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…
The top 5 Honourable Mentions Robert Goodman For more of Robert’s reviews, visit his blog Pile By the Bed
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…
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…
Writer-director Joachim Trier presents a compelling story via an prologue, 12 chapters and an epilogue in The Worst Person in the World. The unusual treatment of the narrative by Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt works nicely. The film follows beautiful and buoyant Julie (Renate Reinsve). She was a decent and friendly person who could be…
Confusingly, Swan Song is the second film with that title to be released in 2021. The other starred Mahershala Ali and you can stream it on Apple TV+. This Swan Song is a gentle tribute to a number of things – a man, a place, a time, a culture and an idea. Writer-director Todd Stephens…
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…
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…
Hijinks abound in The Australian Shakespeare Company’s fun-filled treat The Wind in the Willows at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Populated by favourites from British novelist Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 book, families on picnic rugs are given much to smile about during the 90-minute show without interval, set in magnificent surrounds. The first location is by the lake and…
Having not seen the original Matrix trilogy, I was totally lost for most of this fourth instalment. I took a while to understand what was going on. But it basically boils down to a simple premise – Neo has to rescue Trinity and they face many obstacles. The action takes place two decades after The…
