How’re you feeling? Winter getting you down a little? Yeah, I know the feeling. All you want is a big warm hug, right. Well, I can’t give you that, but I can suggest you seek out the cinematic equivalent, Toy Story 4. The latest installment in the wildly successful animated franchise is like pulling on…
Talk about playing mind games with words. A decade after MTC staged this Tony Award winning musical comedy, the Vic Theatre Company has brought it back to tickle our funny bones again. It is, indeed, hilarious, more than a touch silly and really fun, but not without pathos … for you see the contestants in…
Hijinks abound in The Australian Shakespeare Company’s fun-filled treat The Wind in the Willows at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Populated by favourites from British novelist Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 book, families on picnic rugs are given much to smile about during the 90-minute show without interval, set in magnificent surrounds. The first location is by the lake and…
Whereas the first film in the Star Trek reboot (simply titled Star Trek) was all about forming the group that would become a family, and the second (Star Trek: Into Darkness) galvanised them in the face of a new threat, both of those were ultimately Earth bound. Star Trek: Beyond is the first time we…
A slow-moving but compelling drama set in the land of Lawrence of Arabia, this film’s origins are in Bedouin tradition. Theeb is specifically about a boy who, in order to survive, must become a man and live up to the name his father gave him. The year is 1916. While war rages in the Ottoman…
Devastating bushfires and a baby koala and miner in peril. These are just two of the interwoven threads that run through the excellent, interactive solo work KOAL, in which sound, music and lighting play a critically important role. The piece was conceived by performer Jacinta Yelland. In 2019, she was sitting in her living room in the United…
Think old-fashioned midday movie or a Mills and Boon novel and your head will be in the right space for One True Loves. Since school days, Sam (Simu Liu) has been into Emma (Phillipa Soo). But Emma always had the hots for swimming champion Jesse (Luke Bracey). As it turned out, Jesse swept Emma off…
This co-production from Brazil, Uruguay and Holland is a slice of life drama set against the backdrop of the rodeo circuit, and gives us some insights into this little known macho world of the Vaquejada, a world populated by nomadic rodeo riders. Unlike the bigger and better known rodeos of America where cowboys riding bucking…
The true crime podcaster as investigator is continuing to trend in crime fiction. Recent examples include Benjamin Stevenson (Greenlight), Amy Suiter Clark (Girl 11) and Charlie Donlea (Don’t Believe It). In Double Lives Kate McCaffrey, if anything, doubles down on this trend, as many of the chapters are podcast episode transcripts. Amy Rhinehart is a…
What a joy laden movie. This could just be the best of the four Bridget Jones films, that date back to 2001 and we have had to wait nine years since the last one. Mad About the Boy, which Jones also narrates, is filled with laughter, romance and reverence. Best of all, she (Renee Zellweger)…
