Author: Peter Gray

Seasoned film critic. Gives a great interview. Penchant for horror. Unashamed fan of Michelle Pfeiffer and Jason Momoa.

Film Review: Talk To Me announces Australian directing duo Danny & Michael Philippou in a bold, gory fashion

Whilst it’s fair to be tired of the “elevated horror” tag that so many genre pieces aim for nowadays, and the attachment of the-little-studio-that-could A24 only fans the fire, one needn’t worry with Talk To Me, an Australian-made horror effort that was acquired by the aforementioned studio for US distribution following wild reactions out of…

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The BlackBerry trailer details the “true story” of the meteoric rise and demise of the world’s first smartphone

Work hard. Fail hard. The “true story” of the meteoric rise & catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone, BlackBerry is a whirlwind ride through a ruthlessly competitive Silicon Valley at breakneck speeds. A loose adaptation of Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall…

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Interview: Talk To Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou on executing their horror success

After previewing at the 2022 Adelaide Film Festival, before taking the world by storm at its global Sundance Film Festival premiere earlier this year (read our review here), Talk To Me has become the little horror that could. A supernatural horror experience unlike any other, Talk To Me is the twisted brainchild of Australian filmmaking…

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Win a double in-season pass to see the acclaimed new Australian horror film Talk To Me

Thanks to Maslow Entertainment and Umbrella Entertainment we have 5 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the acclaimed new horror film Talk To Me, the directorial debut from Danny and Michael Philippou (aka RackaRacka) and from acclaimed Australian producers, Causeway Films (The Babadook).  After an international premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2023, the cinematic and authentic horror sparked…

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Film Review: Oppenheimer is a dense, turbulent and immersive experience through one man’s genius psyche

You have to hand it to Christopher Nolan for convincing a major studio to spend $100m (USD) on a 3-hour long drama detailing the development of the atomic bomb and releasing it in the prime film season that is the US summer. Whilst the film itself will prove drastic counter-programming to its fellow ambitious release…

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Film Review: Barbie is a pitch-perfect, intelligent comedy that soars beyond its high concept

Undoubtedly 2023’s most anticipated – and most aggressively marketed – filmic event, Barbie has finally arrived in cinemas for the masses to ingest in droves. It’s understandable though that some audiences still are unsure as to how it’ll taste as a whole, as despite its candy-coated aesthetic, pitch-perfect casting, and amusing, if ambiguous trailers, there’s still a…

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Interview: Margot Robbie, director Greta Gerwig and the cast of Barbie; “It is really exciting to get to be a part of a moment that is expanding”

She’s everything.  We’re just living in her world. Undoubtedly one of this year’s most anticipated films – if not THE most anticipated – Barbie is a pink-splashed comedy that’s all about living in the Barbie world, where giant summer blowout parties, planned dance choreography and Ken’s beaching make it the perfect place to live.  That…

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Film Review: Carmen is a hypnotic romance driven forward by its raw emotion and sexuality

Though the title of Benjamin Millepied‘s feature directorial debut Carmen – the dancer-turned filmmaker having cut his teeth on short films and music videos – suggests a connection to Georges Bizet‘s French opera of the same name, his script – co-written with Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Loïc Barrere – only mildly references its narrative mentality and…

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Win a signed Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One poster PLUS double in-season pass to the film

To celebrate the release of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (now screening exclusively in cinemas), with thanks to Paramount Pictures Australia we are giving away 5 major prize packs of the film’s poster signed by cast members Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff and a double in-season pass (Admit 2),…

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Interview: Tom Cruise at the Sydney premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

As he celebrated his 61st birthday, Tom Cruise proclaimed there was nowhere else he’d rather be than in Sydney to premiere his latest action spectacle, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Returning as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, Cruise touched down on Australian soil to greet his fans alongside the film’s director, Christopher McQuarrie, and…

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Interview: Hayley Atwell on joining the fray of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Tom Cruise’s generosity as a co-star

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake,…

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Interview: Christopher McQuarrie on directing the action intricacies of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and who’s responsible for THOSE stunts

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake,…

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Interview: Simon Pegg and Pom Klementieff on finding their action sensibilities in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake,…

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Film Review: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is action executed to perfection.

When it’s said that Tom Cruise saved cinema in 2022, it isn’t a statement made lightly or with any false sincerity.  Top Gun: Maverick was the invitation needed to truly bring audiences out of the comfort of their home after almost 2 years of enforced hibernation and the ease of the streaming services. Had the…

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Film Review: Insidious: The Red Door is one that we should shut and deadbolt closed!

