Let’s face it, growing old isn’t nice, but this offering from M. Night Shyamalan is simply ridiculous. Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca Capa (Vicky Krieps) have taken their two children, 11-year-old daughter Maddox and six-year-old Trent, on a luxurious tropical island holiday. The husband and wife are on the verge of separating, but have…
A pleasantly distracting comedy, Rosa’s Wedding centres around a hard-working woman who’s selfless to the point of exhaustion. She looks after everyone – family and friends all – other than herself. About to turn 45, Rosa (Candela Peña) works long hours as a seamstress in the wardrobe department of a film production company in Valencia….
Nicola West’s debut, Catch Us the Foxes set in a regional coastal town south of Sydney, is a strange, potentially potent brew of ideas. Never sure what it wants to be, it presents as a true crime memoir within a novel for reasons that only become obvious late in the piece. The memoir itself is…
Opening night performances often end with a standing ovation, sometimes as a slowly staggered act of obligation. In the case of the conclusion of Suzie Miller’s brilliant Prima Facie, however, Queensland Theatre audience members are immediately on their feet in an acclaim of thunderous applause that lasts through three curtain calls. It is an especially…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 16 July 2021. The origins of Clairo (born Claire Cottrill) hold their own modern mythos: 2017’s lo-fi bedroom pop track “Pretty Girl” went viral, and a major-label record deal with Fader/Republic followed. Then came her debut LP, Immunity, and…
It’s a week of limited cinema releases, and they couldn’t be more different. In contrast to the thoughtful Nine Days, Gunpowder Milkshake lets you leave your brain at the door. This colourful adult fairytale from writer-director Navot Papushado is a rollercoaster ride. It’s shamelessly entertaining in that brutal way favoured by the likes of Quentin…
Once upon a time, cinema was the vanguard of daring ideas. In 1957, for example, Ingmar Bergman had his protagonist play chess with the Grim Reaper. Popular cinema always dominated the box office (then as now), but in the late 2010s, daring films seemed to have been pushed to the very margins. The pandemic has…
It’s hard off the top of my head to imagine a more prolific and talented songwriter currently working today than John Darnielle, the creative talent at the heart of The Mountain Goats. (Bill Mallonee is the only other contender that comes to mind.) But of course, quantity is not the issue at hand, the concern…
Patricia Marques’ debut The Colours of Death is a successful genre mash. Marques has taken a down-the-line crime procedural, mixed it with a well imagined alternative world in which some people are ‘gifted’ with specific powers and set it on the very real streets of Lisbon. All anchored by a strong, flawed and despite her…
The Steelers were the world’s first gay rugby team, formed in a pub in Kings Cross in London in 1995. At first they found that other rugby teams were reluctant to play against them. But now there are more than 60 gay rugby clubs around the world with over 2000 members. The annual Bingham Cup…
