Four Stars

Sydney Film Festival Review: The Lure (Poland, 2016)

Far from Disney’s little mermaid, The Lure is a film that mixes musical, comedy and horror together. The story centres on a family of entertainers who find a pair of mermaids and decide to take them in since they have beautiful singing voices. The mermaids immerse themselves in the human world, but soon one of…

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Sydney Film Festival Review: Goat (USA, 2016)

I’ve got to get one thing out of the way before I can get on with the rest of this review – who would have thought that Nick Jonas was such a good actor. I mean seriously, I’ve heard nothing of this guy since his Disney starring, purity ring wearing days but he completely knocks…

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Sydney Film Festival Review: War On Everyone (UK, 2016)

Pausing from his planned trilogy of films with Brendan Gleeson – which has already seen the release of the brilliant The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014) – English/Irish director John Michael McDonagh makes his debut outside of Ireland with the incredibly black comedy War on Everyone, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña – who are both…

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Sydney Film Festival Review: Free in Deed (USA, 2016)

New Zealand born Director Jake Mahaffy was trawling the news one day when he came across a chilling story from 2003 concerning the death of an 8 year old autistic boy named Terrance Cottrell. His death was seemingly the unintentional consequence of a modern-day exorcism performed by members of a small storefront Milwaukee church who…

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Film Review: Blood Punch (USA, 2014)

Blood Punch is a cool, innovative little horror flick that takes inspiration and crafts something wholly unique, but its appeal lies in knowing next to nothing about its plot. Our story centres on Milton, a former meth cook who finds himself in rehab. When Skylar shows up and plans a breakout, under the guise of…

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Sydney Film Festival Review: Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (USA, 2016)

Any documentary ambitious enough to tackle different facets and implications of the “internet” is going to fall short of something. The single most influential creation of the past few decades has grown into such an impossibly complex and overwhelming force that it would be pure insanity to think one could encapsulate all its infinite intricacies…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 7 “The Broken Man” (USA, 2016)

Watching through this season of Game of Thrones has been incredibly fun for book readers; long-standing theories have turned into massive, fist-pumping reveals, which showrunners David Benioff and D.B Weiss and each episodes respective Directors have handled magnificently. “The Broken Man” finally addressed one of those theories, and it was all revealed quickly during a…

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TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 4 “Blood in the Streets” (USA, 2016)

Let’s just be clear here, this – alongside the Season One finale – is what Fear the Walking Dead needs more of. “Blood in the Streets” was a step in the right direction for the series, which has, for the overwhelming majority, come across as a struggling, stagnant drama that would rely excessively on the…

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Film Review: Captain America: Civil War (M, USA, 2016)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to be this juggernaut that keeps pumping out successful film after successful film. They’ve been on this upward trajectory for so long that it seems inevitable that they will have to stumble somewhere. Surprisingly and welcomingly so, Captain America: Civil War is not that movie. There is no denying that surpassing…

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Film Review: The Jungle Book (PG, USA, 2016)

In the last decade Disney has slowly but surely been churning out live action versions of some of its classic films and stories. There’s been 101 Dalmations, Alice In Wonderland, Maleficent, and Cinderella to name a few. Now to add to that list is The Jungle Book, an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic story as…

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TV Review: Ripper Street Season 3 (UK, 2015)

At the end of Season 2 Ripper Street was cancelled by the BBC only to be resurrected by streaming service Amazon Prime who agreed to a third season after an online campaign by the show’s loyal and dismayed fans. In Season 3 of Ripper Street we return to Whitechapel and H Division and the grimy…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 14 “Twice as Far” (USA, 2016)

“Twice As Far” starts the three-episode race to the end of season 6 and we finally get to see Negan’s Saviours take a chuck out of Rick’s group in retaliation for their aggressive assault on their base two episodes ago. Last week’s excellent bottle episode with Maggie and Carol notched up even more kills to…

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Film Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane (USA, 2016)

Producer J.J Abrams is a big fan of mystery, so the frugal promotional campaign leading up to 10 Cloverfield Lane, a film that is conceptually linked to shaky-cam monster classic Cloverfield, really wasn’t all that surprising. A trailer was randomly sprung upon us featuring serial scene-stealer John Goodman getting smacked over the head with a…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 11 “Knots Untie” (USA, 2016)

“Knots Untie” was a big, important episode for The Walking Dead, not because anyone of note died, or because any intense action scene occurred, but because the show’s universe has started to an large expansion with more implications than ever before. For five and a half seasons we’ve been following Rick and co. through safe-spot…

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Film Review: Trumbo (USA, 2015)

Dalton Trumbo was a political activist, a writer, a family man, and a man of principle. In Trumbo, a new film starring Bryan Cranston in the leading role, we’re taken back to a time when going against the grain was grounds for treason and imprisonment.  It’s one of the most intriguing – and ghastly –…

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TV Review: The X-Files Season 10 Episode 4, “Home Again” (USA, 2016)

