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Top movies of 2021

If 2020 was a shock to the movie-going system, 2021 was – in many ways – worse. Lockdowns, delays and uncertainty cruelled both the Australian and international film industries. Many studios deferred their biggest releases, hoping for smoother sailing ahead. As a result, it was no coincidence that the two biggest films at the box…

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House of Gucci – movie review

Lady Gaga packs a hell of a punch in the tangled web that is Ridley Scott’s new film, House of Gucci. When we first meet him in the late 1970s, Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) is a shy, mild mannered man studying law. He doesn’t show a great deal of interest in the family’s successful fashion…

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The Tragedy of Macbeth – movie review

Don’t mess with the classics, they say. But when something has been through as many iterations as Shakespeare’s Macbeth, who knows what the definitive “not to be messed with” version is anyway? Even in the film canon, versions of this story go back as far as the early 20th Century. You’ve got Orson Welles’ traditionalist…

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West Side Story – movie review

West Side Story has a chequered history. The musical by Jerome Robbins (first staged in 1957) met with wide acclaim, as did the 1961 film version directed by Robbins and Robert Wise. But it hasn’t aged well. The depiction of the Puerto Rican characters was always fraught; but the original film’s largely white-washed casting (Rita…

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Delicious – movie review

How was the restaurant born? The French dramatic comedy Delicious (Délicieux) provides a fictional answer to that question. At the dawn of the French Revolution, Pierre Manceron (Gregory Gadebois) is a master chef in the employ of the arrogant Duke of Chamfort (Benjamin Lavernhe). The Duke loves the food Manceron and his chefs prepare in…

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Sing 2 – movie review

Colour, movement, quirky characters and an up-tempo soundtrack feature in the animated musical adventure Sing 2. A troupe of performing animals led by impresario Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) – a koala – is playing sold-out shows in a small town. In the audience one night is canine talent scout Suki Lane (Chelsea Peretti), who is…

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