Movie: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Director:  Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Stars:  Michelle Yeah, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan

If you are a literalist this definitely will not be for you. If you want to throw your cinema dollars at people who are prepared to do things differently and have a crack with something bonkers well this is it. Despite the critical acclaim this is a difficult film to recommend because I am a cineplex critic, not an arthouse critic (even if the arthouses are all ‘plexes these days).
Michelle Yeoh is always class, and I could honestly say see it for her. There are some great ideas here, but whatever the critics say, I found the execution lacking in ways that made sustained suspension of disbelief difficult - not least that I could never not see Jamie Lee Curtis rather than her character because her transformation was so excessive. Sometimes less is more.
This was one of those films where rooting for it to succeed was easy, but I knew I was going to be disappointed. While I had some sympathy for the central messages it was well on the wrong side of the sentiment/sentimentality border for mine. Finally, this is not a film to see blind - watch a few trailers - and do not catch it at the end of a bad or exhausting day. It is a film for seeing with fresh eyes and an open heart.

Movie: Where the Crawdads Sing
Director:  Olivia Newman
Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, David Strathairn

There are a few positives to this film based on 2019's bestselling book, but more than a few issues and I might suggest that if you have read the book, you might well skip this unless you have become a Daisy Edgar-Jones fan or are wondering whether you should be. The basic plot, as fully revealed in the trailers, is that Edgar-Jones' Kya ends up growing up alone in a house in the swamp and the nearby small North Carolina town refers to her as 'the marsh girl', just some white-trash detritus of no import until accused of murder.

Among the positives, not the least is the presence of David Strathairn. Edgar-Jones' character, Kya, 'the marsh girl' is inherently interesting, and she does not stuff it up - which is a good start with book-based films' protagonists. While the film flits a lot between jail-cell/courtroom and flashback I am a little surprised at the critical description of 'incoherent'. It is not hard to follow, though it is a little long for what it is trying to present and shaving 10 minutes could have been managed. The key for a mystery film is that the audience continues to care for a resolution, and this is achieved if hardly edge-of-your-seat.

Among the negatives is that they needed more from the actress playing 'young Kya', though this might be down to directorial decision in trying to present an unsocialised child - but that's a little ridiculous given the size of the family. In general, the scene setting for the creation of 'the marsh girl' is the weakest part of the film though you will push through to see what older Edgar-Jones can do with it.

Carrying on in the vein of general weakness is the inevitable patina of modern American white woman-ness being applied to Kya, even while trying to subvert it. She grows up alone in the marsh with only a handful of acquaintances yet always has perfect 'natural look' makeup - which wouldn't matter if it didn't make a big deal of her putting on lipstick for an occasion - with shaved pits, and not a leg hair or downy lip to be seen. It all jars with this almost feral world of subsistence survival - and so you must allow that 'the feels' are what really matters here rather than details. That is swampy ground (groan!) for a murder mystery.

This is potential date-film material, just keep your expectations well grounded.

Movie: The Drover’s Wife
Director:  Leah Purcell
Stars: Leah Purcell, Rob Collins, Sam Reid

For all its faults, and wow, do critics seem determined to find them, I thought this was a terrific small film. Leah Purcell writes, directs, and stars as Molly Johnson, in the cinematic version of her play and book, reimagining Henry Lawson. This is theatre though, tricked up as a film, so if that "heavy" meaning and symbolism bears on you then this will not be for you. If on the other hand you can parse those things without too much trouble this is a pretty good yarn.

Movie: The Northman
Director:  Robert Eggers
Stars: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang
O
M
G!
Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, and Willem Dafoe.

 You might well be tempted by this cast. You might be fooled by the 7.8 rating on IMDB, or the long-term critical praise and an 82 Metascore from critics. You might also wonder why with all this it was at the bottom of the list of movies showing at my cineplex during its run, with only a handful of sessions. Well, it is a frothing 3/10 stinker is why.

From the opening this was awkwardly poor. You are making a film about the Norse, but you have made no effort to get the basic physics of longboats moving on the water correct? I am not sure which was worse, the appalling CGI of the opening scene of four longboats arriving home, or much later in the film a bunch of people pretending to row in a live action sequence which was clearly a motor driven ship smoothly clipping along a river. The film is loaded with jarringly bad visuals that arrest any sense of immersion.

There are genuinely a handful of solid scenes, and the cast does a half decent job, but this could easily be a pastiche of failed ideas for Skyrim quest sequences rather than a retelling of Amleth the supposed inspiration for Hamlet. Occasionally the viewer gets a glimpse of what might pass as something anthropological, and the domestic and slaving scenes have some merit here, but those are thin bones to support the weight of acclaim heaped on this.

Bio: Juddy keeps busy consuming cultural media while posing as a student at a major Sydney university, thus shirking real work. He hosts pub trivia, and tutors at said university, for beer and book money.