SAFE (full article at The Guardian Australia)

As Meg 2 is currently swimming the cinematic high seas, it feels like the perfect time to anchor this terrible metaphor and remember what Jason Statham was up to before he fought CGI sharks for a living. A decade ago The Stath was making the type of uncomplicated and hugely enjoyable action movies that felt like a throwback to the heyday of Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Van Damme. And one of his best, most overlooked efforts is Safe.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/aug/23/ever-wanted-to-see-jason-statham-beat-up-a-guy-with-a-plate-you-need-to-watch-safe

IMDB: Safe

APOLLO 10 1⁄2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (full article at The Guardian Australia)

Next week marks the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which makes it a great time to catch up with Apollo 10½. Richard Linklater’s semi-autobiographical animation invites us to experience growing up in the 1960’s, with humankind on the verge of landing on the moon. It’s part memoir, part fantasy and a complete and absolute joy to watch.

The year is 1969 and we are introduced to 10-year-old Stan (played by Milo Coy and later by Jack Black) at his school in Houston, Texas. During break, Stan is approached by two men from Nasa, Krantz (Zachary Levi) and Bostick (Glen Powell), who request his assistance with a secret mission. Due to a miscalculation, the lunar module has been built too small to accommodate the astronauts and Nasa now needs a kid-sized pilot to blast into space and deposit the lunar lander on the surface of the moon.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/12/richard-linklaters-apollo-10-12-is-a-joyous-celebration-of-the-moon-landing

IMDB: Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood

ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID (full article at The Guardian Australia)

The 1997 all-star reptile rampage Anaconda was a movie notable for an early career appearance from J-Lo, a dicey Paraguayan accent from Jon Voight, and, let’s face it, not much else. Admittedly, defending a sequel that has 25% on Rotten Tomatoes might sound like a fool’s errand but hear me out. With a charmingly silly plot and a raft of unsympathetic characters destined to become snake fodder, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid succeeds where the original faltered – and cranks up the ophidiophobia.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jun/21/i-wont-pretend-anacondas-the-hunt-for-the-blood-orchid-isnt-stupid-but-its-also-very-fun

IMDB: Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid

EMILY THE CRIMINAL (full article at The Guardian Australia)

This gripping and nerve-twisting crime thriller from the writer-director John Patton Ford is packed with nervous energy and spiralling misfortune, moving at a relentless pace all the while taking potshots at the gig economy, student debt and the justice system.

Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is struggling under the pressure of unmanageable debt repayments. She works casually for a catering company, delivering and setting up food for corporate events and offices. She has an assault charge in her history, which continually prevents her from securing any permanent employment. 

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/31/emily-the-criminal-aubrey-plaza-makes-it-easy-to-root-for-this-credit-card-scammer

IMDB: Emily The Criminal

THE GUEST (full article at The Guardian Australia)

Having made their director-writer team mark with the home invasion thriller You’re Next, Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett followed it up with the frantic action-sci-fi hybrid, The Guest. Kicking off as a mysterious thriller, The Guest feels like a movie you forgot to rent during the early 90s, a glorious throwback to medium-budget action flicks that, in another lifetime, could have been made by Cannon Films.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/nov/09/the-guest-is-a-glorious-throwback-to-medium-budget-action-flicks

IMDB: The Guest

AWAKE (full review at Screen Realm)

Jill (Gina Rodriguez) is widowed ex-soldier and recovering addict. She works in security at a research laboratory and sells expired drugs on the side for extra cash. She is determined to win custody of her two children, Matilda (Ariana Greenblatt) and (Lucius Hoyos), who live with their grandmother.

During a routine school-run an unspecified global event take place, cutting the power and, it transpires, preventing the entire world from falling asleep. Without any decent shuteye, it’s not long before everyone descends into hysterical wide-eyed mania and society begins to crumble.

Jill escapes the city with her kids, meeting escaped convict Dodge (Shamier Anderson) en-route and heading for a research station run by her boss, Dr Murphy (Jennifer Jason Leigh). All the while keeping the closely guarded secret that Matilda can still sleep.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://www.screenrealm.com/awake-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: Awake

THOROUGHBREDS (full article at The Guardian Australia)

You might be forgiven for skipping past Thoroughbreds in your Netflix recommendations. With a fairly nondescript title and an anodyne poster image, it appears to be about something dull like horse racing. But give it a chance and you’ll discover a dark and nihilistic capitalist nightmare, inviting us to the heart-warming conclusion that casual psychopathy is as prevalent among the wealthy as hedge funds and country clubs.

