Film & TV

After premiering at this year’s Venice Film Festival, the first look at Jackie, starring Academy Award winner Natalie Portman as the widowed first lady is mesmerizing. Directed by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín (Nasty Baby), the biopic follows both the public and private struggles Kennedy faces in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The film…

Guten Tag! The 15th German Film Festival will be returning to Australia this November, featuring  the most celebrated new and old German films. The opening and closing films will be some of the highlights of the festival, including Goodbye Berlin, the latest film by acclaimed director Fatih Akin (Soul Kitchen), and the recently restored silent film classic Variete (1925)….

Square Enix and Eidos-Montréal have announced that the cyberpunk RPG Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be joining the Playstation 4 Pro lineup. The PS4 Pro boasts a higher processor and more powerful CPU then the standard model, allowing developers to enhance game graphics to create a more detailed and immersive experience. The game will be available to…

Cartoon legend Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, is coming to Australia for the first time to present at the sixth GRAPHIC festival weekend at Sydney Opera House. Matt Groening will be headlining the event, which will also see talks from Lynda Barry (Ernie Pook’s Comeek, One! Hundred! Demons!) Groening’s debut Australia trip will…

Square Enix have announced that pre-registration for their RPG mobile title Guardian Codex is now open. The multiplayer game is free-to-play on iOS and Android devices, and certainly looks promising. Created by the team behind the battle card games Guardian Cross and Deadman’s Cross, the game is said to feature a deep story mode, with…

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past is set to make its debut in Australia and New Zealand on the Nintendo 3DS handheld console on September 17th. The newest game in Square Enix’s long-running Dragon Quest RPG series has been completely rebuilt and re-imagined for the Nintendo 3DS. Fragments of the Forgotten Past is…

The winners for the 68th annual Creative Arts Emmys have been announced. The first ever two night awards show, which was held on the 10 – 11th of September, recognises achievements in cinematography, make-up, costume design, casting, and sound. HBO lead the way on day one, with popular fantasy series Game of Thrones picking up…

Collateral Beauty stars Will Smith as a brilliant and talented New York ad man who is mourning the death of his young daughter. As some sort of coping mechanism, Smiths character writes and posts letters to Death, Time, and Love, who he believes play an important part in our lives. He never expects to receive…

From the 23rd of September to the 2nd of October, Yours & Owls will be holding this year’s Wollongong Fringe Festival. It will acknowledge the town for its culture in film, music and the creative arts with plenty of events and experiences for visitors of all kinds. With the festival running for 9 days, attendees…

Yesterday Screen Gems released the first official trailer for horror-science fiction film Underworld: Blood Wars. This will be the fifth instalment of the franchise with Kate Beckinsale returning as the leading female role as Selene. The film is directed by Anna Foerster, making this title her first feature to work on. Reported by Variety, they mention that…

Reported by Variety, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling have been in talks with the Disney folk to join upcoming adaptation film A Wrinkle in Time. It is the first book of the Time Quartet book series written by author Madeleine L’Engle. Ava DuVernay has also agreed to direct the title with Oprah Winfrey joining the cast too. Jennifer…

You don’t have to have your finger on the pulse of the gaming industry to know what a mixed bag No Mans Sky was, and still is for that matter. A combination of head developer Sean Murray’s uneven communication and the game simply not being able to live up to its amazing premise, No Man’s Sky went from…

Australian and New Zealand Pokémon Trainers will be geared up to catch ’em all on September the 16th when Pokémon Go Plus makes its launch. The wearable device will be compatible with both iOS and select Android smart phones, and will allow players to detect when a Pokémon is near without a mere glance at…

Telltale Games’ third and final episode in their Minecraft: Story Mode add on series ‘Adventure Pass’ is only a week away. Entitled ‘Episode 8: A Journey’s End?’ the newest episode will feature two new guest stars. 

Hollywood blacksmith Tony Swatton, creator of props and weapons from titles such as The Hunger Games, Thor, Sucker Punch and Alice in Wonderland, created an epic costume for Blizzard Entertainment to bring to life their newest World of Warcraft class, the Demon Hunter.

Tom Hanks, what can we say about Tom Hanks? Quite frankly, it’s hard to say anything bad at all. Despite the rare lacklustre movie, this man just cannot seem to steer anything in the wrong direction. And Sully, out now in Australian cinemas, proves no different, with the venerable actor steering both a movie and…

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced a slew of new peripherals for the Playstation 4 following the reveal of both the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro. The wireless dualShock controller, Playstation camera, vertical stand, and a platinum wireless headset, are all sold separately. We have the break-down on each product, when it will be available, and…

Wondering what to watch in the month of September and October? Check out The Iris’s guide to promising premieres. Wednesday, September 14th 2016 (AUS) Doctor Doctor – Nine Network From the producers of Rake and Jack Irish, Doctor Doctor is a drama series that follows the story of Hugh Knight, a heart surgeon who believes…

Yesterday, an ambitious new Australian film premiered on streaming service Stan. Helmed by Stuart Willis, Restoration is the latest in a long line of original Australian sci-fi features to find itself an audience. Think modern classics like Dark City and more recent releases like Predestination  – though they describe the film here as being inspired by Twilight Zone,…

On September 8th IMAX Theatre Sydney, the biggest cinema screen in the world, will release their latest documentary, A Beautiful Planet 3D. Narrated by Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence, A Beautiful Planet 3D features stunning footage of our magnificent blue planet, and the effects humanity has had on it over time, captured by the astronauts…

Agent 47 is packing his bags and is heading to Colorado, where he will take in the sights and sounds while murdering four targets at a private militia training camp. Quality vacation time.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment announced the official release date for Batman: Return to Arkham and also released a Side-by-Side comparison trailer.

Xbox is bringing its wildly popular open house fan event to our shores. Xbox FanFest: Sydney 2016 will give Australian Xbox fans with the chance to check out some of Xbox’s most anticipated titles, such as Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4.

Ubisoft has announced Just Sing, the musical successor to Just Dance,  has been officially released in Australia and New Zealand on the PlayStation 4 with an Xbox One released scheduled for later this year.

Something many news outlets and gamers have suspected for a long has finally occurred. Nintendo is making mobile games. What a crazy time to be alive.

Whovians unite! BBC Worldwide has your backs. They’ve recently commissioned an animated remake of The Power of the Daleks, a 1966 Doctor Who storyline. In the words of Variety, the storyline was originally “exterminated by callous technocrats”. Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of sci-fi fans like the words ‘archive purge’, but that’s apparently what the original episodes…

The Oscars survived a prickly year last year. Media outlets hounded the lack of racial diversity amongst nominated actors, of which all twenty were of Caucasian heritage. Industry hallmark Spike Lee joined a spate of actors in a #boycotttheoscars / #oscarsowhite movement and actor Chris Rock thought it appropriate to poke fun at a child…

Following its success in the US earlier this year, it was an amazing opending week for animated feature The Secret Life of Pets, as it took the top spot at the Australian box office.  Claiming $1.93 million at the box office, it’s taken the spotlight away from last week’s box office no. 1, Bad Moms, still at $1.29 million this…

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, this mob drama, based on Mario Puzo’s novel of the same name, focuses on the powerful Italian-American crime family of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). The Godfather will be shown at In The House, at George Street Cinema in Sydney on September 16th. Join…

I recently had the opportunity to speak to actress Genevieve Morris from the newly released web  series Little Acorns – something of a child-care, work-place comedy. Across this – and my chat with Emily Taheny which you’ll be able to read online soon – we discuss the show and its highlights, such as labia cakes and…