Tag Archives: Coming of Age

Crater – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A fun yet grounded film that knows when to pack an emotional punch.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film.

They look up at the blue gem of Earth in the sky.

Crater Review –

I always look forward to an interesting new take on the science fiction world. Still, as we look out into the wide world, it has been nice to see something a bit closer to home get some of the limelight recently with Ad Astra, Moonfall, The Wandering Earth II, and more. The Moon, or Luna, benefits from being right there but just out of our grasp. It beckons from a time in our past and might also be a building block of our future. There are many stories to tell, and today we look at a fascinating combination of a coming-of-age film and a road trip movie, all outside the atmosphere.  

So to set the scene, up above the pale blue dot that is the Earth lives the Moon, and in 2257, it was home to the Lunar Mining Colony. As a meteor storm comes and lockdown is declared, we find that several people are not in their quarters but are in the process of stealing a rover. Caleb Channing (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) and his friends Addison Weaver (Mckenna Grace), Dylan (Billy Barratt), Borney (Orson Hong) & Marcus (Thomas Boyce) crack into the rover’s circuitry to try and hot-wire it. Caleb just lost his father, Michael (Scott Mescudi), in the mines and is about to be sent to the new Colony of Omega, 70 years away. Before he leaves in three days and never sees his friends again, the group decides to go on a road trip to the once place Caleb’s parents liked on Luna, a crater.  

Continue reading →
Advertisement

Aftersun – Movie Review

Posted on by
2

TL;DR – An emotional whirlwind – Stunning, Beautiful, and Heartbreaking.     

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Warning – This film contains a lot of flashing lights.

An image of Sophie pixelated by the old camera

Aftersun Review –

If one film has been bubbling away in my subconscious since last October, it was Aftersun. Everyone who had seen it spoke of it almost like a transcendent experience, but it has taken a long time to make it down to my realm and longer for me to make it to the cinema. However, if the saying all good things come to those who wait had a physical manifestation, it would be Aftersun.

So to set the scene, it is sometime in the past [I think the late 1990s before everyone had mobile phones], and Calum (Paul Mescal) goes on a family trip to Turkey with his daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio). Sophie lives with her mother, which is a chance for them to bond, but there is some apparent awkwardness for all. Calum is trying to build a relationship, while Sophie is at the age where she is finding her independence. Is this trip the start of something better or the beginning of the end?

Continue reading →

Wednesday: Season 1 – TV Review

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – Wonderful characters crammed into a generic “insert narrative here.”

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

Nevermore Academy sign

Wednesday Review –

When you take a beloved property from the past and create a modern adaptation, you need to translate a text into a future it was not ready for. This transition can help you find a new voice for an old work or what can drown an old work as you lose what made it work in the first place. Today we look at a show that hits both of these extremes in its wild ride to make it to our screen.

So to set the scene, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is an odd duck in the straight-laced Nancy Reagan High School. However, she is and always will be intensely protective of her family, and no one gets to torture her brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) but her. Well, one application of piranhas during water polo practice later, and she is expelled from another school. Wondering what to do, her parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán), decide to enrol her in their old school Nevermore Academy. Aghast at being forced to live in her parent’s shadow and her roommate Enid’s (Emma Myers) colourful room, Wednesday decides to run away. But that is when one of the students tries to murder her, and she is saved by a creature that might be disembowelling local hikers, and maybe there is a place for her here after all. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

Continue reading →

Bones and All – Movie Review

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – A modern fairy tale coming-of-age road trip through middle America where two young people find love while eating people because they are cannibals.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film

Warning – This film contains scenes that may cause distress

Timothée Chalamet's eyes

Bones and All Review –

Rarely have I walked out of a film, and my first thoughts were, ‘well, that was a lot!’. However, I think that statement perfectly defines those first moments as the credits rolled and the multitudes of thoughts from the audience leaving the theatre filtered past me. If nothing else, Bones and All is a movie that elicits strong responses from the people who watched it, but I am not sure they were all positive.

