Category: Reviews

Few coming-of-age films are as delicately directed as Lee Isaac Chung’s deeply personal Minari.

Mental illness hasn’t always had the best representation on screen. Whether its exploitative, melodramatic or underplaying its severity, sometimes highlighting a specific illness on camera does more harm than good for breaking down social stigmas. That is why, surprisingly, Words on Bathroom Walls is so good.

From the outset, The Broken Hearts Gallery is a winning formula

Is the history of electricity interesting?

The premise of Downhill takes after Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure, telling the story of a couple on a family ski vacation that sees their relationship come to a breaking point after a certain event shapes what each other consider important in the face of a crisis.

If you’re talking Pixar, you’re talking high quality, heartfelt, premium animation with a standard unsurmounted by other animated feature films.

It’s hard to make a movie about your life without seeming overly indulgent or seeking empathy at every turn.

My first peek into this American TV legend from 1968 to 2001 was in the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? which took a peek at the man, Fred Rogers and his life before and during his hugely successful TV program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Bombshell’s story is a perfectly manicured version of sexual harassment allegations against Fox New CEO and Chairman Roger Ailes.

I attended a screening of Spies in Disguise, a Blue Sky Studios – maker of Ice Age franchise and Rio – I went in with low expectations. And with such a lazy title, I expected the worst.

Jojo Rabbit, based on the novel Caging Skies by Christian Leunens, is directed and written by Taika Waititi, and is most likely the first Nazi comedy that’s as subversive as it is boundary-pushing.

Little Women retains the spirit of the story but also makes it feel fresh for new audiences.

The whodunnit renaissance is upon us!

I quite enjoyed Terminator.

Cirque du Soleil is hit and miss.

I love School of Rock. The 2003 film written and starring underrated Mike White is a fun, music-filled romp that is inspirational to kids everywhere and teaches them about “sticking it to the man”.

“This is a story about control” starts the opening scene of Hustlers, as Janet Jackson’s hit plays while we meet Dorothy, now Destiny, (Constance Wu), the apparent new girl at a strip club in New York back in 2007.

Woke horror-thrillers appear to be the thing of the moment after the successes of Get Out and Us, and the new Ready Or Not plays off a lot of similar concepts and narrative structure in this comedic take on a classic slasher film.

Opening with black and white footage of the UK in 1984, with clips of the nationalisation of the coal industry and the ensuing miner’s strike in an attempt to prevent colliery closures, sets the stage for Billy Elliot’s return to Sydney 12 years after its last visit.

First there was Popular, a teen drama in the 90s, then there was Nip/Tuck, then a return to teen drama with Glee.

Sweetbitter is just as the misnomer suggests, a bittersweet show.

Tackling space in film is a frontier I think has been well exhausted in recent years.

I was pleasantly surprised with The Angry Birds Movie 2.

Every star needs its vehicle and Jillian Bell runs a marathon performance (and more) in Brittany Runs A Marathon, her breakout film and one of the best crowd-pleasers of the year.

Off the bat, the script for Animals is excellent.

This year seems to be a big for jukebox musicals in the form of Rocketman, Yesterday and now, Blinded By The Light.

There are lots of excellent things about Booksmart.

As the third Disney remake to hit the silver screen this year after the critical failings of Dumbo and Aladdin, all eyes are on the classic “re-imagining” of the classic 1994 animated feature The Lion King

Retreating once again into a formula that proved successfully exactly one time, Men In Black returns in 2019, this time global and with a – gasp – female lead in this tireless and bland retreat into the universe no one asked for.

I personally am not a fan of films about terrorism.

There are many expectations going into Ghost The Musical at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre on opening night.