The director Luca Guadagnino (Challengers and Call Me by Your Name) poses an interesting question for this reviewer with his latest film, After the Hunt. Can you enjoy a movie that you feel absolutely no connection to? Will an amazing performance by an against-type Julia Roberts help with this conundrum?

Set in the overwhelmingly pretentious world of the professorial elite of Yale, Guadagnino lays down the challenge of finding anything parallel between you and the lives of these self-ordained aristocrats. If you live in the normal world and use speech that doesn’t require a dictionary to translate, the challenge to relate becomes even more elusive.

Along the way, there are directorial and cinematic decisions that provide an even bumpier road. Quick cuts before headlines are read and dropping the ambient light to near darkness during crucial scenes keep you on your toes. And throughout all this is Roberts’ performance, a marvel of balancing repugnancy and appreciation for her flawed character. This also takes place while a masterful job of make-up and lighting ages her decades right before your eyes.

By the film’s end, the question posed at first is no closer to being answered. But hours and even days later, and having the film and its eccentricities still occupying one’s mind, then this becomes the legacy. With so much disposable art being paraded as significant, is this approach actually a bad thing?
Rob Hudson
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We’ve teamed up with Sony Pictures Australia to giveaway double in-season tickets to giveaway to After The Hunt!

From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, AFTER THE HUNT is a gripping psychological drama about a college professor (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.

Starring Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Julia Roberts, Chloë Sevigny, Michael Stuhlbarg, After The Hunt will be released in Aussie cinemas October 16!
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From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, AFTER THE HUNT is a gripping psychological drama about a college professor (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.

After The Hunt, only in cinemas October 16!
www.facebook.com/SonyPicturesAUS/

From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, AFTER THE HUNT is a gripping psychological drama about a college professor (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.

Starring Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Julia Roberts, Chloë Sevigny, Michael Stuhlbarg, After the Hunt will be released in Aussie cinemas this October
www.facebook.com/SonyPicturesAUS/

In the 1970s and 80s, Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker, rose from humble beginnings to create the world’s largest religious broadcasting network and theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance and prosperity.

Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn’t long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals, and scandal toppled their carefully constructed empire.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye stars Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Fredric Lehne, Mark Wystrach, Sam Jaeger, Gabriel Olds and Vincent D’Onofrio, and will be released in Australian cinemas September 23!
www.facebook.com/20thCenturyStudiosAUNZ

Jesse Eisenberg has never been better as Mark Zuckerberg, the man/boy who turned and burned most everyone he came in contact with while creating the Internet tsunami that is Facebook. Director David Fincher tones down some of his more overt mannerisms and gets things just right. Even Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker (the creator of Napster) delivers career-defining work.

It’s a sign of the level of film mastery that a subject with so little visual identity could be made into such a rich visual canvas. This is a film without flaws and one that fascinates to the last frame.

It would be wise to read up a bit on the subject, if your knowledge is light in regards to the creation and people behind Facebook. It will greatly enhance your viewing pleasure.

As a coda to the film, Zucerberg’s early partner and only apparent friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), the one he burned nonetheless has a reported personal wealth of over a billion dollars from the undisclosed sum settlement brokered in later half of the film.

Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/SonyPicturesAUS

Recognised as one of the great works of late 20th Century theatre, this landmark in LGBT theatre is set in 1980’s during the rise of the AIDS epidemic and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell. It has as much to say now as it did then with respect to people’s rights, livelihood and feeling welcome in the world being compromised.

In this production, Tony & Olivier award winning Marianne Elliot (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, War Horse) directs a high profile cast including Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge), Tony award winning Nathan Lane (The Producers), Olivier award winning Denise Gough (People, Places, Things), Russell Tovey (Quantico, Looking) & James McArdle (Star Wars Ep VII: The Force Awakens).

Angels in America
Dendy Portside, Brisbane
Part One: Millennium Approaches – September 9th-11th 2017
Part Two: Perestroika – September 16th-20th 2017
Also showing at Canberra, Newtown, Opera Quays Dendy Cinemas
www.dendy.com.au

Silence is the story of two young 17th century priests who go in search of their missing mentor in the mysterious and exotic land of Japan, where their faith is outlawed and their presence forbidden.  What follows is a dazzling and heart-stopping test of their endurance, faith and survival.

The film portrays a spiritual journey guaranteed to find warm reception from critics.  Based on the best-selling Japanese novel of the same name Silence stars Liam Neeson, Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield alongside a strong Japanese cast.

www.facebook.com/silencemovie

Competition will be drawn 15 February 2017, winners will be notified by mail.

Hacksaw Ridge is the extraordinary true story of Desmond Doss [Andrew Garfield] who, in Okinawa during the bloodiest battle of WWII, saved 75 men without firing or carrying a gun.

He was the only American soldier in WWII to fight on the front lines without a weapon, as he believed that while the war was justified, killing was nevertheless wrong. As an army medic, he single-handedly evacuated the wounded from behind enemy lines, braved fire while tending to soldiers and was wounded by a grenade and hit by snipers.

Doss was the first conscientious objector awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

To enter this great competition just fill in the entry form below. Please note – these tickets are for a specific screening only and can not be exchanged or refunded. The winners will need to be available on Monday October 31 at 6:30pm in Brisbane to be able to attend this screening at the Dendy Portside Cinema.

Competition will be drawn 26 October 2016, winners will be notified by email.