Paul Murphy’s NZ feature Lowdown Dirty Criminals is an enjoyable but somewhat derivative crime-comedy. The darkly comic caper cribs from the Guy Ritchie playbook, with a lot of his flashy visual flourishes. The non-linear narrative structure uses plenty of flashbacks and replays scenes from different perspectives. The film opens with a Mexican standoff in a…
If you’ve ever seen Karel Reisz’s superb The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981); or Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), you may find something familiar in Nicolas Bedos’ La Belle Époque. This brilliantly conceived drama of love and loss is inventive, poignant and compelling. Bedos is an actor who’s turned to directing. That…
– Bill & Ted Face the Music – Only in cinemas from 10 September 2020 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Madman. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE The stakes are higher than ever for the time-travelling exploits of William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan…
A disturbing and unsettling drama about madness, toxic masculinity and unhealthy obsession, Deerskin (aka Le Daim) is the latest film from French electronic musician turned filmmaker Quentin Dupieux. His absurdist films have always done well on the festival circuit, and this oddball drama again explores some of his usual themes. Georges (played by Oscar winner…
I find Richard Linklater a frustrating filmmaker sometimes. I mean, I love some of his films (School of Rock and Bernie, for example); but can’t get into others (like Boyhood and Last Flag Flying). His latest release here, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, falls into the latter category for me. This weirdly structured and ultimately thin…
Pete Davidson was a bit of an unknown quality for me. I was aware he was on Saturday Night Live, and I’d seen some of his stand-up – experiences that frankly left me nonplussed. But he’s been in a heap of movies, even if most of them haven’t been released here. His latest acting foray,…
Moving from cinema releases to Netflix hasn’t really slowed Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison. They currently have 14 movies in the pipeline. But the latest HM production to make it to the small screen is The Wrong Missy. This crashingly predictable rom-com fails on just about every level – but completely unpredictably unearths a…
A ripping yarn and a grand adventure, The Personal History of David Copperfield delighted me. It highlights just how magnificent a writer Charles Dickens was. The movie (penned by Armando Iannucci and Simon Blackwell, with direction from the former) re-imagines Dickens’ classic ode to perseverance through a largely comedic lens. Copperfield (Dev Patel) narrates his…
It is quite possible that every generation needs its own version of High Fidelity to hit the screen. Very broadly based on the 1995 Nick Hornby novel of the same name, this new adaptation is also set in a record store, Championship Vinyl, chronicling the relationship heartbreaks of its young and determined owner, the adorable…
Sometimes the best piece of advice you can give about a new TV series is to just stick with it. Most find their groove eventually and in speculative shows like Upload, there’s a whole world and a lot of rules that need to be established before we can completely buy into its new concepts. The…
