Gritty, grungy and wickedly pleasurable, Patti Cake$ is a downbeat rags tale about a blue collar rap wannabe. Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Patti Cake$, a.k.a. Killa P. (Australian newcomer Danielle Macdonald), has had it with life in her rundown New Jersey hometown. At 23 she is ready to hit the road and make a play for…
What a superb piece of writing, so magnificently realised … set up with a crackerjack opening monologue! Big Heart should be mandatory viewing in an ever-burgeoning multicultural Australia. Mother (Andrea Swifte) is affluent – significantly so. She has married and divorced twice and never aspired to give birth naturally. Now though, she decides the time…
A relentless, super intelligent mind puzzle, which gets better and better as the stakes grow, this is one of the year’s best offerings. Based upon Herman Koch’s 2009 international bestselling novel – which has been published in more than 50 countries – The Dinner is a dark, suspenseful drama about the lengths people will go…
There’s a great deal to enjoy about IT, and enough scares to keep all but die-hard horror fans satiated. Forget those funny clowns you may have seen at the circus as a kid, the red nosed star of the piece here, known as Pennywise, is one devious and nasty dude. The film, directed by Andy Muschietti…
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…
Lip Service is a new Australian play that premiered in a separate production in London earlier this year with the title: Madame Rubenstein. That production featured the indomitable Miriam Margolyes, as Rubinstein and Frances Barber, as Elizabeth Arden. At the Ensemble we have Amanda Muggelton playing Madame Rubinstein, and it is a performance that I…
Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor, from TV series Peaky Blinders) is a sullen, morose young man working on his family farm in Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country. Since his father Martin (Ian Hart) suffered a debilitating stroke, he has had more responsibility loaded on his shoulders. It’s a hard and often lonely life for Johnny. He…
Accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment for mental illness should be a given, but as history shows, often that’s not the case. In Asylum, two involuntarily institutionalised patients are put through the wringer by an overly officious (read: downright brutish) doctor. One is a young man, Ben (Steven Oktaras), who believes he is dead. Most of all, he…
The well-being of a brilliant seven year-old is on the line in the feel-good weepy Gifted. Frank Adler (Chris Evans) is a single man raising his spirited young niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) in a coastal town in Florida. Though Mary is a child prodigy, Frank’s intends that she lead a normal life. His aim is thwarted…
A compelling doomsday scenario underpins the dystopian drama, The Way Out. Mankind is hanging by a thread after a civil war 15 years earlier. The air is polluted. Facemasks are mandatory for survival outdoors. Unless sanctioned, travel is banned outside one’s “zone”. All clothing is synthetic. Food is of a low quality and in short supply, while much…
