Movieland

WHAT JOSIAH SAW is a fully-committed Southern Gothic thriller dropping globally on Shudder on August 4. Robert Alan Dilts wrote it and he joins CJ to talk about it.

Benjamin Zeccola is CEO of Palace Cinemas, who run an ongoing slate of international film festivals across Australia throughout the year, including the French, Italian, Spanish, German, Scandinavian, British, Irish and Japanese Film Festivals. Benjamin talks about the humble beginnings and current strengths of his festival slate, the audience demand for such content, the challenges and rewards of sourcing and programming so much global product, and why Australia just may be the best country in the world for seeing European cinema on the big screen. This discussion will also form the basis for a future article in Metro Magazine and is posted with Metro's permission.

CJ and Octavia share their love for Juho Kuosmanen's COMPARTMENT NO. 6, now in cinemas in Australia; then they share what's working for them - and not - in episode 5 of HBO's IRMA VEP.

The HBO / Foxtel / Binge 8 episode film industry satire IRMA VEP is a funhouse of mirrors. It is a remake, by Olivier Assayas, of his own 1996 film, which was in itself a meta-take on the famous 1915 French silent film serial Les Vampires. CJ and Octavia gleefully go down the rabbit hole after viewing the first four episodes of the new show and the 1996 original film.

CJ and Octavia get into Baz Luhrmann's ELVIS, starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks and half the actors in Australia.

The Many Saints of Newark was meant to be HUGE. It wasn't. Critically, commercially and culturally, it landed with an "eh." Octavia Barron Martin wasn't satisfied. She was a huge Sopranos fan and this was not the masterpiece she was hoping for. Not at all. She and CJ try to identify why the film was so disappointing to so many, before announcing a new miniseries: they'll be watching, and podcasting about, the new HBO series Irma Vep.

Craig Boreham's second feature film, LONESOME, is a raunchy, tender, heartfelt and sexually adventurous follow-up to his debut TEENAGE KICKS, and follows that film into the Sydney Film Festival. Craig joined CJ on the eve of his State Theatre premiere and the beginning of his own, and the film's, international Festival adventure.

Phil Tippett's animated feature MAD GOD has been 30 years in the making. It's a magnum opus from the Oscar-winning stop-motion pioneer and CGI wizard, a hellish vision informed by the psychosis of modern America, Jung, Paul Verhoeven and Bob Dylan's electric era. Tippett joined CJ from Berkeley, California.

The Ritz Cinema in Sydney is an art deco jewel. Owner Eddie Tamir is about to make it even shinier.

CJ and Jim Flanagan do a post-mortem on the 2021 Academy Awards.