So to set the scene, Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) spends time by herself at high school but finally starts to find some friends. She slips out of the house she is locked into to go to a sleepover, and everything is going well until she bites her friend’s finger off. Her dad Frank (André Holland), gives her 3 minutes to pack before they move, something they have clearly done before. Moving to a new state, Maren wakes up one morning to find her dad missing and only a tape-recorded note left. Maren then has to find her place in the world all alone/ Well, maybe not completely alone because there may be more people like her. But they may not be friendly.

Continue reading →

Sweet As – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A film that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure, that brings a profoundly Australian feel to a coming-of-age story set in the simple stunning Pilbara.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are photos during the start of the credits

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

The bus on the highway.

Sweet As Review –

One of the best things about film festivals is finding gems you have not heard about. Today we see just such a film that I caught at the closing gala of The Brisbane International Film Festival. A film about finding yourself along the coast of Western Australia.

So to set the scene, Murra (Shantae Barnes-Cowan) lives with her mother, Grace (Ngaire Pigram), in a mining town on the Western Australian coastline. Murra has to mainly look after herself as her mum struggles with addiction relapses, which comes to a head when someone from one of Grace’s parties tries to break into Murra’s room one night. Calling in on her uncle Ian (Mark Coles Smith), he realises that there are very few options for her left. Using his connections as a cop, Ian gets Murra into a photography program for at-risk kids run by Mitch (Tasma Walton) and Fernando (Carlos Sanson Jr.). The program was designed as a way to help, maybe even a last chance, for Murra and the three other campers, Elvis (Pedrea Jackson), Kylie (Mikayla Levy), and Sean (Andrew Wallace) it could well be.

Continue reading →

Armageddon Time – Movie Review

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – A deeply personal and emotional film that gets messy in all the best and worst ways.   

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Warning – Contains scenes of abuse.

Disclosure – I was invited to a screening of this film at the Brisbane International Film Festival.

Ronald Regan.

Armageddon Time Review –

I have long said that I am perfectly fine with crying in the cinema during a film. If the movie’s emotions move me, then fantastic. Indeed I even have a list of them. But there is a bit of a difference between a single stoic tear making its way down the side of your face and ugly crying for so bard you need to freshen up in the bathroom afterwards. Today, we are looking at a film that, even with all its flaws, falls in the latter category.

So to set the scene, it is 1980 in Queens, New York City, on the first day of school. Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) is starting in a new school, and just minutes into the day, he is already getting in trouble with the teacher Mr Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk). Not a great start, but he does get to meet his new friend Johnny (Jaylin Webb), who also ires Turkeltaub. Paul is trying to find his place in a world that feels like it is about to get snuffed out at any moment, with only his grandfather Aaron Rabinowitz (Anthony Hopkins) being able to reach him. Much to his parents, Esther’s (Anne Hathaway) and Irving’s (Jaylin Webb) frustration.

Continue reading →

Drifting Home (Ame wo Tsugeru Hyôryû Danchi/雨を告げる漂流団地) – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A fascinating look back to the power that a home can have over us, more than just four walls and a roof.   

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

The clouds over an ocean.

Drifting Home Review –

At the end of last year, I realised that I had not watched enough animated films in 2021 and that needed to change in 2022. I think I succeeded on that front, but when I looked back, I realised that there was one hole in that catchup, Anime. Today I start fixing that blind spot by diving into a film full of mystery.    

 So to set the scene, in town in Japan at the onset of summer, there is an apparently haunted apartment block about to be torn down. While the old building is being removed to put something better, it is still considered ‘home’ for Natsume Touchi (Asami Seto) and Kosuke Kumagai (Mutsumi Tamura), who grew up there. However, since they moved out, the two have drifted apart as they went through separate lives. One day before they tear down the buildings, Kosuke and a group of boys visit one of the buildings and find Natsume hiding in their old apartment. As more school students show up, a concern about a mysterious boy called Noppo (Ayumu Murase), whom no one has met before but who lives in the building, raises the tension. It is all the building blocks for an argument between Natsume and Kosuke that had been percolating for months. As the two fight, Natsume slips off the roof, but before she hits the ground, a storm envelops the apartments, and the group finds themselves in the middle of the ocean, all alone.

