The AICE Israeli Film Festival is currently in full swing in Sydney and Melbourne. Having run since 2005, the festival aims to bring the best in Israel’s national cinema to Australia. The festival opened with with Home Port (see below) and will be running until 17 September. A special festival event promises to be the retro…
Without doubt Kinky Boots is the best new musical in years. It has everything: a great story line, wonderful characters, and toe-tapping music that moves the plot along. It’s such a joyful and refreshing spectacle to watch. I loved every damn minute of the two hours of music, dance, and drama. On top of all…
Small Town Killers is a jet-black comedy, which pushes the boundaries of taste and fails the political correctness test. But if you’re in the right frame of mind, it’s fun. Ib (Nicolas Bro) and Edward (Ulrich Thomsen) think about sex all the time. But their wives – Gritt (Mia Lyhne) and Ingrid (Lene Maria Christensen) – are…
A violent buddy action-comedy with a fierce soundtrack, The Hitman’s Bodyguard plays on its irreverence. Nearly everybody notoriously lethal hit man Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) has ever met wants him dead. But that will only happen if Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) – the bodyguard recruited to protect him – doesn’t shoot him first … out of sheer…
Bridesmaids pretty much set the standard for the R-rated raunchy “girls misbehaving” comedy, and we have seen a lot of these female-centric versions of The Hangover. But subsequent films in this subgenre, like the recent Rough Night, Bad Sisters and even Sex And The City 2, have continually lowered the bar. And now we get…
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…
Wickedly clever with lots of droll humour, Logan Lucky is a rare treat. Divorced and desperate for money, unemployed West Virginia coal miner Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) hatches a wildly elaborate scheme. He plans to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway in neighbouring North Carolina during a NASCAR race. He convinces his one-armed brother Clyde (Adam Driver),…
A man who lived the kind of life he wanted inspires the feel-good Hampstead. The setting for the film is breathtaking. Hampstead in London is famous for its beautiful and much-loved heath – a piece of quiet countryside in a vast metropolis. Living on the edge of the heath is American widow Emily Walters (Diane Keaton). Since her…
Madame is a romantic comedy set in Paris. But this one misses the mark and then some. Anne (Toni Collette) and Bob (Harvey Keitel) are a wealthy American couple in a waning marriage. They move into a manor house in the City of Light, where affairs are commonplace. While preparing a luxurious dinner for friends, Anne is…
From little things, big things (re)grow. After a three-year hiatus, the Brisbane International Film Festival is back. And while this new BIFF is very much a slimmed down version of what it once was, the very fact of its return is a cause for celebration. Where once BIFF screened close to 200 films, the “new” festival…
