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…
Established in 1952, the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is one of the oldest film festivals in the world and the most significant screen event in Australia. An iconic Melbourne event, the festival takes place annually in the heart of the city, presenting an acclaimed screening program alongside industry and celebratory events. MIFF showcases the…
Eliza Henry-Jones is a new writer to me. Everything about Ache is beautiful, from the cover, with those piercing eyes, to the prose, which tumbles from the page and into readers’ hearts. Here’s the blurb: A year ago, a devastating bushfire ripped Annie’s world apart – killing her grandmother, traumatising her young daughter and leaving…
In 1998, 70-year-old Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by the giant agricultural Monsanto company for “patent infringement”. That battle provides the source material for Clark Johnson’s film, Percy vs Goliath. Schmeiser grew canola crops on his property near the town of Bruno. Apparently some genetically modified canola seeds blew onto his crops and Schmeiser…
The term “fan service” is getting a lot of play right now. The idea is that filmmakers and movie studios owe it to “core” fans to give them what they want. In politics, they call it “playing to the base”. Of course, in this age of social media, just who are the “core” fans often…
Sometimes a book knocks you off your feet and into a completely alien environment – no, I’m not talking sci-fi, but Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Lebs. I grew up in Sydney in the same timeframe as this book, but Ahmad’s Sydney is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. ‘Bani Adam thinks he’s better than us!’ they…
– Bombshell – Only in cinemas from 16 January 2020 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to StudioCanal. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Starring Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron, Academy Award® winner Nicole Kidman, Academy Award® nominee John Lithgow and Academy Award® nominee Margot Robbie, based on the real scandal,…
Alex Miller has twice won Australia’s premier literary award, the Miles Franklin, for The Ancestor Game in 1993 and Journey to the Stone Country in 2003. His fifteenth novel A Brief Affair, shows how he has continued to develop his themes and concerns. It is a character study that asks deep questions about what we…
Birdland is a British play written in 2014 by Simon Stephens. He generally writes from a ‘working class’ perspective (the provincial English city of Stockport is the usual location) and focuses on the struggles of particular ordinary individuals dealing with the social and materialistic difficulties that the ‘progress’ of the world throws at them. Mr…
Judd Apatow is well known for his raunchy romantic comedies like The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. But his films have also tended to be a little self indulgent, and overlong, with running times in excess of two hours, and consequently they have tended to meander a little in the middle section. Trainwreck is…
