Film & TV

There is a limit, even to the imagination, where our greatest creations meet our deepest fears. Event Cinemas George St are about to go beyond that limit In The House and are bringing you along for the ride. Join them February 17th for The Fly and Gattaca, two epic sci-fi classics! Tickets are only $13…

Aussie fans of The Walking Dead rejoice: Walker Stalker Con is heading Down Under next year. Organisers say they are currently “working hard” to bring cast favourites of the AMC horror drama to Australia during the first half of 2018. The Walker Stalker Convention began in Atlanta in 2013 and allows TWD fans to get…

Sydney recently played host to a screening of the film, E-Team, a documentary about Human Rights Watch’s Emergency Team, a group of fearless individuals that visit the front lines in order to document atrocities that are occurring. There was also a Q & A after the film with Elaine Pearson, the Australian director of Human…

“Are you just going to stand there and stare Christian Grey”? Anastasia Steele asks a tall well-dressed Christian Grey. “Yes”, he replies. Cue another sensually slow, but saucy scene where the two embrace and then another few roughly edited scenes later, we’re back at Steele’s work office, or a bar with her friends, as we cut back…

There seems to be no stopping the Lion juggernaut.  It made $3.05m at the box office this week, and sits at no. 1 on the ladder for the third week in a row.  To date, it has made  $16.22m, and if it make over $21m, it will sit alongside Red Dog, Mad Max: Fury Road and Strictly…

With the new TV series Training Day – an adaptation of the acclaimed 2001 film – hitting airwaves in the USA last week, we caught up with the show’s composer Jeff Cardoni to talk about his work taking the original score and reinterpreting it for the small screen. We also talk about some of his other…

Films adapted from a stageplay have always offered mixed results. While we have classics like Chicago, Glengarry Glen Ross and Sweeney Todd, we often have disasters like Rent and Mamma Mia! The reason for this is either because the stories of these plays or musicals do not have enough cinematic potential to succeed as a film-viewing experience or…

Released a little earlier today and in case you may have missed it, Netflix have officially dropped the full length trailer for its next big series Marvel’s Iron Fist. Marvel’s Iron Fist follows the story of Danny Rand (Finn Jones, ex Game of Thrones), a young man who returns to New York after being gone…

Announced at E3 2016 as a reboot of the 2006 original, Prey burst back onto the gaming scene, and looks like it intends to make a big splash. The original Prey, which released on the Xbox 360 and PC back in 2006, was an interesting take on the then-current trend of shooters to say the…

Madman Entertainment has secured Australia and New Zealand release rights to Mary and the Witch’s Flower, the debut feature from Studio Ponoc, the Japanese animation house founded by former Ghibli Studio producer Yoshiaki Nishimura and director Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The duo were the driving force behind the 2015 Oscar®-nominated When Marnie Was There. Currently in post-production,…

The first season of Wayward Pines made its premiere with auspicious timing. Aside from recruiting veteran actors Matt Dilon, Juliette Lewis and Toby Jones, or the fact that M. Night Shyamalan had joined as a producer and would direct the series pilot; the show would find its most eager audience in a void that had…

Disney’s Tony Award-Winning Broadway musical Newsies will make its worldwide cinema debut on February 19th, and we’ve got double passes in seven locations nationally to give away! Nominated for multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Newsies saw over 1000 performances before closing in 2014, and now musical theatre fans in Australia will have the chance…

Australian SVOD service Stan has been going from strength to strength since it first emerged as ferocious competition for similar services like Netflix and the recently defunct Presto. Of course 2017 is shaping up to be an even bigger year for the platform as the team behind it dive even deeper into on-demand and carve…

Another 21 features have been added to the SXSW Film Festival program for 2017, with James Franco’s The Disaster Artist topping the list, with the Austin event set to hold the anticipated film’s world premiere. The film is about the making of the cult classic The Room – often referred to as the Citizen Kane…

The fifth season of HBO’s Girls – in many ways – raised the bar for the popular but divisive series. Both as a writer and an actress, Lena Dunham cleverly and effectively built on all the aspects of the show that have worked in the past and dropped what didn’t. Efforts by everyone involved helped…

