For a species known for its inquisitiveness and love of freedom of expression, humanity, at least the more authoritarian parts of it which are far too commonplace for anyone’s liking, has an enduring liking for enforcing spirit-constraining rules on itself. Perhaps they made sense once upon a time when threats Continue Reading
Movies
Growing up is a beast: New trailer for Pixar’s Turning Red
SNAPSHOTDisney and Pixar’s Turning Red introduces Mei Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang), a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming (voice of Sandra Oh), is never far from her daughter—an unfortunate reality for the Continue Reading
Movie review: Green Sea #sydfilmfest
Identity is a powerful thing and it sits, or rather the lack of it sits, at the heart of Angeliki Antoniou’s Green Sea, a movingly understated film that explores what it is like to forge a new life when you are not even sure who you are. Anna (Angeliki Papoulia) Continue Reading
Movie review: Nowhere Special #sydfilmfest
Imagine if you will that you are a devoted dad in Northern Ireland named John (James Norton) who has devoted the four years of his son Michael’s (Daniel Lamont) life to being the best dad possible, investing your time between window cleaning gigs (you run your own business) reading to Continue Reading
Weekend movie poster art: Encanto and the magical gift on finding yourself
SNAPSHOTWalt Disney Animation Studios’ upcoming feature film Encanto tells the tale of the Madrigals, an extraordinary family who live in a wondrous, charmed place called an Encanto. Each child has been blessed with a magic gift unique to them—each child except Mirabel. But when the family’s home is threatened, Mirabel Continue Reading
Christmas movie review: The Claus Family
As anyone who has ever experienced great loss will tell you – grief does not take a holiday. When you are wrapped in its necessary but deadening hold, it’s hard to remember that there was a time when you laughed, when you simply let yourself relax and be, and when, Continue Reading
Mini mass of animated movie trailers: Sing 2, Even Mice Belong in Heaven, Back to the Outback
My inner child is delighted. There’s a slew of brightly-coloured, cute and sweet, not to mention very funny and heartfelt animated features coming the world’s way, all guaranteed to make things better after another tough year in the bowels of the COVID pandemic. Happily, one of the three is Sing Continue Reading
Movie review: Eternals
Apart from their obvious love of a stupendously over the top action finales and stakes so epic the fate of the world repeatedly hangs in the balance, the one thing you can say about a Marvel Studios film is they have a strong moral centre. There is right and there Continue Reading
Movie review: Finch
You know those films that slowly but surely, and in the most authentic, intimately human of ways grab hold of your heart, bring it close and then pull it out of your heart until you’re an aching, weeping mess? Finch is one of those films. Heart-rendingly, beautifully, wonderfully so, and Continue Reading
Mini-mass of movie trailers: Tender Bar, India Sweets and Spices, Being the Ricardos
The Sydney lockdown may have ended but the PTSD of sorts has not. Hence, while I can go to the cinemas if I am so inclined, the reality is, bar a couple of bookings – Eternals on 6 November and No Time to Die on 16 November, I am quite Continue Reading