Reviews

If hearing the title I Was Born This Way immediately brings to mind the Lady Gaga song “Born This Way”, the coincidence is intentional.  Gaga, one of the few interviewees featured in Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard‘s beautiful, insightful documentary, talks about how Carl Bean‘s legacy influenced her songwriting, as he did for the likes…

The female matchmaker.  The handsome singleton.  And her familiar ex-boyfriend. The set-up feels ripe for the most standard of romantic comedy practices, and perhaps in the hands of a more traditionally-minded writer/director that’s what we would have received.  But under Celine Song (Past Lives), Materialists defies genre expectation with a meditation on love and its…

A self-awareness regarding certain specifications in getting his film made along with a universality in conjunction with its narrative, writer/director Alireza Khatami goes beyond genre conventions with The Things You Kill, a twisted thriller that breaks apart what it is to transform. At one point in the film, the language professor at the centre of…

As far as hair-brained schemes go, Beat The Lotto has this down pat. The story of how a syndicate in Ireland tried to rig the lotto, this documentary is an absolutely thrilling spectacle that will leave you guessing right up until the very end. Ross Whitaker does an excellent job of telling this stranger than…

It feels inevitable that something like Together will earn comparisons to last year’s The Substance, purely off the fact that the horror it indulges in – that would be the body variety – escalates considerably leading into its wild climax.  Sure, The Substance being a great example of body horror is all well and good,…

The feeling that your childhood ride-or-die will remain so is something that many of us – if not all – have experienced.  But whether it’s through distance or altering priorities, it’s a common practice that adulthood (and everything that comes with growing up) can wedge itself between even the strongest of connections, and it’s that…

Whilst it’s predominantly the House of Mouse that have been transforming their animated back catalogue into live-action features that have all varied in their quality output, DreamWorks have entered the chat with one of their most ambitious updates in How to Train Your Dragon.  Hoping they can avoid a lot of the soulless critiques that…

A film that embraces a more eclectic hobby over ridiculing its eccentricities, Horsegirls is a sweet natured drama that speaks to the importance of independence and inclusivity. Written and directed by Lauren Meyering, Horsegirls embraces the defiance of its lead character, Margarita (so beautifully embodied by Lillian Carrier), and how her perceived fragility gives way…

It is incredible to think that Edna O’Brien grew up in a house with no books. It was an oppressive Catholic childhood in a small Irish town, but that didn’t stop this formidable woman from becoming a literary great. Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story is an intimate documentary and portrait of her life, which…

There’s a lived-in mentality to Poreless that is sure to resonate with certain audiences – it’s lead is a gay Muslim – but the comedic nature of its script, written by director Harris Doran and Fawzia Mirza, is particularly universal, looking at the vapid disconnection of the beauty world, the tightrope many walk when it…

Screening as part of the ‘Freak Me Out’ programme strand for Sydney Film Festival, Redux Redux is a self-reflexive blend of science fiction and horror, coming in fresh from its 2025 SXSW premiere. Quite simply, the film tells the story of Irene (Michaela McManus), who travels through parallel universes to find her daughter’s killer. Directed…

What sets itself up as something of a meet-cute between two grieving men who form an unlikely friendship in the midst of their trauma, James Sweeney‘s Twinless ultimately reveals itself as something else – a particularly pitch-black dramedy that asks its audience to stay with its morally bankrupt lead as it shifts from an original…

Given how she made history as the first deaf person to win an Academy Award for acting, one might think the documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore would be something of a straightforward and celebratory profile on the actress.  Shoshannah Stern – who, like her subject, is also a deaf actor and director – certainly…

In the 1960s models went to deportment school and were all rather alike – read cookie cutter – in appearance. That was until Lesley Hornby a.k.a. Twiggy was discovered. Now known as Dame Lesley Lawson, she was told she was too short and too slim to be a model. Yet, as this eponymous documentary shows,…

Highlighting the drama behind the for-the-camera-smiles of the 1970s variety show, Kate McCarthy‘s The Hicks Happy Hour is a moment-in-time short feature that escalates with a certain tension, before it ultimately pivots for a more cathartic climax that speaks to one woman’s eventual truth. “Stars stay smiling” is the Hicks family motto, something mother Jill…

