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Stephen A. Russell
Tomatometer-approved critic
Stephen A Russell is a freelance film critic hailing from Glasgow, Scotland, and based in Melbourne, Australia. You can read his reviews at The New Daily, and listen in on Joy 94.9FM show Sunday Arts Magazine.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Inside (2024) |
Inside is a film dealing in uncomfortable truths about violence that makes room enough for hope without that feeling like a copout. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Aug 12, 2024
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Fish Memories (2023) |
Chen Hung-I’s erotically charged Fish Memories is a queer threesome film with a frisson of sweaty ‘90s thrillers ... The gulf in privilege between these players is prodded and poked ... pushing boundaries and swapping clothes. - Orion's Shoulder (Substack)
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| Posted Jul 30, 2024
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Snow In Midsummer (2023) |
Architecture itself is a menacing force towering over those who cannot escape as Hsu Chih-Chun’s deliberately arms-length framing, carrying symbolic weight, evokes the impossible distance between lost loved ones. - Orion's Shoulder (Substack)
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| Posted Jul 27, 2024
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Love Is a Gun (2023) |
A promising debut with echoes of Lee Chang-dong’s Burning ... a pseudo-noir vibe. - Orion's Shoulder (Substack)
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| Posted Jul 27, 2024
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MaXXXine (2024) |
This really is Goth’s show, with West three for three on creating a world that feels like the real deal, winding her up and letting her go. If the finale’s a little saggier paced then rushes a final act reveal that doesn’t quite land, it hardly matters. - Orion's Shoulder (Substack)
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| Posted Jul 13, 2024
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A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) |
A blown-to-bits bus sequence, with shadows of ashen-faced 9/11 footage, kicks off her Odyssean quest not to get off the island, but instead to have one last slice of pizza ... This quiet determination ... lends the film a beautiful melancholy. - Orion's Shoulder (Substack)
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| Posted Jul 10, 2024
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I Am: Celine Dion (2024) |
Baring her soul for just north of 100 minutes in Taylor’s melancholic but indomitably spirited movie, Dion makes it clear she sees her singing as a calling and has done since being inspired by mighty soprano Maria Callas. - Flicks (AU, NZ, UK)
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| Posted Jun 26, 2024
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In the Room Where He Waits (2024) |
Very few films with far bigger budgets eke this much cinematic magic from such a simple set-up. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 26, 2024
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In Vitro (2024) |
A promising new entry into the ever-increasing canon of films ill at ease with how humanity is abusing technology designed to course-correct our self-inflicted problems - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 13, 2024
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The Moogai (2024) |
Rather than externalising the threat to First Nations kids posed by white people since invasion, the Moogai is ... a distillation of that same poisonous evil ... A colonising force of destruction so hideous it has torn a hole in the natural order. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line (2024) |
It’s really in this sense of enduring hope for truth-telling and treaty – far too long ago promised by Prime Minister Bob Hawke – that the real legacy of the Oils burns. It’s what lights up Clarke’s film. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jun 07, 2024
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) |
Furiosa’s a tension-revving action flick extraordinaire that runs crashing bores like the umpteenth Mission Impossible movie and the increasingly silly Fast & Furious franchise right off the road. - ScreenHub
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| Posted May 21, 2024
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The Idea of You (2024) |
Hollywood’s littered with movies in which considerably older men wind up with a much younger woman, so it’s still a thrill when a rom-com flips that set-up on its head. - Flicks (AU, NZ, UK)
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| Posted May 04, 2024
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Revealed: How to Poison a Planet (2024) |
How to Poison a Planet goes beyond the American headlines. It reveals the horror of how these chemicals have destroyed the Cultural fabric of remote First Nations community Wreck Bay Village. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Apr 30, 2024
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Girls State (2024) |
The would-be Hilary Clintons and Kamala Harrises immediately clock that they’re held to different standards than the boys. - AEU News
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| Posted Apr 28, 2024
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Robot Dreams (2023) |
A magnificent musing on friendship, love, loss, loneliness and reconnection set in an animated '80s New York that's beautifully detailed... I would have loved it to have won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 20, 2024
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La Chimera (2023) |
Incredible.. toys with mythology in a similar way to Portrait of a Lady on Fire.. on how you might break free from the past. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 20, 2024
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Civil War (2024) |
If you have anxiety, the final act is going to be A LOT. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 20, 2024
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Goodbye Julia (2023) |
An incredible film... a heightened pressure cooker... a morality play with intimate personal drama. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 07, 2024
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Origin (2023) |
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is absolutely incredible as [Isabel] Wilkerson... an interesting and powerful film. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 07, 2024
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) |
Godzilla vs Kong: Dumb and Dumber... it's fair to say that the sociopolitical commentary angle is not so strong here... but there's a basic childlike nostalgia element. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 07, 2024
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Io Capitano (2023) |
