There was something darkly, deliciously special about the way writer/director Emma Seligman and actress Rachel Sennott announced themselves with 2020’s Shiva Baby. A claustrophobic black comedy that indulged in a spiralling, horrific temperament, their collaboration set a certain precedent for the boundary-pushing, topical humour that’s furthered in Bottoms, a wild, oft-violent, sexually liberated high-school comedy […]
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With its ludicrous potential built right into its title, Slotherhouse nabs your attention immediately with its narrative hook. A mammal as notoriously slow as a sloth surely can’t be fast enough to kill predatorial animals, let alone a house full of sorority girls, right? It’s just so bombastically ridiculous that it could absolutely work as […]
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After 4 films that amassed acclaim, both critically and commercially, it only makes sense that the world created within the John Wick films be continued in some form separate from the series itself; even though many are hoping the titular character’s rather definitive send-off in Chapter 4 is somehow retconned. Next year will see the […]
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There’s something rather amusing about the fact that even though Liam Neeson has a vast career of playing everything from a Jedi master to historical figures, it’s the not-always-an-average-man-with-a-certain-set-of-skills archetype that he’s become synonymous with. Ever since Taken proved that the then-56-year-old was a force to be reckoned with, the now 71-year-old has settled into […]
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The Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF), presented by MINI, has announced its 2023 program with an incredible line-up of Queensland and Australian premiere features, with Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins, starring Michael Fassbender, serving as the Australian premiere and Closing Night event. BIFF’s program is further brimming with Queensland premieres from highly acclaimed and visionary […]
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Thanks to StudioCanal we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Saw X, the eye-popping new entry in the hit Saw franchise. John Kramer (Tobin Bell) is back. The most chilling instalment of the SAW franchise yet explores the untold chapter of Jigsaw’s most personal game. Set between the events of SAW I and II, a sick […]
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Though it isn’t based on a true story, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte‘s drama The Good Mother has an air of “real world” grit to it. Of course, once the film commits to a certain narrative twist around the 1-hour mark it feels less organic, but its down-trodden location of Albany, New York, and the fact that its […]
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Two exciting new UK films have just been added to the Adelaide Film Festival Program for 2023, Poor Things and Saltburn. Poor Things is by director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favorite), generating Oscar buzz after its premiere at Venice Film Festival this year. The Australian premiere is to be screened in Adelaide this October. […]
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As a filmmaker Nimród Antal has effortlessly aligned himself within the action-thriller genre space. Whether he’s terrorising Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale in the snuff-film horror Vacancy, or exercising the limits of predator and prey in the science-fiction sequel Predators, the Hungarian director knows his way around a thrilling set-piece; something that came in handy […]
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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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Director James Wan and Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, alongside Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Nicole Kidman, return in the sequel to the highest-grossing DC film of all time: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Having failed to defeat Aquaman the first time, Black Manta, still driven by the need to avenge his father’s […]
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Led by former ABC Sports broadcaster and bestselling author Craig Hamilton, The Promise, from filmmaker Jye Currie, delves into the challenges surrounding mental health and suicide awareness. The film, the first suicide prevention documentary of its kind, breaks new ground by weaving personal narratives from Hamilton, suicide survivors, individuals who have lost loved ones, and […]
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Thanks to StudioCanal we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Retribution, the immersive, ticking clock thriller from the producers of Non-Stop and The Commuter, starring Liam Neeson, in Australian theatres from September 21st, 2023. Matt Turner (Liam Neeson) is a successful Berlin based American businessman juggling a booming financial career with family […]
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Even though Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken‘s script is co-penned by Pam Brady, a scribe with South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police to her name, family audiences needn’t worry that her evident penchant for blue humour will seep through. No, alongside Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi (the duo having collaborated […]
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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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*This interview took place prior to the current SAG-AFTRA strike* Every hero needs a villain. And when you’re Ruby Gillman, a sweet, awkward 16-year-old whose just found out she’s a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queen of the seas, there’s nothing scarier than Chelsea: Beautiful. Popular. Mermaid! From DreamWorks Animation, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken […]
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*This interview took place prior to the current SAG-AFTRA strike* She may have loved all the boys with her hit Netflix trilogy of films, but the only thing we love right now is Lana Condor. Making history as the first female title character in a DreamWorks Animation film, Condor is breaking ground as Ruby Gillman, […]
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The Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF), presented by MINI, has announced its first wave of preview titles ahead of its program launch, including its Opening Night Gala event premiere. Set to take place from October 26 to November 5 at selected Dendy, Reading and Five Star cinema locations across Brisbane, the full program will be […]
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It’s rare these days for the “superhero origin story” to deviate from a familiar path. It’s what is done within and around said path that manages to make even the most tested of narratives somewhat exciting. Blue Beetle is another case of been there, done that, with its story centring around a symbiote that transforms […]
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An origin story 5 years in the making, Puerto Rican filmmaker Ángel Manuel Soto is finally seeing his vision of the Mexican-American superhero Blue Beetle brought to life in DC Studios’ Blue Beetle. Starring Xolo Maridueña in the lead role, the film tells of recent college graduate Jaime Reyes and his return home full of […]
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After the lush, star-studded class of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and the campier inclinations of 2022’s Death on the Nile, it makes sense that Kenneth Branagh would again change the temperament of his latest Hercule Poirot mystery. Adhering to a darker, more supernaturally-infused mentality, A Haunting In Venice is the most unsettling of […]
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Joe Lo Truglio has long made a name for himself within the comedy scene. Whether it’s as Andy Samberg’s over-sharing right-hand in the acclaimed sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, his various roles in the absurdist Reno 911!, or as one of the many sex-starved “teens” in the cult hit Wet Hot American Summer, Lo Truglio has proven […]
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It’s not uncommon for predominant comedic personalities to flex their talent in opposing genres. We’ve seen the likes of Jordan Peele and Zoe Lister-Jones move from situational humour to helming their own horror works (the former with Get Out, Us, and Nope, the latter behind The Craft: Legacy) to varying degrees of success, furthering the […]
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Thanks to Warner Bros. Pictures have 5 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the latest DC superhero – Blue Beetle. Recent college grad Jaime Reyes returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it. As he searches to find his purpose in […]
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Having directed both The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Michael Chaves is no stranger to helming horror in the supernatural space. For The Nun II, the anticipated sequel to 2018’s hit The Nun, Chaves is navigating his boldest narrative yet, with the director noting he’s proud if […]
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If you, like I was, are hesitant in seeing The Nun II off the back of the original film failing to make good on the character’s horrific potential or because director Michael Chaves hasn’t exactly got the strongest track record in directing genre films under the Conjuring Universe banner – he helmed 2019’s largely forgotten […]
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Nia Vardalos truly caught lightning in a bottle when it came to My Big Fat Greek Wedding in 2002. Produced on a miniscule $5m budget, it garnered favourable reviews from critics and audiences alike, eventually grossing over $365m globally; to this day it remains the highest grossing romantic comedy and, adjusted for inflation, the highest […]
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“It’s Mark Duplass, Sterling K. Brown, it’s the end of the world and they’re in a biosphere.” That’s how writer/director Mel Eslyn presented her unique dramedy Biosphere ahead of its premiere last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it’s ultimately all you need to know going into it from this week in Australian […]
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