Reviews

Though it’s undeniable what a powerhouse actor and director Clint Eastwood is – he won the Best Director and Best Picture Academy Award twice, for those keeping score – Cry Macho is proof that he’s losing his touch. His fourth film in three years – following 15:17 To Paris, The Mule, and Richard Jewell –…

Come for the porn.  Stay for the social commentary. A film that very much opts to take no prisoners during its confronting opening minutes of unsimulated sexual activity, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is at once an enraging drama and a wicked comedy that consistently goes against the grain of what we feel like…

I think it’s a fair assumption to state that not many people expected Tom McGrath‘s 2017 effort The Boss Baby to clear the half a billion dollars it did at the global box office.  It was a bizarre comedy that entirely banked on its central premise – a baby that spoke like an entitled adult…

Look, I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but it’s precisely what one will do with Best Sellers, a cliched dramedy that nudges every narrative beat you expect, only mildly saved by the odd-couple pairing of Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza; his cantankerousness at odds with her more manic downtrodden-ness….

Despite the fact that the film was ripped apart by critics and was centred on a character who had previously been brought to “life” in a less-than-well received iteration, 2018’s Venom was a mammoth success.  Pulling in upwards of $856 million worldwide, it was the seventh highest grossing film of that year – beating out…

The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain is a film that will leave you scared and asking, “How could this happen?” It is based on a true event that took place in 2011. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the continued senseless deaths by racists, it remains an achingly important indictment on society…

Billed as a docu-narrative, indicating that both fact and fiction will be blended throughout, I’m An Electric Lampshade is a bizarre take on the age-old “It’s never too late to follow your dreams” tale, focusing on the unlikeliest of pop star wannabes. Doug McCorkle is the most basic of nondescript American men.  60-years-old, with the…

Zola tells the story of the burgeoning relationship and eventual disintegration between Aziah “Zola” King (Taylour Paige), a confident yet downtrodden waitress and part-time stripper and Stefani Jezowski (Riley Keough), an unreserved and blundering stripper. They serendipitously meet one another in the restaurant where Zola works and the two become fast friends through many shared…

As much as King Richard has all the trappings of a biopic – and a sports drama, for that matter – it’s a testament to everyone involved that it manages to entirely transcend expectation and feel like something that’s so much more. It’s easy to wax lyrical about the fact that we’re getting a film…

A gorgeously rendered, lovingly crafted, maybe slightly messy, giallo tribute drenched in 1960’s London culture, Last Night In Soho is the type of film one wishes to dissect and divulge in intimate detail.  But that would entirely undo any service to writer/director Edgar Wright, who has implored audiences the globe over to keep their mouths…

When we are first introduced to Red Rocket‘s lead subject – washed-up porn star Mikey (Simon Rex) – writer/director Sean Baker frames him in such a manner that alludes to him being one of those scrappy anti-heroes whose undeniable charm is enough for us to forgive his indiscretions. And indeed, Mikey is that (in a…

A film that’s likely to resonate with, or at least feel more familiar to American audiences, The Eyes of Tammy Faye does its best to clue in local Australian viewers as to just who was the larger-than-life personality Tammy Faye Bakker Messner.  An only-in-America type tale, Tammy Faye’s small-time Minnesota upbringing, where she “found Jesus”…

There’s a moment during Home Sweet Home Alone where two characters are watching a remake of the fictional “Angels With Filthy Souls” – you know, that quotable film within a film that Macaulay Culkin used in a manner to frighten the pizza delivery boy (“Merry Christmas ya filthy animal) – and comment on why studios…

“He’s just a man, Peter. Only another man.” – Rose (Kirsten Dunst) Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons star as Phil and George Burbank; brothers who work as reputable cattle ranchers. George is a simple, upstanding and honest man while Phil is boastful, malevolent and manly. While Phil is happy with their routine of continuing the…

“We all break the rules we set for ourselves in the end.” – Genvieve (played by Nathalie Richard) Joanna Scanlan stars as Mary, a widow who is undergoing a period of grief after the sudden death of her sea captain husband Ahmed (Nasser Memarzia). Going through his belongings to attain some sort of closure, she…

