Julia Garner plays Justine Gandy, a grade school teacher who arrives at her class one day to find all of her students (except one) mysteriously missing. You are given no clues at first and Ms Gandy becomes the brunt of the towns anger and suspicion. It turns her life upside down.

As you discover the townspeople’s lives (secret and otherwise) you are drip feed clues to the ultimate circumstance of the missing children’s lives. Then when Gladys Lilly (Amy Madigan) arrives on the scene with her strange red wig and overdone red lippy things take a decidedly dark turn and your sense of curiosity is changed to one of dread.

The facade of normalcy of the town’s inhabitants is torn away. Weapons graphically distills a creepy vision of American life that get weirder and weirder at every turn. When the final resolve happens, it pulls everything together with humour and more than a bit of out right horror.
Rob Hudson
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When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

The film stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, with Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.

Cregger directs from his own screenplay, and also produces alongside Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, with Michelle Morrissey and Josh Brolin executive producing. The filmmaker’s creative team behind the camera includes director of photography Larkin Seiple, production designer Tom Hammock, editor Joe Murphy and costume designer Trish Sommerville. The music is by Ryan Holladay, Hays Holladay and Zach Cregger.

New Line Cinema Presents a Subconscious/Vertigo Entertainment/Boulderlight Pictures Production, a Zach Cregger Film, Weapons. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, and released in cinemas August 7, 2025.
www.facebook.com/WarnerBrosAU/

When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

The film stars Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, with Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan.

Cregger directs from his own screenplay, and also produces alongside Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, with Michelle Morrissey and Josh Brolin executive producing. The filmmaker’s creative team behind the camera includes director of photography Larkin Seiple, production designer Tom Hammock, editor Joe Murphy and costume designer Trish Sommerville. The music is by Ryan Holladay, Hays Holladay and Zach Cregger.

New Line Cinema Presents a Subconscious/Vertigo Entertainment/Boulderlight Pictures Production, a Zach Cregger Film, Weapons. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, and released in cinemas August 7, 2025.
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Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an exceedingly complex man and one many see as both a saint and a sinner. He was instrumental in putting the brain trust together for the Manhattan Project, The collection of minds that developed the first atomic bomb. When it was used twice to bomb the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki it divided both the world and scientific communities.

Oppenheimer the pragmatist saw the bomb as necessary due to the race for its completion between America and Nazi Germany but as a humanist, he was conflicted. He didn’t trust the government’s implementation of the technology and always struggled with the balance between technological advancements and their use and abuse by humanity.

Christopher Nolan tells a powerful tale about a complicated man who was both rewarded and condemned for his genius. He was a man who felt great guilt about his part in inventing the atomic bomb and its subsequent use as a political tool by the world’s governments. He felt deeply for humanity and struggled under being seen as the destroyer of worlds.
Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/UniversalPicturesAU/

Based ever so loosely on an actual event when drug runners lost a load of the white powder in the hills of Tennessee. This ultimately led to the overdose death of a 79-kilogram American Black Bear after it ingested copious amounts of the drug. In a scenario that could only happen in America, the deceased bear was then stuffed and now resides in a shopping mall in Kentucky.

Director Elizabeth Banks’ has a sure hand on the tiller and uses her extensive knowledge of the comedy realm to entertain with lots of laughs and more than a subtle amount of gore. It’s all crowd-pleasing stuff. She also leaves no Southern stereotype stone unturned and fills the screen with loveable losers and unheralded heroes.

Make no mistake, if you are rooting for the human beings in this picture, you’ve aligned yourself with the losing side. The mighty Cocaine Bear will prevail. If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ever gets it together to give an Oscar for the best digital on-screen animal, the bear with the white nose should be a shoo-in.
Rob Hudson
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Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans), Emmy winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Kahyun Kim (American Gods), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) and newcomer Scott Seiss.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels, Pitch Perfect 2) from a screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen), Cocaine Bear is produced by Oscar® winners Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. The Machines) and Aditya Sood (The Martian) for Lord Miller, by Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman (Pitch Perfect franchise) for Brownstone Productions, and by Brian Duffield (Spontaneous). Robin Fisichella (Ma) will executive produce.
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Viewers with a basic knowledge of cinema history will be paid dividends as the references to a glorious past arrive with regularity. From references like the dance extravaganzas of Busby Berkeley to the screwball comedy of Cary Grant, the love and respect is up on the silver screen for all to see.

A familiar cast of characters is evident and Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Scarlett Johansson are just a few regulars that do justice to the always-impressive words of the brothers. There are also the usual underlining themes that give even a period piece like this relevance to today. The screenplay also features some classic Coen characters and the now almost pre-requisite absurd situations to mull over.

The Coen’s trend of following heavy fare with that of a more whimsical nature is intact and Hail, Caesar! is much less demanding than 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis. It’s subtlety and irony might be lost on some but it’s a worthy addition to the Coen’s canon.

Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/UniversalPicturesAU

Solo of course refers to Han Solo, he of roughish charm and one liners. In early chapters, Harrison Ford made the role his own and now Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar! & Beautiful Creatures) gets the chance to put his own stamp on the role. Unfortunately his character is the least developed in the film and the roughish charm inherent in Ford’s take is mostly missing. When Ehrenreich as Solo claims he is an outlaw, it’s a stretch to believe as per the actions that have come before.

That being said, the film, like some in the cannon, places action over character development and in this department, Solo has no trouble entertaining the troops. The film uses a surprisingly under lit first reel and dark tone before expanding the palette in both colour, light and story.

Taken as a chapter in an ever expanding book, Solo fills in a few gaps and through a few key surprises sets up some interesting story telling opportunities. It’s a solid work from a very consistent director, Ron Howard, it does make one wonder though if the supposed irreverence of the early directors take on the film would have produced something a little more transcendent.

Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/StarWarsAUNZ

Viewers with a basic knowledge of cinema history will be paid dividends as the references to a glorious past arrive with regularity. From references like the dance extravaganzas of Busby Berkeley to the screwball comedy of Cary Grant, the love and respect is up on the silver screen for all to see.

A familiar cast of characters is evident and Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Scarlett Johansson are just a few regulars that do justice to the always-impressive words of the brothers. There are also the usual underlining themes that give even a period piece like this relevance to today. The screenplay also features some classic Coen characters and the now almost pre-requisite absurd situations to mull over.

The Coen’s trend of following heavy fare with that of a more whimsical nature is intact and Hail, Caesar! is much less demanding than 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis. It’s subtlety and irony might be lost on some but it’s a worthy addition to the Coen’s canon.

Rob Hudson
www.hailcaesar.com.au