News — Australian Film

Film Review: The Correspondent (2024) - Australia Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 7/10 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com Kriv Stenders’ "The Correspondent" arrives not with a bang, but with the grim, suffocating weight of reality. It chronicles the 400-day Egyptian imprisonment of journalist Peter Greste, a story both profoundly unsettling and depressingly familiar in its outline – the foreign correspondent caught in a geopolitical vise, accused of crimes he manifestly did not commit. While the narrative...

Film Review: Skeleton Girls. A Kidnapped Society (2025) - Australia Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 7/10 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com A Neon Nightmare Where the Underground Still Breathes Fire - Australian Director Richard Eames doesn’t so much direct “Skeleton Girls. A Kidnapped Society” as unleash it. Described aptly as a "digital hardcore Wizard of Oz fable," this jagged, pulsating debut feature feels less like a movie and more like a transmission hacked straight from the...

Film Review: Snatchers (2025) - Australia Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 6.5/10 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com A Gritty Aussie Chamber Piece Where Desperation Meets the Undead - There’s a particular brand of sweaty, claustrophobic dread that Australian cinema often brews so well, a sense of moral decay festering under the harsh sun or, in the case of Aussie directing duo Craig Alexander and Shelly Higgs' “Snatchers”, within the fluorescent-lit sterility of a forgotten basement. Transplanting...

Film Review: Head South (2025) - New Zealand Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 7.5/10 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com New Zealand director Jonathan Ogilvie’s “Head South” arrives not with a polished sheen, but with the scuffed boots and slightly frayed energy of the very scene it lovingly documents: the nascent, DIY post-punk explosion in Christchurch, New Zealand, circa 1979. It’s a film blessed with a specificity of time and place that feels lived-in, not researched. Ogilvie,...

Film Review: The Surfer (2025) - Australia / Ireland Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 6/10 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com Lorcan Finnegan’s “The Surfer” arrives drenched in Australian sun and drenched, too, in a very particular kind of madness. It’s the madness born of humiliation, of territorial pissings, and of Nicolas Cage pushed to the very brink. The film is a visually arresting, often uncomfortable plunge into the roiling psyche of a man unraveling on his...