Given M. Night Shyamalan‘s penchant for banking the majority of his theatrical narratives on “the twist ending”, it’s understandable to walk into his daughter’s feature directorial debut with the same type of expectation. Whilst I can’t personally speak to whether or not the A.M. Shine novel Ishana Night Shyamalan has adapted is faithfully recreated here…
Read More
After showcasing her stellar comedic delivery across 2022’s Bodies Bodies Bodies and last year’s Bottoms, Rachel Sennott continues her dominance as one of the industry’s most exciting talents with a more dramatic flex in Ally Pankiw‘s I Used To Be Funny, which offsets its lead’s comedic capabilities and humorously-adjacent title with a dark, heartbreaking temperament….
Read More
Whilst this is a franchise that has indulged in its fair share of overtly-violent set-pieces for close to three decades now, there’s something to be said for the fact that Bad Boys: Ride or Die – the fourth in this surprisingly resilient series – is determined to keep the action on hand ageing gracefully. Yes,…
Read More
Similar to the disdain many had when it was announced that Chris Pratt would be voicing Mario for last year’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the actor’s involvement as Garfield hasn’t assisted in warming him to the masses that have seriously turned on him in a manner many never saw coming after his winning work…
Read More
Perhaps because we’re simply used to his New Girl persona, or that even in the realms of a horror setting he’s playing with a little uncertain levity, Lamorne Morris‘ presence in the opening moments of Night Shift suggest that The China Brothers (filmmaking duo Benjamin and Paul China) may be preparing their audience for a more…
Read More
John Krasinski has primarily set himself up in the horror space across his directorial career. And though his latest could give way to genre tendencies – imaginary friends can indeed be a terrifying notion – he’s decidedly opted for a more wholesome, family-friendly mentality with the release of IF. IF (which stands for Imaginary Friend)…
Read More
Mad Max: Fury Road felt like a truly once-in-a-lifetime type event upon its release in 2015. It was continuing a series that had laid dormant for 30 years at that point and, despite still relative success both critically and commercially, the third film – 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome – was so often cited as the series’…
Read More
Although Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a continuation of the rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy that Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes kicked off in 2011, with Matt Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) following through,…
Read More
If the premise of The Idea of You sounds like romanticised mentality of fanfiction – that being a romance centred around a 40-year-old single divorcee and the global boyband heartthrob who meet-cutes her and proceeds to pursue her to her bewilderment – it’s because it essentially is. Based on Robinne Lee‘s novel of the same…
Read More
The Road to Patagonia opens with Matty Hannon – the director, cinematographer, and centre-man – telling how he’s headed to the top of Alaska, which if you know your American geography, is distinctly away from Patagonia, which encompasses the southern end of South America. But worry not, the title is not a metaphor nor figurative. …
Read More
Childlike yet ultra violent, there’s a lot of style over substance when it comes to Mortiz Mohr‘s Boy Kills World, an exaggerated, audacious, attention-seeking actioner that doesn’t have much to say, but succeeds at being a delirious slice of escapism that deserves points for the fact that it’s a bonkers, live-action (R-rated) cartoon that speaks…
Read More
There’s a fascinating premise at its core and an impressive heft of body horror effects abounding throughout, but The Demon Disorder never quite conjures enough other-worldly strength to rise above its structural flaws. A tale of three brothers and the demonic trauma they share off the back of their father’s death – presumably the result…
Read More
To call Hanky Panky inexplicable at times would be an understatement. And in no way is that intended to be an overt criticism towards Nick Roth and Lindsay Haun‘s wild comedy-horror effort that delights in its science-fiction mentality whilst bathing itself in batshit insanity. It’s an acquired taste of a film, and it definitely benefits…
Read More
Not that we needed reminding, but Ryan Gosling‘s distinct energy – rightfully rebranded as “Kenergy” in the culture-shifting buzz surrounding last year’s Barbie – is entirely unmatched. We saw it earlier this year with his boisterous rendition of the Oscar-robbed “I’m Just Ken” at the Academy Awards where, without even taking off his sunglasses, he…
Read More
As easy as it is to call something like The Raid (released in some territories as The Raid: Redemption, this the result of certain legalities) a “thin” movie in terms of plot and character, Gareth Edwards ultimately thrives on such a simplistic nature, turning in a slaughterhouse of an action movie that rarely lets up…
Read More
