Vivarium is a descent into madness. It did my head in. Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots) are a happy couple. They’re considering buying a house together. One day they wander into a shop displaying cardboard models of the same perfectly manicured home. A strange real estate salesman – Martin (Jonathan Aris) – implores…
Youthful anarchy is at the heart of Beats. This largely black-and-white film is set in a working-class Scottish town in 1994. The story takes place against the background of a British government proposal to ban amplified “beat” music at unlicensed raves. The film centres on the friendship between two teenagers who approach life very differently….
Weird and wacky Australian film noir, Burning Kiss is a psychedelic whodunnit in reverse. We know who committed the crime, but a disgraced former detective concocts a story to make himself look like a hero. It’s been six years since a hit-and-run incident put ex-cop Edmond Bloom (Richard Mellick) in a wheelchair and took the…
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) is a respectful documentary chronicling the life of Jiro Ono, the most famous sushi chef in Tokyo. For 75 of his 85 years, Jiro has been perfecting the art of making sushi – and the pursuit continues. He works from sunrise to well beyond sunset, tasting all the produce, meticulously…
If you like your movies slow cooked, then The Souvenir may be one to consider. Not a lot happens and even when it does it takes its sweet time to get there. It took me the best part of a half hour or more to get into the picture. The Souvenir is set in the…
At a time when millions of people around the world are streaming e-sports content every day, it’s not hard to imagine a possible future with the blood-sport insanity of Jason Lei Howden’s Guns Akimbo. Nerdy video game developer Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) is a little too fond of stirring things up on the internet with his…
Not being able to conceive when one is desperate to start a family can cause major rifts in a marriage. Infertility affects about one in six Australian couples of reproductive age. That is the starting point for a world premiere work by Australian playwright Ron Elisha, which originated from a feature article in The Australian Weekend…
Imagine you’re the partner or child of a soldier who’s sent off to war. How would you feel? Military Wives is inspired by the true story of a group of women in that situation. In this case, their partners were deployed in Afghanistan. Kate (Kristin Scott-Thomas) and Lisa (Sharon Horgan), are in a power struggle….
What a grand show and a great experience Kurios is. Artistic excellence, ingenuity and reinvention are the keys to the ongoing success of the world’s preeminent circus, Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun). Kurios continues a fine tradition and as the title suggests, it features a cabinet of curiosities – the forerunner to museums containing artefacts…
Hero or villain? Murderer? Campaigner for a democratic Russia? These are just some of the triggers in Citizen K, a fascinating documentary about Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was once Russia’s richest man (head of the oil giant Yukos) but now lives in exile In London. As you can imagine, Russian president Vladimir Putin features prominently. This…
