Australia
Under The Volcano Review
For Those Who Came In Late: Record producer George Martin became famous for working with the Beatles. His involvement in the Fab Four’s albums earned him the nickname the Fifth Beatle. Martin was an employee of EMI when was he started working with the group. After they achieved much of their success, he left EMI and started Associated Independent Recording (AIR). He hired out his services and join...
Rams Review
RAMS is a new Australian film starring Sam Neill and Michael Caton and directed by Jeremy Sims. The official blurb sets out the story: In remote Western Australia, two estranged brothers, Colin and Les, are at war. Raising separate flocks of sheep, both descended from their family’s prized bloodline, these two men are working side by side yet worlds apart. When Les’s prize ram is diagnosed with a ...
Below Review
Sometimes a movie comes along that defies your ability to categorise it simply or quickly. About fifteen minutes into the new feature film BELOW, I knew this would be the case. By the end, I had seen many things, but still wasn’t sure how to describe the world that had unfolded in this Western Australian film directed by Maziar Lahooti. This is when every reviewer, turns to the Press Kit. It had t...
Storm Boy Review
South Australian author Colin Thiele published his popular children’s novel Storm Boy in 1964. Since then, it has been made into an audio dramatisation, a stage play and a 1976 award-winning feature film. Now it has been adapted to film for a second time. There is definitely something about this fifty-year-old tale that attracts reimagining and retelling. The story at the centre is set somewhere i...
Backtrack Boys Review
“A group of troubled boys are on a perilous course towards jail until they meet up with the rough talking, free-wheeling jackaroo, Bernie Shakeshaft, and hit the road with his legendary dog jumping team.” BACKTRACK BOYS is a new feature Australian documentary by Catherine Scott. The audience is thrown right into the action from the first frame. The setting is country New South Wales, there are num...
1% Review
Knuck (Matt Nable) is the president of an outlaw motorcycle gang called the Copperheads. While he has been in prison, Paddo (Ryan Corr), the vice-president, has been running things in preparation for Knuck’s return. What Paddo has also been doing is modernising the Copperheads’ activities and alliances in order to turn the gang into a legitimate business. He is supported by his girlfriend K...
Bad Girl Review
Amy (Sara West) is a seventeen-year-old with a troubled history. She has been in trouble, in and out of various schools and now finds herself on thin ice with her adoptive parents, particularly her father. The family move to regional Western Australia for a change of scenery and to isolate Amy from the bad influences in her life. She quickly befriends local girl Chloe (Samara Weaving). She seems l...
The Water Diviner Review
THE WATER DIVINER is a drama about Australian Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) who farms in the Mallee, Victoria in the early years of the 20th century. Joshua is married to Eliza (Jacqueline McKenzie) and they have three sons. Their property is dry, but Joshua has some skills in divining the location of water. As he explains later in the story, he doesn’t always get it right, sometimes he digs a dry...
Felony Review
Sydney, Australia. Three detectives are drawn into a hit-and-run case which seems straight forward at first, but soon proves to be a cover up. A child on his paper round is knocked off his bicycle in the early morning and falls into a coma. He fights to survive as the detectives investigate. The three detectives represent different stages of a police career. Tom Wilkinson is Carl Sumner. The oldes...