Film & TV

Interview: Producer Geoffrey Wexler talks living in the shadow of Ghibli in Mary and the Witch’s Flower

Earlier this week I caught up with Producer Geoffrey Wexler, who talked about Studio Ponoc’s first feature, Mary and the Witch’s Flower. Comprised of ex-members of Studio Ghibli, we talk about creating the film in the shadow of the iconic Japanese animation studio’s legacy, creating strong female characters and working with an incredible English cast. We…

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Film Review: Maze Runner: The Death Cure (USA, 2018) delivers a satisfying conclusion to the franchise

While the Maze Runner franchise has been far from original, each film has delivered a healthy dose of fun and been crafted quite impressively. Gratefully, Wes Ball’s Maze Runner: The Death Cure, the final instalment in the series, continues that trend and offers fans a deserving farewell. It does so in the fact that it’s entirely familiar…

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Film Review: Sweet Country (Australia, 2018) is Australia’s answer to To Kill A Mockingbird

Man on the run. Sweet Country is based on the true, Australian story about a point in history where justice was put on trial. For this reason, it has echoes of To Kill A Mockingbird except that here, Atticus Finch isn’t a lawyer but a preacher played by Sam Neill. The result is a shockingly…

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Win a DVD prize pack that includes The Dinner starring Richard Gere and Steve Coogan

Based on the international best-seller by Herman Koch, The Dinner invites us to a chic, exclusive restaurant with two seemingly successful couples, Paul and Claire Lohman (Steve Coogan and Laura Linney) and Paul’s politician brother Stan and his wife Katelyn (Richard Gere and Rebecca Hall). As the evening and each course progresses, their cracks as…

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Interview: Swinging Safari director Stephan Elliott on finding the truth in his comedy and why he will never work in America again

Primarily known for the defining Australian classic Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, writer/director Stephan Elliott is hoping his latest cinematic venture earns similar status and praise.  A labor of love, Swinging Safari is a semi-autobiographical comedy that expresses the trials and tribulations of Elliott’s own childhood through a series of wild montages that highlight the…

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Win a Blade Runner 2049 prize pack with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a sequel to Blade Runner emerges. The critically acclaimed Blade Runner 2049 stars Harrison Ford, who reprises his iconic role, Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, and newcomers Sylvia Hoeks and Ana De Armas. In a world full of bioengineered humans – replicants – created as slaves by the Wallace…

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Sony unleashes the beast with a Lim-Ed Monster Hunter World PS4 Pro

Sony Interactive Entertainment Australia has revealed a limited edition Monster Hunter: World PlayStation 4 Pro bundle to celebrate the game’s release on 26 January, 2018.

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Five movie trailers you may have missed over the holidays

While Australian holiday season isn’t prime time for movie releases, that doesn’t stop us from catching a bunch of awesome trailers of films to look forward to! So in case you missed them, let’s cover the top 5 trailers you may have missed over December and the start of January. 5. Sicario 2: Soldado (2018) Director Denis…

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Film Review: The Shape of Water (USA, 2017) is a breathtaking, big screen spectacle

At the Golden Globes last weekend, Director Guillermo Del Toro accepted a long overdue Best Director trophy for his latest effort The Shape of Water, which has been something of a surprise award season favourite around the world, topping both the Globes and BAFTA nominations lists (among others). In the speech, which brought the film’s…

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We talk all things Swinging Safari with Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, Asher Keddie and Radha Mitchell

In the lead up to its national release on January 18th, the cast and crew of the new Australian comedy Swinging Safari strutted their stuff down the orange carpet to talk all about their crazy new film, one which has the potential to earn classic status alongside director Stephan Elliott‘s defining feature, Priscilla, Queen of…

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Film Review: Swinging Safari (Australia, 2018) is a gloriously playful film that finds the humour and horror of growing up in 1970’s Australia

Spin-the-vase, a late night taste of fondu, and a rotting beached whale make for just some of the intricate ingredients of Stephan Elliott‘s semi-autobiographical comedy Swinging Safari, a gloriously playful film that finds both the humour and the horror of growing up in Australia in the 1970’s. As kinetic a film it may be (I…

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Total War will take gamers to ancient China with ‘Three Kingdoms’

Come Spring 2018, SEGA will be blessing Total War fans with a new entry into the long-established historical strategy series. Total War: Three Kingdoms will be the next major title up Creative Assembly’s highly successful sleeve, and for the very first time it will be taking gamers to explore ancient China.

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Watch Taika Waititi fool around the set of Thor: Ragnarok in this new featurette

Marvel Studios have recently released a small featurette of Taika Waititi, director of Thor: Ragnarok, aptly named “On Set Moments with Taika”, fooling around on the Gold Coast set and giving us a deeper understanding of Taika himself, and how his energy, personality and passion rubbed off on Thor: Ragnarok to great effect. After Taika’s hilarious…

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Win a copy of Mother starring Jennifer Lawrence on DVD

In Darren Aronofsky’s praised opus Mother, uninvited guests arrive at the home of Oscar winners Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, disrupting their tranquil existence; their relationship is tested and pushed to the breaking point in this masterful nightmare. Mother is available to own 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from January 17th, 2018 and…

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Call of Duty World League National Circuit open to Australia and New Zealand

Competitive Call of Duty teams from both Australia and New Zealand now have the chance to sign up to the Call of Duty World League National Circuit to test their skills and teamwork on a national scale, in order to prove who’s the best down under.

