Film & TV

Let the social distancing binge viewing continue! Winter may be over, but staying on the couch seems like the most reasonable seasonal activity as Amazon Prime Video promises to overload its devoted audience with one helluva line-up. Harley and Katniss and Neo, oh my! Kicking off the month with a bang is everyone’s favourite anti-heroine…

What a year 2020 has been – and we’re only 7 months down! With COVID-19 (still) wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting and, let’s face it, unprepared world, reportings of weekend movie grosses hardly feels necessary.  And yet, as the entertainment industry remains one of COVID’s biggest casualties, it’s difficult not to find importance in the…

The teen sex comedy isn’t a rarity within the studio system, but they are often quite outlandish enough that they never entirely ring true regarding the situations they’d like teenagers to relate to.  Weighing down the high concept mentality so often adopted by the genre, Yes, God, Yes is that rare beast that hopes to…

On the eve of Shannon Murphy‘s tragic dramedy Babyteeth releasing in Australian cinemas (you can read our interview with her here) we were fortunate enough to chat with the film’s male lead, British-born Australian talent Toby Wallace.  As he stated that being able to talk about the film during COVID-19 is “a breath of fresh…

Director Shannon Murphy has spent much of her initial career cutting her teeth on television productions. Most notably Killing Eve, Rake and Offspring are amongst her filmography credits. The young Australian director will finally have her debut feature film Babyteeth releasing in Australian cinemas from 23rd July. The film is an adaptation of Rita Kalnejais’…

In a bid to maintain the state of cinema and reimagine the festival mind-frame, the Melbourne International Film Festival has launch MIFF 68½, an online curated program that’ll allow home-bound Melburnians the chance to experience the festival’s intended 2020 line-up. Running from the 6th-23rd August 2020, MIFF 68½ will showcase 113 films across its schedule –…

Whilst it’s easy to roll your eyes at the almost insultingly familiar narrative Babyteeth works with at its core – terminal ill teenager falls in love with the wrong guy – it somehow manages to avoid most of the genre cliches, thanks to a mindset that isn’t afraid to be messy, frustrating and, at times,…

So you should know going into The King of Staten Island that, yes, director Judd Apatow hasn’t changed his aesthetic in terms of narrative length or character ingredients.  A too-long comedic drama (emphasis on the drama here) focusing on a typical man-child who’s failed to launch himself, Staten Island hopes to be more endearing than…

Prior to watching Natalie Erika James’ Relic, I’d read constant comparisons to Hereditary and The Babadook. The former has too strong a grasp on literal malevolence to align in any way with James’ debut feature, but The Babadook certainly shares a great deal with this Australian-made indie-horror, given both are rooted in German expressionism and…

Bill, recently released by Sketchbook Pictures‘ Dan Gitsham and Sophie Mair, might only clock in around the three minute mark, but it certainly makes an impact. Featuring Roxanna Vilk as a woman trying desperately to contact her dead husband, the horror short is eerie, suspenseful, and lingers long after the final scare. Inspired by the ghost…

Despite this year’s Oscars honouring one of 2019’s more diverse offerings (Bong Joon-ho’s Korean black comedy/thriller Parasite), the whitewashing of the event was overwhelming.  In a cinematic year where actors of colour delivered universally-praised performances (see Lupita Nyong’o in Us, Awkwafina in The Farewell, and Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers, for a start), it was disappointing that…

When the eponymous Sarah unexpectedly passes away, her best friend and business partner Isabella (Shelley Conn) throws in the towel and backs out of their dream of running a bakery. But when Sarah’s daughter and estranged mother (Shannon Tarbet and Celia Imrie, respectively) re-enter her life, things are set right back in motion. With the…

In case the filmic version of Fifty Shades of Grey was ultimately a little too safe in its actuality compared to the near-porn mentality of E.L. James’s novel, J-P Valkeapää‘s striking Dogs Don’t Wear Pants stands as something of a reparative.  And as much as the bold, dark comedy intends to shock its audience, this remains…

Given the state of the world right now, a little comedy would be the perfect antidote to distract us.  And, on paper, a satire-cum-love-letter surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as a duo of Icelandic popstar-wannabes desperate to win said contest sounds like a potential winner. The reality, unfortunately, is…

After an enormously successful launch in the United States and Canada, Acorn TV has arrived in Australia and New Zealand.  A predominantly British-centric service that showcases the best drama the UK has to offer, one of the instantly accessible series on the “Netflix for Anglophiles” is Dead Still.  Set in 1880’s Ireland, the comedically macabre…

