B.B. King once told an interviewer questioning how long he could continue to record and tour, that “the Blues do not retire.” The King, who died at 89 may have actually kept performing a few years after “The Thrill (Was) Gone,” but at 80 he still had a lot on the ball. And, at 78…
Noah and The Whale’s 2009 concept album The First Days of Spring is easily one of my favourite releases of the last 10 years. Its sprawling dissection of frontman Charlie Fink’s break up with Laura Marling is a true masterpiece. So when Fink’s promo around his new solo album Cover My Tracks likened it as…
A country in turmoil and family trauma are at the heart of a multi award-winning drama with comedic elements. Counting and Cracking features 19 performers from six countries, playing 50 characters. It follows the journey of four generations of a Sri Lankan/Australian clan, from 1956 to 2004. It starts on the banks of the Georges River in…
Oscar winning actor Kevin Spacey’s fall from grace was quite spectacular. Not only was his performance as John Paul Getty in Ridley Scott’s drama All the Money in the World deleted and his performance re-shot with Christopher Plummer, but he was fired from his hit TV series House of Cards and his character was killed…
Brilliant staging and puppetry mark the MTC’s Storm Boy; a theatrical adaptation of Colin Thiele’s 1964 novel of the same name. The book has also been turned into two feature films, one in 1976 and the other earlier this year. This version remains faithful to the original. Youngster (Conor Lowe) lives in isolation in a…
Cinderella, like you have never seen her before. She’s an activist who refuses to be pushed around. She has strong views about the crown and its lack of action in addressing the needs of the people who are struggling to make ends meet. She is out to change that narrative. While all this seems to be driven by the…
A ponderous first half gives way to a bloody whodunit in the second as Quentin Tarantino continues his love affair with violence in The Hateful Eight. Soon after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his captive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh),…
I swear I close my eyes and I can hear the late, great John Denver. When I open them and see Darren Coggan performing in front of me, he bears a striking similarity to the world-renowned acoustic folk musician, born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31st, 1943 – October 12th, 1997). For well over an hour,…
Living in Paris, American/French psychiatrist Lilian Steiner’s (Jodie) life is spiralling. A patient she has seen for eight years, Pierre Hallan (Noam Morgensztern), who originally came to see her to quit smoking, abruptly cancels all future appointments. Pierre claims one visit to a hypnotist cured what Steiner couldn’t and he maintains that he is 40,000…
Not only do recent Christmas movies tend to be more narky and mean spirited, but they also seem to be hitting cinemas earlier. Even though it is only November we have three Christmas themed films in our multiplexes. There’s Bad Moms 2, the home invasion black comedy Better Watch Out, and now we get Daddy’s…
