Everybody loves a good David and Goliath story, especially one where it involves a win over big banking corporations.
When James Bond star Rory Kinnear read the script for Bank of Dave, based on the true story of UK underdog Dave Fishwick, who took on the big banks in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, he knew he had some good material.
There was only one thing which felt “overwhelming” – performing on stage with UK heavy metal band Def Leppard, who play a cameo in the film to help the local hero raise much needed funds.
“Singing on a big stage with a rather special guest … which was, if I hadn’t been playing Dave and using his natural confidence and charisma to mask my own shyness, would have been overwhelming.
“But actually it was quite good fun,” he told BBC Radio 2.
The film received “so much love” across Britain, according to host broadcaster Zoe Hall, and now Aussies get the opportunity to enjoy it on the big screen at cinemas nationally as Kinnear touched down in Sydney ahead of the premiere on Thursday.
“It just seems to have touched something maybe that was people felt missing,” says Kinnear.
“Something about caring for your local community. Something about giving back. Something about people looking out for each other.”
“Someone who themselves has made a bit of money … has been fortunate enough to live a comfortable life and not forgotten where they came from and who made them. And the people who they knew that needed a bit of a helping hand.”
“It’s a love story. It’s funny. It makes you cry. It has music. There’s singing.”
Whether the remaining June catalogue will make you laugh or cry is entirely subjective, but let’s start with Spiderman and The Flash, try and get through another three-hour CGI-fest in the Transformers franchise (good for school holidays), and let’s end the month with our favourite archaeologist, Dr Indiana Jones, who has to find a Dial of Destiny to, well, save the world.
In between, Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Star Wars: Rogue One, The Dark Knight Rises) is back on the big screen in mystery thriller, To Catch a Killer.
Tweet from @SpiderMan
Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse: June 1
Miles Morales (comic version, bitten by a different spider) returns for the next chapter of the Spider-Verse saga.
The official synopsis is that after reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence.
But, there’s always baddies lurking in Miles world (and remember, he has self-doubt thanks to the strong legacy Peter Parker left behind), so let’s find out how he conquers evil in this animated 140-minute iteration.
Sweet As: June 1
Described as an uplifting coming-of-age movie, Sweet As is set in the remote Pilbara country of Western Australia, where Indigenous girl, Murra, 16, finds herself abandoned after an explosive incident with her addict mother.
On the cusp of being lost in the child protection system, an unusual lifeline is thrown her way by her uncle Ian, the local cop, in the form of a unique photo safari.
Before Murra knows it, she is on a highway with a minibus full of at-risk teens and two charismatic team leaders.
Starring Mark Coles Smith, Shantae Barnes-Cowan and Tasma Walton, this is about unconventional friendships, first crushes and finding who you are on the road less travelled.
To Catch a Killer: June 8
Starring Ben Mendelsohn, Shailene Woodley (Big Little Lies) and Ralph Ineson (Babylon), Mendelsohn plays talented but troubled cop Geoffrey Lammark, who is recruited by the FBI to help profile and track down a mass murderer.
A Variety review says Mendelsohn’s role is “fine”, and “the film does work quite well as a procedural thriller, maintaining a tense, haunted atmosphere between peaks of skillfully realised action”.
“Particularly good are scenes in which we know something terrible is about to happen in a mall food court, and a shootout in a chain drugstore”.
Tweet from @RamblersGB
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: June 8
Putting aside the King’s coronation, it often feels like Hollywood gets all the attention.
June is shaping up to be a very British month with another feel-good story, this time about the Harold Fry’s unlikely pilgrimage.
Starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton, this is the story of Fry, an ordinary man, who goes to post a letter one day, and just keeps on walking to see old friend Queenie, who is dying in a hospice 600 kilometres away.
It’s a chance to see England in all its windswept roads and countryside and people. It’s an opportunity to unpack relationships and grief.
The Flash: June 15
Much has been made of Ezra Miller’s return, given their controversial off-camera issues during the past few years.
But they are back as Barry, and back using their superpowers to travel back in time to change the events of the past.
When their attempt to save their family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no super heroes to turn to. That is unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian.
The Tank: June 15
Now here’s a change of pace. Scary, potentially predictable, but don’t let that get in the way of a surprisingly decent action thriller. Just don’t watch it alone.
With a largely unknown cast, it has hints of those B-grade shark/crocodile/ monster movies. This one is about Ben, who mysteriously inherits an abandoned coastal property and then accidentally unleashes an ancient, long-dormant creature who goes on a rampage.
Rotten Tomatoes says the special effects and production design – and the monster – passed the test. As for script? “Watered down”.
You Hurt My Feelings: June 15
Better known for her enduring role as Elaine on Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as Beth, a New York novelist, in a much more serious on-screen role with David Cross, Tobias Menzies and Jeannie Berlin.
The official synopsis reads that she’s “been working for years on the follow-up to her somewhat successful memoir, sharing countless drafts with her approving, supportive husband Don”.
Her world “quickly unravels when she overhears Don admit to her brother-in-law, Mark, that actually, he doesn’t like the new book”.
“She vents to her sister Sara that decades of a loving, committed marriage pale in comparison to this immense betrayal”.
No Hard Feelings: June 22
And still on feelings, but with that adorable comedic timing that Hollywood A-listers like Jennifer Lawrence have perfected.
Alongside Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales and Andrew Barth Feldman, Lawrence plays a down-on-her-luck Uber driver in need of money and a car when she reads an ad about wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, before he leaves for college.
“So do you mean date him, or date him,” she asks deadpan.
“Date him hard,” says Percy’s Dad.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: June 22
School holidays, people! Kids needs more adventure, action and science fiction than they’re going to get in a classroom.
No, there’s no Shia LaBeouf or Megan Fox running through college libraries or deserts with Bubblebee and Optimus Prime looking out for their human friends.
Instead, we have Ron Perlman, Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback returning to the action and spectacle that first captured moviegoers around the world 14 years ago with the original Transformers.
This time we’ll meet the Maximals, Predacons and Terrorcons to the existing battle on Earth between Autobots and Decepticons.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: June 28
Harrison Ford, 80, returns as the legendary hero archaeologist in the highly anticipated fifth instalment of the iconic Indiana Jones franchise, which is directed by James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari, Logan).
After receiving a five-minute standing ovation at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in early May, Ford got emotional knowing this was his last outing as the intrepid archaeologist.
A strong cast includes Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory), John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Shaunette Renee Wilson (Black Panther) and Mads Mikkelsen (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore).
Special mention to John Williams, who has scored each Indy adventure since the original Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 and is once again composing the score.
Russia and the US. The 2016 election. Interference. Great storylines. True story.
Sydney Sweeney plays Reality Winner, a former American intelligence specialist given the longest sentence for the unauthorised release of government information to the media about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections via an email operation.
Sweeney received strong reviews after the film premiered at Museum of Modern Art in New York City on May 18.
The Euphoria star defended Winner during the event, reported Variety: “I hope that people see Reality as a human being and that they stop letting articles and tabloids label people and put thoughts into their minds.
“Hopefully they see this humanised experience and get to come up with their own opinions,” she said.
