Sian

Jealously, deceit and hormones—things found in abundance in the isolated, all-women household featured in THE BEGUILED. Adapted for screen and directed by Sofia Coppola, THE BEGUILED is based on the 1966 Thomas Cullinan novel of the same name. The story unfolds during the Civil War, at a Southern ‘all girls’ boarding school. Its sheltered inhabitants take in a wounded enemy solider, an...

LOVING tells the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose arrest and banishment for interracial marriage began a legal battle that would reshape American marriage laws. After crossing the border to wed, Richard (Australian Joe Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) who is pregnant with their first child, are forced to leave their home state of Virginia, threatened with 25 years imprisonment sho...

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as witnessing something come full circle: CARS 3 offers such satisfaction. Ditching the ill-advised international espionage of CARS 2, this latest installment harkens back to the simple warm and fuzzy themes of CARS 1 – friendship, nostalgia and the cost of “progress”. It’s been 11 years since hotshot racing car, Lightning McQueen, first revved his engine on the...

Rarely does a movie make me literally cover my eyes, but BERLIN SYNDROME sure did…several times. Based on the novel by Australian writer Melanie Joosten, BERLIN SYNDROME tells of Clare, an Aussie backpacker in Berlin, who meets a charming local Andi. What begins as a passionate affair ends in a violent obsessive capture, as Andi traps Clare in his apartment. I haven’t read the novel, but it comes ...

Sure, Liam Neeson was badass as Bryan Mills in TAKEN. But if I had to pick an ageing action hero to save me – I’d be calling John Wick! He may be 52 years old, but Keanu Reeves has still got it – and director Chad Stahelski is determined to show us so. JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2 takes place directly after the events of the first flick. Having avenged his puppy(!) we’re treated to a high-octan...

Six (sexy) astronauts aboard a space station get more than they bargained for when playing with samples from Mars. One minute they’re gushing and tearing up at the beauty of awakening a seemingly harmless single-celled organism, the next they’re screaming and crying as it swells and develops a taste for blood. I’ve made the plot sound really bare….well, that’s because...

It’s a tempting trap; to make sequels bigger and (not necessarily) better than their predecessors.  Its dizzying opening sequence involving 10minutes of explosive chaos tells us THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE is no different. THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE explores relationships: Family and friends, and where the lines blur between the two. It’s a sweet premise, albeit predictable. There are big changes happening i...

HIDDEN FIGURES: Yep, there’s Oscar buzz around this flick. But does it live up to the hype? HIDDEN FIGURES tells the fascinating (and largely unheard) story of a team of African-American women mathematicians who overcame the hurdles of race and gender inequality to play a pivotal role in getting the USA into the front running position of the “space race”. Based on true events, I couldn’t hel...

The trailer of LA LA LAND got me excited. Raised on the likes of SINGING IN THE RAIN, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, CABERET, CALAMITY JANE and everything Gilbert and Sullivan, musicals are close to my heart. So how did LA LA LAND rate with this old fashioned musical fan? The simple story is incredibly sweet. An aspiring actress (Emma Stone) and struggling jazz musician (Ryan Gosling) meet in a bout of road...

Set largely on a remote island off Western Australia (yet filmed in New Zealand and Tasmania), THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS tells a somewhat depressing post WW1 tale. But hey, it’s damn pretty to look at. Based on the best selling novel from M.L Stedman, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, follows the ultimately tragic love affair of withdrawn veteran Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) and his wife Isabel (Ali...

INFERNO is one of the few Dan Brown books I haven’t read (I guess Brown’s formula was wearing thin on me by the fourth instalment in the Robert Langdon series). Thankfully, the film still has enough to surprise even a semi-Brown buff such as myself! I’ll be honest, while I watched both THE DA VINCI CODE and ANGELS AND DEMONS, they didn’t exactly float my boat. I consider both films to be pleasantl...