Things are certainly in full swing now. After last weeks return that still put our main group at a severe disadvantage with those pesky Saviours, the road to war has finally tipped in favour of our heroes. Although neither Negan nor Simon showed up to exercise their off-the-wall brand of villainy, The Walking Dead still…
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Never forgive. Never forget. If there’s one mantra the characters of Big Little Lies live by, it’s that. Shrewdly written by TV veteran David E. Kelly, HBO’s new seven-arc mini-series is a deliciously wicked slice of suburban slaughter where it’s what’s on the outside that matters most. Based on Australian novelist Liane Moriarty’s best-selling prose,…
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Two young African American males sit on a beach together, bathed in moonlight. One asks the other: “You cry?”. The other replies, “I cry so much sometimes, I feel like I’ma turn to drops,”. Ripped from the pages of the play Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, this scene for me perfectly…
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Teenage films have always been a cinematic staple for me. Whether they are quality films (like Heathers, Stand By Me), plain fun (Mean Girls, Easy A, Say Anything) or just plain silliness (Porky’s, American Pie), I’ve always found enjoyment in both entertainment value and nostalgia. But the past few years, the portrayal of teenagers in film…
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Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) is the spirited daughter of a Polynesian chief, Chief Tui (Temuera Morrison). She’s loveable and affable and Chief Tui is pretty much training her up to be the next big kahuna in her village. Her father has warned her that their village and island paradise is the only safe place for her,…
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The Japanese Anime genre has a long history of producing masterpieces. Makoto Shinkai‘s Your Name is no exception. Ahead of its release in Australia, the film has enjoyed rave reviews around the world – and deservedly so. The film centres on Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) and Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki), two people with nothing in common except…
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After a couple self contained episodes that explored characters that are no longer with the group in Alexandria, we’re back home and the all of the tension and palpable hatred has come flooding back. Negan has come to collect his first batch of goods and Service, despite a very rudimentary premise (Negan and his crew taking their…
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Grounded by Amy Adams’ breathtaking performance, Arrival is a departure of sorts for director Denis Villeneuve, opting to showcase the lighter sound of humanity here as opposed to the more pessimistic tones he showcased with Prisoners and Sicario. A film that feels both personal and grand, Arrival intertwines the beginnings and endings of time, creating…
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Director Andrea Arnold is probably one of the most distinct British directors working today. Her visual eye, her ability to capture slice-of-life moments in a compellingly cinematic way, and especially her way of extracting fantastic performances out of non-actors. Her films like Fish Tank (2009) and Wuthering Heights (2011) are true examples of such. Her latest…
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As we now roll into Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe we are pulled to the beginning of one character’s story. Doctor Strange is Marvel’s step back to delivering an origin story for a new superhero but in some ways this film is a giant leap forward in universe building. It’s hard to fathom…
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Ash is an idiot. Not only did he lose his Delta to a bunch of teens he pissed off in last weeks episode, but it also had the Necronomicon in the back seat. But one amazing thing comes out of all of this: Last Call reunites Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi (brother of Sam, and third…
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One of Louis Theroux’s more emotionally poignant documentaries, A Different Brain highlights the incredibly difficult struggles families face when their loved one’s cease to function as they once were. In watching Louis Theroux’s latest documentary to hit the small screen, it becomes quite difficult to not become overly ecstatic with joy. The man is a…
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Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi is an excellent documentary and cautionary tale. It tells the story of a Brown University student who went missing in 2013 and how he was wrongly accused of being one of the Boston Marathon bombers. The film is a sensitive one about an amazing character and a sad indictment of…
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Green Room is one of those movies that isn’t at all hesitant about sneaking up on you and showing you exactly what you’re in for, be it through taboo subject matter (white supremacy) ultra violence or a range of truly sadistic characters. And once you accept what your next hour and half is going to…
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If 2014’s World War Z set a precedent for anything, it was that you can unequivocally produce a zombie flick without copious amounts of gore and severed limbs and still have it be entertaining. South Korean film Train to Busan follows this blueprint and improves upon it in a number of of satisfying ways. When…