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” – Anonymous According to writer/director Apitchatpong Weerasethakul’s latest film Memoria, the answer to the question above is a resounding yes. The acclaimed filmmaker is best known for works including Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His…

“You never even asked me if it was true!” – Tonyah (played by Thomasin McKenzie) Essie Davis stars as the titular role of Bunny King; a poverty-stricken mother of two who is struggling to fight the social system to get her kids back. During her battle, she crosses paths with her niece Tonyah, who is…

Although it leans into the tropes of what we come to expect from the institution that is a James Bond film, and in some ways this 25th entrant is possibly the most self-aware of the pack, No Time To Die keeps largely in tune with the mentality of the wave of Daniel Craig-led films; the…

As much as The Worst Person in the World adheres to many of the standard ingredients of the “romantic comedy”, to refer to Joachim Trier‘s as one would be doing it a massive disservice. Detailed over 12 chapters (and both a prologue and epilogue), the film gives us a look into a certain period of…

Julia is the latest film by documentary filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen. They are best known for their acclaimed works such as RBG and My Name is Pauli Murray; studies of renowned trailblazers who have contributed so much to the world and have shattered social norms in order to do so. The latest subject…

Immigration is a topic that’s quite intensely debated across the world, particularly in the United States.  And in Blue Bayou, a spotlight is shone on a specific group of immigrants, those that come to a country as infants with little to no recollection of their homeland and, quite often, had no other choice. Such is…

On the surface you’d be forgiven for assuming The Beta Test is just another film industry picture, spending its minutes somehow justifying its existence as it hones in on the obnoxious and obnoxiously wealthy Hollywood players who wrongfully assume they’re untouchable in their town.  The film has that air about it, but this satirical-cum-unnerving thriller…

After introducing itself as a film that promises there’ll be no sugarcoating its subject matter – the first thing we hear are the audible moans and verbal berating from a pornographic film, and the first thing we see is the extremely graphic imagery of a young girl’s privates in the shower – Ninja Thyberg‘s confronting…

Similar to how Jordan Peele, Robert Eggers, Jennifer Kent, and Ari Aster all secured their place in the annals of genre cinema with their debut offerings, Julia Docournau‘s bold cannibalistic horror effort Raw cemented the French filmmaker as a name to pay consistent attention to.  And just as those aforementioned auteurs all swung big with…

Though there’s perhaps a few too many “missing kid mystery” tropes adhered to in Disappearance at Lake Elrod – the grieving mother, the potentially corrupt police, the buried secrets coming to life – writer/director Lauren Fash injects enough character development and psychological complexity for it to get away with it. Centred around the disappearance of…

Kenny Rogers so famously told us “You gotta know when to fold ’em”, and in The Card Counter writer/director Paul Schrader seems unsure as to which hand he wants to confidently play.  It’s not that this film is poorly made, nor is his commitment to the representation of desolation anything other than pure, but it’s…

After thirteen years and twenty-five films, it only makes sense that the standard formula for what makes a Marvel movie earns something of a deviation from the expected.  The tightly choreographed fight sequences, the amusing quips, the CGI-heavy climactic battle…all ingredients that, to the testament of such an institution, have been recycled in a variety…

There’s a certain challenge one takes on when adapting a secondary story (for lack of a better word) to a televisual project.  Whether you continue the narrative as a sequel, take the premise in a more comedic fashion, or simply re-imagine the original, fans of the original property are always going to be the audience…

In the opening minutes of Adam Ethan Crow‘s Lair, a masterful sense of tension is introduced that near-immediately puts its audience on guard.  An eerie musical score, an unseen force, a bloodied body…nightmarish additives that deliberately only tell fragments of a whole story. From here we are introduced to Steven Caramore (Corey Johnson, having an…

A gorgeously rendered, lovingly crafted, maybe slightly messy, giallo tribute drenched in 1960’s London culture, Last Night In Soho is the type of film one wishes to dissect and divulge in intimate detail.  But that would entirely undo any service to writer/director Edgar Wright, who has implored audiences the globe over to keep their mouths…