Wicked: Part 1 is a grand spectacle. This extended musical – of which this 160-minute epic is only the first of two parts – looks magnificent on the big screen. Its colourful and captivating exterior underpins a dark side. It appears no expense has been spared to breathe life anew into the beloved stage musical,…
Michael Keaton is having a moment right now. After the much-hyped Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the veteran actor is back on our screens in the gentle dramedy Goodrich. In the hands of writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer (Home Again), Keaton gets the chance to display his talents without make-up and catch-phrases. Goodrich is an almost-Christmas movie. Even though no…
Nearly 25 years after Gladiator, Ridley Scott has gone back to the well… and this time there are sharks in the Colosseum. In Gladiator II, Russell Crowe, who played Maximus in the original, is only seen in a couple of quick throwback scenes. But even with the focus squarely on his son, Lucius (Paul Mescal),…
There’s Always Tomorrow is a bittersweet story about a family of six. The film is set in Rome in the mid-1940s, after the Liberation. But the war has left misery in its aftermath. The primary focus is on wife, Delia (played by Paola Cortellesi, who has co-written and directs the film). She and her family…
The supremely talented Washington family come together to keep the legacy of the late August Wilson alive with The Piano Lesson. And in the process, they’ve created one of the most extraordinary films of the year. The Piano Lesson is the third in patriarch Denzel Washington’s ambitious ongoing project to produce films of all Wilson’s…
I must confess that I haven’t seen the first two films in the Terrifier series. But I was drawn to check out the third film in the slasher franchise out of curiosity due to news reports from the US about people fainting, vomiting and fleeing from the cinema due to the intense level of graphic…
In 2002, the tense thriller Phone Booth (2002) was centred around, you guessed it, a phone booth. Now, 22 years later, Robert Zemeckis’ new drama Here is centred around a lounge room. It’s about the people who lived and roamed in that space dating back to the formation of Earth. It features a volcanic eruption,…
Saturday Night Live – SNL to fans – is a TV institution in the US. And although it’s taken a while, streaming and (especially) social media have seen the show gain traction in Australia too. Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night takes us back to where it all began – the very first episode of the show…
Greedy People is a blackly comic and atmospheric low budget crime-drama from director Potsy Ponciroli (Old Henry) and writer Mike Vukadinovich (TV series Runaways). Set in a picturesque coastal town in Rhode Island, it very much has a similar vibe to the Coen brothers. Ponciroli juggles a great cast of eccentric and amoral characters, all…
Venom: The Last Dance is the third instalment of the Venom trilogy. It takes place a year after investigative journalist turned vigilante Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) was “invaded” by a symbiote (an extraterrestrial parasite) to become Venom. Although Eddie’s part of the character is trying to keep a lid on Venom’s antics, the symbiote continues…
