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Napoleon
(2023)
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Jason Di Rosso
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Scott's Napoleon is flesh and blood. He's also a walking signifier of self-belief, and the film eventually succeeds in transmitting that power.
Posted Nov 23, 2023
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The Marvels
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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There's no escaping the fact that most of this is better intended than executed.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party
(2023)
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Keva York
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White maintains a tight focus on his subject, keeping the gushing, retroactive assessments to a cool minimum.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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Dumb Money
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Dumb Money is slick, admittedly entertaining stuff but, in reconfiguring whatever fleeting battle was won as a series of fist-pumping financial figures, it merely confirms that the system wins in the long run.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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The Pigeon Tunnel
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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For Morris, a filmmaker who is frequently drawn to complicated subjects who move in morality's liminal spaces, le Carré -- and his existential grasp of human deceit -- proves to be a perfect foil.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
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Jason Di Rosso
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An urgent, devastatingly bleak crime drama about colonialism and murder.
Posted Oct 18, 2023
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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It's yet another sign that Anderson is only getting weirder, and more wondrous, the further he plunges into middle age.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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The Creator
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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The Creator is a film dedicated to empathising with technology that gets undone by human cliché. That might be a comfort in this charged AI climate, but doesn't always make for great science fiction.
Posted Sep 28, 2023
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The Eight Mountains
(2022)
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Jason Di Rosso
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It's a bittersweet drama centring on two men who meet as children... It's about the innocence of youth giving way to the disappointments of adulthood, about the impact of overbearing fathers, about the struggle to find your own place in the world.
Posted Sep 21, 2023
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A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Perhaps the fundamental problem is that the screenplay, with its deference to Christie's logic and reason, refuses to seriously entertain the mysteries of the unknown, keeping the film firmly rooted in the dreariness of the real.
Posted Sep 15, 2023
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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The result is a cinematic pizza-with-the lot: a family platter with something for everyone.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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Past Lives
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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The film's directness, its relative storytelling simplicity, is also its asset. Past Lives unravels at a rhythm that weaves a slow-burning spell, one that allows an audience the space to project their own experience onto the screen.
Posted Aug 31, 2023
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Talk to Me
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Talk to Me announces a pair of horror filmmakers with great promise. It'll be exciting to see where they go from here.
Posted Jul 28, 2023
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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By the film's final moments it has, often by sheer force rather than any kind of elegance, cemented itself as an enormous, ugly-beautiful object infused with as much melancholy as bombast.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Cruise's commitment to delivering breakneck action remains, and on that front, the movie does not disappoint.
Posted Jul 14, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Dial of Destiny can't help but be a simulacrum of the series' past glories; even with its admirable attempts to wrestle with time and legacy, the film's lack of imagination undoes its ambition.
Posted Jun 29, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Keva York
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The politics of interpersonal truth-telling animate the latest sharply drawn dramedy from Holofcener, a writer-director who has long tangled with the ethical knots particular to the urban upper-middle class.
Posted Jun 15, 2023
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The Flash
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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When the inevitable multiverse cameos arrive – even those canonical embarrassments now reclaimed as easter eggs for fans – it's difficult to engage beyond a level of fleeting, nostalgic amusement.
Posted Jun 15, 2023
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One Fine Morning
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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One Fine Morning turns out to be one of [Mia Hansen-Løve's] more frenetic films, radiating a life force that's urgent and vivid.
Posted Jun 09, 2023
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson and Kemp Powers evoke the experience of complete immersion in a comic book -- that intimate connection between reader and text -- where each frame is guided by the emotion of the moment.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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Saint Omer
(2022)
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Jason Di Rosso
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It is Diop's layering, and deliberate blurring, of different mother and daughter relationships that underlines the film's central focus: maternal love, estrangement and resentment.
Posted May 26, 2023
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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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If you're a fan of the animated Little Mermaid, this remake isn't about to replace the original in your affection. But... For some kids, it may just be their new favourite thing, and a film that opens them up to a world of cinema, music, and fantasy.
Posted May 25, 2023
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Petrol
(2022)
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Jason Di Rosso
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[Petrol] has a poetic and sometimes surreal narrative style that conveys a vividly emotional take on the world; it reveals profound truths about the characters, even if the precise detail of their story remains slightly -- and deliciously -- cryptic.
Posted May 23, 2023
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Fast X
(2023)
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Keva York
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The mandate to up and up the ante has seen the so-called Fast Saga turn from dumb, hyper-stylish fun into something meaner and more airless.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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It's a testament to a performer who refuses to meet life's curveballs with anything less than grace and good humour. And STILL is a fitting tribute, told with cinematic craft and care.
Posted May 12, 2023
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Entertaining, surprisingly soulful and sometimes very weird.
