Reviews

Kicking off this year’s “Freak Me Out” program as part of the Sydney Film Festival was Tyler MacIntyre’s Patchwork, a horror-comedy gem that managed to fly under the radar when it was released last year. The charming indie is a literal blend of character, inventive in the way it draws from the influential idea behind…

Simply put, Swiss Army Man is a story about how a man, whilst lost and trapped on an island, befriends a seemingly magical corpse in order to find his way back to civilisation. However, this film is far more than that, it’s an examination of a multitude of themes. A comedy, a drama,a tale of friendship…

In 2014 a new live adaptation of the beloved comic and cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hit our screens. The reception wasn’t great, complaints aplenty from fans and mutiple Raspberry Awards made it fairly clear that the film’s producers, writers and the studio had some work to do to win back their audience. Two…

Our own Australian director James Wan has made quite a name for himself in the horror genre. Alongside some mild detours like the revenge-film Death Sentence and the ventriloquist horror Dead Silence, he started off the Saw franchise – which spawned SEVEN films. Next came the Insidious franchise – which spawned another FOUR films. Then all of a…

Simply titled and straight out of Denmark, A War dives into the thick of modern warfare and finds itself fascinated by the moral nuance that most blockbusters simply glaze over. It’s about a soldier coming to terms with a world that isn’t black and white – but not in the way you think. Pilou Asbæk headlines as Claus…

Jodie Foster hops onto the Director’s seat for Money Monster, a sort-of thriller that rightfully leans on the collective charismatic energy of leads George Clooney and Julia Roberts, as well as impressive young gun (pun intended) Jack O’Connell, to bring to life a story of economic frustration, uncertainty, and greed with a timely punch. Distrust…

The first Now You See Me had a thrifty premise and a slick cast but was let down by a last-minute plot twist that was, quite literally, almost-unbelievable. The second film,  while disappointingly not called either Now You See Me Too or Now You Don’t, settles a more evenly-spread acceptance of the impossible. However, if the series’ previous…

A film this intrinsically Aussie must exist as an enigma to international audiences. Something very alien, and as I thought once before, about what those people distant from the Antipodes would have made of Crackerjack, I again think for Pawno, and wonder whether subtitles could comprehend or merely transcribe the dialogue of a film so…

Have you seen that ad where the three kids sit in the car and talk about how their dads drive when they’re blazed? If so, you’ll probably recognise Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), though he’s done some growing. When he arrives at his latest foster home, deep in the New Zealand bushland, he steps out of…

It has been a long time coming, but it is here. It is finally here. A brand-spanking new film by renowned action-maestro Shane Black. For those who don’t know, Shane Black is responsible for writing cult-classic 80’s/90’s films like Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Last Action Hero and The Monster…

Mad Tiger is such a strange and brilliant film it’s hard to know where to begin. Donning Power Rangers-inspired costumes and describing themselves as a “Japanese Action Comic Punk band”, Peelander-Z are a band you’ve probably never heard but aren’t unlikely to forget once you encounter them. In their own words, their performances are probably…

Written and Directed by Lorene Scafaria, The Meddler is tender in its approach to comedy-drama; light on the former and heavy on the latter as it follows the highly likeable and sympathetic Marnie Minervini, who is portrayed with considerable depth by the supremely talented Susan Sarandon. The simple, soft touch with which Scafaria handles the…

X-Men: Apocalypse delivers the super fights, the superhero costumes, the supervillain and the super team. But was this latest X-Men film so special that, if it was a person, it would be enrolled at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters? Yes and no. Mild spoilers ahead. Set in 1983, 10 years after the previous Days of…

Tim Burton’s saturated interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s famed wonderland was nothing short of impressive when it illustrated 2010’s hugely successful Alice in Wonderland, laying out a strong case for cutting-edge 3D tech in cinema – a relatively new phenomenon six years ago. Dubbed “Underland”, the ostentatious gothic fantasy land reiterated Burton’s unrivaled imaginative flair, and…

Kim Baker, a war correspondent stationed in Afghanistan around 2005, is told by her local guide and interpreter, Fahim, that she is growing attached to the “thrill of the chase” – the hunting down of the leads, the perilous situations, the fearlessness of living and working in a war-torn country.  He tells her seriously and…

