One day Hollywood might be able to come up with a new science fiction movie that has us discovering a fluffy cute adorable friendly alien. One day Hollywood might be able to come up with a group of characters who actually have character development, prior to being ruthlessly dispatched. One day Hollywood might be able…
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I have to admit, I don’t watch a lot of documentaries, but I’ve loved the ones I’ve seen. Some of them haven’t felt like documentaries at all, mainly because the stories behind them are a little too one-sided or hard to believe. Films like Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine have been accused of being false, manipulative…
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Best known for his contribution to Japanese horror, director Kiyoshi Kurosawa brings an interesting take on a ghost story. Daguerrotype (Le Secret de la Chambre Noire) follows a Parisian named Jean (Tahar Rahim) who is hired to be an assistant to the elusive photographer Stéphane (Olivier Gourmet). With Jean’s help, they create heart-stopping daguerreotypes, an old form of permanent…
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With four episodes left in the season, we and the group from Alexandria are all gearing up for one hell of a showdown. That means the stakes get higher, situations get more tense and occasionally Greg Nicotero and his crew need to pad out an episode here and there. Not to say that “Say Yes”…
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Cameraperson shines a light on the individual behind the camera. In this case it is cinematographer, Kirsten Johnson, a woman with some 25 years’ experience in the movie-making business. She’s also known for having worked on films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Citizenfour, among others. Cameraperson is a documentary that lets the footage speak for itself…
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There is no way for Peter Berg’s Patriot’s Day to avoid being labelled as exploitative and “too soon”, if even just for the title. For the past few weeks critics have been piling onto the director’s dramatic retelling of the bombings which took place during the annual Boston Marathon in April of 2013, killing three…
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In last week’s episode ‘The Lying Detective’ came the revelation that the Holmes boys have a sister, a shocking bombshell that had eluded us all. Mainly because Mycroft had purposefully kept her existence a secret from Sherlock (and us the viewers). In this week’s episode, those long buried secrets come to the surface, and Sherlock…
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Ready the tea and make sure you’ve got your shock blanket handy because BBC Sherlock is back and here to emotionally ruin you all over again with a brand new series. Thanks to streaming service provider Stan, Australia gets each episode of Season 4 within hours of it airing in the UK. Obviously this review…
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In the spirit of comedies like Father of the Bride and Meet the Parents, the new film Why Him? brings together some great actors for a mass consumption comedy about new additions to the family and the parents who struggle with their little girl (or boy) growing up. With these films in mind, there is…
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Robert Zemeckis is a film-maker that has both enthralled and frustrated me. For the most part, his films can be exciting, fun and incredibly well-told; take the Back to the Future series, Cast Away or the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit. But at his worst, his films can be corny and indulgent; What Lies Beneath,…
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As the front-end of The Walking Dead’s average seventh season comes to an end we get another glimmer of hope on the horizon, but those small sparks are still overshadowed by a script that leans a bit too heavily on Jefferey Dean Morgan, overindulging in Negan’s affable sociopath shtick. The showrunners are so confident in…
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Similar to how director Ira Sachs‘ previous effort Love Is Strange commented on the increasing rate of renting in New York City, Little Men showcases how a simple financial squabble can become someone’s undoing. A relationship-based drama that survives mainly on the simplistic but natural performances of its cast, Little Men focuses on young Jake…
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We’re onto the sixth episode and so far The Walking Dead’s seventh season has been terribly uneven. Thankfully “Swear” is one of the better episodes so far, but even then it is an oddly placed, oddly paced bottle episode that serves as the obligatory catch-up with Tara and Heath but little more. The Walking Dead‘s…
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Last week’s “The Well” was a nice little break from the doom and gloom of a post-Negan world, but The Walking Dead isn’t just going to give us tigers and eccentric faux-kings as the crew attempt to build what is being pegged as their darkest and most emotional season yet. “The Cell” was very much…
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I hate to admit that I do not really know a lot about classical film noir, despite watching many films in the neo-noir genre like Brick, Sin City and of course, Veronica Mars. But what I do know are some of the main tropes of film noir: the femme fatale, the dirty cop and the…
