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Film & TV
The Japanese bullet train is fast and so is this – too fast at times to keep track of. But when you have Brad Pitt, why stress over an infuriatingly messy plot that might have worked better in its original novel form?
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Film & TV
Actor and art lover Rachel Griffiths travels across Australia visiting iconic sites – including Lake Eyre – that have inspired important artworks in a new ABC television series that encourages a deeper appreciation of our breathtaking landscapes.
From its early days, Neighbours reinforced stereotypes of white Australian heteronormative suburbia. But it also evolved to push boundaries around representations of gender, sexuality and feminism.
Dubbed “the David Attenborough of humans” for her innate ability to connect with people from all walks of life, Miriam Margolyes meets an eclectic mix of Australians on her new ABC television show.
A game of thrones rooted in 15th-century Nordic history plays out majestically in a Danish period piece that seems to represent all that Scandinavian filmmakers excel at: strong acting and directing, great stories and a lot of psychological intrigue.
The movie version of American author Delia Owens’ best-selling novel has been highly anticipated by many, but something is lost in the adaptation.
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Film & TV
As he dons the chef’s whites again in a new season of South Australian-made ABC television series Aftertaste, actor Erik Thomson says he’s relishing playing a not-so-nice guy for a change.
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Festivals
The biennial Adelaide Film Festival will be held annually from October, kicking off with the world premiere of a film about homegrown Adelaide rock band The Angels.
The cast of Neighbours has said goodbye to the beloved Australian soap, gathering on set for a last time after a production run of 37 years and nearly 9000 episodes.
Baz Luhrmann’s sparkly new biopic has some flaws, but it captures brilliantly the rock ’n’ roll charisma of Elvis at his peak.
The operators of Adelaide’s Mercury Cinema say they are facing the prospect of shutting down within months following a State Government decision to reject a “core” funding request.
Australian actor Odessa Young shines in this British post-World War I drama full of repressed emotions and slow-burning intensity.
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Film & TV
Enough time has passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall for German filmmakers to find humour in the surveillance of East German citizens by the police state.
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Film & TV
Actor Eric Bana is reprising his role as Detective Aaron Falk from box office hit The Dry in the new screen adaptation of Australian author Jane Harper’s follow-up mystery thriller Force of Nature currently being filmed in Victoria.
George Simenon’s legendary fictional detective is brought back to the silver screen, with Gérard Depardieu donning the iconic hat, pipe and trench coat of Maigret.
Older women rarely see themselves reflected front and centre on the small screen but Netflix’s longest-running show – which has just released its final season – ventures into territory where no other series has gone.
A new documentary about poet, publisher and bookseller Max Harris looks beyond the Ern Malley hoax to offer a glimpse of the lively cultural scene that hummed beneath the veneer of conservative 1940s Adelaide. And at its heart is a love story.
British actor Dennis Waterman, who starred in TV shows Minder, The Sweeney and New Tricks, has died at the age of 74.
This gentle sci-fi film allows us to imagine a different kind of future with androids.
Downton is a franchise built on country-manor snobbery, which means the quality and serving sizes above and below the stairs remain consistent. Time to check in with the toffs and their servants who, over seven seasons and two movies, have been variously to jail, hell, and now, France.
This big-budget Viking epic offers a classic storyline with grit and wild drama.
An extraordinary slice of 19th-century Adelaide history involving a pioneering hot-air-balloon flight, a pair of daredevil ‘lady trapeze artists’ and a crowd of fascinated onlookers is re-created in miniature in a new ABC TV series co-hosted by local tiny craft artist JoAnne Bouzianis-Sellick.
It may seem Kodi Smit-McPhee became an overnight success with Netflix gothic western The Power of the Dog, but the Adelaide-born actor got his first Hollywood break at just eight. He sees his 2022 Oscars nod as another exciting beginning.
New ABC TV docu-comedy The Exhibitionists asks why the dominant image of an artist is a man – and places women back in the frame.
A towering Robert Pattinson embodies Gotham’s troubled caped crusader in this stylistic Batman noir.
A cinematic reinvention of a 2004 concert with singer-songwriters Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, in collaboration with Paul Grabowsky, provides a portrait of two artists and what it means to come ‘home’.
This passion project by local documentarians showcases the extraordinary photography and film-making skills of South Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. ★★★½
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Film & TV
Actor Joaquin Phoenix believed an ‘epic kid’ was essential to make this movie work – luckily, the filmmakers found one.
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Film & TV
The sumptuous settings are central to the allure of Kenneth Branagh’s contemporary take on this classic Agatha Christie whodunnit.
This dreamy and exceptional film opens with the recurring obsessions of author Haruki Murakami, on whose short story it is based: namely, sex and the idea of pieces of identity left with or taken by lovers.
‘Maestro of the movies’ John Williams – who turns 90 this week and will be celebrated with a special Adelaide Symphony Orchestra concert – defined the sound of the 20th century.
Neighbours will halt production amid questions about its future after British television Channel 5 confirmed it would stop airing the Australian soap later this year.
For all the Shakespearean drama Kenneth Branagh has done (As You Like It, Henry V, Hamlet and more), this personal memoir of childhood in the tightly packed streets of Northern Ireland may be his crowning achievement.
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Film & TV
The relationship between two women who meet while giving birth is at the heart of Pedro Almodóvar’s engaging new film, but the Spanish director also uses Parallel Mothers to reckon with a dark period in his country’s history.
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Film & TV
Daring director Guillermo del Toro goes full film noir with his latest star-studded thriller set inside the surreal world of a 1940s carnival.
Adelaide director Sophie Hyde further cements her international reputation with her latest film – a comedy-drama starring British Oscar winner Emma Thompson that is screening at this month’s online-only Sundance Film Festival.
Far from the uninspired, soap-opera-style representation in many early films about Princess Diana’s life, the new biopic Spencer – starring Kristen Stewart – shows her as a a doomed gothic heroine trapped in a frozen Sandringham setting.
From small marvels and festival gems to blockbuster movies with big-name stars, our regular film reviewer highlights some of the best movies of 2021 – and a few highly anticipated upcoming new releases.
Filmmaker Joel Coen’s fresh take on Shakespeare’s tale of madness and murder is a haunting, monochromatic production starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.
Awe-inspiring vistas of South Australia’s desert provide the backdrop to Warwick Thornton’s new television series about Indigenous hunters battling a colony of vampires in a remote opal-mining town.
