With the monstrous success of The Walking Dead it does seem like a good idea to rewind the story a little bit and check out the origin of the zombie/walker outbreak that, as we’ve seen, completely destroys society and threatens to drag humility with it. Robert Kirkman’s hit comic series and eventual AMC megashow became…
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Hollywood hasn’t had the greatest track record when it comes to translating video games into films. There’s been but a handful that have been worth watching, the Resident Evil series, Lara Croft Tomb Raider and cult classic Mortal Kombat all rank amongst the good ones. With Hitman: Agent 47 this is actually a reboot and…
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Originally a play by the same name, Stories I Want To Tell You In Person was funded by the ABC to make a version for the screen. Intended to be a play about the GFC and commissioned by the Sydney Belvoir Theatre, playwright Lally Katz Stories I Want To Tell You In Person is the…
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Woody Allen is quite possibly the only living director who could make a dark comedy film about a perfect crime. Heck, he has kind of already done that with his previous film, Crimes & Misdemeanours. But in 2015 Irrational Man is a wry, tongue-in-cheek story about an older professor’s relationship with a younger woman. Sound…
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Alexander Dunn’s expositional documentary 808 takes its name from the Roland TR-808, one of the first programmable drum machines. Originally manufactured in early 1980 for studio musicians to record demos, the 808 was criticized for its unrealistic drum sound and was likened to the sound of marching ants. However, the snappy, tinny sound of the…
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You’d not be wrong in thinking that 2015 could be the year of the spy movie, with Kingsman: The Secret Service, Spy, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation having all been released already and Spectre due later in the year. We also have another contender in the genre, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. With a ridiculously attractive…
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B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989 is a historically-oriented documentary that takes you through the unique underground music scene of the titular city that emerged during the 80s. Though clumsily-titled, it’s a fascinating portrait of a lost world of almost-surreal parties, rampant counter-culture and uninhibited artistic potential. Structurally, B-Movie follows the gradual immersion of…
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Making the third film in the Insidious series a prequel was the smartest move this franchise could have pulled; a respectable decision that could completely be overshadowed if a fourth one is ever released. Cutting the franchise off as a trilogy would be a good idea; the second Insidious was underwhelming and came nowhere close…
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Daft Punk’s 2006 directorial debut Electroma is a step away from previous pop- film collaborations such as Discovery 2003 to a more surreal and conceptual journey. Running for 74 minutes without dialogue, Electroma follows the journey of a robot duo who try to achieve humanness. If there was any doubt that the robots desired to…
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So let’s get one thing straight from the get-go with this film, this is a movie about a bunch of “male entertainers” (aka strippers) so it’s a given that it’ll be a basic story and be overloaded with a lot of attractive semi-naked men in it. If you’re coming for anything more meaningful than that,…
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Most of the crew involved in We Are Still Here are veterans to the horror genre, and their collective talents come together beautifully in this half satire, half serious story. Director Ted Geoghegan pays homage to the vintage and slightly cheesy, always stringing a thread of self-awareness through the film while it unfolds with a…
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East England county Norfolk is a drab, scrappy location for Guy Myhill’s The Goob and it’s got just the atmosphere necessary to tell a tale of one family’s disquieting struggle with abuse and oppression that runs alongside the portrayal of a young boy’s – the family’s youngest – need for identity and a stable role…
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I’ve often been intrigued by the idea of what would happen if you flip a movie on its head. Market it as one thing and then turn it into something completely different. Something that surprises. Something that gets people talking. Imagine, for instance, if Hostel (2005) had been marketed as a raunchy teen comedy? The idea…
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The names Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp may not mean much to you unless you know that they were the unlikely managers of The Who during the sixties and early seventies. The pair are a rather odd couple and they’re also the subject of a documentary by James D. Cooper. The result is a vibrant…
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Kim Farrant’s Strangerland has a magical and mythical quality to it, making full use of the Australian outback with rich, rocky-red landscape shots that swallow the film’s characters in expansive, ambitious cinematography. But while visually impressive, Strangerland’s flaws lie in a commitment to ambiguity, presenting itself as one thing and then veering off into another…
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Being an adult is hard. Relationships are hard. Making new friends is hard. Exercising and eating right is hard. Having big dreams is hard. But what we really want is the result. The thing at the end of all that hard work that makes it worthwhile. Sometimes getting to that point can be a little…
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Station to Station isn’t so much a feature film as it is a travelling art experiment, the execution of a concept born years prior that is now travelling the globe. The film documents a train as it travelled from the Atlantic (we presume Union Station in NYC) to the Pacific (we presume Union Station in…
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Isabella Patterson’s arrival into the lives of a group of people in New York City brings about a chain reaction akin to a relationship shit-storm in Peter Bogdanovich’s new film, She’s Funny That Way, now showing as part of this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Originally written 15 years ago, it is now seeing the light…
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Note: This review contains some spoilers of the film and the original play. “How brave of you to stop drinking alcohol in this alcoholic country” – Zoya (Abbey Lee) With a penchant for young girls, alcohol and most of life’s vices (as well as a “me before you” attitude), Ruben Guthrie isn’t a particularly likeable guy….
