The sophomore feature from Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), The Nightingale offers up horrors of a different kind. Set in Tasmania in 1825, the film is a bloody, brutal and unflinching tale of revenge that also addresses the savage history of colonial Australia, the systemic abuse and mistreatment of women and the indigenous population. It makes…
History shown through the gentle, softening eyes of love – that’s what to expect with Anita Heiss’s latest read, Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms. Here’s the blurb: Over 1000 Japanese soldiers break out of the No.12 Prisoner of War compound on the fringes of Cowra. In the carnage, hundreds are killed, many are recaptured, and…
Award-winning Irish born, British raised, writer-director John Michael McDonagh’s (Calvary) latest effort on the silver screen is stylised, dark humoured and ultra violent. The buddy crime caper was filmed on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a final week in Reykjavik, Iceland. It is about two corrupt cops in New Mexico (Alexander Skarsgård and Michael…
For those who like the unconventional, Sophia = (Wisdom): The Cliffs is heaven-sent. Promoted as “Part dada, slapstick comedy, part philosophical vaudeville interrogation into the human psyche and fully a production of the true avant-garde”. I couldn’t have put together a better word-salad myself. Written by American playwright Richard Foreman, the play falls into a…
Small Town Killers is a jet-black comedy, which pushes the boundaries of taste and fails the political correctness test. But if you’re in the right frame of mind, it’s fun. Ib (Nicolas Bro) and Edward (Ulrich Thomsen) think about sex all the time. But their wives – Gritt (Mia Lyhne) and Ingrid (Lene Maria Christensen) – are…
The Divine Order is a crowd-pleasing light drama from Switzerland. A bit like Pride and Made in Dagenham, it explores how a social movement can bring about change and alter entrenched attitudes. In 1971, women in Switzerland were still denied the right to vote – one of the last countries in the industrialised world to…
Teenagers have it tough. Physical and emotional changes can wreak havoc. So imagine how much harder it would be if your parents decided these changes were just “wrong” and the only solution was isolation and religion. One teenager has to face just that dilemma in The Miseducation of Cameron Post. This beautiful and moving film…
Academy Award-winner Cameron Crowe turns his attention to second chances in this comedic romance. Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper), a celebrated military contractor, returns to the site of his greatest career triumphs – the US space program in Hawaii – and reconnects with a lost love, Tracy Woodside (Rachel McAdams). Tracy is now a mother of…
After 2011’s The King of Limbs, Radiohead have finally returned! With them, they have brought their 9th LP entitled A Moon Shaped Pool. Now I could go into the groups almost 32 year history together and share all the innovations and artistic changes that they’ve brought with them but, if you are a fan of…
Kate Morton is one of my favourite mainstream Australian writers; the type of books she writes – gothic-style mystery with old houses and buried secrets – are my favourite. There’s something incredibly romantic about big old houses, once-beautiful but now tangled old gardens, yellowing letters, haunting secrets, ghostly apparitions … they put me in a…
