Film & TV

Film Review: Stop! That! Train!; it’s camp, crude, sweet, knowingly ridiculous and occasionally so stupid that resistance becomes futile

There’s something almost rebellious about a comedy as proudly, aggressively stupid as Stop! That! Train! In an era where even the lightest studio entertainment can feel burdened by franchise mythology or the need to justify its own existence, Adam Shankman’s disaster-movie spoof has a refreshingly uncomplicated ambition: make people laugh. Preferably with a dirty joke,…

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Interview: Director Adam Shankman talks Stop! That! Train!, the art of “good old-fashioned stupid”, and his place in queer cinema

From The Wedding Planner and Bringing Down the House to the gloriously larger-than-life musicality of Hairspray, Adam Shankman has spent decades making studio comedies designed, above all else, to entertain. But for his latest film, Stop! That! Train!, the director traded the machinery of a major Hollywood production for a 19-day independent shoot, a train…

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Interview: Brooke Lynn Hytes on unleashing in Stop! That! Train!; “We all have a little villain inside of us.”

If there was ever a role designed to weaponise Brooke Lynn Hytes’ statuesque presence, impeccable posture and bone-dry delivery, it’s Amber, the gloriously condescending first-class attendant she plays in Stop! That! Train! Directed by Hairspray filmmaker Adam Shankman and produced by the team behind RuPaul’s Drag Race, the unabashedly camp disaster-movie spoof takes its cues…

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Interview: Liv Hewson on new Australian mystery series Treasure & Dirt, disrupting archetypes and why character always comes first

For Liv Hewson, a good detective story isn’t really about the crime. It’s about the people trying to make sense of what has been left behind. That philosophy sits at the heart of Treasure & Dirt, a distinctly Australian murder mystery set in the scorched, dust-choked opal mining town of Nullah, where the brutal beheading…

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Conan the Barbarian at 15: A sword reclaimed and a fantasy misunderstood

Fifteen years after its release, Conan the Barbarian remains one of modern fantasy cinema’s most understood films. Dismissed upon arrival by critics and audiences alike, it was quickly branded an unnecessary remake, a hollow echo of John Milius’s 1982 classic, and a failed vehicle for a rising star. Yet time has been kinder to Conan…

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Interview: David Robert Mitchell on The End of Oak Street, suburban unease and the childhood memories behind his dinosaur epic

There’s something inherently unsettling about the suburbs in the films of David Robert Mitchell. Familiar streets, quiet houses and seemingly ordinary neighbourhoods have a way of suggesting that something strange might be lurking just beyond the frame. With The End of Oak Street, the filmmaker behind It Follows and Under the Silver Lake takes that…

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Win a double to pass to see The End of Oak Street starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor

Thanks to Warner Bros. Pictures, we have 5 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor in The End of Oak Street, from director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), in Australian theatres from August 13th, 2026. After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood…

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Interview: Director Kat Good on bringing CoComelon: The Movie to the big screen; “Remember the joy in the journey.”

For countless families around the world, CoComelon is already an instantly recognisable part of childhood. Now, director Kat Good is taking JJ and his friends somewhere they’ve never been before: the big screen. Marking Good’s feature directorial debut, CoComelon: The Movie expands the preschool phenomenon into a colourful musical adventure that follows JJ (Connor Esterson)…

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Interview: Chloe Van Landschoot on embracing the grotesque for Son of Sara; “Let’s make people feel something.”

Pregnancy has long been fertile ground for horror cinema, but Son of Sara transforms familiar fears into something far more intimate. As Sara, a woman whose increasingly disturbing cravings coincide with the return of her estranged boyfriend and the terrifying possibility that something sinister is growing inside her, Chloe Van Landschoot delivers a performance that…

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Film Review: Son of Sara; familiar horror premise still proves effective thanks to committed performances and wild climax

Son of Sara opens with a compelling premise. Sara (Chloe Van Landschoot) is heavily pregnant after a one-night stand and living with her supportive partner, Carol (Tymika Tafari), but increasingly disturbing symptoms – an insatiable appetite for raw meat, violent bouts of sickness and terrifying visions – suggest something far more sinister than a difficult…

