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1/5
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Time Addicts
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Oh no. Another dreadful Australian film...Clumsy and dull, the film’s chief purpose, apparently, is to see how much cussing it can cram into all the witless dialogue. Terrible.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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2.5/5
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Master Gardener
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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This is very familiar territory for Schrader who traverses it proficiently though without enough panache to really make it anything more than a passing crime drama. It’s a bit of a letdown after The Card Counter.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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4/5
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The Boy and the Heron
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A typically bizarre, thoroughly delightful and strange fantasy odyssey..
Especially enticing is Miyazaki’s love of alternating between moments of relative quiet and stillness to scenes of craziness and surreal splendour.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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4/5
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Silent Night
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Blood spurts forth in great volume as the bullets criss-cross the frame, yet Woo manages to keep focus on his anti-hero’s humanity and motive...a ripping action drama.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
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1/5
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Bottoms
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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What could have been a raunchy 1980s-style adult comedy flails at every turn, with sodden performances and gags that are as funny as a toothache. A confused, contradictory mess...Awful. Absolutely awful.
Posted Nov 30, 2023
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2.5/5
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Trolls Band Together
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A passable, middling candy-coloured time killer, though it moves so fast it doesn’t allow much time to get involved with the characters or engage with the story. It’s like an iridescent blur set to pop songs.
Posted Nov 30, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Old Oak
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Few director navigate grey zones as well as Loach for whom conflicting emotions, competing motives and the agony and necessity of personal compromise have long been the mainstay of his formidable filmography.
Posted Nov 30, 2023
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2/5
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The Royal Hotel
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Strong start, great build-up, weak finish. That’s the most concise and accurate way to describe The Royal Hotel, the latest in a long stretch of Australian films to demonstrate the importance of having a compelling third act by essentially not having one.
Posted Nov 23, 2023
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4/5
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Napoleon
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The unparalled ability of Ridley Scott to put on a sprawling cinematic show hits a new peak...As a sweeping historical epic, it's deeply satisfyingly, often enthralling entertainment that holds up minute-by-minute across its bladder-testing running time.
Posted Nov 23, 2023
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3/5
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Quiz Lady
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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This breezy, energetic sibling comedy lark will bring smiles aplenty...Things move quickly in this brisk, very funny jaunt that is smart enough to deliver a handful of scenes amidst all the antics that give the high jinks a touch of character depth.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3/5
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The Killer
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Fassbender puts in a straight, steely-eyed performance as he goes through his death list, with director David Fincher giving the straightforward crime drama some strong doses of noir style, especially as the killer gets down to the dirty work.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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It’s a long, slow, expensive-looking haul so light on ideas it raises the legitimate question: do we really need more Hunger Games? Really?
Another question the film raises – is Rachel Zegler still a thing?
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3/5
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Thanksgiving
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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There’s loads of fun to be had with Thanksgiving, a horror-comedy offering from slashmeister Eli Roth that blends laughs with lots of excessive gore that briefly crosses the line into outright vileness, pretty much like Roth did in Hostel II.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3/5
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Saltburn
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Unspools as a satisfying, slow-burn mystery with dashes of pitch dark humour, though it is pitted with some annoying story flubs.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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The Big Dog
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The piece is riddled with too many implausibilities...Chalk it up as yet another Australian film that looks and sounds like it needed several more read throughs before hitting the cameras...A prime example of a great idea that loses its way.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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2.5/5
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The Marvels
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The film benefits from having all the usual Marvel mediocrity compressed into such a viewer-friendly running time. It might be just another disposable flash-bang post-content spectacle, but...you’re in, you’re out, no harm done. Well, not much anyway.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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3.5/5
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Revoir Paris
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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Survivor guilt and false memory syndrome are but two of the themes director Alice Winocour laces through the film, her sedate exploration of the after effects violence inflicts on its victims evoking some touching moments of healing and human connection
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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2.5/5
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Pain Hustlers
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The tone swings hectically between drama and comedy, as though the film is in two minds about being satire or drama. Still, the whole thing is nicely anchored by Blunt, who puts in a sterling performance with a very convincing heartland American accent.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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3/5
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Old Dads
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Very funny... serves up a sound backhander to the insipid nature of woke culture where offense is taken at every turn...Burr, who co-wrote with Ben Tishler, proves himself a fine director, giving each character arc, even the supporting ones, their due.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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4/5
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The Dive
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Wowie. What an excellent, tight, sweat-inducing survival thriller The Dive is...Director Max Erlenwein does a superb job turning the screws...Top stuff.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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3/5
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Inspector Sun
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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Think Agatha Christie meets A Bug’s Life and you’ve got the gist...Fizzing with one liners and a cast of insect and insect-adjacent characters, Inspector Sun is a lovingly rendered throwback to old-style film noir mysteries and the clichés they rode upon.
Posted Oct 30, 2023
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2.5/5
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Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A fitting, arguably overdue tribute to a movie star who somehow managed to serve the expectations of Hollywood while simultaneously defying its demands about how its stars should live their lives. Talk about a role model.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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3.5/5
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Five Nights at Freddy's
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Good horror films rely on suspension of disbelief and here it is deftly engineered without recourse to cliché or cheap theatrics...Provides spooky atmosphere and quality jolts, yet what really gives the film the creeps is its compelling vivid dream angle.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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3.5/5
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Dumb Money
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Director Craig Gillespie moves things at a cracking pace, punching the point that no rule in the business world, however sacrosanct, is immune from the collective will of people who barely know what they’re doing...Terrific stuff.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
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3/5
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Mickey Hardaway
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Working hard against the clichés that would otherwise riddle such a hard-luck character story writer/director Marcellus Cox colours in the narrative with a series of highly polished scenes charting Hardaway’s noble attempt to rise above his circumstances.
