As clever and highly regarded as it is, I can’t say I particularly warmed to Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. An atmosphere of frustration and menace permeates the setting – a basement in Birmingham. A couple of hit men are awaiting instructions for their next assignment. As the play starts, Ben (John Wood) – the…
Cinema and music have always had a symbiotic relationship. A soundtrack is often a highlight of a feature film, while musicians use visual media to promote their product and in their live shows. It’s hardly surprising then that filmmakers would be drawn to music as a subject. And while, say, Almost Famous examined music stardom;…
Brisbane Festival’s 2018 program brims with big-name acts, more world premieres than ever, and a new light-and-laser show on the river that will see Brisbane illuminated for 22 days of celebration. There will be almost 600 performances – 100 of them free – of close to 70 shows across 17 venues. More than 1,000 artists…
Far-fetched but engaging, Kin is a tense “actioner” with a strong science fiction component. Fourteen-year-old Eli (Myles Truitt) lives in Detroit with his adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid), who keeps him on a tight leash. While exploring an abandoned building looking for scrap, Eli happens on the aftermath of an otherworldly shoot-out. In the debris,…
Blasted is a remarkably insightful and deeply traumatising work from British playwright Sarah Kane, first performed in 1995. Ian (David Woods) is a broken, middle-aged journalist. He’s brought a much younger woman, Cate (Eloise Mignon) – who he’s known for some time – to an upmarket hotel room. But when she resists his advances, he…
The term “creepypasta” is one I’d never heard of before, but apparently it was created to describe internet-spread urban legends. One of the more notorious was that of the so-called Slender Man, a boogieman that was created by Eric Knudsen under the pseudonym of Victor Surge in 2009. The character went viral on social media,…
Depression and suicide are hardly topics to make light of. But humour proves to be a powerful weapon in building understanding of the challenges associated with mental health in Chemistry. This is one of a trilogy by American writer Jacob Marx Rice that he dubs his suicide comedies. It features a pair of bright twenty…
Designed to provoke (but ultimately to reflect) The Insult is a powerful film with politics at its core. In present-day Beirut, Tony Hanna (Adel Karam) is a passionate member of the Christian Party. He’s a motor mechanic who employs a number of workers. His wife, Shirine (Rita Hayek), is expecting their first child. Opposite their…
It saddens me to have to return to the theme of lame Aussie movies. The Flip Side is yet another clunky example, with are equally clunky title. The script is thin, the action dull, some of the acting questionable and the direction rudderless. There are even pauses that should never be seen in a film. It…
The action-thriller Mile 22 follows an elite paramilitary team led by the methodical Jimmy Silva (Mark Wahlberg). Silva is direct all-business, incapable of separating himself from his work. His lieutenant is Lauren Cohan (Alice Kerr), and she’s almost as capable. But, unlike Silva, she must contend with distractions from the outside world. Foremost among them…
