The 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
Read moreDeath on the Nile Following his well-received Murder on The Orient Express remake, Kenneth Branagh returns as director and lead character – the iconic detective Hercule Poirot – in another Agatha Christie film remake, Death on the Nile, which we previously saw in 1978. The film largely follows the template of the 1978 version as a ‘well to do’ group
Read moreDarkest Hour and Atonement director Joe Wright’s vibrant, occasionally awkward and sometimes moving Cyrano is an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name which was itself based on dramatist Edmond Rostand’s classic 1897 romantic tragi-comedy Cyrano de Bergerac. Through its title character, the story of Cyrano celebrates the arts of wit and rhetoric and the power of words
Read moreWhether he’s making sci fi such as Robocop and Starship Troopers, a psychological thriller like Elle, an erotic thriller like Basic Instinct or a soft porn/comedy like Showgirls, the ever-controversial Dutch director Paul Verhoeven seems to love exploring troubled, morally questionable characters and provocateurs. His latest film, the much-lauded and often confronting, Benedetta, is no different. Loosely based on real
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