There is nothing comedian Geraldine Hickey likes more to clear her mind than a bit of a wander – a walk or a run – or so she tells us. Against a backdrop of six bush panels, that reminded me of Frederick McCubbin paintings, she opens up about some of her experiences. She starts by…
The melodramatic The Best of Me is the latest adaptation of a novel from Nicholas Sparks, a bestselling author best known for The Notebook. Sparks writes overly sentimental romantic novels to a well established and increasingly predictable formula – rain drenched passionate kisses and young lovers from different social classes kept apart by family, prejudice,…
Do you have a list of books you were hoping to have read this year? Are you despairing that you’ll never get to cross those titles off? I hear you. The Best Australian Stories 2017 may help to fill your literary cup. Maxine Beneba Clarke edited this collection of Australian short stories. Herself an award-winning…
Sara Foster is one of my favourite writers – she combines suspense and mood in a way that never fails to keep me captivated. Keeping her secret may save her family. But telling it may save her life. Arabella Lane, senior executive at a children’s publisher, is found dead in the Thames on a frosty…
Antonio Banderas will never succeed in emulating the role he played in Desperado. There was a flare-up in Automata and The 33 a while back, but for the most part he only plays in standard films which deserve the label “B-Film” most of the times. Usually the acting isn’t the cause, because that remains of…
Indigenous Australia’s fight for justice and equality is given superhero treatment in Blackie Blackie Brown. We may well be looking at the stage equivalent of the movies Deadpool or Kick-Ass. Exaggerated theatrics are liberally supplemented by evocative graphics, animation, mock television news reports, and mood lighting. The staging is most effective. A series of joined…
Bookworm is the sophomore directorial feature from New Zealand filmmaker Ant Timpson, who is better known as a writer and producer on a number of weird and often gory horror film such as The Greasy Strangler and The ABCs of Death. Bookworm is more of a family friendly adventure and marks something of a change…
As the adults in the Welsh village of Glyngolau dutifully either trudge and jog around the countryside in a community fun run, there is an explosion nearby. As all converge on the site of a construction project, the group begin frantically calling their family members to let them know what has occurred. The Accident details…
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…
I don’t know about you but I’ve felt a bit jaded going to the movies lately. I mean, there’s only so many explosions, car/boat/spacecraft chases or unlikely romances a person can take. Which is to say, if you want an antidote to all that, you really should consider the terrific French thriller November. Co-writer and…
