A cheeky gangster flick with attitude, Pixie is a bloody delight … and I do mean that literally. As the body count mounts, the star of the show, Pixie O’Brien (Olivia Cooke), bats her eyelids and schemes away. Pixie is the adopted daughter of a gangster who fell out with a bunch of gun-toting priests,…
Melbourne based singer-songwriter Emma Russack released “Be Real”, the newest single from her upcoming album Winter Blues, due on the 5 July 2019. Channelling 90s grunge and indie rock, “Be Real” is Russack’s reaction to the selfie culture. “[“Be Real”] is about my frustration with phone obsession, social media, hype and trend – the phoniness…
M Night Shyamalan subverts the usual expectations of the fairy tale visit with kindly old grandmother with this mix of horror and uncomfortable black comedy. The subdued horror film The Visit marks a return to form of sorts for the Sixth Sense filmmaker, whose last couple of films were the awful The Last Airbender and…
We haven’t seen much from former film historian and critic turned director Peter Bogdanovich on the big screen for a long time, as he has spent much of the past two decades concentrating on tv movies and directing the odd music video and an occasional episode of The Sopranos. Bogdanovich was an auteur who made…
This is theatre of the absurd, where you can try in vain to make sense of what you are seeing. Suffice to say that it is commentary on man’s inhumanity to man, on selfishness and tragedy and loss. It is the brainchild of director and screenwriter Roy Andersson, a Swede who with it…
If you can imagine James Bond, mixed with Harry Potter and topped with Edge of Tomorrow, you might have some idea what Christopher Nolan’s new epic Tenet is all about. In terms of scope and ambition, this is one of Nolan’s grandest films. But the big ideas get lost in an overly complicated script and…
For the uninitiated, The Good Room’s productions can be difficult to define. The celebrated, independent company founded by Daniel Evans and Amy Ingram creates unique theatre experiences, often from community, crowd-sourced content. Continuing on from its previous Brisbane Festival successes, Let’s be Friends Furever follows a familiar format to pull together a celebration and commemoration…
If you combine Captain Hook with a swarm of bees you have an idea of the antagonists in the horror-thriller Candyman. This 2021 version is based on the 1992 film of the same name written by Bernard Rose, and the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker. Jordan Peele (Get Out), Win Rosenfeld and Nia…
Extremely contrived, but feel good entertainment, The Confirmation is a story about a divorced man, an alcoholic carpenter, who is struggling to get by and his intelligent and perceptive young son. Clive Owen plays the down-on-his luck Walt, whose God-fearing ex-wife Maria Bello has remarried. She and her new husband Matthew Modine head off to…
Far-fetched but engaging, Kin is a tense “actioner” with a strong science fiction component. Fourteen-year-old Eli (Myles Truitt) lives in Detroit with his adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid), who keeps him on a tight leash. While exploring an abandoned building looking for scrap, Eli happens on the aftermath of an otherworldly shoot-out. In the debris,…
