Proving to be the master of quiet filmmaking, Kelly Reichardt has established quite a name for herself within the independent cinematic industry. With slow-burning, patient films like Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, her newest picture follows the style of her preceding work. Certain Women, an adaptation of short stories by Maile Meloy, shows Reichardt…
Just like starting over. That’s the name of a John Lennon song but it’s also a line that could be used to sum up the French film, Things To Come (L’avenir). The story is a subtle character study about a middle-aged woman and how she negotiates a bunch of set-backs with a kind of understated…
The films by British director Ben Wheatley have all been incredibly distinct from another and are all very well-done. Whether going through the genre of crime, psychological horror, dark comedy, dystopian drama or historical surrealism, you can never accuse Wheatley of doing the same trick twice. But the crucial through-line through all his films is…
Australia is not widely known for its family fantasy films. But with a plot replicating that age-old story of a boy befriending and protecting a mythical creature from the government, surely this film would fit safely into the same mould, right? Unfortunately and somewhat unsurprisingly, the answer is, in the case of Matt Drummond’s new…
Whilst the general consensus is that the Marvel cinematic universe as a whole is one of the more consistent entities for audiences and critics alike, their track-record for delivering underwhelming sequels (at least compared to their predecessors) is hard to quarrel against. Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron are all…
It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Supergirl! The documentary, Supergirl is a film about an American girl with superhuman strength. It’s an inspirational story that is about kicking down barriers and achieving the impossible in the competitive world/sport that is powerlifting. This documentary is the debut feature length film by director Jessie Auritt. The story focuses…
After more than thirty years, the amber Mini has once more made the journey from tip to tip in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Pork Pie brings the 1981 New Zealand classic Goodbye Pork Pie into the 21st century, and it returns with more than just the mini. Goodbye Pork Pie played a…
Before there was Loving there was Sophie & The Rising Sun (well, sort of). Sophie & The Rising Sun is a romantic story and like Loving it is one that’s all about a bi-racial couple. The film is ultimately a beautiful but fictional love story where you can really sit back, relax and get lost…
Wendy & Lucy is a film that could be renamed “A Street Dog Named Lucy.” I tells the story of a homeless and nomadic American woman and her faithful companion, a dog named Lucy. The story is a slow character study that is lacking in characterisation, drama and detail. The story is directed by Kelly…
In some ways, it feels like Zach Braff’s involvement with Going In Style is the most interesting thing about it. Braff, now almost a decade after his tenure on Scrubs, hasn’t exactly had a perfect hit rate on the big screen. It’s not that he’s not an untalented filmmaker, it’s just his previous movies have…
The name Henrietta Lacks may not mean an awful lot to some people but in reality it should be one of the most famous names in history. Lacks is responsible for revolutionising modern medicine and contributing to every recent major medical breakthrough from vaccines for polio, HPV and the flu-shot; to IVF and treatments for…
Lone Scherfig is a filmmaker who has always frustrated me, delivering a mixed bag of films amongst her career. Her Dutch films were great, but apart from An Education, her films were ultimately flops, especially the turgid One Day. So I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to Their Finest, but when I…
An impressively persistent beast of sorts, the Fast & Furious franchise has become one of the most lucrative commodities of today’s industry, despite an initial series of less-than sequels that threatened to burn the title out before it had a chance to properly compete. Whereas most sequels fail to maintain momentum (especially when dealing with the…
Nacho Vigalondo has always been an exciting filmmaker for me. Ever since I saw his first feature film Timecrimes, I’ve always wanted to see more of this work. His handling of genre film and melding it with themes of humanity or topical themes has always fascinated and thrilled me. Timecrimes was a great time-travel film that…
The question a film critic often wants to ask, but is discouraged from for fear of offending someone, is why make this film? The answer is, more often than not, “because now was the right time.” And for Denial, this is most certainly true. In a world of newly termed ‘disenfranchised voters’ that are seemingly comfortable…
