Review

Given how she made history as the first deaf person to win an Academy Award for acting, one might think the documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore would be something of a straightforward and celebratory profile on the actress.  Shoshannah Stern – who, like her subject, is also a deaf actor and director – certainly…

There’s a certain bittersweetness in watching OBEX (the title specifically capitalised) only weeks after David Lynch’s sad passing, as Albert Birney‘s truly bizarre odyssey feels like a kindred spirit to Lynch’s Eraserhead, with the hallucinatory anxiety and surrealist mentality playing into a personality that is perversely into its own weirdness. Set in a pre-internet 1987,…

Audiences today, specifically modern queer audiences, may not quite understand the gravity of shame and fear expressed throughout Plainclothes, a 90s-set drama that sets itself around the gay cruising scene that honed a far-more secretive temperament than what is experienced today. By no means is Carmen Emmi‘s enveloping film an alienating experience, but freedom in…

Very much speaking to just how much times have changed in terms of film distribution, a romantic comedy from the director of such acclaimed titles as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bad Neighbours, and Bros, and starring proven talent as Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon is releasing straight to the streaming service market. Oh, and it’s actually…

There’s a certain appeal of freedom that comes with the notion of freelancing.  For most creatives, there’s the feeling of independence in choosing one’s own working conditions, and, to the more corporate minded nine-to-fivers, this may conjure a sense of envy in being able to escape certain confinements.  Whilst this isn’t necessarily untrue, freelancing is…

Despite the fact that the recently released trailer made Nightbitch look more like a quirky comedy – think a female-drive, R-rated take on Tim Allen’s The Shaggy Dog – I can attest that Marielle Heller‘s take on Rachel Yoder‘s seemingly unadaptable 2021 novel of the same name is far from the laughable ridiculousness some may…

Regardless of how one feels about him personally, you can’t entirely deny that Mel Gibson knows how to direct a movie.  Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto are all, at worst, competently made features that speaks to a creative awareness of the craft.  The Gibson that made those movies, however, isn’t anywhere to be…

There was a point when it came to initially reviewing Companion that I was thinking how difficult it would be to navigate around certain plot points, given that Drew Hancock‘s horror-leaning, sci-fi adjacent, romantic thriller bets on a particular narrative reveal.  It’s one that I wasn’t dare going to spoil – I had the luck…

It’s all a little too easy to accuse actor-turned-director Brady Corbet of indulging in his own self given the running time of his third feature The Brutalist; the 215 minute drama following 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader and 2018’s divisive Natalie Portman feature Vox Lux.  The length, however, (which also includes a needed 15…

A more evasive mentality is adhered to in A Complete Unknown and its subject, musician Bob Dylan, than what director James Mangold afforded Johnny Cash in Walk The Line (2005), here, a deliberately distant biopic that dares to keep Dylan as the enigmatic character he is, rather than create anything false and flashy for the…

We’ve had the pleasure of reviewing several Anker products over the years, including the Anker Prime 250W charger, which is still at my desk, and their 10,000 mAh 30W Power Bank, which I had used up until this particular review. As great as that previous portable charger has been, the MagGo 10K Slim Power Bank…

It’s been over a decade since we last saw Cameron Diaz grace our screens.  Bowing out with a planned retirement from the industry following 2014’s middlingly received musical Annie, Diaz has been lured back to do what she does best, reuniting with Annie cohort Jamie Foxx for Back In Action, a fittingly titled comedic actioner…

Not to be confused with Denzel Washington’s 2010 runaway train thriller – or the lesser known 2004 outing from Wesley Snipes – Unstoppable, which marks the directorial debut of editor William Goldenberg, whose credits include such titles as Coyote Ugly, Miami Vice and Air, is a by-the-numbers sports drama that lives by its inspirational hook. …

Similar to how he shifted our expected perspective from predator to prey in 2020’s slick reimagining of The Invisible Man, which layered the tale with a topical #MeToo sheen, Aussie genre helmer Leigh Whannell is, once again, altering the ingredients for what we think a Wolf Man narrative should be. Generational trauma, the uncertain dynamic of a marriage and meditations on…

Selling itself direct from the off with a title that indicates both the seasonal setting and the supernatural creatures at bay, Monster Summer tries so desperately to align itself with the heavily rotated family-friendly likes of The Goonies, The Sandlot and Hocus Pocus, but its 1990s setting and adventurous personality aren’t able to conjure the…

