The Eight Mountains presents a beautifully shot and languidly paced story exploring the friendship between Bruno and Pietro over the course of four decades. “I didn’t expect to find a friend like Bruno in my life. Nor that friendship was a place where you put down roots” says the adult Pietro in the opening moments…
Bloodlust features prominently in Sisu, an anarchic actioner, set towards the end of WWII. It is 1944. Finland has signed an armistice with the Soviet Union and the Germans are in full retreat. However, the Nazis have adopted a scorched-Earth policy, destroying everything in their wake. A legendary Finnish warrior – Aatami (Jorma Tommila) –…
Big Brother is watching in Upgrade, a futuristic horror-thriller from Leigh Whannell (Insidious: Chapter 3). Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) barely makes a living fixing old cars. His attractive wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) works in IT. The pair have a good relationship. All that changes though after Grey delivers a vehicle to Eron (Harrison Gilbertson). Eron is…
Benjamin Stevenson’s first book featuring documentary maker Jack Quick was a revelation, particularly when considered again, in hindsight, from the viewpoint of the second novel in the series. Quoting from my own review of GREENLIGHT at the time: “There’s a something about GREENLIGHT that feels like a non-too-subtle dig at the commercialisation of true crime….
In the late 1960s, an elderly woman took up residence in a London street where many famous names lived. Nothing unusual about that, you might be thinking. But she lived in a decrepit, hand-painted yellow van crammed with old shopping bags and bits of carpet. She was a well-known “character” around Camden Town, sometimes mocked…
Best in Show (2000) was a delightful hoot. Now, nearly a quarter of a century on, we have a beaut family movie that again involves canine and human competition. Runt is a full-hearted Aussie comedy concerning a little girl from a salt-of-the-earth country town and the stray she befriends. Runt – the dog – runs…
For those who like the unconventional, Sophia = (Wisdom): The Cliffs is heaven-sent. Promoted as “Part dada, slapstick comedy, part philosophical vaudeville interrogation into the human psyche and fully a production of the true avant-garde”. I couldn’t have put together a better word-salad myself. Written by American playwright Richard Foreman, the play falls into a…
In these days of instant communication, you have to come up with a pretty good reason for a road trip. The creative team behind Kodachrome have done so by going old-school. The result is a film yearning for a golden past that – perhaps – never existed. Matt Ryder (Jason Sudeikis) is a music executive…
– The Ice Road – Only in cinemas from 12 August 2021 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Rialto Distribution. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE In a diamond mine in northern Canada that operates under an ongoing threat of combustible methane gas, a spark ignites causing an explosion, leaving…
Golden Shield is a new play by Anchuli Felicia King, having its world premiere production from the Melbourne Theatre Company. It’s set against a background of antipathy between the US and China. Their animosity has reached deeply worrying levels and Australia is caught in the middle. The play deals with “Big Brother”, mistranslated words and…
