An indigenous lad (Aswan Reid) reshapes the lives of those living at a remote monastery in 1940s Australia in Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy. The outback facility serves as a mission for Aboriginal children. It’s run by a feisty, renegade nun, Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett). At the time only men could operate missions. But the…
It would be easy to dismiss this charming crowd-pleasing little film as a Gallic variation of the Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy. But this French drama, which screened during the recent Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, is so much more. Madeleine Keller (played by veteran singer and actress Line Renaud, recently seen in Call My…
The high-octane ride that is Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is again directed by Christopher McQuarrie. He wrote the screenplay with Erik Jendresen. It is the seventh movie in the franchise and is the longest yet at 2 hours 43 minutes. Spectacular stunts, car chases, a runaway train heading for destruction, humour and…
Superb staging is a hallmark of Mozart’s dramatic opera Idomeneo, set on the island of Crete shortly after the Trojan War. Ilia, daughter of the defeated Trojan King Priam, expresses conflicting emotions. She has love for her rescuer, Idamante, son of Cretan King Idomeneo, and hatred for her father’s Greek enemies, who killed both her dad and…
With five in the cast on a catwalk-like stage, this is a modern, generally slapstick and cartoonish interpretation of Euripides’ Greek tragedy Medea. In the historic work, Medea seeks revenge on her unfaithful husband. In Jane Miller’s Just a Boy, Standing in Front of a Girl, all the characters have received a contemporary makeover. Further, misogyny, fat shaming…
Rebecca F Kuang is better known as fantasy author RF Kuang, responsible for the Asian-inspired Poppy Wars series and the alternate history Babel. Her latest novel, Yellowface is something else entirely – a takedown of the modern publishing industry and a scathing critique of social media as a mode of criticism review and attack. It…
Comedian and actor Mary Coustas is an emotional powerhouse, whose hour-long show endears her anew to a devoted fan base. She is an enormous talent who draws upon her personal experiences (how her life has been shaped) to make us laugh and cry, through love and loss. Combining verbal and physical comedy with pathos, her stories primarily…
If Indiana Jones was a rock star instead of a movie character, the Dial of Destiny – the latest and last movie in the franchise – would be his farewell tour. The chops are still there, but the cracks are showing and the pace is a bit off. The ageing headliner is perhaps upstaged by…
With music by Gabriel Faure, Igor Stravinsky and Piotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky and choreography by George Balanchine, Jewels – by name and nature – is a gem. The world’s first full-length abstract ballet, it is actually three short ballets in one and is beautiful to look at and to savour. Sandra Jennings is responsible for the staging….
Disney on Ice is always wonderful family entertainment, but 100 Years of Wonder is the best yet. What a fabulous, engaging show it is – so warm, friendly and inviting. There were seven in my party on opening night, with the youngest being four. The look on her face throughout said it all. She was like the…
