Matthew Anderson

★★★★☆ In writer-director Magnus von Horn’s The Here After the past encroaches on the present, poisoning what possibility there may be for one young man’s future. As teenager John (Ulrik Munther) is driven away from a detention facility by his father (Mats Blomgren), Lukasz Zal’s camera – hued an electric blue and frequently given to…

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★★★★☆ After only a few moments of contemplating Charlie Kaufman’s existential musings in Anomalisa do we all but forget that the characters inhabiting the screen are stop-motion animations. Such is the quality of the writing and miraculous attention to detail that an assembled cast of puppets can teach us as much, if not more, about…

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★★☆☆☆ Forty years have passed since Robert Redford starred alongside Dustin Hoffman in All The President’s Men. The Watergate scandal engendered a suffix now synonymous with corruption and Alan J. Pakula’s masterpiece stands as an equally significant benchmark for representations of never-say-die journalism. In spite of brazenly obvious but noble intentions, James Vanderbilt’s Truth –…

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★★★★☆ The name Felix Thompson is to be added to lists of up-and-coming directors to keep an eye on. His first feature, King Jack took home the audience award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and it’s easy to see why. Kicking the tyres of a familiar teenage coming-of-age tale, Thompson’s strikingly assured and unflinching…

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★☆☆☆☆ Standing on a sinking ship, Keanu Reeves watches as his latest big screen endeavour, ill-fated long before its theatrical release, sinks to the ignominious depths of the so-bad-it’s-just-plain-bad. First time writer-director Gee Malik Lindon had his name removed from this debut feature after Lionsgate opted to chop and change the whole project, scared as…

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★★☆☆☆ Orthodox is a slow-burning British drama that never truly catches fire. It’s a pity that the story crafted by writer and director David Leon for his first feature, which certainly had the potential to be incendiary, has been transferred to a flimsy script that is further compounded by indecisive stabs at direction, leaving the…

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★★★☆☆ Music journalists must have a hard time describing the voice of an artist as exceptional and influential as Mavis Staples. From bassy depths soars a finely calibrated howitzer of sorrowful joy, erupting between mellow moments of syrupy-smooth soul. Perhaps Rolling Stone could say it better. A real firecracker, and fully deserving of the exclamation…

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★★★☆☆ Brace yourselves: it’s 1951 and the towering waves whipped up by a monumental nor’easter off the coast of Massachusetts are about to batter you into submission. Craig Gillespie’s The Finest Hours is a rip-roaring disaster epic from Disney based on real events: a rookie coast guard’s attempt to rescue the crew of a tanker…

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★★★☆☆ What is it about penguins? From marching toward mating grounds in the Antarctic, showing off mad tap-dancing skills or ensuring military-style precision in operations on Madagascar, these little critters know how to captivate a cinema audience. They may not be the first creatures that come to mind when thinking of the wildlife Australia has…

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