Film & TV

Film Review: My Pet Dinosaur (Australia, 2017) follows a well-trodden path

Australia is not widely known for its family fantasy films. But with a plot replicating that age-old story of a boy befriending and protecting a mythical creature from the government, surely this film would fit safely into the same mould, right? Unfortunately and somewhat unsurprisingly, the answer is, in the case of Matt Drummond’s new…

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Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (USA, 2017) evokes the weird wonderment of the original

Whilst the general consensus is that the Marvel cinematic universe as a whole is one of the more consistent entities for audiences and critics alike, their track-record for delivering underwhelming sequels (at least compared to their predecessors) is hard to quarrel against.  Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron are all…

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Netflix Review: Casting JonBenet is an ambitious, clever and exploitative, experimental documentary

Casting JonBenet is a film that requires you to know this unsolved murder case but also leave your expectations at the door. In the 20 years that have passed since the murder of the child beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey there have been all manner of documentary exposés and coverage of this crime. Yet Casting JonBenet…

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Film Review: Festival bound Supergirl (USA, 2016) is an inspiring documentary about achieving the impossible

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Supergirl! The documentary, Supergirl is a film about an American girl with superhuman strength. It’s an inspirational story that is about kicking down barriers and achieving the impossible in the competitive world/sport that is powerlifting. This documentary is the debut feature length film by director Jessie Auritt. The story focuses…

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Win a copy of the Bad Girl soundtrack composed by Warren Ellis & tickets to see the film

After selling out screenings at MIFF, Busan and the recent Mardi Gras Film Festival, Bad Girl written and directed by Fin Edquist will receive a national theatrical release in selected cinemas opening April 27. A brooding tale where old family wounds and an unyielding sense of dislocation escalate into a deranged and lethal game, Bad…

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Full list of the 2017 TV Week Logie Award Winners

Samuel Johnson took out the 2017 TV Week Gold Logie for Best Personality on Australia Television for his portrayal of music veteran Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum. It was all going so well until the moment was overshadowed by Meldrum himself who took to the mic in a mighty drunken state. At the night’s pivotal moment, let’s just say we kept it…

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Video: We hit the red carpet of the 59th Annual TV Week Logie Awards

Kara Bertoncini hits the 2017 Logies Red Carpet to ask the stars which Aussie TV show they’d love a remake of, and to ask the hard hitting questions like which is better; Home and Away or Neighbours, beards or no beards, Smarties or M&Ms? There’s never a dull moment on the red carpet with Kara!…

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Dust off your tinfoil hats: The X-Files revival series to return later this year

After a mostly well-received miniseries return for beloved sci-fi show The X-Files in early 2016, FOX has announced today with a teaser photo that the show will return for the 2017-18 season. Deadline reports that FOX has ordered a similar 10-episode run for the cult series, and will see the return of stars Gillian Anderson…

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Win a double pass to see a double screening of RoboCop and Flash Gordon at In The House in Sydney

Two iconic cult-classic superheros. One In The House Night at Event Cinemas George St on April 28th! Part man. Part machine. All cop. The future of law enforcement. The classic RoboCop at 6:30pm and get ready to kick some Flash. Flash Gordon at 9:30pm. He’ll save every one of us! Join Jill from Kapow and…

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Messed up horror film The Evil Within is getting some Australian screenings

Bounty Films has announced Melbourne and Brisbane screenings of twisted, meth-fuelled, cult film, The Evil Within.  The Evil Within will be screening in Melbourne at the Astor Theatre on the 25th of April at 9.30pm and the Lido Cinemas on the 28th of April at 9.00pm. Then in Brisbane at the Event Cinemas Myer Centre at the on 14th of…

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Gold Coast Film Festival Review: Pork Pie (New Zealand, 2017) only bolsters the legacy of the original

After more than thirty years, the amber Mini has once more made the journey from tip to tip in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Pork Pie brings the 1981 New Zealand classic Goodbye Pork Pie into the 21st century, and it returns with more than just the mini. Goodbye Pork Pie played a…

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Filming begins on Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born remake

Filming has begun on Warner Bros. Pictures’ re imagining of the musical A Star is Born, starring Bradley Cooper and Stefani Germanotta, (better known as the incomparable Lady Gaga) in her first leading role in a major motion picture. It also marks Cooper’s directorial debut as he helms the musical drama. Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a country…

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Elizabeth Debicki on growing up in Australia & becoming part of the MCU in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2

In the last several years Paris-born Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki has had a near overnight rise to success in her acting career. A lucky break thanks to Baz Luhrmann and being cast in The Great Gatsby has resulted in a number of other large scale Hollywood productions to cast her also. However her latest project…

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TV Review: Netflix’s Girlboss sees a caustic hustler-turned-throwaway-fashion success story

Girlboss is a series that may leave viewers feeling conflicted. While it’s great to see an underdog making good and pursuing her passion it’s also hard to root for a lead character who is so inherently unlikeable. This Netflix series is ultimately like a fun ball of fairy floss, it’s pleasant enough at first bite;…

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TV Review: Girls‘ sixth & final season bows out with unexpected grace

Though it started on what seemed like uneven ground, the final season of HBOs Girls manages to not only pull the series strengths together and end on a high note but also manage to do so while remaining as imperfect and messy as it’s ever been. Even if Lena Dunham’s voice is not “your” voice,…

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Win a double pass to see Pork Pie, in cinemas May 4th.