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Aloha tells the story of skeptical military contractor, Brian Gilcrest’s (Bradley Cooper), who returns to Hawaii after losing himself to the “grey side” of the military. It is here he is given a fresh start with the military and is reunited with his ex girlfriend Tracy (Rachel McAdams) after 7 years of lost contact. With the company of…
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Sometimes films transform you, sometimes they inspire you, and sometimes they do neither. Song One is one of those films that don’t really do either but remains a very pleasant story to watch. Directed by Kate Barker-Froyland, the film stars Anne Hathaway as Franny Ellis, an anthropology student studying in Morocco when she is called…
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What do you get when you put one perpetually optimistic scientifically curious teenager with one former boy-genius now middle aged man jaded by disillusionment on a mission to find a mysterious place in time and space? A quintessential Disney film that somehow manages to be an action-adventure-secret joyride with a surprisingly funny cast that tries…
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During World War II, the painting The Woman in Gold by renowned painter Gustav Klimt was illegally taken from the home of Adele Bloch-Bauer by the Nazis, and would eventually end up in the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna. It was a practice that went on throughout the war, when many Jewish homes were ransacked, their…
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We’ve all had bad days, and on the eve of Alexander’s twelfth birthday he has had one of the worst days ever. To make it hurt just that little bit more, it seems his entire family is riding a wave of positivity and enjoying all the good things in their lives and unaware of how…
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They are back, pitches. Whether you invited them or not. As Pitch Perfect 2 opens, the Barden Bellas are at the zenith of competitive acapella group achievement, having dominated the scene imperiously since capturing the national title for the first time three years prior. However, a wardrobe malfunction of Janet-Jackson-circa-Super-Bowl-XXXVIII proportions during a televised performance,…
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It would be hard to deny Unfriended as an imaginative and innovative film; Director Levan Gabriadze takes an initially uninspiring concept and makes it work with admirable attention to detail and a genuine sense of tension. However, in the film’s pursuit of as much realism as possible, the viewer is left unable to escape from…
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Ask most people what the term ‘Northern Soul’ means to them and there’s a very good chance you will be met with a blank expression. This movement, that grew from a love of American Soul music in England’s north, sprang into being in the late 60’s. With the British Mod scene on the wane, the…
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Testament of Youth begins with a fleeting glimpse of the crowded streets of England on Armistice Day in 1918. Amidst the celebrations, we catch sight of the pained visage of Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander). Overwhelmed by the crowd, she seeks refuge in a nearby church and, finding solitude in an alcove, loses herself in a…
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The quest for the fountain of youth is always fraught with danger but did anybody ever stop to think of the possible other outcomes of remaining eternally young? Perhaps there’s something inherently beautiful in the notion of growing old. Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) born near the turn of the 20th Century suffers a near fatal…
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“Laggies” are immature people who trail behind as their friends mature, get jobs, get married and have children. It’s also the name of a rom-com and family dramedy from director, Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister) and writer/novelist, Andrea Seigel.The story is implausible and forgetful but the film is redeemed by its pleasant-enough execution and the…
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