Reviews

Boots Riley has over two decades of powerful, biting and important work behind him as emcee of The Coup, so Sorry for Bothering You, his directorial debut, isn’t as big of a leap as it appears to be for the artist. Well, it’s not big in the sense that smart political satire is anything new…

When you think of zombie comedies, it’s difficult to look beyond the witty brilliance that is Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004).  Whilst we’ve had our share of interesting takes on the walking dead in the years since, the arrival of Anna and the Apocalypse stands as the choreographed high-kick the genre needed.  Not…

According to Webster’s Dictionary, the term fangirling is defined as a female fan behaving and obsessing in an overexcited fashion. You may or may not forgive me for finding this definition quite amusing, but it sums up my expectations of director Jessica Leski‘s I Used To Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story perfectly. A film…

Lean on Pete is about a poor boy in more ways than one. This troubled teen was abandoned by his Mum and lives with his selfish father in poverty. His saving grace comes in the shape of an aging racehorse named Lean on Pete. This slow-burning drama sees this teen fall off his horse, only…

This may be a bold statement to make but it must be said: every film out there would kill to have the presence of Emma Thompson. Whether it is for her acting capabilities like she can elevate even the most fluffiest of films like the rom-com Love Actually with her fantastic acting chops; or it…

One Cut of the Dead is not your run of the mill Zombie film, nor should any moviegoer make the same mistake as this reviewer and assume they’re going to go watch a Japanese version of Shaun of the Dead as they’ll find themselves completely flabbergasted by what’s put in front of them. In a…

We’ve all heard the tale of Robin Hood, the nobleman who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. Who becomes a revolutionary figure that leads to an uprising. A symbol of hope in a time of poverty and struggle. Well there’s a new Robin Hood movie out that brings all of that to…

Disney once again brings a visually sumptuous live action adaptation to the big screen in the the lead up to the festive season. This time loosely taking E.T.A Hoffman’s original ‘The Nutcracker And The Mouse King’ story, and also a ballet by Tchaikovsky, and a novel by Dumas, and putting their own spin on it….

The year in cinema has already yielded one female-led heist film. However, the stylish ladies of Ocean’s 8 are about to be blown out of the water by the sensational ensemble cast (headed by three terrific actresses) of Widows. The latest film from Steve McQueen, slyly presents itself as your everyday popcorn thriller, but ultimately flips the…

It is incredibly hard to believe that we have a new Hirokazu Koreeda film coming out so soon after his last one, the 2017 courtroom drama The Third Murder, and yet we have one in 2018 called Shoplifters! Heralded as a film that goes back to socially relevant roots, similar to the 2004 heartwrenching drama…

2016’s Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was the beginning of the expansion of the Harry Potter universe and an opportunity for fans to return to the wizarding world. It’s reception although somewhat mixed, was generally positive Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald is a jaunt back into the magical realm and where the first in…

If there’s one film in 2018 that is guaranteed to garner Oscar buzz due to director recognition alone, it’s Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma. Ever since making his mark with his critically acclaimed drama Y Tu Mama Tambien, Cuaron has gone on to making fantastic films that are commercially viable as well as technically proficient;…

Lisbeth Salander is back! In another reiteration! Over the years, we have had four films revolving around the characters created by acclaimed Swedish author Stieg Larsson, and each have been hits in their home territory, as well as receiving rave reviews from many critics. Many people have complimented the Scandinavian cinematic thriller tropes (i.e. winter settings,…

London’s calling, California’s dreaming, so Melbourne must be dancing if Now Sound: Melbourne’s Listening is true. The documentary is a celebration of the independent music scene in our very own, world-renowned, live music capital. This film is a passionate little time capsule joined at the hip to a very special time and place. Tobias Willis…

Based on your personal feelings towards Donald Trump and the Republican Party, your reaction to (and presumably interest in) Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael Moore‘s latest bombastic documentary, is likely already predetermined. If you consider Trump to be a crusading saviour of the people and his presidency really is making America great again, maybe sit this one…

