Dream Scenario ★★★½ WHAT a great end to the 2023 film year. Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli’s Fourth feature, Dream Scenario, is a wonderfully black comedy that tears massive holes in contemporary non-sensical thinking and lifestyles. It also provides Nic Cage with another great role following his recent efforts in Pig and […]

Dreams provide captivating scenario

Priscilla ★★★ ITS hard to determine what to ultimately make of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla. It’s doubtless well made but, like most of her recent output, doesn’t reach the heights attained by her first three films – The Virgin Suicides in 1999, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. Some key observations. […]

The King’s crown slips

Maestro ★★★½ IS there anything Bradley Cooper can’t do? Let me see…he can act, write, direct, produce, play guitar, play piano, conduct an orchestra, speak fluent French, perform open heart surgery. Maybe not the last one; but his second film as director, Maestro, confirms he is going to be around […]

What can’t Bradley Cooper do?

Anyone But You ★½ BRYAN Brown must be kidding. He’s in the ensemble cast of American comedy Anyone But You, which is loosely based on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. In an interview Brown claims the Bard would have been happy with the film. I very much doubt it. He […]

The Bard would be bored

Wonka ★★★½ FAMILY films or musicals are not my first choice, but Wonka is a pleasant surprise, despite being in both genres. Timothy Chalamet shows his versatility in the lead role of the gifted, idealistic young chocolate maker who arrives in the city with 10 gold sovereigns and big dreams. […]

Wonka one for all the family

Bring Him to Me ★★½ AUSTRALIAN director Luke Sparke is heading in the right direction. His fifth film, crime drama Bring Him to Me, is probably his most accomplished to date, based on my viewing of two previous efforts and other critic responses. It managed to snare American actor Barry […]

Sparke on right path

The Marvels ★★ IF YOU’RE not up with the Marvel Universe overall, including some of the television series, you can forget about the 33rd film, The Marvels, making much sense. Granted it’s partly on me that I can barely recall the plot of 2019’s Captain Marvel and haven’t seen the […]

MCU #33 far from Marvellous

The Family Plan ★★★½ AMERICAN action comedy The Family Plan does exactly what it says on the cover. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel in any particular way, shape or form. But what it does, it does very well, providing an entertaining and amusing family-friendly film. Even though it could be […]

Comedy goes according to plan

River Wild ★★★ THE 1994 film The River Wild is probably best known for casting Meryl Streep as the lead in an action thriller. In that film she had to contend with two of the participants on her rafting trip who turn out to be armed criminals. It was an […]

Ride the wild river…again

Leave the World Behind ★★★½ THE creator of television series Mr Robot, Sam Esmail, knows how to spin an engrossing yarn. His second feature, Leave the World Behind, is also a high-concept drama but with even higher stakes at play. Immediately there is an unusualness to the music score that […]

Friends until the bitter end

Rumble Through the Dark ★★★ AARON Eckhart exercises his acting chops as bare knuckle fighter Jack ‘The Butcher’ Bouche in the southern noir drama Rumble Through The Dark. He plays a psychologically tortured alcoholic trying to gain some semblance of self-respect by getting enough money together to stop the foreclosure on […]

Get ready to Rumble

Heat ★★★★½ MICHAEL Mann is one of my favourite film-makers. It’s a long list – maybe 20 – but, despite making only a dozen or so films, Mann is in there. His best is arguably the 1995 crime thriller Heat starring acting titans Robert de Niro and Al Pacino. The […]

Mann brings the Heat