We get to see very few Scandinavian films outside of film festivals in this country. The Icelandic film industry produces around 5 or 6 films a year, and several directors have gained an international reputation. Recently many major Hollywood productions, including Star Wars: Rogue One and Prometheus, have taken advantage of the country’s strikingly remote…
More twisted weirdness from New Zealand filmmaker Ant Timpson, best known for his work as a producer on gory horror films like the 2012 horror anthology The ABCs of Death. Timpson makes his feature directorial debut with this irreverent, nasty and darkly comic thriller about a young man who tries to reconnect with his estranged…
Set in Geelong, Undertow is a psychological drama about grief, loss and toxic masculinity particularly within the AFL. It also serves up a raw portrait of a woman suffering a breakdown following an emotionally traumatic event. The title references the turbulent emotions at play in this domestic drama. Claire (Laura Gordon) is a photojournalist who…
Brooklyn, 1957. Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton) is a private investigator who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome. He also has an eidetic memory for detail which makes him perfect for the job. Once an orphan, Lionel was taken under the wing of private investigator Frank Minna (Bruce Willis) who became his mentor and something of a father…
Produced under the auspices of Blumhouse, which specialises in horror, The Invisible Man is a taut psychological thriller that effectively combines elements of sci-fi and horror. Written and directed by Melbourne filmmaker Leigh Whannell (a co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises), this serves up a refreshingly different take on the mad scientist character originally…
A number of recent movies have explored the strong connection between man and dog. Films like A Dog’s Purpose and A Dog’s Journey have been entertaining and heart-warming examples of this sub-genre. And now The Call of the Wild fits comfortably into this popular niche. This is the sixth screen version of Jack London’s classic…
The Safdie brothers – Josh and Bennie – had success with their gritty crime drama Good Time. That film featured one of Robert Pattinson’s best performances. Now they bring us another tense, slow-burn thriller in Uncut Gems. Infused with their usual street-savvy edge, the film builds to an unexpected finale. The brothers bring a gritty…
Nicolas Cage movies broadly fall into three categories – the good, the bad and the bizarre. His latest film, Color Out of Space – a hybrid of sci-fi, alien invasion and horror, based on a 1927 short story written by H P Lovecraft (who is considered the father of the modern horror story) – falls…
I’ve loathed every film revered auteur Terrence Malick has made since The Tree of Life. His impressionistic take on the material – with its ethereal visuals, non-linear structure, the fragments of whispered, overlapping dialogue, the rapid cutting within scenes that barely give a moment room to breathe and the off-centre framing of his characters and…
Now that Robert Downey Jr has said farewell to Iron Man and the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe he is obviously looking for another potentially lucrative franchise. And he may have found one in the adventures of Dr Dolittle, the Victorian era veterinarian with the unique ability to communicate with animals of all shapes and sizes….
