The Kitchen Brigade | Dir: Louis-Julien Petit | ★ ★ ★ ★ Cathy Marie (Audrey Lamy) and Fatoumata (Fatoumata Kaba) are best friends but they are completely different. Forty year-old Cathy is a well-known sous chef with a signature dish to her name, while the much younger Fatou (who is played by a social media star with […]
The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson | Dir: Leah Purcell | ★ ★ ★ ★ “The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs, and stringy-bark, and floored with split slabs … Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilization – a shanty on the main road. The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. […]
Dog | Dir: Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin | ★ ★ ★ ★ Channing Tatum and his Magic Mike partner Reid Carolin were producers for the 2017 documentary War Dog: A Soldier’s Best Friend that explored the unbreakable bonds between military K9s and their elite Special Operations handlers. Moved by the physical and emotional challenges survived by […]
Spencer | Dir: Pablo Larrain | ★ ★ ★ ★ When Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) went to the compulsory family gathering that took place over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day at Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, she had come a long way from the blushing virgin who married her prince ten years earlier. Pablo Larrain, who […]
La Traviata, My Brothers and I | Dir: Yohan Manca | ★ ★ ★ ★ Yohan Manca’s first feature film was shot in Sète, a French fishing port and seaside resort on the Mediterranean. Beyond the expensive hotels, picturesque beaches and luxury yachts inhabited by the seasonal tourists, is a low-income housing filled with struggling families and […]
Boss Level | Dir: Joe Carnahan | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ This breath-taking film opens with a computer game selection of Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo) against Mr Good Morning. That is the name the flesh-and-blood Roy has given to his opponent that greets him every morning by wanting to hack him up with a machete. Former […]
Corpus Christi | Dir: Jan Komasa | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ This Polish film is based on actual events. Twenty year-old Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) is paroled from prison after serving time for second-degree murder. After finding comfort in religion during his prison term, his desire is to become an ordained priest, but his criminal record prevents […]
Girls Can’t Surf | Dir: Christopher Nelius | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Well, girls and women can surf but that wasn’t the generally held belief in the early 1980s when a group of women decided to take on the male-dominated professional surfing world after being allowed to compete since 1976. Theirs was a fight for inclusion, recognition and […]
Words on Bathroom Walls | Dir: Thor Freudenthal | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Based on the popular Young Adult novel by Julia Walton and directed by German director Thor Freudenthal who directed The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, this PG13 -rated film is moving and cinematically fantastic depiction of a teenager dealing with a mental illness. […]
Honest Thief | Dir: Mark Williams | ★ ★ ★ ½ Filmed in late 2018, Honest Thief is pure escapism. Times have changed (it is rated PG for Crude References, Brief Strong Language and Strong Violence) and this just the sort of big screen film to make the world go away for 100 minutes. It has […]
