Mystery Road has graced both the big and small screens. The first two versions were critically received films (Mystery Road and Goldstone) and the third was the first season of the ABC TV adaptation in 2018. The events of Mystery Road S1 slotted in between the timeline of the two movies. All versions star the…
We find suggestions of child abuse abhorrent; but it wasn’t always so. Traditional fairy tales (like those of the Brothers Grimm) often include elements of adults being unspeakably cruel – or worse – to children. Indeed, in more recent times, writers like Roald Dahl haven’t shied away from including childhood hardship in their fiction. Netflix’s…
Netflix has a whole host of films with interesting premises and solid performers that well suit the streaming platforms rather than the big screen. The Titan is one of these. Perfectly entertaining for a cold night in, but you’d be a bit peeved if you’d ponied up to watch this low key film at the…
A photographer who suffers from PTSD befriends a hardworking Sudanese man with a secret traumatic past. Hearts and Bones is a heavy-hitting drama with a feel-good ending, but more of that later. Daniel Fisher (Hugo Weaving) is an acclaimed war photographer. His work means he leaves his long-term partner, Josie Avril (Haley McElhinney), a ballet…
Deadwater Fell doesn’t mess about, introducing us to a charming village full of adorable villagers right before polishing four of them off in a house fire. We haven’t met any super villains yet so soon in the piece, so where does our suspicious eye cast its ire first? To the only survivor of the fire…
In Midnight Family, the audience become front seat passengers riding along with the Ochoa family in Mexico City after dark. Underground private ambulances compete for patients, beg for money and pay police bribes. The government operates fewer than 45 emergency ambulances in Mexico City for a population of nine million. The documentary explores urgent questions…
Chris Hemsworth throws off Thor’s cape to become a different kind of super-hero (or perhaps anti-hero) in Extraction. This by-the-numbers actioner is about a straightforward as you can get. But Sam Hargrave’s kinetic direction and a script from Hemsworth’s old pals, the Russo brothers, propel it along at breakneck speed. So what it lacks in…
Not to say that the character of Tony Johnson in this new season of After Life is now a loveable huggie bear moosh, but he’s not a patch on the acerbic purveyor of un-asked for wisdom that we encountered in Season one of After Life either. Season two has a tall order to fill. As…
It is hard to believe we are already up to Season Four of The Last Kingdom, which was an unexpected and scorching debut success for Netflix back in 2015. Tapping into perhaps a younger market than its genre contemporaries, The Last Kingdom was enthusiastically landed upon for its promise of deliciously nasty royal skulduggery and…
On Chesil Beach introduces elements of theatre into a period drama about the relationship between two sensitive high achievers. It’s summer 1962, and England is still a year away from the huge social changes of the Swinging Sixties. Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle) are a young couple in their early twenties….
