Film & TV

Where are the original Skins cast ten years later?

When it comes to UK teen series, few have been as popular or become as iconic as the series Skins, which ran for some seven years and as many seasons. Premiering ten years ago this week, the first series in particular remains the most acclaimed of the run, with a cast who have gone on…

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Australian director Rohan Spong on his latest feature documentary Winter at Westbeth

Following its celebrated run at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the new Australian feature documentary Winter at Westbeth will screen in select cinemas around the country from next week. In anticipation of the release, we caught up with the film’s director Rohan Spong to talk about the project, which was filmed across one extraordinary year…

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Film Review: National Theatre Live: No Man’s Land (UK, 2017) starring Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart

National Theatre Live in conjunction with Sharmill Films are once again bringing Australian cinema-goers a chance to experience the magic of the theatre. This time with Harold Pinter’s acclaimed play No Man’s Land, starring the incomparable Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart. After a successful hit run in Broadway USA, the play returns to…

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Five reasons you should be excited for Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet

So, you’re looking anxiously through your Netflix list to find the next binge worthy show to eat up. You’ve already had a massive meal with some great sci-fi (Sense 8), comedy (Brooklyn Nine Nine), drama (The Queen) and of course Stranger Things. But now you want something fresh, a little bit of all of the…

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First Impressions: FX’s Legion takes the superhero genre and subverts it

From the guy who brought you the X-Men, Bryan Singer, and the guy who brought you the TV version of Fargo, Noah Hawley, and based on the Marvel Comics by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz comes an origin story series for one particular obscure character from the X-Men universe. Legion follows the story of David…

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Interview: Ransom composer Guillaume Roussel talks music, Hans Zimmer and negotiating a career between the USA and Europe

Starring Luke Roberts (Game of Thrones, Holby City), Sarah Greene (Burnt) and Brandon Jay McLaren (Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce), Ransom takes much of its storylines from the real life on-the-job experience of actual crisis negotiators Laurent Combalbert and Marwan Mery, who are some of the top negotiators in the world. On TV, Roberts plays Eric…

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The Bold and the Beautiful anniversary episodes to be filmed in Australia

The Forresters Down Under! That’s what’s happening in February this year when the cast and crew of the popular daytime soapie, The Bold and the Beautiful, makes its way to Australia to film special anniversary episodes. As the world’s most watched daily drama, it’s only fitting that Australia feature in special episodes, with the series…

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Film Review: XXX: The Return of Xander Cage (USA, 2017) comes up short in nearly every aspect

“Kick some ass, get the girl, and try to look dope while doing it” That inane piece of dialogue is essentially what xXx: The Return of Xander Cage bases its existence on. Never a film that was going to be considered good, but at the very least could have been fun, this useless threequel comes…

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Film Review: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (USA, 2017) brings the tale of the world’s unluckiest woman to a close

If there’s one thing you can rely on in a Resident Evil movie, it certainly isn’t subtlety.  Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is what it says on the tin — the last film in Paul W. S. Anderson‘s increasingly bonkers series of action horror films adapted from the video game franchise of the same name. For fans keen…

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Film Review: Ben Affleck’s Live By Night (USA, 2016) is a visually stunning yet slow running 1920s gangster film

Based on the 2012 novel by Dennis Lehane of the same name, Live By Night is set in the prohibition era across the 1920s and 1930s. The man at the centre of the story, Joe Coughlin, is played by Ben Affleck, who brought this adaptation to life. He directed, wrote and produced the film, which…

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Win a double pass to see Allied at Ben & Jerry’s Openair Cinemas on Bondi Beach

There a few signs which signal summer is truly here – longer days, warmer weather and the return of Ben & Jerry’s Openair Cinemas. The quintessential summer cinema returns to Australia’s most iconic beach down at Bondi from January 19th to February 26th, 2017 for another season of movies, ice cream and sunsets. To celebrate…

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Tropfest announces 2017 finalists for 25th anniversary event

The world’s largest short film festival, Tropfest,  has announced it 16 finalists for 2017, in this its 25-year anniversary.  The festival will take place on Saturday, 11th February.   This year, the films drew inspiration from the infamous Tropfest Signature Item (TSI), which in 2017 was PINEAPPLE. The films will screen to a live audience at…

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Video Games First Impressions: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard VR Demo (R18+) (PSVR, 2017)

Considering the last games I played were Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Resident Evil 5, getting to spend time with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard , which just so happens to be part of a franchise that I cherish, was a really nice way to get back on the horse. Doubly so because it utilises a feature altogether new…

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Video Games Preview: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands single player campaign

Our hands-on time with the single player campaign of Ubisoft’s forthcoming Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands certainly drilled in the whole “bigger and better” description that has been flying around the title, the first major release for the beloved tactical shooter series since 2014’s lukewarm Phantoms. Leaning on next-gen, at least on first impressions, has…

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Win a double pass to see Gold starring Matthew McConaughey

Kenny Wells (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey) is a modern day prospector, desperate for a lucky break who teams up with a similarly eager geologist (Golden Globe nominee Édgar Ramírez) to find gold deep in the uncharted jungle of Indonesia. Getting the gold was hard, but keeping it would be even harder, sparking an adventure…

