The romantic comedy The Fall Guy delivers plenty of action, hairy scenes and hijinks. Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) loves his job and his life. He’s a noted movie stuntman and body double for arrogant action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). More than that, Seavers is head-over-heels for camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), who aspires…
Abigail is a gory hybrid of crime drama, horror and comedy with a black streak of humour. And it proves to be one of the guilty pleasures of the year. A disparate group of six people are assembled to carry out a kidnapping. The man organising the kidnapping is Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). The team consists…
The father of psychoanalysis meets a feted author to discuss whether God exists in Freud’s Last Session. Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) is in failing health. With death approaching, he remains heavily opinionated. He has taken issue with British author CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), who has come out as “a believer” and written about it. Even…
So imagine for a minute, you’re Luca Guadagnino. Your last three features have been the cannibal road-movie Bones and All (2022), the blood-spattered remake of Suspiria (2018) and the sensitive love story Call Me By Your Name (2017). What do you do next? What’s that? Tennis? Yep, tennis! The mercurial director’s new project is Challengers,…
A sweeping period drama, Jeanne du Barry covers the rise and fall of the eponymous mistress to a former French king. The real Jeanne du Barry was born Jeanne Bécu in 1743; the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook, brought up by her mother. In the film, Jeanne’s (Maïwenn) road to the king’s…
The First Omen is a prequel to the classic horror film franchise that began with Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976), starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. That film introduced audiences to Damien, the Antichrist. Director Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel opens in 1971, five years before the events of The Omen. A young American woman, Margaret Daino…
Almost wordless, Robot Dreams is an unexpected delight. This quite charming animated film that captures the spirit of those silent films of yesteryear. It becomes a touching ode to friendship, connection, the pain of loss, and the need to move on in life. It’s not surprising that the film was nominated for an Oscar. The…
Wim Wenders’ (Paris, Texas) new film Perfect Days is a gently paced minimalist drama from the revered German filmmaker. Set in Japan, it reveals his great appreciation for Japan, its culture and traditions. A German/Japanese co-production Perfect Days was nominated for an Oscar, becoming the first Japanese-language film not directed by a Japanese filmmaker to…
Every year when I get my hands on the Melbourne International Film Festival program and start selecting my films, the first strand I pore through is Night Shift, which contains some bizarre horror and cinematic oddities. And the offbeat Late Night With the Devil (MIFF ’23) offers a fresh take on the tired found-footage genre….
In the context of Alice Rohrwacher’s film La Chimera, the Chimera of the title is something people search for but never manage to find. The fictional story features a band of Tombaroli, Italian grave robbers, looking for archaeological wonders. Their lucky charm is an eccentric British archaeologist, Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who finds things others can’t,…
