Film & TV

Opening on Boxing Day in Australia is the long awaited second part of The Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug. Today Warner Bros / Roadshow have presented four clips to get you excited about the film, featuring Golbins, the return of Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Gandalf, Hobbits and much more. Also see Legolas get told…

The Iris meets funnyman Will Ferrell on the red carpet of the Sydney Anchorman: The Legend Continues premiere to find out what happened to the Anchorman musical, if a trilogy is in store and how Australia ahas treated him in an all too brief visit to our shores. Interview: Chris Singh Camera: Nathan Atkins Edit:…

Hunger Games‘ sequel Catching Fire held onto the Number One spot over the weekend, taking in an additional $6.75m at the local box office, followed by Bad Grandpa which held onto the Number Two position with $1.1m and Thor 2 which took in just under $900,000, returning to the number three spot. Newcomers Carrie and…

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) have unveiled the nominations for the 39 categories that will comprise the 3rd annual AACTA Awards, and The Great Gatsby tops the list with 14 nominations. The big-budget film faces competition from Kim Mordaunt’s The Rocket, a-low budget film, shot in Laos with unknown actors. Both…

Note: This Review May Contain Spoilers How I Live Now is at once strange and intriguing. Set in the 21st century, How I Live Now tells the story of a young, American girl who is sent to live with her cousins in the English countryside, when a world war breaks out across the country. Daisy, the American, and…

It’s the final year of high school and Sutters life is falling apart. Dumped by his girlfriend, ditched by his friends and failing his way through class, he starts sliding quietly into alcoholism. When he meets the quiet, geeky Aimee she seems to offer him a path out of the murk, but Sutter may not…

“I’m sorry. I know that means little at this point, but I am. I tried. I think you would all agree that I tried. To be true, to be strong, to be kind, to love, to be right. But I wasn’t.” With these few words, so begins All Is Lost, an incredible film about one man’s struggle…

Darlene Love. Merry Clayton. Lisa Fischer. Claudia Lennear. Táta Vega. Judith Hill. Jo Lawry. Stevvi Alexander. The names of these women may not seem familiar, but I can guarantee that you have heard at least one, if not all of them sing. How? Because all of these women are backup singers, and among the most celebrated of…

The grandmaster of animation, Hayao Miyazaki, made the somewhat unexpected announcement of his retirement from filmmaking a few months back when his film The Wind Rises played at the Venice Film Festival. The film’s trailer has arrived, and after great reviews from the festival circuit I’m hoping it’s a great watch. The film tells the…

The Iris meets Steve Carrell on the red carpet of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues in Sydney, Australia. We talk about his experiences in Australia and about how his character Brick Tamland handles having a new love interest (Kristen Wiig) in the film! Interview: Chris Singh Camera: Nathan Atkins Edit: Larry Heath Filmed at the…

The Iris presents the international trailer and Australian poster for the anticipated new film HER, released in Australian cinemas on January 16th, 2014. Directed by Spike Jonze, this original love story is garnering high praise from critics after showing at the New York and Rome Film Festivals. <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/GTtDo0-w4LQ?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe> Starring Joaquin…

the AU review’s The Iris meets David Koechner aka Champ Kind from Anchorman 2 on the red carpet at the Australian premiere in Sydney. We talk about the film – getting back into character, the script and the “one liners” and we ask: would you consider doing a third film? WHAMMY! ———- This content has…

Seeing Only Lovers Left Alive at the Brisbane International Film Festival was the best kind of surprise. The title alone had piqued my interest, and the synopsis ensured that this would at least be an unusual film, if anything. But Only Lovers Left Alive completely and utterly stole my heart right from the first frame…

Tropfest has recently announced the 16 finalists who’s films will be screened across the nation when the world’s largest short film festival kicks off on Sunday December 8th. An eclectic assortment of films will be on show, ranging from thrillers and comedies to documentaries and dramas, which have all been inspired by the Festival’s signature…

Ron Burgundy, known to most as Ánchorman, has released his highly anticipated autobiography Let Me Off At The Top! My classy life and other musings. The book has coincided with the release of  Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues which premiered in Australia last Sunday. Burgundy will reveal, in his own words, his most private thoughts,…

