Giles Hardie

There is only one thing worse than a bad film. That is a bad film that should have been a great film. Absolutely Anything has, like its premise, galactic comedic potential. It stars Simon Pegg, the hottest thing in British comedy right now, opposite the dazzling Kate Beckinsale. It features the voices of the living […]

In 2009 an Argentinian film, The Secret In Their Eyes, won the Oscar for Foreign Language Feature Film. Hollywood in its infinite wisdom has remade that film for the English-speaking market otherwise known as those-who-won’t-read-subtitles. Unsurprisingly, they have chosen to release this film, starring three Oscar mainstays – Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor […]

I don’t know if I’ve walked into a screening with less confidence than No Escape this year. It’s seemingly an action film starring Owen Wilson (ruh roh!), co-starring Pierce Brosnan who despite being a worthy Bond still delivers most genres better than action, and Lake Bell for whom this week’s Man Up seems a much more apt piece of […]

Where to start? To praise the Australian comedy that had the balls to try, the brains to do some great casting and the talent to include some decent family-level laughs? Or to admit that it’s a case of close but not close enough? Comedy cinema is a tough business. You have to nail the drama, […]

In the rapidly growing sub-oeuvre of Australian Suburban Culture Clash Rom-Coms, hot on the heels of UnIndian which explored the complexities of a relationship between an Indian-Australian and a Brett Lee Australian, comes Alex & Eve, zeroing in on a Greek-Australian and a Lebanese-Australian. Alex (Richard Brancatisano) is a high school teacher (perhaps he studied with Will, the […]

When Australian and Indian cinema got together and decided to have a love child, there were a few probable outcomes… Cricket. The shared passion for the sound of leather on willow was always likely to feature. Brett Lee in a leading role is the result and it has to be said he delivers as the […]

If you want to break your head, London Road wouldn’t be a bad way to start. Oddly, this is not inherently a statement about its quality, just its complication. In 2006, the bodies of five women were found in Ipswich and soon after a man living on London Road was arrested. The other residents of the road, […]

There is an inherent danger in discussing Cut Snake that by mentioning any details, too much of a spoiler will be given. So, be warned, major plot points will be revealed herein – or at the least heavily alluded to – as it is up for debate whether their reveal is central to appreciating the film, but […]

Blinky Bill is a step back in time in more ways than one. The character stems from a 1930s book series, made famous once more in the 80s by an ABC TV series and then a feature film in 1992. The computer animation style is more reminiscent of a film that came out a few years […]

Rossellini, Visconti, Bertolucci, Antonioni… …and of course Fellini. Fellini, Fellini, Fellini. Italy makes good cinema. Great cinema. Really, really great cinema. But have you ever noticed that you don’t tend to watch it? Not only do the films tend to suffer from a serious case of subtitles, but they’re often also perceived as being serious […]

Here’s the pull quote, people: Pixels – It’s not as bad as you’ve heard. Of course it isn’t. For Pixels to earn the sort of scathing reviews it has been receiving out of North America, it would have to slap each member of the audience in the face individually, arrange to have your pets murdered while you were at […]

There is an infinitesimal danger in an actress attaining the standing of Meryl Streep. Alongside the incredible body of work, the boggling amounts of talent and delightful self-deprecating charm comes the capacity to make any film into a Meryl Streep Movie, nay a Streep Cinematic Sensation. In actual fact, Ricki and the Flash is more like a […]

Holding The Man could have been a mess. The source material is a memoir cherished by the gay community, riddled with complex emotional subjectivity and fantasy, that became an acclaimed stage play. Without the deftest, most skilled individuals in key roles, this might have been a meandering and worthy emotional rollercoaster, or a methodical and […]

Cancer, euthanasia and a cab driver. It sounds like the unholy trinity of filmmaking. A veritable recipe for disaster with the dreaded terms “Australian film” and “indigenous issues” added for good measure. Yet there is something magnificent about the way in which writers Reg Gribb and Jeremy Sims (who also directs) have not merely overcome […]

Part bedroom farce, part Woody Allen wannabe, She’s Funny That Way is a funny little film that is loud and proud about being more fun than substance. Kicking off in a somewhat quirky Hollywood insider interview fashion, it is the tale of Isabella (Imogen Poots), now a big name actress who recounts the circumstances that enabled her […]

Move over Ferris Bueller, high school has a new king and the high school movie genre has a new heavyweight. Meet Malcolm and his two friends. Three self-professed high school geeks with an obsession for ‘90s hip hop who are weeks from graduating having navigated the complex dilemmas of life in a modern high school […]

Stupid? Yes. Adults only? F–k Yes. Dumb family comedy? You betcha. And, well, Chevy Chase? Yes. Though, thankfully not much. That’s right, it’s a National Lampoon’s reboot as the Griswolds 2.0 go on an ill-conceived family vacation to Wally World. While that sentence alone is about as massive as the Berlin Wall when it comes to generation […]

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is the film that leaves you wanting more. Not five minutes more. Five films more. More so than any of its predecessors this instalment establishes Ethan Hunt as James Bond 2.0 (US Spelling edition). As a stand-alone film Rogue Nation is not quite the equal of Ghost Protocol, which took action to new heights […]

It’s tempting to mouth the lazy summation “if you like Sherlock Holmes you’ll like Mr. Holmes.” Tempting, because it is true. Yet that would also do a disservice to this sumptuously crafted, artisanally layered and genuinely inspired addition to the detective’s pantheon. A better statement is this: If you didn’t think there needed to be another […]

Ruben Guthrie is not perfect. It is short, sharp, funny – laugh-out-loud funny – bold, rude, showy, loud, clever, original, witty, smart and very impressive to look at. But it is not perfect, one suspects, because it realises all of those other qualities are far more important to aim for in terms of pleasing an audience. […]

From font choices to poster image, Paper Towns is clearly trying to riff on the success of last year’s The Fault in Our Stars, based on another novel by John Green which he wrote four years after this. The good news for fans of that film is this is a worthy follow up. The better news, for fans […]