French cinematic touchstones and a powerful feminist message merge in Martin Provost’s How to be a Good Wife. This slightly bonkers film traverses similar ground to Philippa Lowthorpe’s Misbehaviour, and does it with a similarly entertaining flair. But it also leans heavily into the traditions of French farce. Provost’s previous film was the far more…
– Ammonite – Only in cinemas from 14 January 2021 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Transmission Films. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE In 1800s England, acclaimed but unrecognized fossil hunter Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) works alone on the rugged Southern coastline. With the days of her famed discoveries…
Ghosts of old Hollywood and demons of contemporary life both hang heavy over David Fincher’s Mank. This ostensible biopic of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz does a great job of exploring a troubled character struggling with his problems and his art. But it also delves into what Fincher sees as the root of America’s…
Marie Curie is one of those people. Most of us have a vague idea about her, but her real genius remains elusive. Marjane Satrapi’s (Persepolis) handsome but slightly awkward Radioactive paints a fuller – if generally deferential – picture of the groundbreaking scientist. Lauren Redniss provides the source material via her “visual non-fiction*” book, Radioactive:…
What a clever idea. Take a huge musical figure and add an element of intrigue to captivate an audience in a period thriller. In writer-director John Stephenson’s Interlude in Prague, that figure is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Aneurin Barnard). The year is 1787. Mozart – usually based in Vienna – is still recovering from the death…
What an amusing movie The Banker was. It’s the kind of movie you start watching and before you know it, the end credits roll across your screen. Even though the subject won’t get you very excited. The world of real estate and banking. A world populated with stiffs in perfectly fitting suits who prefer to…
What do you do when you’ve got two great stories, but only one movie? Mash them together of course. And while this can be fraught, director Tom Harper (Wild Rose) masters the technique in The Aeronauts. Working from a script by Jack Thorne, he deftly melds two real-life stories into one cohesive narrative. The first…
A delightful Indiana Jones-like mystery, Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears features colourful characters, lavish costumes and magnificent locales. While this is her first time on the big screen, stylish private detective Phryne Fisher built a solid following in books by Kerry Greenwood, which date back to 1989. Phryne also appeared in three series…
The sophomore feature from Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), The Nightingale offers up horrors of a different kind. Set in Tasmania in 1825, the film is a bloody, brutal and unflinching tale of revenge that also addresses the savage history of colonial Australia, the systemic abuse and mistreatment of women and the indigenous population. It makes…
In 1613 William Shakespeare (played in All is True by Kenneth Branagh) was the most famous writer in England. But then his beloved Globe Theatre burned to the ground during a performance of his final play Henry VIII after a prop misfired. Shakespeare retired following that disaster and returned home to Stratford-upon-Avon. There he pottered…
