At age eight, Anna (Max McKenna) was writing brilliant, highly creative, if dark stories. She was a very bright little girl. Upon reflection, a decade on, she regards that as indicative of being a child prodigy. Her mother Renee (Nadine Garner) though had real concerns. When Anna was on a high, her energy and enthusiasm lit up a…
A sweeping period drama, Jeanne du Barry covers the rise and fall of the eponymous mistress to a former French king. The real Jeanne du Barry was born Jeanne Bécu in 1743; the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook, brought up by her mother. In the film, Jeanne’s (Maïwenn) road to the king’s…
Physical and improvisation comedy at its absolute, chaotic best. That is what you get when you venture in to Chapel Off Chapel to see the hilarious, contemporary adaption of The Trojan War. All the key characters are in play, the likes of Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector and Paris and, of course, Helen of Troy. The legendary conflict between the…
Keith (Kevin Hofbauer) is a single, black, gay mortgage broker and caretaker of a young foster daughter. Ryan (Darcy Kent) is an undereducated, recently divorced, white, factory worker with a daughter the same age as Keith’s. The two young’uns attend the same day care centre in Twin Falls in Idaho. Ryan is desperate to buy a parcel…
Original homespun (literally) physical comedy, The Beaks: Stickybeak is a clever and creative look at everyday life in suburbia. It is the domain of four excellent exponents that turn the mundane into something special. I speak of Kimberley Twiner, Laura Trenerry, Patrick Dwyer and Jessie Ngaoi. They play a series of quick-change character roles that are repeated…
The First Omen is a prequel to the classic horror film franchise that began with Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976), starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. That film introduced audiences to Damien, the Antichrist. Director Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel opens in 1971, five years before the events of The Omen. A young American woman, Margaret Daino…
Loki – Thor’s adopted brother and nemesis – has his sights set on becoming the supreme leader of Asgard and Earth in the action-adventure Marvel Universe Live! It pits Loki, Nebula and the forces of evil against Spider-Man, The Avengers and The Guardians of the Galaxy. It is Dr Strange who takes to the stage (or, in…
In the context of Alice Rohrwacher’s film La Chimera, the Chimera of the title is something people search for but never manage to find. The fictional story features a band of Tombaroli, Italian grave robbers, looking for archaeological wonders. Their lucky charm is an eccentric British archaeologist, Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who finds things others can’t,…
Writer and director Ava DuVernay has chosen an artistic interpretation of the work of Isabel Wilkerson in Origin. The film was inspired by Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. At the start of the film, Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) doesn’t know it, but she’s about to lose the two most important people in her…
Four actors … who break the fourth wall, track down a Melbourne man from a seven-minute rant obtained by a transcription service and give a potted history of the internet. That, in a nutshell, is the subject matter of the cleverly orchestrated play that puts the fear of God into you. In fact, humour and paranoia are…
