Oscar Isaac

Film Review: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is bombastically ambitious, beautifully imaginative and emotionally rich

Expanding everything that made 2018’s revolutionary Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse work so wonderfully, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is bombastically ambitious, beautifully imaginative and emotionally rich.  It’s also drastically complicated for anyone not (Spider)versed in the ways of its animated predecessor, so – like many comic book movies that are specifically intertwined with their own franchise…

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First Impressions: Moon Knight is a stranger effort from the Marvel brand bolstered by Oscar Isaac’s dual performance

So often favouring spectacle over character development, the comic book action movie has gradually skewered its initial action-centric mentality towards a dramatic outreach (however melodramatic) that speaks to the quality talent the films so often manage to lure.  And for Marvel, not only are their films consistently cast, but their Disney+ series’ have more than…

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Oscar Isaac debuts as Marvel’s Moon Knight in first released trailer

Disney+ have debuted the thrilling trailer for the upcoming Marvel Studios series Moon Knight ahead of its streaming release date of March 30th, 2022. The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with…

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Film Review: The Addams Family 2 is a little too safe for a property built on creeps, kooks and ooks

Whatever creepiness, kookiness and all together ookiness that has been evoked by previous incarnations of The Addams Family is sadly nowhere to be seen in this safe-playing sequel, one that manages to bury any of the morbid humour and likeability we’d expect from the usually reliable pens of Dan Hernandez (Pokemon: Detective Pikachu), Benji Samit…

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Interview: The Addams Family 2 director Conrad Vernon on crafting a sequel and his relationship with animated films

Writer/director Conrad Vernon and the animated genre go hand-in-hand.  As both a voice actor and a director, the former storyboard artist has left his stamp on such films as Shrek 2, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Sausage Party. After the success of 2019’s animated update of The Addams Family, Vernon found himself back to the drawing…

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Interview: Nick Kroll on enjoying the free rein of voicing Uncle Fester in The Addams Family 2

Despite his prolific status within comedy, chances are you’re likely to recognise Nick Kroll‘s voice before seeing him in person.  Biding his time between family fare – just this last month he was heard as Gunter in the animated Sing 2 – and more adult aimed comedy – if you’ve laughed at either Coach Steve,…

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Film Review: The Card Counter deals a hand that benefits the house more than the player

Kenny Rogers so famously told us “You gotta know when to fold ’em”, and in The Card Counter writer/director Paul Schrader seems unsure as to which hand he wants to confidently play.  It’s not that this film is poorly made, nor is his commitment to the representation of desolation anything other than pure, but it’s…

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Film Review: Dune merges its blockbuster aesthetic with a desolate mentality.

Despite reading Frank Herbert‘s 1965 novel many moons ago and viewing David Lynch’s bizarre 1984 adaptation during my youth, Dune was still a title that felt foreign to me when entering the theatre to bare witness to Denis Villeneuve‘s much-discussed imagining.  Sure, I can clearly see the inspiration this operatic story had on the science-fiction…

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The Card Counter is a bleak and repetitive effort mildly saved by the presence of Oscar Isaac: Sydney Film Festival Review

Kenny Rogers so famously told us “You gotta know when to fold ’em”, and in The Card Counter writer/director Paul Schrader seems unsure as to which hand he wants to confidently play.  It’s not that this film is poorly made, nor is his commitment to the representation of desolation anything other than pure, but it’s…

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The Card Counter is unsure of which narrative hand it wants to play: Brisbane International Film Festival review

Kenny Rogers so famously told us “You gotta know when to fold ’em”, and in The Card Counter writer/director Paul Schrader seems unsure as to which hand he wants to confidently play.  It’s not that this film is poorly made, nor is his commitment to the representation of desolation anything other than pure, but it’s…

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Film Review: Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is full of fan service but lacks wow factor

Who would have thought that the space opera that is Star Wars would span 42 years, multiple generations of fans and be the tentpole blockbuster series and franchise behemoth that it is today. It began with A New Hope in 1977 and the introduction of Luke Skywalker. It ends with The Rise of Skywalker in…

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Film Review: The Addams Family offers a delightful spooky alternative to, y’know, that Other Family Movie

It’s been thirteen years since Gomez and Morticia Addams (Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron) were run out of town on their wedding day. Settling in an abandoned asylum, they’ve lived a life mercifully free of torch wielding villagers, (un)happily raising their children, Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard), in safety. Well, as safe…

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The war isn’t over yet in the latest trailer for Operation Finale

The latest trailer for the upcoming war film Operation Finale based on an incredible true story has dropped, and is set to focus on the few untold stories that carried on long after the World War 2 had ended. Taking place in 1960, Operation Finale centres around Mossad Agent Peter Malkin’s quest to capture Nazi…

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Film Review: Netflix’s Annihilation (USA, 2018) is a seriously intelligent, visually stunning picture

Rousing its fair share of controversy over Paramount Studios’ decision to release it to streaming service Netflix the world over (save for North America and China) instead of in cinemas for which it was initially intended, Alex Garland‘s ambitious Annihilation is certainly a unique production for such a risk-adverse studio. Whilst there’s a certain arthouse…

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Film Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (USA, 2017) is loaded with emotional battles to win and lose

With every new Star Wars film comes the obvious comparisons to its predecessors. Yes there are epic space battles between X-Wings and Tie Fighters. Yes there are wild twirling lightsaber fights. And most importantly there is the deep, spiritual and emotional journey of our characters (some more than others). These have always and will always…

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Film Review: X-Men: Apocalypse (M 15+) (USA, 2016)

X-Men: Apocalypse delivers the super fights, the superhero costumes, the supervillain and the super team. But was this latest X-Men film so special that, if it was a person, it would be enrolled at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters? Yes and no. Mild spoilers ahead. Set in 1983, 10 years after the previous Days of…

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Oscar Isaac to star in A Foreigner

Fresh off of his superb showing in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Oscar Isaac has confirmed an upcoming role in A Foreigner. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who directed Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, will direct the movie from a script by Chris Terrio of Batman v Superman. The pic revolves around a murdered Guatemalan man…

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The Force Awakens‘s Oscar Isaac joins Alex Garland’s new sci-fi Annihilation

Adapted from the first book in science fiction author Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, Alex Garland‘s latest venture, Annihilation, is shaping up to be something great. Written and directed by Garland, the film will center around a biologist (played by Natalie Portman), who is seeking answers to her husband’s tragic disappearance. In a bid to find these answers,…

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X-Men: Apocalypse brings out the big guns in new trailer

With Deadpool behind us, Batman v Superman only a week away from release and Captain America: Civil War a month off, we’re pretty firmly in superhero season for 2016 with Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse getting a new trailer to mark the occasion. The trailer, set to a moody cover of a Coldplay song, sees both the X-Men…

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DVD Review: Show Me A Hero (USA, 2015)

Leave it to David Simon, the creator of The Wire, to turn a story about housing developments into the one of the richest miniseries television has seen in years. Show Me A Hero is a six-episode miniseries that adapts the real-world story behind the enforcement of federally-mandated public housing in the American city of Yonkers….

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Sydney Film Festival Review: The Two Faces of January (M) (UK/USA, 2014)

Not everything or everyone is quite what it seems in this gripping thriller that brings a wealthy American couple and a young shady tour guide together on an increasingly tense journey across the Mediterranean as they try to evade the law. Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his gorgeous young wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst) are holidaying…

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