In the 2010’s, Elvis Costello, the iconic punk savant, has stayed active by touring most summers, but he’s only made one album since the T Bone Burnett produced, National Ransom in 2010, his most recent excursion into Americana. The other recording was the unexpected but brilliant collaboration with Questlove & The Roots, Wise Up Ghost…
What is truth and what is fantasy? The lines are blurred in the dramatic play Moth, which speaks to teen angst and mental health. Superbly executed with a minimalist darkened set and striking lighting and sound, the actors impress in their realisation of playwright Declan Greene’s work. Fifteen-year-old Sebastian (Adam Noviello) isn’t exactly the most popular…
Buzz has been building around Wolf Alice for a few years now. With several singles and two EP’s already under their belt, the London band has put in a lot of legwork prior to the release of their debut full-length. My Love is Cool is an album full of soaring moments from a band with…
Enthusiasm for Shakespearean adaptations shows no sign of waning, as Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) assembles an A-list cast for a stunningly visual and viscerally gripping version of the classic Macbeth. At its most basic, Macbeth is the tale of a struggle for power in Dark Ages Scotland; and Kurzel has wisely decided to strip…
Ill-tempered, rude and crude, Billy Bob Thornton returns as anti-hero Willie Soke 13 years after he first donned the Christmas clobber in the independent black comedy Bad Santa for the sequel, predictably titled Bad Santa 2. Bad Santa was the story of a cynical thief who disguised himself as a department store Santa each winter…
Patsy Moore is a singer/songwriter, poet, essayist, educator, filmmaker, and independent artist. I first stumbled across her music when her voice and work appeared on albums coming out of Nashville, singing backgrounds on an album by David Mullens, and her song “Talk About Life” became the title track on an album by Kim Hill. Soon…
A motley collection of psychopathic killers are released from prison to form a special team and sent on a suicide mission. No, this is not the classic 1967 World War Two action film The Dirty Dozen, but rather Suicide Squad, a superhero powered variation on the theme for the 21st century. Or should that be…
What do you do when the cards you’ve been dealt aren’t enough? In Jessie Cates’ (Esther van Doornum) case, she calmly takes the ultimate step. Jessie is the single mother of a troubled child, who has left. She lives with her own widowed mother Thelma (Caroline Lee). She tells Thelma she’s about to take her…
When we first meet Ruben Guthrie (Patrick Brammall) in the film that bears his name, he’s hosting an extravagant bash in his swanky harbourside digs after winning an award for his work as an advertising creative. The evening ends with Ruben on the bottom of the pool, having thrown himself off the roof of the…
Many of us will remember the television science program hosted by Professor Julius Sumner Miller in which he always famously asked “Why is it so?” This question is an underlying theme in Once in Royal David’s City. Playwright Michael Gow uses his central character Will Drummond (Francisco Lopez) to search for the meaning of life;…
