Through the centuries, mankind’s tendency has been towards total control. Malthouse Theatre explores that tendency in the sci-fi drama Solaris. The play is a theatrical adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s philosophical novel about extraterrestrial intelligence. Movie adaptations followed in 1968, 1972 and 2002. Drs Snow (Fode Simbo) and Sartorius (Jade Ogugua) have been on a space…
Ricardo Darín (Wild Tales) and Mercedes Morán (The Motorcycle Diaries) play Marcos and Ana in An Unexpected Love. The long-married couple are led to question the true meaning of love after becoming empty-nesters. Their son Luciano (Andres Gil) is leaving his Argentine homeland to study abroad. When Marcos and Ana arrive at the airport to…
Michael Hutchence was of one of the most charismatic performers the world has known. Before his death in 1997, he and his band in INXS played to some of the biggest crowds at packed out stadia. He had relationships with a string of famous women, including Kylie Minogue, Helena Christensen and Paula Yates. The new…
After is a film that knows its audience and delivers to it. Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) is a dedicated student and dutiful daughter to her single mother Carol (Selma Blair). She’s a loyal girlfriend to her high school sweetheart Noah (Dylan Arnold). When Noah and Carol drop off Tessa for her first year of college,…
Over the years, a number of well-known names – like John Hurt and Harold Pinter – have performed Samuel Beckett’s one-person, one-act play, Krapp’s Last Tape. Now the indefatigable Max Gillies joins them I’m a Gillies fan. He certainly doesn’t let you down as he takes on the persona of a 69-year-old man who looks…
Annabelle Comes Home is the third film featuring the sinister doll from the Conjuring universe. Gary Dauberman, the screenwriter of the Annabelle films, makes his directorial debut. Determined to keep Annabelle from wreaking more havoc, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) drive the possessed doll to the locked artifacts room in…
The fourth of the great Stephen Sondheim musicals that Victorian Opera has tackled since 2013, A Light Night Music remains as charming and funny as when it was first conceived nearly 50 years ago. With music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, the musical was inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film…
Malthouse Theatre’s production of Wake In Fright is no less harrowing than when the eponymous novel was first published in 1961. But the play will make far more sense if you have an appreciation of the story before you walk in. Otherwise, I think you might understand the pieces, but not the full play in…
Assigning human characteristics to animals invariably makes for cute viewing and that’s the case in the The Secret Life of Pets 2. This film follows the success of the original (2016) in which terrier Max (the voice of Patton Oswalt) had to learn to share his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper) with a new dog, a…
Yesterday is highly contrived and holds few surprises, but it’s still a heart-warming story. It’s also a showcase for the music of The Beatles. The basis of the tale is pure fantasy and from there it’s basically an adult fairy story. The film follows a decidedly ordinary guy thrust into most extraordinary circumstances. Humour, warmth…