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All too often, the scene of refugees fleeing from the religious violence of Afghanistan and the Taliban is a common image to appear on our television screens and the news publications that slips into our Facebook feeds. The documentary filmmaker, Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, uncovers a more distressing cultural issue ingrained within Afghani traditions of the…
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Seth Rogen has always been associated with stoner humour and raunchy comedy, but in the case of Sausage Party, he takes it to a whole new level. With animated films that have anthropomorphised objects like toys (i.e. the Toy Story films) and cars (i.e. Cars), Rogen had the idea to anthropomorphise consumer products while retaining…
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Elle, the latest from Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven, is sensationally subversive. Part unnerving psychosexual thriller, part searing familial comedy, the film commences disturbingly with the sounds of the violent rape of the film’s protagonist, Michèle LeBlanc (Isabelle Huppert), in her Parisian home. We do not witness the crime, only the immediate aftermath: masked assailant having…
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It’s been said that being at sea tests the limits of friendship and one’s own character. Add a touch of boredom mixed with an abundance of male-ego and you have yourself a manhood-measuring-contest that walks the thin line of manners, morality, and absolute absurdity. Chevalier is a funny and insightful exposé of the masculinity and…
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In December of 2014, a lone gunman walked into an Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and shot and killed 20 children and 6 staff members. While most peoples instant response was to condemn the shooter (who killed himself at the scene), many could be forgiven for not instantly considering the parents who lost their sons…
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Written and directed by Maren Ede, Toni Erdmann is a meandering delight. By turns hilarious and poignant, it concerns the ageing Winfried Conradi’s frequently maladroit attempts to re-establish some sort of a meaningful relationship with his adult daughter, Ines, in the course of a spontaneous trip to visit her in Bucharest, the Romanian capital. Unkempt,…
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Viggo Mortensen is no stranger to portraying a damaged father in a journey to protect his children à la The Road, but Matt Ross’ quirky tale has a lot more than just Aragon to draw in audiences. A quick glance at Ross’ resume won’t inspire confidence because of its relative shortness, however, Captain Fantastic flew…
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Director Argyris Papadimitropoulos has a darkly comical voice with which he approaches his new film Suntan, willing to lighten the mood with a playful, enjoyable middle but never quite losing focus of the uncomfortable message at the end of it all. His style is most evident in the cautionary tale of Kostis (Makis Papadimitriou), a…
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Defusing an explosive in western cinema is very rarely as tense as it should be. With the exception of brilliant films The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow) and Gallipoli (Peter Weir), the suspense surrounding characters handling something so volatile, which with the slightest fault could literally blow them apart in an instant, is often suppressed by…
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Sharon Jones isn’t a household name, nor an artist with a breakout radio hit. But those who do know of her and her talent, will attest to her brilliance. She has been likened to a female James Brown, belting out soul and funk tunes and thrashing and shimmying like a pint sized Tina Turner. However…
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Goldstone was easily my most anticipated film of this year’s Sydney Film Festival, and it’s fair to say it did not disappoint. Written, directed, edited and pretty much everything else by Ivan Sen, it is sure to join the pantheon of great Aussie films – a triumph from start to finish. Seeing the return of…
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I’d be lying if I said I was an Australian Cinema connoisseur. Despite being an avid cinephile, I guess I’ve always been a bit ignorant towards my home country’s unique brand of cinema. But Girl Asleep may have absolutely opened my eyes. Girl Asleep is set in the 70’s, as Gretta who is about to…
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For a while there it looked like the only version of Deadpool we’d ever see on the big screen was the somewhat cringe-inducing one we saw in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Studio execs at Fox were unsure about how to move forward with the character and make it a viable film. But when some test footage…
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Just because Benioff & Weiss are somewhat free from George RR Martin’s murderous ways in Game of Thrones’ source material, doesn’t mean the showrunners are any less capable of bringing us to tears. In what will be one of the most talked about scenes of the year when this season is over, a simple phrase…
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Written and Directed by Lorene Scafaria, The Meddler is tender in its approach to comedy-drama; light on the former and heavy on the latter as it follows the highly likeable and sympathetic Marnie Minervini, who is portrayed with considerable depth by the supremely talented Susan Sarandon. The simple, soft touch with which Scafaria handles the…
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