The spirit of the late great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman permeates this gentle but ambiguous drama from French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Love (The Father of My Children) which blurs the line between fiction and reality. Filmmaking couple Chris (Vicky Krieps, from Phantom Thread) and Tony (Tim Roth) arrive on Faro Island, located in the Baltic Sea…
It’s the time of year when serious Oscar contenders swamp our screens. But sometimes it’s good just to sit back, disengage your brain and indulge in something silly. For that, there’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. This is a faux-sequel to 1995’s Jumanji, a film perhaps nostalgically remembered as better than it actually was. The nostalgia…
Adapted from a 2012 graphic novel by Joff Winterhart, Days of the Bagnold Summer is a gently funny coming-of-age story. Sue Bagnold (Monica Doland) is a 52-year-old English librarian. She’s raising her son Daniel (Earl Cave) alone. Daniel, 15, is on school holidays and looking forward to travelling to the US to spend time with…
Since premiering in 1995, Nick Enright’s Blackrock has found a place in both the Australian drama canon and on high school drama syllabuses nationwide. And, 20 years after its first presentation of the play, La Boite Theatre Company’s 2017 production shows just how sadly still relevant its social themes of mateship, misogyny and violence are….
Often riotously funny, Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Twelfth Night is brilliantly staged by MTC and features several wonderful performances. With lots of musical ditties, it’s a tale of mistaken identities, love triangles and pranks. Here I’m indebted to SparkNotes for helping me to unravel the intricacies of Shakespeare’s Old English. The action is set in the…
First, a confession. I don’t believe I’ve seen any of the films in the Saw franchise before Jigsaw, the eighth in the series. The seventh, Saw 3D, came out in 2010. To date, the Saw films have grossed $874 million worldwide. And they’ve created one of the most influential horror villains of all time. The films follow…
It is suspected that viewers of The Witcher will fall into two camps – fantasy readers/gamers, and Henry Cavill fans. You’re in for a sizeable treat if you happen to be both of these things. Sure, last Friday night you may have been one of those people who trudged off to see the latest Star…
Hot Thoughts, the new album from Spoon, has just been released on the Matador/RemoteControl Records label. Produced by Spoon and Dave Fridmann, the band believe they have created the bravest, most musically inventive work of their illustrious career. In addition, Spoon have announced two intimate stripped down in-store appearances to precede their live shows in Sydney and Melbourne…
Accompanied by a lone cellist (Thomas Veitch) and dressed in period costume, Michael Veitch weaves a deeply personal and tragic tale with aplomb. It is one he wrote with Peter Houghton. In August 1852, Michael’s great great grandfather, James William Henry Veitch, was the surgeon on board the emigrant clipper Ticonderoga when it sailed from Liverpool…
Fans have been waiting for so long… for the current tour of Dirty Dancing, the musical stage adaptation of the cult classic film from 1987. An influential piece of popular culture from the teenage years of anyone aged over thirty, it was clear on opening night that Brisbane’s musical theatre fans and movie fans had…
