Twelve albums with all the original members is a rare achievement in the music world these days but that is exactly what we get here from Canada’s Sloan. The band has returned with the appropriately titled album, 12, and it is another reminder of what makes a great power pop record. With catchy anthems, memorable…
Can a movie be too smart? Apparently, it can; if it’s Alex Garland’s thoughtful sci-fi adventure, Annihilation. Paramount famously denied the film a cinema release* earlier this year, allegedly on the basis it was “too intelligent” for the average filmgoer. (How you feeling now, fellow Australians? Seems we’re too stupid.) So instead of heading into…
Both these films are in very limited release. 1945 On a summer day in 1945, an Orthodox Jewish man and his grown son return to a village in Hungary. The villagers are preparing for the wedding of the town clerk’s son. The townspeople expect the worst and behave accordingly. The town clerk fears the men…
What is it about artists’ tendency to self-destruct? We’ve seen that in documentaries about the likes of Amy Winehouse and Brett Whiteley. Now it’s street artist Anthony Lister in Have You Seen the Listers?. There are times while watching these types of films that you want to ask the subjects what the heck they’re doing….
Testosterone flows in Walking Out. This coming-of-age tale involves a father and his son in beautiful American wilderness in the middle of winter. Based on the short story of the same name by acclaimed naturalist David Quammen, Walking Out tracks 14-year-old David’s (Josh Wiggins) annual visit to rural Montana. He’s there to visit his brooding,…
A suspenseful horror film from director John Krasinski (best known for his work on the US version of The Office), A Quiet Place is also as scary as hell. Not since last year’s Don’t Breathe has the use of silence been such an effective and potent cinematic tool for creating edge of the seat tension….
When The Decemberists’ first single for I’ll Be Your Girl, “Severed” showed up on the appropriate alternative-friendly satellite radio stations a few weeks ago, I bet I wasn’t the only fan to begin worrying that the more modern Brit pop leanings of 2015’s What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World had led the Portland-based…
My take on Garfield: The Musical with Cattitude – energetic, fun and funny. This musical is based on the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip. Jim Davis created the cat Garfield, the human Jon Arbuckle and the dog Odie in 1978. Today it is syndicated to more than 2,500 media outlets worldwide. Common themes in…
Going Down by Michelle Lee is a new Australian play. Last year, the Griffin Theatre presented her play, Rice. Natalie Yang (Catherine Davies), a Chinese-Australian, has written her first book, “Banana Girl”, a no-holds-barred sex memoir. No-one is really interested. On the other hand Lu Lu Jayadi (Jenny Wu), an Muslim-Australian from Indonesia, has written…
If you’ve been anywhere near a radio recently you’ve no doubt heard Missy Higgins’ catchy new single “Futon Couch”. This is the first taster of Higgins’upcoming fifth studio album Solastalgia, due in on the 4th May, and a definite evolution of her sound. “Futon Couch” also has a new video directed by Josh Harris “I think this was the most…
