The New Movies You Can Watch at Australian Cinemas From April 28

Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week.

DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA

The movies have come to Downton Abbey and Violet Crawley, the acid-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham so delightfully played by Maggie Smith (The Lady in the Van) since 2010, is none too fussed about it. "Hard same," all but the most devoted fans of the upstairs-downstairs TV drama may find themselves thinking as she expresses that sentiment — at least where Downton Abbey: A New Era, an exercise in extending the series/raking in more box-office cash, is concerned. Violet, as only she can, declares she'd "rather eat pebbles" than watch a film crew at work within the extravagant walls of her family's home. The rest of us mightn't be quite so venomous, but that's not the same as being entertained. The storyline involving said film crew is actually one of the most engaging parts of A New Era; however, the fact that much of it is clearly ripped off from cinematic classic Singin' in the Rain speaks volumes, and gratingly.

When the first Downton Abbey flick brought its Yorkshire mansion-set shenanigans to cinemas back in 2019, it felt unnecessary, too, but also offered what appeared to be a last hurrah and a final chance to spend time with beloved characters. Now, the repeat effort feels like keeping calm and soldiering on because there's more pounds to be made. Don't believe the title: while A New Era proclaims that change is afoot, and some of its narrative dramas nod to the evolving world when the 1920s were coming to a close, the movie itself is happy doing what Downton Abbey always has — and in a weaker version. There's zero reason other than financial gain for this film to unspool its tale in theatres rather than as three TV episodes, which is what it may as well have tacked together. Well, perhaps there's one: having Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery, Anatomy of a Scandal) proclaim that "we have to be able to enter the 1930s with our heads held high" and set the expectation that more features will probably follow.

A New Era begins with a wedding, picking up where its predecessor left off as former chauffeur Tom Branson (Allen Leech, Bohemian Rhapsody) marries Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton, Mank) with everyone expected — the well-to-do Crawleys and their relatives, plus their maids, butlers, cooks, footmen and other servants — in attendance. But the film really starts with two revelations that disrupt the Downton status quo. Firstly, Violet receives word that she's inherited a villa in the south of France from an ex-paramour, who has recently passed away. His surviving wife (Nathalie Baye, Call My Agent!) is displeased with the arrangement, threatening lawsuits, but his son (Jonathan Zaccaï, The White Crow) invites the Crawleys to visit to hash out the details. Secondly, a movie production wants to use Downton for a shoot, which the pragmatic Mary talks the family into because — paralleling the powers-that-be behind A New Era itself — the aristocratic brood would like the money.

With Violet's health waning, she stays home while son Robert (Hugh Bonneville, Paddington 2) and his wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern, The Commuter) journey to the Riviera — as part of a cohort that also includes retired butler Mr Carson (Jim Carter, Swimming with Men), who's determined to teach his French counterparts British standards. And, as the Dowager Countess remains in Yorkshire exclaiming she'd "rather earn a living down a mine" than make movies, potential family secrets are bubbling up abroad. That subplot takes a cue or two from Mamma Mia!; Downton Abbey creator and writer Julian Fellowes must've watched several musicals while scripting. Violet also notes that she "thought the best thing about films is that I couldn't hear them", because the production helmed by Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy, Late Night), and led by stars Guy Dexter (Dominic West, The Pursuit of Love) and Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock, Transformers: The Last Knight), has hit a period-appropriate snag: talkies are the new hot thing, but their flick is silent.

Read our full review.

AFTER YANG

What flickers in a robot's circuitry in its idle moments has fascinated the world for decades, famously so in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 — and in After Yang, one machine appears to long for everything humans do. The titular Yang (Justin H Min, The Umbrella Academy) was bought to give Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith, Queen & Slim) and Jake's (Colin Farrell, The Batman) adopted Chinese daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, iCarly) a technosapien brother, babysitter, companion and purveyor of "fun facts" about her heritage. He dotes amid his duties, perennially calm and loving, and clearly an essential part of the family. What concerns his wiring beyond his assigned tasks doesn't interest anyone, though, until he stops operating. Mika is distressed, and Kyra and Jake merely inconvenienced initially, but the latter pledges to figure out how to fix Yang — which is where his desires factor in.

Yang is unresponsive and unable to play his usual part as the household's robotic fourth member. If Jake can't get him up and running quickly, he'll also experience the "cultural techno" version of dying, his humanoid skin even decomposing. That puts a deadline on a solution, which isn't straightforward, particularly given that Yang was bought from a now-shuttered reseller secondhand, rather than from the manufacturer anew, is one roadblock. Tinkering with the android's black box is also illegal, although Jake is convinced to anyway by a repairman (Ritchie Coster, The Flight Attendant). He acquiesces not only because it's what Mika desperately wants, but because he's told that Yang might possess spyware — aka recordings of the family — that'd otherwise become corporate property.

