The cutthroat razor is sharpened and ready for the kill in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Forty-five years on, the musical thriller set in 19th century England retains its bite. It is a tale of murder, vengeance, cannibalism and entrepreneurial spirit. Benjamin Barker has been framed and is exiled to a penal…
“Welcome Julius Caesar” we see posted on a side-of-stage whiteboard before La Boite’s world premiere contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare’s political thriller Julius Caesar fills the space. As the show starts, notices are added, a rack of costumes wheeled in and hand props put in their place. Soon, the actors being arriving for their first rehearsal. Chenoa…
When reviewing a new Stephen King book, you can only really compare such rich work to that of his own. There is no other writer, past or present, quite like him. King is the gold standard, the literary bar, a unique category. A problem other authors would no doubt like to have. If It Bleeds…
More monkey business. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is another reboot … reset … reconfiguration of the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, which starred Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall. In fact, this is the tenth picture in the extended franchise (and was mostly shot in Australia). But does it live up to…
– A Month of Sundays – Only in cinemas from 28 April 2016 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Madman Entertainment. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Real estate agent Frank Mollard won’t admit it, but he can’t move on. Divorced but still attached, he can’t sell a house…
Science fiction author Cory Doctorow has taken a stand against big corporations, in particular the use of Digital Media Rights to lock people into particular companies. So much so that the audio version of his new book, The Bezzle and the previous book in this series, are being offered through Kickstarter rather than through Audible…
It’s been a while since we last had a full-scale disaster movie (think Armaggedon, Independence Day), so why not a homegrown product (it was shot on the Gold Coast) starring the man-mountain The Rock? Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) is a seismologist with a nose for big earthquakes and one is about to hit the USA between…
Silvia Moreno-Garcia seems determined to prove that she can deliver in any genre. Her breakout book Mexican Gothic was, as the name suggests, in the traditional gothic style with a Mexican twist; her book The Beautiful Ones was a historical fantasy set in an alternate Central America; and her Gods of Jade and Shadow was…
The latest film from Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki is Fallen Leaves, a deceptively simple and quirky rom-com about two-star crossed lovers in Helsinki. Two lonely down-on-their-luck, working class people meet at a karaoke bar. But they find the path to making a connection and maybe finding happiness is not smooth sailing. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is…
One of the albums that got lost in the shuffle of new releases late in the fall that’s worthy of our attention was the return of the original Smoking Popes line-up on Into the Agony, the first full-length since 2011, and the first recording since the reunion with drummer Mike Felumlee who left the band…
