Evocative, eviscerating, engaging – these are the hallmarks of a group therapy session in which participants are figuratively filleted. They are encouraged to open up about all their traumas, about their fears and frustrations, their anger and angst, their despair and derision. They beat up on themselves and lash out. They writhe and contort, they repel and…
Ridley Scott has never been afraid to take risks. That much is evident from his many canonical films including Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Blade Runner. But for every Gladiator, there’s a Robin Hood. He seems to have a tendency to always shoot for the stars, sometimes succeeding brilliantly but sometimes falling short. His…
– Silent Night – Only in cinemas from 7 December 2023 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Rialto Distribution. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE From legendary director John Woo and the producer of John Wick comes this gritty revenge tale of a tormented father (Joel Kinnaman) who witnesses his…
Saltburn is a dark thriller about obsession, power, privilege, and a desperate desire to belong. It’s a debauched variation on The Talented Mr Ripley meets Brideshead Revisited. This is the sophomore feature from writer/director Emerald Fennell, who won an Oscar for her screenplay for 2020’s Promising Young Woman. It’s 2006. Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is…
Eight years since the last of four Hunger Games movies hit the big screen, the franchise refreshes with this prequel, which had me invested. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes tells the story of the evolution of the eventual president of Panem, the role filled by Donald Sutherland in the original Hunger Games. Here it…
The lavish Italian/French co-production Caravaggio’s Shadow by actor-director Michele Placido looks at the final years in the life of Caravaggio (born Michelangelo Merisi). This is something of a passion project for Placido, who had been fascinated with the artist for over half a century and had long wanted to explore his life and legacy on…
Another formulaic survival story, The Dive is a remake of the little-seen 2020 Norwegian drama Breaking Surface, and it adds little that is new or surprising. Sisters Drew (Australian actress Sophie Lowe) and May (Louisa Krause) share a love of deep-sea diving, instilled in them from a young age by their father. Every year the…
Daniel Defoe (born Daniel Foe) may well have been the first English novelist. At least that is the contention in the play Defoe’s Plague, which starts with a man in a thin, eerie, long nosed mask performing an incense cleansing. The head covering looks like that worn by doctors in bygone days and intended to protect them…
AI is a hot topic right now, so it’s only natural filmmakers would want to explore it. One of them is Garth Davis (Lion), who adopts a measured but sometimes oblique approach in Foe. Davis is clearly passionate about the project, having worked with novelist Iain Reid to adapt Reid’s novel of the same name…
Women treated shamefully by the Aussie Rules’ boys’ club. That is the theme of Patricia Cornelius’ gritty, feminist play In the Club. It concerns three young women who hook up with members of a football team and pay the price. Annie (Eva Seymour) transitions from a naïve, football-mad 15-year-old to an exploited 16-year-old, which sets the tone…