Before all that, there's a stunning dance — a synchronised contest where families around the globe bust out smooth moves in front of their televisions, competing to emerge victorious. The dazzling scene comes during After Yang's opening credits and is a marvel to watch, with writer/director/editor Kogonada (TV series Pachinko) conveying a wealth of meaning visually, thematically, philosophically and emotionally in minutes. To look at, the sequence brings to mind Ex Machina's, aka the Oscar Isaac-led scene that launched a thousand gifs. In what it says about After Yang's vision of an unspecified but not-too-distant future, it's reminiscent of Black Mirror, with engrained surveillance technology eerily tracking participants' every move. It's here, too, amid the joy of the family progressing further than they ever have before, that the fact that Yang is malfunctioning becomes apparent, turning a techno dream in more ways than one into a potential source of heartbreak.

When a feature so easily recalls other films and television shows, and so emphatically, it isn't typically a positive sign. That isn't the case with After Yang. Adapting Alexander Weinstein's short story Saying Goodbye to Yang, Kogonada crafts a movie that resembles a dream for the overwhelming bulk of its running time — it's softly shot like one, and tightly to focus on interiors rather than backgrounds — and that makes it feel like a happily slumbering brain filtering through and reinterpreting its wide array of influences. Another picture that leaves an imprint: Kogonada's own Columbus, his 2017 wonder that also featured Haley Lu Richardson (The Edge of Seventeen), who pops up here as a friend of Yang's that Jake, Kyra and Mika know nothing about. It isn't the shared casting that lingers, but the look and mood and texture, plus the idea that what we see, what we choose to revel in aesthetically and what makes us tick mentally are intertwined; yes, even for androids.

Read our full review.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY

To watch films written and directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is to watch people playing a part — in multiple ways. That's one of the key truths to features not only by the Japanese filmmaker, but by anyone helming a movie that relies upon actors. It's so obvious that it doesn't usually need mentioning, in fact. Nonetheless, the notion is as essential to Hamaguchi's pictures as cameras to capture the drama. He bakes the idea into his films via as many methods as he can, pondering what it means to step into all the posts that life demands: friend, lover, spouse, ex, sibling, child, employee, student, classmate and the like. Hamaguchi loves contemplating the overt act of performance, too — his Best International Feature Oscar-winning Drive My Car, which also nabbed its helmer a Best Director nomination at this year's Academy Awards, hones in on a play and the rehearsals for it in dilligent detail — but the auteur who's also behind Happy Hour and Asako I and II has long been aware that the art of portrayal isn't just limited to thespians.

Shakespeare said it centuries back, of course. To be precise, he had As You Like It's Jaques utter it: "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". Hamaguchi's Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, his second film to reach cinemas in mere months, definitely isn't a French-set comedy; however, it lives and breathes the Bard's famous words anyway. Here, three tales about romance, desire and fate get a spin. This trio of stories all muse on chance, choice, identity, regret and inescapable echoes as well, and focus on complex women reacting to the vagaries of life and everyday relationships. They're about sliding into roles in daily existence, and making choices regarding how to behave, which way to present yourself and who you decide to be depending upon the company you're in. While Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy mightn't ultimately mimic Drive My Car's Oscars success, it's equally masterful.

In the first part, model Meiko (Kotone Furukawa, 21st Century Girl) discovers that her best friend Tsugumi (Hyunri, Wife of a Spy) has just started seeing her ex-boyfriend Kazuaki (Ayumu Nakajima, Saturday Fiction), and grapples with her complicated feelings while pondering what could eventuate. Next, college student Nao (Katsuki Mori, Sea Opening) is enlisted to seduce Professor Sagawa (Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Tezuka's Barbara) as part of a revenge plan by her lover Sasaki (Shouma Kai, Signal 100). Finally, in a world where the internet has been eradicated due to a virus, Natsuko (Fusako Urabe, Voices in the Wind) and Nana (Aoba Kawai, Marriage with a Large Age Gap) cross paths — thinking that they went to school together decades ago.

