In 2002, the tense thriller Phone Booth (2002) was centred around, you guessed it, a phone booth. Now, 22 years later, Robert Zemeckis’ new drama Here is centred around a lounge room. It’s about the people who lived and roamed in that space dating back to the formation of Earth. It features a volcanic eruption,…
Leigh Bardugo draws on her family history to deliver a fascinating historical fantasy The Familiar. Bardugo showed in her Grishaverse books (aka Shadow and Bone etc) a willingness to draw on traditions outside of the general North Western European traditions for her fantasy. The Familiar takes readers to sixteenth century Spain shortly after the defeat…
An incomparable spectacle, Toruk is unlike any Cirque tent show. Several awe-inspiring highlights punctuate the two acts of this production inspired by James Cameron’s cinematic masterpiece Avatar. The staging, projections and lighting are particularly wondrous. Rivers run, waters fall, lava flows and the large stage area frequently appears to come to life. It begins with a mound becoming…
Australian author Hannah Kent burst on to the scene with her multi-award winning debut Burial Rites, a historical novel set in Iceland. She followed that up with a very different historical piece – The Good People, set in Ireland. In her third novel, Devotion, Kent comes closer to home, basing her story on the immigration…
The opening of Tim Winton’s new novel Juice cannot help but put readers in mind of Cormac McCarthy’s seminal work The Road. A man, possibly an ex-soldier, and a young girl travel in a vehicle across a blasted future landscape: So I drive until first light and only stop when the plain turns black and…
All Eyez on Me chronicles the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur, including his rise to superstardom as well as his imprisonment and controversial time at Death Row Records. The film’s title comes from his double album, “All Eyez on Me”. Tupac Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr.) was raised in the Bronx by his outspoken mother Afeni (Danai…
It was bound to end badly, but what a rollicking ride. Tom Cruise (Top Gun) reunites with his Edge of Tomorrow director, Doug Liman, in the international escapade American Made. The film is based on the outrageous (and real) exploits of a hustler and pilot unexpectedly recruited by the CIA to run one of the biggest covert operations…
The outsider looking in is one of Sofia Coppola’s directorial trademarks. From Scarlett Johansson’s bewildered American in Tokyo in Lost in Translation to the teenagers breaking into millionaires’ homes in The Bling Ring, she seems to have an affinity for the “other”. In The Beguiled however, she takes the concept in a very different direction….
Set during the Great Depression, Girl from the North Country is a brilliantly conceived and executed theatrical production, featuring the music and lyrics of Bob Dylan. Irish writer and director Conor McPherson has taken the singer songwriter’s life’s work and reimagined it as an expansive Eugene O’Neill* type play with music. At its core is the realism…
Outside of the first two films in Edgar Wright’s so-called Cornetto Trilogy, Simon Pegg’s film career has probably seen more misses than hits. He recently redeemed his reputation with roles in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and the romantic comedy Man Up, although the latter’s success was due more to the superb chemistry he shared with…
