Simon Kinberg is a hugely experienced screenwriter. He provided the scripts for Mr & Mrs Smith, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr version) and four movies in the X-Men series. So he knows his way around an action movie. After making his directorial debut with the flop X-Men: Dark Phoenix, he returns to the director’s chair…
Scream (2022-style) is a slasher movie that deals with other slasher movies and fans of slasher movies. Being familiar with the series that dates back to 1996 would undoubtedly aid understanding, but it’s not mandatory. I, for instance, hadn’t seen the four Scream films before this one and yet followed the story line. Ghostface is…
A pushy tennis dad or a man on a mission? Or both? You can be the judge with Reinaldo Marcus Green’s biopic King Richard. The film follows Richard Williams’ (Will Smith) journey to bring child tennis prodigies Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena Williams (Demi Singleton) to the world stage. The focus of the film is Richard’s…
What a woman! As the saying goes, they broke the mould when they created her, as shown in Matthew Walker’s documentary I’m Wanita. The Wanita of the title likes to be known as Australia’s queen of honky-tonk. In her late 40s, she’s autistic, a binge drinker, a smoker and a prostitute of 18 years who…
A washed-up porn actor falls on hard times in Sean Baker’s new film, Red Rocket. It is 2016. Mikey (Simon Rex) turns up unannounced (and broke) at the dilapidated Texas home of his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and her mother Lil (Brenda Deiss). They want nothing to do with him. But he inveigles himself…
After Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, director Matthew Vaughn delivers a prequel. The King’s Man is the origin story, explaining how and why the spy organisation the Kingsman was formed. And it’s jam-packed full of action. The story starts in South Africa in 1902. Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) from the Red…
Nicole Kidman’s star turn as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos is an acting masterclass. She gives an awe-inspiring, nuanced performance (an Oscar nomination awaits) alongside another seriously good showing from Javier Bardem; and impressive turns from JK Simmons and Nina Arianda. The action takes place during a single production week for an episode of…
The term “fan service” is getting a lot of play right now. The idea is that filmmakers and movie studios owe it to “core” fans to give them what they want. In politics, they call it “playing to the base”. Of course, in this age of social media, just who are the “core” fans often…
If 2020 was a shock to the movie-going system, 2021 was – in many ways – worse. Lockdowns, delays and uncertainty cruelled both the Australian and international film industries. Many studios deferred their biggest releases, hoping for smoother sailing ahead. As a result, it was no coincidence that the two biggest films at the box…
Magic, mayhem and mirth combine for a delightful family offering in Clifford The Big Red Dog. Emily (Darby Camp) is a smart 12-year-old who lives with her paralegal single British mother Maggie (Sienna Guillory) in a small New York apartment. They have just moved there from upstate and Emily is friendless. More than that, she…
