Seasoned film critic. Gives a great interview. Penchant for horror. Unashamed fan of Michelle Pfeiffer and Jason Momoa.
Despite the fact that the film was ripped apart by critics and was centred on a character who had previously been brought to “life” in a less-than-well received iteration, 2018’s Venom was a mammoth success. Pulling in upwards of $856 million worldwide, it was the seventh highest grossing film of that year – beating out…
Read MoreBilled as a docu-narrative, indicating that both fact and fiction will be blended throughout, I’m An Electric Lampshade is a bizarre take on the age-old “It’s never too late to follow your dreams” tale, focusing on the unlikeliest of pop star wannabes. Doug McCorkle is the most basic of nondescript American men. 60-years-old, with the…
Read MoreAlthough the fantasy genre had always had a dedicated fanbase, one could argue that it wasn’t until the filmic adaptations of the Lord of the Rings in the early 2000’s that it truly became a classification known and embraced by a mainstream audience. Second to that, in a more culturally relevant manner, Game of Thrones…
Read MoreThe last time Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson shared the screen it was some 24 years ago when they faced off against an oversized CGI snake in the cult hit Anaconda. Now, they’re tackling a viper of a different kind in the first-released trailer of Marry Me; a cheating boyfriend. Lopez, returning to her romantic…
Read MoreAt just 21 years of age, New Zealand-born actress Thomasin McKenzie has amassed quite the career since her 2012 debut. In the last few years alone she has worked with the likes of Taika Waititi (on the acclaimed Jojo Rabbit), M. Night Shyamalan (on his recent hit Old) and Jane Campion (The Power of the…
Read MoreOnce it was revealed that Spider-Man: No Way Home would be exploring the multiverse and introducing a slew of characters that appeared in previous Spider-Man films separate from the current slate, fans were convinced that both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield would be making return appearances as the respective web-slinger from their own films; Maguire…
Read MoreAs much as King Richard has all the trappings of a biopic – and a sports drama, for that matter – it’s a testament to everyone involved that it manages to entirely transcend expectation and feel like something that’s so much more. It’s easy to wax lyrical about the fact that we’re getting a film…
Read MoreA gorgeously rendered, lovingly crafted, maybe slightly messy, giallo tribute drenched in 1960’s London culture, Last Night In Soho is the type of film one wishes to dissect and divulge in intimate detail. But that would entirely undo any service to writer/director Edgar Wright, who has implored audiences the globe over to keep their mouths…
Read MoreWhen we are first introduced to Red Rocket‘s lead subject – washed-up porn star Mikey (Simon Rex) – writer/director Sean Baker frames him in such a manner that alludes to him being one of those scrappy anti-heroes whose undeniable charm is enough for us to forgive his indiscretions. And indeed, Mikey is that (in a…
Read MoreA film that’s likely to resonate with, or at least feel more familiar to American audiences, The Eyes of Tammy Faye does its best to clue in local Australian viewers as to just who was the larger-than-life personality Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. An only-in-America type tale, Tammy Faye’s small-time Minnesota upbringing, where she “found Jesus”…
Read MoreThere’s a moment during Home Sweet Home Alone where two characters are watching a remake of the fictional “Angels With Filthy Souls” – you know, that quotable film within a film that Macaulay Culkin used in a manner to frighten the pizza delivery boy (“Merry Christmas ya filthy animal) – and comment on why studios…
Read MoreWitness the origins of a new MCU superhero when Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings arrives on Blu-ray™, DVD, 4K Ultra HD™ and Digital November 12th, 2021. To celebrate the release, we have 5 copies up for grabs! Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, who…
Read MoreAlthough it leans into the tropes of what we come to expect from the institution that is a James Bond film, and in some ways this 25th entrant is possibly the most self-aware of the pack, No Time To Die keeps largely in tune with the mentality of the wave of Daniel Craig-led films; the…
Read MoreThanks to Rialto Distribution we have 10 double passes (Admit 2) to give away for the upcoming release of Best Sellers, starring Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza, set for release in Australian cinemas from November 25th, 2021. Lucy Stanbridge has inherited her father’s publishing house, but the ambitious would-be editor has nearly sunk it with…
Read MoreAs much as The Worst Person in the World adheres to many of the standard ingredients of the “romantic comedy”, to refer to Joachim Trier‘s as one would be doing it a massive disservice. Detailed over 12 chapters (and both a prologue and epilogue), the film gives us a look into a certain period of…