Posted May 04, 2023
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Beau Is Afraid
(2023)
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Keva York
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Phoenix, for his part, exhibits characteristic dedication to what must be one of the more physically demanding characters he's taken on.
Posted Apr 20, 2023
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The Innocent
(2022)
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Jason Di Rosso
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The Innocent is the kind of breezy good time that's hard to find at the movies these days. It's not devoid of deeper meaning, but it's brimming, first and foremost, with a relish for storytelling that's playful and fun.
Posted Apr 17, 2023
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Suzume
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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Makoto Shinkai's new animated feature [is] a ravishing, romantic, and often very funny road movie that continues the Japanese filmmaker's fruitful obsession with fantastical teen sci-fi.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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EO
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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Animal adventure as psychedelic dream, EO is that rarest of things: a narrative film that actively decentres the human perspective in pursuit of a new way of seeing.
Posted Apr 13, 2023
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Air
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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Though the celebratory tone – all adrenaline-fuelled triumph – can make it seem a little too enamoured of money's irresistible allure, the film is not immune to a sense of moral complexity.
Posted Apr 06, 2023
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
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Keva York
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Honour Among Thieves is disappointingly straightforward in its approach to the source material.
Posted Mar 30, 2023
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John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
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Luke Goodsell
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At almost three hours, the latest instalment of the Keanu Reeves hit man franchise delivers more action, more villains and more convoluted mythology than even its entertainingly overstuffed predecessors, offering fans a veritable degustation of violence.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Of an Age
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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[Macedonian Australian writer-director Goran Stolevski,] who spent his adolescence in Melbourne suburbia, has revisited his youth to craft a film of wonderful intimacy and tangible, electrifying motion, drawing upon those feelings of teenage alienation.
Posted Mar 23, 2023
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Meet Me in the Bathroom
(2022)
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Keva York
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The filmmakers, for their part, bring to bear a feel for the material garnered in the making of Shut Up and Play the Hits...
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
(2022)
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Keva York
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With skill and sensitivity, the filmmaker interweaves Goldin's activism with a biography of the artist and the grimy-glamorous downtown Manhattan scene in which she was enmeshed.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
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Empire of Light
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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Make a movie about the power of cinema and you'd better be sure that the evidence supports your thesis.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Cocaine Bear
(2023)
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Keva York
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To be clear, 95 minutes is as long as a film titled Cocaine Bear should ever be. It's more that Banks, much like her bear, seems to have bitten off somewhat more than she can chew.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
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Women Talking
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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A thoughtful, curious work of empathy that taps into something timeless, examining age-old power structures in an attempt to re-imagine the way a society deals with trauma.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance
(2023)
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Keva York
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The magic is gone. Not just from the name of the guy shouldering the franchise -- the hunky, golden-hearted ex-stripper played by Channing Tatum, approaching middle age, just goes by Mike Lane now -- but from the franchise itself.
Posted Feb 09, 2023
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The Whale
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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The Whale is leavened in those moments when Fraser's boyish giggle and bright-eyed wonder peek through, heartbreaking reminders of a persona that once lit up movie screens with goofy charm. But at the movie's worst, which is often, even Fraser suffers.
Posted Feb 02, 2023
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M3GAN
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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Artificial intelligence has gotten a bit of a bad rap of late, but it's about to enter its camp era thanks to M3GAN, an all-in horror-comedy that plays like Frankenstein meets The Bad Seed for the TikTok crowd – you know, for kids.
Posted Jan 23, 2023
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Babylon
(2022)
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Keva York
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The film ultimately offers something like a square's take on Hollywood as seen through the eyes of Kenneth Anger.
Posted Jan 19, 2023
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My Old School
(2022)
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Stephen A. Russell
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Go in knowing as little as possible... absolutely trippy... go see!
Posted Jan 19, 2023
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Babylon
(2022)
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Stephen A. Russell
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A scabrous takedown of Tinsel Town's worst excesses in the 1920s... the run time does fizzle out and it gets a bit cheesy
Posted Jan 19, 2023
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M3GAN
(2022)
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Stephen A. Russell
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A totally over-the-top horror-comedy... it's a lot of fun... the doll is super-creepy.
Posted Jan 12, 2023
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The Fabelmans
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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Warm, witty, and wonderfully moving.
Posted Jan 05, 2023
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Wildcat
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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A sensitive portrait of an ecosystem in peril, and the scars that cut deep – no matter how far we run from them.
Posted Jan 01, 2023
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A Man Called Otto
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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After his wonderfully out-there performance in Elvis, this is Hanks back on familiar terrain. Expect to be moved, the old-fashioned way.
Posted Jan 01, 2023
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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
(2022)
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Luke Goodsell
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Nothing emotional sticks, leaving the music, which should soar, feeling muted – a disservice to a singer who fought to prove she was more than a slick crossover product.
Posted Dec 29, 2022
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