Reviews

Look, all the world wanted was a good kaiju epic. What they got was a smorgasbord of exposition (thanks Ken Watanabe!) masquerading as slow-burn buildup, culminating in five screen minutes of lame and generic...

Hayao Miyazaki’s films have always been bathwater cinema; warm and comforting and so enchantingly illustrated that we never truly want to leave them. The grief of being hoisted out of The Wind Rises,...

With The Canyons, it was always going to be near-impossible to separate picture from production: born of publicity and crowd-funding, scandal and scrutiny. Saddled with a "story" boiled down to glassy-eyed...

The Case Against 8 is a never-more-than-ordinary documentary about a never-less-than-extraordinary series of events. Needless, theatricality proves to be its main undoing. In one scene, Ted Olson reads back...

The culture clash between the old and young provides popular fodder for comedies. In Bad Neighbours they play on each difference through a concoction of dildos, breasts and weed. Efron, Byrne and Rogen all...

While Gladiator was a modernised and engaging pastiche of the ancient historical epic, Pompeii is written and delivered with the soulless hum of a photocopier. Things heat up around the midway point,...

Sara Colangelo's feature debut, Little Accidents, dolefully addresses the personal ramifications of widespread public trauma. Taking place in the small-town setting of Park City, Colangelo...

The Voices is a unique blend of (like as not) mutually-exclusive soundtracks, aesthetics, and genre tropes that curiously coalesce into a surprisingly digestible black romcom. Directed by...

Academy Award winner Alex Gibney's latest non-fiction piece closely documents the life and music of Nigerian political activist, and Afrobeat creator, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Due to Fela's unfortunate death in...

David Cross' Hits deftly challenges the prevalence of celebrity culture within modern society through carefully mapped characters and remarkably affectionate satire. Despite formally adopting the...

The Zellner brothers' melancholic character drama confidently explores the compulsive yearn for escapism through banality, disenchantment and rightful misanthropy. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter's...

The dusty world of fossil digs might seem boring, but Dinosaur 13 is a documentary that gives heart to those weathered bones. You’re drawn in by the passion and excitement of Pete Larson & co. as they...

David Wain's They Came Together brings with it clear, absurd, and intensely welcome influences from his previous work on Children's Hospital, which correspondingly drives a surprisingly...

Have you ever been to one of those stand-up gigs where the comedian succeeds through sheer force of personality? That’s Obvious Child, and its lead, Jenny Slate. The story is insubstantial and the humour...

Macon Blair is crazy and a tramp as the shell-shocked hobo with a shotgun seeking vengeance. His beginnings as a bearded vagrant are brushed over too quickly, but Blair is excellent, a wide-eyed bag of nerves...