Biopics are a dime-a-dozen these days. And when one considers the marketable possibilities about them, it’s not hard to see why there are so many of them. Particularly when the subject of the biopic revolves around the entertainment industry. In the case of the music industry, we have had so many biopics revolving around that…

What goes on tour stays on tour. Except if you’re the Scottish artists who feature in Lost in France. This music documentary is a boozy and breezy look back at a once-forgotten, 1997 Brittany tour. The artists reunite again in 2015 and in doing so, prove that some things – like friendship – never change….

Groucho Marx once said he wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have him as a member. For us mere mortals, the world’s most famous nightclub remains elusive territory. It only existed for 33 months and if you were lucky enough to be there, chances are the velvet rope held you back. Studio…

Try to imagine something that could be your biggest joy and greatest nightmare. It’s not easy. But finding out you have an identical twin sibling has got to be up there. The Twinning Reaction is a documentary that covers a bizarre and bittersweet example of this with brutal honesty. The results are not what you’d…

Acting as a nice alternative to the brutality of Halloween, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, whilst not overly clever or necessary viewing by any means, provides enough chaotic entertainment for the younger crowd (or those young at heart) to earn their own respective scares for the spooky season. Even though its title suggests its a sequel…

Trick: The 2018 incarnation of Halloween acts as a direct continuation of the 1978 original, essentially wiping out all seven sequels (and the two Rob Zombie-helmed revisions) that succeeded in the years since. Treat: It’s good.  Like really f***ing good! After surviving the maniacal clutches of psychotic killer Michael Myers forty years prior, Laurie Strode…

We always hurt the ones we love the most. This is certainly the case with Beautiful Boy. The film is an emotional drama about a father who is grappling with his son’s drug addiction. It’s a very human and poignant story. This film is the English language debut for director, Felix Van Groeningen. The plot…

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….

Director Russell Mulcahy, the Melbourne filmmaker whose career has seen him graduate from Elton John music videos to varied levels of cinematic quality (the 1984 wild boar in the outback horror flick Razorback, the ill-advised Kim Basinger vehicle The Real McCoy, and the Geoffrey Rush drama Swimming Upstream just a few of his efforts) is…

Of Fathers & Sons should come with a warning. This is likely to induce nightmares even though it’s not strictly a horror film. It is however, a horrifying documentary that chronicles a religious zealot and his young, jihadist-in-the-making sons. The result is a visceral and eye-opening look at this largely-unknown world. Filmmaker, Talal Derki is…

It seems almost baffling that Neil Armstrong’s account of being the first man on the moon hasn’t been told prior to Damien Chazelle‘s First Man.  Clearly an intimidating figure but still reserved, sensitive and aloof enough to not be placed upon a pedestal as some flawless being, Chazelle’s film seeks to uncover the more human…

Set in Europe “20,000 years ago”, a tribe of hunter-gatherers is preparing to hunt before winter. Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), is learning the ropes from his father, the tribe’s chief Tau (Johannes Haukur Johannesson). Quiet and sensitive, the young Keda is having issues in coming to terms with killing animals, with father gently guiding him unto…

American Animals is the scripted film debut from writer/director Bart Layton, who walked away with a BAFTA for his debut effort, the documentary The Imposter. Knowing he comes from a documentary background is unsurprising when you see this film, which screened at Sundance earlier this year to a good deal of critical acclaim, and continued…

I’m going to preface this review by saying, I’m not a comics person, I just enjoy comic-adaptation movies. So my reviews tend to have this film-centric lens rather than delving into how aspects of specific comic editions or stories can be seen threaded through the movie. So now that I’ve gotten that out of the…

Night School is a film with a very well-worn premise that has been done many times before (Billy Madison and Old School to name a few), but there factors here that could make the film transcend my meagre expectations. One is the paring of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, two of the biggest comedy stars right…