Although the title of the French/Portuguese co-production Everybody Loves Jeanne may remind many of the popular TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, this slight and underwhelming comedy/drama is far from a laugh out loud crowd-pleaser. Jeanne Mayer (Blanche Gardin) is in the midst of a midlife crisis. Seemingly self-assured and successful on the surface she is…
Ego focusses on the impact and legacy of Michael Gudinski through his five-decade involvement in the Australian music industry, from the inaugural Sunbury Music Festival in 1972 through to the establishment of Mushroom Records and to his work promoting tours from both local and international artists. Gudinski was a larger-than-life figure full of passion and…
Disney seems to be lacking in creativity at the moment. All they seem to produce are live action remakes of their animated classics; endless sequels and spin-offs from some of their successful franchises; and films based on their theme park rides. And now we get a rather cynical remake of a film based on a…
During the late 90s and early 2000s, the pioneering Blackberry – the phone with a keyboard – dominated the tech market. At its peak, the iconic device made up 45% of the cellphone market and had some 85 million subscribers. But then egos, hubris, corporate greed, shady business deals and rival tech companies and their…
Godland was the centrepiece of the recent Scandinavian Film Festival, and now this slow moving but visually stunning Danish drama gains a cinematic release. The film is set in the frozen inhospitable wilds of Iceland in the 19th century. Lucas (Elliot Crossett Hove) is a young idealistic Lutheran priest who is sent to Iceland to…
The superior and effective Australian-produced horror film Talk To Me taps into the trope of a group of teens playing around with the supernatural and facing some nasty consequences (like Ouija, for example) but gives the familiar ideas a freshness. At a party in a small South Australian town, a group of teens play games…
This tale of redemption is based on the writings of French travel writer and adventurer Sylvain Tesson, who was the central focus of the 2022 documentary The Velvet Queen, which depicted his search for the elusive Tibetan snow leopard. In 2014 Tesson fell from a balcony after a night of heavy drinking and was severely…
The sophomore feature from Spanish filmmaker Carla Simon (Summer 1993) Alcarras is a lyrical, leisurely paced, beautifully observed slice-of-life drama. The plot concerns a family of peach farmers whose livelihood is under threat from developers. The film was Spain’s official submission for the Best International Film at the 2023 Oscars. The film is set in…
Loosely inspired by Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, this melodrama updates the timeless story to a more contemporary setting along the US/Mexican border. The film centres around Carmen (Melissa Barrera) who is on the run from a ruthless Mexican cartel that killed her mother. While attempting to cross the border into the US Carmen is caught…
It would be easy to dismiss this charming crowd-pleasing little film as a Gallic variation of the Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy. But this French drama, which screened during the recent Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, is so much more. Madeleine Keller (played by veteran singer and actress Line Renaud, recently seen in Call My…
