Tessa Thompson and Lily James star as two sisters caught up in the cross-border smuggling trade of prescription drugs.
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Review: Top End Wedding
An Aboriginal woman’s homecoming to the Tiwi Islands is the romantic comedy that Australia has been missing out on.
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The LEGO Movie 2 Wants You To Break The Cycle
Samuel Harris tracks back to his own childhood LEGO obsession to untangle the clever commentary that lies beneath the innocuous optimism of The LEGO Movie’s sequel.
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This Is It, We’re Finally Leaving Neverland
Matilda Dorman reflects upon the revived abuse allegations against Michael Jackson in 2019’s two-parter documentary, Leaving Neverland — through a personal comparison to the 2009 concert film This Is It.
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Review: 3 Faces
Jafar Panahi’s latest film bypasses explicit social critique for a more enjoyable, idiosyncratic journey through small-town Iran.
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Thank You For The Music: Coming Of Age in Muriel’s Wedding
P.J Hogan’s 1994 cult classic might just be the most honest Australian coming-of-age film ever made.
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Two takes on 1985: An empathetic and moving look at the AIDS Crisis
André Shannon and Debbie Zhou present two opinions on Yen Tan’s restrained and perceptive drama.
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Cinemascopes: Taurus
Luxuriate in earthly delights, but stay grounded this season.
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Review: Thunder Road
This off-beat tragicomedy could be retitled “Man on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”.
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Review: Transit
Christian Petzold’s wrenching melodrama is an aching journey of forgetfulness, forgiveness, and identity in flux.
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Within and Without: Poetry in Motion and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning
Claire White shares her lasting memories of Lee Chang-dong’s impressionistic mystery.
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The Halphabet: 26 Vital Parts of Hal Ashby
Eliza Janssen alphabetises the ‘shaggy humanism’ of Hal Ashby, in light of a release of a documentary on the prolific American director.
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Cinemascopes: Aries
Channel Aries’ headstrong energy this season.
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Making Bigotry A Thing of The Past
Why is Hollywood so obsessed with looking backwards, rather than addressing today’s injustices?
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Review: Us
Jordan Peele gives Get Out an evil twin with this loopier, looser horror follow-up.
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Review: Hotel Mumbai
Dev Patel and Armie Hammer star in a white lens fictional retelling of the 2008 Mumbai Attacks to disastrous, culturally insensitive effect.
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Focus On the Most Honest Thing: An Interview With Drew Droege
At the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Ivana Brehas talks to comedian Drew Droege about queer culture, artistic vulnerability, and being a big, loud, gay mess.
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Review: Captain Marvel
Marvel’s first female superhero flies straight into a well-worn template that lacks gusto.
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Review: Revenge
This mischievous survival film attempts to reclaim the complicated rape-revenge narrative.
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Review: High Life
Claire Denis’ ambitious first English-language flight into space is brought crashing down by glaringly conventional representational issues.
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Review: Everybody Knows
Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem reunite in Asghar Farhadi’s latest melodrama, where past merges with the present to unexpected results.
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Moving and Shaking: Embracing the Uncertainty of Teen Sexuality in Giant Little Ones
Michael Sun investigates the state of teen queer cinema after the feel-good optimism of Love, Simon.
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Review: Sink or Swim
A makeshift heptad form a syncronised swimming team in this wryly offbeat, exposition-filled French dramedy.
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Review: Celebration: Yves Saint Laurent
Any celebratory spirit is scarce in this observational documentary centered on enigmatic fashion icon, Yves Saint Laurent.
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Video Essay: ‘Last Year At Marienbad’ and The Doobie Brother’s ‘What A Fool Believes’ Are About The Same Thing
Eliza Janssen finds an unlikely connection between Alain Resnais’ 1961 arthouse drama and a 70s yacht-rock single.
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Torture The Form: An Interview with Vox Lux’s Brady Corbet
Jack Atherton and André Shannon talk to actor-director Brady Corbet about Sia, Oscar politics, and creating a perfectly imperfect picture.
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Review: The Guilty
This Danish single-location procedural is more concerned with its gripping phone conversation than any visual charm or narrative plausibility.
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A Cat Jumps Out From The Darkness: In Defence of Jump Scares
Why hasn’t the jump scare graduated to the same respectability as the horror genre?
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Oscars 2019 Round Table: A Group Chat
The Rough Cut team bring to you an unconventional chat ahead of the 2019 Academy Awards, bantering predictions, conflicts as critics, and Oscar campaigns.
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Close To Jonas Mekas: An Interview with Chuck Smith
To commemorate the one month anniversary of Jonas Mekas’ death, André Shannon talks underground film legends with Mekas collaborator and documentary filmmaker Chuck Smith.
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What Moves You: Distance in Kogonada’s Columbus
Claire White looks back at the architecture of human connection in Kogonada’s contemplative 2017 drama.
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Vox Lux and the Eerie Imprint of Celebrity Culture
This Natalie Portman-led portrait of a pop idol’s genesis is haunting in its depiction of trauma and mass media in the 21st century.
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Review: Border
Ali Abbasi’s Swedish fable writhes in twists and turns, though renders its ethereal elements too literal.
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Review: Capharnaüm
Nadine Labaki’s neorealist drama respects the depths of a child’s sorrow and anger at an impoverished world.
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Review: If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins’ follow up to Moonlight is an empathetic craft of feeling.
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You Have to Watch Everything: An Interview with Carlos Reygadas
At the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam, André Shannon talks to Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas about sexual ecology, film culture, and female filmmakers.
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Review: At Eternity’s Gate
Willem Dafoe plays Vincent van Gogh in this murky symphony of paint and celluloid.
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Review: Arctic
Mads Mikkelsen can’t save this pulseless survival film that takes too long to thaw out.
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Architecture as Comedy: Jacques Tati’s exactingly funny Mon Oncle
Tati grants us a world of extraordinary precision, one that can be compared and fused with ours, like two pieces of tracing paper.
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Review: Cold Pursuit
This Scandinavian revenge remake doesn’t deliver beyond its zippy, marketable premise.
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Video Essay: Partition and Division in Mikey and Nicky
Ivana Brehas examines the split world of Elaine May’s 1976 classic.
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Review: On the Basis of Sex
This biopic based on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life is not especially deep or complex, but it is empowering comfort food.
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