Though on its own terms Bastille Day is an above-average action thriller with a slew of slick action sequences and enough plot twists to make you dizzy, you can’t help but view it as star Idris Elba’s unofficial audition for the next 007 film, with the actor’s name quite often mentioned as a serious contender…

Florence Foster Jenkins opens with St Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) in front of a red curtain, reciting a little Shakespeare. We soon find out he’s just waiting to introduce Florence (Meryl Streep) his wife and client, who is starring in a cabaret of her own design for the patrons of her music club. The truth…

There are very few sequels that can better the original, and in the case of comedies, even less so. Films like Ghostbusters 2, the Hangover sequels, the American Pie films and others all failed to capture and improve on what made the originals successful in the first place. When I watched Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising,…

It’s no secret that nerd culture has a problem with sexism. From last year’s #gamergate to the more-recent controversy around Allison Rapp, discourse in the games industry has been dominated by this ugly cultural intersection between woman and video games. For those who haven’t been keeping tabs on things, GFTO is a reasonably effective primer as…

There are a LOT of crazy, yet infuriating stories that happen in Communist China. Some of the stories include an annual dog-eating festival to its catastrophic levels of pollution to hundreds of dead pigs in rivers and many others – but none of them had prepared me for this hard-hitting and shocking documentary. When I first…

The Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to be this juggernaut that keeps pumping out successful film after successful film. They’ve been on this upward trajectory for so long that it seems inevitable that they will have to stumble somewhere. Surprisingly and welcomingly so, Captain America: Civil War is not that movie. There is no denying that surpassing…

Biographical films, especially ones that revolve around triumphs of the human spirit, can range from the truly inspirational The Pursuit of Happiness to award-bait films like the dull and manipulative The Blind Side to unmitigated disasters like the agonizing Patch Adams. However, very few of those films show the comedic side of life and this is where Eddie the Eagle…

From Writer and Director Jeff Nichols, an emerging American auteur who has already slammed two home runs with the brilliant Take Shelter (2011) and the film which arguably reignited Matthew McConoughey’s career, Mud (2012), comes his most ambitious film to date – Midnight Special, which opens in Australian cinemas today. In Midnight Special – which…

A Tricky Treat is a short film. Like, 3 minute type of short. But that only means that you should free up 3 minutes to watch it because it nails everything it sets out to do. Written by Kamal John Iskander and directed by short film veteran Patricia Chica, A Tricky Treat subverts what we’ve…

It seems after Mockingjay Part 2, the last of The Hunger Games, people and Hollywood need to take a break from dystopias. Similar in plot, Allegiant is the latest installment in the Divergent series. It follows Tris (Shailene Woodley) and her friends in the aftermath of overthrowing the ruthless system that controlled Chicago, their home….

After going out of her way to make herself seem as unappealing as possible in the misguided Tammy, Melissa McCarthy opts for the opposite effect in The Boss, prettying herself up considerably (at least physically) to play a power-hungry mogul who, against our better judgement, we can’t hate as much as we should due to…

In the last decade Disney has slowly but surely been churning out live action versions of some of its classic films and stories. There’s been 101 Dalmations, Alice In Wonderland, Maleficent, and Cinderella to name a few. Now to add to that list is The Jungle Book, an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic story as…

Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s the best fairytale retelling of them all? The Huntsman: Winter’s War might not be – but at least it’s an improvement on Snow White & the Huntsman. Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as Eric/The Huntsman who’s given more depth and yes, a sad story in which most of his…

It was NRL luminary Jack Gibson who said, “In football, if you are standing still, you’re going backwards fast“. These words are lived by Heath Davis’s lapsed hero Barry Kelly (played by Steve Le Marquand) and extend to the broader film in the suburban melancholy and missed opportunities of Australian redemption tale, Broke. Broke begins…

Australia has played the crest to the wave of ‘indie horror’ films settling amongst international audiences. Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook was received as one of the best horror films of the decade, and the minimalist-horror ethos settles well with Australian roots in Outback Gothic; something that’s quite present in Joseph Sims-Dennett‘s Observance. The film follows…