Far-fetched but engaging, Kin is a tense “actioner” with a strong science fiction component. Fourteen-year-old Eli (Myles Truitt) lives in Detroit with his adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid), who keeps him on a tight leash. While exploring an abandoned building looking for scrap, Eli happens on the aftermath of an otherworldly shoot-out. In the debris,…
Are you ready for Bill Callahan to tell you his next set of stories? You better be because not only is Callahan one of the best storytellers of this time and Shepherd In Sheepskin Vest tells how life really is and you know Bill means it. Since his last excellent record, Dream River (2013), was…
Finnish author Cristina Sandu has translated her own second novel The Union of Synchronised Swimmers, her first to be published in English. This work is almost a work of micro fiction. In a novella of just over one hundred pages, Sandu tells six separate stories and then provides connective tissue between them. The story that…
A formulaic and predictable rom-com both set in and shot around Sydney, Anyone But You taps into the familiar tropes of the genre without adding anything particularly fresh or original. A meet-cute between ambivalent law student Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and stock broker Ben (Glenn Powell) in a coffee shop leads to a one-night stand, which…
Ten Australian premiere productions, along with some of the best new talent, come together for the 8th Melbourne Cabaret Festival, under the artistic direction of Dolly Diamond. She also has her own show during the Festival, which opened on 20 June and runs until 2 July 2017. The Festival includes song and dance pieces, plenty of good…
Only The Animals surprised me. This remarkably well-constructed French mystery-thriller is three stories in one. Alice Farange (Laure Calamy) is in a loveless marriage in rural France. She’s having an affair with a strange loner named Joseph Bonnefille (Damien Bonnard), who barely tolerates her. Then Bonnefille seemingly callously ditches her giving no reason. There’s a…
Film noir in style, Cab Suave is circus and cabaret mixed with comedy under the thin pretence of a detective story. The private investigator and master of ceremonies is Dick Johnson. He is also a highly competent performer whose routines are interspersed with the other acts. He juggles, twirls and balances – and impresses – using…
According to the bio on the artist website, the collaboration of singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur and former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck has been organic and spontaneous from the get-go. Arthur, with over a dozen solo albums to his credit as well as a collaboration with Ben Harper and George’s son, Dhani Harrison in Fistful of Mercy,…
It’s 1976 and 15-year-old Minnie Goetze has just had sex for the first time: with her mother’s boyfriend (“the handsomest man in the world”)! And … she really liked it. Thus catapulted into her adolescent journey of sexual awakening and empowerment, aspiring artist Minnie documents her discoveries on cassette in intimate and unapologetic detail. Adapting…
Like it or not, race has long been a theme – and a flashpoint – in American cinema. Films like The Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind presented a distinctly white – even outright racist – view of the issue. Things began to change in the 1960s with films like Guess Who’s…
