It’s been a rocky road for the DC Extended Universe. From the dizzying delights of Wonder Woman to the hyper-colour mess of Suicide Squad. From the delicious ridiculousness of Aquaman to the dark and sloppy disaster of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. And it’s hard to forget what should have been their crowning glory…
The year is 1944. Leyna (Amandla Stenberg), the teenage daughter of a white German factory worker (Abbie Cornish) and a black Senegalese soldier, is dubbed a “Rhineland bastard” and flees for Berlin, hoping to find anonymity and safety in the larger city. But, after she is kicked out of school and is forced to falsify…
2019 is going to be a fairly big slate for the House of Mouse with not one but four “live action adaptations” of their intellectual property hitting cinema screens. The first one out of the gate is the film about a baby elephant with overly large ears who can fly. Originally Dumbo was based on…
Based on a true story (well-documented in the Channel 4 documentary The Wrestlers: Fighting with My Family), born into a tight-knit wrestling family, Paige (Florence Pugh) and her brother Zak (Jack Lowden) are ecstatic when they get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try out for the WWE. But when only Paige earns a spot in the…
If Love, Actually had a child with Around the World in Eighty Days, The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir would be that child. It throws its trickster and street magician protagonist Aja (Dhanush) into a chain of unexpected adventures. He meets a diverse group of people from a celebrity to mobster-like big guys to a swindling cab…
Adapting tragic events of the world to the cinema screen can be a very risky proposition. There are many ways to get it wrong and very few ways to get it right. The wrong ways can lead the film to be considered exploitative, cheap, insulting, xenophobic and even laughable. It would also depend on the…
From the director of The Blind Side, John Lee Hancock, comes a new telling of the Bonnie and Clyde story; this time told from the perspective of the men who took the criminal pair down. Set for release in on Netflix later this month, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Kevin Costner and Kathy Bates – surely three…
What is it about slasher films that makes them stand out as one of the best horror sub-genres? It is just a person just killing people with a sharp object and that’s it, right? Yes, but, that’s also the very reason why it has succeeded so well. Unlike the other horror sub-genres that involve fantastical…
Cops are tops. But if you’re Erin Bell in Destroyer you’re less tops and more likely to be drinking hops. Nicole Kidman plays a bedraggled and unrecognisable detective in this noir. While there are some moments where it is thrilling, most of it is far too slow-burning and perfunctory to really cut through. This film…
Imagine the photo shoot for Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’ or concerts like: Woodstock, Johnny Cash’s gigs at Folsom and San Quentin, and The Beatles’s last official show at Candlestick Park. Most of us would trade our left hands to have been there. But if you were Jim Marshall, you could boast that you went and shot…
The Titanic had the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Texas meanwhile, had the unstoppable Molly Ivins. This tall, flame-haired woman was an outspoken, political commentator with a razor-sharp wit. Raise Hell is a documentary that covers every inch of this larger-than-life character. This film is the first documentary to be made about this formidable subject. It’s hard…
For Sama is an emotionally gripping diary filmed by journalist Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts. Kateab recorded her life during the Battle of Aleppo (2012-16) in Syria. She had a mission: to bring light on the injustices on Syrians under President Assad’s regime and the fight for freedom. Not only did she cover what was…
At SXSW 2017, American biochemist, Jennifer Doudna was telling everybody about CRISPR. Allow me one last Human Nature reference… Doudna was telling the last ones to know about a new technology that has the potential to alter genes. Human Nature is a documentary that takes a deep dive into this fascinating scientific world, and chronicles…
As new dog grooming business owner (and one of Well Groomed‘s fascinating human subjects) Nicole Beckman states during her introduction that competitive dog grooming was always something she thought as being “just silly” before entering the competitive stakes herself, her initial thoughts are likely to be mirrored by many unversed in the ways of competitive…
At the age of 37, Australian writer and director Abe Forsythe has already had a truly impressive output of films. At the age of 21, he put out the memorable (if maligned) Ned, in the same year as the Heath Ledger film, and has since delivered us great comedies in both short and long form, including…
Sometimes Always Never proves its only words. This UK dramedy is about a father and son’s complex relationship. It has an English sensibility and a profound love for the Scrabble board game. The result is a quirky and whimsical character study that feels like it pans out in real-time. This film at first was a…
Tonight at the Paramount Theatre at SXSW, Long Shot, the new romantic comedy starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen, had its first ever public screening. Not due for release until the start of May, the film sees the pair playing something akin to star-crossed lovers, with a political bend; Theron starring as America’s Secretary of…
Models are cool people. Beautiful glamazons. You don’t think of them as freaks unless you’re Jean Paul Gaultier. The French designer dedicated an entire show to just this. Freak & Chic is a feature documentary that shows us this crazy world, as well as the hard work and creativity that went into shaping this wild…
It’s taken 20-something movies but MCU has finally released their first female led superhero movie and despite some controversy leading up to its release we can rest assured that Marvel’s seemingly endless good streak continues.
