Every Secret Thing is a meagre attempt to create a thriller full of suspense. The inspiration came from a book written by Laura Lippman. Usually a story about missing children makes you feel uncomfortable and tells about the most terrible thing that can happen to you as a parent. However, I would recommend to watch…
One of the great plays of the 20th century retains its vibrancy and bite in a stunning MTC production, headlined by a bravura showing from Nikki Shiels. Written by Tennessee Williams in 1945, A Streetcar Named Desire was first performed on Broadway two years later. Now, here I am, coming up to 80 years on,…
In the late 1960s an elderly woman of an indeterminate age took up residence in a London street where there lived many famous names from the city’s stage and literary worlds. Nothing unusual about that, you might be thinking. The fact was that she lived in a dirty and decrepit, hand-painted, yellow van under which…
The latest film from Brandon Cronenberg (son of legendary Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg) is a hybrid mix of sci-fi, horror and trenchant social commentary. He takes on class, wealth, privilege, artistic conceits, power, western decadence, guilt and the breakdown of civilization. It comes across like a fevered, darker and more transgressive variation on the recent…
Wim Wenders’ (Paris, Texas) new film Perfect Days is a gently paced minimalist drama from the revered German filmmaker. Set in Japan, it reveals his great appreciation for Japan, its culture and traditions. A German/Japanese co-production Perfect Days was nominated for an Oscar, becoming the first Japanese-language film not directed by a Japanese filmmaker to…
Based on a true story and set in Denmark in the mid 1700s, The Promised Land reunites star Mads Mikkelsen with director Nikolaj Arcel (who directed him in 2012’s A Royal Affair). Impoverished former soldier Ludvig Kahlen (Mikkelsen) lives on his meagre army pension. But he has a grand dream and sets out to tame…
Iris and The Men is a comedy with distinctively French proclivities. Written and directed by Caroline Vignal, there is a sadness, yearning and yet joie de vivre about it. The film’s origins were in what Vignal heard from a 51-year-old friend who had embraced life after her husband suddenly left her. Another friend had encouraged…
“Rock stars don’t ever die,” sings Sting in “50,000,” a song from his first album of original pop/rock material in 13 years. “They only fade away,” he concludes, no doubt a twist on Neil Young’s lyric that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” In Sting’s song, reportedly written shortly after Prince’s death,…
Many Australians are outraged by the treatment of asylum seekers who look for refuge in this country. One took her opprobrium on the road earlier this year, delivering a petition with more than 17,000 signatures to the Federal Member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent. Mr Broadbent, in a show of support, tabled the voluminous appeal for…
Quick test – who was L. S. Lowry? If you’ve got no idea, I suspect you’re not alone. Lowry went from obscurity in the suburbs of Manchester to become one of the most revered British artists of the 20th Century. Director Adrian Noble explores the artist’s life in microcosm in Mrs Lowry and Son. Lowry…
