At age six months, three identical male siblings are adopted out to three different families by a now defunct adoption agency. The reason they are separated has to do with a bizarre nature-versus-nurture experiment, the results of which are never published. In a nutshell, that’s the documentary Three Identical Strangers. The trio – Edward Galland,…
Psychedelic vintage soul champion Curtis Harding set the bar high with his first two albums, 2014’s Soul Power and 2017’s Face Your Fear. The records highlighted a stylistic vision that put him in the upper echelon in the modern soul movement and now on his third long player, If Words Were Flowers, Harding sounds like…
The trashy Fatale is a latter day noir thriller that’s part Fatal Attraction and part Basic Instinct. But the longer it goes the more convoluted its plotting becomes and some plot twists become a little too unbelievable. Derrick (Michael Ealy) is a sports agent who has built a successful business with his best friend Rafe…
We’ve all heard the adage “family first”, but this is ridiculous! Every time a person marries into this wealthy and secretive family … at midnight they have to play a game. That is a time-honoured tradition that can’t be broken. You see, this clan made its money off the back of board games. The new…
A proud, potent and poignant piece of artistry that combines dance, song, monologue and athleticism with projections is the highlight of DanceX Part III. I speak of Gudirr Gudirr by Marrugeku, which contains truth-telling about the history of indigenous Australians from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. To say what is acted out is not pretty is…
Gerard Butler is at it again … saving the leader of the free world from a secretive group intent on bringing him down. Angel Has Fallen is the third installment of the franchise that kicked off with Olympus Has Fallen in 2013, followed by London has Fallen three years later. Secret Service Agent Mike Banning…
The charming if rough-edged coming-of-age drama Scrapper taps into that unique British genre – the kitchen sink drama. Twelve-year-old Georgie (newcomer Lola Campbell) lives all alone in her apartment on a council housing estate outside London following the recent death of her mother. Self-reliant and resourceful, she pretends to social services that she is living…
Laura Purcell’s debut, The Silent Companions was a creepy gothic thriller. That book featured everything a reader might want from this style of tale – asylums, strange villagers, a dark manor house, whispers of witchcraft and of course the titular Companions – wooden effigies that seemed to move on their own. She followed that up…
A moving depiction of the early days of colonialism and its impacts on the First Peoples, The Visitors is set on a day the mercury reaches 44 degrees. We meet six Aboriginal Elders and a young indigenous woman, who gather on the shores of Warrane (Sydney Cove) on 26th January, 1788. The 11 ships of the First…
In The Saturday Paper, author Charlotte Wood describes her latest novel, The Natural Way of Things, as a “sledgehammer”. “I like things that are subtle and elegant, but I’ve written a sledgehammer.” (The Saturday Paper, October 24, 2015) I can’t think of a better way to describe this novel. Reading Wood’s book was a visceral experience, creating tension…