Naoko Yamada’s A Silent Voice is an authentic and delicate coming-of-age story exploring a tale of romance and redemption. The animation is based on the manga series of the same name from 2013-2014 by Yoshitoki Ōima. A Silent Voice provides a fruitful outlook on the future of Japanese anime, and its success in western markets,…
Poor Maureen (Kristen Stewart). Her boss, Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten) is impossible, sending her all over Europe for clothes and shoes she is too rich and famous to buy for herself. On top of that, her twin brother died a few months ago, and he still hasn’t contacted her from the beyond, even though he…
After proving himself a competent director and screenwriter with the rather modest (at least in comparison) action/comedy Hit & Run in 2012, Dax Shepard unfortunately fails to pair the aforementioned genres together again with CHiPs, an extremely loose adaptation of the popular 1977 television series, which attempts to blend sordid humour with high-grade action and…
More a celebration of drag culture than a heavy-handed expose, Divine Divas proves a fascinating watch as it allows a peak behind the curtains of one of Brazil’s first establishments to showcase men dressed as women. In 1960’s Rio de Janeiro, the Rival Theatre – under the forward thinking of Americo Leal – was one…
Dance Academy was one of the shows that defined by teenage years. I was by no means a dancer; yet the representation of real, raw teenage issues was presented in an Australian spotlight – especially on a network that was rather lukewarm at the time (ABC3, now branded as ABCME) was addictive for an entire…
A bold colour palette expressing traditional Chinese imagery overlays both the personal and political difficulties filmmaker Jennifer Zhang has with her mother in Tough, a short student film that redefines the documentary genre tag. In the space of four short minutes, Zhang manages to convey an alarmingly detailed view of her relationship with her mother,…
In 1968 we received Rosemary’s Baby. It was the film that established Roman Polanski’s ability to bring madness onto screen and placed Mia Farrow as the paranoid mother, unknowingly carrying Satan’s spawn through nine months of fear and mental ruin. It was a landmark film, exploring the psyche and anxiety of an expecting mother. In…
The first scene of Ghost In The Shell is incredibly haunting, as a crimson-hued setting features a fresh, human brain being delicately placed into a robotic body. It’s an uneasy mixture of human and AI – and according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk – it is a reality that’s not too far into the future, once…
Never have I been so disgusted and intrigued at the same time but after watching Two Pigeons – Dominic Bridges‘ directorial debut – its interesting how much we take our security and privacy for granted. After all, if you found you had a squatter living with you, would you ever really be the same? Vulgarity…
If Being 17 is any indication, the 2017 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival is off to a great start. Coming-of-age films are a genre that I deeply appreciate. With no need of a strong reliance on plot, seeing the progression of a protagonist through young adulthood can be compelling on a cinematic level. So when…
Though I am Vietnamese, because I was raised in Australia for all of my life, I never really experienced much of Vietnamese culture. However, there were some films that I had watched that had always stuck with me, and those were the works of Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung. Showing the true beauty in the…
Three years after we were wowed and bamboozled by The Lego Movie and that damn “Everything Is Awesome” song has now finally gotten out of our heads, it’s time to revisit one of its popular characters in his own standalone film. The Lego Batman Movie takes our dark, broody and narcissistic Dark Knight and puts…
A Bad Idea Gone Wrong is Jason Headley’s full feature length debut and I must say, Headley gives a simple concept a fantastic tune up. With this Comedy/Drama, two down on their luck thieves, Marlon (Matt Jones) and Leo (Will Rogers) land their next heist opportunity, a fancy mansion home while the owners are away….
A dark, moving yet warming adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s classic novel Une vie is eloquently created in to a period arthouse picture by director Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man), as a young woman comes to grasp the turmoil that unfolds around her in 19th-century France. The aesthetic of the film is created perfectly by…
To go back and transpose Power Rangers into a blockbuster teen superhero film in this day and age seems like an odd choice. Though the original TV series quickly became a cult hit, time hasn’t been so kind to the franchise, even if it has strangely persisted for over two decades (it’s 24th season is…
