A pall of foreboding hangs over almost every scene in the harrowing thriller Hounds of Love. That foreboding turns to dread and then white-knuckle fear. The film marks an auspicious feature debut from writer/director Ben Young. Hounds of Love is set in Perth during the summer of 1987. Teenage girls are disappearing from the streets. They…
Intrigue is the currency of merit in the intelligent, slow-moving drama, The Sense of an Ending. Tony Webster is semi-retired. The Internet and mobile phones are foreign to him. He potters around in his small shop which sells expensive second-hand cameras. Although long divorced from his lawyer wife, the pair remain on friendly speaking terms, especially…
A melancholic coming-of-age drama, there is much to enjoy from 20th Century Women. The film is set in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1979. Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right) is a determined single mother in her mid-50s, raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann), at a time of cultural…
After the failure of movies like Snatched and CHiPs, good humour, hijinx, pecs and genetalia abound in this welcome return to form for lighthearted comedy. Baywatch follows devoted lifeguard Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – The Fate of the Furious) as he butts heads with a brash new recruit (Zac Efron – Bad Neighbors). Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) directs…
Israeli actress Gal Gadot imposes herself on screen in a rare outing for Hollywood – a big budget superhero movie featuring a female in the lead role. It is hard to believe it has taken this long for Wonder Woman to make it to the big screen in her own right. In comic book form she…
A penniless wheeler and dealer gets in with the big boys and finds himself caught up way over his head. That, in a nutshell, is what the cleverly conceived and executed mind-bender Norman is all about. Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) lives a lonely life in the margins of New York City power and money. He is a would-be…
Based on a true story, the Australian courtroom drama Don’t Tell shares a common theme with the Oscar winning drama Spotlight. Both films deal with themes of sexual abuse, cover ups, abuse of power, truth, justice and the courage to fight against injustice. While Spotlight depicted the Boston Globe’s investigation into allegations of sexual abuse within…
Pablo Neruda was the pen-name (and later legal name) of Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, who lived from July 12, 1904 to September 23, 1973. In 1971, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Lyrical, poetic and steeped in politics, Neruda is what I would term a “festival” film; one for purists. It’s…
Guy Ritchie (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) puts his own take – a gritty, modern edge – to the classic Excalibur myth and the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Arthur is not yet king, instead a ruffian, a thoroughly reluctant hero compelled to discover…
John Wick, the ultra-violent 2014 action flick that starred Keanu Reeves as a cool, taciturn, ruthlessly efficient and seemingly invincible assassin, was something of a guilty pleasure and a surprise hit at the box office. So now we get this sequel, which once again takes us into this shadowy world of assassins and their strange…