If there’s a bias I have as a film critic, it is that I have an affinity for seeing established actors give unhinged performances in film that accommodate said performance. Most of these performances are usually in thriller genres, like the psycho-logical subgenre. Yes, the use of the hyphen is intentional, as those films delve…
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has made some of most critically acclaimed dramas in the 21st Century. Garnering awards from many festivals, including winning two Oscars for Best Foreign Film, it is a testament to Farhadi’s impeccable storytelling about the social, gender and class differences in modern Iran as well as his assured hand in telling…
It isn’t hard to figure out that the reason why a lot of people watch movies is because of wish fulfillment. Who wouldn’t want to be in a fairy tale romance? Who wouldn’t want to be a kick-ass hero? But another level of wish fulfillment is to see people get revenge on those who have…
With a title like The Sisters Brothers, one would be forgiven for assuming that Jacques Audiard‘s off-centred western would be something of a comedy. Whilst there’s moments of black humour peppered throughout Audiard’s English-language debut – which makes its inclusion in this year’s Alliance Francaise French Film Festival all the more curious – this is…
It is not uncommon to see reviewers describe a film as “Like a love letter” to something. In the case of French documentary, Wine Calling this is also true, but given the subject matter a toast seems more appropriate. This film is a deep dive into the worlds inhabited by a group of passionate and…
Most people have seen Yves Saint Laurent’s creations but how many have wondered what is going on beneath the covers? The documentary, Celebration: Yves Saint Laurent, should answer some of these questions. This French film is shot in cinéma vérité style and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the fashion legend and his army of helpers….
What is it about stories about the rise to stardom that makes it so fascinating to audiences? Is it because it resembles a wish fulfillment fantasy? Or is it because it resembles a cautionary tale? Either way, it is a well-worn formula, that has been the backbone of well-regarded films, including 2018 films A Star…
Some acts come as a package deal. Bert and Ernie. Batman and Robin. Tom and Jerry. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy AKA comedy duo, Laurel & Hardy, can be added to this list. The two comedians made over a hundred silent and talking films. They entertained audiences with their funny antics and slapstick for decades….
Lady Gaga is not the first singer to embark on the transition from music to film (J. Lo, I’m looking at you), and I doubt she will be the last. However, never before have I seen a musician take this leap with such skill, such talent and such raw emotion reminiscent of a seasoned actor….
At the end of last year, the second season of Westworld (“The Door”) received the home Blu-Ray release treatment, with a three disc set showcasing all ten episodes of the big budget HBO series. The season introduced us to the other “worlds” that run alongside Westworld – while a number of storylines and timelines helped…
English-language live-action film adaptations of manga/anime source material have been quite problematic, to say the least. While most of the films just fail to capture the spirit of the source material due to bad filmmaking (eg. Fist of the North Star, Death Note [2017]), other examples fail just due to the fact that they did…
