Ab Film Review & The Last New Wave

In 2024, director Natalie Bailey and writer Lou Sanz unleashed Audrey onto audiences in Australia and America. Here's a film that I called a caustic comedy that rains like refreshing acid rain. Here's the story of a mum, Ronnie (played by Jackie van Beek), who opts to literally take over the life of her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) when she ends up in a coma after an accident.This immaculately layered comedy film arrived in a time where Australian audiences are calling for more Aussie comedies, yet they're simply not paying attention to their existence, or if they do go and see them, they push off against them saying that they should be more like The Castle. As a writer and critic who predominantly covers Australian films, the notion of funnelling a creative voice into one style of genre storytelling is a frustrating and reductive one, and in turn, means that audiences are denying themselves the chance of engaging with some of the most inventive, exciting, and entertaining feature films that we've had

At just twenty years old, transgender wunderkind Alice Maio Mackay has crafted a filmography that would make most seasoned professionals envious. Alice's filmography is built within a defiantly independent space that centres queer stories on screen. From 2021's short film The Serpent's Nest, to the run of genre defying horror and sci-fi feature films that includes 2021's So Vam, 2022's Bad Girl Boogey, 2023's T-Blockers and Satranic Panic, and 2024's Carnage for Christmas, Alice has showed other filmmakers the possibilities of independent cinema within Australia.Alice follows in the footsteps of fellow Aussie trans filmmaker Dee McLachlan, who made a name for herself with the 2007 film The Jammed and the acclaimed series Wentworth, paving a way for fellow trans filmmakers in Australia and across the world. With her own distinct style of filmmaking, Alice has inspired and worked with fellow trans filmmakers like Vera Drew (The People's Joker) and Louise Weard (Castration Movie). Trans critic Willow Catelyn Mac

For decades, David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz were Australian film reviewing royalty, having built up a loyal following with their weekly show on SBS, The Movie Show. The 90s and early 00s was the peak of David & Margaret’s influence over Australian audiences. What they recommended, people would head out and go and see.Both David and Margaret are staunch supporters of cinema, becoming advocates for all kinds of cinema and decrying the impacts of censorship. While both have played roles in the way that film censorship in Australia has impacted what we see, it’s Margaret’s role with the notorious Larry Clarke film, Ken Park, which saw her make headlines after she put on an ‘illegal’ screening of the film after it received a ‘Refused Classification’ status, aka, the film being banned from Australia.That pivotal moment in Australian film criticism history is what sits at the heart of Zachary Ruane and Alexei Toliopoulos’ comedy show Refused Classification, which is currently making its way

This podcast is also recorded in Naarm, Victoria, with fellow critic Nadine Whitney reviewing two of the films screening at the 2025 Alliance Française French Film Festival.In the following reviews, Nadine discusses Anne Fontaine's Bolero and Éric Besnard's Miss Violet.For all the festival details and to purchase tickets, visit AFFrenchFilmFestival.org.If you want to find out more about the work we do on The Curb, then head over to TheCurb.com.au. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. If you can and have the means to support us, please visit Patreon.com/thecurbau to support our work from as little as $1 a month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carmen & Bolude marks something of a first for Australian films. Here is a comedy about two close friends, Carmen (Michela Carattini) and Bolude (Bolude Watson), who both call Australia home. Carmen proudly embraces her Latin heritage, while Bolude navigates the line between Western values and her Nigerian roots. Together, they take on the world and the rampant Americanised identity politics that have caused much society to turn against itself.We meet Carmen on the subways of New York where a man uses the close proximity of a packed train to touch her. Carmen loudly and proudly advocates for herself, standing up against the patriarchal dominance of the spaces we live.When we meet Bolude, she is also working abroad in new York, a home away from home where she needs to navigate the surprise marriage proposal from her white Aussie boyfriend Tommy (Liam Grienke). That navigation means a careful consideration of how she approaches her cultural roots, and the path that she wants to follow in her life. After all

