There are a few established Australian Boxing Day traditions. (For the unfamiliar, Boxing Day is the day immediately following Christmas Day.) An MCG test match. (For the unfamiliar…oh, you know what, nevermind.) Sales. Hangovers. Christmas leftovers. And, if you’re feeling especially motivated, perhaps you’ll brave the multiplex to see one of the half-dozen new releases…
If you can stomach Sausage Party’s dire string of lazy racial caricatures and innuendo for an hour, the final sausage in the chain is pretty tasty.
Everyone’s got an opinion on the new Ghostbusters whether or not they’ve seen it. Does it suck? Does it rock? …Short answer: yes. To both.
Zoolander is one of the greatest comedies, spinning out its Glamorama-esque premise from a satirical take on male modelling into a deconstruction of masculinity and a surrealistic degradation of plot, where David Bowie adjudicates “walk offs” and the perfect look stops a high-velocity shuriken. Perhaps most importantly, it’s also hilarious, packed to the brim with…
Three-and-a-half decades ago, Alien established Ridley Scott as a director to watch. Drawing on the conventions of the increasingly-popular slasher film and rejecting the Star-Trek-esque optimism of the sci-fi films of that era, he created a chilling classic. But his potential as a director has dribbled away somewhat in the years since; while I don’t…
Dear diary, This afternoon was my first full day at Sydney Film Festival this year. After an early-morning interview and a screening of Kris Swanberg’s Unexpected, I saw The Diary of a Teenage Girl. It was a last minute decision – I was originally going to see Villa Touma, but managed to hunt down a…
At first glance, Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby appears to slot neatly into the Noah Baumbach/Lena Dunham school of New York indie. You know the type. Loose, naturalistic dramas about trendy people in a trendy city, leavened with a hint of comedy before drifting towards Serious Issues that aren’t taken all that seriously. For most of…
Spectacular lip-synch scene aside, The Skeleton Twins is much lesser comedic than the presence of SNL alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader would lead you to believe. They play twin siblings, each possessing an air of superior condescension that barely conceals their crippling insecurity and depression. They’re re-united after Hader’s suicide attempt, and share a…
The first How to Train Your Dragon was a special kind of miracle. A simple tale of a father and his son, of a boy and his dragon, it soared beyond its modest ambitions. HTTYD succeeded thanks to gorgeously composed and edited animation and a spectacular Oscar-nominated score, yes, but mostly because of the simplicity…
Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) sees himself as a failure. As he flips through his personal budget, rifles through negatives in his job at LIFE magazine or stares at the eHarmony profile page of co-worker Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), he emits an aura of vacancy. It’s like he’s barely there and, sometimes, he isn’t, lost in flights…
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