One of the strengths The X-Files has had has always been in bringing the occasionally innocuous things in our lives into a horror style setting. Writer and producer Glen Morgan has had his hand in a few of these particular episodes with The X-Files, such as ‘Blood’ the episode where a man kept receiving subliminal…

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TV Review: The X-Files Season 10, Episode 2 “Founders Mutation” (USA, 2016)

After the somewhat bumpy first episode “My Struggle” we land right back in the thick of it with Mulder and Scully now officially back on board with the FBI and investigating strange cases. One of the reasons why the show sustained itself for so long was its ability to jump between having “monster of the…

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Film Review: The Danish Girl (UK, 2015)

Vanishing before our eyes in a far more detailed manner than what he achieved with his Oscar-winning role of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, Eddie Redmayne’s transformation into The Danish Girl is nothing short of outstanding. A multi-faceted performance that never crosses into parody, Tom Hooper’s subtle drama allows the actor both a…

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Film Review: Carol (M) (UK/USA, 2015)

Carol may look like a film set in the 1950’s but it feels far more modern than its exterior appears. A slow burning love story that refuses to end on a tragic note, performed by two exceptional leads that doesn’t require any loud professions about sexuality or equality or feminism to make its point. We…

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Film Review: The Revenant (MA15+, USA, 2015)

In this survival and revenge tale set in the wild of the American frontier lands, one man is pitted against the forces of nature, the brutality of man and his own will to live or die in this sometimes graphically violent but consistently visually beautiful film. Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu the man who brought you Birdman…

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Blu-Ray Review: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (M) (USA, 2015)

So if you’re fresh off the blockbuster wave of dinosaurs and teeny tiny superheroes (not to mention some Star Wars) and are ready for some more action packed fun, then this week’s big release Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will be able to fill that gap nicely. As with any of the Mission: Impossible (aka…

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Film Review: Suffragette (UK, 2015)

Powerful and utterly inspirational Sarah Gavron’s latest film Suffragette follows the brave women of the suffrage movement in Britain during the 19th and 20th century. This historical drama draws upon the daily abuse faced by women during a time period when they had no rights at all, and a group of women who would no…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 7 “Fire in the Hole” (USA, 2015)

In the fallout from last weeks episode, Fire in the Hole sees Ash, Kelly, Pablo and new recruit Amanda stopping off to get some weapons, courtesy of Ash’s old militia pal Lem. But it seems Lem has gotten there first and he is all types of undead. Fire in the Hole plays like an episode…

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Film Review: Flight Facilities: Across America (Red Bull Media House, 2015)

Flight Facilities are a household name in Australian dance music but a never-before-seen mini documentary shows us that behind the polished performances are two good mates who make music for a living, and love it. Red Bull Media House  produced Across America during the duo’s coast-spanning tour of the USA in early 2015. It is hard…

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Film Review: Creed (USA, 2015)

In 1976, a relatively unknown actor named Sylvester Stallone wrote a screenplay that would change his life and the lives of many young men from that generation forward. That screenplay turned into the boxing film Rocky, and we would grow to become or know of people who would shadow box in their bedrooms, making “dsh-dsh-dsh”…

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DVD Review: Doctor Who Series 9: Part 1 (UK, 2015)

I must confess, I geek out a little when there’s Doctor Who DVD’s about; I’ve got every boxset from New-Who (though I’m still working on collecting all the classics). Every Christmas I would receive the latest season, using my holidays to productively nestle in and watch the entire season…twice. Doctor Who Series 9: Part 1 comes a little…

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TV Review: Let’s Talk About (Presto – Australia, 2015)

From the opening scene – Director, Writer and Star Matilda Brown is found accidentally peeing on her hand while she performs a pregnancy test; the unwitting father sitting by her side, complete in clown make up – it’s clear that Let’s Talk About is going to be far from your typical or predictable pregnancy tale. Balancing…

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Film Review: The Dressmaker (Australia, 2015)

Comedy and tragedy go hand-in-hand in The Dressmaker, a larger-than-life, heartbreaking laugher that benefits from its brave cast and stellar wardrobe selection.  Not the warm and fuzzy dramedy some may be expecting based off its trailer, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s adaptation of Rosalie Ham’s novel is a considerably dark affair with vibrant brushes of eccentricity to keep…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 3 “Thank You” (USA, 2015)

Is it a fake-out or did The Walking Dead really just kill off one of the show’s most endearing characters in such a hum-drum and incredibly upsetting way? That’s the main question left in the wake of “Thank You”, another intense and wildly gory episode of AMC’s ratings juggernaut. The big moments in The Walking…

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DVD Review: Amy (UK, 2015)

On October 28th, the highest grossing British documentary of all time, Amy, will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in Australia. The film chronicles the life – and tragic loss – of UK singer Amy Winehouse. Earlier this year, writer Carina Nilma headed along to the Sydney Film Festival to witness the first Australian screening…

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