Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash Despite some dire rumblings, the Australian cinema scene posted a respectable 2024. According to Screen Australia, overall attendances showed a small rise of around 200,000 on 2023 – from 57.9 million to 58.1 million. The gross box office however grew about 5%, from $940 million to $985 million. This…
Sean Baker is an intriguing filmmaker who doesn’t repeat himself, although most of his films follow characters who are marginalised. His breakthrough film was 2015’s Tangerine, a low budget independent drama about a transgender prostitute looking for her pimp – it was entirely shot on a mobile phone. He followed that film in 2017 with…
Mufasa (the movie) explores how Mufasa (the lion cub who almost drowned in a flood) was separated from his parents and went on to become king of the jungle. His story is told by shaman mandrill Rafiki to another young lion cub, Mufasa’s granddaughter, Kiara (the daughter of Simba and Nala). Lending a mischievous hand…
Before I watched this LEGO movie, I knew only two of Pharrell Williams’ songs, being the hits Get Lucky and Happy. I suspect many who will see Piece by Piece will know many more. Now, having watched this animated documentary, I’m far better informed. The film paints Pharrell as a man-child who felt he didn’t…
Co-written by Marie Drucker and director Stephane Brize, Out of Season is a sensitive, slow-moving romance. Mathieu (Guillaume Canet) is a famous Parisian movie star, married to a prime-time news anchor. Four weeks before making his stage debut, Mathieu gets cold feet and pulls out, leaving everyone in the lurch. While he knows his withdrawal…
Your Monster is one wild, romantic, vengeful ride – Beauty and the Beast never looked so good. It’s about an aspiring actress who gets treated shamefully and then finds the most unlikely of awakenings. Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) has been with her writer/director boyfriend Jacob Sullivan (Edmund Donovan) for five years. She’s helped him to…
Hugh Grant was once the affable if slightly awkward star of romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. But since Guy Ritchie cast him against type in a couple of his gritty thrillers, Grant has carved out a niche for himself in playing villainous types. He was great as the main…
Picking up the story three years after the events in Moana (2016), Moana 2 reunites Moana (voice of Auli‘i Cravalho) with demi-god Maui (Dwayne Johnson) on a new adventure. The first film was about Moana finding her identity. This one is about discovering and uniting different tribes in the islands to ensure the future of…
Wicked: Part 1 is a grand spectacle. This extended musical – of which this 160-minute epic is only the first of two parts – looks magnificent on the big screen. Its colourful and captivating exterior underpins a dark side. It appears no expense has been spared to breathe life anew into the beloved stage musical,…
Michael Keaton is having a moment right now. After the much-hyped Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the veteran actor is back on our screens in the gentle dramedy Goodrich. In the hands of writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer (Home Again), Keaton gets the chance to display his talents without make-up and catch-phrases. Goodrich is an almost-Christmas movie. Even though no…