A really joyous film... that increasingly becomes a confronting, realistic of the horrors of people trying to make the sea voyage... powerfully done with out-of-this-world cinematography. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 07, 2024
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In the Belly of a Tiger (2024) |
Mesmerising - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 04, 2024
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A Different Man (2024) |
A film that has a lot of fun playing with the questions in your head... it goes to some wild places. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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Seven Veils (2023) |
Amanda Seyfried puts in a career-best performance... if you love films that play with breaking the boundaries of form... theatre geeks will love it. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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Crossing (2024) |
Astounding - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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Love Lies Bleeding (2024) |
It really hits an '80s America B-movie vibe... if you want a real good time with a bi of horn, it's saucy and sexy. - Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY 94.9)
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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You'll Never Find Me (2023) |
At a brisk 90-ish minutes, all of the pieces are in place for a tightly focused chamber horror that knows exactly which buttons to push ... it’s all too unfortunate that the heinously misjudged Hollywood-style outro distracts from clearly promising work. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Mar 13, 2024
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Ricky Stanicky (2024) |
Efron and Cena bring a seemingly effortless charm to a pretty predictable plot that never goes wrong in ways you can’t see coming a mile off. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Mar 06, 2024
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Dahomey (2024) |
At just over an hour, Diop’s strange, captivating and rigorously intellectual film leaves a mighty impression well beyond its compact length. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 27, 2024
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The Outrun (2024) |
Lit up in a glow of stormy sea spray, Orkney is majestic. As is the mighty Ronan - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 22, 2024
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Cuckoo (2024) |
Sure to be a cult classic, it’s quite literally cuckoo – and often gloriously so. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 22, 2024
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Small Things Like These (2024) |
t’s a profound performance by Murphy – perhaps even more so in fewer words than Oppenheimer – as Bill’s anger burns with tragic urgency. - Time Out
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| Posted Feb 15, 2024
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The Color Purple (2023) |
It looks beautiful, the choreography is fantastic. If you're into musical theatre, this more successfully translates the material than the beige redo of Mean Girls. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 25, 2024
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Priscilla (2023) |
If it feels too thin in the end, then Spaeny is inarguably remarkable. As is Elordi, though Coppola’s far too in awe of her Elvis. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Jan 17, 2024
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Mean Girls (2024) |
I woke up this morning and can't remember a single line from any of the songs, which is a wee bit disappointing. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 11, 2024
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The Holdovers (2023) |
Soulful... I can't recommend this one highly enough - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 11, 2024
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Ferrari (2023) |
A tiresome melodrama... hammy dialogue... terrible affected accents... stilted and a bit shallow. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 04, 2024
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Foe (2023) |
Thorny moral dilemmas intrigue. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Jan 04, 2024
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Next Goal Wins (2023) |
While it is cute... it does do a lot of red card-worthy cheap digs about sleepy island culture that's a bit whiffy these days, and there's not enough focus on the team. - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 28, 2023
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Dream Scenario (2023) |
I love a delirious dollop of unhinged Cage, and this is it - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 28, 2023
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The Giants (2023) |
Equal-parts rousing and soothing; a beautiful reminder that we’re stronger together. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Late Night with the Devil (2023) |
Devilishly good fun. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2022) |
No William Friedkin knock-off, instead it leans into the grim reality of unfettered religious fundamentalism. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Maestro (2023) |
Carey Mulligan is fantastic in this, she glimmers - ABC News (Australia)
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| Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Time Addicts (2023) |
With a hint of Hugh Sullivan’s similarly wickedly fun misadventure The Infinite Man, Time Addicts revels in its paradoxical conundrums. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Dec 05, 2023
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The Big Dog (2023) |
Marking McCusker as one to watch, this hangdog tale goes for broke and its bark has bite too. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Nov 12, 2023
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The Killer (2023) |
Fassbender, marking a welcome return after a four-year time-out, of course, is key. A remarkable presence, he’s able to grip our attention, often single-handedly. - Flicks (AU, NZ, UK)
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| Posted Oct 27, 2023
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All of Us Strangers (2023) |
A haunting lullaby caught on a breeze carrying the broken glass poetry of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘The Power of Love’ and the Pet Shop Boys’ Elvis refrain, ‘Always On My Mind’. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Oct 27, 2023
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Saltburn (2023) |
While Saltburn may not be as bracingly original as Fennell’s debut, it is wicked fun. - ScreenHub
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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