Film & TV

Film Review: The Wedding Ringer (USA, 2015)

The Wedding Ringer is a kind of terrible fun. The film has a direct-to-DVD feel that isn’t as enjoyable as The Wedding Singer but it’s also not as torturous as seeing your enemy get married. Ultimately, it’s a high-octane series of silly shenanigans that help redeem some of the film’s flatter moments. The movie is…

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Film Review: The Quarantine Hauntings (Australia, 2015)

The Quarantine Station in North Head, Manly, is known, internationally even, as one of spookiest places ever. When it was used as a quarantine station between 1833 and 1984, over 5000 people lost their lives from diseases like the Bubonic Plague (the freaky one where you bleed from your eyes or something) and Smallpox. Rather…

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First movies confirmed for Australia’s exclusive Pixar Film Festival

Late last year it was reported that Australia would be getting it’s first ever Pixar Film Festival, presented by Disney Pixar, encouraging us all to get nostalgic about our all-time favourite Pixar films and revisit them in some of the nation’s most frequented cinemas. The runs through February for 5 consecutive weekends and is exclusive…

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The Iris’ 24 Most Anticipated Films of 2015

With the return of franchises like Star Wars, Terminator, Bond, Jurassic Park and Mad Max, not one but TWO Pixar films (a first for the studio), the next Avengers, the end of the Hunger Games saga, that Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation and more sequels than you can possibly imagine (some of which are totally unnecessary……

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Exclusive: An Interview with Edwyn Collins and the directors of his film The Possibilities Are Endless

The Possibilities Are Endless is a film that explores Edwyn Collins’ slow recovery and return to the stage after suffering from a stroke in 2005, which debilitated his music career and his life. Film-makers James Hall and Edward Lovelace work intimately with Collins to produce a beautiful film – voiced over by Collins himself superimposed…

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ABC’s new drama Hiding coming in February

ABC kicks off another big year of original Aussie drama with the family drama series, Hiding, created, co-produced and written by Matt Ford and directed by Shawn Seet, Tori Garrett and Grant Brown. After a botched drug deal, Troy Quigg (James Stewart) must take his family into Witness Protection in exchange for giving evidence against…

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Box Office Report: Taken 3 Holds Off New Releases

For the second week running, Taken 3 has topped the Box Office charts, leaving new release Unbroken – Angelina Jolie’s directing debut – in the dust by a mere $0.5 million. Good news for Aussie film fans – Robert Connolly’s Paper Planes came in forth for the week at $1.7 million, just trailing behind the…

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Cool down on hot summer nights with Moonlight Cinema

It’s summer, which means that it’s time to pack a picnic, get a glass of wine, and relax underneath the stars and watch some of your favourite flicks. That’s right, Moonlight Cinema is back in most cities from December 11 – March 29. Feel like glamming up? Spoil yourself and grab the Gold Grass package…

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HRAFF to screen Still Alice at Dendy Cinemas, Newtown

On January 28, the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival (HRAFF) is presenting a special preview screen of Julianne Moore’s new film, Still Alice at Dendy Cinemas, Newtown. Still Alice tells the story of Alice, a 50-year old Professor who struggles with being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. A moving, and utterly compelling film that has…

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TV Review: Girls Season 4 Episode 2 “Triggering” (USA, 2015)

Hannah Horvath will never have her shit together. Yes, she now lives in a house that is so big that takes over four minutes to show it to Marnie over Skype as opposed to her New York apartment, which would have taken her forty seconds. Yes, she’s cycling everywhere and she doesn’t even need to…

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FOX in talks to bring back The X-Files with original cast

Good news for Mulder and Scully fans – there may be a possibility of a revival of the science-fiction drama, The X-Files. The series, which starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI special agents with a penchant for the paranormal, ran for nine seasons from 1993 to 2002. According to Entertainment Weekly, CEO Gary…

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10 Reasons to get excited about the third season of Vikings

Michael Hirst has created something extraordinary with period drama Vikings, bringing a human aspect to the Scandinavians usually perceived as being only barbaric marauders wearing horned helmets. Vikings stars Australia’s Travis Fimmel and Alyssa Sutherland, with Season 3 to air on SBS ONE commencing 19th March. Here is what we are looking forward to in…

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What to Watch: The Iris’ Weekly TV Picks (19th – 21st January 2015)

Kimberley is back with the first half of our weekly TV picks. Here’s what to watch this week on free-to-air from Monday through to Wednesday night, as the work week kicks off… Monday 2015 Australian Open, Ch. 7, 11:00am AEDT Channel 7’s live coverage of the Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific begins, featuring the world’s top…

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DVD Review: Boardwalk Empire Season 5 (USA, 2014)

Boardwalk Empire has always been one of the few series on television that approaches the element of surprise from an artistic standpoint. The Emmy winning show played this hand very strongly throughout it’s five-season run, taking it from just a super stylish, superbly curated gangster period drama to something much, much more and memorable than…

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DVD Review: Girls – The Complete Third Season (USA, 2014)

Girls isn’t a glamorous show and in many ways that’s what makes it feel so brutally honest and real. In the third season the characters are the most fully developed and realised versions of themselves to date. It’s also one that is full of the kinds of stories and things that will challenge, enthral, frustrate…

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Win a copy of the Academy Award nominated film Ida!

