In Review
Welcome to In Review! Check out the latest reviews across film, TV, theatre and so much more…
Film Review: The Book of Love
The Book of Love follows an English writer, Henry Copper (Sam Claflin) whose book is translated by into Spanish by translator Maria Rodriguez (Verónica Echegui), who completely rewrites his novel into an erotic romance.
Book Review: Stolen Focus
Hari builds a convincing case: the odds are against us. Almost every digital platform we now rely on is deliberately engineered to steal our attention for as many hours of the day as possible. There is no incentive for this to change.
Film Review: Studio 666
Studio 666 was released in late February this year. The story revolves around the band trying to find the inspiration to record their tenth studio album. Unfortunately, this inspiration arrives from a possessed tape, which leads to the usual shenanigans you expect from any horror movie.
Book Review: Animal
The premise of Animal is unapologetically bloody from its first passage. After witnessing a former lover commit suicide - a public, gruesome performance seemingly intended to permanently mark her with the tragedy - Joan drives out of New York to a sweltering rented house on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Tandem Film Review: The Souvenir & The Souvenir Part II
Tandem review of The Souvenir - a semi-biographical drama directed by Joanna Hogg and starring Honor Swinton Byrne - and its sequel The Souvenir Part II.
Alliance Française French Film Festival 2022 Film Review: Lost Illusions
The critic game is a dirty business. Us movie reviewer types are bought off, blackmailing, career-ending mafiosos behind the scenes. Watching Lost Illusions, the wall was shattered, and the gig was up.
Film Review: Friends and Strangers
In Friends and Strangers, we meet two Sydneysiders, Ray and Alice (played by Fergus Wilson and Emma Diazwanders respectively), new friends that have both had recent breakups and are approaching their 30s.
Live Performance Review: Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria is a story of untreated grief and trauma, and the attempts we continually make to ‘place’ these feelings within ourselves.
Film Review: Uncharted
The latest gaming entry in the Uncharted franchise is six years old, the movie itself having been caught in development hell since 2008. The finished product is another addition to the library of OK movies based on better games.
Film Review: Quo Vadis, Aida?
This isn’t the typical war movie, like Dunkirk or 1917 where we see men fighting in the trenches. The fight between the Bosnian and Serbian armies is never shown, we never see even a drop of blood, instead, we see the harsh reality of war and the impact it has on everyone, most importantly, the innocent, through the eyes of the affected civilians.
Film Review: Royal Ballet - Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is above all a dramatic tragedy. The characters are dramatic, the plot is dramatic, the ending is perhaps the most dramatic ending to any story ever told. Drama is seeped into every moment of this story, and if this is to be accurately conveyed, ballet is the only appropriate vehicle.
Europa Europa Film Festival 2022 Film Review: Naked (4K Restoration)
What the film succeeds at that I didn’t quite expect, is how thoroughly entertaining and engaging it remains throughout its 127 minute runtime. Given its reputation, I thought it’d be rather one-note with its kitchen sink drama, but the deeply rich characters and their maniacal tendencies lent to a plot that is truly hard to predict.
Film Review: Bergman Island
The self-referential nature of writing is presented in Bergman Island with its fusion of real life and metafictional narrative.
Film Review: The Batman (SPOILER FREE)
The live-action Batman films now span 56 years and 7 different actors – each is a product of its time, and each builds on growing familiarity with the character gained by the mass audience. What Matt Reeves, director of Thursday’s new The Batman, has been able to do with that history is take advantage of it, and iterate. The results are very exciting.
Film Review: Blacklight
Blacklight certainly delivers on entertaining the audience and gives us the Liam Neeson action thriller flick that we have loved since Taken in 2008. However, nearly fourteen years have passed since then and the Liam Neeson over protective father/special ops/Rambo type guy is beginning to wane just a little.
Film Review: Love You Like That
Love You Like That begins in the coastal town of Seafront Sands, the kind of small Australian town where everyone knows each other’s business, and any change in routine, such as the news of a mysterious woman washing up on Mim Beach naked, can send the entire town into a whirlwind.
Film Review: Nightmare Alley
Brewing over the course of the late 1930s to early 1940s, Nightmare Alley exposes the selfish pursuit of profits created by the ego of those which prey upon the needy, and the desperation of those who have nothing to lose.
Europa Europa Film Festival 2022 Film Review: Earwig
Earwig is like any insect, leaving your skin crawling more at the thought of it than what is actually physically present, though what is present proves undeniably sickening in its own right.
Europa Europa Film Festival 2022 Film Review: The Innocents
Take Chronicle, mix it with Village of the Damned, add a splash of Stranger Things, ground it with an almost social realist tone, and what do you get? The Innocents (Der uskyldige).
Film Review: Drive My Car
What starts off as a fairly cold and staid experience slowly but surely takes shape, each subtle curve of the narrative shaving what could be a much more generic film in the hands of a lesser filmmaker into something beautiful.