Windfall (2022) - Movie Review

With how badly things went with director Charlie McDowell’s last film The Discovery, a bloated and undercooked mess of a sci-fi story, seeing him go in the complete opposite direction for his latest certainly inspires some hope. It’s a single-set thriller with a minimal cast and a run time of about 88 minutes without counting the end credits, co-written by one of my favourite screenwriters in Andrew Kevin Walker. Sure, it’s also co-written by Justin Lader, one of the culprits responsible for The Discovery, but maybe this will work out better. Well, to its credit, it does, although I still don’t think it’s making the most of what little it has.

Mank (2020) - Movie Review

Well, after the travesty I sat through for my last review, I think I’ve earned myself a break. I’ve spent the last few days chasing after Netflix features by filmmakers I had a presumption I could trust for quality to no avail, so I’m gonna hedge my bets on someone I don’t believe, but know, can deliver: David Fincher. Music video director turned auteur cynic extraordinaire, even if I’m not endlessly devoted to every one of his films, I can never deny that the man has a control of the medium that few others can lay claim to. Which is why his latest, a look into the writing process of what is widely considered the greatest film of all time, is also something that few others would be able to accomplish with this level of sheer brilliance.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile (2019) - Movie Review

In light of certain… takes that have cropped up in regards to Todd Phillip’s Joker, a film we’ll be getting to once it makes it to Aussie cinemas, I want to reiterate something: Films should be allowed to have lead characters that aren’t good people. Narratives about seedier characters, whether they’re born primarily from a writer’s imagination or varyingly based on real-life deplorables, can make for great works of art, let alone film.

Okja (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: For the past ten years, South Korean girl Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) has looked after Okja, a “super-pig” that is one of 26 specimens sent out by the Mirando Corporation to different farmers all over the world. However, when Mirando CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) takes Okja away to take part in a competition in New York, Okja finds herself in the middle of an open battle between Mirando and a group of animal rights activists led by Jay (Paul Dano) as to what Okja, and the other super-pigs like her, will become.

Love, Rosie (2014) - Movie Review

One of the key events that lead me to watching new films as intently as I do was when my therapist recommended a movie for me to watch as part of my therapy. It was a British rom-com called About Time, which I thoroughly enjoyed and got me thinking more about the idea of movie-watching as a form of therapy, something I might revisit at a later date. Anyway, it was a short while later that I decided to go with my current plan of watching all the new releases, as well as revisiting as many of the movies from the last few years that I can, and with that I gained a certain… relationship with romantic comedies. While every other critic has cinematic PTSD, given how bad most rom-coms get, I look at new releases in the genre as a little reminder of something that got me to where I am now as a critic. Doesn’t hurt that today’s movie also comes from the same general geographic location.