Poland 1962. Anna, a young nun, orphaned from birth, is summoned after many years by her estranged aunt Wanda. Wanda is a successful judge having during her career prosecuted criminals who have been sentenced to death for war crimes. She is also an alcoholic. Upon meeting Anna she shows the nun pictures of her family…

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Film Review: Wild (USA, 2014)

Director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) is back for another awards season with part travelogue, part grief memoir, Wild. The film stars Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed (seems highly coincidental, but that is her real last name), who undertakes the personal challenge of hiking solo, 1,100 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to…

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Nominees for 87th Academy Awards announced

With ‘Awards Season’ coming along quite nicely, this morning saw the release of the official nominees list for the 87th Academy Awards. It’s the grand daddy of film industry awards, celebrating the best of the best and giving us a nice little compass to guide us through the greatest film industry achievements of 2014, and…

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The Iris’ 14 Best TV Series of 2014

We look back at the 14 TV shows that we couldn’t get enough of in 2014… 14. Banshee This little known series produced by one the more low brow networks in the US (Cinemax), has a plenty of thrills and was one of the more underrated shows of the past couple of years. This series…

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Film Review: American Sniper (USA, 2014)

Based on the best-selling autobiography of the same name, Clint Eastwood’s new film American Sniper is the gripping story of Chris Kyle, the “Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History”. Starring Bradley Cooper in the lead role, the film avoid the typical “war movie” plot twists or convolution, endeavouring instead to focus on a man who…

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Film Review: Unbroken (USA, 2014)

Make no mistake about it, the story which has inspired director Angelina Jolie to bring this film to life is equal parts heartbreaking and genuinely inspiring, digging into the crux of the human spirit – or rather a particular human spirit – and a resilience that seems almost impossible. Unbroken is a biopic about remarkable…

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DVD Release: Banshee Season 2 now available on DVD and Blu-Ray

With Banshee now entering it’s third season, it’s time for fans to own the complete second season of this action-packed series on Home Release. Released in stores nation-wide as of today (Wednesday 14th January), the Home Release of Banshee is packed full of special features including episode recaps, Banshee origin stories, twitter commentary with the…

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Bondi Beach welcomes Ben & Jerry’s Open-Air Cinema once more this Summer

Ben & Jerry’s Openair Cinemas are back with a bang this summer, bringing music by day and movies by night to Sydney’s Bondi Beach. As part of a nationwide series of events, which are enjoyed by more than 150,000 people across Australia, the Sydney leg of the tour will take place on the lawn by…

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Release date confirmed for sixth season of Community

Cult comedy and regular best. show. ever recipient Community was purchased by Yahoo! last year, adding to the confusion over the series foggy future. At least that future is a bit clearer now with the announcement that the show will return for a Sixth Season, an announcement made at a panel which included series creator…

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28 Months Later emerges as a strong possibility

Big news for horror fans today as Alex Garland, screenwriter for 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, as well as director for the upcoming Ex Machina, popped by the IGN offices in London and opened up about the very strong possibility of making the very long-awaited 28 Months Later a reality. Garland stated, ““We’ve…

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TV Review: Girls Season 4 Episode 1 “Iowa” (USA, 2015)

Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna have never really been particularly likeable characters. They’re insecure, self-obsessed, naïve, entitled, rude, and often deluded about their own lives. Why, then, do I keep coming back, season after season, to keep watching their misadventures? The answer to this question has eluded me ever since I first started disliking Girls…

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New trailer teases third season of Netflix series House of Cards

To say that “the stakes are high” would be a gross understatement when being confronted with the new trailer for the third (and assumed final) series of House of Cards, which was released today. We’re so used to seeing Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) as a manipulative, cunning and at times, evil politician desperately trying to climb…

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TV Review: Danger 5 – Season 2, Episode 2 (Australia, 2015)

WARNING: This review contains spoilers. “Hitler….Hitler…” was the name on the roll call rather than Bueller for this episode of Danger 5, which had the super team undercover at an American high school. Hitler’s disguise this time is a letterman jacket-wearing jock, who hopes to find a date and be crowned the King of Christmas…

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Box Office Report: Taken 3 takes it away again

Surprisingly enough, Taken 3 has topped the box office this week with an astounding $5 million. Albeit stating in 2013 that there would be no further sequels as “she can’t get taken again. That’s just bad parenting”, it appears the masses were keen for more of Liam Neeson doing the impossible. Following behind on $3…

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ACMI announces program details for Epic Intimacy: The Cinema of Zhang Yimou & Gong Li

This March, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) is set to house Epic Intimacy: The Cinema of Zhang Yimou & Gong Li as part of its China Up Close program. From the 6 – 15 March, enthusiasts are invited to congregate together and celebrate the legacy of the award winning Chinese director and his exquisite…

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