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Alex First

Alex First is a Melbourne based journalist and communications specialist. He contributes to The Blurb on film and theatre.

Autocannibal (Theatre Works)

Imagine you’re the last person alive and all Earth’s resources have been depleted.  Autocannibal explores this premise in a confronting one-person play created and performed by the highly talented Mitch Jones. It’s performance art mashed with circus skills and clowning. Jones is agile, powerful and bold. His character adopts a survival-at-any-cost mentality, with options fast…

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Solaris (Malthouse) – theatre review

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…

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An Unexpected Love – movie review

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…

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After – movie review

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,…

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Annabelle Comes Home – movie review

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…

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