Film & TV

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…

Director and Actor Mark Webber premiered his new film Flesh and Blood at SXSW earlier this month; a docu-style film which stars his own family and blurs the line between fact and fiction. I sat down with Mark, his mother Cheri Honkola, brother Guillermo Santos, and actress Madeline Brewer (Orange Is the New Black) to talk…

One of the films that made a splash at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas was Robert Mockler‘s directorial debut Like Me. A film that was set around society’s obsession with social media, I sat down with the director to talk about the kickstarter campaign that made the production possible, its…

Australian Director Emma Franz‘s poignant documentary Bill Frisell, A Portrait premiered earlier this month at SXSW in Austin, Texas. The film is, as the name suggests, a portrait on the much loved musician Bill Frisell, both in his own words and through interviews with iconic artists like Bonnie Raitt and Paul Simon. I sat down…

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…

One of the year’s most anticipated superhero films is without question WB’s Justice League, which is bringing together a slew of DC’s most well known comic book heroes into one film – based of course after the comic books of the same name. They are to DC what The Avengers is to Marvel.  And over…

Having already brought us one of the best black comedies of all time with In Bruges, and a memorable follow-up with Seven Psychopaths, it comes as little surprise that director Martin McDonagh has us excited about his new film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And with the release of the first red-band trailer for the…

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….

“Something They Need” wrapped up everything the way you would expect, setting some final pieces in place for the inevitable showdown in next week’s finale. The problem with this is that the absence of anything unexpected, outside of some nice bits of drama over at The Sanctuary, resulted in a clean episode that lacked any…

This year will see Australian SVOD service Stan bring out a sizable chunk of their original content, truly stepping up as their popularity increases across the country. A unique function of this is the commitment to Australian stories and artists, the latest of which is being realised in the recently debuted One Night Stan. The…

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…

Just released on Netflix, the biopic The Most Hated Woman in America is the true story of iconic Atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, starring a brilliant Melissa Leo in the title role. The film had is world premiere earlier this month at SXSW and while there, I sat down with the film’s director Tommy O’Haver…

Directed by Eshom and Ian Nelms, Small Town Crime is a neo noir that isn’t here to reinvent the wheel, rather attempt to perfect itself as a genre piece. Not that it can be pigeon-holed. Part western, part crime fiction, part family drama, and a lot of noir, the film doesn’t cut any corners for…

Growing up playing video games, there was never any need to pay more after an initial purchase. You’d walk down to your local Toys”R”Us, pick up your brand new copy of Digimon World 3, plonk it in the disc drive of your scratched up PlayStation and you’d be off. If there was an issue with…

While at SXSW, we caught the brilliant documentary Through The Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film (read our review HERE). The film documents a Land Art project by Post Commodity, situated on the border between Mexico and the United States – the future home of Trump’s proposed border wall. I sat down with the film’s Austin based…

Transmission Films have announced that the brilliant BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning actor Bill Nighy will be travelling across Australia to promote his upcoming film, Their Finest with special event screenings in Sydney and Melbourne in April. “The opportunity to host an actor as beloved as Bill Nighy is an absolute privilege,” said Transmission Films…

The Spanish Film Festival has just revealed the stellar line-up for its 20th anniversary, with a star-studded line-up of films featuring performances from Penélope Cruz, Steve Coogan, Maribel Verdú and Rob Brydon in a new installment of The Trip, alongside a whole plethora of brilliant Spanish films. The centrepiece film this year will be Berlinale…

Hot on the heels of the news that the global streaming rights to his new horror film Madre had been picked up by Netflix at SXSW 2017, our own Larry Heath sat down with the film’s director Aaron Burns for a chat that spans his career-to-date,  his process, a never-ending desire to create and the influences that…

The second season of HBO’s animated series Animals just premiered, and in anticipation of its release I sat down with the series creators Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano at SXSW to talk about its return, Bill Cosby, warping minds, The Duplass Brothers (the series’ Executive Producers) and taking acid on 3-11. So I just came…

Sony Interactive Entertainment Australia is today celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Playstation Store and a full decade of downloads with great sales across a wide range of titles. To mark the momentous occasion, players can enjoy the ‘Only on Playstation’ sale, now live on the PS Store until April 5th. On sale are a…

Following last episodes tragic conclusion, Ties That Bind: Part II opened fairly solemnly in comparison. But that was about the quietest the second instalment got as it rounded out its two hour play time with twists and healthy does of action.

The team at Microsoft Store, Sydney have today announced an exciting new opportunity for Australian students with a passion for gaming and graphics. Xbox Academy will be a videogame-fueled educational establishment opening its doors in April to a multi-talented student cohort of designers and developers. In partnership with the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, Australia’s most…

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…

When you wake up in a different place at a different time, can you wake up as a different person? Join us for some Mischief. Mayhem and Soap at Event Cinemas George St for Fight Club! How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? Tickets are only $13 (or…

Filming has begun on Guernsey, the big screen adaptation of Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows‘ international bestselling epistolary novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, In the aftermath of WWII, free-spirited journalist Juliet Ashton forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write…

One day Hollywood might be able to come up with a new science fiction movie that has us discovering a fluffy cute adorable friendly alien. One day Hollywood might be able to come up with a group of characters who actually have character development, prior to being ruthlessly dispatched. One day Hollywood might be able…

Games projects are abandoned for a variety of reasons, from financial loss and over-ambition, to corporate meddling, and sometimes, it’s a little something in between. Loving video games is hard sometimes, but seeing our most anticipated titles cancelled without warning is harder. Last time, we took you through some of the most disappointing cancellations in…

Toshiba has today announced the release of the highly anticipated Portégé X20 premium convertible PC, which functions as both a notebook and tablet. The Portégé X20 comes equipped with the latest 7th Generation Intel® Core™ vPro processors, and runs on Windows 10 Pro. The Portégé X20 aims to deliver advancements in security, performance, manageability and connectivity…

In the pecking order of classic 3D platformers, the Gex series often ranks quite low. It’s not considered to be as fun or nostalgic as Spyro the Dragon or Crash Bandicoot, and it’s often overlooked in discussions about reboots and remasters. With Crash Bandicoot finally receiving an HD remaster in the form of the upcoming…