Reviews

Reviews

Superman brings back the hope we’ve been missing

Review: Superman It feels strange to call a Superman film timely, but James Gunn’s Superman (2025) lands at exactly the right moment. At a time when the world feels divided, anxious, and sometimes defeated, David Corenswet’s Clark Kent feels like the balm we didn’t know we needed. This is a Superman who doesn’t just save the day; […]

Adrian Drayton · 11 July 2025

Reviews

The Reluctant Return of Everyone’s Favorite AI Meme Generator

Review: M3GAN 2.0 Nobody really expected a little comedy horror film called M3GAN would be the breakout success that it was, but aside from all the viral dance memes and money it made, it apparently was ripe for a sequel. M3GAN 2.0 is a movie that promises high-octane chaos and high-kicks from a pint-sized sociopath […]

Adrian Drayton · 9 July 2025

Reviews

Playing God Carries a Cost

Review: Jurassic World Rebirth Set five years after the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, Jurassic World Rebirth introduces a new chapter in the franchise, focusing on the intersection of climate change, corporate ambition, and the ethical dilemmas of genetic manipulation. Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp, the film stars Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett, a […]

Adrian Drayton · 9 July 2025

Reviews

Vivid, Artful, Imperfect, and Worth Your Time

Review: The Chosen Season 5 The Chosen is back, and this time, it walks straight into the heartbreak and weight of Holy Week. Season 5 doesn’t reinvent the story of Jesus’ final days. But it doesn’t need to. Instead, it slows down and leans in. It gives space to grief, confusion, fear, and hope. You […]

Adrian Drayton · 7 July 2025

Reviews

The Value of Music

Review: Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, Liz Pelly, Hodder & Stoughton All the world’s music for low cost seems great for listeners, but that availability comes at a cost to artists, and listeners are being manipulated to increase the already-considerable wealth of Spotify’s founders. Liz Pelly, who […]

Nick Mattiske · 2 July 2025

Reviews

The Sacred in the Chaos

Review: The Pitt The Pitt stands out not only for its structure and storytelling but for its clear empathy toward the emotional and physical demands placed on health care workers. Set in a high-pressure emergency department, each episode captures a single hour of one long, unrelenting day. The series began at 7:00 a.m., and by episode […]

Adrian Drayton · 1 July 2025

Reviews

A Game About Living All Your Best Lives At Once

Review: Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time – the sequel to the 2015 3DS smash hit Fantasy Life – is a game that does not force you to make choices that will define your playthrough. At the beginning of the game, you’re asked to pick […]

James O'Connor · 1 July 2025

Reviews

Unpretentious Selflessness and Unconditional Love

Review: Australian Gospel: A Family Saga, Lech Blaine, Black Inc Australian Gospel, which recently won The Age Book of the Year competition, is the story of Lech Blaine’s foster siblings, his parents’ love for a family of foster children, and his siblings’ biological parents, Michael and Mary Shelley, who spent decades trying to reunite with […]

Nick Mattiske · 19 June 2025

Reviews

Justice, Revenge, and the Fragility of Faith in The Last Of Us Season 2

Warning: If you have not watched Season 2 of The Last Of Us this review contains spoilers. The Last of Us Season 2 extends the narrative weight of the first season but shifts its focus toward an intense moral examination of justice versus revenge. The season does not ask which is right, but what each costs—and […]

Adrian Drayton · 5 June 2025

Reviews

Re-evaluating Leonardo’s Legacy

Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life, Stephen J. Campbell, Princeton University Press It’s a rather strange way to begin a biography, and it seems like an undersell, to emphasise how much we don’t know about the subject in question, but Stephen Campbell’s argument in this book is that we don’t know Leonardo da Vinci well, […]

Nick Mattiske · 3 June 2025

Reviews

This Just Might be the Most Soulful Americana Album of the Year

Volume 4, Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert Kieran Kane is one of those Americana folk singers who falls into the mildly contradictory category ‘new traditionalists’, like Gillian Welch. Originally from New York, Kane is a long-term player in the alt-country scene, sounding a little like Buddy Miller, Willie Watson or Eric Bibb. Over the years, […]

Nick Mattiske · 3 June 2025

Reviews

A Sprawling, Strange, Never-Ending Epic

Review: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy The Hundred Line is a result of the collaboration between two Japanese game directors with extremely distinctive styles and huge cult followings. Kazutaka Kodaka, best known for creating the Danganronpa series (a popular visual novel series where you solve murders and dig into a deep, strange lore) and […]

James O'Connor · 3 June 2025

Reviews

The Penguin Lessons

Note: This analysis contains spoilers for The Penguin Lessons. The Penguin Lessons is a beautiful, surprising gem of a movie, based on the memoir of British teacher Tom Michell. Michell taught English at an exclusive private boy’s school in Argentina in the 1970’s when it was on the brink of revolution. Sometime in the past, […]

Katherine Grocott · 21 May 2025

Reviews

Aliens, Anxiety, and Us

After the Flying Saucers Came: Greg Eghigian, Oxford University Press Renewed interest in the UFO phenomenon lately is largely the result of the release of strange US defence videos and prominent whistleblowers coming out of the woodwork to testify to US government inquiries. But Greg Eghigian suggests that the history of UFO beliefs is less […]

Nick Mattiske · 13 May 2025

Reviews

Not All Heroes Wear Halos

Review: Thunderbolts* Thunderbolts* brings together a team of misfits, many of them with dark pasts. Florence Pugh leads the charge as Yelena Belova, the sarcastic, bruised, and battle-hardened Black Widow successor. She’s not a hero in the traditional sense—she’s killed, lied, and done things she’s not proud of. But in this story, that’s the point. […]

Adrian Drayton · 13 May 2025

Reviews

Companion – On Misogyny, Control, and the Loss of the Imago Dei

Spolier Alert: If you haven’t yet seen Companion and intend to, be aware this review reveals plot twists in the film. In Companion, Drew Hancock’s chilling directorial debut crafts a narrative that resonates far beyond the genre trappings of sci-fi horror. What begins as a tech-infused psychological thriller unfolds into a haunting meditation on the […]

Adrian Drayton · 6 May 2025