“You’re doing really well … I love you so much,” Simon tells his partner Emily as Naked & Screaming opens to a familiar birth scene scenario – ironic, given the story that will unfold in the following 80 minutes that marks La Boite Theatre’s return. Naked and Screaming may well describe how their baby Dylan…
Director Cesc Gay adapts his own play in The People Upstairs, a dry comedy whose dialogue-heavy approach sublimely reveals shifting relationship dynamics. The film takes place entirely in a modern, slick apartment occupied by long-time couple Ana (Griselda Siciliani) and Julio (Javier Cámara). After 15 years, their relationship has grown stale which manifests itself with…
Comedy movies are hard work. Time travel movies are even harder. So combining the two is a big ask. But Australian actor turned director Josh Lawson does a good job with the time-travelling rom-com Long Story Short. This agreeable film zips along – literally – to a crowd pleasing conclusion. The film’s clever title tells…
Danish drinking culture is put under the microscope in Another Round, the new feature from director Thomas Vinterberg, an adherent of Lars Von Trier’s Dogme school of filmmaking. Mads Mikkelsen reunites with Vinterberg, who directed him in The Hunt. That was a tense drama about a teacher falsely accused of molesting a student. Here plays…
Time and tide wait for no man, they say. In the sci-fi drama Synchronic, a chemist invents a time travel drug that sends people back. It has greatest impact on those with young minds. They’re the most inclined to be high … and what a trip it sends them on. Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis…
Great music always finds a way to captivate its audience and find new listeners. That is the way I feel about this excellent new record from Seattle-based soul-jazz group Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. The group’s sophomore studio album, I Told You So, will turn your ears and erase any expectations upon hearing it as it…
As I see it, Single Ladies is a variant of a shaggy dog story … in more ways than one. This world premiere production marks the return in this COVID-19 era of Red Stitch Theatre. Set in the inner city Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, three disparate women with issues connect over a missing pooch. Lilike (Caroline Lee)…
Those who know the story behind The Laramie Project won’t be surprised by the clearly western-themed staging that sees Ad Astra’s intimate theatre space turned into a saloon-style bar. The cowboy country aesthetic extends to the flannelette, denim and cowboy boots of the beer drinkers. There is even a cowboy-hat-clad musician (Andrew Palmer) to add…
What would Aussie TV be without the luminous Claudia Karvan? We’ve seen her grow up on-screen to become one of our most loved and consistent stars on the box. She and producer John Edwards’s affiliation goes back to Network Ten’s The Secret Life of Us in 2001 and now along comes BUMP, the Stan series…
“History is not the past as it really was. It’s the shape we give it.” This observation by a Norwegian antiquarian in Bernhard Schlink’s latest novel Olga may well be a mission statement for the whole book. In Olga, Schlink provides a history of Germany in the Twentieth Century through the eyes of a woman…
