The Royal Hotel (2023) - Movie Review

After landing on my Best of 2020 list with the chilling and rather emblematic The Assistant, I was definitely curious to see what writer/director/editor Kitty Green would come up with next. And sticking to her roots as a documentarian, she pulled inspiration from the doco Hotel Coolgardie to tell the story of two American backpackers who find themselves in the middle of woop woop, working at a bar until they can make enough to continue their trip. Well, if they make it that far, that is.

Babyteeth (2020) - Movie Review

Aussie filmmaker Shannon Murphy is the latest director to make their initial step into the cinematic realm through a coming-of-age story. It’s also the latest of a thankfully-increasing number of female-focused stories in this sub-genre. Not that either of those descriptors really end up doing this work justice. One of the side effects of watching so many bloody movies is that, naturally, you’ll come across a lot of story ideas and techniques being repeated. Not out of deliberate mimicry (most of the time, at least), but because there are only so many ways to tell these kinds of stories. Enter this film, which leaves just about every other coming-of-age film in the dust.