Given the ambition he showed with his Mad Max-meets-Dawn of the Dead B-grade genre piece Wyrmwood (and its respective sequel), it makes sense that Australian director Kiah Roache-Turner would continue his genre mash-ups for his follow-up. What proves surprising, however, is that for Sting, an ode to the creature feature (and, fittingly, Australia’s fear of…
Read More
After the underperformance of both Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield last year, the vampire-centric subsect of storytelling – especially within the horror genre – seemed, quite fittingly, void of life with audiences. But seeing as how much new life they injected into the once-dormant Scream series with their one-two punch of…
Read More
Going into Challengers, I think it needs reiterating for unsuspecting audiences that, as much as this is being advertised as “a sexy tennis movie” (which it absolutely is), it’s a Luca Guadagnino feature. So don’t be at all surprised that the director of the lush and tragic Call Me By Your Name, the oft-unnerving Suspiria…
Read More
Comparisons to John Krasinki’s A Quiet Place will be inevitable when viewing Arcadian, but, despite the familiar ground covered across the family-versus-insurmountable-odds-in-a-dystopian-future narrative, director Benjamin Brewer (a predominant music video director who also served as the lead visual effects artist for Everything Everywhere All At Once) and screenwriter Michael Nilon (who’s produced a heft of…
Read More
Have you ever pondered what a robot would dream of? Well, in Pablo Berger‘s gorgeous, wordless animated tale they dream in surreality and colourful psychedelics. But in the case of Robot Dreams‘s protagonist, simply named Robot, he dreams of Dog, his owner and best friend, who he is cruelly separated from in a circumstantial situation…
Read More
In 2015, director Asif Kapadia let us in on the life and legacy of the genius, tragic existence that was Amy Winehouse with the documentary Amy. Using archival footage spanning 14 years and over 100 interviews with those that knew her best, it truly gave us an insight into the singers’ meteoric rise and brutal…
Read More
There’s an apoliticality that director Alex Garland adheres to within the framing of Civil War, a film that’s inherently political as it tackles the division of the United States. Here in a modern day USA where an alternate landscape is explored (although, chillingly, you could imagine such unrest escalating to the type of environment flexed…
Read More
“Before we continue I’d like to apologize to anyone who might be upset or offended by what you saw before the break. It’s not every day you see a demonic possession on live television.” Not the most typical sentence you’d expect to hear from a late night host, but such is the statement made by…
Read More
Released only months after the George Floyd protests that swept the United States in 2020, and garnering further attention throughout that year’s Election, Isabel Wilkerson‘s “Caste: The Origins of Out Discontents” was an impactful success that spent over a year on The New York Times’ nonfiction best seller list. Successful as the book was, its…
Read More
For the majority of his career, Dev Patel has played – for lack of a better word – the “nice guy”. Or at least a variation of that archetype. In Monkey Man, the actor is gleefully – and, occasionally, gorily – taking no prisoners and reclaiming his image as an all-rounded creative, announcing himself as…
Read More
Though it’s less of a shock practice now, the idea of a classic literary figure that became a household name under the umbrella of Disney being transformed into something adult and horrific rightfully broke – and angered – the internet when it was announced that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey would be made off the back…
Read More
A film like Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is what one might call “critic proof”. I mean, it’s ultimately a near-2 hour over-indulged CGI fest based around two giant creatures and their evident animosity towards each other. But, rather ironically, these two titans are battling each other at the tail-end of a cinematic universe…
Read More
Director Matteo Garrone has often flirted between reality and fantasy when telling his stories on screen. His 2008 mafia drama Gomorrah and the crime-infused Dogman (2018) were steeped in a violent truth. His English-language fantasy Tales of Tales (2015) and a live-action adaptation of Pinocchio (2019) allowed him to delight in the whimsical. For Io…
Read More
Before the internet gave way to the keyboard warriors of the world, if there was a bystander of sorts that you wished to give a piece of your mind to (however warranted or not), one had to put pen to paper and post such. In the early 20th century these were the days of the…
Read More
Nostalgia undoubtedly has its place within the realms of IP revisitation, but there are certain ways to utilise such a notion without completely falling back on them. 2021’s Afterlife, the 3rd Ghostbusters , chronologically, following 1984’s debut and its 1989 sequel – or the 4th iteration if counting Paul Feig’s much maligned, but vastly underrated…
Read More
