New Movies

On the surface American Made could look like Tom Cruise having a midlife crisis on screen. The flashy action sequences, topless shots showing off hours spent at the gym, and the kind of fast planes that made him famous could all be interpreted as an attempt to recapture the spirit of his early films. Described as a sort-of-true story, American Made follows Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), a commercial pilot recruited by the CIA and tasked with taking pictures of communist...

Set in 1967, Detroit opens with a police raid on an unlicensed club where the return of black veterans from Vietnam is being celebrated. Suspects are brought out onto the street and a mob forms around them. As the suspects are arrested the mob starts to through rocks at the officers and before long this escalates and the city is overrun by looting and fires. Army paratroopers and the National Guard are sent to aid the Detroit police. When a...

By Michael McNulty Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott deliver a dud in action thriller Bushwick. Lucy, Pitch Perfect’s Brittany Snow, emerges from a New York subway in Bushwick, with her boyfriend, off to visit Grandma. When a burning man runs through the ticket hall, the two realize something is amiss. Upon investigation, Lucy’s boyfriend is swiftly blown up, his body reduced to a smouldering mess of charred flesh. Bushwick is under siege by mysterious militants sporting black riot gear and...

By Michael McNulty Although Quest is not an overtly political film, it is moored in the choppy waters of America’s racial, social and political tensions. Jonathan Olshefski never takes a stand or pushes an agenda, instead he provides an intimate portrait of a struggling family trying to survive. Centring on an African American family living in North Central Philadelphia, Olshefski’s documentary chronicles the lives of Christopher “Quest” Rainey and Christine’A “Ma Quest” Rainey over the course of 10 years as...

Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP Tom of Finland beings in the Second World War, where Touko Laaksonen (Pekka Strang) is serving as an anti-aircraft officer and is exploring his sexuality. After the war ends Laaksonen returns to the house he shares with his sister Kaija (Jessica Grabowsky) and begins to draw erotic images. Due to laws that saw his pictures as pornographic and illegal it was hard for them to be sold but slowly they start to make their way across...

By Michael McNulty The sun baked streets of Perth shimmer in the December heat. A group of teenage high school girls play netball. Their movement to the leering eyes of John (Stephen Curry) and Evelyn White (Emma Booth), who sit spying on them from the sweaty interior of their car, an orgiastic ballet of short skirts and tanned skin, youth and innocence. The game is over and the girls head their separate ways. John and Evelyn offer a lone traveller...

Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP There is something enjoyable about watching the slightly cheesy horror films that enter the cinemas each summer. Dating back even before the original Friday the 13th this brand of slightly crude but ultimately entertaining movies have been a welcome addition to our viewing calendars. More recent films like The Cabin in the Woods and Paranormal Activity may not be great works of art but they are fun and not a bad way to spend an afternoon...

By Michael McNulty Mick Rock, the man behind some of rock n’ rolls most iconic photos and responsible for some of the greatest album covers of all time, has been given the big screen treatment in Barney Clay’s debut feature length film, Shot! The Pyscho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock. It spans the length of Rock’s life, from the photos he took of Syd Barrett and David Bowie in the early days of his career, to the sessions he held with Lou...

By Michael McNulty Thomas Kruithof debut feature film, Scribe, has all the trappings of a taut, American, political thriller. It’s a tense, dark, paranoia flick and although it may, at times, find itself a little lacking it still a good run for your money. Scribe opens as Duval (François Cluzet), an accountant pushing retirement age, frantically struggles to put together, having been dumped with the task last minute, an important file for an even more important meeting. As the night...