Similar to how, in equal measure, the Catholic church is an institution that earns both regard and revile, Conclave, Edward Berger‘s scandalous mystery set within the walls of the Vatican, is, at once, a revealing thriller as much as it is a delicious farce. Made all the more chewable due to Peter Straughan‘s script honing…

Given the astronomically high bar set by director Paul King and co-writer Simon Farnaby with 2017’s Paddington 2, the 7-year wait for Paddington in Peru only adds to the film’s overall anticipation and, due to both King and Farnaby sitting out their directorial and screenwriting duties, slight trepidation. It goes without saying that very few…

Despite the fact that Juror #2 is directed Clint Eastwood (reportedly, also, his last feature as a filmmaker) and contains an extended ensemble including, but not limited to, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons and Kiefer Sutherland, you’d be rightfully under the impression that such credentials hold no weight given the absolute mistreatment of this…

Whether you loved him or hated him as part of Take That or on his own accord as a brash soloist, Robbie Williams, particularly in the 1990s, was a figure you couldn’t escape.  Similar to the cultural impact of Geri Halliwell exiting the Spice Girls or Zayn Malik bidding adieu to One Direction, Williams’ exit…

It’s too easy to claim that writer/director Sean Baker makes inaccessible films due to the fact that so many of his narratives centre around the society underrepresented, chief among them being sex workers.  As we saw in such previous works as Tangerine and Red Rocket, Baker seeks to remove such a stigma around pornography performers, prostitutes…

There’s a famous story surrounding when Jim Carrey approached Tommy Lee Jones at a restaurant one night during the production of Batman Forever in 1995.  On the eve of the duo filming “their biggest scene together” on the Joel Schumacher sequel, Carrey popped into a diner where Jones happened to be eating.  The maitre noted…

Shifting away from the sibling rivalry at the centre of the modern-set dramedy Scrap, writer/director Vivian Kerr moves into gothic horror territory for her sophomore feature-length project, Séance, a dramatic tale that still admittedly utilises the mentality of rivalry, but does so in a different, more psychological manner. Grief, obsession, and both the fragile and toxic…

A stunningly haunting reimagining of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent expressionist vampire film Nosferatu, itself an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula”, Robert Eggers‘ gothic tale (ironically) breathes fresh life into Henrik Galeen‘s original, weaving human obsession and pain in a macabre manner that results in the genre filmmaker delivering possibly his finest craft…

Though there’s the sense that, initially, the characterisation of Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) in A Real Pain is to purely lean into the personality-driven descriptiveness of such a title, writer/director Jesse Eisenberg has other plans in helping us as an audience empathise with his plight.  Benji hones the type of energy that can be described…

It goes without saying that The Lord of the Rings film trilogy is one that left an impressionable in-print on cinema.  Many other films have tried their best to emulate its epic nature in the years since – even director Peter Jackson himself with the shaky Hobbit series – but few have captured correctly, so…

As one of the first monitors to leverage Samsung’s next-generation 4K 240Hz QD-OLED panel, the Alienware 4K QD-OLED (AW3225QF) arrives with plenty of hype, and for good reason. This 32-inch, curved display builds on Alienware’s previous QD-OLED models, combining impressive technical specs with thoughtful design choices and stellar desktop appeal. It not only meets the…

When we reviewed Microsoft Flight Simulator back in 2020, there was no doubt that we were playing something special. Something crafted for not only hardcore flight fans but also a new adventure for curious future enthusiasts to explore and experiment with. It’s something I can admit I never thought I would come to love, but…

When Nintendo announced remakes of the long-dormant series Famicom Detective Club, it seemed like a nostalgic one-off experiment and no sure thing that the revamped titles from yesteryear would work in the present gaming landscape. Fast-forward and it would appear that those remakes were just a prologue, with more in store for fans. Enter Emio…

SteelSeries is well known not only for its fantastic variety of gaming peripherals and accessories but also for its consistent quality. From the Arctis Nova Pro to the Arctis Nova 5 and even the Arctis Nova 1, it’s safe to say their newer headsets have all been winners in their own right. The SteelSeries Arctis…

Positioned as a spiritual successor to the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, Metaphor: ReFantazio is the latest offering from Japanese studio Atlus, trading in school halls for castle walls. Boldly delving into heavy themes of inequality and the corrupting influence of power, Atlus has certainly crafted one of the standout RPGs of the year….