With five in the cast on a catwalk-like stage, this is a modern, generally slapstick and cartoonish interpretation of Euripides’ Greek tragedy Medea. In the historic work, Medea seeks revenge on her unfaithful husband. In Jane Miller’s Just a Boy, Standing in Front of a Girl, all the characters have received a contemporary makeover. Further, misogyny, fat shaming…
It was a great rite of passage that many of us born before 1965 went through and remember fondly. The annual six-week school holiday casual job at a city department store. It was often our first foray into the world of retail and, at 16 or 17 years of age, it gave us a glimpse…
Former Australian cricketer Brett Lee stars in this cross-cultural romantic comedy, the first production of the Australia India Film Fund. Beautiful divorcee and single mother of one, Meera (Tannishtha Chatterjee) is an Australian of Indian origin. Smart and independent, she has carved out a successful life for herself and her daughter … in the face…
In many Westerns (movies), the plot involves two brothers with opposite personalities, fighting for the love of one woman. In a modern day western True West, set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and the two brothers wrangle for the favour of the Hollywood producer, who is eager to pay good money for a unique…
The rush to write apocalyptic narratives doesn’t seem to be slowing. Inga Simpson channels her experiences in the recent Australian bushfires and a dash of pandemic and wraps them up into something worse in her latest book The Last Woman in the World. Just the title is enough of a tip off that things are…
Raw and refreshingly different, That’s Not Me is a feel-good, independently produced comedy that needs work. Polly Cuthbert’s dreams of making it as an actor are comically shattered when her identical twin sister, Amy, lands a lead role in an HBO show, starts dating her co-star Jared Leto and catapults to international stardom. Dropped by…
Action, humour, a ripping soundtrack and heartfelt back-story combine to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 an appealing package. In this third film in the trilogy, fan favourites return and are pitted against a megalomaniac arch villain searching for perfection at any cost. At the start of the movie the Guardians of the Galaxy…
Aristophanes’ classic Greek comedy Lysistrata is a comic account of women’s extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. They withhold sexual privileges from their men as a means of forcing peace talks. As an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society, it’s an apt source for Lysa and the Freeborn Dames. This new…
How long can you party for? When is it time to stop the music and take greater care and responsibility for the rest of your life? Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat) have been flatmates and besties for 10 years. They maraud around the streets of Dublin, rejecting the expectations that bombard modern women…
Do you like your period dramas to be fussy affairs filled with ruffles, secret courtships and proper manners? If you said yes, then The Favourite probably isn’t for you. Compared to traditional costume dramas, this is the cinematic equivalent of a Molotov cocktail. Idiosyncratic Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos steps tentatively into the mainstream with this…