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Burn Burn Burn – set to screen in Australia as part of the BBC First British Film Festival – is the feature film debut from director Chanya Button and surprised me as a standout film of the “road trip” genre. Even if it did take a little long to get there, it’s the journey that…
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Woody Allen’s latest film should be renamed “High Society.” This beautifully-shot comedy is a nostalgic but throwaway look at the glitz and glamour of some halcyon days in Hollywood and the smoky nightlife of New York. It’s ultimately like a pleasant and lightweight dream that celebrates money even though the thirties was synonymous for some…
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Joe Cinque’s Consolation is a film that throws up a lot of questions. How much responsibility should society accept in a murder trial? Is a murder a preventable death? To what extent can we describe an inexplicable crime? This Australian film is based on some true events and is adapted from Helen Garner’s award-winning true…
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With the hype likening this Tate Taylor thriller to last year’s hit Gone Girl, The Girl On The Train returns to the classic bleak style but without the twists and turns that make the genre interesting. Adapting a fan-favourite page-turner to the big screen is always a risk, especially when that adaptation involves a relocation…
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Whilst Tim Burton is far from being back to his winning form, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is at least a step in the right direction for a filmmaker who has always found comfort in showcasing the weird and wonderful. Though the film slightly feels like a fantasy cash-in, much in the way features…
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John Sturges’ 1960 American Western has been polished and updated with a culturally diverse – for the sake of being culturally diverse – cast and a keen eye on box office glory. Antoine Fuqua’s updated version of The Magnificent Seven is a successful outing in this sense, roping in the likes of a sullen Denzel…
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Directed by Roberto Andò, The Confessions (Le confessioni) is a refreshing suspense thriller. The film centres on a global summit where the world’s powerful and influential leaders attend. Among them is Salus (Toni Servillo), a monk, who is called over by Director of International Monetary Funds Daniel Roché (Daniel Auteuil) so he could make a…
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The First Girl I Loved – set to screen as part of the Queer Screen Film Fest in Sydney – follow seventeen year old Anna (Dylan Gelula from Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), a young, smart yet quiet photographic student. Anna notices Sasha, played by Brianna Hildebrand (Deadpool), playing sport and instantly Anna, who until now…
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Believe it or not, this isn’t a film about Simone Biles latent fifth gold medal that became a bronze. Aside from the scenes of gymnastics, this film is about as far from the grace of the American superstar as any film could possibly be, but unabashedly so. The Bronze is what happens when The Big…
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From the moment Steven King’s novel 11/22/63 was announced, there were efforts to turn it into a film, even before it had been released. However, its length and detail made it a difficult adaptation. Enter J.J. Abrams and streaming platform Hulu a few years later, and the book found its way into a eight part…
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In 1988, a year after Tim Burton, Micheal Keaton and Jack Nicholson tried their hand at interpreting the Batman mythos, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland released a 48-page graphic novel that explored the Jokers origin, the extent of his lunacy and Batman and Jokers relationship far better than anyone had done at that point. That…
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The 2016 return of Ghostbusters has been copping almost non-stop criticism from the moment it was announced, from its first trailer drop, right up to its theatrical release. Because of this, it’s hard to escape any negative or foreshadowing thought going into this. But upon stepping out of the cinema after the screening finished, I…
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There’s an ancient proverb: when you place two of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood in the same room together, they’re either going to carry the movie or destroy it. Or at least, that’s roughly how it goes. In the case of Central Intelligence, placing comedy’s new golden boy Kevin Hart in a suit alongside…
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As someone completely unschooled in the world of Warcraft, I entered the filmic adaptation of the popular video game franchise with an open mind and no expectations. On its own merits it’s a perfectly serviceable action/fantasy opus that’s heavy on CGI and spectacle but short on much else – not that that is necessarily a…
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In 2014 a new live adaptation of the beloved comic and cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hit our screens. The reception wasn’t great, complaints aplenty from fans and mutiple Raspberry Awards made it fairly clear that the film’s producers, writers and the studio had some work to do to win back their audience. Two…
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