Pain and Gain. The Wolf of Wall Street. Scarface. What do these films have in common? The characters are all on a quest to achieve their own versions of the American Dream. They are all about greed and the seduction of power that shows that absolute power corrupts absolutely. But what makes the first two…
If all was right in the highly politicised world of award shows, Logan Lerman would be looking at a good upcoming season, seeing as his performance as Marcus Messner in James Schamus’ Indignation will be almost impossible to overlook. The Cold War-era film is an adaptation of Philip Roth’s period novel of the same name,…
Laika Studios is an animation studio that is yet to become a household name. I honestly didn’t know them before hearing about their latest film, Kubo and the Two Strings. Though, without knowing it, I had already enjoyed their first studio film, Coraline, immensely. And reading about their other works like The Boxtrolls and Paranorman,…
Blake Lively finds herself in her own little Castaway-slash-All Is Lost-slash-Life of Pi type role with The Shallows, Director Jaume Collet-Serra placing a lot of faith in the young actress, who to this point is best known for her role on Gossip Girl. The purpose is to basically place Lively’s character, Nancy, as an injured…
Seemingly about the fun, bizarre world of an adult sub-culture called ‘Competitive Endurance Tickling’, comes a documentary that takes fast steps sideways, trips down some steep, morbidly dark stairs and leads viewers into the world of abuse, identity theft and cyber bullying. Like so many great documentaries before it, you walk away from Tickled wanting…
Seth Rogen has always been associated with stoner humour and raunchy comedy, but in the case of Sausage Party, he takes it to a whole new level. With animated films that have anthropomorphised objects like toys (i.e. the Toy Story films) and cars (i.e. Cars), Rogen had the idea to anthropomorphise consumer products while retaining…
Unapologetic, bold Australian “black comedy” Down Under had its world premiere earlier this year the 63rd annual Sydney Film Festival, the only logical platform for Writer/Director Abe Forsythe to debut his second feature film seeing as it concerns one of the most talked about and shameful moments in the city’s history. This inevitably controversial film…
When I realized that the directors of this film (also the writers of The Hangover) also directed the awful 2013 teen comedy 21 and Over and contributed screenplays to abysmal comedies like Four Christmases, Ghost of Girlfriends Past and Rebound, it’s fair to say that I went into Bad Moms – out in cinemas tomorrow…
The DC Comics Extended Universe (aka DCEU) has a bit of catching up to do if it wants to level up to its competitor Marvel. Even though DC has some of the more renowned superheroes in its deck of cards – Superman and Batman being two aces – it hasn’t had as much luck with…
It’s not very often a film will change my perspective on life, but after viewing Taryn Brumfitt’s documentary Embrace it was a completely different story. The roots of this inspiring documentary stem from a post of Brumfitt’s that went viral in 2013, depicting Taryn in an unconventional before and after photo – from having a…
Amongst the tales of historical power couples – Cleopatra and Caesar, Kahlo and Rivera, Boleyn and King Henry – none have dragged society to their feet in sheer anticipation as the reunion of Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon. We know the name, and despite their absence in the fourth installment, Damon and Greengrass return to…
Lights Out was, initially, an extremely well made and creepy short film. Created for the ‘Who’s There Film Challenge 2013’, it was directed by David Sandberg and starred Lotta Losten. Check out the original short: If you’re still breathing, you can then check out the film’s trailer here: When a mother, Sophie (Maria Bello), comes to…
We’ve now reached the third installment in what’s known as the ‘Kelvin Universe’ of the Star Trek film franchise. In Star Trek Beyond director/writer JJ Abrams ops to take a backseat this time switching gears and letting one of the stars, Simon Pegg, co-write and director of Fast And The Furious Justin Lin to steer….
The 2016 return of Ghostbusters has been copping almost non-stop criticism from the moment it was announced, from its first trailer drop, right up to its theatrical release. Because of this, it’s hard to escape any negative or foreshadowing thought going into this. But upon stepping out of the cinema after the screening finished, I…
There’s something an uncanny quality to Our Kind of Traitor. It looks like cold war thriller, sounds like a cold war thriller but, when you get down to it, it’s not. Not really. It wears the trappings of the genre with pride but, by taking place in modern times, fails to do much beyond wear them….
