Rumaan Alam’s latest book Leave the World Behind starts in an idyllic manner – a family on holiday on Long Island. But despite the tranquil and familiar setting – an Airbnb in the country with a swimming pool, plenty of snacks and trips to the beach – there is plenty of foreboding. There is an…
First-time documentary director Catherine Dwyer starts her career off impressively with Brazen Hussies. This highly entertaining film charts the course of the so-called “women’s liberation” (the term is pretty dated now) movement between about 1968 and 1976. Over the course of the film’s crisp 93 minutes, Dwyer explores what motivated the movement, where it went…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 6 November 2020. Ólafur Arnald’s new album – some kind of peace – was born out of the mantra: “we can’t control anything that happens to us. All we can do is control how we react to what life…
Mouthpiece … it is the name of an artwork by Declan Swan (Jayden Popik in an impressive Queensland Theatre debut), but it also has multiple other meanings within Kieran Hurley’s very clever and often ironic award-winning play of the same name. ‘I wanna live like common people, I wanna do whatever common people do’, Pulp’s…
Marie Curie is one of those people. Most of us have a vague idea about her, but her real genius remains elusive. Marjane Satrapi’s (Persepolis) handsome but slightly awkward Radioactive paints a fuller – if generally deferential – picture of the groundbreaking scientist. Lauren Redniss provides the source material via her “visual non-fiction*” book, Radioactive:…
Kathleen Edwards, Canadian singer/songwriter, returns after 8 years of relative silence with another fine album of exemplary folk/pop songcraft. Edwards had built a solid following with four solid albums, including 2012’s Voyager, which was produced by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Edwards left music after touring that album with Vernon, with whom she had a romantic…
Presented by Palace, the British Film Festival will screen from 10 November in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Byron Bay at reduced capacity and late November in Melbourne, when restrictions permit. The British Film Festival celebrates the finest filmmakers and acting talent British cinema has to offer and the 2020 program features some of…
Nardi Simpson’s scorching debut novel Song of the Crocodile opens with the irony of a sign naming the small Australian country town of Darnmoor the “Gateway to Happiness”. The fly-through that follows will be familiar to anyone who has driven around regional Australia. Two main streets crossing at right angles with a war memorial at…
As fluffy as the soufflé at Le Récamier and a glitzy as the nightly light display at the Eiffel Tower, Emily in Paris is another charming but shallow TV series from the doyen of charming but shallow, Darren Star. This is Star’s first outing for Netflix, with his New York-set companion piece Younger streaming on…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 30 October 2020. The consistently brilliant Laura Veirs has released her 11th studio album, My Echo. The album features the previously released singles ‘Burn Too Bright’, ‘Turquoise Walls’ and ‘Another Space and Time’. Veirs’ world was turned upside down…
