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Movies
★★½
Review
Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is irresistibly lurid, which is a problem
With dramatic backlighting, lavish production design and a top cast including Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette and Willem Dafoe, director Guillermo del Toro has created a stylised world that veers close to parody.
- by Jake Wilson
Latest
‘I needed to humiliate myself’: Jessica Chastain says a prayer for Tammy Faye
Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker might have fleeced the faithful, but was there some decency beneath that puttied face?
- by Stephanie Bunbury
Motherhood and massacre: Pedro Almodovar keeps a 45-year-old promise
In Parallel Mothers, the veteran Spanish director tackles Franco’s bloody legacy.
- by Stephanie Bunbury
Yvette Mimieux in the trailer for Light in the Piazza
Yvette Mimieux in the trailer for Light in the Piazza.
★★★
Review
Spencer take us inside Princess Diana’s mind, but it’s hardly revealing
It’s hard to escape the impression that Kristen Stewart and director Pablo Larrain have delivered a one-dimensional portrait of a victim.
- by Sandra Hall
Pythons, replica AK-47s, scorpions: an Australian short film with bite
What does it take to make a short film on a budget in Indonesia? Audacity, ingenuity and a guy on the ground.
- by Jenny Valentish
★★★½
Review
Tired formula? The new Scream doesn’t quite get the frights right
The iconic series would hardly have lasted this long without Neve Campbell. Across all the films, it’s her conviction that allows us to believe the stakes really are life and death.
- by Jake Wilson
★★★
Review
Made-in-Oz thriller starring Zac Efron grips you by the throat
Set in a post-apocalyptic desert, Gold, directed by Anthony Hayes, was made partly with special funding to help filmmakers through COVID-19.
- by Paul Byrnes
‘She was born to play that part’: del Toro on Cate Blanchett and Nightmare Alley
In del Toro’s new film Nightmare Alley, Bradley Cooper plays a man whose ambition and fear set him on a path of self-destruction.
- by Michael Idato