My Melbourne is a powerful and uplifting new collaborative feature made with an array of established Indian directors and emerging Australian filmmakers, alongside a diverse group of writers behind the scenes, who each bring one of four stories of Naarm-Melbourne to life on screen.My Melbourne opens with the narrative called Nadini, it's directed by Onir with co-direction from William Duan. This story followed Indraneel, played brilliantly by Arka Das, and his partner Chris (Jackson Gallagher), who both prepare for the arrival of Indraneel's father, Mihir (Mouli Ganguly), in Melbourne to perform the Asthi Visarjan (ash-scattering) of Indraneel's mother.This is followed by Jules, directed by Arif Ali, with Imtiaz Ali as the creative director and Tammy Yang as the co-director. Jules tells the story of Sakshi (Arushi Sharma), an Indian woman moving into the world of chef work at a prestigious restaurant. She encounters abuse and resistance from her distanced husband who demands she lives a life in service of him

Matt Mirams is a indie creative who has over two decades of experience as a musician, actor, director, theatresports enthusiast, and independent filmmaker. His latest film, Residence, is a bloody zombie comedy that sees Australia inflicted by a brain eating parasite that turns its hosts into mindless zombies that wander the countryside looking for their next victim.It's also a biting satire about the consumerist world we live in, asking whether it's the mind-sapping parasites that have turned us into mindless beings, or whether it's our reliance on technology and automation that has sucked our engagement levels down to zero.In the following interview, edited for length purposes, Matt talks about his journey into filmmaking, what his drive is as an indie filmmaker, and what it means to be able to work with a huge cast of emerging talent, some of whom share the screen with industry legends like Ian Smith and Don Bridges. Matt gets open and honest about the difficulties of releasing a film in todays landscape, h

With her debut feature documentary film Queens of Concrete, Eliza Cox takes audiences on a seven year journey with three skateboarders: Ava Godfrey, Charlotte Heath, and Hayley Wilson. They each embrace a different style of skateboarding, with street and park being the two styles that are featured at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics. It's that 2020 Olympics that the girls have their sights set on, with Eliza following their journey from the skateparks of Melbourne to the sponsored events in London and LA, to boarding schools dedicated to bringing up the next generation of skaters.There's an inherent drama to skateboarding - you never know if the skater is going to fall, what they're going to pull off, and how they're going to take a risky jump - and that's paired well with the inherent drama of being a teenager turning into an adult. Or, in the case of Charlotte, a kid turning into a teenager. Each of the girls has their own life journey to follow, and Eliza's dedicated observational lens follows them in a caring

Jesse Vogelaar is a writer and director whose works spans across Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, flitting between the stage where he masters the art of improvisation, to advertisements, where he transforms the products of Samsung or Specsavers into savvy slices of commercial entertainment, to his growing body of short films, which includes You Lose, a short that Junkee called Australia’s Greatest Work Of Art to Room for One More, a tale of a bloke trapped under his collapsed house, calling his mate, asking him to make a short film for him, to Accoladia, an absurd comedy about being the best of everything in the world.Jesse's work stands as a way of exploring the complexities of society through an absurd lens. It's a style of creativity which Jesse dubs 'imaginative logic', a term that makes complete sense when you let his work wash over you and change your world view.In the following interview, recorded ahead of Accoladia's appearance at Flickerfest, Jesse talks about his creative process, the way critics

Listeners should note that the following interview contains discussions about trauma as it relates to #MeToo.The work of director Ruth Caudeli regularly appears at the Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival, with her previous films Eva and Candela and Leading Ladies both screening at the festival. Her latest film, Same, Again, makes its world premiere at the festival on 25 February 2025.This improvised drama follows a Colombian theatre troupe who join together to bring the play La Casa de Bernada Alba (The House of Bernada Alba) by Federico Garcia Lorca to life on stage. This play follows the impact of men upon women, which then becomes a textual point within Same, Again, as one of the guiding forces behind this staged appearance is a man.Same, Again deals with impactful themes of trauma, showing the power of coercion and control that takes place from the foundational aspects of putting on a play - as we see in some intense and controlling audition sequences which forces actors to put themselves into vulnerabl

