Thanks to Universal Pictures Australia, ccpopculture has 10 double passes to give away to The Visit, releasing in Australian cinemas Thursday September 24th. “Writer/director/producer M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable) returns to his roots with the terrifying story of a brother and sister who are sent to their grandparents’ remote Pennsylvania farm for a…
What would it be like to summit Mount Everest? Even in this post-Hillary, commercialised world, where the opportunity is there for anyone of sufficient physical capabilities (not to mention a hefty bank balance), a mythical halo still engulfs the Tallest Mountain On Earth. I have a sneaking suspicion it’d be deeply disappointing. Not necessarily the experience…
Haemoo – South Korean for “sea fog” – is a deceptive film; despite initially presenting itself as a people-smuggling drama, loosely based on a 2001 real-life tragedy, it’s in fact smuggling a carefully-crafted tragicomic thriller. The initial framing of its smuggler protagonists as desperate souls soon gives way to overt, melodramatic villainy – rape, violence…
So it turns out I’m not much of an Alex Ross Perry fan. I watched Listen Up Philip, Perry’s third feature, with high expectations. I’d heard positive things about this intelligent indie film, and its cast – Elisabeth Moss, Krysten Ritter, Jonathan Pryce and Jason Schwartzman as the titular Philip, a self-obsessed semi-successful New York…
Introducing the Queensland premiere of his latest film – from a career that stretches over more than 20 features – Paul Cox began by thanking his anonymous donor. Force of Destiny, you see, is inspired by Cox’s own experience with liver cancer and a last-minute, live-saving liver transplant, which might be why David Stratton described it…
Scorch Trials picks up literally where its predecessor left off, as Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and friends are ferried into a large complex, where supposedly anti-WCKD Aiden Gillen is transporting kids to safety. It doesn’t take long for the wheels to come off though, and Thomas and friends head out into the desert, searching for answers.…
Here are the things to like about American Ultra: Kristen Stewart’s performance as a put-upon girlfriend. She’s fantastic, as always. The chemistry between Stewart and on-screen boyfriend Jesse Eisenberg, playing a kind of Cheech-and-Bourne stoner/super-soldier mashup. Some imaginative use of neon/black light colours. …and that’s it, sadly. American Ultra could have been a funny, energetic…
Indie sensation Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a proven crowd-pleaser, with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film’s easy, cutesy humour and plethora of classic movie references earning it Audience Awards at Sydney and Sundance. It’s certainly entertaining enough. But the exceedingly twee title also hints at its incessant solipsism, with the “Me” of the title…
“What was your point?” “Nothing. It’s just a funny story.” Your typical creature feature suffers from the ‘fireworks factory’ effect: the cumulative expectations of violence, horror and – of course – the appearance of the creature in question building into frustration and, often, disappointment. Spring, on the other hand, had me wondering if I’d put…
I’ve done a lot of travelling in my time. There was a lot of dancing, more music than I could shake a glowstick at, and enough glorious (at the time) experiences that there’s definite “nostalgia” (cringeworthy recollections) to be “remembered fondly” (blatantly denied). We Are Your Friends captures all of that and then some. At its heart,…
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