The moon-shot movie has almost become a separate genre and with films the calibre of The Right Stuff, Apollo 13 and Hidden Figures, a consistently good one. Now, Academy Award-winning director of La La Land and Whiplash, Damien Chazelle has entered the space-race with First Man, the story of the original moon landing. Diverting from the slick style of most
Read moreAmerican Animals is a heist film with a difference. As the opening titles insist, it’s not based on a true story, it is true and almost qualifies as a docudrama as the real people involved periodically talk about the case. The film concerns a 2004 robbery in which four college students plotted to steal rare and extremely valuable books from
Read moreAussie outlaw bikie movie 1% plays like Sons of Anarchy fan fiction but with very transparent references to Macbeth and Of Mice and Men. While at times raw and visceral, this film isn’t the convincingly rugged urban drama for which writer Matt Nable and director Stephen McCallum appear to be aiming. The film stars Ryan Corr as Paddo, the second
Read moreVenom, the latest addition to the Marvel Comics cinematic universe probably won’t be well known to non-comic fans although the main creature briefly appeared in Spider-Man 3. Venom is in fact an alien parasite that hitches a ride to earth aboard a spacecraft and arrives with nefarious intentions for us puny humans. Essentially a slimy goo monster, the creature can
Read moreGus Van Sant’s latest film, Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far On Foot, which stars Joaquin Phoenix, is the confronting biopic of provocative American cartoonist John Callaghan, a person who, in this film at least, recalls both Robert Crumb and Larry Flint. After unwisely getting into a car with a drunk driver following a party in the late 70’s, Callaghan
Read moreThe premise of Alpha is a familiar Disney ‘boy meets animal in the wilderness’ story but with a prehistoric setting and contemporary cinema flash. Set 20,000 years ago in what is now Europe, the film centres on sensitive young hunter gatherer Keda (Australia’s Kodi Smit-McPhee). While on a hunting expedition designed to take the young males into manhood, Keda fails
Read more