The Screen Critic: A beautiful treat from Italy, a compelling Tom Hanks drama, two more bad Aussie films and a taut serial killer thriller

Looking for a first-class Italian treat? From the land of sun-dried tomatoes comes There’s Still Tomorrow, a beautiful, uplifting comedy-drama.

Set in post-war Italy and filmed in glorious black and white, it tells of Delia (director, co-writer Paola Cortellesi), a hard working housewife and mother who slowly builds the courage to contemplate escaping her constricted home life, dominated by an abusive husband.

It’s by far the best movie on the arthouse circuit right now, and very well-directed.

Though it’s flailing at the box office and has received a critical drubbing, Here turns out to be one of the year’s most entrancing and unusual films.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright – a Forrest Gump reunion of sorts – the film follows the modest lives of people who all lived in the same house over a period of about 120 years.

What makes the movie so visually compelling is how it is all told from one fixed camera angle in the front living room looking out onto the street.

We are transported to different time periods through windows that appear in different corners of the frame, occasionally going back hundreds, even millions of years but mostly during the life of the house.

The various storylines chiefly explore the trials of everyday suburban life, with particular emphasis on the compromises needed just to survive.

By any fair measure Here is a remarkable film, with superb de-ageing VFX work showing us what Hanks and Wright looked like in the 1990s. Catch it while you can.

The chaos, mishaps and downright panic behind the airing of the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975 is vividly captured in Saturday Night, a real-time comedy about television comedy.

While SNL is an institution in America, we know it mainly via YouTube and the stars it featured such as Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Billy Crystal, Andy Kaufman, George Carlin and The Muppets.

It’s a fun ride, with a terrific central performance by Gabriel LaBelle carrying the film as Lorne Michaels, the young producer who realises how his cutting-edge sketch show was set up to fail.

For comedy aficionados the current season of SNL – its 50th – is available on Binge.

Action fans will get their fill with Weekend in Taipei, a fast-paced romp about a furloughed DEA agent (Luke Evans) who heads to Taipei to attend to some unfinished business. The thing is, his former girlfriend is now married to the villain, a sticky situation that entails lots of running and chasing and fighting.

Only those interested in seeing just how bad a year it has been for local cinema would have any motive in seeing Audrey, an appallingly unfunny sex comedy about how a family’s life improves after a daughter goes into a coma.

Disjointed, unfocussed and embarrassing to watch, it just might be the worst Australian film of the year. You’ve been warned.

Nowhere nearly as bad but still sub-standard is the horror film The Moogai, a tale about a young mother who is pursued by an evil spirit that wants to snatch her baby. A great idea, but it just isn’t scary.

Far more chilling is Woman of the Hour, a bizarre, taut true-crime story about 1970s serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), who appeared as a bachelor on The Dating Game during his murderous rampage.

Directed by and starring Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect; Twilight) the story is told in flashback, jumping between Alcala’s charming appearance on the show and scenes detailing how he seduced then dispatched several young women, often using his ruse as a photographer to get them into his car.

It’s strong stuff, with Kendrick acquitting herself well on both sides of the camera. Just beware that while the violence is muted, it still has considerable impact. Check it out on Netflix.

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