Film & TV

No matter how Hollywood tries to sell it, remake will always be a word deemed blasphemous to cinephiles the world over.  Sure, they can throw out terms such as reboot or reimagining or revisioning, but regardless of the spin, they all refer to the same type of picture.  And because it’s one we have experienced…

After an already incredible and diverse music program, this year’s Darebin Music Feast introduces you to its first venture into cinema with Feast Films. Partnered with Thornbury Picture House, Feast Films is screening feature and documentary films in Melbourne on the theme of gender and the music industry, following the extraordinary lives and careers of…

Eighteen years ago we were introduced to Unbreakable, the superhero film that was not all it seemed. Two years ago, sixteen years after the original made its debut, the sequel Split came to our screens with a twist ending we never expected. Now, from the unbreakable original, to the tension splitting sequel, comes the next instalment…

When one praises a film, one of the many positives that one would say is that the storytelling is incredibly immersive from a visual perspective. Films with such praise would include Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, J.J Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness and Francis Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. But what all those films mentioned have…

Director Russell Mulcahy, the Melbourne filmmaker whose career has seen him graduate from Elton John music videos to varied levels of cinematic quality (the 1984 wild boar in the outback horror flick Razorback, the ill-advised Kim Basinger vehicle The Real McCoy, and the Geoffrey Rush drama Swimming Upstream just a few of his efforts) is…

There’s no shortage of documentaries on Netflix – both in feature and episodic format. Here’s just five documentary features you need to add to your playlists: Blackfish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg Blackfish is a documentary about the captivity of orca whales, where it investigates the psychological and physical torment these sea animals go through in the name of…

Of Fathers & Sons should come with a warning. This is likely to induce nightmares even though it’s not strictly a horror film. It is however, a horrifying documentary that chronicles a religious zealot and his young, jihadist-in-the-making sons. The result is a visceral and eye-opening look at this largely-unknown world. Filmmaker, Talal Derki is…

It seems almost baffling that Neil Armstrong’s account of being the first man on the moon hasn’t been told prior to Damien Chazelle‘s First Man.  Clearly an intimidating figure but still reserved, sensitive and aloof enough to not be placed upon a pedestal as some flawless being, Chazelle’s film seeks to uncover the more human…

From the new Elton John biopic, to Wizards and an unrecognisable Christian Bale, here are six just released movie trailers you need to watch… Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald One more addition to the beloved Harry Potter franchise, Crimes of Grindelwald is the second film in a new series of five, written exclusively for the screen…

Set in Europe “20,000 years ago”, a tribe of hunter-gatherers is preparing to hunt before winter. Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), is learning the ropes from his father, the tribe’s chief Tau (Johannes Haukur Johannesson). Quiet and sensitive, the young Keda is having issues in coming to terms with killing animals, with father gently guiding him unto…

A subsidiary of Amazon, known as Amazon Studios focuses on developing TV series, distributing and producing films and comics from online submissions and crowd-sourced feedback. The company have dropped some pretty exciting news at a star studded Amazon Prime Video event in London. Now, if you don’t know what Amazon Prime Video is, then you’re like a…

Earlier this year, we sat down with Hyun Lee, the director of a short film called Asian Girls which screened at SXSW in Austin, Texas and then at the Sydney Film Festival. We talked about the making of the film, working with Rainbow Chan, and the benefits and importance of diversity in film funding. It’s…

Earlier this year while he was here for Sydney Film Festival – and not long after I had the chance to see the film at SXSW – I sat down with director Bart Layton to talk about his new film American Animals, which is in cinemas next Thursday. Based on a true story that happened at…

American Animals is the scripted film debut from writer/director Bart Layton, who walked away with a BAFTA for his debut effort, the documentary The Imposter. Knowing he comes from a documentary background is unsurprising when you see this film, which screened at Sundance earlier this year to a good deal of critical acclaim, and continued…

Thanks to Cowlick Entertainment, we have 10 Double Passes to give away to Harmony, part one of the “Five Frequencies Saga” and the final work of Jessica Falkholt, the Home and Away star who we tragically lost in a car crash late last year. Harmony chronicles the story of Harmony, a super-empath born with the…

