Festival Review: Gayby Baby (2015)
★★★☆☆
A neatly observed, fly-on-the-wall documentary on gay parents, Maya Newell’s Gayby Baby adds fuel to the fire of Australia’s hottest topic.
Festival Review: The Program (2015)
★★★☆☆
With an outstanding performance from Ben Foster, Stephen Frears’ The Program gets bogged down in intricately retelling the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong.
Festival Review: Tangerine (2015)
★★★☆☆
The energetic and sassy tale of two transgender hookers in West Hollywood, Sean Baker’s Tangerine takes friendship and revenge to the streets.
Festival Review: High-Rise (2015)
★★★☆☆
Adapting JG Ballard’s dystopian novel for the silver screen, Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise is a glamorous reproduction of the Seventies high life.
Festival Review: Virgin Mountain / Fúsi (2014)
★★★★☆
Beautifully paced and scripted, Dagur Kári’s Virgin Mountain is the deft tale of an ageing mummy’s boy who finds both love and himself.
Festival Review: Trumbo (2015)
★★★★☆
Winning Oscars for his Roman Holiday and The Brave One scripts, Hollywood blacklister Dalton Trumbo becomes an unlikely hero in Jay Roach’s Trumbo.
Festival Review: Madame Courage (2015)
★★★☆☆
Staging a battle of the sexes in Algiers, Merzak Allouache’s Madame Courage reveals a desperate injustice pervading male and female relationships.
Festival Review: He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
After An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala brings Malala Yousafzai’s story to the masses. Just a little too easily.
Festival Review: Beasts Of No Nation (2015)
★★★☆☆
A violent exploration of civil war in West Africa, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts Of No Nation is a powerful portrait of a continent thrown into darkness.
Festival Review: Der Nachtmahr (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A German horror film of Berlin clubs and imaginary creatures, Akiz’s Der Nachtmahr is a pulsating delirium of colourful and haunting images.
Festival Review: Grandma (2015)
★★★★☆
A female road-trip with a devastating performance from Lily Tomlin, Paul Weitz’s Grandma delves into feminism past, present and future.
Festival Review: A Guy From Fenyang (2014)
★★★☆☆
Uncovering the life and works of Jia Zhangke in his home city, Walter Salles’ A Guy From Fenyang reveals the metropolis behind the man.
Festival Review: Suffragette (2015)
★★★☆☆
Celebrating nearly a century of women’s right to vote, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette is an important and inspirational film on democracy in action.
Festival Review: Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A triptych of melancholy Chinese stories, Jia Zhangke’sMountains May Depart builds an awkward narrative of nostalgia – past, present and future.