Sweden is more than idyllic red cottages and affordable housing in flat packages. Today it is also a country with a big youth unemployment problem. It is so massive, in fact, that hundreds of thousands of young Swedes see no option other than to move across the border to Norway. They hope to find work…
Based upon Gustave Flaubert’s literary classic and not to be confused with the recently released Gemma Bovery, this is the story of a young married woman desperate to escape the dullness of her provincial life. Madame Bovary is a straight drama, while Gemma Bovery was a comedic dramatic romantic reimagining, which drew inspiration from a…
Adapted from the bestselling novel by author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars), this is centred on Quentin (Q) and his enigmatic neighbour Margo, who loved mysteries so much she became one. Quentin Jacobson is intelligent, a loyal mate and a romantic. He’s 17 and in his senior high school year. Q believes that…
This is an unnecessary remake of the 1982 horror film of the same name, and it shows that Hollywood studios are basically lacking in originality and imagination. While this remake basically adheres to the story of the original it adds little beyond some CGI special effects and modern touches. The original film was written by…
This contemporary retelling of Gustav Flaubert’s 1856 tragic tale Madame Bovary is something of a dull affair despite its lashings of sex, infidelity and comedy. The film is based on the popular graphic novel written in 1999 by Posy Simmonds, who previously wrote Tamara Drewe, which was filmed starring Gemma Arterton. Arterton appears here again…
Comic Russell Brand has always enjoyed a bit of social activism. Now he teams up with prolific director Michael Winterbottom (The Trip) for this polemic on the evils of corporate greed and the growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the modern world. The rich keep getting richer while the poor continue to…
Based upon the literary classic by Thomas Hardy, this film tells the story of Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan – An Education), a fiercely independent and spirited young woman. She starts out as a simple country girl, who inherits her uncle’s farm. Financially autonomous (a rarity in Victorian times), beautiful and headstrong, she attracts three very different…
This simple, low budget New Zealand and Australian co-production is a two-handed romantic drama that is reminiscent of the Before trilogy from Richard Linklater. It basically follows a couple as they wander through the streets of Christchurch while they try to work out where their relationship stands. Charlie (Dustin Clare, from TV series Spartacus) left…
Slick and digitally savvy, this is a horror thriller for the social media generation. Unfriended follows what happens when a seemingly innocent online prank spirals out of control. The film unfolds over a teenager’s computer screen as she and her friends are stalked by an unseen figure. This entity seeks vengeance for a shaming video…
Frackman sounds like he should be a new addition to the Marvel stable of superheroes. But Dayne Pratzky is no superhero – rather he is just an average farmer from Queensland with little interest in politics or geopolitics until he became an accidental activist through his campaign against global energy companies who wanted to sink…
