Movie Review 838 results

Alliance Française French Film Festival – The President’s Wife Movie Review

Based ever so slightly on real life, National Treasure Catherine Deneuve plays Bernadette Chirac, wife of France’s 22nd President Jacques Chirac. After years of servitude to her husband’s career, when the time arrives for her to take residency in the Elysée, she doesn’t take kindly to the marginal position she is expected to live in.   //   Her emergence from the shadows cast by Jacques underlines most of the film’s humour. It’s marvellous to see Deneuve in a ...

Alliance Française French Film Festival – The Animal Kingdom Movie Review

It also explores the Marindaze family, Father François (Romain Duris) and Son Émile (Paul Kircher). François has lost his wife and Émile’s mother to the mutations and she has to reside in a facility that keeps these beings from the public view. When this facility has a breakout of its residents, it puts things into overdrive. If Son Émile didn’t have enough teen problems to deal with, like talking to girls and fitting in with cool kid members of his new school, he must now face ...

One Perfect Match Movie Review

Intentional or not, this film’s use of local scenery is hilarious. This romance film makes some very odd choices to play for an American audience and as a result of that has created some very funny moments. Ostensibly setting the film in Florida provokes many internal laughs as you go from an office view of the Brisbane River to stock footage of the high-rise buildings of that sunny American state.   //   The storyline of having one of the character’s family owning a ...

Dune: Part Two Movie Review

Substitute oil for spice and the fiefdoms in the books are not that far thematically from the ones that dot the Middle East in current days. The military aggression in that part of the world to keep American cars filled with dead dinosaur juice is also somewhat of a parallel. Herbert who died in 1986 was on to something.   //   Adding Director Denis Villeneuve to the cinematic versions of the books was an astute choice. No one in Hollywood can create more arresting ...

The Zone of Interest Movie Review

During his tenure there, an estimated 3,000,000 victims were executed or succumbed to starvation and disease. The truly chilling aspect of the film is the focus on his home and family life and how mundane that life was outside his work. The almost complete lack of a soundtrack score (other than some electronic noise design to create unease) never lets you hide in the anonymity of a wall of sound either.   //   Höss and his family lived in an idyllic setting of a home ...

Drive-Away Dolls Movie Review

Early example, their usual approach to violence, where it is used almost as a summation of the randomness of fate is sidestepped by having one of the most graphic scenes of maleficence in their canon open the film. It is shocking and arriving so early on acts as a bit of a red herring as underlining all that happens afterward is a simple love story.   //   Actor Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood) in a real star turn plays Jamie, a young woman looking for ...

Madame Web Movie Review

As the story continues and adds players Sydney Sweeney as Julia Cornwall, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon and Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin, it becomes more conventual and far less edgy. Keeping the theatregoer off balance is a solid technique and should have been used longer.   //     As the conventions collect and become dominant, so too does the reliance on special effects. With this much girl power, it seems they should have given these ladies a bigger ...

Dendy Powerhouse Outdoor Cinema – Nina and the Mean Girls Movie Review

My pawrents did their best to contain my excitement but with so many other doggies going to be there, I knew I would meet a few to crush on and boy I wasn’t disappointed. The crushing onscreen almost rivalled my unbridled passion to sniff as many unique scents as I could, If you know what I mean?   //     The action and songs on-screen reminded me that every species has an intended pecking order, the cute ones will always try to rule the roost and use their ...

Bob Marley: One Love Movie Review

Robert Nesta Marley was born poor on February 6, 1945, in Jamaica and through his music brought worldwide attention to that small Island nation. He knew much turmoil throughout his life, not least the political upheaval that was almost ever-present in his homeland. His pacifist ways supply the most important building block in the period of his life that the film is based around.   //     After a botched assassination attempt on his life and concerns for the ...

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 Movie Review

Trading the parched open spaces of The Dry for the wet, dense and almost claustrophobic environment found deep in the Victorian mountains helps to redefine the story here. It revolves around a group of women who are on a company hiking retreat when things spiral dramatically out of control. There is also a back story that one of the female participants is a whistle-blower helping the Feds.   //     The new storyline is intertwined with scenes that put a focus on ...