*The AU Review will continue with its planned SXSW 2020 coverage. We have been in contact with the respective representatives for available films in order to give them the coverage they intended. The description outlined for the comedy series Everyone Together sounds rather typical. Dysfunctional families from two very different cultural backgrounds subsequently bond and…
Read MoreBack in February 2018 Netflix launched the streaming series adaptation of Richard K Morgan’s novel of the same name, Altered Carbon. We called it a nuanced and detailed Blade Runner for the small screen. The series sees humanity’s evolution into a digitised age, where memories and human consciousness can be backed up onto a digital…
Read MoreStar Trek as a franchise has been going for more than fifty years and its fans are definitely known for their passion and devotion to the characters and stories. One such character is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, portrayed by Sir Patrick Stewart. A new series from CBS All Access, created by Alex Kurtzman, and distributed by Amazon Prime…
Read MoreSex Education was a sleeper hit for Netflix in 2019. The show starring Asa Butterfield, Ncuti Gatwa, Emma Mackey and Gillian Anderson and a whole bunch more, finally brought some real world teenage angst about relationships to the small screen. Otis (Butterfield) whose mother Jean (Anderson) is a sex therapist, decides to team up with…
Read MoreWith the conclusion of Game of Thrones, it was inevitable that mythical, semi-medieval source material with an established following would be pushed by networks and studios alike, hoping to be adopted by its worldwide fanbase hungry for more. The Witcher ticked all those boxes; this time being both a successful book series, and a much…
Read MoreWhen director Michael Bay gets handed $150 million from Netflix to make a movie you can be guaranteed that he’s going to make something pretty insane. Where in the past he has felt a little hamstrung by studio expectations or interference, his latest effort feels like a return to form. For Netflix, 6 Underground is…
Read MoreNext week, Disney’s hotly anticipated steaming platform Disney+ finally launches in Australia, with close to a dozen original series, a couple of original films, and a ridiculous amount of archived content from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar And Nat Geo brands. We went to town on the new platform on our iOS device, coinciding with…
Read MoreEvery year, in November, the Adelaide Showground springs to life with colourful characters when the Supanova Comic Con & Gaming Expo rolls in and offers a chance for Adelaide’s creative community to come together, show their art or cosplay and meet some of the biggest Film & TV stars out there. Sunday morning began with Julie Benz of Buffy the Vampire…
Read MoreThere have been many adaptations of Shakespeare’s work to the big screen with varying results. Twice before Australians have tackled the Bard’s work with Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet and Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth both hitting the silver screen with positive critical response. Once again it seems the combination of Australian director David Michôd, with fellow…
Read MoreDespite prominent billing, Toni Collette and Merritt Wever are both absent for the first hour-long episode of Unbelievable, Netflix’s latest limited series that centres itself around a serial rapist and the duo of hardened detectives that investigate. Instead, Kaitlyn Dever, as arguably the series’ most sympathetic character, earns our attention as Marie, a troubled teen…
Read MoreIn these current dark and tumultuous times it can often seem like we’re rushing faster towards an impending apocalyptic like end. But fear not, the world continues to turn and we can rest assured that in the meantime watching Amazon Prime’s new series Good Omens will alleviate some of that tension. The show is based…
Read MoreSeason 8’s premiere, “Winterfell”, was a surprisingly disappointing and robotic brush of box-ticking. Reunions and moments of levity took up the most of it, appealing to the masses with schlocky CGI dragon-riding and destined-for-meme Bran stare-downs. The only thing remotely impressive about the episode was John Bradley’s acting. “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” was…
Read MoreWhat do you get when you take a reluctant easily distracted God, a bunch of overworked angels and a bet that has the continued existence of Earth on the line? The new 7 episode mini-series on STAN called Miracle Workers, based on the novel “What In God’s Name” by series creator Simon Rich gives us…
Read MoreWalking away from both the Primetime Emmys and the Golden Globes with awards galore, including accolades for lead Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has been a runaway hit for creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and streaming service Amazon Prime. Set in the late 1950’s, Brosnahan stars as Upper West Side housewife Midge Maisel, who discovers she…
Read MoreBack in the mid 1990’s Sabrina The Teenage Witch took the original Archie Comics character and gave her a more kitschy comedic vibe. With Sabrina often having to learn deep moral lessons after her attempts at magic go awry. But if you ever did read those original comics, you’d be aware that Sabrina and co…
