Based on a true story this drama about industrial pollution and environmental damage caused by giant chemical companies. Minamata explores their greed, corruption and refusal to accept responsibility or take action. This puts the film in the same wheelhouse as films like Erin Brokovich and Dark Waters, although it is nowhere near as provocative or…
Not to be confused with the so-so 2014 supernatural themed thriller starring Eric Bana, Deliver Us From Evil is a frenetic and violent hard-boiled action thriller from Korean director Won-Chang Hong (who wrote films like The Yellow Sea). It delivers plenty of action and will delight fans of this genre. Korean action cinema seems to…
Breaking News in Yuba County is a low-rent comedy that failed to ignite for me. Married for 30 years and working in a menial job, the awkward Sue Buttons (Allison Janney) is treated shamefully by everybody in small town California. It’s her birthday and she’s keen to share the occasion with her husband, Karl (Matthew…
Christopher André Marks’ documentary King Otto tells the story of how rank underdogs became European champions thanks in significant part to an outsider. The outsider was Otto Rehhagel, a German coach who took the Greek National Football Team to glory at Euro 2004. Rehhagel was born in 1938 in Essen, where – as a five-year-old…
Wow! What a ripping good, most entertaining, magnificently realised origin story. Cruella is clever, funny and sassy – a family comedy turned sophisticated adult offering. English children’s novelist and playwright “Dodie” Smith is best known for the novel The Hundred and One Dalmations (1956), which became the big screen animation 101 Dalmations in 1961. Disney…
David Gulpilil is one of Australia’s most prolific actors. After being randomly selected by Hollywood director Nicolas Roeg in 1971 for his film Walkabout, Gulpilil has gone on to have a half-century acting career with numerous classics of cinema. My Name is Gulpilil is a documentary about David’s deteriorating health, as he reflects on his…
The wait has been worth it. The outbreak of COIVD-19 significantly delayed the release of A Quiet Place Part II and it is now difficult to watch this film without drawing parallels to the world on a precipice. How I’ve missed quality Hollywood fare of this ilk. Tension characterises the movie, which picks up where…
French cinema icon Isabelle Huppert displays her comedic side in Jean-Paul Salomé’s crime caper The Godmother (La Daronne). The film starts out as a conventional crime drama with the cops looking to intercept a shipment of drugs, but ends up in some pretty wild territory. Huppert plays Patience Portefeux*, a translator with the Paris police….
Death of a Ladies Man is a Irish/Canadian co-production starring Gabriel Byrne as Samuel O’Shea, a Montreal based lecturer and a hard-drinking womaniser. He arrives home to discover his second and much younger wife having passionate sex with a stranger in their marital bed and asks for a divorce. But this is just the start…
The German Film Festival brings the best new films from Germany showcasing festival favourites, works of auteurs and the best new talent. This year’s program, presented in association with German Films, kicks off from 25 May at Palace Cinemas across the nation. Opening night is Next Door, the darkly comic directorial debut by Daniel Brühl…
