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Kahn Duncan Mallett

Writer, Creative and Critic

About Me

A multimedia professional spanning various forms of media communication.                                        
                                   

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How I Work

A passionate writer, producer and organiser on both the film and television landscape - one who is able to write in a critical capacity. 

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My Ethos

A commitment to respecting the industry standard, writing with integrity, equality for all, and listening with care.

Get in Touch

Always just an email away, am very eager to develop strong communication skills with all walks of life.                                                                

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Recent Articles and Podcast Appearances

As a member for the Australian Film Critic Association (AFCA), I enjoy writing critical reviews on the film, theatre, and television landscape. At the heart of my writing I am looking for what theme or message each piece of media is trying to tell its audience - can they learn something, can they laugh at something, or can they be moved by something? 

The Curb | Film and Culture •

Pixar’s Toy Story 5 embraces familiar warmth to tackle childhood in the digital age | The Curb

By the time a franchise reaches its fifth entry, it’s rare for it to maintain the quality and innovation needed to sustain and satisfy its audience. Flop blockbusters such as Ice Age: Collision Course, Terminator Genisys, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, prove certain stories reached their natural conclusions multiple entries earlier, ending up presenting tired ideas and rehashed methods into new realms of diminishing returns. For the rare exceptions that rise above this, th...
The Curb | Film and Culture •

Jaume Claret Muxart journeys along the Danube in the beautiful, beguiling and bewildering Strange River | The Curb

Strange River (Estrany riu) is a sensual coming-of-age drama that depicts queer awakening through picturesque lyricism, often favouring porous imagery over dialogue or conventional narrative. Following a family of five on an idyllic holiday along the Danube River, Jaume Claret Muxart’s debut feature is as alluring as it is elusive, blending reality and fantasy into a ponderous journey of desire, frustration, and familial reshaping.The film follows 16-year-old Didac (Jan Monter), a moody, sensiti...
This Is Film - Conversations in Film and Pop Cultu •

'Backrooms' is a unique but frustating sci-fi horror debut | This Is Film

Backrooms began as a creepypasta posted to a 4chan thread in 2019: a simple, slightly tilted image depicting a yellow-soaked, carpeted room that felt both uncanny and detached from reality. After years of forum discussion and lore-building came Kane Parsons, a YouTuber who, in early 2022, began a semi-anthological web series expanding on the extradimensional mythology of the Backrooms. 


Set in the 1990s, the series followed members of the research institute Async as they attempted to document...
The Curb | Film and Culture •

Star Wars returns to the big-screen with The Mandalorian and Grogu, an exercise in galactic-scale entropy | The Curb

Since Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the Star Wars brand has rapidly become more of a corporate product and less an imaginative space opera. After countless TV series, both animated and live action, five feature films, and enough action figures and merchandise to fill a continent’s worth of landfill, the once-magical “galaxy far, far away” is now a tool of consumerist expansion. Despite a few diamonds in the rough, namely Andor and the final season of The Clone Wars, it feels like an age ago that St...
This Is Film - Conversations in Film and Pop Cultu •

David Lowery’s Mother Mary is a unique yet imperfect spiral of devotion, resentment, and artistic possession | This Is Film

Death is not the only way to grieve someone you love. Sometimes the deepest sorrow comes from living alongside the absence of someone still alive; through broken relationships, betrayals, or simply the quiet drift of wayward souls growing apart. There is a particular ache in caring for someone you feel deeply wounded by: once inseparable in each other’s lives, now distant and unreachable. Mother Mary, David Lowery’s beguiling, seductive, and obvious meditation on fame and friendship is determine...
Novastream •

Curry Barker’s feature debut 'Obsession' is a funny, horrific twist on getting exactly what you wish for | Novastream

The phrase “be careful what you wish for” warns that our desires can bring unintended consequences. The classic horror story The Monkey’s Paw from 1902 by W.W. Jacobs remains the definitive example: Mr and Mrs White’s wishes are granted literally, but at a cruel, ironic, or devastating cost for daring to tempt fate. In his feature debut, Obsession, writer/director Curry Barker pushes that idea to its most unsettling and darkly comedic extreme. When a shy music store employee uses a supernatural...
This Is Film - Conversations in Film and Pop Cultu •

A supernova of expensive animation can’t stop 'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' feeling lost in space | This Is Film

When The Super Mario Bros. Movie crossed $1.3 billion at the box office in 2023, it set a somewhat disappointing precedent for Illumination. The film’s success suggested that nostalgia, brand recognition, and a thin, surface-level script were enough to drive massive returns. By being essentially a handsomely made child-minder, it turned what felt like a flashy distraction for kids into a cultural juggernaut. Many audiences brushed off criticism with the familiar refrain that it was “just a Mario...
The Curb | Film and Culture •

Ryan Gosling charts new career territory in 2026’s most unlikely and endearing hit, Project Hail Mary

Who would have guessed that the first blockbuster hit of 2026, and Amazon MGM’s biggest debut yet, would be a story about a man and a rock-shaped alien? Despite remaining culturally dominant through the Spider-Verse films, this is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s first live-action directed feature since 22 Jump Street. With dazzling visuals, a hopeful narrative, and a greatest-hits remix of sci-fi’s most beloved tropes; Project Hail Mary is a rousing reminder that teaching, learning, and share...
The Curb | Film and Culture •

Less hiding, more hunting - Samara Weaving returns in a gory, high-energy sequel Ready or Not 2: Here I Come | The Curb

Co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have stayed busy since Ready or Not, helming both Scream V and Scream VI, as well as the vampire comedy Abigail. It’s been seven years since Samara Weaving’s Grace lit a cigarette in the aftermath of watching her Satan-worshipping in-laws go up in flames.The premise was a killer hook: survive a deadly game of hide-and-seek on your wedding night to earn your place in an ultra-wealthy and ultra-cursed family. The film became an instant hit, prai...
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'Sensory Animation' missing 90 seconds of footage due to copyright. For education purposes of Monash University only.

Sensory Animation: an Audio-Visual Essay

As part of a university project, I was tasked with exploring the idea of conveying film theory and analysis in the form of an audio-visual essay. This involves taking audio, film clips and sometimes narration that adds a new lens or context to a specific scene, code or idea in a film and/or films. A collection of animated features were put together here to form what became known as 'Sensory Animation'.