Hopefully a film that won’t just become infamous for its lack of being seen – after it previewed one single screening at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival it was withdrawn due to “rights issues” – The People’s Joker is a bold, bonkers debut feature from Vera Drew that reimagines the mythology of a slew…
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There’s a certain period-piece sexuality billowing through Widow Clicquot that brings to mind other such similarly-set efforts as Atonement and Pride & Prejudice. And given that those films’ second-unit director, Thomas Napper, is at the helm here, it makes perfect sense that such detail and intimacy is adhered to; fittingly, Joe Wright, director of the…
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Described as a “traumedy” and navigating a narrative I have no personal connection to – or even a right to comment on in all honesty – Molly McGlynn‘s Fitting In has the same footprints as a coming-of-age comedy, but laces such with a queer mentality and the potential dehumanising reality of when your body “rejects”…
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Whilst the mass hysteria and government control surrounding COVID-19 has subsided, the trauma of the pandemic itself is still something that lingers for many. Tautuktavuk (What We See) is a semi-autobiographical drama that looks at such an effect, furthered by the already isolated reality of the Inuit culture, co-directed by Lucy Tulugarjuk and Carol Kunnuk….
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A parallel between the systematic racism towards the Arab community in Europe and the fatalities experienced across the United States during the Black Lives Matter movement, Mehdii Fikri‘s After the Fire is an affective drama that commands conversation. Though a fictional story, the film’s credits take note that this is “based on the real struggle…
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“A film festival is a gathering of diverse perspectives that offers a collective snapshot of the global zeitgeist, allowing us to delve deeper into our present reality,” said Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley as he unveiled this year’s stellar line-up of programming, running from June 7th – 18th. “For 70 years, Sydney Film Festival has…
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Emily tells the imagined life of one of the world’s most famous authors, Emily Brontë. The film, written and directed by Australian actress Frances O’Connor (in her directorial debut), stars Emma Mackey as Emily, a rebel and misfit, as she finds her voice and writes the literary classic “Wuthering Heights”; further exploring her raw, passionate…
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Based on an incredible true story centred in the world of hospitals and health care, about how one woman’s growing suspicion of her co-worker led to America’s most prolific serial killer being brought to justice after 16 years of quietly killing patients across the US, The Good Nurse is a chilling true crime story that…
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Given how wild everyone – or teenage girls, to be a little more accurate – are for pop’s main man-candy Harry Styles, it will no doubt throw much of his female following off as to how graphic the sexual scenes are in My Policeman, a queer love story that perseveres with grand intentions but, sadly,…
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One of the more unlikely franchises of a resilient nature, V/H/S/, a retro-appearing horror anthology effort that often compiles a series of genre directors flexing their creative muscle through short horror narratives, is now in its fifth iteration in the form of V/H/S/99. The horror tales that often are confined within the V/H/S/ films are always…
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When The Wonder first begins there’s a rather pretentious and, ultimately, unrewarding additive that runs the risk of undoing all that will follow. Niamh Algar‘s soothing vocal tone greets us as our eyes glaze over a constructed film set. Algar informs us that we are indeed watching a film, but the players involve believe in…
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Though he certainly didn’t lose any of his sense of comfort by travelling across the Atlantic for his last film – 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – there’s a sense of grandeur in writer/director Martin McDonagh returning to his homeland for The Banshees of Inisherin, an impossibly funny and, at times, heartbreakingly bleak dramedy…
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As much as this film titles itself after an infant whose actions drive much of its horrifically-laced narrative forward, it’s the newborn’s mother that earns much of the focus in Baby Ruby, an unsettling psychological drama from Bess Wohl, the writer/actress making her directorial debut here. That mother is Jo (Noémie Merlant, best known for…
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“Mommy and Daddy will be right next to you the whole time.” From the opening line of dialogue in Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans, an autobiographical coming-of-age tale that boasts itself as his first writing credit since A.I. some two decades prior, we get a sense of what’s to come as, outside a New Jersey movie…
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There’s something incredibly refreshing about The Good Nurse in that its true-crime temperament isn’t marred by overt manipulation – as so many of such adapted tales can be. Jessica Chastain (as typically great and committed as expected) is Amy, the titular good nurse, a single mother who is hiding her own ailment as she dedicates…
