Home brew hero
Chickie Donohue risked his life to deliver beer to his friends fighting in Vietnam. Fifty-five years later his story has been made into a movie.
Film
Delicious salute to classic British mystery
Even if you haven’t seen Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap – the focus of this film – there’s a great deal to savour in this parody
Marilyn, a magnetic, megawatt force
Blonde is about how Hollywood and the men behind it created, chewed up and spat out a star.
Ticket to Paradise saved by Clooney and Roberts
When their daughter is about to marry a seaweed farmer she’s known for just 17 days, divorced parents David and Georgia are forced to come together for the first time in 20 years.
Poitier’s journey expertly captured
Sidney Poitier’s return slap in 1967 drama In the Heat of the Night changed American cinema as America itself was changing in the tumult of the civil rights movement.
Living her best life
French film star Juliette Binoche has had relationships in the past but romance isn’t on her radar: ‘A woman working so much is not an easy situation for men.’
Culinary comedy barely a simmer
I found Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet about as funny as a trainwreck though unlikeable as it is, the film does contain its share of waspish barbs directed at the arts funding bodies.
Watts is ‘mommy’ of your nightmares
Dark psychological thriller Goodnight Mommy has traces of Stephen King’s Misery.
Failure a badge of honour for French film revolutionary
Jean-Luc Godard, who has died at 91, was the provocative film director whose debut Breathless revolutionised cinema and made him an instant celebrity.
Godard, giant of film, dies at 91
Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, has died ‘peacefully at home’, aged 91.
Aussie in full Emmys bloom with Lotus
Aussie actor Murray Bartlett thanked his mum as he took out an Emmy for his role in HBO satire The White Lotus, which won five categories – more than any other show.
Indiana Jones on a last crusade, says Ford
Harrison Ford is back as the world’s most famous archaeologist in a movie due for release next summer, 42 years after Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Bowie’s life as vivid dream
Moonage Daydream is not a cradle-to-grave life of the English singer-songwriter. Such a “safe” approach would, according to Bowie, mean the director was “not working in the right area”.
Small gem of a film, big emotions
A young girl is sent to live with relatives when her mother is pregnant – yet again – and it turns out to be the best thing.
All eyes on Venice
The 2022 Venice film festival, offering an early hint at Oscar fever, was as much a celebration of life after Covid as it was about the movies.
Movie helped me be a better father: Jackman
Hugh Jackman says playing the role of a father to a depressed teenager in The Son made him rethink his entire approach to parenting.
Venice goes wild for Harry Styles
Fans went wild for Harry Styles at the Venice Film Festival, but talk of controversies around his movie Don’t Worry Darling was quickly shut down.
Brendan Fraser makes super-sized big screen return in Venice
One of the biggest names in Hollywood from the 1990s is back as a 250kg professor trying to reconnect with his daughter, and it is already drawing talk of an Oscar.
Falling under Miller’s intoxicating spell
A wicked sense of humour pervades Three Thousand Years of Longing, which confirms George Miller as a born storyteller.
Elba should put this unfortunate beast behind him
In this film about a killer lion, Idris Elba doesn’t phone it in — it’s worse than that. He acts, but not very well.
King of wishful thinking
Idris Elba is passionate about stories and in George Miller he found a director he could trust.
Sly’s Rocky-meets-Batman-meets Thor superhero
It’s fun to see 76-year-old Sylvester Stallone playing someone roughly his own age in Samaritan.
Nicole Kidman well armed and dangerous
She’s made a career out of portraying powerful women and now Nicole Kidman has taken that to another level, revealing she is the biggest gun in Hollywood.
The other face of Russia
By the time Navalny premiered at Sundance its hero – who had survived poisoning – was languishing in prison but refusing to throw in the towel.
Link between a massacre and a missing yacht
In 1961, a family was murdered off Florida by a scheming psychopath. The film Dead Calm was based on those events. Did they play out for real off Sydney in 1988?
There will be blood
Director Jocelyn Moorhouse on Hollywood’s madness, making Savage River – and her obsession with realistic-looking blood.
Nope…The title says it all
It has all the ingredients of an excellent film – writer-director Jordan Peele, a plot about aliens and actor Daniel Kaluuya – so why does it flop?
Forrest Gump with a sprinkle of Bollywood
The box of chocolates are a box of the Indian sweets golgappas in this most watchable film starring Aamir Khan.
Oscars apology for abuse over Brando snub
Sacheen Littlefeather was heckled at the 1973 Academy Awards while explaining at his behest why the star could not accept his best actor Oscar for The Godfather.
‘Me too’: American stars make their way behind the camera
Led by Olivia Wilde, who directed her now-boyfriend Harry Styles, more and more women are getting behind the camera.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/film/page/29