Presented by Palace, the British Film Festival will screen from 10 November in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Byron Bay at reduced capacity and late November in Melbourne, when restrictions permit. The British Film Festival celebrates the finest filmmakers and acting talent British cinema has to offer and the 2020 program features some of…
Nardi Simpson’s scorching debut novel Song of the Crocodile opens with the irony of a sign naming the small Australian country town of Darnmoor the “Gateway to Happiness”. The fly-through that follows will be familiar to anyone who has driven around regional Australia. Two main streets crossing at right angles with a war memorial at…
As fluffy as the soufflé at Le Récamier and a glitzy as the nightly light display at the Eiffel Tower, Emily in Paris is another charming but shallow TV series from the doyen of charming but shallow, Darren Star. This is Star’s first outing for Netflix, with his New York-set companion piece Younger streaming on…
John Hyams’ psychological thriller Alone has twists aplenty. This two-hander set in the Pacific Northwest kept me engaged throughout. Six months ago, Jessica (Jules Willcox) lost her husband in tragic circumstances. Now she’s decided to move away. Her parents were going to help her pack, but she decided to do it alone and avoid especially…
It’s Halloween, so we’re checking out a little spooky action with the Netflix movie, Vampires vs The Bronx. This fun excursion into the supernatural won’t test your brain, but never wears out its welcome. Director Osmany “Oz” Rodriguez has an impressive CV in television, notably on A. P. Bio and Saturday Night Live. And he…
While a largely enjoyable romp, The Mystery of Henri Pick becomes too convoluted for its own good. Henri Pick made pizzas for a living in France’s Brittany region. No one could have guessed was a gifted author (so much so that he could juxtapose Russian novelist Alexander Pushkin with the last throes of a relationship)?…
Written by Perth playwright Andrew O’Connell, Professional Premises is a one sitting piece that offers no relief from some very nuanced sparring between three very intense characters. An observational work that relies on what is both being relayed and what is being witnessed by the third character not currently engaged, the focus of the (in…
Cinematic exchanges between Australia and Iceland are, understandably, rare. But that hasn’t deterred director Jeremy Sims, who successfully translates Grímur Hákonarson’s 2015 Icelandic hit Rams into RAMS (note the subtle difference). The tyrannies of distance and language prove no barrier for Sims. And when you think about it, maybe Australia and Iceland have quite a…
Jock Serong has not done the same thing twice… until now. And even then, not really. The Burning Island is a sequel to Serong’s 2018 historical novel Preservation. Preservation drew on the true story of an epic land journey up the Australian coast in the very early days of the colony while also exploring the…
Leonardo da Vinci’s The Mona Lisa is world’s most famous painting by the world’s most famous artist in the world’s most famous museum. And it’s just one of the works featured in the remarkable, insightful documentary A Night at the Louvre: Leonardo da Vinci. The film is based around an exhibition that closed at the…