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Film Review: Mary and the Witch’s Flower (Japan, 2017) is a familiar yet dazzling adventure that will please Studio Ghibli fans

It’s that fantastic time of the year again! We have another Studio Ghi–Wait a minute! This isn’t a Studio Ghibli film! It is in fact, a Studio Ponoc film. In case you don’t know, Studio Ponoc is an animation studio that was founded in 2015 by people who used to work in Studio Ghibli. One…

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The second season of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is brilliantly bizarre television

Already brimming with time travel and eccentric characters, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency had a particular type of strangeness to maintain when going into the second season. At the helm of Max Lendis, Dirk Gently is finally back on our screens in an addictive second season – currently screening on Netflix – that features a…

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5 video games we’re looking forward to in 2018

It’s a new year, which means that there’s gonna be a lot of new releases. Its also 2018, which means that we’re gonna get our hands on soo many amazing titles. It was hard enough to narrow my list down to just 5 games, but these are the ones that I know with 100% certainty…

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Film Review: The Post (USA, 2017) is a thrilling look at a significant point in history

These days the words, “The Post” are more likely to get you thinking about a blog then a newspaper. In fact, Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Post is all about history and a bygone era in print journalism. It’s a historic thriller and bio-pic that looks at how The Washington Post handled the decision to…

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PC Gaming Set for a Revolution With NVIDIA’S Big Format Gaming Displays

With the introduction of NVIDIA’s Big Format Gaming Displays, PC gaming is set to undergo a theatre-sized revolution, bringing together NVIDIA’s G-SYNC and SHIELD technologies to create a supersized, streamlined gaming experience.

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Film Review: Darkest Hour (UK, 2017) is a celebration of Churchill’s war of words

Winston Churchill was a leading writer and orator. So it should come as no surprise that Darkest Hour, a new biopic about the British leader sees the usual guns and weaponry synonymous with wartime films replaced with words, glorious words. While the story is not the most necessary one (as it has been told countless…

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Margot Robbie to attend Australian Premiere of I, Tonya

Roadshow Films has recently announced that Australian actress Margot Robbie, will be visiting Sydney in order to promote her latest Golden Globe winning film I, Tonya. Robbie will walk the red carpet in Sydney’s Hoyts Entertainment Quarter on Tuesday 23 January. The film is directed by Craig Gillespie and features stars Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney,…

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Big Little Lies and Three Billboards win big at the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards

The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards are now over, with all winners officially announced in a ceremony earlier today in Hollywood, California. Critically acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri came up strong, winning the award for best film for drama, while Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell also won awards for their roles in the…

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Win a copy of Slasher 2: Guilty Party on DVD

Brought together by a horrific secret they’ve long kept buried, a group of former summer camp counsellors must return to an isolated resort in the dead of winter to retrieve evidence of a crime they committed in their youth. Deep in the snow-covered wilderness, the run-down camp has now become a private spiritual commune, cut-off…

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Win a double pass to the advanced screening of The Commuter starring Liam Neeson in Sydney

In this action-packed thriller, Liam Neeson plays Michael, an insurance salesman whose daily commute home quickly becomes anything but routine. After being contacted by a mysterious stranger, Michael is forced to uncover the identity of a hidden passenger on the train before the last stop. As he works against the clock to solve the puzzle,…

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Film Review: All the Money in the World is compelling but flawed (USA, 2017)

Ridley Scott made a very tough, very challenging decision in direct response to last year’s accusations of sexual assault against Kevin Spacey; he decided to pull the actor from All the Money in the World entirely, even after most of the scenes had been shot (and a trailer was released), with only a month left…

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Interview: Australian Documentary Star David Elliot-Jones on trying out Insta-Fame for his film Big In Japan

Directed by Lachlan McLeod and edited by Louis Dai, Big in Japan tells the story of David Elliot-Jones, a bigger than average Joe. Or was that just an average Joe? David isn’t anyone special, like you and I, he dreams of having his work seen, being heard, being noticed… but if it doesn’t happen, we shrug and get back…

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Film Review: Francis McDormand is unstoppable in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (USA, 2017)

Fearlessness and eagle-eyed justice drive Mildred Hayes as she takes an entire town’s police squad to task for failing to properly investigate her daughter’s rape and murder in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Martin McDonagh’s black comedy is all it has been hyped up to be: sharp, wry, nuanced, clever, hilarious and utterly compelling as…

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Film Review: Pitch Perfect 3 (USA, 2017) is a little off key but still delivers the laughs

Welcome back Pitches! So the third and final installment of the Pitch Perfect franchise is about to land with all the Barden Bellas crew returning for one more hurrah. When the first film hit cinemas in 2012 it tapped into a hot new trend of reality tv-shows and Youtube performers and Glee-style musical numbers of…

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Interview: Ruby Rose talks Pitch Perfect 3 and why she doesn’t want to direct a feature

Ruby Rose chats to The Iris’ Peter Gray about how she landed her role in Pitch Perfect 3, getting to skip the action this time around… and she tells us why she doesn’t want to direct a feature film. Watch the full interview here: Pitch Perfect 3 is in cinemas on New Years Day through…

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