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Film Review: Moonlight (USA, 2016) is a stunningly beautiful character study; a modern masterpiece

Two young African American males sit on a beach together, bathed in moonlight. One asks the other: “You cry?”. The other replies, “I cry so much sometimes, I feel like I’ma turn to drops,”. Ripped from the pages of the play Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, this scene for me perfectly…

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Win a double pass to see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as In The House returns to Sydney

Leisure Rules for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off starting the new In The House season! Catch John Hughes’ fun-filled classic in Vmax at Event Cinemas George St on February 3. While the rest of us were just thinking about it…Ferris borrowed a Ferrari and did it…all in a day! Tickets are only $13 (or $11 if…

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Filming of the second series of ABC’s Glitch has begun in Melbourne

ABC has announced that filming is underway in Melbourne on the highly anticipated second season of the award-winning paranormal drama Glitch. Debuting in 2015, Glitch followed a they mystery of seven people who had returned from the dead. The series garnered outstanding drama awards at the Logies and AACTAs and attracted a legion of fans who…

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Australian Box Office Report: Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel take the lion’s share of this week’s box office earnings

Whether it’s from its recent positive publicity, school holidays drawing to a close or just the fact that it’s a brilliant film, Lion, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman, did extremely well in its opening weekend, earning $4.19m, where it now sits at the top of the box office ladder.  Opening on 254 screens nationally, it…

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La La Land leads diverse Oscar nominations while Lion, Tanna & Hacksaw Ridge reward Aussies

This morning, the Oscar nominees were announced online through a live stream – breaking tradition from the annual early morning news conference that the film world had become accustomed to tuning into. Over about 20 minutes, past nominees reflected on their Oscar experiences as they revealed the nominees for the 89th Annual Academy Awards. What…

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Australia receives its first ever Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film

Amongst a slew of nominations for two of Australia’s biggest films of the last year – Lion and Hacksaw Ridge – comes a lesser known film called Tanna, directed by Bentley Dean and Martin Butler. The film, which is shot in the Navhal and Nafe languages of Vanuatu, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where…

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Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is in awe of the film’s global appeal (EXCLUSIVE)

Less than 48 hours after winning the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Drama), we sat down with Director Barry Jenkins to talk about his highly acclaimed, award-winning work Moonlight – which hits Australia cinemas this week. In our 15 minute chat we reflect on the night’s big win, the journey to make the film, casting…

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Star Wars Episode VIII finally has a title!

It’s the announcement that fans have been waiting months – nay, years – for. The title of the 8th chapter in the Star Wars saga, due out in December, has a title! Revealed on starwars.com this morning, the title will be The Last Jedi, which is accompanied by an uncharacteristically red Star Wars logo, indicating this…

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Archer is taking us to a 1940’s Dreamland in Season 8; watch the first teasers!

Following the cliffhanger at the end of Season 7, Stirling Archer seems to have wound up in a coma, and in a season arch inspired by something like Life on Mars or Wizard of Oz, we’re going to be entering Archer’s “Dreamland” and going “noir” with the whole cast entering an alternate 1947 universe. Watch…

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Video Games Preview: Sniper Elite 4 benefits from a larger scale and Italian setting

It’s been almost 12 years since Rebellion Developments released the first title in what would become the Sniper Elite series, a franchise which was has improved in ways both noticeable and welcome as the years have gone on. The franchise continues this February with Sniper Elite 4, the follow-up to 2014’s Sniper Elite 3, which came closer to…

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Film Review: Split (USA, 2017) is a stunning return to form for M. Night Shyamalan

There is plenty of real world evidence to suggest that, to a degree, our thoughts and feelings can in some way re-wire our brain. Neuroplasticity is a relatively young field, but an infinitely fascinating one nonetheless; discoveries are being made everyday, many on how our brain evolves for better or for worse and how we…

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Film Review: Lion (Australia/USA/UK, 2016) is a beautiful, emotional journey

Based on the true story of Saroo Brierley and his book A Long Way Home, this week’s anticipated release Lion takes its audience on the beautiful, emotional journey of Saroo; lost in India as a young child, raised in Tasmania, forever desperate to find his way back home. Starring Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) as the…

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TV Review: Sherlock “The Final Problem” Season 4, Episode 3

In last week’s episode ‘The Lying Detective’ came the revelation that the Holmes boys have a sister, a shocking bombshell that had eluded us all. Mainly because Mycroft had purposefully kept her existence a secret from Sherlock (and us the viewers). In this week’s episode, those long buried secrets come to the surface, and Sherlock…

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Tapanui: How a small New Zealand town became the heart and soul of Disney’s Pete’s Dragon

“Edge of the Forest”: an apt description of quiet West Otago township Tapanui, the words located underneath it’s welcome signage. On first look, this forestry town on New Zealand’s south island, a few hours east of Queenstown, is no more than a quick stop-off on a road trip through the region’s stunning scenery, which includes…

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Australian Box Office Report: No Swan Song for Sing as it tops the ladder yet again

Animated musical flick Sing did well this week, earning $2.32m at the Australia box office.  In its third week in the cinema and second week at top spot, it’s already earned $22.3 million, although it has dropped in earnings from last week by 33%. Hot on its tail is the live action musical (no animals this time) La La Land, which took…

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