Finding truth in the absurd and writing what you know are so often two rules that filmmakers adhere to, and both apply heartily for writer/director Chris Merola, who speaks his veracity in Lemonade Blessing, a coming-of-age dramedy centred around religion and how one responds to its pressures. Inspired by his own childhood growing up under…

As ridiculous a sport racewalking may seem – Aussies are sure to have images of Jane Turner and Glenn Robbins powerwalking with all their might come to mind – writing/directing duo Phil Moniz and Kevin Claydon lace such with a tenderness and respect that allows audiences to laugh with the sport’s quirk rather than at…

Playing with the beats you come to expect from such an exorcism feature, The Ritual sets itself up with two priests – the devotee and the doubter – who go head-to-head on hoping to save a poor soul who has been inhabited by a certain evil.  It’s a standard practice, and many films have made…

There’s a certain frustration felt when watching Predators, a 96 minute documentary centering around the series To Catch a Predator, itself an offshoot from NBC’s Dateline.  In the early 2000s, the show lured audiences in as it highlighted online predatory behaviour – primarily older men meeting underage boys and girls for the intention of sexual…

Author Stephen King and filmmaker Mike Flanagan have made careers predominantly out of their affinity for horror.  With The Life of Chuck, they have decidedly pivoted and leaned into another of their shared strengths; broadcasting emotional stories.  The result, however schmaltzy it may threaten to be, is a beautiful, weird celebration of life and all…

It’s been something of an arduous trek to the screen for one Ballerina – or, as it’s been marketed, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina – a serviceable action film that hopes to elevate its own being by attaching itself to a lucrative, acclaimed franchise, even though it originated as something else entirely. To…

There’s a certain bittersweetness in watching OBEX (the title specifically capitalised) following David Lynch’s sad passing, as Albert Birney‘s truly bizarre odyssey feels like a kindred spirit to Lynch’s Eraserhead, with the hallucinatory anxiety and surrealist mentality playing into a personality that is perversely into its own weirdness. Set in a pre-internet 1987, and expressed…

Given that it’s merging two proven cinematic killers – one serial, the other a shark – it makes sense that Sean Byrne‘s horror-adjacent thriller is suitably tense and highly aware of its own madness. No stranger to executing unbearable tension and providing an antagonist that we can’t help but be utterly absorbed by (see The…

After a successful box office run, the Certified Fresh, SXSW Audience Award-winning film is coming to Prime Video! It’s been nearly 10 years since Ben Affleck debuted as Christian Wolff, aka The Accountant, in the same-name actioner that Gavin O’Connor pushed to a sizeable box office haul ($155m) despite tepid-ish reviews.  That being said, average reviews have never stopped a…

Despite Karate Kid: Legends centering itself around a new character, Jonathan Entwistle‘s legacy sequel is like a greatest hits package, taking all the things that worked from previous Karate Kid offerings, removing the psychological fat that should be traumatizing its plethora of players, and wrapping it neatly in a family-friendly bow, presenting itself as a…

With over a dozen films made across three decades, Wes Anderson has very much honed what it is to be considered an auteur; he’s possibly even bent the term to his own liking with his distinct style.  And it’s that particular style that is once again on display in The Phoenician Scheme, a bizarre, nonsense-embracing…

Not that there was going to be any serious doubt about their ability to avoid a sophomore slump with their second go-around as filmmakers, but brothers Danny and Michael Philippou have easily cemented themselves as modern day horror auteurs with the highly disturbing Bring Her Back, a bleak, discomforting genre feature that makes their debut,…

Despite its raunchy, suggestive title – yeah, there’s a reason there’s no comma alluding to 69 being a year – Jillian Bell‘s directorial debut, Summer of 69, is actually a particularly sweet, coming-of-age comedy that injects more than enough heart into proceedings to offset its teen-sex-comedy mentality. Much like Superbad, Booksmart and Bottoms before it,…

Whilst the poor reaction to Snow White has made Disney reevaluate their standing on live-action updates of their classic animated catalogue, Lilo & Stitch – obviously made before such a decision was made – arrives with an ironic freshness that proves just how warm and successful some reimaginings can be. By no means does this…

It’s time to say goodbye.  For now. Billed as the final entrant in the near-three-decade long Mission: Impossible series (which would ironically indicate these missions are, in fact, possible), Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning goes out with the expected balance of spectacle and emotion that the majority of these films have adhered to –…