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The claustrophobic and emotional resonance Florian Zeller created with 2020’s The Father is unfortunately nowhere to be found in The Son, a prequel of sorts based off another of Zeller’s stage plays. A chamber piece on the subject of dementia that rightfully won Anthony Hopkins his second Best Actor Academy Award, The Father expressed subtlety…
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Rian Johnson had far too much fun paying homage to the works of Agatha Christie in 2019’s star-studded crime comedy Knives Out. To say he executed it perfectly would be putting it mildly, but whilst a sequel to such a set-up seemed like a given, how anything secondary would be navigated was another mystery in…
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If X was Ti West‘s homage to classic 70’s horror effort The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then Pearl could almost be aligned with The Wizard of Oz, just with, you know, a lot more blood and dry-humping scarecrows. The fact that X was an initial singular success story was enough of a win for independent horror…
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A low-key slice of independent cinema that you imagine wouldn’t be given as big of a spotlight had it not been for lead Jennifer Lawrence, Causeway nonetheless deserves its attention as it’s a determined and moving picture about one’s healing, both emotionally and physically. Adhering to the stripped-away mentality that drove her to her first…
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There’s both a sense of adhering to the temperaments of action films gone by and embracing the current and future state of the genre present in Jalmari Helander‘s Sisu. Matching its dark sense of humour (and I mean dark) with a violently bloody mentality (and I mean bloody!), Sisu manages to present the simplest of…
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Author Angie Thomas has become something of a contemporary prose lyricist for the new wave of young coloured youths through her breakout novels The Hate U Give and On The Come Up. Breathing a certain life into their own coming of age stories, her words prove a promising soundboard for actress Sanaa Lathan‘s foray into…
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As cinephiles eagerly await the official schedule on August 23rd, the 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival has announced its first slew of premiere titles for its first in-person celebration following two years of pandemic-disrupted programming. 11 days of international and Canadian cinema, special events featuring some of the biggest names in film, and TIFF’s…
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There’s a consistent thrill to Encounter, Michael Pearce‘s ambitious science fiction-leaning effort that delights in its ambiguous nature. At least, for the most part. Seen through the eyes of an unreliable narrator (an as expected stellar Riz Ahmed), Pearce’s film is better when it’s holding on to its secrets. There’s something deeper and darker at…
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There’s a hopeful message about tackling grief in a healthy manner and how there’s the possibility of light at the end of darkness present in the core of The Starling. With so many promising ingredients too, Theodore Melfi‘s feel-good dramedy is likely to lure audiences in with a false sense of security, promising potential but…
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The 2018 Danish thriller The Guilty was riveting, ruthless material. This American remake, coming courtesy of director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), is much of the same, which means those who have seen the original will find the plotting all too familiar, yet those uninitiated are likely to be wholly swept up in its…
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There’s a quirky, indie comedy vibe that initially laces the opening minutes of All My Puny Sorrows that deceptively suggests what will take place over the coming 103 minutes will be an airier approach to incredibly sensitive material. Character names are unusual – to say the least – and the dialogue is heightened, presented in…
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This year’s Toronto International Film Festival is welcoming back a sense of normalcy after the year that wasn’t. Ticket buyers – both those attending TIFF in person and those staying at home with TIFF’s virtual platform – are spoilt for choice, with over 100 films on the line-up, ranging from blockbuster special events, gala screening…
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Six Australian films have been chosen for the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). As one of the biggest publicly attended film festivals the TIFF has close ties to the US film industry. This poses a good chance of expanding the range of Australian film making to a world-wide audience, like former Toronto premieres (e.g….
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With a new music video “Tiff” just released, featuring Justin Vernon, the lead singer of Minnesota based band Polica – Channy Leaneagh – took some time out of her busy schedule to talk to us about the video, playing Laneway, the next record and more… What does the song and the video mean to you?…
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