Read MoreImmigration is a topic that’s quite intensely debated across the world, particularly in the United States. And in Blue Bayou, a spotlight is shone on a specific group of immigrants, those that come to a country as infants with little to no recollection of their homeland and, quite often, had no other choice. Such is…
Read MoreRay Liotta has made a name for himself throughout his career portraying characters with a certain intense edge. From Scorsese’s genre-defining Goodfellas, the psychological thriller Unlawful Entry, and the controversial Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal, the Golden Globe-nominated actor has made it a point to express his vigour on screen. But for our Peter…
Read MoreOn the surface you’d be forgiven for assuming The Beta Test is just another film industry picture, spending its minutes somehow justifying its existence as it hones in on the obnoxious and obnoxiously wealthy Hollywood players who wrongfully assume they’re untouchable in their town. The film has that air about it, but this satirical-cum-unnerving thriller…
Read MoreAfter introducing itself as a film that promises there’ll be no sugarcoating its subject matter – the first thing we hear are the audible moans and verbal berating from a pornographic film, and the first thing we see is the extremely graphic imagery of a young girl’s privates in the shower – Ninja Thyberg‘s confronting…
Read MoreSimilar to how Jordan Peele, Robert Eggers, Jennifer Kent, and Ari Aster all secured their place in the annals of genre cinema with their debut offerings, Julia Docournau‘s bold cannibalistic horror effort Raw cemented the French filmmaker as a name to pay consistent attention to. And just as those aforementioned auteurs all swung big with…
Read MoreThough there’s perhaps a few too many “missing kid mystery” tropes adhered to in Disappearance at Lake Elrod – the grieving mother, the potentially corrupt police, the buried secrets coming to life – writer/director Lauren Fash injects enough character development and psychological complexity for it to get away with it. Centred around the disappearance of…
Read MoreSince his Tony Award-winning role in Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. has had something of a meteoric rise. Not content with just dominating the music and theatre scene, the New York-born actor is a wanted commodity on the big screen too, working with the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Kate Hudson, Orlando Bloom, and Judi Dench, to…
Read MoreKenny Rogers so famously told us “You gotta know when to fold ’em”, and in The Card Counter writer/director Paul Schrader seems unsure as to which hand he wants to confidently play. It’s not that this film is poorly made, nor is his commitment to the representation of desolation anything other than pure, but it’s…
Read MoreA writer and director known for his predominant television work, helming episodes for such lauded series as The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, and Game of Thrones, Alan Taylor is returning to the gangster-fuelled environment of David Chase’s Sopranos with The Many Saints of Newark, the anticipated prequel to the award-winning show. Ahead of the film’s Australian…
Read MoreAfter thirteen years and twenty-five films, it only makes sense that the standard formula for what makes a Marvel movie earns something of a deviation from the expected. The tightly choreographed fight sequences, the amusing quips, the CGI-heavy climactic battle…all ingredients that, to the testament of such an institution, have been recycled in a variety…
Read MoreThere’s a certain challenge one takes on when adapting a secondary story (for lack of a better word) to a televisual project. Whether you continue the narrative as a sequel, take the premise in a more comedic fashion, or simply re-imagine the original, fans of the original property are always going to be the audience…
Read MoreAs Halloween Kills slices its way through Australian cinemas (you can read our review here), series scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis and fellow cast-members Andi Matichak, Anthony Michael Hall and Kyle Richards participated in a global press conference – which our own Peter Gray was invited to attend – to discuss the character dynamics formed in…
Read MoreTo coincide with the release of his horror film Lair, now available to rent or buy on DVD and digital in time for the spooky season, writer/director Adam Ethan Crow spoke with our own Peter Gray about his love of horror films, attempting something different to please the genre fans, and the rough seas travelled…
Read MoreIn the opening minutes of Adam Ethan Crow‘s Lair, a masterful sense of tension is introduced that near-immediately puts its audience on guard. An eerie musical score, an unseen force, a bloodied body…nightmarish additives that deliberately only tell fragments of a whole story. From here we are introduced to Steven Caramore (Corey Johnson, having an…
Read MoreA gorgeously rendered, lovingly crafted, maybe slightly messy, giallo tribute drenched in 1960’s London culture, Last Night In Soho is the type of film one wishes to dissect and divulge in intimate detail. But that would entirely undo any service to writer/director Edgar Wright, who has implored audiences the globe over to keep their mouths…
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