Reviews

By the conclusion of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the character and lore behind it had lost all sense of vigour on screen. The film was tired, painful and offensively deplorable, so much so it managed to master what many would consider near impossible — it made the promise of future instalments as something to dread…

Artists like Madonna, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are some of the biggest names in the music industry. But in the shadows of these successful women you will see lots of men. When you look behind-the-scenes at the music business it is one big old boys’ club but does it have to be this…

Breathtaking and magical, Monsieur Chocolat (directed by Roschdy Zem) is one to watch if you want to experience a Parisian night. Immerse yourself in the world of 19th-century French circus and follow the biopic story of Chocolat (Omar Sy). He journeys from a performer acting as the “cannibal” to a more respected position as a…

Like it’s Tsotsitaal namesake meaning “to go”, Vaya, Directed by Akin Omotoso, literally begins on the move. Opening on a train bound to Johannesburg Vaya follows the intertwining paths of three young South Africans journeying from their rural homes in Kwazulu-Natal to eGoli, the city of Gold. All three are tasked with their own promises…

Placing itself somewhere between the genres of mumblecore and slice of life, A Quiet Dream directed by Zhang Lu, is an almost observational look into the invisible world of lower class Seoul. Set in the grimy fringe suburbs of Seoul, A Quiet Dream is a glimpse into the everyday of misfits bound to a life determined…

It’s gotten to a point now where it doesn’t matter what you think. 2014’s soft reboot Transformers: Age of Extinction was a woeful film, torn apart by critics and made its predecessors look like Citizen Kane in comparison. And yet, it grossed over $1 billion worldwide. It maintains a spot in the top 20 highest…

Apart from Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, I haven’t seen much of director Sofia Coppola‘s work. Known for her filmmaking approach to humanize her subjects with unorthodox methods like gentle pathos, looking through different character points-of-views outside the norm and the use of anachronisms, Coppola has achieved a reputation of being a director that is…

Having made something of an underground name for himself in the horror genre with such European productions as Creep, Triangle, and Black Death, British filmmaker Christopher Smith opted out for a brief moment to helm some TV work and an out-of-character holiday-themed comedy; Get Santa with Jim Broadbent and Warwick Davis, for those playing along…

Before I get into this review, let’s get this out of the way. Ever since I first saw one of his films on SBS, I’ve been a huge fan of Jackie Chan, due to his incredible dexterity, creative fight choreography, amazing stuntwork and his likable aw-shucks persona. But like every action hero, the thing that…

The Young Karl Marx (Le jeune Karl Marx) is a bio-pic that feels authentic because it captures the period well in a visual sense. But you also get the feeling that it is only telling a part of the story and not least because it is all about Karl Marx’s youth. This dramatic film is…

Whilst animation in film has evolved immensely over the last 20 years, there’s something immediately charming about Phantom Boy‘s deliberately flat and simple palleted aesthetic.  It may lack the emotional weight of the technically more refined Pixar offerings, but this film’s distinct look feels organically melded to its somber mentality. Coming courtesy of French directing…

Based on a memoir by American writer James Lord and adapted for the screen by actor Stanley Tucci, Final Portrait is a concise passion project with committed performances and evident production care that sadly doesn’t overcome its bland setting. Anchored by a wonderful turn from Geoffrey Rush as eccentric painter Giacometti, this dramedy of sorts…

A song is as song except when it’s a Terrence Malick film. The famous director’s latest experimental offering is an absolute waste in that it is all show and no substance. It weaves together cameos from famous A-list creatives and a cast of Hollywood’s finest actors and then it does nothing. Absolutely nothing. For 129…

Okja is a film involving a giant mutated pig. What more do you want? But seriously, in order to understand the hype of the film, you have to know the filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho. Bong Joon-Ho is an acclaimed Korean filmmaker who has made some incredible films. And the reason he is so acclaimed is his…

The story of The Go-Betweens had previously been largely untold save for Robert Forster’s autobiography, Grant & I. But the film, The Go-Betweens: Right Here is set to change that. It’s a wonderful music documentary that plays out like a love letter to a seminal, Australian band. It also dives head-first into the melodrama, adventure,…