Jon (Dean O’Gorman, THE HOBBIT Trilogy, TRUMBO), a charming but out-of-luck novelist, musters the bravery needed to try and win back the love of his life by surprising her at a friend’s wedding. One problem: he’s in Auckland and the wedding is in Wellington. After a failed attempt to make the journey south in his…

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Tickets on sale for screenings of 2016 Lexus Short Film Fellowship recipients

Tickets are set to be released today for the world-premiere screenings of recipients of the 2016 Lexus Short Film Fellowship. In partnership with the Sydney Film Festival, the short films will be shown at an exclusive screening and throughout the Festival itself in mid-June. This year’s filmmakers and respective short films include Anya Beyersdorf (How the Light…

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Gold Coast Film Festival Review: Sophie & The Rising Sun (USA, 2017) is an intense story about a powerful & forbidden love

Before there was Loving there was Sophie & The Rising Sun (well, sort of). Sophie & The Rising Sun is a romantic story and like Loving it is one that’s all about a bi-racial couple. The film is ultimately a beautiful but fictional love story where you can really sit back, relax and get lost…

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Film Review: Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy & Lucy (USA, 2008) is a sleepy character study about a homeless woman & her dog

Wendy & Lucy is a film that could be renamed “A Street Dog Named Lucy.” I tells the story of a homeless and nomadic American woman and her faithful companion, a dog named Lucy. The story is a slow character study that is lacking in characterisation, drama and detail. The story is directed by Kelly…

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Dave Bautista on Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2, family units, unintentional comedy, improvising and getting into shape

When Guardians Of The Galaxy was released in 2014 it was considered a gamble, a bunch of rag-tag characters including a talking raccoon and a tree that says only three words. They were barely known outside of the comics so Marvel was taking a huge risk, but it paid off and the film was yet…

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Australian Box Office Report: The Fate of the Furious races to the top of the box office

Praise Jeebus, the muscles won over the Easter long weekend, as The Fate Of The Furious, the latest film in the Fast and the Furious franchise (and the first since Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift that doesn’t feature Paul Walker) took in $10.07m in its opening week at the box office. The film has…

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Film Review: Going In Style (USA, 2017) Doesn’t Quite Land, Even If It Looks Good

In some ways, it feels like Zach Braff’s involvement with Going In Style is the most interesting thing about it. Braff, now almost a decade after his tenure on Scrubs, hasn’t exactly had a perfect hit rate on the big screen. It’s not that he’s not an untalented filmmaker, it’s just his previous movies have…

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Get to know Mantis and Star-Lord’s baby daddy “Ego: The Living Planet” before watching Guardians Vol. 2

After watching Guardians of The Galaxy the day it hit cinemas in July of 2014 (yes, I feel older and did you know Justin Bieber is 23 now?), I said to myself “I want more, this is going to be pretty massive, I reckon that Groot Tree might be a hit as well”. My mate…

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Award winning Master Of None‘s anticipated second season gets a trailer

Aziz Ansari’s Emmy award-winning comedy series Master of None is returning to Netflix next month, and the streaming service are teasing us with what to expect via an all-too-brief 70 second trailer that was released earlier this month. After traveling abroad, the show’s second season sees Dev (Aziz Ansari) return to New York to take…

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Legendary Scarface Director Oliver Stone added to Vivid Sydney lineup

Iconic director Oliver Stone is heading to Australia later this year for an exclusive appearance at Vivid Sydney, as part of the Vivid Ideas Game-Changer Talks Series, as well as at global creative forum Semi Permanent. The prodigious director has written and directed more than 20 full-length feature films over the last four decades, including…

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Five first time directors nominated for the top prize at the 2017 Australian Director’s Guild (ADG) Awards

The Australian Director’s Guild (ADG) has announced the nominations for their 2017 Awards, and this year the awards are guaranteed to recognise a new talent, with all five nominees in the category of Best Direction in a Feature Film having made their feature film debut. That’s Garth Davis for Lion, Simon Stone for The Daughter,…

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TV Review: Netflix’s The Get Down (Part Two) is filled with sensational, bombastic and breathtaking musical numbers

The second part of The Get Down first season (the story of the rise of Hip-Hop and reign of Disco in the 70s’ created by Baz Luhrmann) is an over-dramatic affair, hampered by an occasional inconsistent narrative and schmaltzy performances and yet, the latter half of its five part run is some of the best TV…

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Five possible new jobs for former Veep president, Selina Meyer, in Season Six

Our favourite former congresswoman, senator, vice-president and U.S. president, Selina Meyer is officially out of the oval office for season six of Veep, which returns to our screens next week. As we wait to watch what her future holds on the show we thought we’d put together a list of possible jobs for the woman who can…

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Win a copy of the Belgium TV series Public Enemy (Ennemi Public) on DVD

In Public Enemy, Guy Béranger, a dangerous child murderer, is at the end of his prison sentence. His release on parole to the custody of the monks at Vielsart Abbey leads to an outcry from the nearby small village and to the rest of the country. This thrilling French-language TV series out of Belgium focuses…

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Film Review: HBO’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a vital bio-pic about the most important woman in medical history

The name Henrietta Lacks may not mean an awful lot to some people but in reality it should be one of the most famous names in history. Lacks is responsible for revolutionising modern medicine and contributing to every recent major medical breakthrough from vaccines for polio, HPV and the flu-shot; to IVF and treatments for…

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