Four hours before he is due for execution, Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) is visited by a priest (Adrian Lukas). In this black comedy, Becket proceeds to calmly relay his sordid story to Father Morris. Becket’s mother, Mary (Nell Williams), was heir to a family fortune worth US$18 billion – $19 billion. But when she fell…
Writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s rigorous commitment to excellence in filmmaking (Magnolia) pays off again big time in One Battle After Another. Featuring stellar performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and others, it is an epic, darkly comedic, dramatic, action thriller. As Pat Calhoun, DiCaprio is in a frenzied relationship with…
The conceit behind the Australian premiere of the darkly comedic chamber opera Fat Pig feels all too real. What is it like to be constantly judged for being an overweight (I am talking morbidly obese) woman? No matter that you are smart, witty and a good communicator, the one thing you can’t shy away from…
Abigail is a gory hybrid of crime drama, horror and comedy with a black streak of humour. And it proves to be one of the guilty pleasures of the year. A disparate group of six people are assembled to carry out a kidnapping. The man organising the kidnapping is Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). The team consists…
A troubled man tries to get home for his mother’s funeral, but events conspire to delay his journey. The third feature film from Ari Aster (Hereditary) is a completely bonkers, surreal and bloated pitch-black absurdist comedy. Beau Is Afraid isn’t so much your typical horror film but rather more of a disturbing Kafkaesque nightmare full…
Martin McDonagh reunites with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, and returns to form, with the biting satire, The Banshees of Inisherin. Although many liked his last film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, I personally didn’t. I think the cultural disconnect between America and Europe let it down. But now, back in familiar territory, he brings…
American cinema isn’t really noted for its absurdist films. They tends to linger around the edges of an industry dominated by other genres. But The Menu breaks that stereotype wide open; as director Mark Mylod delivers one of the most deliciously absurd – and brutal – black comedies of recent years. Mylod takes his audience…
Based on the 1988 film, Heathers: The Musical is a slick show about dark issues, including bullying, teen suicide, sexual assault and school violence. What makes this realisation of the rock musical such a success is the way that it leans into the irony built into Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy’s book. It does not shy from the…
Death of a Ladies Man is a Irish/Canadian co-production starring Gabriel Byrne as Samuel O’Shea, a Montreal based lecturer and a hard-drinking womaniser. He arrives home to discover his second and much younger wife having passionate sex with a stranger in their marital bed and asks for a divorce. But this is just the start…
Lovers of comedy genre mashups will already be very aware of the work of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and open to Truth Seekers. They came on to the scene with the series, Spaced, directed by Edgar Wright, in the early 2000s which mixed comedy with a range of science fiction and fantasy standards. The…