Read the full review at The Guardian Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/02/thoroughbreds-a-murderous-upper-class-gambit-from-anya-taylor-joy

IMDB: Thoroughbreds

OXYGEN (OXYGÈNE) (full review at Screen Realm)

Oxygen is a tense and claustrophobic thriller from French director Alexandre Aja. After an effectively disorientating opening, full of flashing red alarms and jarring images, we find Liz Hansen (Mélanie Laurent) awakening inside a cryogenic pod, unsure of how she got there and barely able to remember a thing.

She quickly discovers she has been revived because of a system malfunction, leaving her with approximately 40 minutes of oxygen and no way to open the pod. So Liz finds herself in a race against time, to escape the cryogenic pod before the air runs out.

And that is about as much as we can say about it. In terms of this review, Oxygen is what we movie reviewers like to call ‘a bloody nightmare’ (that’s a technical term) because there is almost nothing that can be revealed about the story without giving away something significant.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/oxygen-movie-review-netflix

IMDB: Oxygen (Oxygène)

LOVE AND MONSTERS (full review at Screen Realm)

Threatened with a deadly meteorite, the chemical fallout from Earth’s defences cause the planet’s insects, molluscs and assorted creepy crawlies to mutate to giant size, and wipe out 95% of the population. Thus, seven years into the apocalypse, Joel (Dylan O'Brien) lives in an underground bunker with a group of fellow survivors.

Crippled by a paralysing fear of the monsters, Joel gets by as the colony’s(reluctant) chef. But when he reconnects over the radio with his pre-apocalypse girlfriend, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), Joel decides to head out to find her. Along the way Joel befriends stray dog, Boy, who accompanies him on his journey and meets fellow survivors, Clyde (Michael Rooker) and Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt), who teach him survival skills and self-belief.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/love-and-monsters-movie-review-netflix-dylan-obrien/

IMDB: Love And Monsters 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE (full article at The Guardian Australia)

Ruth (Melanie Lynskey) is frustrated by the selfish and inconsiderate actions of other people. From exhaust-belching SUVs, to rude supermarket patrons, to the generally ill-mannered. She is bothered by things that in isolation might seem slight, perhaps even inconsequential, but they slowly congeal, amassing into a huge, morale-sapping void. With no single point of focus at which to direct her anger, the only possible route for Ruth’s frustration is for it to sit and simmer, until such a point as something causes it to boil over.

That boiling point comes when Ruth’s house is robbed. Her laptop and grandmother’s silverware is stolen and the police action on the matter is limited to the creation of a case number and the suggestion Ruth herself is at fault. Even when presented with an avenue for investigation, the law is hamstrung by its own listless investigative process. Ruth is made acutely aware she is the only one who cares.

Read the full review at The Guardian Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/mar/04/i-dont-feel-at-home-in-this-world-anymore-not-the-indie-drama-youre-expecting

IMDB: I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore

 

 

 

SPACE SWEEPERS (SEUNGRIHO) (full review at Screen Realm)

Space Sweepers (Seungriho) is a South Korean sci-fi adventure, and the fourth feature from director Jo Sung-hee.

In 2092 the Earth is dying. The planet is on its last legs, decaying and polluted and abandoned (by the wealthy at least) for an orbiting habitat, built by the ruling UTS Corporation. Those left behind in the murk and the ash are the poor and lower classes.

Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki) works aboard salvage ship The Victory, with his fellow crew members Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), humanoid robot Bubs (Yoo Hae-jin) and the hard-as-nails Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri). They operate as a clean-up crew, intercepting space junk, to prevent damage to the satellite utopia above the planet. Think: The Guardians of the Galaxy, if they were super into recycling.

