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Any doubt that rhinos are rapidly being poached to extinction is dispelled in the first few seconds of Vestige, an extraordinarily intimate and moving documentary that will screen as part the Transitions Film Festival at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova later this month. The opening sequence depicts the night time patrol of armed anti-poaching rangers who look
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There were several excellent Australian TV productions that graced our screens in 2018 – from the asylum seeker drama Safe Harbour to new iterations of Mystery Road, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Jack Irish. This year’s lineup looks eclectic, mixing big hitters with smaller budget passion projects. As usual the majority of interesting-sounding titles come
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By the time you read this, many people will have seen The Favourite, which is showing in cinemas now. It is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2018, and opened in UK cinemas on January 1, 2019. The Favourite tells the story of Queen Anne
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It’s 1962 in the good ol’ U.S. of A. and here we’ve got a road trip movie with a white man chauffeuring a black man around the country. Of course we know that racism is going to play a major role in this modest film that’s received numerous accolades and is up for Academy Awards,
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Reality shows usually get a bad rap, responsible as they are for the careers of product-shilling Instagram influencers and even one megalomaniac president. They’re thought to bring out the worst in people, and satisfy the devilish pleasure we get from watching others embarrass themselves. But some reality shows elevate this much-maligned genre, offering windows into
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There are objectively bad movies, and then there are movies as objectively bad as Aquaman: the kind of candy-coloured studio-dictated desecration the late comedian Bill Hicks would likely describe using words such as “Satan’s spawn” and “devil’s jizz.” The DCEU blockbuster arrives the same year as Avengers: Infinity War, which marked a new low in
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There was a great disturbance in the force when it was announced there was going to be a new Mary Poppins movie. Messing with such a beloved classic that’s stood the test of time and entertained youngsters and their parents since its 1964 release was always going to be risky. The big question was, how
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Early in the platform game Celeste, you accidentally break a mirror and release a shadow version of yourself. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is to finally get out of your head,” this shadow double says. “We need a hobby, but this…you are many things, darling, but you are not a mountain climber. Be
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Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith pays tribute to the gift of an actor. The actor is her uncle John Bluthal who died on November 15 north of Sydney, aged 89. Bluthal was born in Poland, raised and educated in Australia and worked as an actor for stage and screen for seven decades, mostly in London. His career included lead roles in West
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The first episode of SBS’s four-part drama On the Ropes (which premiered this week) begins with an image reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler: a behind-the-back handheld shot tracing the steps of a person marching towards the ring. We assume this character, Amirah Al-Amir (Nicole Chamoun) is a boxer, but discover upon her arrival that
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