Ill-tempered, rude and crude, Billy Bob Thornton returns as anti-hero Willie Soke 13 years after he first donned the Christmas clobber in the independent black comedy Bad Santa for the sequel, predictably titled Bad Santa 2. Bad Santa was the story of a cynical thief who disguised himself as a department store Santa each winter…
The letter i is the square root of -1, which cannot occur; it is impossible, not because it doesn’t exist as much as because it makes no sense. It is a metaphor, perhaps for theatre, but even more so for experience of The Mathematics of Longing, a co-production between La Boite, The Farm and The…
The consummate stylist of the American cinema is back and in top form. Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is another excellent entry in the director’s canon and is probably his most accessible work since Rushmore. As I’ve said in these (digital) pages before, Anderson is a love-him-or-hate-him proposition. If you’re in the “hate-him” camp, you can…
Ruva Ngwenya is simply the best in the dynamic musical tribute to the late, great Tina Turner, Tina. What Tina experienced in her lifetime (26th November 1939 – 24th May 2023) was more than anyone should. Yet, she overcame exploitation and abuse to become one of the greatest singers and performers the world has known….
When we first meet Ruben Guthrie (Patrick Brammall) in the film that bears his name, he’s hosting an extravagant bash in his swanky harbourside digs after winning an award for his work as an advertising creative. The evening ends with Ruben on the bottom of the pool, having thrown himself off the roof of the…
E M Forster’s A Passage to India is a mighty epic tale set in the politically turbulent British colonial India of the 1920s. To adapt it to the stage is an equally mighty undertaking. To its credit, Genesian Theatre has delivered an engrossing production of Martin Sherman’s adaptation of the classic novel. Much of the…
The combination of the new and the old is intoxicating in The Australian Ballet’s double bill Etudes/Circle Electric. Up first is Circle Electric, which combines modern dance, ballet, sound and light to create a maelstrom of movement, majestic and, at times, harried. I was totally sold on choreographer Stephanie Lake’s first full length commission for…
In this family friendly tale, an ambitious, self-serving, 35-year-old Sydney TV weather presenter makes an unexpected sea change. Inspired by the true story of Chris ‘Brolga’ Barns, he has been reimagined as Chris Masterman (Ryan Corr). Chris has his eyes on a television hosting role when he inadvertently becomes public enemy #1, after a weather…
Dark and brooding, Bereft by Chris Womersley was my introduction to a writer I met briefly in the Green Room at the Perth Festival Writers Week wrap up. Aptly dubbed ‘Australian gothic’, this tale of a boy who flees his home town after being accused of murdering his sister, returning years later without really knowing…
A ponderous first half gives way to a bloody whodunit in the second as Quentin Tarantino continues his love affair with violence in The Hateful Eight. Soon after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his captive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh),…