Things are not as utopian as they present, however. The Victory’s missions to retrieve and salvage cosmic detritus are heroic, but not well paid. Invariably they accrue fines and wrack up debt and find themselves deeper in the hole than when they started.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/space-sweepers-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: Space Sweepers (Seungriho)

HIS HOUSE (full review at Screen Realm)

His House is a supernatural horror story and the debut feature from director Remi Weekes.

Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) are two refugees from Sudan, granted provisional asylum in the U.K., following a dangerous sea crossing in which their daughter was killed. They move into new house on a run down, garbage strewn housing estate and their caseworker Mark (Matt Smith), provides a box of groceries and not much further help. As the pair settle in to their new home they have a series of supernatural encounters as ghosts appear from behind the living room wall. Rial is convinced it is the work of an Apeth, or Night Witch, who now resides in the house with them. Since their asylum is contingent on Bol and Rial staying in one place, they have no choice but to deal with the Night Witch on their own.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/his-house-movie-review-horror-netflix/

IMDB: His House

LOST BULLET (BALLE PERDUE) (full review at Screen Realm)

Lost Bullet (Balle Perdue) is a French action thriller directed by Guillaume Pierre and premiering on Netflix. Sitting in a similar ballpark to Netflix’s underrated, vehicular crime thriller Wheelman (2017), Lost Bullet gives us more anti-heroes, double crosses and tumbling automobiles than you can shake a stick at.

Lino (Alban Lenoir) is a genius mechanic, given a jail term for his part in a bungled jewellery store heist. He is taken under the wing of Detective Charas (Ramzy Bedia) and given leave from prison, provided he works for Charas’ police unit, who tackle crime at high velocity on the streets and highways of France. Lino’s role is to patch up and soup up the pursuit vehicles for their life on the road.

Unfortunately, things go pear shaped when one of the cops in the unit commits murder and hangs it on Lino, forcing him to go on the run and to try and locate a crucial piece of evidence that could clear his name.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/lost-bullet-balle-perdue-movie-review-netflix-french

IMDB: Lost Bullet

EXTRACTION (full review at Screen Realm)

Extraction is the debut movie from stunt coordinator-turned-director Sam Hargrave and was written by Joe Russo, one half of the Russo Brothers, best known for their work on Marvel’s Avengers and Captain America movies. Extraction is based on the graphic novel Ciudad which was also written by the Russo Brothers and Ande Parks, with art by Fernando León González.

Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is an Australian mercenary, hired to rescue and return Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of a Bangladeshi drug lord who has been kidnapped by a rival. Tyler is haunted by tragedy and is courting a death wish. With the city of Dhaka on lockdown, Tyler faces off against corrupt cops, rival drug gang members and shady special forces operative Saju (Randeep Hooda), who is also after Ovi. Tyler must locate Ovi and then escape to their extraction point.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/extraction-movie-review-chris-hemsworth-netflix/

IMDB: Extraction

THE PLATFORM (EL HOYO) (full review at Screen Realm)

‘There are three types of person: Those at the top, those at the bottom and those who fall.’ So begins The Platform (El Hoyo), a Spanish science fiction horror movie and the debut feature from director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. Proving to be a fan favourite at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, The Platform is now streaming globally on Netflix.

Goreng (Ivan Massagué) wakes up in a cell. Opposite, his cell mate Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), an older man who seems to have been there for a while, explains the situation. The facility is known as The Hole and its grey, brutalist architecture is divided up into an unknown, but massive number of levels. They can be observed via an opening in the centre of the cell through which a platform travels daily. The platform contains the inmates’ food allowance. The catch? There is only one serving for the entire facility. So the inmates’ only source of food is what those above leave for them.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/the-platform-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: The Platform

IN THE TALL GRASS (full review at Screen Realm)

In The Tall Grass is the third Netflix feature to be adapted from a story by Stephen King, following on from Gerald’s Game and 1922 which both debuted on the streaming platform.  In The Tall Grass is based on a novella written by the horror legend, in collaboration with his son, Joe Hill, and first published in 2012.

Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal Delmuth (Avery Whitted) are driving cross country to an appointment but are forced to stop by the side of the road when pregnant Becky becomes nauseous. Pulling over near an old run-down church, surrounded by towering fields of seemingly endless green grass, they are about to hit the road once more when they hear a cry for help emanating from within the fields.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/in-the-tall-grass-movie-review-netflix-stephen-king/

IMDB: In The Tall Grass

POINT BLANK (full review at Screen Realm)

Point Blank is a Netflix produced crime thriller from director Joe Lynch and a remake of the French thriller A Bout Portent, by Fred Cavayé.

