The plaudits are mind blowing, the statistics staggering, the downfall tragic, but her musical legacy lives on. I refer to the incomparable Whitney Houston (August 9th, 1963 – February 11th, 2012), whose record sales exceed 200 million. She was cited by Rolling Stone as being in the top two singers of all time. Tilarni, together with…
Supernatural hazing. Is there such a thing? I think not, but there is according to this festive season horror – a remake of the 1974 and 2006 killer chiller features. Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Imogen Poots – Green Room) and her sorority sisters prepare to deck the…
In a comic tour de force, Samuel Barnett has the audience in the palms of his hands. We hang on his every word, as he changes tack, time and again. It is a triumphant monologue, written by Marcelo Dos Santos and directed by Matthew Xia. The said performer, who assumes multiple character voices with aplomb,…
Absolutely marvellous entertainment. A hoot. Heaps of fun. That’s what is in store when you venture upstairs at The Duke of Wellington Hotel in Melbourne to see Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience. For anyone fortunate enough to have seen the 12-episode Fawlty Towers, written by John Cleese and Connie Booth (judged the all-time greatest British television…
Sophocles’ Antigone is more than two thousand years old, yet as a story with conflict at its heart, it is still relevant today as Queensland Theatre’s epic season finale, written by Merlynn Tong, illustrates. While there is a clear 2019 resonance to Antigone’s (Jessica Tovey) passionate activist rebellion and rejection of authority, the Greek tragedy…
When it comes to families, one size doesn’t fit all and Jake (Asa Butterfield) knows he is a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. He just doesn’t seem to fit in. Jake has a wonderful relationship with his grandfather (Terence Stamp), who has told him remarkable stories throughout his young life. Mind…
Geoffrey Rush plays a thoroughly dislikable character in The Daughter, a story inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, which screenwriter and director Simon Stone has also directed and adapted as a play. A slow-burn of a film, it is haunting and moody. In the last days of a dying logging town, Christian (Paul Schneider)…
The wait has been worth it. The outbreak of COIVD-19 significantly delayed the release of A Quiet Place Part II and it is now difficult to watch this film without drawing parallels to the world on a precipice. How I’ve missed quality Hollywood fare of this ilk. Tension characterises the movie, which picks up where…
A couple of fraught relationships and bygone days are at the heart of Stephen Sondheim’s pointed Tony Award-winning musical, Follies. Each year, between the world wars, Dimitri Weismann (Grant Piro) used to stage Follies, which featured beautiful chorus girls, in a Broadway theatre. It is now 1971. The theatre is in disrepair and facing demolition…
Celebrity – it’s the dream of many and the nightmare of some. Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (in his English-language debut) takes a quirky but deep dive into the nature of celebrity in the current cultural moment with Dream Scenario. The result, while a little uneven, is nonetheless intriguing. Depicting dreams in cinema – or any…