Continue reading →

6 Festivals – Movie Review

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – A transcendent exploration of music, youth, and the times in our lives where the two powerfully intersect.    

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this film.

Warning – contains scenes that may cause distress.

Utopia Valley, Central Coast, NSW, New Year's Eve.

6 Festivals Review –

When people write stories about young people, they often look back to their own lives as inspiration. But there becomes a disconnect between setting something in the now based on a feeling from the past. This issue can lead to outdated films before they even make it to the screen. Well, today, we look at a movie that avoids those pitfalls by focusing on the very real and now.

So to set the scene, we open on a small rowboat in the middle of the river as three friends, James (Rory Potter), Maxie (Rasmus King), and Summer (Yasmin Honeychurch), drink wine out of a box and sing Powderfinger’s My Happiness. They are using the boat to sneak into the Utopia Valley music festival on the central coast of Australia’s New South Wales. But they are soon rumbled by the cops and have to do a quick fence jump to get in. The festival is a riot, right up until the cops catch up with them, and James is forced to reveal that he has cancer. Knowing that he can use his cancer as a good excuse, the three convince James’s mum Sue (Briony Williams), to take them to the Big Pineapple festival and more, as they try to hit six festivals in a row.     

Continue reading →

Bosch & Rockit (Ocean Boy) – Movie Review

Posted on by
2

TL;DR – A delightful meditative film that explores two damaged lives trying to find their way, and it shines when the film focuses on that.     

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Walking into the surf with the sun setting in the background.

Bosch & Rockit Review –

I am not sure why Coming-of-Age films capture you as well as they do. Every part of a person’s life should be as interesting as any other, yet there is something about these stories that always captures your attention. This is probably why we see many of these films throughout the year, but some connect better than others, and today we get to look at just such a film.

So to set the scene, we open in on the New South Wales coastline as a young boy Rockit (Rasmus King), is surfing barrels in the waves. While he is struggling with school and wanting to spend time surfing, his father Bosch (Luke Hemsworth) makes money selling weed farmed from his property in the hills. Things are going well until Bosch’s partner and local copper, Keith (Michael Sheasby), brings in a new boss Derek (Martin Sacks), who wants them to sell coke as well. This is bad, but before Bosch can work a way out of this mess, a bush fire crashes down the hill and leads the cops right to Bosch’s farm. Knowing he is rumbled by the police, both legitimate and dirty, Bosch grabs Rocket and goes on the run, or as he calls it, ‘a holiday’.

Continue reading →

Turning Red – Movie Review

Posted on by
5

TL;DR – A true delight of a film on an animation and narrative level.    

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this movie.

Turning Red. Image Credit: Disney+.

Turning Red Review –

When it comes to depicting stories outside of its cultural expertise, the Disney Corporation has had a mixed track record. Even when trying to do something in good faith, they stumble. But they took their time making sure Moana worked, and then Bao showed they could nail a complicated narrative if they supported creatives with their vision. When I heard the writer/director of Bao is making a feature film, well, I had to check that out.

So to set the scene, Meilin “Mei” Lee (Rosalie Chiang) is a 13-year-old girl living in 2002 Toronto, Canada. She has become an adult, at least that is what she thinks, and has started making her mark in the world. Mei has three friends Miriam (Ava Morse), Abby (Hyein Park), and Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), and together they make a core group trying to survive high school and live with joy with their mutual love of 4*Town. Mei works with her mother Ming (Sandra Oh) at their family’s temple that venerates their ancestors, including Sun Yee, who was famously friends with animals, including red pandas, which is quite a coincidence when Mei wakes up one morning to find herself turned into a giant red panda.   

Continue reading →