In the conversation around the greatest living movie director, Steven Spielberg is very much in the mix. From his feature debut with Duel, through his trademark films like E.T. and the Indiana Jones series, to his serious works in Schindler’s List and Lincoln, few directors can match his filmography. Now he takes his audience back…
If you are one of those readers who likes to get stuck in early into a novel’s backstory, right back to the early years of what may have pre-empted the enactment of a crime, this slow moving and meticulously detailed mystery will satisfy. Our Dark Secret is the story of a girl who desperately wants…
Sometimes simplicity is the key to great music and what you actually don’t hear can sometimes be the highlight. That is exactly what post-punk unit Sweeping Promises delivers on their debut album Hunger For A Way Out. The group’s swagger, controlled intensity and focused detail on the little things has the cup runneth over with…
The Christmas-New Year period in Australia is absolutely the best time to see movies. Now only is it usually hot (so spending some quality time in air-conditioned comfort makes a lot of sense) but with many people on holidays, there’s plenty of time to pick out what you want to see. Add to that the…
Despite the success of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Mel Gibson’s visceral The Passion of the Christ, the lavish big budget Biblical epic and sword-and-sandals drama has gone the way of the once popular Western. They have become a moribund genre that holds little appeal or relevance for today’s movie going audiences raised on a diet…
What is fact and what is fiction? You are left asking that question after an exhilarating 50 minutes at Chapel Off Chapel, with the wonderfully written and performed gay political thriller Dirt. The intrigue keeps ratcheting up. Just when you think you have a fix on what is going on, the rug is pulled from under you. The…
– The Merger – Only in cinemas from 6 September 2018 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Umbrella Entertainment. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE A former star footballer returns to his home town, but finds his political views aren’t welcome. When he is persuaded to take over coaching the…
Take an intergalactic blue hedgehog. Add a small-town sheriff and a never-ending battle with a maniacal villain. Then stir liberally and, believe it or not, you have the makings of a fun, if totally far-fetched, family film. With no expectations entering the cinema, I emerged thinking the filmmakers had thrown a little magic dust at…
Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of Japan’s greatest living filmmakers. You could mount a case he’s the greatest living Japanese filmmaker if you exclude animation (and thus, Hayao Miyazaki). In 2013, he took home the Special Jury Prize from the same event for Like Father, Like Son. In 2018, he won the Palme d’Or at Cannes…
Henry Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife, was a reading that most of us of a certain generation had at school. Ms Purcell in her program notes tells us that it was a part of her growing up, a personal and familiar story shared with her by her mother, regularly, such that at the last…