I'm calling it right now. Lesbian Space Princess is the film of the year. I saw it in a sold out auditorium at the beautiful art deco Piccadilly cinema in Adelaide with an Adelaide Film Festival audience that lapped up every laugh, every tear, and every splash of neon bright queer celebration on screen. Lesbian Space Princess is the animated feature debut of filmmakers Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs, a collaborative force to be reckoned with, set to change the Australian film industry one bubblegum flavoured cel at a time. The film follows Saira (voiced brilliantly by the superb Shabana Azeez), the titular lesbian space princess who finds herself having to leave her sheltered planet in the wide galaxy to save her punk rock ex-girlfriend Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel) after she is kidnapped by the Straight White Maliens (voiced by the Aunty Donna crew). Saira pilots a ship (voiced with joyous deadpan delivery by Richard Roxburgh, completing his one-two punch of career best performances alongside hi

Cinematographer James Hoare is a recent graduate from Curtin University, where he worked alongside director Christopher Paik-Swan and writer Max Joyce to bring to life their final year short film Don't Talk About the Monster on the Roof, a micro-budget horror short flick inspired by the look of Ozploitation films. It's an impressively taut thriller that is drenched in sweaty tension as a group of mates head off on a road trip up to the Pinnacles, only to find that while on the trip, they each start disappearing one by one after something on the roof of the car rips them away.James' work as the cinematographer saw him utilising LED virtual production technology, alongside drone shots and on location cinematography. He comfortably blends the VFX backgrounds with on location shots, culminating in an effective and creatively engaging short that executes high concept ideas on a student budget.James was also able to present the film at the 2024 CamerImage Festival in Poland as part of their Talent Demo program. At

The joyous and jubilant documentary Sally! - the exclamation mark is deliberate - is a delightful and educational journey through the life and history of Sally Miller Gearhart: a professor of Speech, Theatre, and Women Studies; a fantasy writer; and most known as a lesbian feminist activist who helped transform the world for women and queer people alike. If, like me, you haven't truly heard the name Sally Gearhart before, then you might know of her activist work alongside Harvey Milk, notably from a pointed interview where Sally joined Harvey to debate John Briggs about his noxious and harmful bill dubbed Proposition 6, or the 'Briggs Initiative', which, if passed, would have seen homosexuals from academic positions in public schools. This debate with Briggs is one of the pivotal points in Sally's life, which also included her appearance in notable documentaries like WORD IS OUT: Stories of Some of Our Lives in 1977 and in Barbara Hammer's short film Superdyke.What delights the most about Sally!, the doc

We Forgot to Break Up tells the story of fictional Canadian band The New Normals; an indie rock group that transcends labels and definition, and changes the scene of indie rock music. The New Normals is led by Evan (excellently portrayed by Lane Webber), a trans man singer-songwriter who has the big stage in mind all the while trying to navigate his relationship with his girlfriend Isis (June Laporte). Evan finds his relationships tested as the arrival of the new guitarist Lugh (Daniel Gravelle) catches his attention, and possible affection.We Forgot to Break Up is adapted from Kayt Burgess' Heidegger Stairwell and feels pulled directly from an era where each new indie rock song that you heard spoke to your deepest emotions in a way that you'd never expected. The New Normals echoes the great bands of the era, with the strains of Broken Social Scene's guitars being felt throughout the soundtrack. There's a wealth of great original songs too written by Torquil Campbell from the band Stars. In one of the films m

Gianluca Matarrese's gentle documentary Gen_ opens with overwhelming images of planets and stars. Or are they cells and aspects of human biology? As we lean in to the screen, curious about what we're seeing, the title, Gen, that's gen with an underscore, flits on screen, with a rotation appendage of possible word creations: genesis, genitals, genetics, generation, genealogy, gender, genes.Overlaying this is a chaos of noise and radio chatter from around the globe. European figures discuss trans rights, while American voices talk about reproductive rights. The message is clear: women's bodies are being controlled globally.Gianluca asks us to consider the weight of these words and these voices momentarily before he introduces us to Dr Bini, a kind, considerate, and ageing doctor near retirement. Dr Bini works in Milan's Niguarda public hospital tending to patients who are undergoing reproductive technology procedures or gender confirmation surgery.Over the next 100 or so minutes, Gianluca observes quietly and l