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Film Review: Ice Cream Man is an ugly, joyless exercise in escalation that mistakes relentless gore for entertainment

Eli Roth has never been a filmmaker I’ve felt compelled to defend. He’s a provocateur whose work often lives or dies by how much you’re willing to embrace outrageous violence, juvenile humour and unapologetic excess. At his best, films like Cabin Fever, Hostel and Thanksgiving understood the particular corner of horror they occupied, balancing their…

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Jonathan LaPaglia to narrate ambitious new BINGE survival series Apocalypse

BINGE has unveiled a first look at its upcoming original series Apocalypse, while also confirming longtime Australian television presenter Jonathan LaPaglia as the show’s narrator. Best known for hosting Australian Survivor and Top Gear Australia, LaPaglia will guide viewers through the eight-part reality series, which poses a simple but daunting question: Could you survive the…

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Interview: Adam C. Briggs and Geoffrey Vagg on Phillip Philadelphia, creating mythology and finding beauty in decay

There’s something gloriously difficult to pin down about Phillip Philadelphia. At once a queer melodrama, an absurdist comedy, a portrait of creative decay and a love letter to the strange beauty lurking beneath the Gold Coast’s sun-soaked façade, Adam C. Briggs‘ latest feature refuses to settle into any one identity. Shot on luminous 16mm, it…

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Interview: Allan Clarke on the responsibility of bearing witness and why untold stories matter

For Allan Clarke, documentary filmmaking isn’t simply about preserving history – it’s about challenging audiences to confront the stories they’ve long ignored. The award-winning Muruwari and Gomeroi filmmaker, journalist and writer has built a career giving voice to communities too often left out of Australia’s national conversation, from The Bowraville Murders and The Dark Emu…

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Film Review: Super Troopers 3 commits to delivering wonderful stupidity

There are few comedy franchises as defiantly committed to their own wavelength as Super Troopers. Twenty-five years after the original became an unlikely cult sensation on DVD shelves and dorm-room repeat viewings, the Broken Lizard gang are still making movies that feel as though they were conceived during an extended road trip between lifelong friends;…

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Interview: Producer Kelly McCormick on embracing bigger, bolder ideas for Violent Night 2

When Violent Night arrived in 2022, it felt like the cinematic equivalent of finding a lump of coal that somehow turned out to be the perfect Christmas gift. Tommy Wirkola’s gleefully blood-soaked action-comedy paired David Harbour’s weary Santa Claus with outrageous festive carnage, but beneath the shattered ornaments and sharpened candy canes was an unexpectedly…

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Interview: Tommy Wirkola on making Christmas naughty again with Violent Night 2

After proving that Santa Claus could dispatch mercenaries with the same ease he delivered presents, director Tommy Wirkola‘s Violent Night earned an unlikely place alongside the festive classics many audiences return to every December. Beneath the gloriously excessive violence and gleefully inventive action was a surprisingly sincere Christmas story, one that found David Harbour’s weary…

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Erupcja; Charli XCX proves a natural presence in experimental drama that’s easier to appreciate in theory than to connect with in practice: New Farm Queer Film Festival Review

For an artist as culturally omnipresent as Charli XCX, Erupcja is a fascinating first major acting vehicle; yes, depending on when you’re seeing this, she has been seen across such features as The Moment (which shouldn’t really count as she was essentially playing herself), Faces of Death and I Want Your Sex, but Erupcja was…

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Interview: Jason Sudeikis, Abbie Hern, Faye Marsay and Jude Mack on the new era of Ted Lasso

When Ted Lasso concluded its third season, it felt less like a television finale than a heartfelt farewell. It was the kind of ending that seemed content to leave AFC Richmond exactly where audiences hoped it would: bruised, wiser and full of possibility. So the announcement of a fourth season inevitably raised the question every…

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Interview: Broken Lizard on expanding the increasingly absurd mythology of Super Troopers 3 and why it’s stranger than we’ll ever see

