If 2022 saw a return to normality for the first time since 2019, in 2023 cinema took a beat to consolidate. And if 2022 was really all about Top Gun: Maverick, in 2023 the pie got divided up rather more evenly. Australian box office dominated by “Barbienheimer” with the international smash hit Barbie taking out…
Opposites attract, repel, and attract again in the French comedy Two Tickets to Greece. In 1989, brash teenager Magalie and conservative Blandine were besties at school. An argument over a boy saw an end to that and Magalie moved away. Now, three decades on and two years after her husband left her, radiology technician Blandine…
Although out of favour in the US, Woody Allen is still a revered filmmaker in France. So fittingly enough, his fiftieth film as a director is actually set and shot in France. And, surprisingly enough, the dialogue is in French, with subtitles. Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck) also turns out to be one of…
A fun-filled, animated adventure, Migration focuses on a family of four wild ducks, also known as mallards. This is a delightful, humorous film, with much to commend it. The story is from Mike White (who wrote the screenplay) and Benjamin Renner (who directed the film, alongside Guylo Homsy). The father of this ducky brood is…
Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos makes weird but oddly compelling and visually arresting dramas and absurdist comedies. His resume includes films such as The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Favourite, which have won numerous awards on the festival circuit. But his deadpan approach and detached style have proved polarising and controversial with…
James Hawes’ One Life is an emotional, heart-felt journey, jumping between the onset of World War II and the late 1980s. The film opens in December 1938. Nicholas “Nicky” Winton is a mild-mannered British stockbroker headed for a week in Prague. Increasingly, refugees have fled there to try to outrun the growing Nazi presence in…
A formulaic and predictable rom-com both set in and shot around Sydney, Anyone But You taps into the familiar tropes of the genre without adding anything particularly fresh or original. A meet-cute between ambivalent law student Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and stock broker Ben (Glenn Powell) in a coffee shop leads to a one-night stand, which…
Make a wish and have it instantly granted – if only it were that easy. While the enticing idea forms the basis of the Disney animated feature Wish, things of course aren’t quite that straightforward. Magnifico (the voice of Chris Pine) has studied the magic of the world, and soon becomes a mighty sorcerer and…
I’ve been wracking my mind trying to think of another married couple that have recorded together with the same sympatico and creativity that I hear when ace Americana guitarist and sideman Buddy Miller records with his songwriter wife Julie Miller. Of course, there was Richard and Linda Thompson, but we all know that didn’t end…
Just who isn’t corrupt? That seems to be the question asked in the action-thriller The Bricklayer. The CIA is in the firing line, literally and figuratively. Someone is blackmailing the agency by assassinating foreign journalists and making it look like the CIA is responsible. That someone appears to be Radek (Clifton Collins Jr.), formerly on…