Hamaguchi's resume is littered with other obsessions beyond the fictions people spin to get through their days — to themselves and to each other, and willingly and unthinkingly alike — many of which also pop up in Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. Coincidence has a role in each of the movie's trio of intelligently and painstakingly plotted narratives, and destiny and fortune as well (as the name makes plain). The tangled web that romance weaves, and the sticky strands that represent alluring exes, also leave a firm imprint. So does seduction, and not always in its usual and most apparent form. All three of the picture's sections could stand alone, but each could've been fleshed out to feature length as well; as they exist, they leave viewers wanting more time with their lead characters. Commonalities ebb and flow between them, though, because this is a smart, astute and savvily layered triptych that's brought to the screen with everything that makes Hamaguchi's work so empathetic, warmly intimate and also entrancing.

Read our full review.

HELMUT NEWTON: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

One of the great treats in Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful stems from perhaps the film's simplest move: letting viewers peer at the often-provocative photographer's works in such a large format. Being able to do just that is the reason why the Exhibition On Screen series of movies exists, surveying showcases dedicated to artists such as Vincent van Gogh, David Hockney and Frida Kahlo over the years — and this documentary isn't part of that, but it understands the same idea. There's nothing like staring at an artist's work to understand what makes them tick. Writer/director Gero von Boehm (Henry Miller: Prophet of Desire) fills The Bad and the Beautiful with plenty more, from archival footage to recent interviews, but it'd all ring empty without seeing the imagery captured by Newton's lens firsthand. Every word that's said about the German photographer, or by him, is deepened by roving your eyes across the frequently contentious snaps that he sent Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Playboy and other magazines' ways.

Those photos aren't run-of-the-mill fashion pics. Largely, the highly stylised images are of naked women — naked famous women, if not then then now, such as Isabella Rossellini, Charlotte Rampling, Grace Jones and Claudia Schiffer — and they're as fetishistic as the artform gets. They're the kinds of snaps that saw Susan Sontag call Newton out for being a misogynist to his face, as seen in a French TV clip featured in the film. The Bad and the Beautiful is an affectionate doco, but it also dives headfirst into the trains of thought that his work has sparked for decades. Anna Wintour explains that when someone books Newton, "you're not going to get a pretty girl on a beach". Women who posed for him, including the aforementioned stars, plus Marianne Faithfull, Arja Toyryla, Nadja Auermann and Hanna Schygulla, all talk through their differing experiences as well — and the portrait painted is varied.

As a result, The Bad and the Beautiful is both a biography and a conversation. It covers the birth-to-death details, such as Newton's upbringing in Berlin, fleeing the Nazis in the late 1930s, and his time in Australia, where he met his wife June. It chronicles his stint in Singapore before heading Down Under, and his jaunts in London and Paris afterwards — and the fact that Monte Carlo and Los Angeles were both considered his homes when he passed away in 2004. The film is an easy primer on his life, complete with the requisite Wikipedia-style information, but it's an engrossing watch because of how eagerly it engages with the plethora of views that his images have and continue to inspire. (Admittedly, even a documentary that's clearly an authorised exploration of its subject couldn't justify really existing if it had left all traces of anything controversial out.)

Don't go expecting answers, though. That isn't The Bad and the Beautiful's remit, unsurprisingly. That isn't necessarily a criticism; von Boehm's still-fascinating film presents the debate that's raged around Newton's works — are they sexist, art, both or neither? — and unpacks perspectives on either side, although the fact that this is a fond examination of his life, career, impact and legacy is never in doubt. A doco can be candid, probing, hagiographic and happy to let its viewers make their own calls, however, as this one clearly is. It can offer insider tidbits, conflicting views, comparisons and simply the change to look on in-depth as well, as is similarly the case here. And, it can let its images keep fuelling and furthering questions, which everything that Newton shot likely always will.

If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on January 1, January 6, January 13, January 20 and January 27; February 3, February 10, February 17 and February 24; and March 3, March 10, March 17, March 24 and March 31; and April 7, April 14 and April 21.

You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Ghostbusters: Afterlife, House of Gucci, The King's Man, Red Rocket, Scream, The 355, Gold, King Richard, Limbo, Spencer, Nightmare Alley, Belle, Parallel Mothers, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Belfast, Here Out West, Jackass Forever, Benedetta, Drive My Car, Death on the Nile, C'mon C'mon, Flee, Uncharted, Quo Vadis, Aida?, Cyrano, Hive, Studio 666, The Batman, Blind Ambition, Bergman Island, Wash My Soul in the River's Flow, The Souvenir: Part II, Dog, Anonymous Club, X, River, Nowhere Special, RRR, Morbius, The Duke and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Fantastic Beasts and the Secrets of Dumbledore, Ambulance, Memoria, The Lost City, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Happening, The Good Boss, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, The Northman and Ithaka.