18 November 2015
When her stage mother sister Beth (Portia de Rossi) returns to Australia and is promptly arrested for drug possession, Caroline (Robyn Butler) is left to look after her niece, teenage international superstar Honey (Lucy Fry).
16 November 2015
Ah, horror punk. To be honest, I’d forgotten this genre of music had existed, despite being super into it back in early to mid-high school. Mixing the “screw you” attitude of punk with anything and everything horror-themed, bands like The Wrath – a quintet from the Gold Coast – specialise in music that’s designed to freak you out as well as make you have a good time.
16 November 2015
In the never-ending struggle to find new ways for a rom-com couple to “meet cute”, Man Up stands out. When committed, yet somewhat unhappy, singleton Nancy (US actor Lake Bell) is mistaken for his blind date by Jack (Simon Pegg), she decides to go along with it, leading to a fun time with a pretty big sword of doom hanging over it.
15 November 2015
It’s easy to forget just how much the James Bond movies have improved in the Daniel Craig era – or it is until you see Spectre, which might not be a bad Bond movie but certainly has the kind of flaws that make it a less than brilliant outing for the UK’s number one spy.
13 November 2015
In 1989, the sequel to one of the greatest ever movies about time travel was released, and then itself became one of the greatest movies about time travel. While 1988’s Back to the Future was fantastic, it was set in a world we’d already seen and lived through.
13 November 2015
As a band from the ’90s, Suiciety are one of those bands that definitely still have it all these years later. Since releasing their debut record Deeper Vision and making the top 10 list for The Age’s Albums of the Year.
9 November 2015
It’s 1957, and Cold War tensions are high, which means defending an accused Soviet spy is a bad look for insurance lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks). But with the world watching, the Americans feel that justice has to be seen to be done, even with a guilty verdict locked in.
5 November 2015
Twelve years ago at university Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis) lost their virginity to each other. Now Jake is a happy and financially successful womaniser, while Lainey is sabotaging any chance at a real relationship by clinging to the man (Adam Scott) she was originally trying to sleep with 12 years ago.
5 November 2015
Ever thought of taking LSD and binging on a marathon of The Simpsons? No? Me neither. However one man did just that this past week, and documented his findings on Reddit. The man known as doobieschnauzer wrote the following:
3 November 2015
When you think “Australian film” and stop thinking about grim tales of inner-city junkies, The Dressmaker is probably the kind of film that comes next: a big, sprawling, uneven but well-costumed, tale of Aussie-as types making jokes then getting serious at the drop of a hat.
31 October 2015
Tracy (Lola Kirke) is an 18-year-old university student struggling to fit into a New York that doesn’t seem all that interested in her. Her classes don’t excite her, her literary dreams are flailing, her fellow students largely ignore her, and so when her mother suggests she call up her soon-to-be sister (Tracy’s mother is marrying her father) Brooke (Greta Gerwig), she figures she’s got nothing to loose.
27 October 2015
Milly (Toni Collette) and Jess (Drew Barrymore) are inseparable best friends – so why does the opening scene feature Jess giving birth on her own? Has her husband Jago (Paddy Considine) met a grim fate on an oil rig?
24 October 2015
Johnny Depp takes on one of his increasingly rare serious roles here as Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger. While seeing him play a light-eyed repeat killer is thrilling – Bulger may have run most of Boston’s organised crime, but this film is only interested in the moments where he murdered people – the meat of this film lies in his relationship with FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton).
22 October 2015
In 2008, director James Marsh’s documentary Man on Wire thrillingly re-created French high-wire walker Philippe Petit’s greatest feat: walking between the tops of New York’s then brand-new Twin Towers in 1974. Now with The Walk, director Robert Zemeckis’ re-creates it all over again, with less charm, a more muddled sense of drama, but – and this is pretty much the point of the exercise – a whole lot of vertigo-inducing camerawork during the high-wire work.
20 October 2015
In London during the Swinging ’60s, the Kray brothers were the public face of crime, but there was tension in the ranks. Slick charmer Reggie (Tom Hardy) wanted to take their protection racket legit, while his somewhat mentally unbalanced twin Ronnie (Hardy again) wanted to stay true to their violent gangster roots.
12 October 2015
A problem rarely acknowledged in movies is when a film’s script and direction aren’t on the same page. For Sicario (the title is a Mexican term for hitman) that’s a good problem to have.
8 October 2015
Based on the real-life story of a disastrous 1996 expedition to climb the world’s tallest mountain and filmed in 3D, this is the kind of film it seems reasonable to expect will be little more than wall-to-wall sensation.
7 October 2015
With Snowtown, director Justin Kurzel proved he could create a grim and foreboding mood; now with Macbeth he doubles down on that with an adaptation that’s visually stunning even as it whittles the text down to a point well past the bare essentials.
4 October 2015
Never having met their grandparents due to a falling out with their mother (Kathryn Hahn) before they were born, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (a realistically annoying Ed Oxenbould) are thrilled when she agrees to let them go on a holiday visit to the family farm.
2 October 2015
Stranded on Mars when his comrades are forced to cut their mission short, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is four years away from rescue in a base meant to last three months.
1 October 2015
Charming but lightweight films in which single dads struggle to balance bringing up their adorable kids with the demands of their creative side aren’t exactly thin on the ground – we’ve already had Infinitely Polar Bear this year – and it’s often hard to avoid the impression that simply seeing a single dad at work is mean to be quirky enough to make their story worth telling.
29 September 2015
As a photographer himself, who better than Anton Corbijin to tell the story behind the iconic photo of James Dean in Times Square? Well… maybe someone who’s not a photographer? There’s a lot to enjoy in Life – especially the performances – but it’s hard not to come away from this feeling like it flatters the (usually ignored) man behind the camera at the expense of his subject.
26 September 2015
A weird hybrid of stoner comedy and ’90s action movie, this manages to avoid the charm of either, coming off as a somewhat nasty mess that lacks the thrills or jokes required to make this kind of thing work.
23 September 2015
What begins as a tribute to ’70s Spanish sexploitation film-maker Jesus Franco, the film swiftly becomes something different. As British director Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio) digs down to find the real substance in this increasingly offbeat look at a relationship between two women in a world without men, cars, or much of anything else beside butterflies.
