Quiet intelligence, heartache and heartbreak are at the centre of the finely constructed contemporary drama, Manchester by the Sea. A restrained but compelling performance from Casey Affleck (Triple 9) and magnificent cinematography (the director of photography is Jody Lee Lipes) are its hallmarks. Manchester by the Sea tells the story of the Chandler family, a…
Odd Man Out is a new Australian play, by David Williamson. The play explores a relationship between Ryan (Justin Stewart Cotta), a ‘numbers’ genius employed and paid well by a Big Bank for his skills, who suffers from an undiagnosed case of Aspergers’ Syndrome and Alice (Lisa Gormley) a 38 year old physical therapist counting…
The best way to get anything other than disappointment out of Fifty Shades Darker is to enter the cinema with extremely low expectations. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson return as the young couple Christian Grey and Anastasia (Ana) Steele in this, the second chapter of the bestselling Fifty Shades erotic romance trilogy by EL James….
A Street Cat Named Bob is a heart-warming and enjoyable film about an unlikely friendship. Based on James Bowen’s best- selling 2013 autobiographical book, this is a feel-good film about how a homeless man turned his life around with the help of a stray ginger cat named Bob. Bowen (played by Luke Treadaway, from Unbroken)…
The history of the cinema is littered by well-intentioned but ill-thought-out attempts to bring stage plays to the big screen. The inherent contradiction between the theatre – where dialogue is the focus – and the cinema – where the emphasis is on visuals – sometimes does both the play and the movie in question a…
The Black Dog takes hold and there is no letting go. That wake-up call is at the heart of the world premiere production of Erasers, which tackles the broader issue of disconnection. The latter is manifest in many ways, the disengagement between males and females, parents and children, blacks and whites, the gay and the…
Passengers is set in a distant future where the Earth has become overcrowded and resources are drying up. The colony spaceship Avalon is making its way towards Homestead II, a distant planet that will become the new home for humans. The journey though will take some 120 years. The crew and some 5000 passengers have…
Desire is a powerful emotion. Perhaps the most powerful, alongside hunger, but sometimes it leads you in directions that aren’t the best for you. I was reflecting upon that as I watched Drama, a rather quirky slice-of-life reality piece starring Sophie Mathisen. Anna (Mathisen) travels to Paris to meet John (Tom Wren), unintentionally causing tension…
Chilean director Pablo Larraín (No) takes on the enigmatic figure of Jacqueline Kennedy (neé Bouvier; later Onassis) and the mythos of the “Camelot” years in Jackie. This visually stunning and finely textured film is a kind of elegy to a lost time and lost hope, while simultaneously providing an intimate portrait of the former First…
When a successful New York advertising executive suffers a great tragedy he retreats from life. While his concerned friends try desperately to reconnect with him, he seeks answers from the universe by writing letters to Love, Time and Death. “These three things connect every single human being on earth. We long for love. We wish…
