Author Danielle Hawkins won me over with Dinner at Rose’s, and kept me with Chocolate Cake for Breakfast. Here’s the blurb of her latest novel.: On the outskirts of a small New Zealand seaside town, Lia and her friend Anna work serious hours running their restored cafe. The busy season is just around the corner,…
The genuinely creepy horror-thriller The Nun II harks back to The Nun (2018), in which a demonic sister named Valak ran riot. Well … now she’s back, at her malevolent worst. Valak terrifies adults and children alike. And, again, the Vatican prevails on Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), now entrenched in the work of the church,…
Australian born filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell are certainly beginning to carve out a niche in Hollywood as purveyors of well crafted horror movies that have defined the genre over the past few years. They are best known as the creators of the gory Saw franchise and other formulaic scary films like Insidious and…
Sensual and alluring, Matador combines scantily clad performers with pulsating English and Spanish beats, and acrobatic acts in a fast-moving show. It is a fusion of dance, circus and burlesque, a modern celebration of forbidden love, carnal desires, passion and pain in its many coloured hues. At its core is acceptance of diversity. Eleven performers cavort, clamber…
Fangirls begins with a couple of criminals on the run. The scene is one of 14-year-old smart, scholarship-girl Edna’s (Yve Blake, who is also responsible for the world premiere musical comedy’s book, musical and lyrics) imagining; she is the Beyoncé of fan fiction according to her online friend Saltypringl (James Majoos), specifically that written in…
An immigrant family business that grew and grew to become the fourth largest investment bank in the United States before it disintegrated. That is the story of the Lehman Brothers, as told with remarkable insight and stagecraft in The Lehman Trilogy. Born on September 29th, 1822, Hayum Lehmann, the son of a cattle merchant, emigrated from…
– A Dog’s Purpose – Only in cinemas from 4 May 2017 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to eOne Films. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Based on the beloved, bestselling novel by W. Bruce Cameron and from director Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules & The 100-Foot Journey), A…
Genre pigeonholing can be useful when potential readers are trying to navigate a bookshop but can act to the detriment of books that don’t quite fit, like Sara Sligar’s debut Take Me Apart. It is tempting to label this as crime fiction (there is a possibly suspicious death that one character is investigating), or perhaps…
Artificial intelligence is in the spotlight in the sensitive science fiction drama After Yang. Yang (Justin H. Min) is a highly evolved bot bought as a culturally appropriate big brother for young Chinese adoptee Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). Mika is daughter to Jake (Colin Farrell), who runs a tea shop, and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), a…
Many of us have pondered the meaning of life … whether we are here for a reason. The dogs featured in A Dog’s Purpose are asking the same questions. From director Lasse Hallström (The Hundred Foot Journey) comes the heartwarming story of one devoted dog – Bailey (the voice of Josh Gad). He finds the meaning…
