It’s a week of limited cinema releases, and they couldn’t be more different. In contrast to the thoughtful Nine Days, Gunpowder Milkshake lets you leave your brain at the door. This colourful adult fairytale from writer-director Navot Papushado is a rollercoaster ride. It’s shamelessly entertaining in that brutal way favoured by the likes of Quentin…
Once upon a time, cinema was the vanguard of daring ideas. In 1957, for example, Ingmar Bergman had his protagonist play chess with the Grim Reaper. Popular cinema always dominated the box office (then as now), but in the late 2010s, daring films seemed to have been pushed to the very margins. The pandemic has…
The Steelers were the world’s first gay rugby team, formed in a pub in Kings Cross in London in 1995. At first they found that other rugby teams were reluctant to play against them. But now there are more than 60 gay rugby clubs around the world with over 2000 members. The annual Bingham Cup…
In Escape Room: Tournament of Champions six people are trapped with death awaiting them unless they find a way out. All of them have played this game before … and survived. Now they’re unwillingly thrust back into the same environment. A couple – Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell) and Ben Miller (Logan Miller) – are familiar…
Perfumes is a gently paced, delightfully nuanced French comedy about a woman with a nose for fragrances. Anne Walberg (Emmanuelle Devos) was employed by Dior, where she created some of the world’s most popular perfumes. But now she works for an assortment of contract clients, often trying to find ways to mask undesirable smells. She…
Australian director Cate Shortland shot to prominence with her feature debut Somersault in 2004. Since then, she’s directed the feature films Lore (2012) and Berlin Syndrome (2017), as well as television in Australia and the US. Now she springboards into the big time with Black Widow, the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon….
Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan featured in the original live-action / animation blend Space Jam back in 1996. Now MJ has been replaced by another NBA superstar in LeBron James in the sequel – Space Jam: A New Legacy. James learnt the hard way that only total commitment will bring rewards. But he feels his…
Family connections drive Tim Brown’s Australian-set drama Buckley’s Chance. Following the death of his beloved father, New York teen Ridley (Milan Burch) and his mother Gloria (Victoria Hill) travel across the world to spend time with the grandfather he has never known. Gloria hopes that the change of scenery and the new environment will help…
The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) was an over-the-top action comedy. Now comes more of the same in Patrick Hughes’ standalone follow-up, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. The film opens with Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) accepting the Bodyguard of the Year Award, except … actually, he hasn’t won the prestigious gong. He only dreams of winning it, until…
In 1998, 70-year-old Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by the giant agricultural Monsanto company for “patent infringement”. That battle provides the source material for Clark Johnson’s film, Percy vs Goliath. Schmeiser grew canola crops on his property near the town of Bruno. Apparently some genetically modified canola seeds blew onto his crops and Schmeiser…
