities were…

When watching Kestrin Pantera‘s Pretty Problems, if such titles as This Is 40, Wanderlust, The Invitation, White Lotus, and/or Schitt’s Creek come to mind, you can sit comfortably knowing that was somewhat deliberate.  Though there’s evident inspiration from such vast titles, Pretty Problems is still very much its own being; it just helps it has…

Whether we like them (or follow them) or not, influencers – sorry, “content creators” – are a cultural mainstay in our society that often extends beyond the environment of social media.  In Australian horror effort Sissy, co-writers/directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes seem all too aware of the faux importance influencers place upon themselves, a…

Unless you’re already an established name in the industry – and even then, to some degree, getting a film off the ground can have its challenges – the process of seeing a film through its production stages is never without its hurdles.  So you can only imagine how it was for a first-time director like…

If it wasn’t for the fact that she turns into a giant red panda, the life of Turning Red‘s protagonist Meilin Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) would be considered normal.  She gets good grades at secondary school, has a trio of respectable besties, helps her mother, Ming (Sandra Oh), in running the family temple –…

“It was so long, I wish I’d watch paint dry instead!” Not the most encouraging way to open a review.  Though, thankfully, I’m referring to the book “The Sensible Heart”, the novel-within-the-movie that Book Of Love‘s main character has written, and not Analeine Cal y Mayor‘s film itself. Said writer is Henry Copper (Sam Claflin,…

Screening as part of the 2022 Transitions Film Festival, First We Eat delves into the story of a family who decides to go totally off the grid and eat locally after a landslide blocked off access to their town and led to the discovery that no food is produced locally. The film is headed up by…

When detailing delicate subject matter – in this case, sexual assault and the most toxic of masculinity – some films have the insight and intelligence to do so with a certain nuance.  Asking For It is not one of those films!  No, this is as subtle as a sledgehammer, ripping through its surfaces with a…

If there’s one thing director Paul Verhoeven loves to do, it’s poke the bear.  As he has so gleefully outraged audiences and critics across his career, his latest exploitive project – the “based on a true story” nunsploitation drama(?) Benedetta – could easily be dismissed as blasphemous, but there’s also an alarming sincerity to his…

As easy as it is to wax lyrical on the fact that we have yet another iteration of the Dark Knight, The Batman, from director Matt Reeves, is unlike any we have experienced on screen thus far.  Sure, the fact that Reeves has adopted a dark temperament to lace his narrative may not be viewed…

Another day, another Bruce Willis direct-to-DVD effort that continues the odd, sad decline of his career.  Keeping in tune with the last dozen or so efforts he has sleepwalked his way through (that is if he decides to actually show up for filming that day), Willis barely registers in Gasoline Alley, the fourth collaboration with…

Dr Phil Kennedy initially seems like such a quiet and unassuming character. The maverick neuroscientist was born in Ireland and spent time working with the homeless before moving to the U.S. But as the film, The Father of the Cyborgs shows, that is really Dr Kennedy during the daytime. After hours, he has experimented with…

Once upon a time financial literacy involved little more than individuals hitting up their local bank manager for a mortgage. These days the global financial system is a confusing web of interconnected elements: shares, derivatives, energy and taxes. Hot Money is a documentary that aims to demystify this complex subject matter. Susan Kucera directs this…

The core narrative of The Desperate Hour (previously screened as Lakewood at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival) is one that is ripe with tension and despair.  It’s every parent’s worst nightmare come true.  It’s a true shame then that Phillip Noyce‘s initially well-intentioned thriller devolves into absurdity, taking its serious subject matter and exploiting…

Though there’s nothing particularly original about No Exit, the sheer commitment from lead Havana Rose Liu serves the film enough benefit that its genre simplicities and narrative lunacies are somewhat forgiven. Initially, Australian filmmaker Damien Power (Killing Ground) aims for a dramatic temperament, introducing Liu’s Darby as an addict in recovery who has all but…

