The new Australian film The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is very loosely based on a Henry Lawson short story from 1892. Those seeing this film with a vague recollection of the original story, who may be expecting a quaint Australian folktale, are in for a shock… but a necessary one. This revisionist Australian western, which explores issues
Read moreBritish drama Operation Mincemeat is the fascinating story of possibly the most remarkable act of espionage and deception in the Second World War. In 1943, the Allied forces were looking to invade Europe through what Churchill had called its ‘soft underbelly’ in Sicily. Unfortunately, Hitler was well aware that the Italian island was a likely avenue of attack. Consequently, an
Read moreThis week on ‘Built For Speed’ we’ll let you know what happens when you combine Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe in one film as we review adventure comedy ‘The Lost City’. We’ll also tell you about some of the films on offer at the Moro Spanish Film Festival which opened last night. There’ll be a feast of music
Read moreThe Duke We recently had the fascinating SBS documentary Framed which recalled the infamous 1986 theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria. Less known to us here in Australia is that 25 years earlier there’d been a similar incident in England when 61-year-old Kempton Bunton apparently took a painting of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco
Read moreFresh Don’t be put off by the schlocky marketing picture for the film Fresh which features a severed hand in supermarket meat packaging. While relevant to the story, it doesn’t quite do justice to what is a mostly stylish and subversive thriller. Here, single woman Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) having endured a string of bad dates including one with an irritating
Read moreDog Talk about tempting fate with a movie title. Thankfully, this story of the uneasy friendship between a US army Ranger who served in Afghanistan before being discharged on medical grounds and a ferocious military dog is my no means a dog but it often struggles to deliver a convincing story. Channing Tatum (who co-directed with Reid Carolin) plays war
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