Kangaroo (2025) – Movie Review

TL;DR – This is a profoundly Australian film, and in that I mean more its structure than the narrative. But once it gets going, you can’t help but get caught up in the charm, because it has it in spades.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Joeys.

Kangaroo Review Introduction

While Australia is known as a place where big-budget films come to film, where you can walk down the street of Brisbane one day and suddenly it is New York for Thor. However, we also have a vibrant domestic film culture, or we do at the moment, looking at you politicians not doing enough to support the local industry. However, there are times when you could tell a film is Australian, even if no sound of an accent passed your ears, and today’s film is a good example of this.  

So, to set the scene, Chris Masterman (Ryan Corr) is the local weather reporter for Channel 6’s Rise and Shine Australia. He wants to be more than the person they cut to in the morning when they need someone to get a bucket of water thrown at them. But no one takes him seriously. Well, Chris is going to change that when the opportunity to go viral presents itself. Unfortunately, it blows up so spectacularly in his face that not only is he not up for promotion, but he is fired and put on the instant reject list for every production team in Sydney and beyond. He has one shot to get his career back on track, and that is to drive to Broome and do some regional work. But when his car accidentally hits a kangaroo on the outskirts of Silver Gum, he is stuck in the small town waiting for his car to be fixed, but also looking after a now orphaned joey with the help of Charlie (Lily Whiteley).

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Poker Face – Movie Review

TL;DR – There could have been a good film here, but it gets lost in the mess of two competing ideas.     

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this film

rolling waves

Poker Face Review

One of the things about reviewing films that can be frustrating is when you get a movie where you can see promise in there, but the final product just falls flat. You feel for the filmmakers because they were so close to finding something unique, but you must review what you get at the end of the day. Well, on that front, let’s look at Poker Face.

So to set the scene, we open in on a bunch of kids playing cards, jumping off cliffs, running from bullies, and being there for each other. Many years later, the leader of the group, Jake (Russell Crowe), is visiting a local shaman (Jack Thompson) in the bush and asking his lawyer Sam McIntyre (Daniel MacPherson), to arrange some trust accounts and an extraordinary evening. Soon Michael Nankervis (Liam Hemsworth), Alex Harris (Aden Young), and Paul Muccino (Steve Bastoni) are all racing up the coast in sports cars to make it to Jake’s luxury oceanside holiday house. The childhood friends will play a high-stakes poker game, but secrets are about to escape.

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TV Review – SeaChange: Paradise Reclaimed, Part 1

TL;DR – Twenty years is a long time and while it is good to be back in Pearl Bay, some of the characters dragged us back to the 20th century.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

SeaChange: Paradise Reclaimed. Image Credit: Channel 9.

Review

Let me take you back in time, a whole twenty years ago, which seems a lifetime now that I think about it. It was a quieter time in life, we had not yet dealt with either the millennium or even the Willennium yet. However, down here in Australia everyone and their mum’s was riveted by the story of the lost magistrate and her Diver Dan. A lot has changed in those preceding years, both in the real world, and the fictional one of the show, and it will be interesting to see if lighting can hit twice again.

So to set the scene, we open in with Laura Gibson (Sigrid Thornton) who is volunteering somewhere in Africa and not getting along with everyone, or anyone. She is throwing herself into her work to kind of distract herself for the fact that her marriage is tenuous at best, her daughter is in and out of trouble and that her career is not really going anywhere. After upsetting enough people the aid agency firers her and has her visa cancelled so she is forced to fly back to Australia to get it sorted out. With some time to kill, she decides to come back to Pearl Bay to visit her other daughter Miranda (Brooke Satchwell) who still lives there. Only to find out a lot has changed, such as her house got washed away.

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