Whilst it’s understandable that Glen Powell‘s rise to fame over the last few years has very much leant into his obvious sex appeal, you have to hand it to the actor for not always relying on it within his projects. Namely his latest effort, Chad Powers, a sports-themed comedy series that he and producer/writer Michael…
Whilst the story behind how Whitney Wolfe Herd both co-founded Tinder and its eventual competition, Bumble, is exciting and full of suitable intrigue, Swiped, with its understandable embellishments, never quite graduates beyond surface level interest. It’s an entertaining film, without question, with another committed Lily James performance at its core, but The Social Network this…
Taking a break from the horror genre she has so effortlessly cornered over the majority of her exciting career thus far, Samara Weaving exudes her expected charm and badassness as the titular Eenie Meanie in writer/director Shawn Simmons‘ ode to the 70s action movie, an irreverent, fast-paced actioner that blends its comedic thrills with a…
Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers aired the final episode of its second season last week, laying the groundwork for a potential third season. Whether it was a case of the pacing being hindered by the one episode a week release structure, or the show getting too far away from its original source material, this historical drama…
Earlier this year, Max Mutchnick and David Kohan brought a classic sensibility of the sitcoms of heyday to streamer Hulu (Disney+ here in Australia) with Mid Century Modern. The Will & Grace creators maintained a sense of nostalgia with the multi-camera format and live audience participation, whilst updating the humour to include a more modern…
Despite the fact that the recent Materialists has been rightfully acclaimed and turned a neat little profit for its US distributor, A24, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Dakota Johnson-led rom-com-dram was one of the worst films to ever grace the screens for the hoards of millennials who were disappointed that it was more…
From the beloved E. Lockhart book of the same name, We Were Liars is the highly anticipated Prime Video adaptation developed by Julie Plec and Carina Adly Mackenzie. With an all star cast featuring Emily Alyn Lind, Caitlin FitzGerald, Mamie Gummer, Candice King, Rahul Kohli, Shubham Maheshwari, Esther McGregor and Australian actor Joseph Zada, We Were…
Intentionally testing audience patience across its increasingly bizarre, tension-laced 100 minutes, Lorcan Finnegan‘s Australian thriller The Surfer is more about breaking points than Point Break as it mashes surfing culture localism and toxic masculinity. Thomas Martin‘s script doesn’t give specific names to the majority of its players, instead referring to the film’s protagonist as simply…
After a successful box office run, the Certified Fresh, SXSW Audience Award-winning film is coming to Prime Video! It’s been nearly 10 years since Ben Affleck debuted as Christian Wolff, aka The Accountant, in the same-name actioner that Gavin O’Connor pushed to a sizeable box office haul ($155m) despite tepid-ish reviews. That being said, average reviews have never stopped a…
The type of intriguing, wealthy-white-centered murder mystery that feels as if Nicole Kidman is going to swan in at any given moment, The Better Sister manages to escape its familiar set-up thanks to strong performances and a genuine sense of unpredictability surrounding the “who” and “why” of it all. That familiar set-up involves the murder…
If there’s one thing Nicole Kidman is going to commit wholeheartedly to in any of her multitude of projects, it’s that her character will indulge in a wig or an accent. In the case of Nine Perfect Strangers, it’s both. Four years ago, hot off the success of her “Big Little Lies” being transformed into…
Furthering his effortless charisma and likeability, Stanley Tucci makes his lifestyle of Italian region hopping and delighting in their signature gastronomic feasts a real treat to behold. Usually having to endure other people – and rich people, at that – having the time of their (and our) lives isn’t the most enjoyable experience, and whilst…
Known for his beloved comedy shorts online, Benito Skinner quickly rose to fame in 2020 with his hilarious celebrity impressions, skits, and original characters. The sense of humour he brought during such (and I hate to say it) unprecedented times made Benny Drama an iconic internet hall of famer, and it doesn’t look like he’ll…
Despite being created by Tina Fey, whose previous television ventures have adhered to a more satirical, exaggerated mentality (see 30 Rock and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), her Netflix offering, The Four Seasons, is considerably more grounded and dramatic. Sure, there’s genuine bouts of humour peppered across the 8 episodes, but audiences expecting raucous laughter best…
Whilst it shouldn’t have taken as long as 7 years for us to be gifted a sequel to 2018’s comedic thriller A Simple Favour – a quirky piece that played out like Gone Girl rinsed through the cycle of a soap opera – director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy) and writers Jessica Sharzer (who also penned…
Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, the Emmy winning showrunners and collaborative couple who created shows like the beloved Gilmore Girls and the critically acclaimed The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, are diving into the world of ballet with Étoile. The Palladinos are far from strangers when it comes to world of music and dance, with both aforementioned series…
The Handmaid’s Tale has always meant different things to different people; a cautionary tale, a grim prophecy, or a dramatised echo of historical truths. Over its run it’s drawn praise and criticism in equal measure, and now, as it enters its final season, it faces the daunting task of delivering a satisfying conclusion, while also…
Though there’s usually always a sense of unflinching violence that laces the filmic work of director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram, The Order), his debut detour into episodic television, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, is considerably more blunt in its brutality. Perhaps because the prose at the series’ center – Richard Flanagan‘s winning novel…
The type of show where the melodrama is ripe, the ranch settings are lush and the aesthetically pleasing cast go by such names as Yancy and Staten, Ransom Canyon has the right temperament to be the next easily digestible Netflix streaming obsession. The type of generic show people put on to not pay attention to,…
[This episode contains spoilers for the final episode of High Potential] If you haven’t been watching High Potential, the latest crime drama out of America created by Drew Goddard, then the good news is, you can now binge-watch all 13 episodes of season one on Disney +. The season finale, which aired on Thursday April…
It’s been two years since The Last of Us Season 1 became a cultural phenomenon on HBO. The second season of the show is adapting the video game “The Last of Us Part II”, and strangely enough in the first 5 minutes of the season opener, the show just randomly spoils the big twist from…
Having made it to Australia in season one, the characters of Stan and BBC One’s collaborative historical drama series Ten Pound Poms find themselves faced with even more stark realities about their new life as the show returns for a second season. While each of the core characters came to the camp at Galgownie in New…
Love on the Spectrum is back for their third season on Netflix. The Emmy winning documentary-type series, which fittingly premiered worldwide on World Autism Day (April 2nd), is a reality TV show based off of the Australian version of the same name, created and produced by Karina Holden and Cian O’Clery. It follows the lives…
The Bondsman is a horror-comedy series that tells the story of Hub Halloran (Kevin Bacon, comical and ever charismatic), a murdered bounty hunter in the south whose bound for Hell due to his own sins, before being brought back to life by the Devil to hunt demons on Earth that have escaped the pits of…
Watching something like Mid-Century Modern you’re reminded of both the golden age of the multi-cam, live audience classicality of a sitcom, as well as the shift in televisual consumption, with this nostalgic itch-scratching firecracker of a show taking advantage of its streaming setting with boundary-pushing humour and considerable profanity; once you hear the stupendous Linda…
If there’s one thing about our Nicole Kidman, it’s that she’s going to work! Fresh off three of last year’s buzziest shows (Expats, Lioness and The Perfect Couple) and a criminally Oscar-oversighted performance in the erotic drama Babygirl, the perennially busy actress/producer is at the centre of another twisted thriller of sorts in Prime Video’s…
Whilst there is a certain “inside baseball”-like mentality to The Studio – the Seth Rogen–Evan Goldberg-created comedy series about the moving and shaking of a new film studio head and his attempt to salvage the newly acquired company’s evidently floundering reputation – such is the genius of Rogen and Goldberg’s handling (the duo co-directing each…
A queer President. An occasionally profane Kylie Minogue. An unseen Hugh Jackman. A birder-obsessed detective. And a murder most foul. An Agatha Christie-meets-Clue-like mystery series from the Shondaland factory (i.e. Shonda Rhimes, the figurehead behind such TV successes as Grey’s Anatomy, How To Get Away With Murder, and Bridgerton), The Residence is an intelligent, witty…
Whilst his previous film – 2017’s crowd-pleasing Patti Cake$ – had a scrappiness to it, it beamed with a personality larger than its budget. For O’Dessa, director Geremy Jasper delights in supreme maximalism, as his post-apocalyptic musical-romance hybrid projects its bigness through both its visuals and its central thematic of how love can transform one’s…
Animation studio Pixar take on their first Disney+ original animated television show with Win or Lose. In the eight episode series, Pixar return to their roots with a story following a middle-school softball championship league told in an anthology style, with each episode told from a different kid and adult that affects the baseball team’s…