You may be forgiven for not realising one of Sydney’s most beloved festivals is running right now. The 67th Sydney Film Festival has been condensed, tinkered with, and ported to the digital-only world to align with the ongoing global pandemic. And we’re in it’s second week right now, given the program of just 33 films…

At just over 80 minutes, Darkness Falls (which is also known as Anderson Falls in other regions) understands the importance of not overstaying its welcome.  It’s a lean, tight running time for a serial killer thriller, one that opens with a particularly harsh sequence where the predators murder their prey by forcing them to digest…

Fresh off the acclaim of his last film Blackkklansman and the series reboot She’s Gotta Have It, writer/director Spike Lee is back with his most ambitious film yet; the 2020 wartime drama Da 5 Bloods. Taking his prescient, provocative style and conveying it on a larger scale, it looks to be an absolute winner. A…

Based on the 2001 book series by author Eoin Colfer, Disney have finally released their latest adaptation onto their streaming service. The film was originally delayed from an August release last year to April 2020. Then the Covid-19 pandemic caused a closure of cinemas globally. Now, finally, the film finally receives a release on Disney Plus…

And so my dear Bébés, it’s time to say goodbye. After 6 seasons, 80 episodes, countless nonsensical European-inflected ramblings, and, surprisingly, only two “Ew, David”‘s, Schitts’s Creek has come to and end. In the series’ swan song, the Roses (co-creators Eugene Levy and Dan Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and Annie Murphy) are achieving success in their careers and…

With the creative pedigree of both Steve Carrell and The Office’s Greg Daniels behind Netflix’s latest comedy series, and attach that to a send-up of the recently canonized Space Force, the newest military branch of the United States defence forces. The result is a series that doesn’t entirely misfire but also fails to reach the…

End of Sentence treads a familiar path.  And, initially, Elfar Adalstein‘s father-son-centric drama is a particularly downtrodden affair that audiences may not believe they’ll warm to.  The film’s lead characters don’t come off as the most inviting either – Logan Lerman‘s fresh-out-of-prison Sean and his doormat dad, Frank, played by John Hawkes – and their…

As one of NSW’s only remaining drive in cinemas, the vintage-minded Skyline Drive In Blacktown has officially reopened as of 28th May. With the ideal format for social distancing, it builds upon popularity of drive-in movies in the current pandemic, which has seen places like Vilnius in Lithuania turn its airport into a drive-in cinema…

Not unlike fellow Netflix offering Murder Mystery, The Lovebirds adopts the tried and true premise of regular-folk-get-mixed-up-in-a-major-crime and hopes it has enough of a strong centre to overcome any unoriginality.  And whilst the screenplay from Aaron Abrams (a sometimes-actor whose credits include Resident Evil: Apocalypse and The Open House) and Brendan Gall (TV’s Blindspot) doesn’t…

Perhaps as it should, Little Fires Everywhere does indeed start with a fire.  “There are little fires everywhere”, a fire marshal relays to a distraught Reese Witherspoon and a concerned Joshua Jackson, as they stare at their sprawling suburban home engulfed in flames.  The marshal’s statement indicates this was intentionally lit, setting up an immediate…

  The latest film from acclaimed Australian director Gregor Jordan (Two Hands, Ned Kelly), Dirt Music is a gritty, sexy drama with a haunting love story at its heart set against the powerful backdrop of Western Australia’s evocative landscape.  Based on the novel by Tim Winton, the cinematic adaptation will be coming to Australian cinemas…

The dynamic relationship people share with personal trauma is examined in this emotionally complex and sensitively written debut feature by Australian filmmaker Ben Lawrence. Memories and the role they play in our lives sits at the core of Hearts and Bones, giving Lawrence and co-writer Beatrix Christian plenty of tough, poignant material to work with…

Though disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein does not physically appear in The Assistant, nor does his likeness or even his name, this quietly disturbing drama from Australian filmmaker Kitty Green very much has him in mind. There’s a humiliation and systemic mentality that rings true throughout the film’s brisk 85 minute running time as it…

The latest film to be trotted out onto Netflix’s new rotation is The Wrong Missy. Straight up, you should know that this project comes courtesy of Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions team, so that might immediately throw up some questionable flags to begin with. Bankrolled by the streaming giant, predominantly set in Hawaii (presumably as…

Streaming on Netflix now, Caliphate is an eight-episode thriller shot between Sweden and Jordan, following a planned ISIS terror plot in Stockholm while at the same time examining the much deeper issue of radicalisation. With a long-running show like Homeland wrapping up (rather well, might I add) after eight seasons, it’s expected that some fans…