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Downhill – movie review

Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s film Force Majeure (2014) marked his arrival as a filmmaker of note. Americans Nat Faxon and Jim Rash wrote the screenplay for The Descendants (2011) and directed The Way Way Back (2013). But it seems the European sensitivities of Östlund’s film have been a little lost in translation in Faxon and…

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Ghosthunter – movie review

I wonder if the central figure in Ghosthunter manipulated the director to give the best possible account of himself? The man is Jason King, a security guard. He’s also a part-time ghost hunter, a service for which he only receives petrol money. King had an onerous upbringing, in which abuse was commonplace. He comes across…

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Telethon Kid (Malthouse Theatre) – theatre review

Morality and money are at the heart of the acerbic Telethon Kid. Inspired by his own medical experiences, Melbourne-based writer Alistair Baldwin’s play has two interconnecting threads. One concerns overstepping the mark in a doctor/patient relationship and the other Big Pharma’s bluff and bluster. We’re at the annual global healthcare conference held by fictious pharmaceutical company Geneuris. Each year,…

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Ali’s Wedding – movie review

With all the anti-Muslim bile being peddled at the moment, along comes Ali’s Wedding. This feel-good entertainment, based in fact, puts a smile on your dial. There’s something of The Castle’s sensibilities about this one. It’s funny and silly at the same time. Some of it seems incredibly far-fetched, but given what we are dealing with here, that…

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Mandy – streaming review

In Rambo II and Cobra, George Pan Cosmatos directed two Sylvester Stallone films which could hardly be more 80s; these movies stand as two of the more memorable examples from that decade’s glut of violent action cinema. Cosmatos died in 2005, but with Mandy his son Panos revisits the era of his father’s greatest successes…

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