The Russian Resurrection Film Festival is back this year for its 15th annual outing bringing the best in new Russian cinema to Australia and New Zealand. The FIFA World Cup was of course held in Russia earlier this year, and the festival will open with the sports drama Coach. Directed by Danila Kozlovsky, who also plays the main role, Coach tells the…
Rah-rah! American heroes save the world from destruction in Hunter Killer. A hunter-killer is a vessel, especially a submarine, equipped to locate and destroy enemy vessels, including other submarines. Deep beneath the icy surface of the Arctic Circle, the Cold War never really ended. Here, at extreme depths invisible to the rest of the world,…
Masterfully constructed, Wildlife is an independent film with real bite. It plays out as a tripartite coming-of-age story. It’s small town America – Montana – in the 1960s. Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould) is 14 years of age. His parents – Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) and Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) – are about to face a major shift…
The inspiring and humane documentary Backtrack Boys shows that there are very real and effective alternatives to juvenile detention in helping turn around the lives of troubled teenagers. In the northern NSW town of Armidale, jackaroo Bernie Shakeshaft has established a community-based organisation called Backtrack, which works with troubled boys who are on the path…
A flawed but sometimes amusing animated feature, Charming is a delightful twist on damsels-in-distress. As an infant, Prince Philippe Charming (the voice of Wilmer Valderrama) was maliciously “over-blessed” with “charm” as the result of a curse. So, through no fault of his own, he attracts women like a magnet. Every woman he meets falls madly…
Apart from some exaggerated teeth, Bohemian Rhapsody is an absorbing biopic of a man, his music and a complicated life. That man is of course Freddie Mercury, a supremely talented show pony. He fronted one of the most successful rock bands of all time in Queen and the film’s title is highly appropriate for what…
Central Coast band The Sea Gypsies have released their debut album Movements. The record fuses alternative rock and reggae. And to support the new release, they’re embarking on an extended 12-date tour along the east coast over the summer. Following on from their previous 5-track EP Embrace the Way, the band have already released a…
There are films that aren’t much of a story and still leave a certain impression. The same applies to Thoroughbreds where two teenage girls, each with a specific personality disorder, come up with a plan to kill someone. The two haven’t seen each other for a long time – an eternity in which much has…
Patsy Moore is a singer/songwriter, poet, essayist, educator, filmmaker, and independent artist. I first stumbled across her music when her voice and work appeared on albums coming out of Nashville, singing backgrounds on an album by David Mullens, and her song “Talk About Life” became the title track on an album by Kim Hill. Soon…
At age six months, three identical male siblings are adopted out to three different families by a now defunct adoption agency. The reason they are separated has to do with a bizarre nature-versus-nurture experiment, the results of which are never published. In a nutshell, that’s the documentary Three Identical Strangers. The trio – Edward Galland,…