Posted Oct 23, 2023
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2.5/5
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Everything Will Be Fine in the End
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The well-drawn and engaging trio are not so much part of Gen Z as they are of Gen Z-, ambling through the unattractive mean streets of LA until their adventure in petty crime goes seriously south. That’s when a real sense of dramatic tension kicks in.
Posted Oct 23, 2023
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3/5
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The Conference
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A very well done serving of slice'n'dice horror-comedy fare that incorporates a few satirical barbs regarding business ethics and how using hard-working people for nefarious advantage can attract a rather graphic form of karma.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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2.5/5
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Oink
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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It's fun to see subversion in family films, but this stop-motion Dutch treat loads what would otherwise have been a sweet tale about a girl trying to save her pet pig from the sausage grinder with more pig poop than Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Origin of Evil
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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The story is built around the collision between the love of family and the love of money, and comes with some knockout surprises and a hot ending. What fun.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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2.5/5
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Possibly the most overrated film of the year...Scorsese’s direction is most definitely on cruise control here, the cinematic spark of so many of his great works replaced by somewhat sodden pacing, rather jejune cinematography and unadventurous editing.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
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4/5
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TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Swift appears before us not as a mere mega-pop star but as a luminous, transcendent figure, an angelic saviour in a glittery bodysuit. It seems Providence has delivered The Eras Tour at just the right time. We loved her before. We love her even more now.
Posted Oct 17, 2023
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4/5
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The Cost
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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An outstanding small-scale thriller that grabs you by the throat from the get-go and never lets go, tightening its grip as a seemingly straightforward situation gets ever more complicated...Performances throughout are totally convincing.
Posted Oct 13, 2023
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2.5/5
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Shayda
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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There are pungent points of anxiety as Shayda fears for Mona, yet the drama, shot verite-style in the square-frame academy format, simmers rather than boils. The story does meander, allowing the focus to drift a little too often.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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3/5
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The Exorcist: Believer
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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There are just enough jolts to hold your attention...There’s bit too much sermonizing and not enough Satanic vomit, though there’s a decent quotient of gross-out moments.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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3/5
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The Creator
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The film is like a scenic tour of the future and it’s all absolutely wonderful to behold. Such grandeur is definitely worth the price of admission. See it in Imax. Story-wise, it's yet another case of a great-looking movie saddled with a rather meh drama.
Posted Sep 28, 2023
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4/5
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Saw X
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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An outstanding, brilliantly conceived gift box of twists and surprises replete with a degree of plot ingenuity that places it atop all but the very first Saw film...A shocker in all the right ways.
Posted Sep 28, 2023
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3/5
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PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Thankfully, the adult-oriented jokes sprinkled throughout – chiefly about movie merchandise and overpaid Hollywood actors – help brighten an enjoyable, fast-moving adventure full of colourful action and big dollops of unavoidable wide-eyed cuteness.
Posted Sep 21, 2023
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3/5
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Retribution
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Brace yourselves for a shock: Liam Neeson’s latest action movie is actually quite good.
Posted Sep 21, 2023
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2.5/5
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Blue Beetle
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The film serves up exactly what we now wearily expect, an over-egged slice of super-powered mulch with all the standard ingredients – blurs of action; overlong fight sequences; incoherent storytelling; and, of course, plenty of blue energy bolts.
Posted Sep 16, 2023
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2/5
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A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Kenneth Branagh’s latest murder-mystery as Agatha Christie’s Belgian super-detective Hercule Poirot turns out to be a bit of a snoozer...A plodding, muddily plotted affair that looks suspiciously like it was designed for small-screen streaming.
Posted Sep 16, 2023
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2.5/5
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Last Film Show
(2021)
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Jim Schembri
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Here’s another loving, heartfelt ode to the magic of cinema in the spirit, though not the league, of such films as Cinema Paradiso....Lovers of those giant old-school film projectors might find some scenes in the film hard to take.
Posted Sep 16, 2023
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1.5/5
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The Nun II
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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It’s just not scary.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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3/5
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Biosphere
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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Intriguing post-apocalyptic science-fiction comedy...A treat for those arthouse circuit denizens looking for out-of-the-box fare...A cleverly devised scenario that delivers a constant stream of surprises.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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2.5/5
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A disposable, super-light, sufficiently pleasant time killer that will clearly please fans.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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3/5
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A sprightly animated origin story that serves up a big juicy slice of fun for kids and parents, many of whom probably grew up watching the cartoon show back in the 1980s.
Posted Sep 07, 2023
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1/5
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Haunted Mansion
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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Sorry Disney. No sale. Again.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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4/5
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Ego: The Michael Gudinski Story
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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The bumpy, brilliant life of the most daring and visionary producer to ever grace the Australian music scene gets the detailed cross-section it warrants in an excellent, absorbing feature-length bio-documentary...serves as a very fitting tribute.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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3/5
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The Equalizer 3
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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A solid action film...This is meant to be Denzel’s final foray as The Equalizer. Please say it ain’t so. He should keep making one every two years or so until he either drops or forgets how to shoot one bad guy through the eye of another bad guy.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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3/5
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Sound of Freedom
(2022)
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Jim Schembri
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It’s almost disappointing that the bluster over it being an incendiary, faith-based film pushing a right-wing agenda and championing Qanon agit-prop turns out to be baseless. In actuality, the film unfurls as a fairly standard, well-directed thriller.
Posted Aug 24, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Disappearance of Shere Hite
(2023)
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Jim Schembri
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An excellent, compelling, chronological profile...Though she presented herself as a level-headed, data-driven academic early on as her fame and influence swelled, the film unflinchingly tracks Hite’s growing petulance when being interviewed on camera.
Posted Aug 20, 2023
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