Liam Maguren

Auckland

Content Manager and Writer at Flicks

Writer for Flicks (NZ/AU/UK). Māori (Ngā Rauru) Pākeha (Irish) animation filmmaker for himself. I'm on Threads as @liammaguren.

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Articles

Cult classic The Fall returns: ambitious, majestic and indulgent in the best ways

17 hours ago | flicks.com.au | Steve Newall |Liam Maguren |Luke Buckmaster |Eliza Janssen

Hard-to-find 2006 pic The Fall is back in a dazzling 4K restoration. It’s easy to see why the film has gained such a devoted cult following, writes Katie Parker—it’s hard to think of anything quite like it. Harvey Weinstein made it just 15 minutes into the Toronto International Film festival premiere of The Fall before he walked out, or so the story goes.
A newly liberated psyche comes to understand itself in warm, funny Murderbot

23 hours ago | flicks.com.au | Steve Newall |Liam Maguren |Luke Buckmaster |Eliza Janssen

Clarisse Loughrey’s Show of the Week column spotlights a new show to watch or skip. This week: Murderbot captures the neurodivergent experience to a tee without it expressly being about it. It’s a fairly common autistic experience to see yourself in a fictional robot. If it’s not Data in Star Trek, it’s WALL-E, Andy in Alien: Romulus, or any droid of choice from the Star Wars franchise (my pick? Rogue One and Andor’s K-2SO). It’s a tricky situation.
Poker Face is back, with another winning hand of star-studded murders

23 hours ago | flicks.com.au | Steve Newall |Liam Maguren |Luke Buckmaster |Eliza Janssen

Back for another season of superior murder mystery fare is Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s series Poker Face. Steve Newall investigates the star-studded show with a heart of gold. Once a beast gets the taste of human flesh, it will crave more, we’re told—which may feel familiar to whodunnit fans, whose appetite for entertainment depends on a steady stream of unlucky victims.
How to… make a Bond film

1 day ago | flicks.com.au | Steve Newall |Liam Maguren |Luke Buckmaster |Eliza Janssen

Matt Glasby’s monthly column How to… turns a sly, critical eye on how the movie world really works. This month: How to… make a Bond film. With 25 movies in 63 years—that’s one every two-and-a-half years—the Bond franchise is the ageing uncle of the blockbuster world: fondly thought of, but a little bit racist. Following its recent sale to Spectre, sorry, Amazon, there’s going to be a hell of a lot more on the way. Here’s how to stop them getting Bond wrong.
Jason Issacs makes an incredible trek from The White Lotus to The Salt Path

1 day ago | flicks.co.nz | Liam Maguren

Fresh off The White Lotus: Season 3, Jason Issacs takes the lead alongside Gillian Anderson in The Salt Path. As Liam Maguren writes, the two seemingly similar roles are taken in vastly different directions thanks to the greatness of Issacs. Coming to Cinemas - 15 May Jason Issacs has had a long and storied career.
French historical espionage and gastronomy get saucy in Carême

6 days ago | flicks.co.uk | Luke Buckmaster |Steve Newall |Eliza Janssen |Liam Maguren

Clarisse Loughrey’s Show of the Week column spotlights a new show to watch or skip. This week: Carême introduces us to the world’s first celebrity chef, perfecting dishes and delicious blackmail in Napoleon-era France. Few shows state their thesis as swiftly and succinctly as Apple TV+’s Carême.
Bad Genius turns high school exams into a high-stakes heist

2 weeks ago | flicks.com.au | Eliza Janssen |Luke Buckmaster |Liam Maguren |Matt Glasby

Applying heist movie conventions to a story about cheating on exams, Bad Genius is a wild ride that left Luke Buckmaster gasping for breath. When was the last time you saw a pulse-pounding production about cheating on high school exams? J.C. Lee’s devilishly sharp and exhilarating Bad Genius is a great example of applying a particular suite of conventions, in this instance the heist thriller format, to an unexpected space.
The maddeningly vague satire of Mickey 17

2 weeks ago | flicks.com.au | Eliza Janssen |Luke Buckmaster |Liam Maguren |Matt Glasby

Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up to Parasite is an unwieldly beast of a movie, starring Robert Pattinson as a “bio-clone” who’s regularly brought back from the dead. Is it a satire? An allegory? Luke Buckmaster digs in. Beware any critic who declares that Mickey 17 is good satire, without explaining what it’s satirising. Either the critic or the satire isn’t very good…possibly both.
The Smiling Satanists and Other Polite Villains

2 weeks ago | flicks.com.au | Liam Maguren |Matt Glasby |Eliza Janssen

I recently got around to finally watching Jaques Tourneur 1957 semi-classic Night of The Demon aka Curse of the Demon. I’d been meaning to see it ever since Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell rocked my world in 2009, but it was kinda hard to track down. Many reviews for Drag Me To Hell cited the influence of Night of the Demon – the nature of the curse is very similar in both films, specifically in regards to the possession of a certain material item determining who the demon will take.
EGOT Viola Davis plays a butt-kicking POTUS in bonkers action romp G20

2 weeks ago | flicks.com.au | Daniel Rutledge |Travis Johnson |Liam Maguren |Matt Glasby

A judo expert President wastes a veritable smorgasbord of international goons in new action pic G20 – streaming on Prime Video. Enjoying the heck out of seeing Davis’ POTUS going up against a Kiwi-played baddie called Rutledge? Flicks’ own Daniel Rutledge. American movies have given us plenty of American presidents kicking arse. “Get off my plane,” Harrison Ford grumbles in Air Force One before killing a terrorist played by Gary Oldman with his bare hands, after taking a few others out with an MP5.