Films dealing with queer thematics are few and far between in mainland China.  Due to the government’s strict regime on censorship, stories detailing the LGBTQ communities are a rarity, which is why a feature like Moneyboys is all the more curious.  Though set in China, it was filmed in the neighbouring Taiwan, co-financed with European…

In Polish-Swedish film Sweat, audiences meet social media influencer Sylwia. Fit, pretty, and young, Sylwia (Magdalena Kolesnik) motivates her 600,000 followers to work out and be healthy. But this dramatic character study is about more than just a pretty face; it’s a subtle look at the opposing forces between our public and private personas in…

When it was announced that the Foo Fighters made a comedy horror movie in lockdown, it didn’t feel much of a surprise to those of us who grew up watching the band make quirky music videos or Devilish cameos in a Tenacious D movie. But a music video this is not – so the question…

The Pit, directed by Dace Pūce, Latvia’s submission to the 2022 Oscar’s for Best International Film is something of a contradictory affair; at once a rich and nuanced coming of age story, but also an almost brutalist portrayal of life in small-town Latvia.  Based on a series of stories by Latvian writer Jana Egle, the…

Reimagining another literary masterpiece, as he did with both Pride & Prejudice and Anna Karenina (and, to a lesser extent, the ambitious but much maligned Pan), Joe Wright‘s interpretation of Edmond Rostand‘s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac is a suitably lush affair that manages to reinvigorate a tried and true story, one that we have…

Detailing a film and its lead actress adored by the queer community, and uncovering within that connection a story so juicy it seems almost too dramatic to be true, Boulevard! A Hollywood Story is a fascinating look at the intended musical iteration of Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson‘s determination to see its…

Though presented in the guise of a character drama, The Novice is very much a psychological thriller detailing the compulsive, obsessive need one can hone in their attempt to perfect their field of interest.  For the central figure in Lauren Hadaway‘s dark effort, Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman, dedicating herself wholeheartedly to the role, both physically…

Whilst we’re finally experiencing the certain studio projects that the pandemic momentarily stalled from their original release dates, the last year has also made way for many made-during-COVID productions to seep through the schedule too.  Two creatives who put their lockdown status to viable use were Charles Busch and Carl Andress, lifelong friends and collaborators…

Welcome to the post-biological world. We’re not there yet but we soon will be. Scientists, innovators, engineers and other experts foresee a time where humans could transcend immortality through technology. The answers lie in machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics. It’s a place where we could download our memories to ensure our “essence” lives on…

Whilst C’mon C’mon is the type of film that ultimately holds you down to listen to what it has to say, Mike Mills constructs it in such a way that it’s a more emotional and gradual experience.  There’s a texture in the way he presents his narrative, culminating in a manner that when stepped away…

Flee is the latest hybrid of both documentary and animation, giving it a similarity to the 2008 film Waltz with Bashir. They both involve storytelling of factual narratives through the medium of animation that stirs up the animation of audiences as the subjects recollect their experiences. In the case of Flee, the animation not only is…

There’s that old chestnut saying that truth is stranger than fiction, and it would appear that no one knows this more than writer/director Wes Hurley.  An autobiographical tale of growing up queer in the USSR in the 1980’s, Potato Dreams of America is an often bizarre, occasionally sad, but completely unique feature that, however trite…

Whilst The Greenhouse isn’t always cohesive in its fantastical exploration of grief, Thomas Wilson-White‘s drama is nonetheless an impressive, ambitious debut that takes bold swings throughout its narrative, detailing how the coping mechanism regarding loss is always a uniquely and individually tailored experience. Still grieving the loss of one of her mother’s from years prior…

Only weeks ago Drive My Car would have been considered the best film you’ve never heard of.  Now, with a deserving Best Picture Oscar nomination to its name, it’s hopeful that the same enthusiasm and appreciation that drove Parasite to glory two years ago can be transferred to this foreign-language gem. A Japanese drama that…

With the recent release of Marry Me reminding us that not all romantic comedies have to be relegated to the throw-away click-throughs of a streaming platform (I’m looking at you Netflix), I Want You Back decides to brazenly prove that a quality entrant to the genre can be released to a service – in this…