Twenty-five years after Super Troopers transformed a group of sketch comedians into unlikely cult icons, Broken Lizard still hasn’t grown up. Thankfully. If anything, Super Troopers 3 proves they’ve become even more comfortable embracing the wonderfully bizarre universe they’ve built. What began as a relatively grounded story about Vermont state troopers amusing themselves on lonely…

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Blue Film is emotionally draining, frequently distressing and almost relentlessly uncomfortable: New Farm Queer Film Festival Review

Some films confront difficult subject matter. Blue Film traps you in a room with it and refuses to let you look away. Writer-director Elliot Tuttle‘s feature debut begins with deliberate provocation. Aaron Eagle (Kieron Moore), a successful Los Angeles camboy, performs dominance for an online audience, weaponising confidence, humiliation and carefully cultivated bravado as part…

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Interview: Rebecca De Mornay on heist thriller The Gentleman Thief and finding the mystery inside her character

Few actors have built a career as fascinatingly varied as Rebecca De Mornay. For many, she’ll forever be synonymous with Risky Business or the unforgettable menace of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, but her filmography reveals an artist who’s consistently gravitated toward women of intelligence, mystery and quiet strength, whether in prestige dramas, thrillers…

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a strange, funny, and emotionally perceptive slasher romance: New Farm Queer Film Festival Review

Jane Schoenbrun has always understood that the things we watch can become part of us. In We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, the internet offered both escape and danger. In I Saw the TV Glow, television became a portal into a life its characters could barely admit they wanted. Their latest film, Teenage Sex…

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Film Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day is one of the MCU’s strongest and most emotionally satisfying entries in years

There was a point where every Marvel film seemed determined to convince audiences that the only way to raise the stakes was to threaten the entire universe. Planets collided. Multiverses fractured. Every adventure had to be bigger than the last. Spider-Man: Brand New Day wisely goes in the opposite direction, and in doing so delivers…

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One summer can change everything in the first trailer for Prime Video’s The Last Sunrise

Some summer romances promise forever. The Last Sunrise asks what happens when time itself becomes the greatest obstacle. The first trailer for director Carlson Young‘s upcoming romantic drama has arrived, teasing an emotional story that blends sun-drenched escapism with the realities of chronic illness, first love and long-buried family truths. Set against the breathtaking backdrop…

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The world of Orïsha comes to life in the first trailer for Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Children of Blood and Bone

Some fantasy worlds are built on dragons or kingdoms. Children of Blood and Bone is built on something far more powerful: a story of identity, oppression and the fight to reclaim what was stolen. The first trailer for Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi‘s bestselling novel has arrived, and it’s every bit as ambitious as…

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Film Review: The Devil’s Mouth; claustrophobic thrills keep this creature feature afloat

There’s a certain comfort in knowing exactly what you’re getting from a killer shark movie. A group of attractive twenty-somethings, a spectacular location, increasingly questionable decisions, and a predator waiting patiently for everyone to separate one by one. The Devil’s Mouth doesn’t pretend to be anything more ambitious than that, and while it never quite…

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Win a double in-season pass to the sexy new romantic comedy One Night Only

Thanks to Universal Pictures, we have 5 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the sexy new romantic comedy One Night Only, from the director of Anyone But You, in Australian theatres from August 13th, 2026. What if one messy night turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to you? This…

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Mike Flanagan’s reimagining of Stephen King’s classic Carrie sets premiere streaming date

Few Stephen King stories have left a mark on popular culture quite like Carrie. Nearly fifty years after Brian De Palma’s iconic adaptation turned a shy teenage outcast into one of horror’s most enduring figures, Mike Flanagan is preparing to reintroduce Carrie White to a new generation. And if the first footage is any indication,…

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Corpus is a hypnotic slow-burn horror that rewards patient viewers: Fantasia International Film Festival Review

Some horror films announce their intentions immediately. Others prefer to lure audiences into a false sense of security before revealing what lies beneath. Corpus, the feature debut from writer-director Corrin Evans, firmly belongs in the latter category, delivering an unsettling blend of psychological horror, erotic tension and surreal mystery that asks viewers to surrender to…

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