Indigenous Australia’s fight for justice and equality is given superhero treatment in Blackie Blackie Brown. We may well be looking at the stage equivalent of the movies Deadpool or Kick-Ass. Exaggerated theatrics are liberally supplemented by evocative graphics, animation, mock television news reports, and mood lighting. The staging is most effective. A series of joined…
Live theatre can throw up curve balls, but this – the 61st iteration of Truth to Power Café globally and its Melbourne premiere – significantly deviated from the script. Some might say it became a train wreck, as a number of the community participants called out the show’s creator for his alleged insensitivity. As a…
An intense and claustrophobic alien creature feature that fails to reach any great heights, Underwater takes its sweet time to bite. More than 10 kilometres below the ocean’s surface, something has awakened. The crew of the Kepler mining operation understood there would be hardships on their mission. Thirty days confined to the narrow corridors and…
Oscar winning filmmaker Hal Ashby was something of an uncompromising maverick who preferred to work outside the studio system because he believed they valued commerce over art. “Studios are the enemy of the artist,” his friend and mentor Norman Jewison told him rather frankly. Ashby won an Oscar for his work on editing Jewison’s In…
One thing to add to the list of our new first world problems is the lack of commuting time that we’d normally have to devote to podcasts. Maybe that’s been on the drive in, or as you studiously ignore making eye contact with anyone on the train. You may have to get a little more…
Unsolicited Male Savvy, funny and shocking, Unsolicited Male gains momentum as the stakes are ratcheted up. Wendy (Kym Valentine) is a hard worker who regularly puts in 12-hour days. She was in a long-term relationship but it ended abruptly. Now she’s single and her closest thing to a companion is a goldfish. Wendy’s boss Zeke…
SIX sizzles and girl power rules. It is a high-octane musical in every sense of those words. I speak of talent, production values, choreography, sound and lighting – the complete package. The concept is pitting the wives of King Henry VIII against each other in a show of strength about who was the most hard…
Donald Trump is one of the most controversial and divisive figures in contemporary American politics at the moment. And he has dominated the political landscape for the better part of a decade. In the lead-up to the 2024 election it’s easy to see why he and his campaign have tried to ban this drama. The…
Got a bit of free time and don’t want to get in too deep with your Netflix and chill? We have the series for you. I am Not Okay With This is a fresh teen drama that delivers a little extra on top of your classic high school revenge story. Don’t worry if you have…
The term “fan service” is getting a lot of play right now. The idea is that filmmakers and movie studios owe it to “core” fans to give them what they want. In politics, they call it “playing to the base”. Of course, in this age of social media, just who are the “core” fans often…
