Well meaning, good-natured but saccharine sweet, Golden Years is a British comedy about oldies fighting back against society’s prejudice. It is too cute by half. Law-abiding retired couple, Arthur (Bernard Hill) and Martha Goode (Virginia McKenna) live a quiet life in suburbia, tending to their garden and socialising with friends. But fate, a pension crisis…
Writing is a solitary pursuit and when it comes to publication even to get to first base is not only inordinately difficult, but highly competitive. Insecurities and doubts are constant bedfellows, especially for the novice. Perfect fodder then for four up and comers, supposedly with talent, who are being told the way it is by…
Who would have thought that the formation of McDonald’s would make for such an eye-catching yarn? As told in The Founder, it is a forceful drama that tells the true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Impressed…
Sand Storm is a family drama that takes place in a Bedouin Village in the desert in southern Israel. Two women, mother and daughter, are dealing with life changing events at the same time. Jalila is a 42-year-old with four children. Her eldest child is an 18-year-old university student, Layla (Lamis Ammar). Jalila is coping…
Ex Machina was a compelling science fiction thriller concerning artificial intelligence. Morgan – which is in the same sphere – starts with promise. A corporate troubleshooter, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is sent to a remote, top-secret location, where an A.I. experiment has been underway with a skeleton crew for seven years. But something has gone…
Stunning, finely rendered and detailed animation in the Japanese anime style is the hallmark of Your Name, a youth fantasy written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, who also wrote a novel of the same name. It concerns a mysterious connection between two pupils – strangers – living different lives in disparate parts of Japan. Mitsuha…
Cinematographer David Parker has, with his wife writer/director Nadia Tass, created some of the best Australian comedies, with the classics Malcolm and The Big Steal. But when branching out as a filmmaker on his own the results have been a little less spectacular. With The Menkoff Method Parker steps back into the director’s chair for…
Rarely does a superbly staged and executed film have the impact I, Daniel Blake had on me. The 59-year-old titular character (played by Dave Johns) has worked as a carpenter most of his life in Newcastle in the UK. He is a man who enjoys and takes pride in what he does. He is honest,…
With the lucrative Harry Potter franchise done and dusted, author J K Rowling has expanded on her Potterverse with this stand alone tale set some seven decades before the adventures of the boy wizard. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them serves as the launching pad for a new post-Potter franchise set against the world…
Happiness is the name of the game for two inpatients at a progressive psychiatric institution, both of whom are trying to attain it in Like Crazy. Beatrice speaks at a thousand miles an hour and is easily worked up. She is a self-styled billionaire countess who likes to believe she is on intimate terms with…