Tarzan is a character that I have enjoyed over the years. I’m far from a fanatic, but I did like the concept of a man living in the jungle, residing with its inhabitants to become one of them, as well as its fish-out-of-water plot. I grew up watching Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the…
There’s an ancient proverb: when you place two of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood in the same room together, they’re either going to carry the movie or destroy it. Or at least, that’s roughly how it goes. In the case of Central Intelligence, placing comedy’s new golden boy Kevin Hart in a suit alongside…
Like many people in the world, Roald Dahl has been one of my favourite authors during my childhood. His twisted sense of humour, his unique whimsical touch and its warm-hearted tone have delighted kids as well as adults all around the world and even the film adaptations of his works have all been well-regarded by…
There’s an extended sequence in Independence Day: Resurgence where an all-powerful queen-bee alien is chasing a Jeff Goldblum-driven school bus across the desert, somehow finding itself unable to keep up with his wild driving skills despite swatting down fighter-jets only moments earlier with unspoiled precision. It’s one of the many moments this large, loud sequel…
Viggo Mortensen is no stranger to portraying a damaged father in a journey to protect his children à la The Road, but Matt Ross’ quirky tale has a lot more than just Aragon to draw in audiences. A quick glance at Ross’ resume won’t inspire confidence because of its relative shortness, however, Captain Fantastic flew…
Dubbed the “spiritual predecessor” to his classic film Dazed and Confused, Richard Linklater’s new film Everybody Wants Some!! takes us from the 70s to the 80s, and from the last days of high school to the first days of college in Texas. Much like in Dazed, we meet a group of young people about to…
A journey following little more than what the title suggests, director Liza Johnson takes on her biggest task yet with Elvis & Nixon. It’s not easy to be trusted with the reigns of puppeteering acting powerhouses Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon. It’s an even tougher responsibility to direct them embodying two of the Twentieth Century’s…
One part coming of age tale, one part family drama and two parts fish out of water story, Morris from America is the third feature film from Indie Writer/Director Chad Hartigan, which had its Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival. The film stars comedian Craig Robinson alongside newcomer Markees Christmas, as Curtis Gentry and 13 year…
Following on from his recent slew of American indie movies, Jake Gyllenhaal attempts his best to command the screen in what can only be described as the standout aspect in the labourious study of grief that is, Demolition. Having celebrated recent acclaim with titles such as Dallas Buyers Club and Wild, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition sees…
Richard Kuipers, Programmer of the “Freak Me Out” program strain for Sydney Film Festival preceded a recent screening of The Eyes of My Mother with a fairly apt description: “the point where extreme art house and extreme horror meet”. While art house may outweigh horror here, Kuipers primed viewers correctly, Nicolas Pesce disturbing feature playing…
Sophisticated and Austen-worthy, Love and Friendship is a must see. Based on Jane Austen’s epistolary novella Lady Susan, the film centres on the original story’s namesake, played by Kate Beckinsale, a widow with a chain of scandals following her. She arrives at her in-laws’ home and is in search of husbands for her and her daughter. And…
Gimme Danger turns the amp up to 11 and never turns down for a second in its nearly two hour running time. Super loud, super charged, and super excellent, this documentary charting the rise, quick demise, and subsequent reunion of The Stooges is one hell of a good time. Written and directed by super fan…
Dark and clever, What’s in the Darkness is in a league of its own being a mixture of crime and coming of age story. Directed by first-time director Wang Yichuan, the story follows teenager Jing (Su Xiaotong) who’s discovering her identity and sexuality. Soon she gets tangled up with a case involving a serial killer…
A little bit of a confession before I start this review: I am not overly familiar with Iranian cinema. Apart from films by Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farahdi, I haven’t seen a lot of films from Iran, especially genre films. However, I saw a film called A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, a Persian-language film…
Satanism has been a film trope in horror films for many years, and it has paid off with fantastic offerings like Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil’s Advocate and The Omen. However, it has also produced some terrible films like End of Days, The Devil Inside and Jennifer’s Body; films that tried to be different but failing for different…