If there's a minor blessing that has emerged from the pandemic, it's in the way that film festivals have shifted and persisted with online options. As one of the leading film festivals in the world, the Sundance Film Festival continues to bring selections of their festival to global audiences via their online and in person screening events. The 2025 festival is underway, with online screenings taking place from January 30 - February 3.I mention this as one of the values of being able to attend the festival remotely is that I can stay safe as a disabled, immunocompromised person. It also then means I can watch films like Mindie Lind and Megan Griffiths superb animated short View from the Floor. This five minute documentary tells Mindie's story as a musician, a writer, a director, and as someone who lives with disability.Mindie doesn't have any legs, and while she gets around in a wheelchair, it's that view from the floor that she's forced to present on television when she becomes a guest on the Maury Povich sh

Jason Raftopoulous is a filmmaker who I owe my continued writing career to. In 2018, Jason released West of Sunshine, a drama about an average bloke, Jim, played by the excellent Damian Hill, scrounging through the back streets of Melbourne for money to pay back a loan shark. With a synopsis like that, West of Sunshine suggests that it'll another one of those crime-drama films with a bit of retribution and violence along the way. Instead, under the guidance and careful hand of Jason, there's a distinct sense of family, place, time, and a realisation that within Jim exists the desperation of the everyday Aussie: someone just trying to get by and falling foul of the lure of gambling.Years later, Jason is back with his second feature film, Voices in Deep. Here is another film that opens itself up to critical examination as Jason embarks on another exploration of the weight of humanity, of the turmoil of trauma, and the struggle for existence. Jason takes us to Greece, the land where millions of refugees wash up

Let's take a moment to look ahead in 2025 to a few of the Australian films that will get people talking. Two particular films had their world premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2024, where their lead actor and performer, Albert Mwangi, was in attendance.Kate Blackmore's Make it Look Real is a hybrid-documentary experience that explores the role of intimacy coordination on film sets. Albert features in the documentary as himself, and in the film-within-a-film as a character in Kieran Darcy-Smith's romantic thriller Tightrope. Make it Look Real is a captivating and conversation-starting film about how intimacy has been presented on screen and how it can safely be depicted for all actors involved.Albert's other film that premiered the Adelaide Film Festival was Kelly Schilling's With or Without You, where he plays Dalu, a migrant worker swept into the lives of Melina Vidler's Chloe and her alcoholic mother, Sharon, played with effortless abandon by Marta Dusseldorp.With both of these films, Albert holds t

Andrew F Peirce and Nadine Whitney head to prison with Colman Domingo and Clarence Macklin for the powerful drama Sing Sing, before taking a sojourn to the beach for Robert Connolly's adaptation of Alison Lester's children's book Magic Beach. The waters of Australia linger in Nadine's mind as she embarks on a trip through the history of Naples with Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope.Film recommendations this week include What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Superman.Listen to Andrew's interview with Robert Connolly and Alison Lester here.Find Andrew's 21 Films from 21 Friends list on Letterboxd here.Clips featured in this episode include:Sing Sing First Look | Magic Beach trailer | Parthenope trailerTheme music is the Lantana score by Paul Kelly.Follow the Curb on Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook. Follow Nadine Whitney on Bluesky here, and visit the Rotten Tomatoes profiles of Andrew here and Nadine here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew F Peirce and Nadine Whitney delve into the darkness of Robert Eggers latest horror Nosferatu, before diving onto the dance floor with Michael Gracey's Better Man. Time gets out of order with John Crowley's latest weepy, We Live in Time, followed by a soapbox chat about the AACTA award nominated adaptation of Paul Kelly's iconic song, How to Make Gravy.Listen to Andrew's interview with John Crowley here.Film recommendations this week include the superb documentary I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story (watch on DocPlay now) and The Mad Women's Ball (on Amazon Prime).Clips featured in this episode include:Nosferatu Once Upon a Time theme | Emma Corrin supporting Babyratu | Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield making Slime Pies | How to Make Gravy trailer | I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story trailer | The Mad Women's Ball trailer | Grimelda (fka the Faps) We Make Our Own GravyFollow the Curb on Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook and visit the Rotten Tomatoes profiles of Andrew here and Nadine