Film & TV

Where most foreigners settling in Japan pass their time in Japanese pubs, English schools or seeking out every piece of longstanding architecture, David Elliot-Jones spent his trying to become famous. And you’ve probably never heard of the guy, but that doesn’t mean he failed. Big in Japan opens with a preface about the seemingly endless…

2017! What an unmitigated dumpster fire. Which I know is about as far from a hot take as you can get, but my point is this: somehow, escapism became a counterbalance. Some of the best games (and films, and movies, and albums, and books) came out this year, as if artistic antibodies hurried to fight…

**SPOILER WARNING!** The following contains spoilers regarding the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas Special, “Twice Upon a Time”. And with that, the sprawling, often brilliant but mostly wildly inconsistent [Steven] Moffat run on Doctor Who is over!  …Oh, right. We’re meant to be talking about the regeneration of Capaldi into Whittaker. Well, that was brilliant, clearly….

Going for broke and wearing its heart on its sleeve for all to appreciate, The Greatest Showman is a corny yet engaging musical that embraces its overt positivity with stride. An enthusiastically romanticised telling of how legendary American showman P.T. Barnum (portrayed by a wholly committed Hugh Jackman) worked his way from rags to riches…

As it has done well over its past three seasons, Black Mirror has surprised me. However this year, the surprise hasn’t come in the form of a deadly plot twist halfway through the narrative’s third act, or a realisation that comes in the form of sad ending. No, this year it was the episode that I had,…

It’s quite amusing that films based on videogames like Assassin’s Creed, Max Payne, Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter are complete rubbish and yet films that revolve around videogames or reflect the videogame aesthetic are a different story. With films like David Cronenberg‘s sci-fi body horror film eXistenZ (which is a spiritual followup to Videodrome),…

There is no escaping a society defined by over-consumption, over-population, excessive stress and glaring inequality as Alexander Payne delivers a big message with a small scale, working his surrealist charm and far-flung sense of adventure into Downsizing. The long-gestating project, directed by Payne and written with frequent collaborator Jim Taylor, is a grand, and at…

Since Netflix’s launch the streaming service provider has been pumping out its own studio content to screen exclusively on its service. As the service provider grows it also attempts more ambitious projects working with directors, producers, script writers and actors of a higher calibre. We saw this in Okja that was released a couple of…

Last month as one of Australia’s leading pop culture conventions, Supanova Comic Con And Gaming, wrapped up its final tour for the year, they dropped a huge guest announcement for their next shows in 2018. Following on from that broadcast comes yet another release that is sure to put a smile on Supanova fans dials….

As of writing this review, the Australian Parliament has passed the law, allowing same-sex marriage. What great timing, right? Anyway, Call Me By Your Name. This film has been gathering up critical buzz ever since it made its premiere splash at Sundance back in January. Then it showed at many other film festivals like Toronto…

Bringing their perfect pitch and poise to the red carpet on the (not-so) eve of the release of the closing chapter of the Pitch Perfect series – appropriately titled Pitch Perfect 3 – founding Bellas Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow and Anna Camp, alongside new recruit Ruby Rose, allowed their devoted fanbase the opportunity to say…

This piece contains spoilers regarding Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi is here. Rian Johnson, writer and director of Brick, The Brothers Bloom and Looper, has been given the reins to the Star Wars empire. I met and dined with Johnson back a few years, and he was utterly lovely. Quiet, friendly, humble….

We really shouldn’t be overly surprised at this point when Pixar release yet another beautiful, thought provoking, emotionally stirring film. What’s more important is the respective film’s ranking in the overall studio canon, and if it will earn longevity (ala Toy Story) or leave little impression (2015’s The Good Dinosaur). Time will tell if Coco…

Just To Be Sure (Ôtez-moi d’un doute) is a French comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It deals with some important and weighty issues like: family, identity and roots but handles these in a quirky and funny way. What could have been a self-proclaimed neo-Greek tragedy actually turns out to be a fun and…

First things first, Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package has a great sense of humour, as you can tell from the title, and its original release on the Xbox One was received well enough that PlayStation fans can now get a piece of the action as well.