After a genuinely scary first offering in James Wan‘s Insidious (2010), the Leigh Whannell-created series has failed to make good on any of the unnerving potential with its sequels (and prequels) going forward.  As each subsequent film seems to earn less and less favourable word from critics and audiences, there’s an almost immediate sense of…

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Film Review: The New Boy is a fascinating, symbolic look at colonisation and religious autonomy

The themes tackled throughout Warwick Thornton‘s The New Boy are presented with symbolic, almost-magical and allegorical physicality.  And though its 1940’s Australian setting lends interesting conversation to its religious outlay and the clashing of beliefs at the time, the film itself doesn’t quite contain the spark needed to earn true impact; though it’s not for…

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Film Review: Joy Ride is a surprising journey of shock humour and emotional substance

With No Hard Feelings reminding audiences that, yes, adult-aimed comedies do in fact belong on a big screen, and the streaming model doesn’t have to be a singular option now that we have shifted primarily out of the pandemic mentality, Adele Lim‘s raunchy Joy Ride continues that temperament that the big screen will always benefit…

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Win a double in-season pass to see Carmen starring Melissa Barrera and Paul Mescal

Thanks to Madman we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the romantic and exhilarating Carmen, starring Melissa Barrera and Academy Award nominee Paul Mescal, in cinemas from July 13th, 2023. Carmen, a captivating and determined young woman, leaves her family and community behind to escape a brutal Mexican cartel. Grief stricken following…

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Film Review: Reality is a stranger-than-fiction experience bolstered by an impeccable Sydney Sweeney

Described as a “verbatim description” of what happened to Reality Winner (yes, that’s an actual name), an American Air Force veteran, who was suspected of leaking classified government information to the media while she was working as a translator with top-secret security clearance in June 0f 2017, Tina Satter‘s stage play “Is This A Room”…

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Film Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny; the whip is limp in underwhelming send-off

There’ll always be a certain excitement in seeing Harrison Ford don a fedora and crack the whip when embodying one Indiana Jones.  After a tight, though not always flawless, original trilogy across the 1980’s (Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, Temple of Doom in 1984, and Last Crusade in 1989), many believed the magic…

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Film Review: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a loud, inoffensive action spectacle packed with plenty of cheese and just enough heart

Continuing from the toned-down sexualism that 2018’s Bumblebee adopted – the first Transformers sequel that was directed by someone other than series staple Michael Bay – which, coincidentally, earned the franchise its highest praise from collective critics, Steven Caple Jr.‘s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a similarly wholesome, Saturday morning popcorn flick that is…

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Film Review: No Hard Feelings; Jennifer Lawrence runs unashamedly free in this raunchy, heartfelt comedy

Whilst Jennifer Lawrence has lightly flexed her comedic muscle over the years – her Golden Globe-winning turn in 2013’s American Hustle probably the closest she’s come to being the comedienne she so clearly is – No Hard Feelings finally allows the supremely charismatic and comedically capable performer to embrace the genre with all the shamelessness…

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Freedom Is Beautiful speaks to the value in equality for all citizens living under the same rule: Sydney Film Festival Review

Originally conceived as a long short by director Angus McDonald, Freedom Is Beautiful is a timely documentary about the refugee experience in Australia, the cruciality of human rights, and the value in equality for all citizens living under the same rule. Shining a necessary light on the brutal processing regime that takes place on the…

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Interview: Temuera Morrison on the generational impact of Star Wars and the tenacity in pursuing his career

Two of Temuera Morrison’s most noteworthy career milestones have truly come from opposite ends of the galaxy. 1994’s Once Were Warriors was a painfully truthful examination of urban Maori life that continues to cast a long shadow across New Zealand film and culture. And his first Star Wars appearance in 2002 sparked a unique character arc that will place…

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The Listener is a sobering, potentially triggering film magnified by Tessa Thompson’s beautiful performance: Tribeca Film Festival Review

The fifth directorial effort from actor Steve Buscemi, and his first since 2007’s Interview, The Listener is an intensely quiet film, one that hones a sobering nature that can’t help but speak to its prime pandemic nature. COVID-19 is never specifically stated across the film’s sensitive 96 minutes, but the loneliness in the story’s set-up…

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Maggie Moore(s) flirts with potential before fumbling its lead: Tribeca Film Festival Review

There’s an utterly fascinating (and still unsolved) murder case at the centre of Maggie Moore(s), the second directorial feature from Mad Men alum John Slattery, which aims for Coen Brothers-esque comedic darkness, but unfortunately falls short of Fargo greatness. The real case at hand was a dual assassination of sorts in 2000 Texas, where two…

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The Seeding is a torturous, psychological horror film that revels in its slow burn: Tribeca Film Festival Review

From the opening shot of Barnaby Clay‘s The Seeding there’s a sense that nothing will be as it initially appears.  There’s an immediate knowing that hell will break loose over the 94 minutes that are to come when we see the imagery of a baby chewing on human flesh in quite the most casual of…

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Film Review: Elemental blends its societal commentary with the charm of a romantic comedy

Conjuring a metropolis that separates the elements – fire, water, earth and air – as if they were diverse ethnicities, Elemental, in the guise of a romantic comedy, operates as a metaphor for the opposing views of race and class.  For a Pixar movie it all may seem a little heavy-handed, but Peter Sohn‘s delightful…

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How To Blow Up A Pipeline is a topical thriller that’s very much of the now: Sydney Film Festival Review

An eco-terrorism thriller where the bombers are the good guys, Daniel Goldhaber‘s How To Blow Up A Pipeline is structured as if it’s playing to a heist movie temperament, but it’s layered with a topical, current commentary that lends the film a young freshness; very much a movie of the “now”. Relying on ideas realised…

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Win a double in-season pass to Jennifer Lawrence’s new comedy No Hard Feelings

Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the raunchy new romantic comedy No Hard Feelings, starring Jennifer Lawrence, in cinemas from June 22nd, 2023. Maddie (Lawrence) thinks she’s found the answer to her financial troubles when she discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for…

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