It all starts with a submerged storyline and while you feel an undercurrent of skulduggery nothing obvious rises to the surface for quite some time. It might even be a tad tardy for those who desire overdriven onscreen action from the go as the genre is often known for those big loud openers. Soderbergh is such an established auteur and he plays to his strengths here including his usual star-studded cast.

You get several James Bond alumni like Pierce Brosnan (the man himself) and Naomie Harris (Moneypenny) as well as Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton) and another Skarsgår brother, in this case Gustaf. They are all given some delectable dialogue to deliver and they do it so well. These are some very detailed performances and the acting momentum provides David Koepp’s screenplay with a glorious sheen.

This is a film for the hardcore fan of the thinking man’s spy yarn and you need to invest in it to get maximum enjoyment. Bullets might not fly with regularity but the performances provide plenty of sparks and when things do ratchet up and reach the inevitable crescendo the action is more than sufficient to prove completely satisfying.
Rob Hudson
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Starring Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan, Black Bag is coming to Aussie cinemas March 13, 2024!
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How crazy you might ask. Well, there are wanking zombies who put out fires with the climax of a circle jerk, an adjunct who climbs on top of a giant brain and self-immolates herself and Cate Blanchett with one of the worst faux German accents ever put to film. Oh, and the leader of Canada sports the type of ironic man bun that would put any barista to shame.

The seven leaders of the free world are presented as almost petulant children and it’s funny to see them act so juvenile and unprepared for the onslaught of weird about to descend upon their tightly-knit world. For reasons that are never fully explained, they start the summit under a gazebo all by themselves in the middle of an empty and mysterious German forest.

This was after they were taken to an archaeology dig where they had their picture taken while holding shovels and smiling with a two-thousand-year-old mummy with his penis tied around his neck in a box occupying centre stage. Weird falls way short as a descriptor. The running gag is that throughout all the insanity they still need to write their introductory speech, which ends up being about building a giant sundial. You know these are all the normal things that make up an entertaining and outrageous film.
Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/UniversalPicturesAU/

How crazy you might ask. Well, there are wanking zombies who put out fires with the climax of a circle jerk, an adjunct who climbs on top of a giant brain and self-immolates herself and Cate Blanchett with one of the worst faux German accents ever put to film. Oh, and the leader of Canada sports the type of ironic man bun that would put any barista to shame.

The seven leaders of the free world are presented as almost petulant children and it’s funny to see them act so juvenile and unprepared for the onslaught of weird about to descend upon their tightly-knit world. For reasons that are never fully explained, they start the summit under a gazebo all by themselves in the middle of an empty and mysterious German forest.

This was after they were taken to an archaeology dig where they had their picture taken while holding shovels and smiling with a two-thousand-year-old mummy with his penis tied around his neck in a box occupying centre stage. Weird falls way short as a descriptor. The running gag is that throughout all the insanity they still need to write their introductory speech, which ends up being about building a giant sundial. You know these are all the normal things that make up an entertaining and outrageous film.
Rob Hudson

Rumours is currently screening at the Brisbane International Film Festival and will be released in Aussie cinemas December 5!
The Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) is a celebration of cinema as art, entertainment and industry, for everyone seeking bold and unforgettable experiences.

An annual event, held over 11 days from Thursday 24th October to Sunday 3rd November 2024 and spread across several wonderful locations in Brisbane.

This years festival will showcase over 40 feature films and 40 short films from home and abroad, filmmaker Q&As, industry and student events.

Rumors BIFF Session details
Palace Barracks
Saturday 26 October | 3:00PM

Dendy Portside
Friday 1 November | 6:15PM

New Farm Cinema
Friday 1 November | 5:00PM
www.biff.com.au

Yet with the restructuring of certain character’s place in this space-western universe, the game and its actions provide only the merest of hints. What you are left with is a very good example of a current-generation popcorn movie. It’s fun and frivolous and the 102-minute running time flies by. And just like the salty snack that fills but doesn’t stick to the ribs, it only tickles the memory cells.

Blanchett plays Lilith, an outlaw and a complete badass with guns and in hand-to-hand combat and one who is presented on-screen under a blazing scarlet do. Her 9 to 5 is bounty hunter but when she is tasked to go on a man, or in this case a woman hunt and return to her home planet, the adventure begins. She picks up some wayward help along the way with a mouthy robot Claptrap voiced by a sped-up Jack Black and a fellow warrior, Roland (Kevin Hart).

It all feels like maybe an MA rating might have given the film’s commandos a better opportunity to really let loose and provide a more substantive experience. Fans of the video game will have more to do as there are more than a few Easter Eggs carefully hidden in some unusual places and this gives value. For the rest of us, the entertainment quotient is rather immediate and not particularly long-lasting.
Rob Hudson
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Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Ramírez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B. Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits – Roland (Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector; Tannis (Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Black), a wiseass robot.

Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other. Based on one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, welcome to BORDERLANDS.

BORDERLANDS is directed by Eli Roth and stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

BORDERLANDS is coming to Australian cinemas on August 8, 2024.
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His new home is run by two renegade nuns played by Cate Blanchett and Deborah Mailman. Set in rolling fields of wheat writer/director Warwick Thornton who also triples as director of photography perfectly captures the sense of isolation.

The boy is thrown into a way of life that is almost completely foreign to him and he keeps his distance from the other boys in the orphanage. Slowly the true nature of his character is revealed and he is shown to actually have the spark of life at his fingertips.

The fact that many organised religions are deaf to the innate spirituality of the people it attempts to save is given full measure here. It is delivered in a subtle manner but a firm one nonetheless. It’s a beautifully presented story with a sting in the tail.
Rob Hudson
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Set in 1940s Australia, the film depicts the mesmeric story of a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun (Blanchett). The new boy’s presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

The New Boy will be released in Aussie cinemas July 6!
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Cate Blanchett is outstanding as the flawed Lydia Tár. She is a world-class composer-conductor as well as a celebrated author, but her life is one filled with pretension and manipulation. It’s fascinating to watch her hubris bring about her eventual downfall.

Field peppers the film with unusual artistic choices like running the closing credits first, having no music present during the first two reels and leaving out large chunks of exposition. This reductionism forces you to fill in more than a few blanks and makes you realise how many superfluous plot devices exist in most films of this nature. It’s daring and daunting often times simultaneously.

Predator or artist or maybe a bit of both? Cate Blanchett infuses Tár with the duality that blurs the line between manipulation and artistic bravado. This is mirrored by many of the director’s constructional and storytelling choices. By reducing some of the visual and expositional excesses it makes crystalline the artist’s vision.
Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/UniversalPicturesAU/

Starring Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, and Mark Strong, TÁR will be released in Aussie cinemas January 26 2023!
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