Starring Judi Dench and Ali Fazal, Victoria and Abdul is Stephen Frears’ latest film, chronicling the unlikely friendship of Queen Victoria and her Indian attendant, Abdul Karim, in the late 1800s. The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray this week, and to get some more perspective on the project, I caught up with British…

I don’t know how the first Paddington film became as good as it is. Considering that the trailers made it look awful and the late cast changes in regards to who provides the voice of the titular bear, I was actually expecting the worst. But to everyone’s shock, it turned out to be one of…

The Australian outback has provided the Wolf Creek universe with a terrifying, swallow-them-whole landscape across both film and TV for the past 12 years now. When director, producer and writer Greg McLean first unleashed his horror concept (and debut feature film) to the world back in 2005, word-of-mouth was swift and excitable, championing Australian horror…

It’s that time of the year again, as the nominations for the 75th Golden Globe Awards were recently announced. Covering a range of entertainment forms, the Golden Globe Awards seek to shine a light on the most impressive performances and projects to grace our screens. Nominations flew in left, right and centre, with major films…

With every new Star Wars film comes the obvious comparisons to its predecessors. Yes there are epic space battles between X-Wings and Tie Fighters. Yes there are wild twirling lightsaber fights. And most importantly there is the deep, spiritual and emotional journey of our characters (some more than others). These have always and will always…

Similar to the majority of other anime titles on offer, In This Corner of the World is suitably aimed at older audiences.  Whilst the animated medium usually suggests family-friendly viewing, Sunao Katabuchi‘s thematically heavy drama is more thought-provoking than visually reliant. Concerning itself predominantly with the bombing of Hiroshima towards the end of World War…

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was a wildly popular and Emmy Award-winning reality TV series, and will now return 15 years later, under the name Queer Eye. The series will make its return thanks to streaming service Netflix as its global influence will introduce new and familiar audiences to a modern aesthetic. The show…

The Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. has recently presented a music-to-light show choreographed to the song “This is Me”, created by Academy and Tony Award-winning songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen) featured in the upcoming film The Greatest Showman. The show was designed by renowned lighting designer Marc…

Tommy Wiseau’s laughably bad The Room has such a strong and passionate cult following that the “disasterpiece” is still being discussed, screened and dissected 14 years after its limited cinematic release. There aren’t many films that can boast that kind of staying power, existing in a singular universe where something is so bad it takes…

I’m not quite sure what I just watched, and I find it hard to imagine a team of writers turning that script in and thinking that it would make for a satisfying, entertaining or even reasonable Mid-Season Finale. I love The Walking Dead, honestly, but “How It’s Gotta Be” was truly poor form for a…

This Friday Australian viewers will dive right back into the chilling world of Wolf Creek as Stan plans the second season to their successful miniseries adaptation of the horror franchise. Director Greg McLean is back on board, creating this six-part outback horror epic exclusively for Stan with John Jarratt reprising his role as self-righteous backpack-killer…

On Friday, after a couple of 15 second teasers sent tails wagging all over the internet, the first full length trailer dropped for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. After feasting our eyes on it for the first time, we had the chance to catch up with the film’s director, J. A. Bayona, to talk about lending…

It is the summer of 1983, and teenager Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is on holiday at his parents’ Italian villa. His days are spent reading, swimming and flirting with girls. At first, when his professor father’s new American assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer) arrives, Elio is indifferent. As the days pass, the two spend more time together…

So in Season One of The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May traversed around the world to various locations, hosting a show about cars, talking about cars, bickering about cars, getting into car-related shenanigans, and basically attempting to be serious car journalists when we all know that’s a bit of a lie….

Based on the real life story of Barry Seal, American Made follows the American commercial pilot who flew missions for the CIA and DEA, and became a drug smuggler for the Medellin Cartel in the 1980s, ultimately playing a significant role in the Iran-Contra Affair. This American biographical crime film directed was directed by Doug…