Today was a massive day for sports. You probably heard about it. The Atlanta Falcons blew a 25 point lead and fell to the New England Patriots at Superbowl LI. But maybe you’re not into sports. Maybe, like us here at The Iris, you’re major movie buffs and if that’s the case, then the Superbowl…

Organisations like Human Rights Watch are essential, as they help expose atrocities taking place in war-torn countries. The organisation regularly runs a Human Rights Film festival and they are also supporting a screening of a documentary film called E-Team, a look at what has been happening in Syria and Libya. It was also the recipient of…

The Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) launched its program this year, with 2017 also being its 30th anniversary year. Held at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Federation Square, Melbourne, the conference runs from 5th to the 8th March. Passes, both All Access and Day Passes (for days 2-4 only) are now…

One of the best television shows of 2016 is coming to Australia with award winning comedy drama Atlanta to air on SBS Viceland (formerly SBS 2) from the end of this month. Created by Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) who also stars in the acclaimed series, Atlanta will premiere on Tuesday, February 28 with two episodes from 9.20pm….

Winter at Westbeth is a film that’s all about “the art.” And celebrating it at every age. This documentary looks at three young at heart, elderly, American artists who live in a vibrant, housing complex called Westbeth Artists Housing in New York. It is ultimately a film that is like a love letter to the…

Now’s your chance to sit back, grab some food and drink, and start the diet. The Santa Clarita Diet! Just over a year ago I would have told you it was silly to even fathom a show’s entire season coming out in one day. It made no sense to me back then, how could they…

After thirty years of acclaim in the US, British comedy treasure Tracey Ullman is back in the UK with this all-new character-driven sketch comedy series. Discover the secret life of a shoplifter and hooligan Dame Judi Dench; Dame Maggie Smith’s home-filmed auditions for blockbuster feature films; an inside look at the life of Germany’s Angela…

There is no way for Peter Berg’s Patriot’s Day to avoid being labelled as exploitative and “too soon”, if even just for the title. For the past few weeks critics have been piling onto the director’s dramatic retelling of the bombings which took place during the annual Boston Marathon in April of 2013, killing three…

It’s no longer Sunny with Ice Cube in town. The new red-band trailer for school-yard comedy Fist Fight has just dropped, with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Horrible Bosses star Charlie Day against Ice Cube (Ride Along films, 21 Jump Street) in the battle of the teachers, after Ron Strickland (Cube) is accidently fired by co-worker Andy…

Ten years after Daniel Day-Lewis‘ Oscar-winning performance in There Will Be Blood, a creative reunion with writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love) has begun production in the UK. The currently untitled film will take place in London’s fashion world during the 1950s, and “illuminates the life behind the curtain of an uncompromising…

The Melbourne creatives behind Shimmerlands have stepped beyond the usual realm of arts and culture festivals with an outstanding collaborative program between Shadow Electric and the University of Melbourne. Now at the half way point, this two-month long festival has been wowing audiences with the stellar curation of films and live music acts night after night….

As the successor to the original PlayStation, and the awkward stepping block to the technically superior PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 is often largely dismissed by the modern era of gamers. Lacking the classic nostalgia of the original console, and the refined graphical capabilities and endurance of the PlayStation 3, the games of this era…

When you take an idea like the story of a dreamer, and mash it together with a cautionary tale about the wolves of Wall Street and big business. With your lead character as that grizzled underdog type, and have it all based loosely on a true story the result you get is Gold. Set in…

Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea arrives in Australian cinemas this week, a year after it was the hit of Sundance and not long after it garnered an impressive six Oscar nominations. These accolades include surprise acting nods to Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges, alongside Casey Affleck, who has already taken…

Joining head of the Jury Rose Byrne for Tropfest’s 25-year anniversary will be actor Sam Neill (Hunt for the Wilderpeople), directors George Miller (Mad Max) and Rachel Perkins (Bran Nue Dae) and producer Bruna Papandrea (Gone Girl). “It is an enormous honour to add these esteemed filmmakers to the Tropfest Jury in our 25th year,” said Tropfest Founder and Chair, John Polson. “We’re excited for our judges…