The story sees emergency room nurse, Paul (Anthony Mackie) tending to unnamed man brought in to the hospital with injuries sustained from a car accident. It transpires that the man is Abe Guevara (Frank Grillo), who is wanted by police in connection to the assassination of a district attorney. While Abe is under police guard, Paul’s pregnant wife, Taryn (Teyonah Parris), is abducted by Abe’s brother, Mateo (Christian Cooke), who gives Paul an ultimatum. Free Abe from the hospital or his wife will be killed.

With no choice but to do as he is asked, Paul takes Abe on the run, with two seasoned cops, Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden - The Mist, Miller’s Crossing) and Masterson (Boris McGiver – House Of Cards) in their tail. The story leads us down a winding path of corruption and duplicity.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/point-blank-movie-review-frank-grillo-anthony-mackie-netflix/

IMDB: Point Blank

MOWGLI: LEGEND OF THE JUNGLE (full review at Screen Realm)

The much-delayed Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle finally arrives on our screens via Netflix and a limited cinema release. With a host of diverse filmmakers – from Ron Howard to Alejandro González Iñárritu – attached to the film at various times, the long-gestating project heralds Andy Serkis’ second feature as director following Andrew Garfield-starring biopic Breathe.

Originally scheduled for release back in 2016, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle was set to clash with Disney’s live action Jungle Book update, directed by Jon Favreau. But when two similar movies turn out at the same time, one will inevitably sink without trace. For example, not many folk will remember the 1991 Robin Hood movie starring Patrick Bergin that could not escape the shadow of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, despite beating it to theatres by a month. However, they might recall the irony of the tables turning two years later, with Costner on the receiving end, his three-hour Wyatt Earp biopic getting upstaged by George P. Cosmatos’ rollicking Tombstone.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/mowgli-legend-of-the-jungle-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: Mowgli: The Legend Of The Jungle

THE NIGHT COMES FOR US (full review at Screen Realm)

The Night Comes For Us is director Timo Tjhjanto’s follow up to his 2016 action movie Headshot and is premiering on Netflix. It’s a kinetic, bloody action movie utilising Indonesian Pencak Silat martial arts, cinematically popularised in The Raid movies.

Ito (Joe Taslim) is an enforcer for a Triad operating out of the infamous Golden Triangle. He is a member of a group of high level operatives who go to extreme measures in service of the Triad. These merciless enforcers are known as The Six Seas.

Under orders to exterminate a fishing village for skimming profits, Ito refuses to kill a young girl, Reina (Asha Kenyeri Bermudez), and turns instead on his own men. He heads home to the Jakarta underground hoping to get himself and Reina fake identities and passage out of the country.  However, the Triad has recruited Ito’s old friend Arian (Iko Uwais) to pursue him, promising Arian a lucrative territory and Ito’s place in The Six Seas in return. In addition, the Triad sends its local thugs in pursuit of Ito, and a mysterious, deadly assassin known as The Operative (Julie Estelle) is circling the whole affair with an unknown motive. 

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/the-night-comes-for-us-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: The Night Comes For Us

TEN MUST-SEE SCI-FI MOVIES ON NETFLIX ANZ (full article at Screen Realm)

The age old ‘What-do-I-watch-on-Netflix?’ question is almost as old as time itself isn’t it? But fear not, we have you covered. Here’s our rundown of ten must-see sci-fi movies, ranging from classics to underrated gems, currently available on Netflix ANZ.


Pacific Rim
There’s not really a lot more you need to know about that time Guillermo Del Toro brought a giant robot to a Kaiju party. Pacific Rim is as self-explanatory as it is deliriously enjoyable. For all its simple maths, Pacific Rim grabs you by the hand and leads you straight down into an intricate universe laden with heroic mech pilots, colossal interdimensional beasts from the depths of the sea and eye popping black markets in monster guts...

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://screenrealm.com/ten-best-science-fiction-movies-netflix-australia-new-zealand/