Warner Bros’ slow, tortured mishandling of its DC Comics characters continues with Jaume Collet-Serra’s Black Adam. Dwayne Johnson was confirmed to play the titular anti-hero all the way back in 2014 (having circled the property since late 2006) and the confused … Continue reading REVIEW: Black Adam (2022)
High school senior Itsumi Shiraishi (Marie Iitoyo) falls to her death from a building at the exclusive Seibo Maria Girls High School. She was the school administrator’s daughter and the President of the school’s prestigious literary club. Now, in the … Continue reading REVIEW: The Dark Maidens (2017)
Enid Baines (Niamh Elgar) has a job reviewing films before they are released to the public, and recommending cuts of any material she deems unsuitable. At the same time she battles her grieving parents. They want to declare Enid’s sister … Continue reading REVIEW: Censor (2021)
A young woman named Ciao Ciao returns from Guangzhou to her rural home in southern China. She has enjoyed a more sophisticated lifestyle, and now chafes against her parents and her former neighbors. With nothing to do, and craving the … Continue reading REVIEW: Ciao Ciao (2017)
In 1830, the body of a West Point military cadet is found hanged in the forest. Before the body may be examined by the academy’s doctor (Toby Jones), its heart is mysteriously cut out. Retired detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) … Continue reading REVIEW: The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
Sunada (Kaho) is a director of television commercials – just past thirty-years-old, drinking a little too much, and hiding an unenthused lover from a happy but sexless husband. Once the pressures of a sexist industry and celebrity egos grow too … Continue reading REVIEW: Blue Hour (2019)
Technically first released at the tail end of 2022, horror movie M3GAN arrived in Australian theatres properly this week as the first Hollywood studio contender of 2023. It is what you might call a ‘meat-and-potatoes’ film: it does not invent anything … Continue reading REVIEW: M3GAN (2022)
Tsai Ming-liang remains one of global cinema’s great oddities. With each subsequent release his works seem more esoteric, more difficult to categorise, and increasingly closer to being impossible to explain without sounding like a posing eccentric. His debut feature, Rebels of … Continue reading REVIEW: Days (2020)
Better Days truly is one hell of a thing. From what seem to be social realist beginnings, Derek Tsang’s fourth film shifts effortlessly into a genuinely touching melodrama and then again into a violent thriller. It is an impressive feat to … Continue reading REVIEW: Better Days (2019)
Everything Everywhere All at Once had an odd run of it in 2022. The film itself was a weird blend of comedy, drama, science fiction, and action. The audience reaction was unexpectedly enthused; this is the kind of film that usually … Continue reading REVIEW: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
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