Sweet As (2023) - Movie Review

Pitching something as ‘The Breakfast Club, but set in the Outback’ is pretty much a done deal for a filmgoer like myself. One of the reasons why I love that film, and its central formula, is that it’s a straight-forward but effective foundation for good characterisation, since the story inherently involves discovering everyone’s different facets on the part of both the audience and the other characters. So, naturally, a film about a similar scenario involving troubled teens being brought together to reveal some greater truth that ties them all together… yeah, I’m all for that. But this film isn’t exactly that.

Red Dog: True Blue (2016) - Movie Review

In the lead-up to today’s film (which is technically still happening, since it’s officially released on Boxing Day and I managed to catch a preview screening), whenever the original Red Dog film got brought up in conversation, it always ended on the same note: Don’t talk about it, it’s too sad. Having now seen the original, I can kind of see why that is. An unexpectedly iconic piece of Australiana, the original Red Dog is honestly really damn good. A bit cheesy and occasionally unsure of who exactly it was meant to appeal to (the kids in the audience or the adults), but overall pretty good as a look into Australian culture and mannerisms. So, naturally, a follow-up look at our four-pawed folk hero was something I was looking forward to. However, for reasons I’ll get into, this film has plenty of reasons to be initially sceptical about, and for other reasons I’ll get into, it validates an awful lot of them.