Star-studded and stuffed with promise, The Critic should be a recipe for an engaging and delicious murder mystery but unfortunately its debut has been met with some pertinent critique of its own. Loosely based Curtain Call, a novel by Anthony Quinn, and directed by Anand Tucker, The Critic stars Sir Ian McKellen as Jimmy Erskine, a cruel queer critique of theatre, based at the Daily Chronicle, and...
An American couple are on an Italian holiday in Tuscany with their young daughter. They are Ben and Louise Dalton (Scoot McNairy and MacKenzie Davis). Among the others on holiday are a rather boring Danish couple that Ben and Louise attempt to avoid and in doing so, they end up spending time with a friendly British couple Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi). They have a son Ant (D...
In Adam Cooper’s directorial debut Sleeping Dogs, Russell Crowe (Gladiator, Virtuosity) plays Roy. A retired Washington county homicide detective. Based on the novel The Book of Mirrors with screenplay co-written by Cooper. Roy is vulnerable and grizzled, battling Alzheimer’s disease and recovering from an experimental procedure to stimulate regrowth of neural pathways. This part of the narr...
Nic Cage (Mandy, Renfield) is back! Portraying the sinister powder wearing titular character Longlegs. More on him later. Longlegs is more than just another wild Nicholas Cage flick. There’s a lot of detail under the hood. Spoiler warning. Skip to the last paragraph if you wish to remain fresh. Just know that on viewing Longlegs, it’s important to remember that nothing is initially as it seems whi...
It is rare that a film is as simultaneously familiar yet frighteningly disturbing as Birdeater, and the unique combination makes for a disconcerting ride that is not quickly forgotten. Directors Jack Clark and Jim Weir have created a narrative that echoes an experience that many Australians have experienced – a classic bush trip with mates to celebrate the end of school, a significant birth...
Well, talk about facing your demons – in The Exorcism Russell Crowe takes this to a whole new level. Directed by Joshua John Miller, The Exorcism is yet another take on a classic of the horror genre, but this time with a little bit of a twist. While it’s not the most original of exorcism themed films, it does become uniquely meta. The story centers on Tony (played by Russell Crowe) a recove...
Between thirty to forty years ago, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer dominated the summer blockbuster landscape with a long list of knockout action thrillers. Highlights featuring the likes of Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Dangerous Minds, The Rock and Bad Boys. The two later films directed by then breakout auteur, Michael Bay (how the mighty have fallen). Flash forward to today and Ba...
Strap in scavs! On May 23rd Aussie auteur George Miller once again fangs audiences across the post apocalyptic central Australian wasteland. Expanding the rebooted universe established with 2015’s Fury Road, Furiosa gives us the full life and times of the titular antiheroine. Well, the important bits anyway. Her rise from unwilling captive snatched away from goodness, to mute feral. To praetorian ...
Hoping to capitalise off the global phenomenon that was Barbenheimer, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are back on our screens to kick off the summer movie season with Universal Pictures’ The Fall Guy. Loosely inspired by the 1980’s stuntman-themed TV show of the same name, The Fall Guy promises an action-packed, romance-filled insight into the underappreciated industry of stunt work. From the outset...
In cinemas now, director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Ready or Not, Scream 2022) brings us Abigail. A slick action horror date night movie that delivers comedy, thrills and copious pints of shiraz. After a group of professional criminals kidnap the daughter of a powerful underworld figure, they retreat to an isolated mansion, unaware that not all is as it seems. From the get go, this cast is having a lo...
The much-anticipated Monkey Man hits cinemas this week, seeing actor Dev Patel (The Green Knight) sitting in the Director’s chair for the first time ever. After receiving a standing ovation during its premiere at SXSW Film & TV Festival, this adrenaline-fueled feature is set to elevate the action genre to new heights. Before going into this film, all I really knew about it was the on-set news ...
Love Lies Bleeding is a movie that we’ve all seen before – a drama that’s sexy, gorey, dark and so incredibly visceral that you feel like you need a shower afterwards – but far bigger, better and gayer. Dramatic and psychotic at times, director Rose Glass hasn’t journeyed far from her breakout horror Saint Maud, giving 80s gym culture a dark twist. The story is centered around the see...