I’m going to preface this review by saying, I’m not a comics person, I just enjoy comic-adaptation movies. So my reviews tend to have this film-centric lens rather than delving into how aspects of specific comic editions or stories can be seen threaded through the movie. So now that I’ve gotten that out of the…

In September last year, the art festival We’re All Going To Die premiered in Sydney. Founder Stefan Hunt is promoting his message and encouraging people across the globe to “Fear less and live more”. WAGTD is a creative community in place to remind you to celebrate life through the lens of death, using art to…

Holy forking shirtballs! Did you know there hasn’t been a single year since 1975 that Ted Danson hasn’t been on our TV screens? It’s true! The American actor, currently appearing as Michael on the third season of NBC/Netflix’s The Good Place, has not shied away from the limelight over all these years. As a result, we…

When Oz Comic Con rolls in to Sydney, a wide variety of film and television stars get the chance to visit Australia as part of the convention line-up. More often than not they’re international stars, but funnily enough for the Brisbane and Sydney Oz Comic Con dates this September, Australian actor Nathaniel Buzolic got to…

When the end of September rolls around you can be certain of two things, the end of the NRL/AFL football seasons, and Oz Comic Con Sydney. Once again one of Australia’s biggest pop culture events rolled into the International Convention Centre (ICC) where fans can meet some of their favourite celebrities from film and television,…

On a cool, fresh, sunny September weekend as the school holidays kicked off, ICC Darling Harbour hosted Oz Comic-Con Sydney. It’s an event Where awe-inspiring actors, colourful cosplay, gladiatorial gamers, bodacious book authors, and compelling comics all come together. Over the course of the weekend, celebrity film and TV stars hosted question & answer panels…

Earlier this year, Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement reunited Flight of the Conchords for a tour across England. And now, the beloved New Zealand comedians and folk musicians will return to HBO after having concluded their TV show nine years ago, for a special recorded in London on July 1st. The show will see the…

Last Friday, Netflix released a new series called Maniac. Following up on Black Mirror and Stranger Things binges, Maniac has already flickered across many TV-lovers’ screens. The format is limited to ten episodes and based on the, four years older, Norwegian series with the same name. This genre-bending sci-fi drama is written by Patrick Somerville and directed…

Night School is a film with a very well-worn premise that has been done many times before (Billy Madison and Old School to name a few), but there factors here that could make the film transcend my meagre expectations. One is the paring of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, two of the biggest comedy stars right…

It may not seem like it, but it’s been ten years since director Gus Van Sant gave us the powerful and Oscar-winning biopic Milk. Since then, the filmmaker has been in somewhat of a slump, with three films (Restless, Promised Land, and The Sea of Trees) falling flat on their faces. You probably didn’t see any of them and you…

Stranger Things left off last season with the gang saving the day yet again, but will all that come crashing down in season 3? Not much news on that front, however we do know who will be making an appearance! Cary Elwes, known for starring in Mel Brook’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights, his role in the…

With series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, Netflix has cemented themselves as a platform that regularly delivers exciting original formats to binge watch. Well known for giving their writers and directors plenty of creative space to develop new material, series like like Black Mirror and Stranger Things have flourished. And now we have the thrilling Maniac, which playfully exhausts…

This year’s Australian Music Week Film Festival has revealed a diverse lineup of feature and short films set to appear as part of the annual event, which takes place on November 10th and 11th at the GU Film House in Cronulla, NSW. Following on from the Australian Music Week industry conference (7-9 Nov), the film festival will feature six feature…

At this very moment, there are 6.5 million Americans living with an intellectual disability. Only 15% of adults are gainfully employed with nearly 1 in 3 living below the poverty line. Their access to a proper education during their youth may provide a clue to these damning statistics. 17% of students with an intellectual disability are…

Filming is currently underway in Melbourne for the third and final season of Glitch, a Logie and AACTA award-winning, paranormal drama series that calls both ABC and Netflix home. The next season is said to introduce new characters, shocking twists and unexpected turns, all the while keeping viewers on the edge of their seats for…