Read MoreLast Friday, Netflix released a new series called Maniac. Following up on Black Mirror and Stranger Things binges, Maniac has already flickered across many TV-lovers’ screens. The format is limited to ten episodes and based on the, four years older, Norwegian series with the same name. This genre-bending sci-fi drama is written by Patrick Somerville and directed…
Read MoreWith series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, Netflix has cemented themselves as a platform that regularly delivers exciting original formats to binge watch. Well known for giving their writers and directors plenty of creative space to develop new material, series like like Black Mirror and Stranger Things have flourished. And now we have the thrilling Maniac, which playfully exhausts…
Read MoreShowtime’s new comedy-drama Kidding sees Jim Carrey return to our screens in a show that makes it very clear that life isn’t all glitter and rainbows. Carrey is one of those actors whose presence alone can fill up the whole screen, either as the most energetic leading man (The Mask) or the average, everyday man…
Read MoreWhen any television show enters its fifth season, they can begin to suffer with the fear of repeating old storylines or struggle with finding new, compelling ones to keep audiences engaged. Luckily, this isn’t the case for BoJack Horseman. Saddle up, because the anticipated fifth season proves that the popular Netflix animated show hasn’t run…
Read MoreThe 12-episode first season of Insatiable comes to Netflix early August, but it will not air quietly. Within ten days of its release date, over 200,000 signatories have joined a Change.org petition seeking to have the show cancelled before it screens. The petitioners have rallied against the new series, intimating that the show objectifies women and…
Read MoreThe Simpsons creator Matt Groening is back with Disenchantment, his first new animated series since Futurama dropped way back in 1999. Disenchantment is a medieval fantasy which follows the adventures of rebellious princess and self-proclaimed alcoholic Bean (Abbi Jacobson), her elf sidekick Elfo (Nat Faxon), and her trusty personal demon Luci (Eric Andre) through the kingdom…
Read MoreAfter the success of his first season and his recent stint in The Defenders late last year, Luke Cage (Mike Coulter) returns to protect the people of Harlem caught in the middle of an explosive gang war between the nefarious Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard) and the new kid on the block, Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir). Luke…
Read MoreSpoilers for the Ash vs Evil Dead finale to follow It was only a week ago when the news dropped that the beloved The Evil Dead (1981) followup series Ash vs Evil Dead would not be returning for a season 4 and this season 3 finale all of a sudden became the series finale. As heartbreaking as…
Read MoreThe Undead, Serbian vile, Nazi Lobsters and an ancient taskforce against the supernatural are all stories we hear about on a day to day basis, (are they not?) but when watching Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet‘s second season, they make so much more sense than that entire paragraph I just wrote. Check out the trailer! We…
Read MoreAsh vs Evil Dead has returned for its third season, proving that this classic franchise still has a lot left in it as long as Bruce Campbell’s Ash is blasting away Deadites. When this season opens, Ash, Kelly, and Pablo have been somewhat moving on with their lives since supposedly ridding the world of evil,…
Read MoreIn 1982 the film Blade Runner by Ridley Scott brought to audiences a new genre of movies – the neo-noir science fiction thriller that paved the way for many to follow its style. In 2017 the sequel Blade Runner 2049 by Denis Villeneuve was heralded a successful return to that, bringing a blend of a…
Read MoreAs it has done well over its past three seasons, Black Mirror has surprised me. However this year, the surprise hasn’t come in the form of a deadly plot twist halfway through the narrative’s third act, or a realisation that comes in the form of sad ending. No, this year it was the episode that I had,…
Read MoreThe Australian outback has provided the Wolf Creek universe with a terrifying, swallow-them-whole landscape across both film and TV for the past 12 years now. When director, producer and writer Greg McLean first unleashed his horror concept (and debut feature film) to the world back in 2005, word-of-mouth was swift and excitable, championing Australian horror…
Read MoreI’m not quite sure what I just watched, and I find it hard to imagine a team of writers turning that script in and thinking that it would make for a satisfying, entertaining or even reasonable Mid-Season Finale. I love The Walking Dead, honestly, but “How It’s Gotta Be” was truly poor form for a…
Read MoreEugene is a broken man. With his loyalty and decisions a major focus of “Time for After”, the penultimate episode before the Mid-Season Finale, we get to explore this character in a much more meaningful way than before. There’s some real depth here as he visibly struggles against his own conscious and deals with the…
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