Fans of off-kilter comedy should find something of value in Jeff Baena’s quirky spoof The Little Hours, a play on the 14th-century Giovanni Boccaccio novella The Decameron. With hefty doses of witchcraft, torture, and pan-sexuality peppered throughout the script, it’s not hard to see some viewers being confounded by Baena’s film just as much as those…

Thoroughly engaging, immensely poignant, and remarkably evocative, Call Me By Your Name functions as both a coming-of-age tale and a love story, likely to surprise viewers as to where it travels on both accounts. Based on the novel by Andre Aciman, and co-penned for the screen by director Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash), James Ivory…

It would have been too easy for a film like Una to result in something unreservedly perfunctory. The fable of the abuse victim confronting her perpetrator has been depicted more than one would wish to count, and the argument can be made that a fair share wishes to portray the subject matter no more than…

Having proven his worth as a screenwriter with both Hell or High Water and Sicario, Wind River serves as scribe Taylor Sheridan’s directorial debut.  Arguably arriving with high expectations, Sheridan’s tight, often brutal thriller proves his workings with such professionals as David Mackenzie and Denis Villeneuve has paid off, showcasing an ease behind the lens…

Making his directorial debut, penning the script and holding the starring role, Austrian actor Josef Hader has impressed festivals around the world with the dark comedy Wild Mouse – which has had its Australian premiere this week as part of the Sydney Film Festival. The film stars Hader as Georg, a classical music critic who…

Audacious is definitely the right word to start with when it comes to describing the Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie-directed Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves. At 180 minutes, it’s a leviathan of a film that often comes across as equal parts provocative and indecipherable. The central narrative here centers on…

I don’t want to make a Star Trek joke – it’d be too obvious and you would only resent me for it – but as much as it pains me, I do need to say that space really is the final frontier. It’s always right there, just outside our atmosphere, and for decades we humans…

It has finally arrived! After the teaser trailer that saw Lightning McQueen being absolutely annihilated on the racetrack months ago, we were all left wondering exactly where the Cars franchise had taken us with this all new installment, especially after the disappointing Cars 2 and Disney’s attempt at making it a broader universe with the…

Despicable Me 3 opens this week and it brings with it a charming, if not a little repetitive, new chapter in the franchise. The entire gang is back to cause, create and then solve a global catastrophe. More of a good thing isn’t always better, kind of like chocolate and wine (ok, maybe just chocolate),…

Lazily touted in headlines as “The Hangover for women” by writers who couldn’t possibly find another film to compare it to from the last decade (Bachelorette or Bridesmaids immediately come to mind, both of which were also compared to The Hangover at the time of release – hell, even Bad Moms was!), Rough Night is…

Agnieszka Holland creates a character to love and to loath in Spoor, the Polish thriller-comedy that follows one woman’s passion for animal justice in a town that doesn’t share the same sentiments. Spoor, meaning the tracks left by an animal, is a film that rarely falls from the trail, coming together as a poignant comedy…

Some people subscribe to the theory that you’ve got to suffer for your art. Two such individuals include the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop and the best-selling French novelist, Michel Houellebecq. In To Stay Alive – A Method the pair share a meeting of minds in a film that is artistic, experimental and semi-autobiographical and…

You may want to walk away from Better Watch Out during its first half. For the first 30 minutes Chris Peckover gives us a Christmas-themed home invasion thriller that is sorely lacking in originality and only manages a few mild chuckles, upheld by teenage actors who are clearly struggling with the seemingly insipid material script….

In the years leading up to release, slipping out of John Singleton’s reliable hands and finding a way to Benny Boom didn’t inspire much confidence in All Eyez On Me, the long-gestating biopic of seminal emcee Tupac Shakur. Long before Straight Outta Compton chewed up the box office charts, those inside and outside of the…

It seems that American Indians have been erased from the history books, including the chapters relating to contemporary music. Until now. The documentary, Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World looks set to change all of that by celebrating the contributions of these individuals and finally giving credit where it’s due. The film is directed…