Sundance

Sundance Film Festival Review: Judas and the Black Messiah is an impactful drama that’s all too aware of its topical relevance

After proving a formidable plot point in last year’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 – however secondary it may have been – the killing of Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton in 1969, at the age of only 21 years, is given the right, timely treatment in Shaka King‘s equally impactful (perhaps even more so)…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: Pleasure is a deliberately uncomfortable navigation of the boundaries of the sex industry

After introducing itself as a film that promises there’ll be no sugarcoating its subject matter – the first thing we hear are the audible moans and verbal berating from a pornographic film, and the first thing we see is the extremely graphic imagery of a young girl’s privates in the shower – Ninja Thyberg‘s confronting…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: Robin Wright’s Land speaks to the love of the land and one’s own self

With Nomadland currently doing the rounds and collecting its share of awards in the lead-up to a presumed heft of Oscar nominations, a film like Land being release is curious timing.  It’ll inevitably be compared to Chloe Zhao’s inward masterpiece and, in its own way, it’s something of a more digestible, audience friendly take on…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: Together Together amusingly explores the notion of a man’s desire to listen to his biological clock

The notion of a biological clock and its exclusivity to women is a road travelled many a time over the course of cinematic history.  Such an idea pertaining to men however is another story entirely, and one that has seldom been explored.  Enter, Together Together. Written and directed by Nicole Beckwith (returning to Sundance 6…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: Coming Home in the Dark is a menacing feature that doesn’t take full advantage of its eerie potential

It doesn’t take much for director James Ashcroft to create the most horrific of situations from the simplest of ingredients laid bare in the early stages of the eerie Coming Home in the Dark.  A loving family, an idyllic New Zealand locale, and a duo of passing strangers provide all that is needed for Ashcroft’s…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: Mass is powerful, unflinching storytelling that demands to be seen

An agonising drama if ever there was one, Mass details the type of conversation that instantly makes you feel sickeningly uncomfortable.  And then to watch it unfold in a suffocating location for 110 minutes is a test of endurance that audiences may be unprepared for. The tragedy at the centre of the conversation is one…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: How It Ends is a scrappy comedy that utilises its charm to overcome any shortcomings

In How It Ends, the joint-directorial effort from Daryl Wein (Lola Versus) and Zoe Lister-Jones (The Craft: Legacy), the question is proposed of what would you do if you knew the world was coming to an end?.  It’s a question that has familiarity to it, but Wein and Lister-Jones have the smarts and wit to…

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Sundance Film Festival Review: John and the Hole is an ambiguous thriller that refuses to spoon-feed its audience

There’s a series of odd interludes dispersed throughout Pascual Sisto‘s unnerving thriller John and the Hole that suggest the story at hand has been passed down over time as something of a fable, one that impressionable young children may construe as a challenge on how they view their own relationship with their supposed elders.  It’s…

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Dubbed “weird, vile and sick”, the Sundance film The Greasy Strangler is touring Australia

Monster Pictures wants to invite Aussies to the weird and wacky, The Greasy Down Under Tour, showcasing the Sundance film The Greasy Strangler. Directed by Jim Hoskings, The Greasy Strangler, tells the tale of Big Ronnie (Michael St Michaels) who runs a disco walking tour in LA with his son, Big Brayden (Sky Elobar). The arrival…

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