The film’s subtitle A Year on the Frontline of Australian Environmental Activism tells you all you need to know about this documentary from veteran filmmaker Sally Ingleton. Wild Things traces the history of environmental activism in Australia from the fight to save the Franklin River from being dammed to the current fight to stop the…
Irish lyricism, bluster and blarney combine in Wild Mountain Thyme. This romantic drama has the sole purpose of joining a lovelorn woman and her timid neighbour. Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) grew up initially doubting her purpose until her father told her she was the white swan, like in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (which is a recurring…
In Sean Durkin’s The Nest, a house of cards is waiting to come tumbling down. We’re in Ronald Reagan’s America – specifically 1986. British-born stock trader Rory O’Hara (Jude Law) is having a hard time of it. On the surface all appears peachy. He’s married to an American horse riding instructor, Allison (Carrie Coon). Rory…
In this low key Danish/Italian co-production, shot largely in Italy, three women in their sixties rediscover love and the joy of life. The Food Club (aka Madklubben) is a gentle film about friendship, getting old, getting to rediscover yourself and the joys of life, sex and good food. Friends since adolescence, Marie, Vanya and Berling…
Earwig and the Witch continues Studio Ghibli’s well-deserved reputation for excellence for its vivid and creative animated features. Dumped at a country orphanage as a baby, Earwig (the voice of Taylor Henderson) is the child of an English rocker with flaming red hair, who also happens to be a witch. That witch claims she’s being…
A cheeky gangster flick with attitude, Pixie is a bloody delight … and I do mean that literally. As the body count mounts, the star of the show, Pixie O’Brien (Olivia Cooke), bats her eyelids and schemes away. Pixie is the adopted daughter of a gangster who fell out with a bunch of gun-toting priests,…
The gritty and unrelenting Rosie is an affecting slice of life drama dealing with homelessness. With a severe shortage of rental properties and rising rents in Ireland, Rosie Davis (Sarah Greene) and her family have been left homeless and struggling. That happened after their landlord of seven years decided to sell the house they were…
In Paul Greenrass’ new film, News of the World, a veteran of the Civil War travels across the country reading the news from papers he collects. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) shares stories of disasters, politics and gossip for audiences in every town he visits. He’s mainly talking to people who are illiterate or…
A group of resistance fighters try to defend the planet against an invading alien force. We’ve seen this sort of thing before on the screen, with films like 1996’s Independence Day, 2010’s Skyline, and in 2011 with Battle Los Angeles, based on a video game. But we’ve never really seen it from an Australian perspective…
Just stop for a moment and consider that Australia’s national holiday is the only one in the world that celebrates the imposition of colonialism. What that means for those who were here first is often the subject of spirited debate. In an age of 24-hour news cycles and social media echo chambers, the real issues…
