Anybody keeping up on pop culture news has most likely heard that NBC has cancelled Bryan Fuller’s operatic adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal series. The series’ third season returned to the aforementioned network on June fourth, to 2.57 million viewers, and saw just 1.6 million the next week’s episode, which aired during an NBA final….
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David Stratton grew up in England where his love for cinema began in his teenage years. After devouring all he could of American and British cinema, he saw one of his first foreign language films when he was 16. That film was Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, a comedy inspired by Oscar Wilde….
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Big on the spectacle, low on the character development. This statement accurately summarises Jurassic World, the latest installment in the Jurassic Park franchise; a series which should have stopped with the Stephen Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster. The first film effectively combined rollicking dinosaur action with characters and a plot that the audience cared about (who can…
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Everyone knows that complex and empowering female characters are difficult to find in mainstream films. But there are some who have stood out and become the changing faces of feminism in cinema. In this regular column, Jade Bate looks at her favourite film heroines who are strong, empowering and kickass. Chinese cinema has had a…
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Will a self-conscious AI ever exist? Will we one day be surpassed by machines that are much smarter than us, machines that we made ourselves, machines that look in a mirror and recognise who they are? These are the never-ending questions that sci-fi keeps trying to answer, with novel adaptations like Blade Runner and I,…
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Clouds of Sils Maria displays the best of what French cinema can offer – the ability to tell a multi-layered story through the leanest of means. This is not a fast paced film; it is a thoughtful, complex story that shows rather than tells its takeaway messages. This film tells the story of a love…
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An exciting new take on the found footage trope (which, incidentally did not have its origins with The Blair Witch Project – Cannibal Holocaust capitalised on this style in 1980) has hit the cinemas. Unfriended blends perfect pacing with some Lord of the Flies style kill-or-be-killed mentalities. Unfriended takes place entirely through Skype chat and…
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A couple of days before Pitch Perfect 2 was released I walked past a promotional poster for it with a male friend of mine. I braced myself for the inevitable eye roll and derisive comment about chick flicks (and probably not a particularly original one – that’s the thing about sexism, it’s been around for…
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Following in the footsteps of other prolific American indie directors of his generation, such as Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze and Richard Linklater, Noah Baumbach has proven to be one of the most intriguing and unique filmmakers on the indie scene. Following successes of the uncompromising The Squid and the Whale (2005), the shamelessly quirky Greenberg…
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After watching a myriad of gore-tastic movies over the past couple of decades, I’d forgotten how utterly terrifying a foe that walks, not runs, toward you can be. Torture porn will no doubt disgust and horrify (and if it doesn’t that is really weird) but the slow walk of the predator in It Follows…
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WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Let’s talk about the Avengers. By now, you’ve probably read a dozen reviews, watched numerous clips, seen snippets of interviews, had the argument about which superpower you’d like to have all over again, and maybe even seen the actual film. Or maybe you’ve stopped paying attention…
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Earlier this year, Netflix Australia was launched in an effort to reach a larger worldwide audience with its services that continue to replace any need for cable TV for most people. And while the original launch only included 1,500 shows, it’s anticipated that it will continue to release new content as time progresses to bring…
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Australian actress Rose Byrne recently announced the formation of a new local production company, endearingly named The Dollhouse Collective. The group, made up of Byrne, actress/director Gracie Otto, actress/writer Krew Boylan, director Shannon Murphy, and publicist/producer Jessica Carrera, has been put together with one aim in mind: to redress the film industry’s gender imbalance….
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Xavier Dolan’s Mommy (released on April 9) brims with an exuberance that threatens to split its very illusion at the seams. Violence brews just beneath the surface of chaotic and charming almost-teenager Steve’s countenance (played by Antoine-Olivier Pilon). Diagnosed vaguely by his mother with “ADHD… attachment disorder” he is thrust back into her life when…
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