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) has announced the winners of the annual Screen IT competition, Australia’s largest competition for school-aged filmakers, animators and game makers. This year there were over 373 entries from all around Australia creating live-action films, computer games and animations to fit with this years theme, Connect. ACMI’s Screen Education Manager, Christine…

As everyone is talking about the new ABC series Ja’mie: Private School Girl at the moment, lets take a look back at Chris Lilley’s last project Summer Heights High. Set at an Australian public high school, Summer Heights High is a mockumentary starring Ja’mie King, Jonah Takalua and Mr. G – all played by funny man Chris Lilley. We all know…

Three cheers for the return of Ferguson! Winston’s intense love of that cat remains a very amusing theme of this season and it was nice to have it brought to the forefront yet again. Winston also took on a bigger role in this episode, although he still seems the odd man out of the gang….

As BIFF winds down the movies certainly do not. The last screening of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon graced the Palace Cinemas last night and guests were greeted with champagne and a chance to be photographed. It was a nice touch to bring a little bit of Hollywood to Brisbane. Anticipation for Don Jon  has been brimming…

The Australian box office saw the highly anticipated sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire claim the number one spot in Australia over the weekend, bringing in $12.475 million on 579 screens from Thursday 21st November to Sunday 24th November. The film took in $2.6 million on Friday alone, thanks to sold out midnight screenings around…

As with many European Art films, Blue Is The Warmest Colour requires patience. The film moves at a snail’s pace but this is only to increase the drama and tension at pivotal turning points in the narrative. That being said, Blue Is The Warmest Colour is a beautiful character study that, with its depiction and…

Foxfire screened at Biff Wednesday night at Palace Cinemas. The film runs dangerously close to three hours but thankfully you won’t notice it until you step out of the theatre bleary-eyed onto the busy, buzzing barracks shopping complex. This isn’t the first time Foxfire has entered the minds of girls, women and people everywhere. The…

Change is coming to Foxtel music Kicking off summer will be a new offering to the TV market as well as two refreshed MTV music channels. Get ready for SMOOTH, a television extension of the hugely popular smoothfm radio brand, launching Tuesday December 3, 2013 as the ultimate music destination to relax and escape. SMOOTH…

After Marvel’s Thor dominated the Australian box office for two weeks – last weekend bringing in close to $6 million – this weekend Australians looked towards the comedic world of Jackass, helping land the reasonably well received comedy Bad Grandpa to the number one spot with $3.4 million. Thor continued to perform well, however, coming…

OXV: The Manual is unlike any other film you’ve seen, it’s even coined a new genre: the ‘scientific-philosophical romance’. It breaks free from genre conventions to deliver a unique story that presents a new look on fate, determinism and freewill. The film may take a few viewings to fully grasp the rules of writer/director Darren…

It’s refreshing to see a war film that doesn’t concentrate on the ‘fighting’ aspect of war. Instead, The Railway Man, which opened the Brisbane International Film Festival, focuses on the effects of war such as post-traumatic stress disorder and its devastating nature for decades to come. Based on the autobiography by Eric Lomax, the film…

From the man that brought you Trainspotting we have another gritty, intense depiction of debauchery, excessive drug and alcohol intake and the deterioration of the mind courtesy of the abuse of those substances. Climb aboard the rollercoaster and see if you can deduce what’s really going on in this mind-melding trip. Bruce Robertson ( James…

And we’re back. It’s the sort of feeling you get the minute The Hunger Games: Catching Fire hits the screen, throwing you right back into Suzanne Collins’ hypnotising dystopic world of Panem, this time in a film helmed by Francis Lawrence (no relation to the film’s star). The sequel to the international hit film The…

Most people would have heard of, or at least recognise actor Bryan Brown, he’s an iconic part of Australian film, prolific in the 70s and 80s. There’s no doubt he’s brilliant, but it’s his daughter Matilda Brown who’s come into her own acting, writing and producing, that deserves kudos for creating this gem of mini-series….

With Supanova winding down in Adelaide today, fans had scattered to catch the final panels for the weekend and take up final opportunities in snagging autographs and photos with their favourite guests. Sitting in on the Spartacus panel (one of the funniest of the weekend), I was interested in the popularity of the historic drama – in the case…